Hey climate heroes! Welcome to The Climate Roundup, where we round up the change, er the news about climate and the environment. As part of the Gen E community, we thank you for making climate action part of everyday life. (Reading this newsletter counts!)
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In Pop Culture:
😎 Tomorrow is Eclipse Day, which should definitely be an official holiday where we ponder and celebrate our unlikely existence in the Universe. Bill Nye The Science Guy has tips.
👽 Circling back to that proposed pondering, here’s an essay inspired by the Netflix show 3 Body Problem that asks “Would you swear a loyalty oath to humanity — or cheer on its extinction?” Are you pro-humanist, anti-humanist, or transhumanist? Like it or not, these are the new religions of our time thanks to current existential realities like climate change and AI. Happy Sunday.
GETTING DOWN TO CLIMATE BUSINESS:
📸 Take A Photo Break: Here are some stunning photographs that capture impacts of climate change from the 2024 World Press Photo contest. And then, to celebrate the 90th birthday of environmentalist Jane Goodall, 90 female wildlife photographers contributed 90 images to support Jane’s institute. Enjoy!
🗳 South Korea Gets It: Leading up to next week’s election in South Korea, it turns out the two major parties have one thing in common: climate agendas. Climate change is a nonpartisan issue for South Korean voters, and both the conservative and liberal parties are pledging to tackle the climate crisis. Imagine that.
🪥 Sorta Good: Toothpaste tubes have long lived in the category of ‘not recyclable’, but thanks in large part to Colgate’s open-source design for a recyclable tube, now 75% of toothpaste on the market has packaging that is capable of being recycled. ‘Capable’ is the key word, since that doesn’t fix the massive problem we have with recycling infrastructure, where most plastic is not recycled. But this is a nice stat nonetheless.
☁️ Geoengineering Has Begun: Geoengineering refers to a large-scale manipulation of Earth’s natural systems in order to reduce the impact of climate change. It’s highly controversial. But the first U.S. outdoor test of its kind happened this week, when scientists in California attempted to brighten clouds so that they would reflect solar radiation back into space, thereby temporarily cooling the planet (when done at scale). Learn more about this technology and how the very scientists working on it hope we never have to use it.
🐋 Whales Are People Too: Indigenous groups across New Zealand and the Cook Islands are setting up framework for legislation that would provide whales with rights of personhood. This means that if someone or ahem, a shipping/fishing vessel hurts a whale, there will be consequences. The concept of granting personhood to nature and animals is not unprecedented – successful legislation has been passed in other countries, like Costa Rica and Ecuador. I sure hope to see the day when all living species are protected from harm.
🪸 Restoring Ecosystems: There’s a UN pledge to restore 1 billion hectares of degraded land by 2030. That’s half of what humanity has so far managed to destroy. Examples of successful restoration projects include coral reef restoration, fire-proofing forests with diverse, local tree species, investing in clean air tech and passing legislation to reduce air pollution to positively impact surrounding ecosystems, and teaching beekeepers and farmers to plant trees on their land to shade their crops.
Some Stats:
57: NUMBER OF PRIVATE AND STATE-OWNED FOSSIL FUEL AND CEMENT ENTITIES RESPONSIBLE FOR 80% OF GLOBAL EMISSIONS SINCE 2015 (CARBON MAJORS)
10: SOCCER FIELDS OF GLOBAL FOREST LOSS PER MINUTE IN 2023 (WRI)
And Now…A Rant From Billie Eilish, Then From Me
Musician Billie Eilish is outspoken on the topic of climate change and sustainability. In a recent interview with Billboard, she expressed her frustration over artists releasing multiple vinyl variants: “I can’t even express to you how wasteful it is. It is right in front of our faces and people are just getting away with it left and right, and I find it really frustrating as somebody who really goes out of my way to be sustainable and do the best that I can and try to involve everybody in my team in being sustainable — and then it’s some of the biggest artists in the world making f–king 40 different vinyl packages that have a different unique thing just to get you to keep buying more. It’s so wasteful, and it’s irritating to me that we’re still at a point where you care that much about your numbers and you care that much about making money — and it’s all your favorite artists doing that sh-t.” Mic drop, bitches.
I see your music industry, Billie, and raise you a beauty industry. The beauty industry consists of redundant products that multiply exponentially via constant, unintelligent packaging changes and empty promises, leaving behind landfills of waste and plastic pollution. Beauty products predominantly come packaged in plastic that cannot be recycled, and it’s estimated that the global industry creates 120 billion units of plastic waste per year. But the worst expression of this unsustainable industry comes from the celebrity variant. It’s a pure money grab, and a real f*ck you to the planet, not to mention to the humans targeted to buy these nothing products. The latest offender is Serena Williams, who just launched a makeup line, because you know, there was really something missing in a market of billions. Serving up the inspo for her idea in her words – “imagine you’re on center court and you’re winning, and then you have 15 minutes to get ready before your press conference…”. Yeah, wow, NOTHING existed to solve that problem, thank you for that. To echo Billie above – “I can’t even express to you how wasteful it is. It is right in front of our faces and people are just getting away with it left and right.”
