How we got hooked on plastic
Plus other tales from the latest books to the decisions being made in town halls
Good morning! I hope you had a great Bank Holiday and are in the mood for some thoughtful reading. As it’s the last Tuesday of the month, Claire and Alan have the latest green-tinged reading recommendations for you. Plus we’ve all the eco news, including:
🦒 Planners give their final verdict on a Dales safari park plan
💦 An investigation into uranium being discharged into a northern river
🌏 What has happened to the climate change department of Durham County Council?
Let’s get on with the books…
Nature’s Genius by David Farrier
Description: For nearly four billion years, life on Earth has found new ways to adapt, reproduce and thrive, taking on new forms to meet the environment of the moment. Human impact on the planet, and the potentially devastating threat of climate change, have stressed that adaptability as never before.
Yet life still finds a way. Animals, plants and insects rise to the challenge and are still adapting, reproducing and thriving, even in our rapidly transforming environment. In their example we may just find ways that we too can adapt, ways to stop the destruction we're causing to the planet.
In Nature's Genius David Farrier takes us on a profound journey into this ever-changing natural world.
What we discover could transform us. The ways animals adjust to the urban landscape can help us design sustainable cities.
Examining other intelligences can help us remake our economies. Learning from bacterial evolution may help solve our waste problem. Synthetic biology could rescue animals from the brink of extinction.
Thinking in timescales of the natural world could help us choose a better future. Life on Earth is changing; the question is, can we change with it? Can we remake the world to be fit for all life to thrive once more?
“This sounds like a really interesting book - can we learn lessons from nature, that has adapted and survived in spite of our ever changing world? Perhaps it’s time we took a leaf out of Nature’s book!”
You can order this book here.
Consumed by Sabira Chaudhuri
Description: Over the past seventy years, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and other consumer goods makers have harnessed single-use plastics to turbocharge their profits. They've poured billions of dollars into convincing us we need disposable diapers, cups, bags, bottles, shampoo in sachets and plastic-packaged ultra-processed foods.
We were never clamouring for any of these items, but this shift towards disposability has fundamentally transformed our daily habits. Think of toddlers kept in disposable diapers for far longer than their parents wore cloth, our obsession with bottled water and our insatiable appetite for convenient snacks and coffee. While at first we shaped plastics, somewhere along the way, plastics took over and began shaping us.
Like any addiction, our plastic habit has consequences. It is damaging our climate and biodiversity and we are only just starting to understand its effect on our own health. How did plastic take over our lives? And why have we been unable to rein it in? In investigating how we got here, Consumed arms us to make better decisions about where we go next.
It is only by understanding this history that we will stop accepting the same failed solutions and demand better from the brands that got us hooked on plastic in the first place.
“I saw this book by journalist Saabira Chaudhuri reviewed by Dr Chris van Tulleken and he highly recommended it claiming it was “one of the best books I have perhaps read...ever. It is readable, at times laugh out loud funny... and beautifully written. It deserves to be a bestseller.” Well if it’s good enough for Dr Chris....”
You can order this book here.
Leave the Trees Please by Benjamin Zephaniah
Description: Follow a little boy's friendship and journey with one tree, in this powerful and beautiful love letter to nature. From master wordsmith, Benjamin Zephaniah, comes a new breathtaking poem and story showing how trees offer us the perspective and connection to nature we crave in our daily lives. The final scene is an honest representation of the devastating effects of deforestation and urban development, encouraging all of us, everywhere, to 'leave the trees, please'.
With resplendent illustrations from bestselling Melissa Castrillon, this book is both magnificent and timely.
“A book for young readers about the importance of trees and the impact of deforestation...from the amazing poet Benjamin Zephaniah who was widely considered to be among the first poets to address the climate crisis. Beautifully illustrated - a book to treasure.”
You can order this book here.
Let me take this opportunity thank you for reading edition number 136 of The Northern Eco this Tuesday. I hope you’ve been enjoying being kept in know about environmental issues. We produce this newsletter on a Pay As You Feel basis so, if you feel it’s worth a few quid, now’s the perfect join our paying subscribers. The main newsletter is sent out at 7am every Tuesday and can’t exist without our paying subscribers . 🙏
In the news
NO to Dales Safari park plans
Permission has been refused for an animal reserve in the Yorkshire Dales National Park despite initial plans for rhinos, giraffes and honey badgers being changed to the site housing sheep, goats and ducks.
⚡️ Developers behind the proposed 30MW scheme on land off Lords Lane, between Bedale and Exelby, say the farm would create enough clean energy to power around 13,830 homes a year, writes Joe Willis.
📆 Date for the diary: Wild Justice’s most recent petition calling for a ban on driven grouse shooting recently passed the 100,000 signatures required to trigger a parliamentary debate in Westminster. The date of the debate has now been announced as Monday 30 June at 4.30pm.
⚠️ Documents obtained by the Guardian and the Ends Report through freedom of information requests show that a nuclear fuel factory near Preston discharged large quantities of uranium – legally, under its environmental permit conditions – into the River Ribble between 2015 and 2024. Pippa Neill reports.
The three most clicked links last week were:
No objection to gas drilling from National Park planners
That’s all for this week but don’t forget there are updates on the website and via social media through the week too.
Have a great week!
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