Category: Planet

Most environmental work centers around key aims; cleaner energy alternatives, reducing pollution, slowing deforestation, and protecting wildlife to name a few. While such solutions are vital they don’t get to the root of many of the problems we’re beginning to face. Those problems are centered around the fact that many of our resources are depleted and our land and soil decimated. 

This is something that Kiss the Ground aims to fix with their regenerative agriculture technique. 

“I think most climate organizations are working in the context of sustainability,” Finian Makepeace, a co-founder of Kiss the Ground, tells Smiley News. “We are working in the context of regeneration and those two vantage points are very, very, very different.”

The idea is simple in theory: restore the soil we use to its former glory, for healthier land, crops, drainage, and many other positive impacts. This is the principle that the Kiss the Ground team is passionate about.

“Truth be told, facing the climate struggle, I pretty much saw everything that we had in the solution box as a way to go off the cliff just a little bit slower,” Finian says.

He learned about regenerative agriculture and saw that as a way to back us away from the proverbial cliff entirely.

“When I learned about regenerative agriculture and soil health or building soil using carbon in the atmosphere currently causing a problem to rebuild the very stuff that mitigates 99% of the problems we actually get hit with human costs, climate issues from drought, desertification, biodiversity loss, human health decline, water flooding, drought issues, to climate and carbon itself,  it presented such a big universal solution,” he says.

A big part of the work that they do is education, serving as a “data stream” so information about the potential of regenerative agriculture can spread throughout society. They don’t want to lead the movement, they want to help it keep its steam.

“Most of the time, the leaders aren’t the reason that the world catches on,” Finian says. “It’s the second person who’s coming to make sure ideas are more available, more connected, more mainstream, more interconnected to regular people.”

They don’t want to take the place of the people leading the movement or the people on the ground. Instead they serve purely as intermediaries, similar to how journalists disperse information. 

“We really saw our role saying, we’re not the farmers, we’re not the indigenous knowledge holders, we’re not the scientists, so what if we take a role of allowing for this idea to emerge and have a goal of what if by 2025 2030, regenerative ag and building soil is actually seen as the most critical climate change solution on planet Earth?”

Charity check-in

At Smiley Movement, we like to elevate the work of charities across the world. Here are three charities whose causes align with the themes in this article.

I Am A Girl NGO. They work to support girls across Barbados. Find out more and support them here. 

Cultural Survival. They are an indigenous-led nonprofit focused on empowering indigenous Americans and helping the planet. Find out more. 

American Forests. A conservation organization focused on preserving and protecting American forests. Support them here. 

This article aligns with the UN SDG Climate Action.

Mother Nature has been taking a beating lately – it’s no secret. Luckily, there is a huge number of incredible people who are coming to bat for her, including those in the legal sector – which is where Lawyers for Nature comes in.

Rather than a law firm, Lawyers for Nature is a collection of lawyers with a common desire; to represent the needs of the planet.

“We set out from the word ‘go’ to buck all the trends and just be a law firm that works for and on behalf of the planet, Mother Earth, nature,” explains Brontie. Brontie Ansell is the Head of Research at Lawyers for Nature and helped to set it up, alongside Paul Powlesland. “We obviously get instructed by humans, but they’re people [whose] entire raison d’etre is to protect [the] planet, to mitigate climate change. It’s basically been our entire mission – to represent the natural world since day one. So that’s what we did.”

The origins of Lawyers for Nature lie in Head of Legal Paul Powlesland’s work advising and assisting campaigners who fought to protect street trees in Sheffield. Paul’s work helped to save 17.5 thousand street trees in Sheffield, one of his biggest cases on behalf of the planet.

Today, Lawyers for Nature is a group of barristers, solicitors, academics and law students from incredibly diverse backgrounds who all have one thing in common – a desire to protect the planet, using our legal system. They are a CIC, and much of their work is pro-bono as they work to make legal assistance easily available for those who put the planet first.

Though you might feel the term ‘environmental law’ applies here (anyone else love a procedural show?), as it turns out, a lot of environmental law seems help people hurt the planet, rather than protect it.

“[None of us] would call ourselves environmental lawyers,” explains Brontie who, along with her colleagues at Lawyers for Nature, calls herself a ‘Nature Lawyer’. “Because the law that we have, particularly in this country, that’s called Environmental Law is largely a permissive structure that allows polluters to either get away with things entirely or to get away with it with a small fine or a slap on the wrist. 

“Even if it started out being made with the best of intentions, it’s largely used by the companies that we need to stop. It’s a very permissive structure.”

So if it’s not environmental law, what is Lawyers for Nature about? 

Brontie was the legal brain behind the incredible milestone reached by Faith In Nature, a natural beauty brand that recently became the first business to officially appoint Nature to its Board of Directors – something that beautifully encompasses the mission of Lawyers for Nature.

“Nature on the Board is harnessing the power of the space that corporations occupy, to try and get corporations to recognise the rights of nature, and to start behaving as if nature has rights,” explains Brontie. “As opposed to using nature as an extractive resource, which is ridiculous and we can’t keep doing that. It’s about sort of changing mindsets at board level and thinking, ‘Well, if you need to take parts of nature, how do you regenerate nature? How do you regenerate biodiversity? How do you respect nature as a peer, as a citizen with litigation rights?’

“It’s about introducing risk to the board and to the company in terms of nature as a stakeholder. It’s a very theoretical thing … and what I’m trying to do with my work is make it a reality for the corporate space because the corporate space has a lot of power – even sometimes more so than governments.”

Lawyers for Nature and the work that they do is about thinking outside the box, coming up with ways to protect nature and those who fight to protect it. Their entire focus represents a very real, and very necessary shift in thinking, asking the all-important question – why do humans come first?

“It’s about changing this mindset of humans first,” explains Brontie, giving the example of her work helping to give nature a stake in the game – literally. “Nature on the Board is about – what would it look like to be different? What would it look like to award constitutional rights to nature? What about if we just did it and started behaving as if nature has a seat on the board?”

Charity check-in 

At Smiley Movement, we like to elevate the work of charities across the world. Here are three charities whose causes align with the themes in this article.

Every Can Counts. This is a not-for-profit recycling programme, encouraging people to recycle more often, to protect our planet. Support them here.

Trees For Cities. They are working to plant more trees within large metropolitan areas, for the betterment of people and planet. Support them here.

Climate Reframe.  Climate Reframe is committed to supporting the climate and environment movement in its transformation towards greater justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI). Find out more.

This article aligns with the UN SDG Climate Action.

The climate crisis is here. Across the world climate-related weather events are damaging communities and we’re amidst what is projected to be the hottest year in human history. The problem is that climate action still isn’t always accessible and even when it is it might not be exciting. 

That’s something that Ecosapiens wanted to address, by giving people an incentive to contribute to climate action in an easy, accessible, and fun way using digitally produced art assets. 

The idea came from two men, named Nihar Neelakanti and Garret Kane, who decided to use the power of NFTs to create digital art pieces that people could buy which would also buy carbon credits, essentially helping pull carbon out of the air and work to slow global warming. 

“I came from a climate background and was looking, personally to find a way to make a difference in the planet, but I wasn’t finding it out there,” Nihar tells Smiley News. “But I think I think people are ultimately good, I do believe in the goodness of humans and people do care about the planet but you have to make climate action easy, accessible, economical, and you have to make it a part of culture, and it has to be playful.”

When Nihar came across Garret’s writing, in which he describes creatures and people healing the environment, he had a lightbulb moment.

“We kind of just became pen pals for a long time just like noodling on this idea riffing on it, and you keep coming back with like, different ideas and, he would just start drawing about it and And he was like, ‘Wait, so we could company makes NFT’s that sequester carbon, but really, the vision is to build a product suite that empowers people to live sustainably.’”

The NFTs in question are digital art sculptures made by Garret, that when bought are also supplied with carbon credits so people are contributing to climate action while getting an art collectible out of it. 

“So what you want to do is build a company that turns Homo sapiens and eco sapiens,” Nihar says.

In general, finding and accessing carbon credits for purchase is really difficult for the layman. So on top of providing the art and building a world out of the characters and pieces they’re making at Ecosapiens, they also help make carbon credits accessible. 

Put simply, they serve as a carbon credit middleman. 

“The way we think about is like we’re actually consumerizing carbon,” Nihar says.

The idea of carbon and climate action can be so far-reaching and nebulous so this helps connect people to the action that they’re trying to do. 

“It’s much more enjoyable and much easier to connect as a consumer if it’s something like, buy this beautiful piece of art which is an ecosapien and its one of a kind,” Garret tells Smiley News. “It’s you yours, and now you’re fighting for the environment.”

Put succinctly, Nihar and Garret just want to help expand the climate change fight. 

“We exist to help everyday people fight climate change,” Nihar says. “That’s why we exist and the thesis from the beginning has been make climate action easy, economical, and elegant.”

Charity check-in

Climate Group. An international organization aimed at driving climate action as quickly as possible. Find out more and support them here.

Climate Action Network.  Climate Action Network brings together nearly 2,000 civic organizations to tackle the climate crisis around the world. Find out more.

Climate Alliance. Thousands of organizations make up this European, urban climate action network. Support them here.

This article aligns with the UN SDG Climate Action.