There’s just so much so understand and learn wrt climate and the ecological crisis. Starting a thread so we can all share useful links, videos and explainers.
To set the ball rolling, here’s one on one of the most “invisible” issues of them all - shipping (this comes in context of Rainmatter having invested in Matchlog, recently).
A recent studies quantified the amount of plastics and other synthetic chemicals burden on the planet, for the first time. The graph is also useful to understand that it is important to not solve for temperature alone, if the solutions worsen it along other dimensions.
The Concrete Problem. 8% of global CO2 emissions! And I’m not sure that accounts for transportation for construction.
(Of course, a deeper dive into alternative building materials, esp for large swathes of India where traditional techniques for low rise structures built using local materials that get reclaimed at the end of the cycle exist in abundance)
A 3 part series on the green revolution - which has had a huge fallout in terms of water, energy and soil health.
To learn about how climate justice is important to solve the climate crisis, here is Sunita Narain’s case for why equity is key to restoring climate:
It focuses on India and how it stands - historically, in the present world, and the world that could be if things don’t change. It highlights the geopolitical nature of considerations (or rather what’s not considered) at the world climate summits.
My takeaway: This video not only indicates how equity and climate justice can help restore climate but also hints at how restoring climate this way will leave the world a more just place for everyone to live in; and I think that’s beautiful.
The role of wetlands in our cities :
“Can we build without concrete?”
Esp in India - with the huge options in local materials and techniques.
A short rundown of the most recent IPCC report, with interesting insights from it summarized
What are our options?
While we focus on carbon and plastics, there’s 350000 different chemicals causing devastation in the biosphere that we release through all our activity. Here’s a sobering, or even downright depressing, exploration of this largely unreported isue
There’s likely an energy crisis looming. And a food crisis too. Does it not tell us that BAU pathways must be abandoned and that we need to look at those which look at adaptation and mitigation both, in terms of localized resilience in every context?
