Image LordHenriVoton Generation Z: Learning How To Influence Lynn Johnson 28 June, 2021 A very interesting analysis by The Guardian was published in early June. After interviewing young people in their late teens and early 20s throughout Europe, The Guardian’s analysis concluded that Generation Z “are ready to draw systemic conclusions from the handling of the pandemic by political elites”, and this includes a “critique of capitalism”. Many of the insights of these young adults are very mature for their years, such as their observation that “politicians on all sides [have been] obsessed with placating social conservatism and meeting the needs of business”. But their analysis isn’t [...]

Image Andrey Bukreev A Hypothetical: What If The Pharmaceutical Industry Used The Same Model As CITES? Lynn Johnson 17 May, 2021 Imagine we live in a world where, when a pharmaceutical company creates a new drug, it doesn’t have to test it in the lab, it doesn’t need to do human trials and it doesn’t need regulatory approval. A new drug is simply developed, manufactured, marketed and legally sold. Once on the market, the drug appears to have some terrible side effects and consequences. The groups concerned about the negative effects of this new drug, on human lives, must scrape together funding, from philanthropists and the public, [...]

We Are All In At The Cull Industries considered an uninsurable risk rely on taxpayer compensation. Lynn Johnson 6 March, 2020 Insurance companies keep their distance from businesses involved in the farming and captive breeding of animals. As the biosecurity risks associated with these industries increase, this will not change. Over the last 18 months, the world has seen a growing number of massive culls of farmed species, including endangered species that are captive bred for trade. Everything from mink, bamboo rats, raccoon dogs, civets and emus, to chickens, pigs and ducks have been culled. It is impossible to know exactly what culling happened at the [...]

Image peffan Boots On The Ground The Double Standard In Environmental Protection Lynn Johnson 15 February, 2021 Undoubtedly the ‘boots on the ground’ strategy is saving wildlife and the environment from exploitation. The investment into these monitoring teams is critical in stemming poaching and biodiversity loss. But here is the thing, why are these ‘boots on the ground’ activities expected and indeed applauded in the countries of say continental Africa, South East Asia and Latin America, but not considered necessary in countries like Australia? Could it be because the people who are the key perpetrators of biodiversity loss in a country like Australia are ‘white’ and ‘middle income’ [...]

It's Time To Stop The Oil & Gas Industry Gaslighting Environmentalists They need to use all their energy to clean up their millions of leaking sites! Lynn Johnson  27 January, 2021 While I, like many, am breathing slightly easier now that the Trump years are over, I was disappointed that the Biden administration only signed an executive order placing a temporary moratorium on oil and gas activity in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This falls short of permanently protecting the refuge, as promised on the Biden-Harris campaign site. The Biden executive order states, “the Interior Secretary shall review the program and, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, [...]

Image mastersky Hiding The True Intent Lynn Johnson 17 December, 2020 A new report by Swiss Re, the world's second-largest re-insurer, confirms a fifth of countries worldwide are at risk from ecosystem collapse, as biodiversity declines. Of the G20 countries, Australia is ranked in second (worst) place, after South Africa, for failing and fragile ecosystems. The Swiss Re report, and corresponding index, has been created to analyse Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (BES) and the risks associated with BES collapse. It includes the ecosystem services necessary for food provision, water security and the regulation of air quality, all of which are considered vital to maintaining the health and [...]

Image jentakespictures War, Revolution or Taxes? Eliminate tax evasion and secrecy jurisdictions, invest in the natural world. Lynn Johnson,  7 November, 2020 In 2015 a small, but growing, number of the world’s billionaires got together to discuss how a tiny percentage, 0.1% of the 0.1%, of the world’s wealthy are raiding the world’s spoils. While they discussed that it was unfair and not sustainable, creeping under the surface of the conversations on philanthropy and corporate social responsibility was a shared understanding of the risk of the growing divide and overexploitation. One of the people who spoke was Paul Tudor-Jones, an American billionaire hedge fund manager, conservationist [...]

Image red-feniks The Magic Money Tree Really Does Exist. COVID-19 just proved it! Lynn Johnson 31 October, 2020 The global pandemic has once and for all destroyed the post-2008 narrative that ‘there is no magic money tree’ and that austerity is ‘required to balance the budget’.  In practically all Western countries, so wedded to austerity prior to the pandemic, money started flowing into supporting ‘the economy’ as soon as the first lockdowns were enacted. Different countries have taken different approaches, some putting funds directly into the pockets of citizens, while others have primarily (yet again) bailed out the big end of town, the fact remains that [...]

Image Gutzemberg NOT the Smartest Guys In The Room! Lynn Johnson 29 October, 2020 The business world likes to portray itself as the smart kid on the block, best placed to keep the global economy ticking, as long as governments and regulators don’t interfere with its activity. And because in the main they get what they want, modern-day industrialists buy into the delusion that they are the smartest guys in the room. COVID-19 is the best evidence yet showing just how much the business mindset is lacking. While in recent decades MBAs have taught future leaders to read profit and loss statements, they have haven’t [...]

Image Google Books Ngram Viewer Was Peak Conservation Caring in 1978? It would seem so. Lynn Johnson 29 October, 2020 Did we really reach peak interest in conservation in 1978? If we go by the published written word, it appears so. Firstly, the graph – what are you looking at? Google Ngram Viewer uses data from its ambitious book-digitizing project which started in 2002; to-date the project has digitized at least 30 million books from major university libraries. This means the frequency of keywords as displayed in the graph is slanted towards scientific and non-fiction books. In the case of wildlife and conservation this slant towards [...]