In keeping with this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week theme, which focuses on the importance of nature to mental health, IF senior researcher Melissa Bui explains how improving access to quality housing with outdoor spaces is a key step towards ensuring an equitable distribution of nature, and all of its mental health benefits, across the… Read more »
Tag: environment
German government ordered to protect future generations
Germany’s highest court has ordered its government to revise its climate change legislation by the end of the year, ruling that current targets do not sufficiently protect the rights of future generations. IF senior researcher, Melissa Bui, explains the importance of framing intergenerational fairness as a rights issue and urges other high courts to follow… Read more »
Environment in the media: not always following the science
Media coverage of environmental issues – such as plastic and climate change – has helped to trigger global environmental movements over the years. Although we have a lot of reasons to be grateful that these issues have become particularly newsworthy, what happens when the key environmental priorities reported in the media do not align with… Read more »
Book Review: #futuregen
When Jane Davidson was Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing in Wales from 2007 to 2011 she became a leading architect of the groundbreaking Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act (2015). In her new book, #Futuregen: Lessons from a Small Country, she tells the story and relays her vision. Our reviewer, IF Research Intern Hugo… Read more »
Plastic waste: exporting intergenerational unfairness
IF researcher Melissa Bui describes how, by sending our plastic waste abroad, we are effectively exporting intergenerational unfairness to other countries whilst also driving up rates of plastic consumption
Antarctica: a wilderness too close to home
Antarctica is often thought of as an unblemished wilderness – but humans no longer need a physical presence to impair the natural environment. IF Research Intern Anthony J. Piwowarski explores the global consequences of a melting Antarctic ice sheet – and how some states may seek to profit from the climate’s instability.
Siberia Burns: the politics of heat
The recent heat wave in Siberia poses a serious threat to Russian infrastructure – and to the planet. IF Research Intern Anthony J. Piwowarski shows how successive Russian governments have pursued a politics of ecological ruin. Even now, the current administration remains ambivalent towards its environmental obligations.
COVID-19 warns us: we need global environmental law
COVID-19 is a warning to us: our behaviour risks the destruction of the planet, and the obliteration of humankind – and we need not just international environmental law but fully enforceable global law to prevent it. Sándor Fülöp is an environmental lawyer who held the office of the first Parliamentary Commissioner for future generations in… Read more »
Earth Day in strange times
It’s Earth Day this week, and according to CarbonBrief the first three months of 2020 were the second warmest on record. With COVID-19 understandably distracting the world from conversations about environmental degradation and #climatecrisis, Liz Emerson, IF Co-founder, discusses the huge potential for the greening of the economy post-COVID
Should deep-sea mining be allowed to go ahead?
The Future We Need and the Goa Foundation are running a campaign to ensure that future deep-sea mining activity respects principles of intergenerational equity. The Intergenerational Foundation is supporting this initiative. Melissa Bui outlines the demands of the campaign and how individuals and organisations can show their support