Environment News – Do They Feel Pain? Bigger Than “Game of Thrones”!

Environment News – Polar Bears This Summer | Do Fish Feel Pain? | Climate Bigger Than ‘Thrones!

Some bite-sized pieces of news from the environment this week.

2 October, 2019

News snippets

FINALLY! In September, Americans showed more interest in climate change than in Game of Thrones, according to Google searches! (Searches for “climate change” were even higher than searches for impeachment). September was of course when we had the huge global climate marches – millions of young people skipped school to protest against the lack of government action on the climate crisis. There was also the UN Climate Summit in New York, and CNN and MSNBC grilled presidential candidates about their climate plans. Newsrooms increased their climate crisis reporting, and the U.N.released a landmark report on how climate change is wrecking our oceans. Greta Thunberg was in the US, and  her “blistering” speech went viral, with massive searches for “climate change girl speech”.

This is a great idea! Hundreds of thousands of girls and young women are calling for everyone to make a promise to reduce single-use plastic. Brownie, Guide, Ranger and Rainbow divisions of Girlguiding in the UK are asking everyone to make a #PlasticPromise :- you can sign up here. It’s the largest female-led climate campaign!

And see my 5 tips for reducing your plastic use at home here.

more below……

more snippets

We feel pain. It’s a survival thing – if you’ve injured yourself you need to know about it to treat it. Animals feel pain – watch any dog / cat / deer / bear. We now know that insects do too. But what about fish? They’re silent, so up till now, we haven’t known. New research shows that they do indeed feel pain, in a very similar way to how we feel pain. That means even catch-and-release fishing isn’t harm-free if the fish is injured by the hook. Not to mention the millions of fish we kill and eat each year.

The loss of sea ice earlier this year was so extreme that the US Geological Survey (USGS) had to abandon their tagging studies – sea ice in the western Arctic was too thin and unstable to be safe.  They’re not the only ones with a  problem. Polar bears are starving. “We know that the bears aren’t feeding this summer”, said Polar Bears International’s Steven Amstrup. Numbers of bears are dwindling fast, and cubs are dying too from lack of food.

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Warm regards,

P.S.  Don’t forget to download your free green living handbook “Live Well, Live Green” here.