Final COP27 Highlights, Kate Gaertner’s “Planting a Seed”, Nautilus Book Awards

MORE COP27 WEEK TWO HIGHLIGHTS

COP27 Highlight: Lab-grown meat was served at COP27. THERE ACTUALLY WAS A LOT OF under-reported POSITIVE THAT CAME OUT OF COP27. Here are some highlights:

The company GOOD Meat served its lab-grown meat at a few special events during COP27, helping introduce lucky attendees to the future of meat. Reporter Katie Collins of CNET got to try the company’s lab-grown chicken, which was served three different ways. “The chicken certainly tastes like the real deal,” Collins wrote. “If I hadn’t known it was grown in a lab, I might not have picked up on it at all.”

Though the cultivated chicken was not perfect — Collins noted that GOOD Meat needs to make some improvements to the texture — overall, it’s exciting that lab-grown meat is getting closer to where we need it to be to shut down the animal-based meat industry.

Plus, Al Gore and Climate TRACE shared new data revealing the planet’s top emitters.Climate coalition Climate TRACE unveiled a new report containing AI-generated emissions data on close to 73,000 sources from all over the world, referred to as “the most detailed facility-level global inventory of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to date.”

It found that most of the top emitters were from the oil and gas industry, that the top 500 emissions sources were responsible for 14 percent of emissions last year, and that self-reported emissions from the fossil fuel sector are usually significantly underreported. With this new data, Climate TRACE, which was co-founded by Al Gore, aims to help hold major emitters responsible.

DEEPER DIVE: Green Matters, Mercury News, WRI

PLANTING A SEED, BY KATE GAERTNER

According to climate champion author, Kate Gaertner, the science on climate change is in, and its impacts are being felt around the globe. It’s time for every one of us to start finding a new way of living, working, and moving around our planet. 

The goal of her new book, Planting a Seed: 3 Simple Steps to Sustainable Living is remind us for most of humankind’s existence on the planet, phrases like “made to last” and “waste not, want not” were the guiding principles of civilization. Or that the culinary traditions of the French—who use the entirety of an animal by preparing all the animal parts in a variety of dishes that both satisfy our hunger, meet our nutritional needs and also honor the animal we sacrificed—is a much more sustainable lifestyle than our current disposable existence. 

Gaertner is a leading expert in corporate sustainability with 25 years of corporate experience. One task she undertakes is to remind us that our current disposable existence is a reaction to two things: First, the global sacrifices wrought by the twin calamities of the Great Depression and World War II. Second the rise of plastics thanks to the petroleum industry. Another task is to remind us we could make this current disposable era short-lived. Through six steps she guides us through how. 

Why does “Planting a Seed: 3 Simple Steps to Sustainable Living matter to us? Let’s let the reviews tell you why. Publishers Weekly wrote, “Her approach is orderly, logical, and always positive… Refreshing…. For those looking for a starting point to creating a greener lifestyle, this is a fine option.”

John Elkington, Founder & Chief Pollinator at Volans, and author said, ‘Kate Gaertner explains how each of us can–must–work to reverse global warming. She reminds me of Body Shop co-founder Anita Roddick, who contrasted the pessimism of the thought with the optimism of the action. It’s time for optimism and action.'”

DEEPER DIVE: Planting a Seed, Kate Gaertner, Nautilus Book Awards. 

NAUTILUS BOOK AWARDS

If you like to read books that support conscious living and green values, books that support positive social change, social justice and spiritual growth, might I suggest you check out the winners of the Nautilus Book Awards. The mission of the Nautilus Book Awards is to celebrate and honor books that support conscious living & green values, high-level wellness, positive social change & social justice, and spiritual growth.

We found out about this particular award because “Planting a Seed…” Kate Gaertner’s great work is a 2022 Silver Nautilus Book Award Winner. The awards were founded by Marilyn McGuire, Matthew Gilbert, Michael Weaver and Patty Monaco. They understood the need in the early 1990’s for greater support for new fields of writing dealing with making a better world through social justice, spiritual growth and sustainability. 

In1998, they launched the Nautilus Book Awards as a way to recognize authors whose books, according to the website, are seeds to help the world shift in order to bring forth healing for life on Earth, The awards are named after the nautilus mollusk. The mollusk is unique in that it builds chambers of increasing size for itself as it grows. 

Why should the Nautilus Book Awards matter to us? It’s in the name. The nautilus shell also “symbolizes both ancient wisdom and expanding horizons, and represents the elegance of nature and continual growth of understanding and awareness.” Past winners include Deepak Chopra, Barbara Kingsolver, Holly Clegg and Naomi Wolfe.  

Check out the link in the Deeper Dive Section of this show at TheClimate.org/episodes to find out how to submit an entry for the 2023 awards. After all, you may have a potential winner!

DEEPER DIVE: Nautilus Book Awards, Entry Guidelines