The Monday Mix (09/08/2021)
Hi friends,
This week’s newsletter is going to focus on the climate crisis. With the release of the latest IPCC report, I thought it was an appropriate time to centre this email around what’s going on with the planet.
The report is clear; we need to drastically reduce the amount of carbon we’re emitting into the atmosphere to avoid catastrophic damage to the planet.
The flooding in Germant, wildfires in Greece and Trurkey are all of evidence of what awaits if we don’t act. But they’re also a reminder of what’s already baked in. With 1.2 degrees of warming already locked in, this is now what we can come to expect. Extreme weather events occurring regularly rather once every few years.
If you wish to read the report, it’s here. The actual repot is very, very long, so it might be best to read the summary instead. Unless you enjoy reading long technical reports of course!
The Uninhabitable Earth
This is the article which led to the book of the same name by David Wallace Wells. If you haven’t read the book, this article gives an overview of what you can expect should warming carry on its current upward. Worse heatwaves, more extreme weather events, large parts of the that could be uninhabitable. Some of this is worst case scenario, some of it could happen with a few degrees of warming. Either way, the world could look very different in the coming years
The Plastic Backlash
A thoughtful piece on the plastic pollution, which as the author rightly points out, wasn’t considered a huge issue until recently. The amount of items that are made from some form of plastic is incredible. All of which will remain in the environment for at least a thousand years, long after we’ve all gone. Unless we cut back our addiction to plastic, our legacy as a species could be the sheer amount of plastic we leave behind on the planet once we depart it.
The Secret History of Lead
This is an incredible article on the impacts of lead, which used to be a part of petrol (gasoline). What I found remarkable was that lead was added to fuel by major corporations. It’s not a natural component of most fuels, so why did it get added to our fuel? This is what the article seeks to explain. It also lays bare the tactics used by the industry to resists change, which eventually came about by the 80s. These same tactics are the guidebook oil, tobacco and other polluting industries have used to fend off legislation and avoid a reckoning with their activities.
The Cautious Case For Climate Optimism
The final article strikes a more positive note than the previous three. It looks at an optimistic case for the climate and how we can make changes. The important thing to remember is that we can influence how much carbon we pump into the atmosphere. As much as we have pumped since the 1800s, we can choose to reduce it, and have done so recently. The onus is on us to say enough is enough. It’s time we did so.
Book I’m reading - Going Dark: A fascinating look at live in extreme groups by Julia Ebner who went undercover in several groups to track what they were up to. If you want to understand the world of online radicalisation, this book is a must-read.
Quote I’m pondering: “The single biggest threat to our planet is the destruction of habitat and along the way loss of precious wildlife. We need to reach a balance where people, habitat, and wildlife can co-exist – if we don’t everyone loses … one day.” —Steve Irwin
That’s all for now.
Until next time,
Tom