“This is a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk.” – António Guterres, UN Secretary General
July 29th rolled around again recently, and it marked yet another Earth Overshoot Day.
Despite being just about 60% of the way through 2021, Earth Overshoot Day tells us that our demand for ecological resources and services this year has already exceeded what Earth can regenerate. Basically, we’ve already taken too much from our finite planet without giving back.
AUSTRALIA IS HOT, BUT NOT IN A SEXY WAY.
We’d need 4.6 Earths worth of resources if everyone lived like an Australian.
Every year, we see that Australia (and particularly our government) wouldn’t know what cool was if it was hit over the head with it. Getting hotter and more fire-filled the deeper into the climate crisis we go, if the whole world lived like Australia does, Earth Overshoot Day would fall on March 22nd.
Less than a quarter into the year. Gulp.
In other words, we’d need 4.6 planet Earths if everyone lived like they were an Australian. It’s nothing to be proud of, and it’s what we need to change.
THE CLIMATE CRISIS IS GOING TO GET WORSE. AND IT'S ALL OUR FAULT.
Years in the making, this latest IPCC report finds that climate change is inevitable and irreversible.
If Earth Overshoot Day coming so soon wasn’t enough to frighten you, strap in, because the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report from the United Nations is a bit of a nightmare.
Years in the making, this latest report finds that climate change is inevitable and irreversible. It’s most likely that we’re going to see temperatures rise beyond the 1.5 degrees we all committed to staying below in the 2015 Paris Agreement. In the next century, we’re likely to see entire countries lost under rising sea levels. Far sooner, we’ll continue to have more natural disasters that aren’t so natural, as the report confirms the climate crisis is unequivocally caused by human activity.
The UN's secretary general has aptly said that the report "is a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk."
WE ALREADY KNOW HOW TO SLOW DOWN.
60% of people globally are making more sustainable and ethical purchases since the start of the pandemic.
With all of this in mind, we can’t keep going on as if nothing needs to change. Business as usual is destroying the planet, and we can’t accept that. Not as a country, not as a brand, not as individuals.
Last year, in the height of the pandemic, Earth Overshoot Day was pushed back by more than three weeks compared to the year prior, because of lockdown. Now, we aren’t saying we should live life in lockdown. But it was pretty amazing to see wildlife come back into our cities, to see crystal clear waters and skies where once there was pollution and smog.
And we did learn something from that lockdown. Not only do we have so much to thank the planet for (thanks for keeping us sane, daily walk to admire the trees), but we don’t need as much from it as we once thought.
Surveying has shown that Aussies, amongst others around the world, are becoming more mindful about their carbon footprint, as well as what and how much they consume. 60% of us globally are making more sustainable and ethical purchases since the start of the pandemic.
More Australians are recycling and changing their lifestyle to reduce their eco-impact, and at least during the height of COVID-19, were buying way less clothes.
This is the sort of change we need to keep focussing on. Living better and more full lives, filled with less stuff, and more planet friendly (and so human friendly) choices.
WE'RE DOING OUR PART, BUT WE NEED YOUR HELP.
Citizen Wolf re-engineers the way clothes are made at scale to create the truly sustainable, made to order future the fashion industry so desperately needs.
On the topic of clothing, we should talk about how much fashion has to do with the climate crisis. Fast fashion (most of the industry) contributes significantly to the climate crisis, belching out 1.2 BILLION tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions every year.
This is partly because about 33% of all clothing made every year is sent unsold, direct to landfill. In Australia alone, 501 million kg of unwanted clothes are landfilled annually, releasing methane into the atmosphere as they break down -- a greenhouse gas that's 28x more impactful than carbon!
Fashion’s problem is also partly due to ~60% of clothes now being made with synthetic fibres made from petroleum (aka plastic). In 2015 alone, more than 330 MILLION barrels of oil were used to make the cheap nylons and polyesters.
We’re combating this by re-engineering the way clothes are manufactured at scale, in order to create the sustainable, made to order future the fashion industry so desperately needs. We only use sustainable materials, we’re carbon neutral, run zero-waste, are a certified B-Corp, and we’re always listening and learning about what else we can do.
So if you need a Tee, think of us.
Otherwise, let’s keep working together for a climate free of crisis.