Grammy-award-nominated musician and award-winning farmer are careers that aren’t typically synonymous. But Andy Cato straddles that line. He does around 40 gigs a year as half of DJ duo Groove Armada, but he’s also a farmer who was knighted in France and is one of the UK’s most prominent voices calling for an overhaul of how the world produces its food. Over the past six years, he built a network of more than 100 farmers in the UK and France to grow wheat using regenerative farming methods. He’s also convinced some of the UK’s biggest retailers and restaurant chains to pay a premium for the flour and bread made from the wheat, known under the brand Wildfarmed. Regenerative agriculture has been hailed as a climate solution for farming — one that makes crops and soil more resilient to weather shocks, while helping protect soil, water and biodiversity. While the practice so far has been niche, the need for increasing adoption of it is growing as modern industrial farming brings an increasing cost to nature. Groove Armada’s Andy Cato at his farm in Oxfordshire, UK. Photographer: Tom Skipp/Bloomberg Study raise new concerns on gas stoves. Nearly 40,000 early deaths each year in the EU and UK can be linked to exposure to nitrogen dioxide from burning gas for cooking indoors, a paper by scientists at Jaume I University in Spain has found, the first such estimate for Europe. World is drastically off course on emissions cuts. Total emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere in 2030 will only be 2.6% lower than in 2019, according to the latest climate plans put forward by countries, a UN report said. To be consistent with a goal for a 1.5C warming limit, emissions have to fall by 43% over the same time period. Green muni bonds are growing in India. Cities like Surat, Pimpri Chinchwad and Coimbatore are preparing to issue their first green bonds to fund climate projects — ranging from wind and solar installations to sewage water treatment plants. Marine biologist and writer Ayana Elizabeth Johnson wants voters to remember a simple message this year: Local elections matter to the climate too. What If We Get It Right? is her new anthology of essays, poetry, art and interviews with climate business, policy and scientific leaders. It’s a wide-ranging and personal introduction to a coterie of experts she picked to show off what a possible climate future can look like. Johnson, who worked in federal agencies under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, spoke with reporter Eric Roston about what she’s learned while writing and promoting her book. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson Photographer: Julia Kokernak What concerns have you heard from people on your book tour? There are so many people who are not only despondent, but they feel bad that they're not hopeful. People assume I'm an optimist, which I find to be hilarious, because… I’m a scientist! Instead of being an optimist — or instead of even being hopeful — I'm just like, ‘How can I be useful?’ I’ve been thinking a lot about the Civil Rights Movement, and this one particular line from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr: “I may not get there with you.” We do not get to give up on the future of life on Earth for ourselves or the millions of other species we share this planet with. One question not enough? Read the full interview. As Republican and Democratic canvassers make their final push to get out the US vote, the famed tech investor Vinod Khosla has been making the case for Vice President Kamala Harris with a very specific audience in mind: Elon Musk. On the social media platform owned by his fellow billionaire, Khosla has pressed the case in a series of X posts that former President Donald Trump is the wrong candidate for the future of the planet. Although Khosla is a former Republican, he says in an interview that he will be voting for Harris. But he doesn’t expect tech investors to see much fallout no matter who wins. “I don't think there'll be any difference in policy between the two when it comes to tech.” Listen now, and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube to get new episodes of Zero every Thursday. |