Recycling is worth it. It’s important. But it really only works if you recycle right.

Putting items in the bin because you hope they might be recyclable is called wishcycling, and it is the cause of a lot of contamination that makes recycling more costly and less efficient.

Tip: Bottles or cans that have been crushed too small can fall out of the recycling system avoid doing this as, it won't help and may keep those items from getting recycled.

Tip: Break down cardboard boxes, this will save space in the truck and will make the cardboard easier to sort. If you can, pull off the tape and throw it away, but you don’t have to get it all.

Tip: Not all plastic bottles and jugs can be recycled, look for the recycling symbols that are stamped onto the containers to make sure.

Tip: Waterlogged paper and cardboard should go into the trash (not te recycling bin) as wet paper falls apart too easily and clings to other items in the sorting recycling machines.

Tip: Objects than can tangle should not be placed in the plastic bin! Plastic bags, wire hangers, hoses and holiday light strings can get wrapped in the sorting system.

Tip: Plastic bags are not recyclable! Not everything that is technically recyclable can go into your household bin because of how the sorting system works.

Tip: Recyclables don't have to be totally clean, rinsed is usually good enough.

'Hot' has too many pleasing connotations: sexy, winning, in demand. Sure, hell is supposed to be hot, too; but for those who can afford it, air-conditioning has sapped the metaphor of its power, allowing a hellish heat to seem like a matter of intermittent discomfort instead of eternal damnation.

Using air conditioners and electric fans to stay cool accounts for nearly 20% of the total electricity used in buildings around the world today.

Cooling is one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions, destined to grow especially fast in developing countries.

In Africa, where more than half the population lives in a hot climate, only 5.6 percent have an air-conditioner.

Between 1.8 to 4.1 billion... may need AC to avoid heat related stresses under current climate and socio-economic conditions.

Every heat wave is a nail-biter.

If you don’t calculate time correctly, you will faint. The heat comes and goes, and the jobs come and go with it.

Children are the biggest victims of the climate crisis. When droughts diminish food supplies, children suffer from malnutrition and stunting. When wells dry up, children are the ones missing school to fetch water.

In Pakistan, three months of heavy rains left around one-third of the country under water, claiming the lives of more than 1,700 people and impacting 33 million more.

You might think that we are too young to know about the risks and realities of climate change. But we see its effects in our daily lives.

We are the last generation that can end climate change. We can and we will.

This isn’t just about the weather and the environment. It’s about justice.

Though we the young people are not responsible for climate change, it will have a greater impact on us.

Unless these powerful entities abandon financial and political self-interest in favor of the greater good, the pursuit of elite interest in a world where power is distributed so unevenly guarantees climate colonialism.

The wealthy find ways to insulate themselves from the worst consequences of the climate crisis. In Lagos, Nigeria, for example, the government cleared hundreds of thousands of slum dwellers to make way for developers. The so-called Great Wall of Lagos sea wall will shield a planned luxury community on Victoria Island from sea level rise at the expense of neighboring areas.

Climate reparations would use international resources to address inequalities caused or exacerbated by the climate crisis; it would allow for a way out of the climate catastrophe by tackling both mitigation and migration.

Climate colonialism is like climate apartheid on an international scale. Economic power, location, and access to resources determine how communities can respond to climate impacts.

We have the whole package of the climate crisis. Like, name a disaster, and we have it.

You cannot adapt to lost cultures. You cannot adapt to lost traditions. You cannot adapt to lost history. You cannot adapt to starvation. And you cannot adapt to extinction.

We can no longer let the people in power decide what hope is. Hope is not passive. Hope is not blah blah blah. Hope is telling the truth. Hope is taking action

Build back better. Blah, blah, blah. Green economy. Blah blah blah. Net zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah. This is all we hear from our so-called leaders. Words that sound great but so far have not led to action. Our hopes and ambitions drown in their empty promises.

According to a recent World Bank report, a 2°C increase in average global temperature would put between 100 million and 400 million more people at risk of hunger, and may result in 1 to 2 billion people not having enough water to survive.

A world of unchecked climate change is a world where forests burn and islands disappear beneath rising tides, where glaciers and tundra melt away and coral reefs are bleached white as the bones of the long diseased.

The carbon market is another way to try to trick ourselves and makes us think that we’re doing something when we’re actually not. We need to protect forests. We need to protect natural sites. We need to protect indigenous rights. And we need to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

Many fossil fuel reserves are on indigenous land. When big companies and industries extract fossil fuel, they violate indigenous rights by destroying our territories, and the fuels then contribute to climate change

Global surface temperature in the first two decades of the 21st century (2001-2020) was 0.99 °C higher than 1850-1900.

In East Africa, nearly 40 million people are experiencing climate-induced hunger. Catastrophic floods in Pakistan have inflicted more than $30 billion in damages and economic losses and left 10 to 12 percent of the country’s land area under water, affecting more than 33 million people. The list of extreme weather events and disasters is growing, as are the devastating impacts on communities.

Cultivate as nature does, take care of our forests and its people, support regenerative agriculture. We can reconcile with nature through Agroforestry Systems; based on cooperation, abundance, and the true meaning of agriculture.

Why not use the most powerful and ancient biotech carbon capture for a common benefit? Photosynthesis of plants and soil microorganisms.

Even if we reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it is not enough to balance the climate; because of the enormous amount of carbon dioxide that we already put into the atmosphere.

We no longer have time to be sustainable. We must be agents, regenerators of life.

If I burned your house the least I can do is welcome you into my house … and if I’m burning it right now I should try to stop the fire now.

The battle is already under way, but right now capitalism is winning hands down. It wins every time the need for economic growth is used as the excuse for putting off climate action yet again, or for breaking emission reduction commitments already made.

Governments and scientists began talking seriously about radical cuts to greenhouse gas emissions in 1988—the exact year that marked the dawning of what came to be called “globalization,” with the signing of the agreement representing the world’s largest bilateral trade relationship between Canada and the United States, later to be expanded into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the inclusion of Mexico.

We are stuck because the actions that would give us the best chance of averting catastrophe—and would benefit the vast majority—are extremely threatening to an elite minority that has a stranglehold over our economy, our political process, and most of our major media outlets.

Climate change is like that; it’s hard to keep it in your head for very long. We engage in this odd form of on-again-off-again ecological amnesia for perfectly rational reasons. We deny because we fear that letting in the full reality of this crisis will change everything. And we are right.

Migrations, explosions of inequality, and New Climatic Regime: these are one and the same threat.

Either we deny the existence of the problem, or else we look for a place to land. From now on, this is what divides us all, much more than our positions on the right or the left side of the political spectrum.

Without the idea that we have entered into a New Climatic Regime, we cannot understand the explosion of inequalities, the scope of deregulation, the critique of globalization, or, most importantly, the panicky desire to return to the old protections of the nation-state – a desire that is identified, quite inaccurately, with the “rise of populism.

There are not organisms on one side and an environment on the other, but a coproduction by both.

High-latitude tundra and boreal forests are particularly at risk of climate change-induced degradation and loss, with woody shrubs already encroaching into the tundra and this will proceed with further warming.

The number of hot days is projected to increase in most land regions, with highest increases in the tropics.

Warming from anthropogenic emissions from the pre-industrial period to the present will persist for centuries to millennia and will continue to cause further long-term changes in the climate system, such as sea level rise, with associated impacts.

Estimated anthropogenic global warming is currently increasing at 0.2°C (likely between 0.1°C and 0.3°C) per decade due to past and ongoing emissions.

Land degradation resulting from the combination of sea-level rise and more intense cyclones is projected to jeopardise lives and livelihoods in cyclone prone areas.

The tropics and subtropics are projected to be most vulnerable to crop yield decline.

North America, South America, Mediterranean, Southern Africa and Central Asia may be increasingly affected by wildfire.

The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world.

On our current path, without changing much, we’ll go headfirst into an unlivable world, unlivable for the majority of the people on the planet, not unlivable for the people who have engineered this system for themselves and for their own benefit.

The alternatives to climate collapse already exist, and they exist right here in Indigenous communities.

I come from Indigenous communities that are putting their bodies on the frontline to battle against destructive capitalism. What capitalism is doing to Mother Earth is what racism and patriarchy is doing to Indigenous women’s bodies.

How can we grant legal personhood to a river when we don’t even respect human life?

Climate disruption, social injustices, cultural and economic injustices are all breathing the same oxygen of disconnecting us from each other and our planet.

Asia and Africa are projected to have the highest number of people vulnerable to increased desertification.

In drylands, climate change and desertification are projected to cause reductions in crop and livestock productivity.

The frequency and intensity of droughts are projected to increase particularly in the Mediterranean region and southern Africa.

Both global warming and urbanisation can enhance warming in cities and their surroundings (heat island effect), especially during heat related events, including heat waves.

Over the period 1961–2013, the annual area of drylands in drought has increased, on average by slightly more than 1% per year, with large inter-annual variability. In 2015, about 500 (380-620) million people lived within areas which experienced desertification between the 1980s and 2000s.

The likelihood, intensity and duration of many extreme events can be significantly modified by changes in land conditions, including heat related events such as heatwaves and heavy precipitation events. Changes in land conditions can affect temperature and rainfall in regions as far as hundreds of kilometres away.

Since the pre-industrial period, the land surface air temperature has risen nearly twice as much as the global average temperature.

Since 1961, the total production of food (cereal crops) has increased by 240% (until 2017) because of land area expansion and increasing yields. Fibre production (cotton) increased by 162% (until 2013).

An estimated 23% of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (2007-2016) derive from Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU).

Data available since 1961 shows the per capita supply of vegetable oils and meat has more than doubled and the supply of food calories per capita has increased by about one third.

People currently use one quarter to one third of land’s potential net primary production10 for food, feed, fibre, timber and energy.

Land provides the principal basis for human livelihoods and well-being including the supply of food, freshwater and multiple other ecosystem services, as well as biodiversity. Human use directly affects more than 70% (likely 69–76%) of the global, ice-free land surface.

The climate emergency isn’t about science, it’s about justice.

Getting the message out. This is an emergency and everyone has a role to play. It is the most important thing that anyone can do.

It is about how you vote and not just in a presidential election but all the way up and down the ticket. Its about how you use your power as a consumer to decide that certain companies are not worth your support or certain products. And that collectively we do have a lot of influence.

The right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment could prove to be the most important human right of the 21st century.

Investing in strong civic movements now needs to be at the forefront of building a sustainable and resilient future.

We should join demonstrations that demand from our governments more radical actions to protect the environment, and fund independent journalism that investigates the companies that pollute and spread lies and disinformation about the state of the Earth. We should invite friends and colleagues to collectively read books that illuminate us on the true state of the planet and only vote for parties that do not contribute to further transgressing the Planetary Boundaries.

By fighting for their lands, indigenous peoples are fighting to save the planet. Although they comprise less than 5% of the world population, indigenous peoples protect 80% of the Earth’s biodiversity in the forests, deserts, grasslands and marine environments in which they have lived for centuries.

The global challenges of today will have to be faced by all of us, no matter who you are and where you are from. Not a single country alone can survive the natural disasters caused by climate change and biodiversity loss.

The banking industry will be a key actor in how the world economy can be stimulated into a green recovery, enabling a systemic, sustainable and inclusive recovery.

Agroecology will mean a profound change in the way we do politics, business, science and activism. It’s about inclusive participation, the co-creation of knowledge and wisdom, democratisation. The time of ivory-tower scientists and all-powerful development agencies and policy-makers is over. So is the time for repeatedly diagnosing our food and environmental crisis: describing our problems, raising awareness and influencing policy-makers may all be necessary, but are not sufficient. We need to move towards action, towards transformative change.

If we want a cleaner world, we’ll need plenty of mandates. But we can make a lot of progress without them. Automatically green may not be a catchy phrase, but for institutions all over the world it is one to live by.

COVID-19 teaches us that we are one biology. Hence our fates are intertwined. You protect everybody, by protecting yourself. The same holds true for climate and sustainability.

Until now, innovation and technology have not solved this century’s biggest problems: climate change and biodiversity loss. As most future scenarios show, about half the solution has to come from lower material consumption and a stabilisation of the human population. The only way to make these changes, and to build a resilient and healthy planet in an era dominated by humans – the Anthropocene – is a fundamental shift in the mindset of Anthropos, its dominating species.

Some decades ago, communities that lived in harmony with nature were seen as underdeveloped, and standing up for the Earth’s biodiversity was something only a few visionaries did. But times have changed. We are now living the dystopian future once imagined; impacts once predicted are now real.

The common good is realised not when we are in control of our world, but when we are in resonance with it: in resonance with nature, in resonance with each other through political institutions, in resonance with history, and in resonance with ourselves.

If you could begin to get the big banks and asset managers to change how they value and how they deal with the fossil fuel industry, you would be a long way there.

JPMorgan Chase is by far the world’s worst banker of climate chaos. It is the number 1 Banker of Fossil Fuel Expansion, Fracking, Arctic Oil and Gas, Coal Mining, Offshore Oil and Gas and Tar Sands Oil. Even with new Arctic and coal policies, JPMorgan Chase will still fund companies actively expanding Arctic drilling and coal plants.

35 global banks financed fossil fuels with $2.7 trillion since the Paris Agreement and continue to increase each year since.

Nowhere in the ocean is entirely unaffected by humans: only 13% of its area is considered to be wilderness, waste and marine litter are found even in deep ocean trenches, and human pressures are increasing over time.

Since 2000, 1.9 million km2, an area the size of Mexico of ecologically intact land – that is, ecosystems that remain free from significant direct human pressure – has been lost, with most losses occurring within the world’s tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannah and shrubland ecosystems, and the rainforests of Southeast Asia.

The land surface covered by agricultural and built-up areas nearly doubled between 1900 and 2016.

Around one-quarter of the calories the world produces are never eaten: they’re spoiled or spilled in supply chains, or are wasted by retailers, restaurants and consumers.

Globally, more than 820 million people face hunger or food insecurity, while staggering quantities of food loss and waste result in US$1 trillion in economic costs, around US$700 billion in environmental costs and around US$900 billion in social costs.

Agriculture accounts for 70% of freshwater use.

Agriculture is responsible for 80% of global deforestation.

One-third of the terrestrial land surface is now used for cropping or animal husbandry, while of the total amount of water that people withdraw from available freshwater resources, 75% is used for crops or livestock.

In Germany, insect abundance declined by 78% and biomass by 67% between 2008 and 2017 in grassland sites; and in a different set of sites overall insect biomass declined by 76% between 1989 and 2016.

The number of documented plant extinctions is twice as many as for mammals, birds and amphibians combined.

Soil hosts one of the largest reservoirs of biodiversity on Earth: up to 90% of living organisms in terrestrial ecosystems, including some pollinators, spend part of their life cycle in soil habitats.

Across the world, species with larger body size are particularly at risk. They tend to be less resilient to changes in the environment because they generally require complex and large habitats, reproduce at a later stage in life and have fewer offspring.

Almost one in three freshwater species are threatened with extinction, with all taxonomic groups showing a higher risk of extinction in the freshwater, compared to the terrestrial system.

According to the Living Planet Index. For amphibians, disease is the main recorded threat. In El Copé in the highlands of central Panama, the chytrid fungus caused mass mortality, leading to the loss of 30 amphibian species and severely reducing the diversity of the local amphibian community.

The Atlantic Forest in Brazil has lost 87.6% of its natural vegetation since 1500, mostly during the last century, which has led to at least two amphibian extinctions and 46 species threatened with extinction.

Latin America has the highest percentage of threat in relation to temperatures change. As temperatures change, some species will need to adapt by shifting their range to track a suitable climate. The effects of climate change on species are often indirect. Changes in temperature can confound the signals that trigger seasonal events such as migration and reproduction, causing these events to happen at the wrong time (for example misaligning reproduction and the period of greater food availability in a specific habitat).

Asia Pacific followed by North America, has the highest percent of threat in relation to pollution. Pollution can directly affect a species by making the environment unsuitable for its survival (this is what happens, for example, in the case of an oil spill). It can also affect a species indirectly, by affecting food availability or reproductive performance, thus reducing population numbers over time.

North America (Canada and USA) has the highest percentage of threat in relation to invasive species and disease. Invasive species can compete with native species for space, food and other resources, can turn out to be a predator for native species, or spread diseases that were not previously present in the environment.

Africa has the highest percent of threat in relation to species overexploitation . There are both direct and indirect forms of overexploitation. Direct overexploitation refers to unsustainable hunting and poaching or harvesting, whether for subsistence or for trade. Indirect overexploitation occurs when non-target species are killed unintentionally, for example as bycatch in fisheries.

Around the world, what threatens the environment the most is the changes in land and sea use. This refers to the modification of the environment where a species lives, by complete removal, fragmentation, or reduction in quality of key habitat. Common changes in use are caused by unsustainable agriculture, logging, transportation, residential or commercial development, energy production, and mining. For freshwater habitats, fragmentation of rivers and streams and abstraction of water are common threats.

While the Paris Agreement is an important step towards limiting human-induced climate change, the current pledges from its signatories are totally inadequate to achieve its targets, with global emissions projected to be about the same in 2030 as they are today. Global temperatures could reach the 1.5°C aspirational target by the early to mid-2030s, and the 2°C threshold by 2050-2070. Without additional actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions we are on a pathway to a rise of 3-4°C, which will have devastating effects on biodiversity and human well-being.

What can you do? Promote sustainable agroecological practices and reduce the use of chemicals, fertilisers and pesticides, to protect soils and pollinators.

Until 1970, humanity’s Ecological Footprint was smaller than the Earth’s rate of regeneration. To feed and fuel our 21st century lifestyles, we are overusing the Earth’s biocapacity by at least 56%.

The global Living Planet Index continues to decline. It shows an average 68% decrease in population sizes of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish between 1970 and 2016. A 94% decline in the LPI for the tropical subregions of the Americas is the largest fall observed in any part of the world.

The way we produce and consume food and energy, and the blatant disregard for the environment entrenched in our current economic model, has pushed the natural world to its limits. COVID-19 is a clear manifestation of our broken relationship with nature. It has highlighted the deep interconnection between nature, human health and well-being, and how unprecedented biodiversity loss threatens the health of both people and the planet.

With 1.5°C warming, 350 million more people could be exposed to deadly heat stress by 2050.

Over 90% of the urban population of the world breathes air that exceeds WHO’s guideline levels for outdoor air pollution.

Globally, water scarcity already affects 4 out of 10 people.

Rising sea levels are already causing population displacement, particularly in island states. More than half of the world’s population now lives within 60 km of coastlines. Floods can directly cause injury and death and increase risks of diseases. Population displacement can increase tensions and potentially the risks of conflict.

The main driver of climate change is fossil fuel combustion – also a major contributor to air pollution which causes 7 million premature deaths worldwide every year.

A highly conservative estimate of 250 000 additional deaths each year due to climate change has been projected between 2030 and 2050: of these, 38 000 from heat exposure among the elderly; 48 000 from diarrhoea; 60 000 from malaria; and 95 000 from childhood undernutrition.

21 of the world’s 30 cities with the worst air pollution are in India, followed by Pakistan with 5 cities and China with 2 cities.

A normal transatlantic round-trip flight can release around 1.6 tonnes of CO2 – almost as much as the average yearly emissions of one person in India.

Numerous consumer attitude surveys have reported that a large majority of consumers are interested in buying brands with an environmental benefit. However… When product attributes such as price and quality are thrown into the mix, the relative importance of the environment to purchasing decisions falls significantly for all but a small minority.

We should choose more efficient vehicles and, whenever possible, switch directly to electric vehicles.

What can you do? Commute! Use public transport, bike or walk. Going car-free is one of the most effective actions we can take as individuals it can reduce 2.5 tonnes of CO2 – about one-fourth of the average yearly emissions (9.2 tonnes) contributed by each person in developed countries.

What can you do? Exercise your rights as a citizen and consumer by putting pressure on the governments and companies to make the system-wide changes that are needed. Vote for green choices.

We need to cut CO2 emissions almost in half (45%) by the end of the next decade.

We all need to reduce our carbon footprints but more importantly we need to pressure companies and governemts to take real action.

What can you do? Consume locally and avoid products that come from a long distance. Transport is a big contributor to climate change.

What can you do? Stop buying so many clothes! The fashion industry takes a great deal of energy and water. Buy what you need and can last for more time. Second-hand clothes can be another alternative.

What can you do? Reduce your food waste! About a third of the food ends up in landfills and breaks down to emit Co2 and Methane (a much more powerful greenhouse gas). Plan your meals according to what you will eat!

What can you do? Search, join, and donate to local or national organizations with reforestation initiatives. Trees are natural cleaners for Co2. A few examples can be "One Tree Planted", "Arbor Day Foundation", and "Plant a Tree Foundation."

In about 200 years we have changed the chemistry of the ocean more than the Earth has, or nature as for the past 50 million years or so.

We usually hear bad stories about the biodiversity crisis and there is no doubt that we are facing an unprecedented loss in biodiversity through human activity. The loss of entire species can be stopped if there is sufficient will to do so. This is a call to action: showing the scale of the issue and what we can achieve if we act now to support conservation and prevent extinction.

Urgent and immediate action is necessary in the food and agriculture sector. All the indicators of biodiversity loss are heading the wrong way rapidly. As a start, there has got to be regulation to get deforestation out of our supply chain straight away. That’s absolutely vital.

Half of the emissions of Co2 into the atmosphere come from about 10% of the richest population of the Earth.

Each day we pump up about 100 million tons of Co2 into the atmosphere.