The Hive: no. 1

Earth Day seems to be an auspicious day on which to being a new blog series. ‘The Hive’ is going to be a collection of positive news stories about the environment, with a solarpunk vibe – demonstrating that those of us who care about the environment are not alone, and that in fact there are legions of people around the world who are actively making a difference, and who share a positive vision of how the future could look, rather than the gloom and doom of a dystopia forced on us by a broken climate.

It has been a big week for the environment, with Extinction Rebellion disrupting ‘business as usual’ in London in a peaceful (yet effective) way to bring home the importance of the climate chaos message. For several days, Westminster Bridge was turned into a pedestrian garden, although is has now been returned to its normal, traffic-filled state. Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager behind the surge of youth protests, has arrived in London (by train!) to lend her voice to the protests. And the BBC has finally aired a climate change documentary that didn’t shy away from the facts.

The hope is that we have reached a tipping point, and world leaders will have to acknowledge that we face a climate emergency, and take that into account when they make their decisions. We will have to wait and see.

Our first story of hope comes from strip-mined Appalachia – coal country. An army of elk have been released to begin the restoration of a million acres of damaged land – a pioneering scheme for land rehabilitation. There were one elk in these mountains, but they were driven to extinction by habitat loss and overhunting. It’s the kind of environment they love: open country, with grasses and flowering plants, low shrubs, and pockets of wooded