FedEx Gets 150 E-Delivery Vans, Climate Champs–The Al-Tarawneh Sisters, iNaturalist App, Listeners’ Call to Action!

CLIMATE CHAMPIONS, LINA AND DINA AL-TARAWNEH

Lina Al-Tarawneh is a 21-year-old environmental conservationist and sustainable-consumption advocate studying in Qatar. She co-founded Green Mangroves, along with her sister, Dina, back in 2015. Green Mangroves is a not-for-profit project bringing people together to protect oceans – one person, one kayak, and one thought at a time to conserve Qatar’s mangroves and teach people how to live plastic-free lives. 

The company won a $15,000 grant from the Ford Motor Company that allowed her to buy kayaks for Green Mangroves trips, where people can see up close Qatar’s mangrove forests and be inspired to protect them. The company offers kayaking trips that integrate cleaning up of Qatar’s mangrove forests. Additionally, it offers school talks and guides on how to adopt a low-waste shopping lifestyle in Qatar.

Why does the work of Lina and Dina Al-Tarawneh matter to us? Well first, now we all know that Qatar has mangrove forests! Turns out Qatar is home to the Avicennia Marina species; it is known as the grey or white mangrove trees, with the largest eight forests located in the east coast of the country. The oldest and largest mangroves can be found at Al Thakira and Al Khor.

According to EcoMENA, In a harsh desert environment such as Qatar, mangroves are one of the few ecosystems able to sustain life during the hot summer months. In recent years, Qatar government has been more focused on protecting these areas than the past, however 70% of the country’s mangroves have already been lost.

But most of all, Lina and Dina matter to us because they serve as a reminder that the root of the plastics/climate change problem is our daily subconscious consumption of single use coffee cups, straws, plastic bags and plastic-infused cosmetics and toiletries…. Once we establish the awareness of this issue, we can do something about it.

DEEPER DIVE:  Green Mangroves, Qatar Mangrove Forests, Insta

FEDEX ANNOUNCES RECEIPT OF 150 BRIGHTDROP ELECTRIC DELIVERY VANS

FedEx Corp. announced last week it had received its first 150 electric delivery vehicles from BrightDrop, the technology startup from General Motors (GM). This marks a critical milestone for FedEx as the company plans to transform its entire parcel pickup and delivery (PUD) fleet to all-electric, zero-tailpipe emissions by 2040, thus decarbonizing last-mile delivery.

BrightDrop is a new business reimagining the commercial delivery and logistics industry for an all-electric future. The first 150 BrightDrop Zevo 600s were delivered throughout Southern California to FedEx Express, a subsidiary of FedEx Corp. Powered by GM’s Ultium Platform, the Zevo 600 is designed for last-mile deliveries, with an estimated range of up to 250 miles on a full charge.

Said Mitch Jackson, FedEx’s Chief Sustainability Officer, “At FedEx, we have ambitious sustainability goals, and our phased approach to vehicle electrification is a crucial part of our roadmap to achieve carbon neutral global operations.” This is part of a larger agreement between FedEx and BrightDrop that will see FedEx incorporate 2,500 total Zevo 600s across FedEx operations over the next few years.

Why does delivery of 150 EV cargo vans to FedEx matter to us? First, that’s 150 fewer ICE’s on the road; 150 closer to replacing the 1B ICE’s estimated motoring around the planet. Second, for us to successfully achieve planetary sustainability goals, it will require collaboration across the public, non-profit and corporate sectors. FedEx’s commitment to decarbonizing their fleets helps stabilize the still nascent EV market.

Said Travis Katz, president and CEO of BrightDrop, “This shows how BrightDrop is delivering sustainable solutions at scale to customers today. BrightDrop is showing the world what sustainable delivery looks like.”

DEEPER DIVE: FEDEX, BrightDrop, Ultium Platform

THE I-NATURALIST APP

Way back in 2008, Ken-ichi Ueda, Nate Agrin, and Jessica Kline at UC Berkeley’s School of Information had an idea for a master’s thesis—what if you could crowd source observations of the natural world, practically in real time, and share those observations with scientists working to understand and protect nature?

And thus, iNaturalist was born. It took a few more years and a few more team player additions. Sean McGregor and Scott Loarie helped flesh out what would become iNaturalist, LLC. In 2014, the California Academy of Sciences got involved. In 2017, the National Geographic Society joined the bandwagon, too.

According to the website, citizen scientists around the globe have made almost 105 million observations by over 5 million people, concerning almost 400,000 species. 

So just what is iNaturalist? It’s downloadable app for your mobile device. How it works is you create an account. After that you can begin to record your observations. In this community, and observation “records an encounter with an individual organism at a particular time and location. This includes encounters with signs of organisms like tracks, nests, or things that just died.”

When you make an observation, you’ll record: What you saw, where you saw it, when you saw it and you’ll provide evidence of what you saw. According to the website, initially your observations don’t need to include all those elements; however, if you want your data to become part of the research quality observations scientists around the world are using to help protect and understand the natural world, you do.

Oh and one last thing—make sure anything you’ve observed that’s not wild, is marked as such. For example—if you’re observing a tiger at your local zoo, note that. Why does iNaturalist matter to us? At the speed at which climate change is affecting local biodiversity around the world, it’s paramount that humans keep pace with the changes. After all, what gets measured gets fixed.

DEEPER DIVE: iNaturalist, Atlas Obscura, Audubon Magazine

THE CLIMATE DAILY LISTENERS’ CALL OUT CHALLENGE

Recently, one of our listeners shared her story of how listening to the climate daily helped her deal so well with her climate change anxiety, that she got out and started working with the local community based group. Then she challenged us to ask you all to share any stories you might have of how listening to the climate daily might have inspired you into action, so we can share them with the world.

Remember, we’re all about sharing stories of people taking positive action to combat climate change. And that’s you listeners. You can hit us up on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter at #wetheclimate or Jeffrey at The Climate dot org or Maude at The Climate dot org, also.