"We need to value nature’s biodiversity, clean water, and seeds. For this, nature is the best teacher. "The forest teaches us union and compassion. "The forest also teaches us enoughness: as a principle of equity, how to enjoy the gifts of nature without exploitation and accumulation. Tagore quotes from the ancient texts written in the forest: “Know all that moves in this moving world as enveloped by God; and find enjoyment through renunciation, not through greed of possession.” No species in … Continue reading

"You have to change the way you live because you are lost, you have lost your way. Where you are going is only the way of destruction and of death. To live you must respect the world, the trees, the plants, the animals, the rivers and even the very earth itself. Because all of these things have spirits, all of these things are spirits, and without the spirits the Earth will die, the rain will stop and the food plants will wither and die too. "We all breathe this one air, we all drink the same … Continue reading

"Shops that minimise the environmental impact of our consumer habits are springing up across Britain. Could they help us avert catastrophe? "The smell in Natural Weigh, a zero-waste shop that opened a year ago in Crickhowell in mid-Wales, is lovely. The shop – filled with pasta, grains, seeds and dried fruit served from hoppers to avoid plastic packaging; washing-up liquid and laundry products that customers pump into their battered old squeezy bottles; fair-trade coffee and chocolate, plus an … Continue reading

"AN IRISH TEENAGER has won an international science award for his project which removed microplastics from water. "Fionn Ferreira, from Ballydehob in west Cork, has been named the overall winner of the 2019 Google Science Fair, a prestigious annual global science competition open to students aged 13 and 18. "Ferreira used ferrofluids, a combination of oil and magnetite powder, and magnets to extract microplastics from water. "In 1,000 tests, Ferreira was able to remove over 87% of … Continue reading

"Scientists once ridiculed the idea of a living planet. Not anymore. "If Earth breathes, sweats and quakes — if it births zillions of organisms that ceaselessly devour, transfigure and replenish its air, water and rock — and if those creatures and their physical environments evolve in tandem, then why shouldn’t we think of our planet as alive? "Humans are the brain — the consciousness — of the planet. We are Earth made aware of itself. Viewed this way, our ecological responsibility could not … Continue reading