Amazon adventures – Ed Stafford’s long walk

Originally published in Beat Magazine, March 2010. www.beatmagazine.co.uk

Uñon is a small village high up in the Peruvian Amazon, population: 160. Surrounded by remnants of Inca civilization, for generations this community has been very much self sufficient and content – the land has been bountiful and the surrounding snow-capped mountains beautiful.

Even as the world around it advanced Uñon has managed to keep up, transporting modern essentials  – satellite dishes, building materials – on mule-back via a narrow, dirt track that is the village’s only access road.

But recently life in Uñon has changed. Once, an ample four months of rain would fall each year, but now the people of Uñon are now beginning to see their livestock suffer. When the rain does come, the ground is often too hard to soak it up and the sheer force of the raindrops often damages the few crops that do grow.

Older villagers have observed that their stunning view of the mountain Nevado Coropuna has also changed, with the summit having lost half of its snow in twenty years. They expect it to disappear completely in the next twenty.

Residents are now wishing that their small dirt track were bigger to allow trading with nearby communities. Perhaps, they wonder, tourists would come to visit if access were better, providing them with an increasingly important alternative income.

But foreign footfalls are seldom heard high up in the Colca Canyon where Uñon is situated. In fact, recently only one man has ventured up the canyon to pay it a visit. That man is Ed Stafford.

On 2^nd April 2008 explorer Ed Stafford began his 4000-mile quest to be the first person to walk the Amazon River from its source, near the Pacific coast in Peru, to its mouth at the Atlantic Ocean in Brazil.

Now, on this two-year anniversary of his commencement, with just six months left to walk, Ed reflects on his experiences and his expedition mission: to raise awareness of climate change and the environmental issues that are affecting communities like Uñon.

View of Nevado Coropuna from Uñon

Since setting out, Ed has learned of a myriad of problems that threaten the rainforest and the people that live there, but also the globe, because these two million square kilometers of jungle provides 20% of the world’s oxygen, earning them the title of “the lungs of our planet.”

“Climate change is a drama that is gripping people world-wide,” says Ed, “and the fact that [December’s UN climate change convention at] Copenhagen even happened is testament to that.

“We need to evolve to make the planet sustainable.”

As well as wanting to achieve a personal goal, Ed is raising money for a host of charities including Rainforest Concern, Project Peru and, closer to home, Cancer Research UK.

He has also teamed up with Prince Charles’s organisation for the prevention of deforestation – the Prince’s Rainforest Project (PRP), for which he writes a blog for children.

With the two-year point fast approaching, Ed’s thoughts are turning to home, and he tries to stay positive, as the final leg of this expedition becomes a mental challenge.

“This milestone stirs up the knowledge that it’s been a long old haul,” he says. “At home years fly by at high speed nowadays, but these two years seem like five. Home is a very distant memory.”

Putting aside his current hankering for fish and chips and the English countryside, Ed speaks from Itapiranga, a small fishing town in the middle of the Brazilian Amazon, on the highs and lows of walking for two years through the largest and most diverse rainforest in the world.

From what he’s seen, Ed is not convinced that tourism is what Uñon needs, but over the last two years he has had some truly memorable experiences which have helped him to come up with a few solutions to the issues that the people of Uñon and their fellow Amazonians face.

It’s an explorer’s life – experiences from the ‘road’

Traveling with companions and local guides, Ed began his journey by summitting Nevado Misimi the furthest most source of the Amazon River. From there he looked out across his home for the next two and a half years in anticipation of what was to come.

On setting out to complete this journey two years ago Ed believed his challenge to be pitting himself against nature and the elements to see if he could survive.

Ed's shocking discovery: an electric eel

Sure enough, he has pushed his body to the limits amongst harsh terrain, often trekking on through humid, 40°C+ temperatures despite malnutrition, dehydration and mental exhaustion.

He has faced deadly pit vipers, eaten piranha, foraged for unidentified roots and drank from muddy puddles.

But to his surprise it has been his interactions with native people, both good and bad, that have defined the last two years for Ed.

“People live in a state of constant fear and alertness and are ready to kill, literally to protect themselves from outsiders,” he says.

Among his experiences with indigenous people are being held at gunpoint, receiving death threats and having concrete shoved in his mouth.

“I, as a gringo [local slang for white foreigner] represent everything scary about the world and I have to explain myself every time we enter a community to Indians who are in a state of worked up fear and confusion.”

Nightmarish stories of ‘gringos’ stealing children and harvesting organs have been passed around and Ed has repeatedly been mistaken for the protagonist of such chilling legends.

Of some of the more extreme stories he is skeptical, but this prominent fear is not to be dismissed. Local people have suffered at the hands of outside forces enough to build up such a repertoire of crimes.

Much of the interference has been from oil companies, keen to get at the resource-abundant land, but leaving deforestation, degradation and oil spills in their wake.

In Peru 100% of the unprotected rainforest has been allocated for resource extraction of one kind or another. This has been without regard for the communities that live there, as the Peruvian government states that land ownership only extends down to five meters below the ground.

“This means the government as sold off all the rights to mineral extraction from underneath the Indian lands,” says Ed, “and they didn’t even get consulted.”

It is not surprising then that the wary Ahsaninka Indians treated Ed with hostility when he arrived in the same month that Argentine oil company, Pluspetrol, was due to set foot in the area. Equating white man with oil company, the Ashaninka threw water over him (a serious affair) covered him with concrete and pushed it into his mouth.

But against this treatment Ed holds no hard feelings: “It was actually great that the tribe was taking such a strong stance in defence of their land.

“I hope they do manage to stop the oil companies coming in – that would be great,” he says.

Despite these negative introductions, Ed has found that initially hostile people change their tune once they realise that he means no harm. In the case of another Ashaninka tribe, who held him at gunpoint, once they began to trust him two members of the tribe actually became his guides for the next leg of his journey.

Ed and Cho relaxing in a Brazilian village

Indeed, he has had some delightful experiences with local people. His current walking companion, Gadiel “Cho” Sanchez Rivera is a Peruvian forestry worker, whom Ed describes as “the unexpected find of the expedition”.

Cho has been walking with Ed since August 2008 and despite the intense environment, they never fight.

“He’s patient and a very good friend, we have a great ability to forgive each other for bad behaviour,” Ed says.

Other interactions with local people have proved to be a pleasant surprise as Ed and Cho usually find they are offered a hot meal and somewhere to sling their hammocks. In fact, Ed describes rural Brazilian hospitality as the most beautiful thing he has seen on his trip.

“I can guarantee that when Cho and I walk into a community that we’ll be offered a warm reception in every one we pass,” he says.

“It is humbling to see how kind people can be. Children are open, friendly, confident and interested in us. These people have got something very right.”

The Amazon: the heart and soul of the climate change debate

The kindness of strangers has often buoyed Ed’s spirits when times have become tough, and such friendliness is often offered unconditionally despite the hardships that people face in a changing environment and an unpredictable eco-system.

Like the people of Uñon, many other communities that Ed has met tell similar stories of failing crops and the search for alternative livelihoods as a direct result of climate change.

Deforestation in Pará, Brazil (photo by Leoffreitas)

At the beginning of his journey in Peru he began a survey entitled ‘Voices of the Amazon’, with the intention of finding out from local people their views on climate change and how it affects them.

Many of the answers came back the same: “I don’t think climate change is anybody’s fault – it’s a natural process,” said Jorge, a guide who walked with Ed in 2008, echoing other interviewees.

Realising that the survey was merely highlighting people’s ignorance on the subject, Ed duly stopped it.

But as he crossed the border into Brazil, he began to notice a change in attitudes towards climate change, and with that was born a solution to the problem in Ed’s mind: “Education!” he says.

“Brazilians have surprised me in how much they talk of conservation and protecting the forests. Communities here face the same climate change issues as their Peruvian counterparts, but seem to be far less worried.

“It is by educating Jorge’s kids that we will change things, hopefully these kids will then have a more caring outlook on their precious forests.”

Ed has also noticed that it is through education that Brazil is able to give communities other income opportunities, by allowing young educated adults the chance to find work in cities and start their own businesses.

New information on climate change is also beginning to alter local people’s attitudes of the jungle. Communities in cities and villages have passed down a cultural legacy of fear towards the Amazon, believing it to be a savage land that needs to be tamed, which makes it hard for people to adopt the concept of conservation.

However, there are seeds of change being planted and Ed has walked passed large signs telling people to protect the forest and not litter.

“I think people here realise already that the forests resources are limited and won’t be around forever if current practices continue,” he says.

Climate change is a two-fold problem in the Amazon. For the people whose crops are failing and livelihoods are under threat, it is a disaster. However, much of the problem is coming from the Amazon itself.

Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest accounts for 20% of global CO2 emissions (equivalent to that of the USA), which is a significant amount considering that the Amazon is about 1% of the earth’s surface. And while crops are one person’s livelihood, the deforestation industry is someone else’s.

Within the last year a global cry for environmental protection has grown deafening, culminating in the United Nations summit on climate change in Copenhagen last December and deforestation has been receiving ever-increasing attention.

While Copenhagen was not the huge success that many wanted it to be, efforts to curb deforestation were applauded when the scheme to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) was adopted into the Copenhagen Accord, with a call for it to start with immediate effect.

In addition, the Prince’s Rainforest Trust has lead a drive to gather $25bn in pledges from rich nations to cut deforestation by a quarter, and eventually reverse it.

So, now that money is coming to the table, the question is: where should it go?

The biggest global cause of deforestation is cattle ranching, accounting for 14% of lost rainforest in the Amazon. A recent undercover investigation by Greenpeace revealed that much of the ranching is illegal and that the Brazilian government is supporting the industry despite its pledge to reduce deforestation.

However, the market is huge, perhaps too big to forsake. Greenpeace revealed that due to the complex web of the Brazilian cattle industry, a number of high street brands in the UK were being supplied with beef and leather that came from illegal ranches, including Tesco, Adidas and Clark’s Shoes.

“A huge proportion of people in the Amazon are economically linked to some form of extraction from the forest or use of the land that used to be forested,” says Ed.

“If the bottom was to fall out of the timber and cattle ranching industries in Brazil tomorrow, many large populations would have real problems with unemployment and poverty.”

Ed believes that both the timber and cattle ranching industries need to be “severely restricted”, but that the socio-economic implications of this must be dealt with.

“This is where the money that’s been pledged should be spent,” he says.

He would like to see schemes put in place to retrain people with new skills and to provide relocation for those in areas with no other source of income.

REDD has gone some way to focusing on this issue. The scheme will reward developing nations with credits for protecting and sustainably managing their forests, and local communities will see some of the money made from credit sales go towards developing alternative livelihoods.

In addition, Brazil has begun to develop wind, solar and biomass energy industries, which will inevitably provide a new jobs market. However, it will be the coordination of building the new industries, deforestation reduction and retraining workers that will determine whether or not the transition is a success.

Children in Marirana, Brazil

Over the last two years Ed has witnessed many incredible things, not least the spirit and resilience of the people of the Amazon. He is optimistic.

To achieve success he envisions legislation and enforcement within the rainforest countries which will curb deforestation, while education creates a local climate that ensures that the governments act as they should.

“Happily I think attitudes are indeed changing for the better and that we will continue to have an Amazon for many generations to come,” he says.

To follow Ed on his journey from source to sea, visit www.walkingtheamazon.com or ‘follow’ him on twitter/amazonwalkers.

Gig review – Days of Last

Originally published in Beat Magazine, March 2010, www.beatmagazine.co.uk

Feed the Rhino (Picture courtesy of Sam Muckley)

Last Friday at the Firestation was not for the lighthearted. With a whole night dedicated to hardcore punk/metal, or ‘metalcore’ (no I didn’t just make that up, go ask wiki), three bands screamed inaudible, angry lyrics along to heavy, fast guitars in front of manic fans.

The monthly night, called Days of Last, is run by Kane Leighton-Pope, son of a music agent to the stars who is out to prove himself as the next top industry figure. So far he has got his heart, and mind, in the right place.

Days of Last aims to showcase established punk/metal/rock bands as well as giving a platform to local bands and artists. The formula being: a professional band headlines, while a handful of local bands play as support acts.

“It gives local bands a chance to see their favourite bands as well as a chance to actually play with professional bands,” says Leighton-Pope.

“The [local] bands really get involved, they’re out there promoting the gig as well as playing.”

Arriving at Friday night’s gig I see a foreign breed of music fan come out of the woodwork. Clad in skintight, low-slung trousers (boys), fishnet tights, peroxide blonde hair and red lipstick (girls), with disheveled hair (non-gender specific), these ‘alt’ kids (that means ‘alternative’ for all you oldies), are a sight not often seen in Windsor.

Which, again, is all part of the night’s ethos, says Leighton-Pope. “It’s not just about giving kids a place to play, but also giving them a place to come for a night out.”

In an attempt to not loose face in front of the alt kids who are much cooler than I am (I’m the one folding up my full-sized brolly on arrival and ordering a sparkling water), I turn up fashionably late and miss the first band.

And from then on the night plays out like the evolution of a metalcore band from conception to stardom, with each of the three groups of the same genre representing a stage of the process.

First up is Sailors Grave, a four-piece from Slough who’d probably get ID’d at the bar. But despite their youthful appearance, they know what they’re doing.

The lead singer rips into the mic with a torrent of teenage angst, whilst the other band members throw themselves around the stage with all the energy of a fireworks display. The frontman is screaming with: passion? Fury? Anguish? Only one line is decipherable: “Can’t you see, you’ll be the death of me.” I’m guessing he’s either talking about girls or A-levels.

Mid-set we learn that this is Sailors Grave’s first gig and that the drummer has stepped in last minute. It’s impressive, since the band is solid, skilled and interacts well together.

Sailors Grave (Picture courtesy of Sam Muckley

They may be just stepping onto the evolutionary ladder, but these guys show all the signs of becoming a great metalcore band: energy, anger and a good screamer. A few more late nights on the town (when he’s old enough!) and the lead singer will have a voice that sounds as gravelly as rocks in a cement mixer.

Next up, and five-ish years up the metalcore evolutionary ladder is Golden Tanks from Reading. This band have been together for almost six months and have already toured a good portion of southern England in that time, and they’ve got the professionalism to show for it.

Once again, the energy is in your face, with the band spending just as much time in the crowd (and with the crowd on their backs!) as on stage.

The lead singer has got his growling screams down to a T, undoubtedly with a good few more years of drinking and smoking under his belt. He prowls around the front of the stage with all the menace of a lion about to strike.

And, damn, can these guys play. Amongst awesome guitar solos the band deftly handles style and tempo changes, all the while head banging and leaping around the stage. In keeping with the point of the night, they are a great band for Sailors Grave to aspire to be.

Finally, we come to the headlining act. Feed the Rhino are a London-based band who are fast making their name on the metalcore scene. Signed to an independent label and again, a few years older than Golden Tanks, they are standing atop our evolutionary ladder.

The lead singer, stocky and bushy-bearded, looks like a sailor. Until he opens his mouth. Like a rumbling coming from the deep the perfected growl bursts forth and dominates the room, much like its owner’s presence.

Feed the Rhino take technical skill up a notch, playing with strange time signatures and rhythms. Yet while technically sound the instrumentalists lack a little of the energy of the bands on the rungs below them, but still manage some furious wheeling and head bobbing.

In fact, it would appear that a monster bigger than the one in the lead singer’s throat has taken hold of this band: the fame monster, and it has eaten some of their spirit.

The instrumentalists seem a little too preoccupied with looking professional by not tripping over their guitar leads and steering clear of the crazed fans (who are dancing like arachnophobes in the jungle at this point), to be wholly believable and in truth Golden Tanks put on a better show.

Despite this drawback, the lead singer still holds all the fury of his schoolboy counterpart in Sailors Grave, but with one difference. It is not teenage angst that is putting fire in this man’s eyes and throwing him to the ground in bouts of self-expression, but a wholly different torment. Rent payments? Marriage troubles? The unending burden of adult life?

Well, whatever it is, screaming on stage sure is cheaper than therapy.

Gig review – Bez and Domino Bones

Originally published in Beat Magazine, February 2010, www.beatmagazine.co.uk

If the name Bez doesn’t ring any bells it may be an indication that you have been dwelling in a popular culture void. The ex-member of the 80s/90s Manchester rave band Happy Mondays, is either best known for his drunk-man-at-a-wedding dancing and monosyllabic, thuggish charm, or for winning Celebrity Big Brother in 2005.

Bez fans of two ages were out in full force on Friday night at Windsor’s Firestation. There were excited Bez fans of about 40, reliving the glory days of their raving youth, while a younger generation of fans were no doubt out to see ‘the guy from Big Brother’.

There is no escaping the fact that Bez’s past has also become Domino Bones’s present, even the band know that and lead singer Monica Ward, speaking in a smoky dressing room after the show, noted: “We always walk on stage to a Happy Mondays song.”

True to form, Domino Bones took to the stage on Friday as Happy Mondays blared over the PA. With raucous energy the band, Bez and Ward on vocals, began playing their own brand of 60s rock/blues infused with that laddish sound of the drug-fuelled Manchester scene that the Mondays so epitomised.

Bez provided the latter, ranting (a description he attributes to his role in the band) his lyrics, while he danced hectically with his eyes bulging. “I just get captures in the moment,” he told me later. His spaced look on stage did make one suspect that this was a chemically enhanced moment.

However, despite the hype and the performance, this was not Bez’s show. It may have been his face glaring out of the posters around the Firestation, and his name selling tickets at the box office, but this show belonged to Monica Ward.

Ward has a gutsy, powerful instrument and put on a tantalizing performance, dancing and grinding around the stage. In between songs she declared that she’d sing for her post-show cigarette, and boy was that smoke earned.

Classically trained Ward brings the 60s rock/soul feel to the band. “I grew up in the R’n'B generation, listening to Lauryn Hill,” she said in the dressing room. “Then Janis Joplin came into my sights and I never looked back really.” Ward said that when the band formed she tried explaining to the other members that there are four crotchet beats in the bar, to which they responded “we don’t count f**king crotchets.”

“But seven years on,” she says “I have had my wicked way and we are now counting crotchet beats, dotted minims, everything.”

Domino Bones have an eclectic sound; the catchy Gotta Believe in the Sunshine showcased Ward’s voice, while Bez ranted along with what she sang. This was the style of the whole set – very busy and upbeat, often with Ward and Bez singing simultaneously.

The chaos extended to the on-stage antics too. Bez and Ward have great chemistry on stage, the source of which was unveiled at the beginning of a slower number, when Bez dedicated the song to his lovely fiancé – Ward. They twisted and ricocheted around the stage like a pair in a pinball machine. It was just pure unadulterated fun; they went where the music took them, whether that was bumping into each other or gesticulating wildly towards the crowd.

At times it felt a little like Ward was babysitting, whilst they commanded the stage without inhibition while performing, there was a wary look in her eyes in between songs as if she worried Bez would perhaps become a little too excited. It was clear that she wore the trousers, and she performed with a gusto that said so.

Amid the excitement the band – guitar, bass and drums – went practically unnoticed. But they were solid, the glue that bonded, and had clearly honed the art of carrying on regardless – dodging falling mic stands and flailing limbs.

Yet behind the spectacle of the show, there was a bittersweet note lingering in the background. Ward, talented and vivacious, is unheard of on the music scene and probably needs Bez’s name on the bill to sell tickets. Bez, on the other hand, is a character and nostalgic face of many people’s youths, but is not a whole show on his own. (Mind you, he has never claimed to be.)

Whether or not Domino Bones’s mix of genres is a necessary compromise to keep this mutually beneficial union together, there is no escaping the fact that they have found a unique sound and for all its quirks, it works.

The final song of the relatively short set got the audience going. It was a medley of Bob Marley’s Get Up, Stand Up, T-Rex’s Children of the Revolution and Domino Bones songs. “Stand up Windsor!” shouted Bez as he began ranting like a pill-popping preacher. At the same time Ward was using that instrument of hers to great effect, splicing together the songs in a chaotic rollercoaster ride of an arrangement. Bez was bouncing, Ward was wriggling and the audience wasn’t sure if they’d all topple off the ride. But then they were there, at the end, everyone in one piece and the crowd cheering.

Someone must have been counting their crotchets.

A manufactured music lament

Last year a shocked myself and I am still a little ashamed about why. It all started one night at home when I didn’t have much to do. Flicking through TV channels I was caught by the odd sounds coming from one programme, some delightful, some rather painful. A group of everyday dreamers hoping for a shot at the big time. It was the X Factor.

I became hooked. Yes, I watched until finals night, desperately clutching a pillow with nerves and cheering for joy when Joe McElderry was crowned X Factor King. He hadn’t been my favourite all along, Danyl Johnson was a local guy and reminded me of Prince, and so he had my heart throughout until he left and the final four became three.

But I consider myself a music buff, with no time for this manufactured nonsense. Where are the years of hard work and perseverance? Where are the true musicians who sing, write and play? What is this ridiculous consumerist obsession doing to true talent?

Yet, I have to give it to him Joe McElderry has an incredible voice. Flawless and warm, consistent throughout. While he has been fast-tracked to fame, and profit-driven Simon Cowell is pulling all his strings, he does deserve to be recognised as a musical talent.

So why on earth, when some money-generating, manipulative singing competition actually finds a great vocalist, do they drown him in reverb on his debut single?!

All the quality of Joe’s voice is lost behind a myriad of production and post-production on The Climb, as if they fear any true talent escape from this manufacturing exercise. Perhaps there is a studio formula that every X Factor winner must adhere to, lest the lucky ones start to sound different to each other. God knows the public can’t cope with more than one voice on their radios.

I would say they have shot themselves in the foot by missing a great opportunity to sell a fantastic voice, but undoubtedly Joe McElderry will make them millions dressed in his new, fancy wardrobe, after all, ‘he’s that boy from the X Factor’.

Shame on them, and let their shame be bigger than mine! Anyway, I feel I redeemed myself by cheering even louder when Rage Against the Machine hit Christmas number one. You gotta take the power back.

Local Natives – ‘Gorilla Manor’

I’ve been bored. God, I’ve been bored. I honestly cannot remember the last time I stepped into a record shop to partake in my once-favourite pastime of browsing through everything and anything for that inevitable gem that does not yet adorn my record collection. I’ve been drowning in a sea of Keanes, Kasabians and Killers (don’t ask me who sings what, I don’t know), and thoroughly lamenting the lack of imagination in music. The fearlessness was gone.

But last week, as the new decade emerged, I crossed the picket line and stepped into HMV. No it wasn’t a new years resolution, instead I was looking for the intriguing sounds of the Local Natives whose ad had interrupted my Waylon Jennings album on Spotify that morning (yes, in an attempt to keep my faith in music I had gone back, way back).

Gorrilla Manor, released last year, is a raucous and raw album with stark melodies and rich harmonies. That may seem like an oxymoron, but there is no better way to describe it. It’s like caring without caring. It’s the disheveled look of the indie kid that says ‘I don’t care’ but you just know that every hair has been meticulously placed. The Local Natives pitch a fearless experimentation with sound against complex harmonies and rhythms that hit you right in the solar plexus.

There was an underground music scene happening in America in 2007, featuring the folksy, unrefined and daring sounds of Man Man, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and TV on the Radio. It would appear that these influences have now bubbled to the surface, perhaps osmosifying with the rich harmonies and clever instrumentation of bands like the Decemberists along the way. The result is the Local Natives and their peers such as Fleet Foxes and more recently The Temper Trap. And it’s refreshing.

The track that interrupted my Waylon Jennings moment was Airplanes, a yearning love song that appears to be written to a dead mother. The simple chorus repeats ‘I want you back’ with a heartbreaking honesty accompanied by trembling drums. It is almost haunting, which is a mood the Local Natives know how to master. No more so than on the track Shape Shifter which opens with unearthly, spine-tingling vocals and drums.

In fact, it is the drums that make this album original. There is not a snare-on-two-and-four in sight, but a much more tribal set of rhythms which give Gorilla Manor density. That, coupled with an abundance of vocal harmonies turns very ordinary images (the lane next over is always faster/but right after you complete your merge the lane you started in is going), into beautiful ones.

The cover of Talking Heads’ Warning Sign is given the real Local Natives treatment with piercing, ghostly harmonies and raw energy, while still retaining the nonchalance of the original track in the verses. It is testament to their original sound that the Local Natives can handle such a cover deftly and with imagination.

All in all it was a real gem to find in the cold, dark days of a daunting January. And with that I say goodbye to the noughties and here’s to music growing up in the teens.

Climate talks to set global green targets

World nations are striving to reach a groundbreaking international deal to prevent the worst effects of global climate change, when they meet at a UN conference in Copenhagen at the end of the year.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will host its 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) in December. Member states aim to agree on a master plan to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to prevent dangerous global temperature rises of more than 2˚C and extreme weather events from occuring, which may leave parts of the world uninhabitable.

Negotiations will focus on adaptation to and mitigation of climate change effects. Ultimately, nations will agree on a deal which will replace the Kyoto Protocol, a set of binding targets which have required 37 of the most industrialised nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions between 2008 and 2012.

In the lead up to COP15 many world leaders are stressing the criticality of securing an international deal at the conference. Preliminary talks have raised uncertainty as to whether developing nations and emerging economies such as China will agree to make the necessary cuts.

“This is make or break time for our climate and our future,” says UK Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband. “The world’s got no option but to work together to get a global climate deal that’s ambitious, effective and fair.”

The UK is one of the world leaders in tackling climate change after having introduced its legally binding Climate Change Act last year. Along with the EU, the UK has agreed to cut emissions by 20% on 1990 levels by 2020, increasing this to 30% if a global deal is reached at Copenhagen.

Despite Europe’s stringent measures to cut emissions, efforts will be futile if a global deal is not met, warn experts. Emissions from the biggest global polluters, such as the US and China would counteract any other emissions cuts if they did not stop polluting.

Robert Watson, Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says action by the US is paramount in encouraging emerging nations to join negotiations and thus securing a global deal in Copenhagen.

“No one will do anything if the US doesn’t really get on board,” says Watson. US President Barack Obama has agreed to cut emissions by 20% from current levels, resulting in a 3-5% cut on 1990 levels.

“You have Europe at least 20% below, you have the US on 3-5% below, the question is: is that enough to bring India and China to the table?” asks Watson. He confesses to not having the answer, but stresses that cooperation from China and India is crucial in the fight against climate change.

China, the world’s largest polluter of carbon dioxide, is hugely reliant on coal. As the world’s fastest emerging economy, China believes it has a right to raise living standards and urbanize as developed nations have done, a recent LA Times article states.

For this reason Watson believes that China may instead be encouraged to agree to a rate of improvement, as opposed to a hard target to reduce emissions. China has showed interest in adopting new clean coal technologies currently being created by the West. They therefore may agree to reduce their carbon intensity, says Watson.

A second factor potentially standing in the way of a global deal is the level of support offered to developing nations, some of which will be the worst hit by climate change.

“Climate change is a development issue,” says Douglas Alexander, the UK Development Secretary. “It is the world’s poorest people that are most vulnerable to the rising sea levels and extreme weather that a changing climate will bring.”

The UK wants to see developed nations agree to offer climate change adaptation aid to developing countries as part of a COP15 deal. The UK’s Road to Copenhagen document stresses that this should be additional to the 0.7% of aid developed nations are already required to give.

The recent annual summit meeting of the Group of Eight in L’Aquila, Italy exposed a potential hurdle in reaching such an agreement. Emerging nations refused to agree to cut emissions by 50% by 2050, calling instead for developed nations to commit to the financial and technological aid they had promised, reported the International Herald Tribune recently.

Watson says that cooperation from developing nations is highly reliant on a number of issues.

“Firstly, the industrialised world needs to show it’s genuinely serious in reducing emissions,” he says. As well as financial aid he believes that, “there may need to be some level on a deal on technology transfer, at least to share experiences with technology.

“I would imagine there is a call from many developing countries on capacity building, that is, having the technological, institutional and human capacity to deal with climate change,” he says.

Development charity, Oxfam, is keen to see governments making binding commitments to adaptation aid. Ken Smith, an Oxfam representative challenges the UK on being a self-confessed leader in climate change.

“Being world leader on climate change is not very great if the world hasn’t gone very far,” says Smith. “The government could start putting some real money where their mouth is.”

Other prominent issue that will be brought to the table at Copenhagen are limiting deforestation, reducing the impact of aviation on the climate and improving emissions trading, which allows nations to buy and sell ‘carbon credits’ based on whether or not they have exceeded their pollution limits as set out by the Kyoto Protocol.

The overall aim of negotiations at Copenhagen is to reduce global temperature rise to no more than 2˚C, or 3.6˚F. A recent report by the UK weather centre, the Met Office, projects some of the drastic changes that will occur if temperature increase is not curbed.

A temperature rise of 2˚C is already unavoidable due to emissions to date. The Met Office Climate Change Projections states that in the UK this change will see an increase of heat-related deaths, higher frequency of extreme weather events, such as flooding, dramatic changes to wildlife and a strain on current infrastructure.

However, Defra scientist, Watson, stresses that “the UK doesn’t have the ability to ensure they keep temperatures down, they are only about 4% or less of global emissions,” highlighting the need for a global deal on climate change.

The world is currently on a pathway to reach 400-450 parts per million (ppm) of greenhouse gasses, which will increase temperatures by 2˚C, explains Watson.

“However, unless the world truly acts almost immediately and has emissions peak around 2015-2017, we are potentially more likely to be on a path to 550ppm, which would stabalise at 3˚C,” warns Watson.

“All the UK can do is do as much as it can domestically to reduce emissions and advocate very strongly the rest of the world cutting back on emissions,” Watson says. “The UK could show leadership by actually demonstrating by changing the way we produce and use energy and show that it is actually economically viable.

“That’s the UK’s challenge,” he says.

The Modern Predicament

Sipson is a small village, consumed over the years by London all around it, but not much altered. It remains quaint and friendly despite its proximity to Heathrow, the UK’s largest airport.

Recently, however, a change has come over the town. One that is today obvious on every lamppost and in numerous house and shop windows.

‘No third runway’; ‘No Heathrow expansion’ read the signs that hang there. Sipson residents have a right to be protesting. The third runway will lie right across their town.

Many others have taken up their fight alongside the residents of Sipson. Not for bricks and mortar but for the environmental impact that airport expansion brings.

Environmental group, Greenpeace, states on their website that increased emissions from Heathrow’s expansion will jeopardise the UK’s fight against climate change.

They are at loggerheads with the British Airports Authority (BAA), the owners of Heathrow, and the British Government, who approved the building of a third runway at Heathrow in January and are planning to expand 26 other airports.

Together they argue that Heathrow’s expansion is essential for economic growth. If Heathrow is to remain an international gateway, it must expand in order to compete globally, they state.

It is the modern predicament. As climate change becomes an ever-increasing issue for governments worldwide, many are faced with the challenge of balancing growth against transition to a low carbon economy.

The UK government has constructed an ambitious plan to cut emissions in the UK by 80% by 2050. However, the expansion of Heathrow will almost double traffic at the airport, increasing the 13% of emissions that aviation already contributes to the UK’s carbon footprint.

Researchers at the UK’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research have recently concluded that aviation could take up almost all of the UK’s carbon allowances if growth is not curtailed by 2015. This would make it near impossible for the UK to uphold the legally-binding Kyoto agreement, which requires emissions be kept below a certain amount.

Ben Daley, a Lecturer in Environmental Management at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, researches the environmental impacts of aviation. He believes a solution comes down to deciding how important aviation is to society.

“It would be good to have a really sophisticated public debate about this,” he says.

“Do we want aviation so much that we allow [their] emissions and decarbonise everything else?”

The UK is heavily reliant upon aviation. It has the highest amount of emissions from aviation per capita in the world, twice as many as the US.

Daley raises the concern that “if we constrain aviation for environmental reasons we risk blighting global producers” that rely on distributing their products via planes.

The DfT also argues that aviation is essential for tourism. However, since this statement a number of high street businesses in the UK have come out and opposed a third runway. They argue that it would actually have a negative effect on the UK economy, as most flights from UK airports are taken by Britons going abroad.

Opinions remain divided in the case for a third runway at Heathrow. Meanwhile, the UK government continues plans to expand airports while taking environmental factors in to consideration.

In 2003 the UK Department for Transport (DfT) released a white paper addressing the demand for aviation. The paper concluded that an extra runway at Heathrow and additional runways at 26 other UK airports was the best compromise between economic growth and environmental protection.

Since then, BAA has promised that all expansions to their airports will be within strict environmental limits.

“We want to make sure the public can have confidence that, regardless of the theoretical capacity created by… a third runway, the airport will only raise the number of flights it operates if the environmental limits are being met,” said BAA Chief Executive Officer, Collin Matthews in a letter to former Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon.

However, environmental and activist groups against Heathrow’s expansion are not convinced BAA can keep this promise and trust in the company and the government is running low.

Christine Shilling, a member of the No Third Runway Action Group (NoTRAG) a residents’ group comprised of members from a number of affected towns, including Sipson, says: “they can’t meet the criteria [because] we’re already above the EU pollution limits [in this area].”

Shilling believes that the third runway comes at a much higher price than just increased emissions. She says the government has failed to factor in the increased road traffic to the airport that expansion will bring.

“There will be 25 million extra road traffic movements,” she says. “It’s not just aviation [emissions].

“Airport expansion and climate change are on parallel tracks. Mr. Brown doesn’t want us to put the two together, but they are totally incompatible objectives,” Shilling continues.

Greenpeace have been supporting NoTRAG’s fight. They have bought a plot of land in Sipson, inviting the public to ‘buy’ a part of it for a nominal fee. At the plot full of vegetable patches and slogans, the smell of diesel is heavy in the air.

Greenpeace calls the governments proposals to limit the climate impact of a third runway a ‘greenwash’. They claim that limiting the use of the third runway to only the most efficient planes, as the government proposes, is unattainable, as such improvements will not be developed in time.

Daley explains why this is the case: “Aircraft technology’s very mature. It’s very difficult now to get fuel savings.” He explains that the process of making aircraft more fuel efficient results in them generating more nitrous oxide. This gas is a local air quality pollutant and is strictly monitored by the EU.

Daley claims that an overhaul of aircraft technology is a long-term project. “Perhaps thirty, forty, fifty years away,” he says.

In the interim Daley explains that biofuels could provide a short-term solution, but are not ideal due to the wider issues of sustainability surrounding their use.

Daley identifies a lack of efficiency in airport management. He believes that if this is dealt with it could go a long way to helping reduce emissions from aviation.

“They measure good performance in the wrong way, in terms of on-time departures, on-time arrivals,” says Daley. “They could start to measure performance in terms of climate indicators like fuel consumed or fuel saved.

“If airlines and airports have incentives to reach these targets instead of economic targets then there would be environmental improvements,” he says.

The UK government is currently taking steps to introduce viable transport alternatives to aviation. Transport secretary Lord Adonis this month announced a new policy to replace domestic flights with a national high-speed rail service, but stressed that a third runway is still essential to accommodate an increase in long-haul flights.

Despite these developments, activist groups believe more still needs to be done.

“The only way to decrease emissions is to stop flying,” says Leo Murray of aviation protest group Plane Stupid. Murray is concerned that despite government efforts to address aviation emissions, changes are still not being made to infrastructure policy.

Murray believes that this behaviour could ultimately have adverse effects on the role that the UK plays at the UN climate change negotiations that are taking place in Copenhagen this December, where a global deal to reduce emissions must be reached.

“Britain is claming to be a world leader in climate change,” says Murray. “But everyone can also see that we’re just all talk because of Heathrow.

“That contradiction is being fore grounded internationally. It massively undermines our credibility, not just to cast ourselves as leaders, but to say anything about climate change.”

The contradiction is one that many countries must face in a globalised world. Daley believes that any discussion about how much a nation values aviation must be governmentally driven.

As aviation emissions are soon to be factored in to the Koyoto protocol, Daley believes the time is now to start talking.

For the residents of Sipson, the fight carries on for their homes. For other action groups and the UK government, Heathrow’s third runway stands as a symbol of the discussion that will shape the country’s attitude to climate change.

Homegrown green energy

Local action has been hailed as one of the most important tools in the fight against climate change by government, local councils and members of the public in the UK. But there is still not enough being done to raise awareness, they say.

The ‘bottom-up’ approach to climate change adaptation and mitigation has the potential to be hugely significant in ensuring that large government targets are reached. Local councils are trying to raise awareness about action that can be taken by individuals.

However, climate conscious members of the public are concerned that the message isn’t getting through and that some local level government schemes are merely a ‘pipedream’.

The UK government Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), has been stressing the importance of a low-carbon economy, but is strongly encouraging the public to spread the word themselves.

“[Politicians] need to be pushed,” Secretary of State for DECC, Ed Miliband told the UK newspaper the Observer. “Political change doesn’t happen simply because leaders want it to happen, but because people make it happen.”

Miliband has been advocating a grassroots, ‘Make Poverty History’ type campaign by the public. But those that are taking action at home fear awareness remains low.

Peter Archibald is a resident of Windsor, a town in southeast England, who has ‘de-carbonised’ his house through renovations and being more energy conscious.

He says: “I think there needs to be moves by local people like me who care across communities to demand the services we expect. It’s just not happening because people are too busy and there’s just no awareness.”

Archibald has decided to put his time into raising awareness and changing peoples behaviour locally. He is careful in his approach, explaining that, “you can’t just criticize them, because that just alienates them. You have to find a way to entice them in.”

As part of this he is planning to organise a screening of the film ‘Age of Stupid’, which is about the devastating effects of climate change inaction.

Archibald’s local council, Windsor and Maidenhead are working towards climate change adaptation and mitigation across a range of local sectors. This includes informing residents and businesses on how to reduce their household carbon emissions, and setting an example by becoming low carbon themselves.

“Local action is huge,” says Kara Pinkney, head of climate change issues at the council. “Any targets the government sets, we get smaller targets down the line, so we do have to be working with the community on a proactive basis to reach the massive targets that the government sets.”

The council’s new ‘Learning for Sustainability’ programme focuses on carrying a low-carbon message to schools, businesses and the community. Adaptation is also being addressed through focusing on flood risk. Maidenhead suffered damaging floods in 2007 and it has been projected that climate change will increase such incidents.

Although Pinkney’s position is a new one she says there is already a marked change in people’s attitudes towards sustainability.

“More and more people are realising that climate change is happening,” she says. “There’s more interest and people understand that they are responsible for the wider implications of climate change.”

However, Archibald is not yet convinced by the level of commitment he has seen from the council. He has not received any direct information on sustainability and believes that “the council is not ready to act.”

“To a large extent I think their action is cosmetic,” he says. “I don’t think that Windsor and Maidenhead has any real activity in terms of communicating with the public.”

Archibald is also skeptical that a new government proposal to offer households a £10,000 loan to transfer to low carbon may just be a “pipedream”. However, he does believe it to be a well thought out idea which could prove beneficial.

The loan scheme would allow households to insulate roofs, install double-glazing and make other alterations to become sustainable. It would be paid back through council tax and any debt would transfer with the sale of the house.

Archibald has funded low-carbon renovations on his house by selling his car. They include insulation, swapping old appliances for efficient ones and installing a thermal solar panel on his roof.

“An about £500 ($825) on lighting!” he adds. He deems it to be a worthwhile investment, as they do not need changing. Halogen lights in his utility room that used to use 50 watts each now use eight.

“The house is now saving £10 on its energy bills,” Archibald says. “For just a little investment, some of which pays back straight away.

“That’s a message I’d like to give to everyone else in Windsor.” It is a saving that could potentially be at no upfront cost if the government implements the £10,000 loan scheme, he adds.

One of the big issues that Archibald recognises as hindering the move to low-carbon is “cheap, green electricity. It’s becoming easier to have green energy, but you can’t get it cheap and green.”

As green technologies develop and oil becomes scarcer, it is widely accepted that green energy will become cheaper than traditional sources.

Doug Stewart, founder of Green Energy UK, an electricity company that uses only renewable and green sources of energy, is trying to change people’s attitudes towards going green.

When a new customer joins Green Energy UK they are given free shares in the company.

“Historically being green meant you had to give something up,” says Stewart “We wanted to try and reward people for doing something green.”

Green Energy UK sources their energy partly from renewable, such as wind power, but mainly from processes such as breaking down waste products and combined heat and power, where a power station creates both power and usable heat.

“The answer isn’t one technology,” Stewart says. “It’s a mixture.”

Stewart believes that a large amount of energy is wasted unnecessarily, and that this could hinder transition to a low-carbon economy.

“We have to change the public’s attitude towards energy like we did with smoking and drink driving,” he says. “If we could stop people wasting energy it would change the fight.”

Carrying a message directly to the public is an important part of the fight against climate change, both Stewart and Archibald agree.

Ultimately, “low-carbon energy and industry has got to be promoted by the government,” says Archibald. “We can’t do it, but from the ground up we can ask them to do it.”

As world leaders prepare to meet to discuss climate change at the UN conference in Copenhagen this December, Archibald stresses that if the public were pushing the UK government to demand a significant international deal on reducing emissions, they could even influence the global attitude to climate change.

Climate change forecast predicts extreme weather

New scientific data has projected that climate change will plague the UK with extreme weather conditions and could cause a rise in temperatures of up to 4˚C by 2080.

The UK Climate Projections, released by the Met Office and the Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) predicts that the UK will face hotter, drier summers and milder, wetter winters. Scientists warn extreme weather could cause many adverse effects including an increase in heat-related deaths and flooding.

As the UK fights for a global deal on emissions in Copenhagen this December, scientists stress that the worst of the projections can only be avoided thorough global action against climate change.

“Climate change is the biggest challenge facing the world today”, says Environment secretary Hilary Benn. “This landmark scientific evidence shows not only that we need to tackle the causes of climate change but also that we must deal with the consequences.”

The comprehensive report predicts the effects of three emissions scenarios: low, medium and high. Currently the world is working to a medium emissions scenario with the potential of it becoming high if no action is taken. A high emissions scenario could see UK summer temperatures soaring to a 10C increase.

Achieving a low emissions scenario will require an economy heavily reliant upon renewable energy sources, according to DEFRA. However, due to pollution to date, this scenario will still create a UK temperature rise of up to 2.5C.

Jon Cox, a researcher in physical climate sciences at Oxford University explains: “If carbon emissions were stopped right now, temperatures would continue to rise because of the gasses that have been put out in the past.”

Bernd Eggen, a scientist with the Met Office’s Hadley Centre, which was responsible for compiling the report, warns that these changes will see an increase in extreme weather conditions.

Floods, similar to the devastating ones that swept the country in 2007 could become more commonplace, Eggen explains, as could heat related deaths in the summer.

Furthermore, “we could see more outbreaks of…certain types of vector born diseases [such as malaria]”, says Eggen. He explains that hotter temperatures will increase the ecological area in which insects carrying such diseases can live.

Milder temperatures will also affect the UK’s native wildlife. Animals will migrate north as temperatures rise, “and those at the edge of their coping range will [struggle] to adjust”, says Eggen.

Eggen raises concerns that the UK’s infrastructure may struggle to cope with the extreme weather conditions. For example, drainage systems will have to be able to accommodate more water and tarmac must be able to withstand increased temperatures.

The Climate Projections are intended as a guide for businesses and organisations across all sectors to help them prepare for the changes they must make, explains Eggen.

Already industries in the UK have begun to use the projections. Chief Executive of Anglian Water, Jonson Cox said of the report in a press release: “This will bring more accurate business planning and risk management. Projects are already underway in Norwich…for improving the resilience of the water supply system.” Norwich is an area in northeast England that could suffer badly from flooding.

The UK government is working to both mitigate and adapt to climate change. To avoid the worst affect of climate change they plan to limit the global temperature increase to 2C. A global deal at Copenhagen is essential to achieving this.

“The science is pushing us harder than ever towards an ambitious global deal in Copenhagen this December” says Ed Miliband, the UK’s Energy and Climate Change Secretary.

“The UK has set an example to the world through committing to cut UK emissions by a third by 2020 and by 80% by 2050”, he says. “We need all other countries to be part of a global deal.”

Domestically, the government plans to respond to these new projections with a five-point plan. It includes safeguarding those who will be most affected, ensuring public services assess and respond to climate risk, changing to a low carbon economy and encouraging businesses and individuals to cut emissions.

The Met Office’s Bernd Eggen believes that the UK Climate Projections report defines the UK as one of the leaders in tackling climate change.

“It is a world first”, he says. The UK has “put a probabilistic climate forecast on the map.”

Other nations are similarly focusing on the road ahead. Deutche Bank have recently installed a real-time carbon counter near Penn Station in New York City, tracking the world’s emissions. It is a symbol of America’s fight, and it’s creators hope to see its rapidly increasing number begin to slow.

UK wildlife to suffer as temperatures rise

The UK’s biodiversity is under threat as a direct result of climate change, evidence shows. Rising temperatures will cause significant loss of some wildlife and an increased threat of invasive species.

As wildlife responds to rising temperatures by moving north, their journey could be hindered by lack of space or available habitat. Species living at the edge of their coping range may disappear from areas of the UK entirely if global carbon emissions are not curbed.

The UK government Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) is working with farmers and nature reserve owners to preserve biodiversity through the conservation of natural habitats. But with temperature increase inevitable the message is very much one of aiding adaptation.

“There’s quite a number of challenges in relation to climate change and biodiversity,” says Peter Costigan, Science Coordinator for Defra. “Once you start thinking about the climate space of a certain species you have to then consider are they going to be able to move.”

Knock-on effects could include a loss of synchrony, causing a species to struggle due to the absence of a species that it relied on in its habitat. For example an insect species may struggle if plants that it used for pollen or nectar disappear.

A recent programme designed to assess the impacts of projected climate changes on wildlife looks at the distribution and possible migration of species in the next 60 years.

The ‘Modelling Natural Resource Responses to Climate Change’ (MONARCH) programme predicted the climate space shift of 32 individual species, based on climate change projections from the UK weather service, the Met Office.

It concludes that only 9% of the species monitored would experience no change of suitable climate space. Most species will experience a gain, loss or shift of the area they are able to thrive in, as temperatures rise.

If there is a failure to curb global emissions, MONARCH predicts that there will be a significant disappearance of the song thrush in mid and southern England and Ireland by 2080.

MONARCH has been a vital tool for Defra in assessing the risk of climate change on wildlife, for which evidence of change is particularly important in shaping policy, says Costigan.

Defra is currently working on aiding the migration of species northward, which can often be hindered by areas of farmland through which it is difficult to travel.

“There’s an issue about connectivity in the landscape – about how species can move,” says Costigan. Initially connectivity studies focused on how linear pathways, such as railway lines and hedgerows could provide a continuous habitat for animals.

“Now we are looking at the potential need for stepping stones in the environment,” says Costigan. “We need to look at the environment and see what the connectivity is at the moment and ask: is it adequate?”

Adequacy can be measured in terms of how far a species can move in a jump and mechanisms by which they would move. “These mechanisms should interact with the connectivity of the land,” says Costigan.

To encourage connectivity Defra is currently working with farmers to preserve a more traditional form of agriculture, one that avoids pesticides and maintains hedgerows.

Defra has introduced incentive schemes called Environmental Stewardships, whereby farmers are paid to maintain certain levels of overall environmental protection.

Such schemes has been welcomed by environmental charity, the National Trust. Alan Watson, a spokesperson for the charity says that “at the end of the day land management comes down to land owners, this is who you need to influence.”

Watson believes that Environmental Stewardships are a positive step forward, but would like to see them focus more specifically on adaptation to climate change.

The National Trust is currently working on responses to climate change on their sites. As changes increase Watson stresses that adaptation should be prioritised.

“We work with the idea of conservation being the management of change,” he says. “We are trying to work with the grain of natural processes rather than trying to prop up things that have no sustainable future.”

The National Trust’s method is at odds with wildlife charities such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), that may be trying to preserve a species in a particular area, says Watson.

“We are more of the approach of trying to maintain overall habitats,” he says.

As temperatures change, designated wildlife areas will see a shift in the species that live there. Costigan stresses that this will be unpreventable, making the need for connectivity even more important.

However, change could also bring unwanted wildlife into the UK. Invasive species entering the UK, as their climate space grows northward, could threaten already established species, bringing disease or driving out a native relative.

“A big issues is what we do with the species that get here,” says Costigan. “The response will depend on the species, as some are damaging and will may need to do something about them.” This is something that will be looked at as issues arise, he concludes.

While the UK is faced with a number of climate threats to biodiversity, hotter areas of the globe could face greater problems. Wildlife in Southern Europe and parts of Africa may be affected most by rising temperatures.

“If our average temperature in the UK moves from 12˚C to 15˚C degrees is not a huge shift for most species,” says Costigan. “But if you’re already right at the extreme, say 30˚C, another few degrees could be really damaging.”

Costigan advocates educating people on the importance of conservation in the fight between climate change and biodiversity. As the wildlife around people changes he feels it’s important they understand the issues.

“I think there needs to be a greater awareness from different parties including members of the public about the potential impacts of climate change on conservation,” he says.