In July of 2018, the Kichwa Nation of Sarayaku came forth with a bold and visionary proposal for protecting their Amazonian homeland and other rainforests across the world. Their proposal – the Kawsak Sacha (Living Forest) Declaration – was issued by the Amazon Rainforest itself. According to the Sarayaku, it was communicated to their community […]
There is no denying that we live on a blue world, as the oceans cover over 70% of our planet. Everything we breathe, do, pollute, degrade and dismantle is directly tied to the ocean, and ultimately, us. While the U.S. Congress recently passed its first major climate legislation with the Inflation Reduction Act, leading scientists […]
Bitcoin has given the world of crypto, sustainability-wise, a rather bad name. After all, the daily wattage of this particular blockchain surpasses that of Google and a few industrial nations, combined. The cryptographic “mining” of this mintage, while digital in process, is by that very token (pun intended), a function of electricity. In just the […]
New research shows that hemp supercapacitors have the potential to fight climate change by improving how we store renewable energy, while also sequestering carbon from the atmosphere back into the soil and hemp biomass. As the world continues to expel 33.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually, scientists are searching for […]
What is an Earthship? At the corner of 41st Street and Lancaster Avenue in West Philadelphia, Rashida Ali-Campbell is pioneering the world’s first urban Earthship. An Earthship is a type of sustainable housing structure first developed in Taos, New Mexico by architect Michael Reynolds. The autonomous, off-grid house takes care of human’s six basic needs […]
As global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions threaten the world with irreversible climate collapse, activists around the United States and the world have turned to fossil fuel divestment as a major strategy to stop fossil fuel extraction. Experts agree that global warming is caused by humans burning fossil fuels and that it will continue to accelerate […]
Last year, global attention briefly coalesced around fires ravaging the Amazon Rainforest. As the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, continues to affect the whole world, Branch Out reported in the past weeks that deforestation is the leading cause of new infectious diseases. In addition to threatening global public health, deforestation threatens the very existence of the Indigenous […]
Introduction The ongoing pandemic of the novel coronavirus – COVID-19 – is already affecting all our lives. While the full extent of its spread and resultant mortality is yet to be seen, there is no doubt that in terms of media coverage, social dynamics, economic consequences and government reaction, something unprecedented is happening. Far from […]
Global Burning This past August, a significant segment of world leaders attended the G7 Summit in Biarritz, France. The United States skipped out on the climate change discussion, where leaders turned their attention to forest fires, an often overlooked aspect of the climate crisis. Wildfires in the Amazon rainforest increased by an estimated 84% from […]
At the root of the climate crisis is the fundamental problem of humanity’s alienation from nature. Accordingly, one of the most radical, bold, and transformative actions we can take is both natural and straightforward: planting trees en masse in order to regenerate and strengthen our local ecosystems and sequester tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide […]