The Monday Mix (11/04/2022)
Hi friends,
Not much to report this week, so I’ll get straight into what I want to share.
Eight Places To Save From Climate Change
This is a brilliant, and harrowing piece on some places that could be devastated by climate change, should we not mitigate its effects. Some of the places I wasn’t familiar with, others I was.
What this piece shows is that climate change will affect all of us in some way. Its impacts are already being felt and if we don’t keep warming below 2ºc by 2100, then the world could look very, very different.
Fast Fashion Dumping Grounds
One aspect of climate change that gets overlooked is fashion. You might wonder what the fashion industry has to do with climate change, but it’s energy-intensive and produces a lot of waste as this documentary shows.
It was shown on TV, the other day here in the UK and the scenes blew my mind. It’s filmed in Ghana and the amount of clothes that have been discarded and dumped in the country is mind-boggling. Not only is it blighting the landscape, it’s harming businesses in Ghana too.
We see how some clever entrepreneurs are trying to improve the situation, but this situation is beyond an easy fix. As this piece shows if we remain addicted to fast fashion, with Chinese brand SHEIN being a particular problem, then the situation is only going to get much, much worse.
The Dutch City of The Future
This is a really interesting story about the Dutch city of Almere and how its innovative architecture and layout could represent the cities of the future.
The Netherlands is particularly at risk from climate change as most of the country is below sea level. Should warming reach 2ºc by 2100, then a lot of the country could be submerged underwater. Finding ways to mitigate this, as well as reduce CO2 emissions are vital.
Some of the solutions the city uses are fascinating from an architectural aspect and an aesthetic one. If this article has taught me anything it’s these two things. That it’s gone from being the newest city in the Netherlands with the first house finished in 1976, to the eight-biggest city today, which is crazy. And that I really want to visit and check it out!
Book I’m reading - Klara and The Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
I haven’t read a novel for a while, and when I saw this book in my local supermarket for £4.50, I had to snap it up. I’ve only just started this book, as I read a short book by Albert Camus beforehand, but after the first few pages I’m already gripped and I can see why the author has won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Quote I’m pondering: “Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn't ask ourselves what it says but what it means...” – Umberto Eco
That’s all for this week.
Until next time,
Tom