“ The momentum for addressing
climate change must be leveraged to
tackle a general crisis of nature”
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Ben Townsend, Piotr WalkówEDITORIAL
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Robin Burtonmethane emissions and financing not just mitigation
of climate change, but adaptation to its impacts.
Climate change is admittedly only one of three
great environmental challenges we face, alongside
biodiversity loss, and chemical waste and pollution.
All three are interlinked – and appear to be connected
to the emergence of pandemics, if, as seems likely,
it was our exploitation of wildlife that left the door
open to covid-19.
The momentum that now exists for addressing
climate change must be leveraged to acknowledge
and tackle a general crisis of nature. One big
omission at COP26 was to recognise the importance
of “nature-based solutions”, chief among them
protecting and expanding forests and seagrass
fields – in mitigating climate change. The COP
summit on biodiversity, the second phase of which
is to be held in Kunming, China, in April and May
2022, provides an opportunity to address that
omission and to start finding joined-up solutions.
Of course, it hasn’t all been pandemic and
environmental crisis. Another headline-grabbing
story, the space race between billionaires (see page
24), drew mixed feelings. For some, it was a feat of
derring-do; for others, it highlighted inequalities
here on Earth.Space exploration remains a great frontier for
human ambition, and as ever we can salute the
ingenuity that brought three missions to Mars this
year (see page 26) or indeed launched (successfully,
we hope, as these words pass for press) the world’s
most powerful space telescope, the James Webb
Space Telescope, into orbit.
Here, too, we shouldn’t allow hubris to become
our nemesis. With a view to the challenges we have
created on Earth, we should be mindful not just
of the advances, but of the challenges that the
commercial exploration and exploitation of
space bring – for example in the light pollution
and dangers of space junk that planned
megaconstellations of satellites may cause.
The world and what lies in it and beyond it remain
sources of great wonder. If there is anything that the
past year has taught us, it is that there are grounds for
rational optimism. Solutions to our problems exist,
and a better, healthier world that works for one and
all is possible – but only if we work together to find
common solutions, guided by science. ❚CONTACT US
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