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Sustainably Yours: Is Sustainable Capitalism the future?

Phuket Life / Environment

To paraphrase comedian George Carlin, life is all about getting more stuff and wanting to have better stuff than other people’s stuff, but do you ever notice that their stuff is crap and your crap is stuff?

Sustainably Yours: Preventing the next pandemic

Phuket Life / Environment

On January 13, 2020, Thailand had its first reported case of COVID-19 in Bangkok. It was also the first case outside of China, so the pandemic has been with us for about one year.

Sustainably Yours: What does a COVID vaccine mean?

Phuket Life / Health

On November 23rd, 2020 AstraZeneca announced that it had a vaccine that is between 70 to 90% effective, depending on how they administer it. This came shortly after Pfizer and Moderna both announced vaccines with better than 90% efficacy. After 10 months of a global pandemic, this is the first bit of good news and a sign that the world will eventually be able to return to a semblance of normal.

Sustainably Yours: Rewilding Thailand

Phuket Life / Environment

In his new Netflix documentary A Life On Our Planet BBC Presenter David Attenborough details the impact that humanity has had on nature in his over-50 years of reporting on the environment, and he discusses his hopes and fears for the future. During his lifetime, he notes that the world population has gone from 2.3 billion in 1937 to almost 7.82 billion in 2020, while the percent of the world’s forested land dropped from 66% to just 30%.

Sustainably Yours: Sustainability, Philosophy and Happiness

Phuket Life / Community

A global pandemic, climate change, hurricanes, wildfires, floods, race riots, an economic downturn, 400 beached whales in Tasmania and now a brain-eating bacteria in Texas. In the last six months the world has been turned upside down and things are likely to get worse before they get better with the World Health Organization (WHO) estimating that up to 2 million people could die worldwide before we have a vaccine.

Sustainably Yours: The Importance of Beach Cleanups

Phuket Life / Environment

We’ve all done it, walked along the beach frustrated by the deluge of plastic being regurgitated by the ocean during monsoon season. Being an environmentally responsible citizen, you join a beach cleanup, grab a bag and start picking up trash. An hour or two later your section of the beach looks cleaner and you feel good about yourself. Only to come back the next day to find the same spot that you sweated over while cleaning filled with trash again.

Sustainably Yours: Let’s clear the air

Phuket Life / Environment

While COVID-19 has brought the world economy to a halt it has also brought the unexpected benefit of clean air. The normal white haze of Phuket has been supplanted by beautiful clear blue skies punctuated by stunning sunsets. Although closing the airports to foreigners is not a long-term solution, perhaps there are a few lessons that we can learn to keep the air clean for the future.

Sustainably Yours: Solving Phuket’s Water Crisis

Phuket Life / Environment

Your body consists of 60% water. You can only survive without it for three days. We use it for food, drinking, cooking, bathing, cleaning and washing. Water IS life. We take it for granted in the misguided belief that we will always have enough. Just turn on the tap and it all seems so limitless. But imagine being without it during this global pandemic when we are implored to wash our hands. Such a small thing can mean the difference between life and death.

Sustainably Yours: Reimagining Phuket

Phuket Life / Environment

As Phuket comes out of lockdown everybody wants to forget about COVID-19 and for life to go back to “normal”. However, let’s not forget that normal meant constant construction, routine water shortages and frequent electrical outages. Normal was the buzz of jet-skis, the roar of motorbikes and the thumping bass of club music. Normal was plastic-filled beaches and polluted klong waters seeping into the sea. Normal was congested highways, aggressive drivers, and a high death toll. So, let’s not go back to “normal”.

Sustainably Yours: The importance of understanding and trusting in Science

Phuket Life / Environment

In his book ‘21 Lessons for The 21st Century’, historian Yuval Noah Harari begins by writing, “In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power.” Before the Internet, access to information was relatively limited, and media was concentrated in the hands of a few corporations, which had its problems.

Sustainably Yours: Why COVID-19 gives me hope for climate change

Phuket Life / Environment

We’re living through strange and uncertain times having gone from the climate crisis of 2019 directly into the health crisis of 2020. No need to go to the cinema anymore to watch the latest Hollywood disaster movie, these days it seems as if we’re all living through one and you just need to turn on BBC or CNN. Hurricanes, volcanoes, floods, droughts, fires, now a virus, dare I ask what’s next?

Sustainably Yours: Transitioning to a Resource Based Economy

Phuket Life

If you turn on the news today or browse through social media, it is easy to believe the world is coming to an end.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Reward. Redux

Phuket Life / Environment

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), 2019 was the second hottest year ever recorded, and according to NASA, NOAA, and the UK Meteorological Office 2010-2019 was the hottest decade.

How a plant-based diet can help save the planet and improve your health

Phuket Life / Health

As 2019 comes to a close we’ve seen fires rage through the Arctic, the Amazon, California, Indonesia, and Australia as well as record-breaking heat waves in the United States and throughout Europe.

Phuket Farmers Club: The fruitful network championing the island’s farm-to-table movement

Phuket Life / Environment

Thailand is the fourth-highest pesticide consumer in the world, using herbicides like glyphosate, which is thought to be a carcinogen, and paraquat which is toxic to humans and animals. Then there's chlorpyrifos, which has been associated with developmental defects in children.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: 15 practical ways to break the plastic habit

Phuket Life / Environment

Just a few decades ago, plastic was touted as a miracle material. It’s strong, waterproof, lightweight and easy to mould. But exactly 150 years since its creation it has become a scourge on the planet and is responsible for the deaths of an estimated one million birds and 100,000 marine mammals annually.

Going green: 15 ways to reduce your carbon footprint

Phuket Life / Environment

The Amazon is on fire, Hurricane Dorian, one of the most powerful in history, just devastated the Bahamas, and there are regular droughts and wildfires in California.

Community groups create five-step plan to clean up Phuket using nature’s tools

Phuket Life / Environment

If you live in Phuket for long, you’ll inevitably hear people complaining about the plastics problem on the beaches, or the polluted klong water leaking into the ocean.