Fiona Harvey in The Guardian a consistent rise in temperatures. The climate is changing, the globe is warming, global warming will be on your doorstep sooner than you think.
Latest data shows steep rises in CO2 for seventh year
Rocket scientist explains how we could move our planet
Matteo Ceriotti in The Conversation explains the plausible science of the new Netflix film, Wandering Earth (2019).
The science is interesting, but Ceriotti leaves the best for last. If there’s any human life on Earth when the sun starts to expand, the best thing we can do is move the entire population of the planet to Mars.
Personally, I’d much prefer moving to the moon, that way we’ll be floating through space like the team of Moon Base Alpha in Space: 1999.
Humanity must save insects to save ourselves
There’s a real Martin Niemoller “First they came…” sadness in Damian Carrington’s story in The Guardian.
This is another in a long line of stories warning that our actions are causing an extinction level event. People are slowly waking up to the facts, but a large proportion remain silent, either wilfully ignorant, or openly hostile to the idea that our behaviours need to change.
For some reason this makes me think of Martin Niemoller, a prominent Lutheran pastor in Germany, and critic of Adolf Hitler. He spent several years in a Nazi concentration camp, and after the war believed Germans had been complicit, through their silence, in Nazi atrocities.
He wrote this very famous speech.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.
I don’t think our crisis is quite as linear as Mr Niemoller’s, ours is more of a cascade, that gets exponentially worse with every pound of material extracted from the planet. You might describe our complicity in our own destruction like this.
First they destroyed an insect, and I did nothing – I was not an insect.
Then they destroyed an amphibian, and I did nothing – I was not an amphibian.
Then they destroyed a reptile, and I did nothing – I was not a reptile.
Then they destroyed a fish, a bird, and a mammal, and I did nothing – I was none of those things.
But that was not enough.
They kept on killing.
Killing more.
On more.
More.
On.
Until they destroyed all of the insects. And still I did nothing – because they are a pest.
And more.
On.
Until they destroyed all of the amphibians. And still I did nothing – because they were in the way.
And more.
On.
Until they destroyed all of the reptiles. And still I did nothing – because they are on my land.
And more.
On.
Until they destroyed all of the fish, and all of the birds, and all of the mammals.
And still I did nothing.
And more.
On.
Because there was nothing left.
That’s more of a word game than some lofty attempt at poetry, but unless we do something to stop our current trajectory there will be nothing left.
The earth will survive but we will not.
Cocaine found in all shrimp tested in rural UK county
There’s something both very concerning and extremely funny in this story by Agence France-Presse in The Guardian.
Cocaine “in all shrimp” tells me those responsible for water purification are allowing contaminated water into the environment. I can’t imagine these cockroaches of the sea racking out lines, so there’s Charlie in the water.
There’s also a heavy dose of funny in the appalling lapse of public safety. The population of Suffolk must be partying hard to secrete that much marching powder into the water supply. I can see the internet going bonkers over the idea that people will be able to get high eating shrimp.
Rebel for life
I hope I am as active and committed as this gentleman when I am his age. Hero’s walk among us.
Surviving climate change means transforming both economics and design
Joanna Boehnert in The Conversation makes the point “designers cannot design sustainable future ways of living on scale without a shift in economic priorities”.
Boyan Slat on his nonprofit to clean the oceans
A transparent film could reflect 70% of solar heat
We’re going to need a lot more of this as global warming overwhelms our thermostats. Perhaps the guys at MIT could integrate it into vast floating domes, the habitats we’ll be surviving in when sea levels rise, submerging cities like London.
There’s a story idea in there somewhere. Perhaps, in a post-apocalyptic world, submerged under rising sea level, a vast floating dome is habitat to city of people only just surviving. With the dome crumbling, their home falling apart, how will the inhabitant of “Atmosphere” survive?
M.I.T. Predicts in 1973 that civilisation will end by 2040
Plummeting insect numbers ‘threaten collapse of nature’
Damian Carrington’s piece in The Guardian warns “Plummeting insect numbers ‘threaten collapse of nature'”.
Reading this makes me sad, scared, but most of all angry. We have the worst kind of self-serving politicians trying to isolate us from Europe under the guise of trade with, who knows? What they should be doing is finding ways to integrate, and partner with other countries to do something about this.
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