plastic waste is an ever-expanding problem, with approximately 380 million metric tons of new plastic added to the world every year. but what if there was an alternative material that could replace petroleum-based plastics? there is one possibility: mycelium, the white, root-like structure that grows beneath mushrooms.

mycelium collects, stores and sends information to other plants and trees via its branching networks under the forest floor. it performs a network function, not unlike the internet, “an underground information highway that speeds up interactions between plants,” said zhao qin, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at syracuse university.

“mycelium consists of massive branching thread-like hyphae, which is stretched and split into substrates,” mycologist ajay singh writes in his paper, “development of sustainable myco-material from fungi.”

mycelium has a physical structure that gives it strength and durability that can replace single-use plastic packaging. that means it could be part of the solution to some of the world’s most pressing problems.

the united states alone creates more than 35 million tons of plastic in a year, according to the environmental protection agency. only an estimated 5% to 6% percent of plastic waste in the united states is recycled; the rest is sent to landfills or incinerated.

faced with a broken recycling system, some companies are making alternatives to petroleum-based plastics, creating products that are biodegradable or compostable.

ecovative tapped into the mycelium market—or myco-material market—over a decade ago. its core product is a replacement for single-use plastic such as styrofoam, commonly used in shipping and packaging products.

“we’re growing full sheets of mushroom tissue, which end up being the mushroom packing,” said ecovative chief marketing officer andy bass. “the mycelium packaging can be thrown in your garden and then decompose in 45 days.”

mycelium grows and thrives on agricultural waste by-product such as wood chips or decaying tree branches, shrinking agriculture waste streams.

“ecovative grows its mushroom on corn stalk, hemp hurd, and wood chips,” bass said.

like fungi on the forest floor, mycelium likes dark and damp growing conditions. humidity above 98% and temperatures between 24 and 25 degrees celsius (75 to 77 degrees fahrenheit) are ideal, says qin.

when mycelium grows on waste, the structure grows out and down. the hemp hurd substrate and mycelium are mixed in molds to form large sheets.

in addition to tackling the compounding issues of plastic pollution and agriculture waste, ecovative is also using mycelium to make meat alternatives. mycelium-based meat is the latest myco-market the company hopes to capitalize on. “we just cut the ribbon on our largest farm to date,” bass said.

in this case, ecovative’s “growth chamber” mimics this vertical mushroom farm, growing “in an aerial style,” said lacey davidson, ecovative’s marketing director. ecovative declined to show videos of its growth chamber out of concerns for their intellectual property.

“it looks like a dutch-style mushroom farm,” davidson said. “we have reconfigured this model to grow mycelium instead of mushrooms. instead of mushrooms popping up it looks more like one giant interconnected fluffy marshmallow growing a few inches above its feedstock.”

the 78,000-square-foot vertical farm in upstate new york can grow 3 million pounds of fungus-based meats per year. “we will be able to replace up to 1 million pounds of bacon,” bass said. as of july, 2022, mybacon is available in three health food stores, but the company has ambitious plans for expansion.

substituting plant-based alternatives for meat and other animal products can dramatically reduce society’s carbon footprint, mitigate climate change and improve human health, according to the latest findings from the united nations’ intergovernmental panel on climate change.

meanwhile, in the netherlands, innovators are focusing their myco-attention on furniture and building insulation. “mycelium-based foam and sandwich composites have been actively developed for construction structures,” qin said.

while these ancillary household goods do not pose the same threat to climate and the environment as plastic packaging or animal agriculture, the toxins commonly found in common construction materials do pose a risk to human health and do not exist within a closed-loop system, eventually ending up in landfills.

“even if eps [expanded polystyrene, commonly used for insulation] is disposed of correctly, it can take thousands of years to degrade, evidently making it extremely difficult to properly contain,” writes owen robertson in a report, “fungal future,” for the technical university of denmark. “this has resulted in bioaccumulation of toxic chemicals in food webs across the planet.”

ecovative’s licensed partner in the netherlands, grown bio, is working on a bio-composite, mycelium-based insulation product to replace expanded polystyrene.

the last hurdle to market success is convincing buyers that mycelium-based products are just as durable and reliable as plastic. “proving that these new bio-based materials have the same performance characteristics as the traditional materials is a challenge,” bass said.

human-induced climate change has contributed to rapidly increasing temperatures throughout the southwest region of the united states since 1901. according to the fourth national climate assessment, “the average annual temperature of the southwest increased 1.6° f (0.9º c) between 1901 and 2016.” in san jose, six of the 10 average hottest years since 1893 have occurred since 2014. this past summer, san jose broke its all-time heat record when the city hit 109° f on sept. 6. this rapid increase in temperature is caused by the overabundance of greenhouse gasses in the earth’s atmosphere, trapping more heat and causing more extreme climate and weather. 

missing winter

my best friend throughout elementary school lived on the hill near our school. as temperatures cooled each winter, i would giddily wait to see her car drive into school with several inches of fresh snow packed neatly on top. while it didn’t snow in my suburban neighborhood, it was a reliable treat to see those glistening five inches of snow atop her car each year. by my senior year of high school, however, no cars were arriving in the parking lot with that delightful symbol of winter. 

when a slight dusting of powder drifted down onto the hill that year, everyone i knew took off immediately after school to play in the anomalous, pitiful excuse for a seasonal luxury. we stomped around in the icy dirt, giggling at the unfamiliar crunching sound, and threw half-frozen snowballs at each other. the warming that has resulted in such pitiful winters is set to continue as current greenhouse gas emissions will likely cause the state to experience warming by more than 6° f by the year 2100.

rising smoke

rising temperatures in the southwest have also led to increased wildfires in the region. according to the  fourth national climate assessment, the area burned by wildfires across the western us from 1984 to 2015 was found to have been twice what would have burned without climate change. as 2022 has been the driest year in san jose in the past 128 years, the area is now, more than ever, increasingly susceptible to wildfire. according to calfire, six of the seven most destructive california fires since 1932 have occurred since 2020.  

one day in fifth grade, my friends and i were dismayed to learn that we were not allowed outside during lunch or recess due to the smoke levels from a nearby wildfire. eight years later, after returning to california from college due to the pandemic, the intensity of my already isolated quarantine escalated when smoke from the scu complex lightning fire cast a warm orange tint over the entire bay area for a week. i began my virtual classes staring out my window at the endlessly red sun and my ash-covered car parked outside. 

planning for a new climate

the stark comparison between the climate when i first moved to california and when i left 10 years later paints a clear image of how rapidly climate change has affected the lives of many in the area. san jose has been working to reduce its own carbon footprint on the environment, launching the climate smart plan in 2018. the plan aims for the city to be carbon-neutral by 2030, despite its rapid population growth. the city has partnered with over 34 local organizations and stakeholders including mothers out front south bay, the committee for green foothills, and the santa clara valley audubon society to establish their community-centered plan. by creating climate-friendly infrastructure from the outset, including all-electric appliances and community layouts that reduce miles traveled by vehicles, san jose hopes to reduce its impact on the globe. 

below: a thick shroud of smoke engulfs my neighborhood during the scu lightning complex fire, in 2022. (kay jewler)

the landscape around me has a muted, yet vibrant color palette. leaves of all kinds—a concoction of green if you will. flowers blend into this mixture – a subtle harmony of browns, purples, and greens. desert plants appear, reminding me that beauty can grow anywhere if given the space to grow. there are few trees. layers of exposed dirt. with each step, my view widens. i see how this mountain range shapes the contours of the city below. i notice a thick layer of smog. it distorts the colors, the yellows and oranges that serve as a harbinger of sunset.

insects, bugs, filled every nook and cranny that the rocks have left exposed. their small bodies look much bigger as they fly and crawl from every edge. i follow several of the bugs to the edge of the mountainside, and for a moment i feel light and free-floating as if i was one of them. i look down and see people inching along in their cars. choking traffic. but up here, i can’t hear anything.

i normally listen to music, but here the wind uses the trees as an instrument – a muted trombone perhaps, while flying insects make a bass-like sound. the heaviness in my body seems to lift, even if momentarily. the sounds of this place appear to be shifting, each rock’s irregular shape and jagged edges softened by the wind, the tall, swaying grass producing a faint “sh” sound.

when i reach the peak, it is still. i am still. the birds appear to stop chattering. my feet have stopped shuffling, even the wind has stopped rustling the bushes. all of the weight i was carrying in my mind, and body, seem to disappear. i can finally catch my breath. never have i felt such a sense of peace in a single moment. 

we have seen amazing things — creatures of all types, glaciers, natural wonders, and the absolute vastness of planet earth. the whales, porpoises, sea lions, sea otters, and seals have dazzled us and the clear skies and calm seas have centered us. we have all discovered inspiring stories along the way.

we look forward to sharing the students’ reporting in the coming weeks, right here on planet forward.

(note: our 2022 storyfest winner from ithaca college, and a 2020 storyfest winner from carleton college, will travel later this summer — so we’ll have more reporting later, too!)

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editor’s note: lindblad expeditions, our planet forward storyfest competition partner, made this series possible by providing winners with an experiential learning opportunity aboard one of their ships. all editorial content is created independently. we thank lindblad expeditions for their continued support of our project. read all the stories from the expedition in our astonishing alaska series.

courtesy of extensive, amateur google searches, the mushroom is presumably coprinopsis atramantaria, commonly known as an ink cap mushroom –– or not, i am truly no expert. regardless, being quarantined in the suburbs of burlington has provided a window into the vast network of neighbors i had never thought to look for, especially not in my own home. stemming from this same sense of wonder, with significantly more precision and expertise, is the field of mycology: the study of fungi. 

in an attempt to further understand my fungal neighbors i turned to the experts in mycology for answers. why were they growing inside my studio? could mushrooms adapt to human-influenced conditions? what would their adaptability do to benefit the broader environment in the age of climate change? as it turns out, another group of neighbors, humans this time, released a paper in recent years through the gund institute for environment at the university of vermont in an attempt to tackle some of these questions.

perhaps it would be helpful to briefly introduce the terminology used in the following exploration. the mycellium is a web of thread-like hyphae (vegetative filaments) that stem from each individual mushroom and connect them to each other beneath the earth. researchers alison bennett and aimee classen hypothesized about the impact of climate change on fungi characterized by these mycelium. their study of experimental warming and precipitation variability examined the impact these stressors have on fungi. 

amidst a staring contest with my new fungal housemate, i reflected upon the weather patterns in our area for the past couple weeks. it seems as though the rain on monday, warmth on tuesday and ongoing spells of variable weather might have had some sort of impact on the growth of mushrooms in the area. as it turns out, these ink cap mushrooms are common in yards and other grassy areas. with the knowledge that it is not uncommon to have these fungi sprout up near homes, there remains a question of why these areas and what does weather have to do with it?

bennett and classen discuss these growth patterns, or hyphal exploration types, and the diversity of ability they provide to fungi. much of where mushrooms end up growing depends on their exploration and deposition of spores. 

i imagine the miniscule hyphae pushing themselves and the rest of their body in between the sheetrock and floorboards, searching for moist, warm air. 

by gathering and sifting through literature to form connections between climate change, fungi and plant growth, the scientists found that fungi seem to act in a new role: a buffer. 

through the underground mycelial network, plants and some fungi exist symbiotically, and these fungi are called mycorrhizal fungi. this relationship is characterized by a constant exchange of water and nutrients from the fungi to the plant and photosynthetic sugars from the plant to the fungi. bennett and classen conclude that these fungi could perhaps, “…buffer plant hosts against extinction risk, they can facilitate or retard the dispersal success of plants moving away from poor environments, and, by buffering host plants, they can enable host plant adaptation to new climates.” fungi, it seems, are perhaps the key to protecting the green of earth’s future. 

using their hyphae, mycorrhizal fungi are able to increase surface area, promoting increased water absorption. this provides a sort of reservoir for their plant partners to draw from in cases of low water availability in soil. as the anthropocene continues, precipitation patterns are becoming increasingly irregular and unpredictable. by having this safety net of a mycelial network backing them up, bennet and classen hope that the future impacts of climate change will be at least partially mitigated by the ability for these mycorrhizal fungi to adapt to changing conditions.

a sense of comfort is offered through this exploration of the symbiotic relationship between fungi and plants in the age of climate change. it is reassuring to know that the ink caps’ connections through the mycelial network of millions of fungi are taking care of the plant-life, at least until humans hopefully figure out how to show them as much respect. 

the next step in this journey is to make pottery glazes from these ink cap mushrooms, but that will be an experiment for another day.

i sat down with gregor sharp, an 18-year-old climate activist, to discuss.

podcast transcript:

kaitlyn copland 0:05

during recent years, it seems that an increasing number of social movements have improved their ability to organize and mobilize people around a cause. why? the globe is more connected than ever through social media. 

movements have harnessed the media’s power to revolutionize the spread of information about social change all across the world. one relevant example is the cop26 coalition, which is a uk based civil society coalition of groups, grassroots movements, trade unions and racial justice networks. 

activists from the cop26 coalition converged upon glasgow to protest the cop26 climate summit that ran for two weeks in the fall of 2021. while world leaders revisited the paris climate accords to create the glasgow climate pact, protesters from different countries and movements united under the cop26 coalition to march in solidarity through the soggy streets demanding more immediate climate solutions. 

i had the opportunity to sit down with one of the activists present at cop26. gregor sharp is an 18 year old climate change activist who is a content creator for friday’s for future. we discussed how social media mobilizes organizations and increases connectivity as demonstrated through the cop26 coalition.

the following dialogue is our conversation which has been edited for clarity and length.

gregor sharp 1:31

hi, my name is gregor sharp. i’m an 18 year old climate activist from lake bluff, illinois. i’m a social media contributor for fridays for future and earth uprising. i got involved in climate change around 2018 when i first discovered it when i was learning about it in middle school. and then from that i reached out and branched off to different organizations and kind of got myself involved more and more and here i am today. 

kaitlyn copland 1:56

perfect! i want to discuss with you fridays for future in regards to their history. what are their purposes? what’s their goals and why is this all important? 

gregor sharp 2:05

fridays for future was founded in august 2018 by then not really popular climate activist greta thunburg who had been striking outside of the swedish parliament every friday. she decided that she would continue to be striking every friday and she created the fridays for future movement, which then eventually branched off to different countries around the world where students and young people would strike in front of the parliaments, the white houses, the presidential houses and the legislature houses around the world and in different cities and states and everywhere, basically. it started off with one person and it’s eventually grown to its largest at 4.3 million. 

kaitlyn copland 2:56

how has social media played a role in the visibility and reach of your demands and additionally, how is it increased connectivity for fridays for future branches across the world? 

gregor sharp 3:06

okay. so social media is a really big factor in sharing information. it’s been scientifically proven time and time again that it’s [social media] been one of the greatest ways of scientific movements and scientific information sharing throughout these past couple years, even though it does have a massive amount of misinformation problems. 

but overall within the climate movement, as a whole, we’re able to reach audiences and other people who may have not really heard about climate change. 

kaitlyn copland 03:38

could you also talk a little more on the shortcomings of social media in regards to this movement? 

gregor sharp 03:46

some shortcomings with our environmental movement are with conservative groups and other republican, right wing political groups. they do denounce fridays for future and say that we are prompting misinformation towards environmental sciences and other sciences as a whole. that shuts off our outreach programs to the majority of the far right groups around the world as they do not want to listen to us and they don’t believe that climate change is real.

political leaders who want to profit off of fossil fuel companies and other companies that are basically prospering from climate injustice and environmental deregulations are generally some of the reasons why we haven’t been able to do as much as we possibly can. we keep on getting blocked by different organizations and companies, because they want to focus on their own capitalistic profit.

kaitlyn copland 04:41

would you say that you use social media to try to target these organizations? 

gregor sharp 04:57

yeah, we definitely do target these groups time and time again. we specifically called chase bank out before cop26 happened because of their massive involvement within cop26. they do massively fund fossil fuel companies. and that kind of greenwashing, as we would say, definitely does not, in fact, help the environmental groups and youth movements around the world as a whole because it seems like they’re just profiting off of a name that they are sustainable and doing stuff. they’re also supporting the organizations, companies and the fossil fuel organizations which have been basically polluting and damaging our world. 

kaitlyn copland 05:40

i want to move on to discussing the cop26 coalition. i know fridays for future is a part of it. i’m really interested to know how the coalition was formed, especially if it involves social media. 

gregor sharp 05:54

the cop26 coalition was majorly formed right around the beginnings of when cop26 was birthed. especially with mock cop, where a few delegates met online and established their doctrine that they really wanted to get passed within cop. that engagement with other youth environmental organizations and environmental organizations as a whole eventually led to the formation of the cop26 coalition. that’s just a coalition of environmental and climate organizations that wanted to work together to ensure that we get climate action done and climate action in the cop26 agreement that eventually came out. i think it’s called the glasgow accord. it does include a little bit of climate change action.

kaitlyn copland 06:42

just to recap, when the cop 26 coalition was forming, all of these groups that formed it, connected with each other through social media, and it was like, yes, let’s do it? 

gregor sharp 06:57

we mostly connected through social media, but other people knew each other in person from former experiences with other cops, and just meeting in general in real life. that kind of connection via social media and also real life, interjected and created the cop 26 coalition.

kaitlyn copland 07:15

awesome. during the summit when you were protesting, did social media increase connectivity between the organizations? was fridays for future able to gain new partnerships and allies?

gregor sharp 07:29

yes, absolutely. we definitely gained more partnerships and allies as the fridays for future international group as a whole. generally, because of the fact that most of the events that we were attending were live streamed, they were broadcasted on every single major news network around the world. basically, as you can see on the first friday, the major major strike that happened in glasgow that we saw that definitely happening, where our coalition definitely got the word out and definitely was able to form a big coalition to get the news groups around the world to broadcast this kind of event. it’s major to see around 1.2 million people protesting within the streets of a 500,000 populated city.

kaitlyn copland 08:16

i was going to ask you about, like the visibility and reach of the protests at the summit. were you and the entire coalition, were they effectively able to create high visibility and reach of the protests?

gregor sharp 08:36

i would say definitely, like i said, we got 1.2 million people to protest in a city which only has a population of 500,000, which is absolutely incredible. that’s about double the population. so i definitely agree with social media and other forms of connections outside of social media, working amazingly to get the word out to other individuals who lived around the uk and european area, and also who flew in as climate delegates and other delegates, to cop26 to spread the word of taking climate action now and doing something. 

kaitlyn copland 09:13

that’s impressive. could you speak a little about your personal experience, on the ground at glasgow? 

gregor sharp 09:20

it was really amazing. i got to meet a ton of incredible climate activists and engage in social media myself. after the first major strike, we were able to witness around 28 speakers, youth activist speakers, mostly, even from mapa related countries and bipoc communities speak up about their experiences with climate change as a whole. we were able to rally a lot of people towards climate action during that day. and it was generally something that i really enjoyed. i was down on the streets protesting myself. i got to meet a ton of incredible climate activists and people who generally supported the idea for climate action around the world.

and it was just generally one of those experiences where i will never forget it because it was such a positive experience as a whole because everyone was there for positive reasons because they wanted to support this movement as a whole.

kaitlyn copland 10:23

that’s really exciting. do you have any final thoughts on how social media influences social political movements overall? 

gregor sharp 10:30

yeah, social media does definitely in today’s world affect political movements as a whole because everyone’s really connected now. as we can say with online social media platforms such as instagram, twitter, facebook, tiktok, snapchat, all those different apps and getting the word out for those different apps and different social media platforms, really generally does benefit the climate movement and other movements as a whole. it’s basically become like a revolution because social media has become such an influential factor in people’s lives today, that we generally didn’t realize that until about like eight years ago, because there was no social media back then. the general expansion of social media, and generally increasing our social media as a whole has definitely basically affected the world for the worst and for better.

kaitlyn copland 11:26

awesome! thank you so much for your time. 

gregor sharp 11:28

thank you so much!

what is a way for students to get engaged? play games with them! although games are entertaining and seen as a reward, they also contain elements such as collaboration, participation, and critical thinking. players have to think of strategies and determine which choice will get their character to the goal (or the next save point). the purpose of this game is for players to understand and learn the realities of the climate crisis. climate change decisions require critical thinking as well as weighing different possibilities. in a game setting, the players are motivated to move forward and are determined to make the right choice. 

therefore, presenting pathways: the game to show how our actions impact the world around us. it is a decision-based game with players moving away from the worst-case scenario and towards the best-case scenario. the game’s purpose is to show the connections between humans and climate change and understand why the decisions are hard to make. players will read situations and it is up to them to make the choice that is in the best interest of the planet. to move forward the player needs to consider, “is this the best pathway?” when answering the decision questions. but some climate decisions are not as explicit as others and some decisions only yield negative or positive outcomes. 

in this situation, players will automatically move backward for negative outcomes and forward for a positive outcome. for example, cards that show a decision to burn fossil fuels players automatically move backward.
although the player moves backward, it does not mean that the game is over. creating an opportunity to show that even though you can take a setback, there are many opportunities to move forward. this process parallels what is happening in the climate field, there are complications but no matter how many barriers, we need to overcome them for the sake of our communities and our planet. 

as for the board design, it needed to illustrate traveling through the board to get to the best-case scenario. what better way than through using the shared socioeconomic pathways (ssp). adopting this visual provides both a way for students to recognize the ssp chart in the future and comprehend it. 

the involvement and engagement of the younger generation are crucial to future climate change decisions. making topics labeled as “too complex” accessible to the younger generation includes them in the conversation. this game had a trial run in a classroom of fifth-graders and with their feedback; bridges, free spaces, and skip spaces were added. games spark creativity and collaboration and with the younger generation becoming more involved, interdisciplinary work will be a necessity. 

• the broken $100-billion promise of climate finance — and how to fix it. in 2009, rich nations promised to contribute $100 billion a year to developing countries by 2020 in an effort to combat climate change. the promise was broken. but at cop26, delegates will figure out how to repair the situation and argue for more investment from developed nations.

• “to a lesser degree,” a climate podcast series, launches from the economist. check out the first episode of this new series: “cop26 kicks off.” as the climate conference begins in glasgow, much is at stake. will the leaders gathered there be able to reach an agreement to slow global warming? u.s. climate envoy john kerry shares why he is optimistic. 

• what to expect on climate and finance at cop26. the success of cop26 may hinge on whether countries can agree on a host of thorny issues related to climate finance, and it’s not just the formal finance agenda.

check back tomorrow for more info on what is being explored at cop26 — and good reads to keep you informed!

each day of cop26, we’ll be highlighting stories from around the internet that align with the daily themes of the conference. we hope to make these themes more accessible, and present stories of success and education that help 2022年卡塔尔世界杯官网 !

here are some explainer articles to get you started: what exactly will happen at cop 26? who are the key voices? why should we care?

• what is cop26 and why does it matter? what is the unfccc, what are they trying to accomplish, and why should we care? this q&a answers all your questions.

• who’s who at cop26: the leaders who hold the world’s future in their hands. a look at who will — and who may not — be at the glasgow climate summit.

• your cop26 jargon buster. ndcs, climate finance, and 1.5c — here is your summary of the key terminology. 

• interview with greta thunberg about cop 26, media responsibility, and what gives her hope. dive more into the climate conversations of today with a familiar activist.

check back tomorrow for more info on what is being explored at cop26 — and good reads to keep you informed.

one focal area that others might miss is the interdependence of the big three crises of our time: not just the climate crisis, but also the biodiversity crisis and the crisis of inequality. the reason to watch for these big-3 interactions is that all three crises are rapidly coming to a head and solutions to one can easily harm progress in the other two. yet, we have the opportunity to kill three crises with one stone when we find the right combination of approaches. 

my interest in solving these crises stems from my background as a field biologist. i have witnessed how climate change is affecting biodiversity, not only in remote places like the north slope of alaska, but also here in my backyard in connecticut. my research has detailed how each increase in global temperature will likely make these changes worse and could lead to permanent extinctions. moreover, we can demonstrate that biodiversity losses directly affect human health, economy, and culture, and therefore our needs are inseparable from those of nature. 

i’ll be looking for these win-win-win solutions at cop26 that can address all three crises, and i’ll be deeply skeptical of solutions that do not. for example, restoring or protecting natural forests when done in concert with the needs of local people can capture carbon, maintain biodiversity, and protect local livelihoods and cultures simultaneously. but even this solution can cause harm when done without paying attention to local ecosystems and people.

at cop26, we have a chance to turn things around and make meaningful progress toward limiting climate change and preventing its worst effects. i hope that the students that we bring to the summit will not only advocate for that progress, but become the leaders that make it happen.

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about the author:

mark c. urban is an award-winning scientist, the arden chair and professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the university of connecticut, founder and director of the center of biological risk, and global expert on climate change impacts on nature and evolutionary ecology.