No Mow May

Hi friend,

It’s No Mow May – a movement started in the UK in 2019 that is slowly spreading around the world.

How does it work? The idea is that you don’t mow your lawn for the month of May to give wildflowers a chance to bloom and create nectar for pollinators like bees, butterflies, moths, and beetles.

Why is this important? Well, although it’s nice to have a perfectly manicured lawn, mowing it is one of the worst things we can do for insect biodiversity.

Here’s why:

• Insect populations are crashing around the world, caused mainly by the extensive use of land, climate change, pesticides, and invasive species. In 2019, studies found that 40% of insects are declining, and a third are endangered, and a UN assessment found that half a million insect species are under threat of extinction in the coming decades.

• Insects play critical roles in pollinating the plants we eat, breaking down waste in forest soil, and forming the base of the entire food chain. Without them, we’d all starve to death and be surrounded by rotting corpses because there are no bugs to break them down.

• The rate of insect extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds, and reptiles. If this continues, we'll soon start to see a rapid decline in these animals too, since their food supply is drying up.

• The sixth mass extinction has already started, as ecosystems collapse under the pressure to meet the needs of a growing global population and as humans continue to destroy the life-support systems they depend on for clean air, water, and food. The UK has lost nearly 97% of flower-rich meadows since the 1970s, taking the vital food needed by pollinators with them.

• As ecosystems break down, the natural barriers between people and zoonotic diseases (those transmitted from animals to humans) become weaker. And we’ve all lived through a pandemic to know what that means.

Liberate your lawn.

Bottom line: Without insects, nature will collapse.

Insect biodiversity affects everything from global health and food security to the economy and the fight to stop the climate crisis. A wild lawn with long grass and wildflowers benefits wildlife, tackles pollution, and can even lock away carbon below ground.

Aside from giving the bugs and bees a fighting chance, not mowing your lawn has other benefits, the biggest being YOU DON’T HAVE TO MOW THE LAWN!

What will you do with all that free time and energy?

Well, you could plant more flowers, fruits, and veggies.

You can make a few of these really cool “bee hotels” that I learnt how to make at Ayva’s school.

By not mowing your lawn, you also stop a lot of carbon emissions from spewing into the atmosphere. Plantlife estimated that Britain’s lawns could be cut as many as 30 million times a year, if they were mowed once a week. That’s equivalent to the consumption of 45 million litres of petrol, resulting in 80,000 tons of annual carbon dioxide emissions – or the combined carbon footprint of about 10,000 households.

And that’s just in the UK. Imagine the impact if everyone, everywhere gave their gardens a chance to let loose. Combined, that’s a lot of land that we could turn into feasting grounds for nature’s tiniest critters.

Join the movement here.

— Tarryn ✌️

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Last week's climate and sustainability news worth noting

🌍 France, Barbados, Spain, and Sierra Leone have backed a coalition to accelerate the flow of climate-related finance to the world’s poorest countries. The “Power Our Planet: Act Today. Save Tomorrow” campaign aims to mobilise ordinary citizens to put pressure on leaders to change how the world’s financial system works, to help developing countries fight climate change and poverty.

🚯 A group of European countries, including Germany, The Netherlands, and France, have called on the European Union to release measures to prevent the release of microplastics into the environment, saying voluntary measures are not enough. The European Commission is drafting a law to cut the volume of microplastics by 30% by 2030.

🏦 The Asian Development Bank has launched a $15 billion climate finance programme. The Innovative Finance Facility for Climate Change in Asia-Pacific (IF-CAP) will provide loans for climate mitigation and adaptation and has been described as the first of its kind. And Credit Suisse bought up three of Ecuador's bonds in the biggest ever debt-for-nature swap, freeing up cash for the conservation of the Galapagos Islands, one of the world's most precious ecosystems. In return, the government has committed to spend about US$18 million annually for 20 years on conservation in the Galapagos.

❗️ A three-year, UN-backed study has warned that the rapid decline of the natural world could lead to widespread species extinctions and mass human migration unless urgent action is taken. Compiled by over 500 experts in 50 countries and running 8,000 pages long, the massive study is the greatest attempt yet to assess the state of life on Earth and will show how tens of thousands of species are at high risk of extinction, how countries are using nature at a rate that far exceeds its ability to renew itself, and how nature’s ability to contribute food and fresh water to a growing human population is being compromised in every region on earth.

🇸🇨 Seychelles plans to develop the world’s largest salt-water floating solar power plant. The benefits of floating solar panels include increased efficiency due to lower temperatures caused by being on the water, the lack of surrounding dust and dirt means panels stay clean longer, and expanses of water are far cheaper to use than land, which can be expensive to rent or buy, particularly when close to large populations. Construction of the 5.8MW photovoltaic solar energy system will start in the fourth quarter of 2023.

🛢️ Sultan Al Jaber, the UN COP28 chief and head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, has urged wealthy nations to deliver on a commitment made 14 years ago to donate US$100 billion per year from 2020 to developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to climate change to support their climate adaptation efforts. He also emphasised the need to phase out fossil fuel emissions, rather than production, by focusing on the development of new emission reduction technologies.

🚛 California state regulators approved a ban on the sale of new big rigs and buses that run on diesel by 2036.

🌡️ Wild weather. Record temperatures in Asia. More than 130 people killed and over 5,000 homes destroyed in devastating floods and landslides caused by heavy rains in Rwanda.

And in business news:

✅ The US Federal Trade Commission will revise its Green Guides for the first time in a decade. The Green Guides is a set of standards for companies making environmental claims and aims to stamp out greenwashing. The changes are expected to affect claims around carbon offsets and net zero, and the use of terms including ‘recyclable’, ‘compostable’, ‘organic’, ‘sustainable’, and ‘carbon neutral’.

✋ Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill barring state officials from investing public money to promote environmental, social, and governance goals, and prohibiting ESG bond sales. The bill is one of the furthest-reaching efforts yet by US Republicans against sustainable investing efforts.

💰 YouTube has been accused of letting creators profit off climate disinformation, despite its promise to demonetise misleading content. The Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition published a list of 100 videos which would breach YouTube’s rules on climate disinformation. All 100 videos were monetised and collectively racked up 55 million views. Meanwhile, TikTok has announced plans to delete and ban content that includes climate change denial and misinformation.

🤑 Shell has reported record first-quarter profits of more than $9.6 billion, despite higher taxes and tumbling oil and gas prices.

One small thing you can do.

Because lots of little actions combined can add up to something remarkable.

Don’t mow your lawn in May.

I'll leave you on this happy note...

Soccer-playing bees.

Bees learn how to play soccer from their buddies. Simply watching how another bee drags a ball to a “goal” to be rewarded with a sweet treat, other bees quickly learn not only how to get their own dose of sweetness but also how to get it with less effort than their teammates.

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