Being Green

In this week’s edition of Being Green, and as we mark international Earth Day on Saturday, Glynis Crook speaks to Pavitray “Pavs” Pillay, the World Wide Fund for Nature-South Africa’s environment behaviour change lead, about how each of us can make a contribution to protecting our planet.

In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Prof Mark Swilling, Co-Director of the Centre for Sustainability Transitions at Stellenbosch University, about his view that new Electricity Minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa’s plan to extend the life of our increasingly costly, ageing, and polluting coal-fired power stations is not a good idea.

As the world faces the unfolding energy and climate crisis, Cape Town is one of a growing number of cities across the world that are taking the lead in the transition to renewables. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Rana Adib, the Executive Director of the highly respected international renewable energy network, REN21, which has just published the first modules of its annual Global Renewable Status Report.

The City of Cape Town, in partnership with the University of Cape Town, has launched a free mobile climate change app for individuals, funded by the European Commission. In a nutshell, you can use it to take on challenges to reduce your impact on the environment. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Grant Smith of UCT’s Energy Systems Research Group, which is part of the global consortium developing the Climate Campaigner app. It is free to download on Google Play or the Apple App Store.

The world’s top climate scientists released their latest report earlier this week which painted a grim picture. The United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said we can only avoid the worst of climate change by rapidly using less fossil fuels and making big reductions in greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors. UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, described the report as "a survival guide for humanity". In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Dr Nicolas Simpson, a member of the IPCC Synthesis Report writing team and Lead for Knowledge and Practice of the UN’s Africa Climate Mobility Initiative.

The city of Edinburgh in Scotland recently became the first European capital to endorse a plant-based diet to tackle the climate emergency. In fact, a vegan diet is widely regarded as being better not only for the environment but also for our health. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook visits The Conscious Kitchen vegan restaurant in the CBD and speaks to owner Dana Korstenbroek, about her journey to a more plant-based diet and the do’s and don’ts of veganism.

A vegan diet is widely regarded as being better, not only for the environment but also for our health. But not all plant-based foodstuffs have a small environmental footprint. The air transport of fruit and vegetables is just one of the reasons why what you eat may still be having a negative impact. In today’s Being Green, Glynis Crook is back at The Conscious Kitchen restaurant learning how to make two simple vegan dishes with its owner, Dana Korstenbroek.

In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Valentin Aich, a senior water and climate specialist at the Global Water Partnership, about concerns of yet another drought in Italy and the surrounding region this European summer. This after the Alps received less than half their normal amount of snowfall over the winter.

In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Cassie Carstens of BirdLife South Africa about its Bird of the Year, the endangered Cape Parrot, and a project that aims to increase its numbers in the wild.

The popularity of e-cigarettes continues to grow in South Africa with estimates suggesting that close to half a million people are now vaping. In Australia, the situation is pretty much the same, and environmental organisations there have sounded the alarm saying the sharp increase in the number of people vaping, presents “a new and serious environmental issue. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook is joined by Keith Anderson, CEO of the e-Waste Association of South Africa (e-WASA), to discuss the most environmentally-friendly way to dispose of an e-cigarette.

There has been a lot of talk this summer about the temporary closure of several Cape Town beaches due to pollution from sewage spills. The City pumps millions of litres of raw sewage into the sea every day from marine pipelines in Green Point, Camps Bay, and Hout Bay. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Dr Kevin Winter, a researcher at UCT’s Water Institute, about whether there is a better way for Cape Town to deal with its sewage. www.groundup.org.za

Global warming, combined with the fact that there tend to be fewer shaded areas and more heat-absorbing surfaces in cities, results in a phenomenon known as urban heat islands, which can have a negative impact on our health. But a new modelling study, led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health published, has found that planting more trees could decrease deaths from higher temperatures in cities by as much as a third. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to co-author of the study, Mark Nieuwenhuijsen.

The Amazon rainforest is seen as vital to curbing climate change. But in Brazil, under the leadership of former President Jair Bolsonaro, deforestation accelerated reaching record levels. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Dr Erika Berenguer, a forest ecologist at both Oxford and Lancaster Universities, about how this might change under newly installed president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has promised to end deforestation and make Brazil a green superpower.

In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to University of Pretoria meteorology professor, Willem Landman, about forecasts that the El Niño weather phenomenon will likely make a return later this year, resulting in unprecedented heatwaves and an increase in extreme weather events.

Twenty or 30 years ago, one of the most feared problems facing mankind was the increasingly large hole in the Earth’s ozone layer. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to environmental lawyer, Ernesta Swanepoel, about the good news that it is healing. A United Nations report published this week shows that, thanks to international action, the ozone layer is on track to be fully recovered across most of the world by 2040.

In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Dr Katharina von Dürckheim, leader of Wildlife Free to Roam research programme at Stellenbosch University about her research into the African elephant’s extraordinary sense of smell.

As you hit the beaches or swimming pool over the holidays, did you know that the materials most commonly used to make your bikini or swimming trunks - nylon, polyester, and spandex - are plastic based? And that while there are alternative biodegradable fabrics, like organic cotton and viscose, currently there isn’t one that has all the performance qualities needed for a swimsuit. As a result, many eco-friendly brands are relying on the next best alternative, fabric made from recycled plastic, including Cape Town based label, Gabrielle Swimwear. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to its designer and managing director, Gabrielle Kool.

Globally, the agriculture sector is responsible for around one-third of greenhouse gas emissions, and the biggest chunk of that comes from livestock. Many scientists believe eating less meat is an important step to reducing the environmental impact of the methane-rich belches of sheep and cows. So does this mean you have to abandon your favourite burger treat? Not if a Cape Town company has any say in the matter. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Brett Thompson, CEO and co-founder of Woodstock-based Mzansi Meat, that earlier year produced Africa’s first cultivated beef burger.

In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Ian Michler, co-author of the book “Living in Two Worlds: Addressing Humanity’s Greatest Challenges”. It documents the four-month non-motorised journey he and fellow conservationist, Ian McCallum, took across six southern African countries, the insights they gained, and the questions their journey raised about how we are protecting the animals that share this world with us.

In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Dr Robin Fears, project leader of the InterAcademy Partnership, a global network of academies of science, medicine and engineering, who was one of the speakers at a World Science Forum panel on the impact of climate change on health.