A study of four decades of news articles in America found that climate change accounts for 0.55% of news coverage, and has risen “from silence to a whisper” in the at time.
Belgium is the first country to appoint a Chief Planetary Officer, a role “designed to bring Planetary Boundaries science directly into national decision-making, helping governments assess planetary risk across policy, budgets, infrastructure, finance, and national security planning.”
Following last week’s story about climate and dentistry, here’s a nicely presented Grist article on the various ways that climate change affects human health.
With heatwaves getting drawn into the culture wars this summer, a World Weather Attribution study found that “a similar heatwave in June would have been about 3.5°C cooler during the day in 1976 and about 2°C cooler in 2003”, because of the effect of climate change. They also remind us that “heatwaves cause more deaths in Europe than all other natural hazards combined”.
Polestar, almost certainly the world’s most sustainable car manufacturer, has been banned from selling cars in the US. It will close its factories in the US and focus on sales in Europe.
Recent highlights
What happened to Britain’s window shades?
There’s a heatwave happening across Europe at the moment, and in my day job with schools there’s one topic that everyone want to talk about: overheating. It’s chronic in British schools, and very common across hospitals and healthcare facilities, as well as ordinary homes. In discussions about this problem, the go-to solution is air conditioning.…
Book review: Heatwave, by John L Williams
It’s fifty years since the famous 1976 heatwave which broke records as the driest and hottest British summer of the 20th century. From a weather perspective it was a true freak occurrence, and it’s left a lasting legacy. Some of that is benign – lots of people have very happy memories of an ‘endless summer’.…
How Frontier Markets empowers women traders
Among the most important questions to ask of a new technology are these: who controls it? And who does it serve? With many leading AI applications, the answer to both is simple – the richest. But that’s not inevitable, and so I enjoyed hearing about Ashden Award winner Frontier Markets. Frontier Markets is a social…
The Earthbound Report 