After Extinction Rebellion, Australian politicians are on notice – change is coming

If I were in London over Easter I would have been at Waterloo Bridge or Oxford Circus or Marble Arch, the protest sites for the Extinction Rebellion.

Extinction Rebellion protesters in London’s Hyde Park. XR
activists are staging acts of civil disobedience to force a
global conversation about climate change.

Extinction Rebellion (XR) is a movement of tens of thousands of people that has for a week blocked traffic across the UK in simple but powerful acts of civil disobedience. These have ranged from activists gluing themselves to a pink boat in Oxford Circus to a string quartet playing in the middle of Waterloo Bridge. The aim is to force a national and global conversation about climate changes.

Their demands are for governments to tell the truth about climate change, to reduce carbon pollution to zero by 2025 and to create a citizens’ assembly to oversee the whole process.

Read the story from The Guardian by Nicky Ison - “After Extinction Rebellion, Australian politicians are on notice – change is coming.”

Sustainable shopping: save the world, one chocolate at a time

Cocoa is probably the most sustainable of all internationally traded commodities, so there are several “feelgood” reasons for eating the chocolate made from it this Easter – at least when the cocoa is grown by smallholder producers and traded by processors that are committed to equitable sharing of profits.

These are the chocolates you’re looking for. 

Here are some ways to tell if you are onto a good thing.As a wild species, cocoa (Theobroma cacao) originates from the rainforest of the Amazon basin and the foothills of the Andes. In nature, it grows as an “understorey” species, shaded by the rainforest canopy. Much of the world’s cocoa crop is similarly grown in the shade of taller trees in mixed plantings.

Unlike many plantation crops, like rubber and oil palm, cocoa can be grown with a diverse mixture of other plants. Of course, not all growers produce this way, so if preserving biodiversity is a priority for you, look for Rainforest Alliance certification.

Read the piece on The Conversation buy a trio of authors - “Sustainable shopping: save the world, one chocolate at a time.”