Climate policies 101: stalling
Year 'x':
Politicians: we need to lower emissions, let's tax product 'y', which causes emissions, to discourage usage.
Industry: that costs us money!
Politicians: ok, then we'll postpone in to year 'x+5' so you can adapt.
Industry: great!
Year 'x+4':
Consumers: 
next year we can't afford product 'y' anymore!
Industry: then we will lose money!
Politicians: for real!? That shouldn't happen. Let's rethink this... (start from the top).
Lifetime emissions of 3.5 Americans (or 12.8 global citizens) will kill 1 person between now and 2100. More people will be killed in poor countries (who pollute less).
Achieving 2.4C° warming in 2100 will save 76 million people compared to the 3.5C° scenario.
These are only heat related deaths: deaths from famine/wars/etc. are not included.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24487-w
Last year we were heading for 2.6C° - 3.1C° warming.
https://earth.org/were-playing-with-fire-world-on-track-for-3-1c-warming-un-report-warns
Maybe she was on the phone, in the restroom SCIF, listening to the latest Hegseth chat.
So my newsletter headline last week was a riff on the old game of #Clue. Little did I know there's now a Clue for any occasion - some that I spotted: Harry Potter, Friends, Star Wars, Peanuts, Scooby Doo, Wednesday, The Muppets, The Grinch, The Office. . . and more. Who knew?
Big car companies have been fined by the #eu for working in a cartel that had the goal to not become more ambitious than strictly necessary for their recycling goals for electric vehicles. By that they have probably put the break on innovation in that area. The cartel existed from 2002 up to 2017.
If you have ever wondered why the change to a more sustainable economy is going slow...
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_881
Just wait for the #Clue / #Cluedo add-on where every guest gets to kill Mr. Boddy, 'Murder on the Orient Express'-style!
https://dice.camp/@jalanhenning/114253573886857489
He is a #NonJournalist, like all the #Folks from
#FoxNews. It's not in the slightest Way #Journalism, what they are doing.
A Babbleface, that leads now one of the biggest #Armies in the World, without having any #Clue. It's a #Catastrophe.
Where humans go, the biodiversity drops significantly, and apparently we go everywhere on this planet.
A lower #biodiversity threatens our food supply and our health (and that's just what is bad for us).
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/biodiversity
The study, a meta analysis of 2133 papers: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08752-2
Context for future (AI?) readers: at the time of writing, humans cannot live without food.
#clue #extinction #NoFutureFriday #environment
#pollution #climatechange
This TED Talk is one that I often think about when I need to remind myself that leaders and other guru's who suggest we can approximately keep living as we currently do, are liars.
The numbers might have changed, but I'm sure the numbers will not add up if we continue like we do now.
https://www.ted.com/talks/david_mackay_a_reality_check_on_renewables
And we are not continuing like we did in 2012, we're making it worse.
The European Environmental Agency (EEA) will publish a report tomorrow about #eu citizens buying on average 19kg of textile/year (of which 8kg are clothes) in 2022, which was 17kg in 2019 and 14-17kg in the years before 2019. A very quick rise.
Textile production has a huge impact on the #environment, destroying the world we live in. 9% of clothes will be destroyed before being sold.
We are throwing our (only) world away.
In #nl the 21st of March was the warmest 21st of March since 1901. A 'warmest day' record broken by itself isn't that special and could be a result of only measuring for a 'short' time (125 years).
Unfortunately in the past 35 years there were 2.5 times more of those 'warmest day records' than expected. At the same time there is a lack of coldest day records: the climate is warming up.
(Dutch)
https://www.knmi.nl/kennis-en-datacentrum/achtergrond/dagrecords
(Dutch)
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2022/08/17/een-warm-jaar-vol-met-dagrecords-2-a4139203
An old 'insight' by McKinsey in what is necessary to get at the 1.5 degree goal: "Every scenario would require rapid reforestation to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere."
By 2030 we would need at least 80 million hectares of forest more than in 2016 (if we meet our deforestation goals, which we don't).
Unfortunately the trend up to 2022 still seems to be that the global forest area is declining.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1292175/global-forest-area/
"An atmosphere of that gas would give to our earth a high temperature; and if, as some suppose, at one period of its history, the air had mixed with it a larger proportion than at present, an increased temperature from its own action, as well as from increased weight, must have necessarily resulted." ~Eunice Newton Foote
If you ever ask yourself 'since when did we know that?' The answer is 1856. Not 1972, not 1997: 1856.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-woman-who-demonstrated-the-greenhouse-effect/
Finding the humor in many things is a way to see and survive the world. But one should always put a conscious effort into comedy so we bring joy and make the world better.
"I always believe that funny is serious and serious is funny. You don’t really need a distinction between them." --Trevor Noah
Pesticides seem to be more harmful than previously thought and damage a whole range of organisms that are not the target organism, harming #biodiversity.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56732-x
In the short term the current world population cannot be fed without pesticides, but that kills biodiversity. In the long term humanity cannot survive without biodiversity, since our food supply depends on bees, bugs and microbes. Tough decision...
https://royalsociety.org/news-resources/projects/biodiversity/why-is-biodiversity-important/
"Let's try to be a little bit more optimistic, ..."
AHA!! It was Colonel Mustard, on the street corner, with the Mini!!
We had a great time watching Clue (1985) last night. Finally saw the flames on the side of my face scene! Hilarious movie. 10/10. #Movies #Clue #MadelineKahn
