Tony Juniper

Nature recovery. Chair @NaturalEngland. Fellow @CISL_Cambridge. Chair @coolearth. Former @friends_earth @wwf_uk @wildlifetrusts @BirdLife_News. Writer.

[Tony Juniper @TonyJuniper]

Ever wondered what @NaturalEngland does?

I was pleased to record this podcast with the Civil Service Climate & Environment Network, answering questions about our work, why we do it & the context.

https://t.co/nlP59Wkwse

[Tony Juniper @TonyJuniper]

@Grope_of_Big Goodness me, so you did. What else haven’t I called for? Could be quite a long list.

[Tony Juniper @TonyJuniper]

A reminder that ‘circular economy’ is an idea possible to achieve in practice. I remember this very well. Not a plastic bottle in sight, & no diesel needed either…

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

In 1967 Britain had more electric vehicles on its roads than every other country on earth put together, and they were all delivering milk.

There were tens of thousands of them. The milk float: open sided, battery under the floor, top speed of about 15 miles an hour, and a whine you could pick out in your sleep. It was charged overnight at the depot and was back there by lunchtime.

It carried glass bottles. Each one was collected from your step the next morning, washed and refilled. A bottle went round like that 20 or 30 times before it broke. The foil cap went for scrap. There was no other packaging.

The milk had come from farms within a few miles, through a local dairy, and was on the step before 7.

So here is what the country had. A zero-emission delivery fleet. Reusable containers with a return rate any modern scheme would kill for. No plastic. A supply chain you could cycle the length of. A man who noticed if an old lady's bottles were piling up, and knocked.

It was dismantled in about 15 years, because a supermarket could sell milk a few pence cheaper in a plastic jug as a way of getting you through the door.

Every piece of that system is now the subject of a government target for 2040.

It was running in 1967, silently, in the dark, and nobody thought it was worth a mention.

[Tony Juniper @TonyJuniper]

@Grope_of_Big So it seems your logic is that everything I’ve not called for I am against?

[Tony Juniper @TonyJuniper]

@Grope_of_Big You must remind me when that was.

[Tony Juniper @TonyJuniper]

@njmcook I see.

[Tony Juniper @TonyJuniper]

@njmcook I think it will peak & collapse before that, because the ecological system that sustains it will fail. We’ll see who is right, & I hope it’s not me.

[Prof. Ryan Katz-Rosene @ryankatzrosene]

Where's the heat going?

[Tony Juniper @TonyJuniper]

@njmcook Yes perpetual motion in an economic sense is what is implied. We either go circular or eventually end ‘growth’. Could call that banal I suppose. Doesn’t stop it being true though.

[Tony Juniper @TonyJuniper]

@docrussjackson I’ve heard rumours about a wealthy elite based overseas, including in Dubai, who are working to sow division for political reasons. I’ve not seen all the evidence, but it’s what I’ve been told. Might be true I guess.

[Tony Juniper @TonyJuniper]

@LizKershawDJ @sharrond62 Global supply-chain fragility, deindustrialization, regional inequality, multinational tax arbitrage, financial contagion, market concentration, political backlash against globalization, tension between trade rules and domestic policy autonomy & political populism. All predicted.

[Tony Juniper @TonyJuniper]

@LizKershawDJ @sharrond62 Back in the ‘90s a lot of us were campaigning to reveal the threats of rampant economic globalisation. Most of what we were saying has either come to pass or is on its way. I wish we had been wrong about that, & the impacts of climate change, & ecosystem destruction. On we go…

[Robert Reich @RBReich]

CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1965: 20-1

CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1990: 75-1

CEO-to-worker pay ratio today: 325-to-1

Trickle-down economics was always a sham.

Nothing has ever trickled down.

[Tony Juniper @TonyJuniper]

I was an observer on a boat licensed to participate in England’s catch & release fishery for Bluefin Tuna. It was good to see the application of @NaturalEngland advice in how this world class game fishery is being managed. Sorry about the paywall…

https://t.co/Di3NzMt7Fh

[Tony Juniper @TonyJuniper]

@CeliaRichards0n @93percentclub What a nice idea. Mine had Ronnie Barker & Lawrence of Arabia as notable former pupils. Couldn’t be more different, but a reminder of the breadth of talent that comes from our state schools

[Tony Juniper @TonyJuniper]

@CABS_REPORTS This really is sick

[Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) @CABS_REPORTS]

🚨 SHOCKING: Online footage today shows Poachers in Arida, #Lebanon using HEAVY MACHINE GUNS to slaughter migratory storks near homes & highways.

Firing military grade weapons at defenseless birds is an outright crime!!!

Authorities MUST enforce the law & stop these massacres.

[Tony Juniper @TonyJuniper]

@Acyn You mean they are consistent? That used to be a virtue.

[Thomas Reis @peakaustria]

Nein, das ist kein Berg in irgendeiner Wüste. Das ist das Matterhorn am 27. September 2026.

Via Niko Froitzheim