If you wandered down Ship Street today, Wednesday 21st November, then you may well have found yourself strolling past a particularly green looking Royal Pavilion. Yes, we’re talking about the 12ft replica, made entirely of plants, that’s been installed outside Fabrica. Made by plant experts Tomoko O’Reilly and Iain Prendergast, it took the team seven days to build. But it’s not just there to look pretty, it’s actually part of the new Plantlife campaign. The wild plant conservation charity hopes that the stunt will educate people about the power of plants to fight climate change, as well as encouraging people to sign an online petition calling on the government to invest more in plant-based solutions.
Here at BOTI, we’re all for this and we were chuffed to hear about the planned green additions to Hove Lagoon (thanks to Fatboy Slim’s fundraiser in September) and the work going into Valley Gardens. The Plant Pavilion has been created as a new report revealed that plants do in fact have the power to absorb the emissions of every vehicle in the UK, the equivalent of most of us in the UK going vegan for a whole year. This is pretty big news.
Plantlife teamed up with Seventh Generation to commision the report from leading scientist Mark Maslin to look at the imbalance between the government’s attention to plant-based solutions and the power of these solutions to offset climate change. The report found that plants have the power to account for a whopping 37% of the required cuts by 2050 (under the Climate Change Act)*, but they only get 7%** of the limelight when it comes to public discussion.
Want to help change things? Seventh Generation and Plantlife have launched a petition to put plants higher up the climate change agenda. You can find out more and sign the petition at plantlife.org.uk/YesPlantsCan
Photo credit: Tim Ireland, Press Association
* Report conducted on behalf of Seventh Generation by Maslin. M. (2018). Yes Plants Can: The Power of Plants to Deal with Climate Change
** Social research conducted by W Communications on behalf of Seventh Generation. (2018)
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