Fuel Your Inspiration
November 2026
PHOTO: Convention on Biodiversity PHOTO: United Nations
COP17 on Biodiversity
Every two years, there is an international conference of the parties (a COP) on biodiversity. At this writing, the COP17 on Biodiversity is underway in Yerevan, Armenia, 19-30 October 2026. The UN General Secretary has called for an end to the “war on nature”. The conference participants’ big question this year is: is enough being done to reverse the world’s biodiversity loss? We might add, is enough being done to halt fossil fuel and corporate greed that is behind species extinction and loss of habitat? We ask conference attendees and decision-makers to be brave. Speak out for species preservation and upholding the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework, agreed upon in 2022—it’s a matter of survival. Watch this space for final reports and action.
STOP ECOCIDE TODAY
In 2021, the Stop Ecocide Foundation’s 12-member Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide completed its assignment. Ecocide was subsequently added as a new crime to the Rome Statute, the international treaty that founded the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Philippe Sands was co-chair of the panel that wrote the legal definition of ecocide (see above). This defender of international law is Professor of Law at University College London and has just won the 2026 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. He links ecocide with genocide in a University of California Berkeley Law interview, and in his forthcoming book, The Fifth Crime: On Ecocide, Justice and Hope (April 2027). This Defining Ecocide interview is a good starting point.
PHOTO: Prairie Warbler by Ryan Sanderson/Macauley Library
Listen! What is that joyful bird?
Do you ever hear a beautiful bird song and want to know who is chirping or warbling? You will want to become a birder after you meet the Merlin Bird app, a perfect companion while you observe nature. It can record, identify, and instantly show you a list of birds’ songs and calls as you hear them. Not only can you save your recordings for future reference, you’ll find copious information about local birds and those migrating through your neighborhood, and where and when those birds have been observed. Merlin, developed by the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology and available on six continents, is a colossal resource of over 6,000 bird species. If that is not enough for your curiosity, the archives in the Lab’s Macauley Library contain 84 million photos, 3.2 million audio recordings, and over 300,000 videos of 96% of the world’s bird species.
Resurgence Trust - Funga Talks
Resurgence Trust is offering Funga - Totems of Unity; A trilogy of talks in November. Funga, or the world or mycelia and mushrooms, is a category of life alongside flora (plants) and fauna (animals). Experts will talk about how funga contribute to ecology, medicine, and philosophy. Resurgence Trust, a charity founded in England and Wales, is devoted to fostering a culture of optimism and positive solutions to the problems we face today.
Real time weather observation
If you’re a geeky climate activist, you may like grooving on mesmerizing live weather maps to see what’s coming your way, or maybe check what your friend on the other side of the globe is experiencing. As the words “climate resilience” enter our vernacular, local weather becomes essential information. Here are a few useful, real-time Earth observatories: EUMETSTAT (the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites), Zoom Earth, and Earth Nullschool (click on the small menu in the lower left corner to see real time air, ocean, wind, and even particulates currents!).
Something’s going to change
Bill McKibben, October 2026, on the American President Trump’s administration:
“This regime has done literally everything possible to sabotage, hinder, and destroy the clean energy idea—they possess what I think can only be described as a pathological hatred of these new technologies, and have specialized in coming up with ever-more-inventive ways of derailing them.”
Comments