How far will humans go?

Hi friend,

How far will humans go to pillage and plunder the Earth? And when will enough really be enough?

As I type this, the International Seabed Authority is debating whether it should allow companies to start deep-sea mining to extract precious metals to be used in electric car batteries and other green technology (i.e., greenwashing at its finest).

Erm, have we learnt nothing from OceanGate??

The bottom of the ocean is no place for humans. Ecologists estimate that 91% of creatures that live in the ocean are yet to be described. NINETY-ONE PERCENT!

Have you SEEN some of the critters that roam down there?

Like this guy…

And this guy…

And this one, who is not happy to see you…

And WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!

Those are among the 9% of things we know about. Do we really want to know about the other 91%? Some things should be left well enough alone.

I’m not sure we should be opening this Pandora’s Box. We know more about the moon than we do about our oceans, but that doesn’t mean we belong there! Or that we should go drilling willy-nilly into the Earth’s core and the ocean depths because we’re greedy and want more, more, more.

Our oceans are already hotter than they’ve ever been, they’re changing colour, coral is dying off at an alarming rate, polar ice is melting too fast, species are migrating in search of less hostile conditions.

And yet we’ll keep fracking and seismic blasting and deep-sea mining because we’ll never be satisfied and we won’t stop until we find a bunch of bottom-feeder crustaceans whose shells we can grind up to make batteries for electric vehicles (more on that below) and say we’re “doing it for the planet”.

Less is more

I’ve been curious about the concept of “degrowth”, a swearword to corporates and governments.

Instead of pursuing capitalist and economic growth at all costs – including human exploitation and environmental destruction – the degrowth movement proposes slowing down, pursuing less, and focusing on fixing what’s no longer working and bringing everything back into balance.

It’s less about corporate profits, over-production, and excess consumption, and more about social and ecological wellbeing. It’s about ensuring environmental and climate justice and creating a happy, comfortable, and healthy life for all within planetary boundaries.

Best of all, we don’t need to go poking our noses in dark, hostile places where we don’t belong and have no business mucking about.

— Tarryn ✌️

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This week's climate and sustainability news worth noting

👏 European lawmakers approved a bill that would require European Union countries to restore 20% of nature areas within their borders on land and at sea. Negotiations on a final version could take months but it's a massive step forward in the right direction for nature.

🧪 But then they took two steps back, with leaked documents showing that the European Commission might break a promise to outlaw all but the most essential of Europe’s hazardous chemicals. It was expected that between 7,000 and 12,000 hazardous substances would be prohibited from use in all saleable products in Europe, but lawmakers have buckled under pressure from industry and proposed three options that would restrict 1%, 10%, or 50% of products containing hazardous chemicals currently on the market. The EU typically selects the middle option.

🌊 The International Seabed Authority is in the middle of a conference to debate whether to allow companies to start deep-sea mining to extract precious metals that are used in electric car batteries and other green technology. This comes as more than a dozen countries call for a ban or moratorium on deep-sea mining, given environmental concerns, including the fact that there is no regulatory framework in place nor an understanding of the environmental impacts of the practice.

🐟 Meanwhile, climate change is steering Pacific tuna fisheries toward targeted areas for future deep-sea mining projects and threatening their livelihoods. A study found that, in the following decades, tuna distributions will increase in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone of the Pacific Ocean, which contains 1.1 million square kilometres of deep-sea mining exploration contracts.

🔍 Over half of the oceans have changed colour over the past two decades, likely because of climate change. Although too subtle for the human eye to detect, the changes from blue to green indicate that ecosystems within the surface ocean could be changing. That’s because the colour of the ocean is a literal reflection of the organisms and materials in its waters.

💣 Scientists have used computer modelling to analyse 4,000 different ways to mitigate climate change – and 70% of those scenarios predict that the world will exceed the 1.5°C mark in the next five years.

😲 As if the above-ground effects of climate change weren’t frightening enough, we now need to start worrying about the “silent hazard” that is underground climate change. A study by Northwestern University found that rising underground temperatures cause changes in the sand, clay, and rock layers beneath buildings. This could result in buildings and infrastructure shifting, sinking, and cracking, which could put lives at risk.

👏 Deforestation in Columbia reached its lowest levels since 2013, after falling 29.1% last year. The government attributed the decrease to working with local communities, paying them to safeguard forests, and levelling criminal investigations at those suspected of financing destructive activities. President Gustavo Petro voiced what I have been banging on about for a while: for rich nations to cancel foreign debt in exchange for conserving areas like the Amazon. But clearly that’s not on the table, with US climate envoy John Kerry this week outright rejecting the idea of contributing to a loss and damage fund, so it’s highly unlikely that his country will write off any debt. [What’s the loss and damage fund? Read about it in a past newsletter here.]

🗣️ Climate Cardinals, a youth-led nonprofit made up of more than 9,000 volunteers across 40+ countries, has partnered with Google to scale the organisation's language translating services using AI-enabled tools. So far, the non-profit has translated more than 500,000 words from climate change resources from English into dozens of languages. It has also created a synthesis of the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report and translated it into over 25 languages. Climate Cardinals founder Sophia Kianni said: "For too long, the international climate movement has been inaccessible to people who don’t speak English."

🥇 Americans have voted Leonardo DiCaprio as the most trustworthy famous authority on climate change and other environmental issues – over Greta Thunberg, Al Gore, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and President Joe Biden.

🌀 Wild weather: Five people die in wildfires and flash floods in Russia. The irony that India may need to implement water rations after flooding caused a major river to burst its banks. Torrential rain causes blackouts and flight cancellations in South Korea. More than 40,000 people in China's Sichuan province have been evacuated because of floods. And flash floods in Pennsylvania kill at least four.

And in business news

🤦🏻‍♀️ The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) is on course to emit over 11 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases in the next 25 years – nearly as much as China emits annually. This is why it makes zero sense that the company’s CEO, Sultan Al Jaber, will lead the COP28 UN climate conference later this year. Ironically, he has called for governments and businesses to reduce emissions in all regions and sectors, while ADNOC plans to increase oil production by 42% in 2030.

🪵 The wood industry is massively undercounting its impact on the climate. A study published in Nature reported that the production of paper, pulp, pellets, and lumber releases at least 3.5 billion tonnes of CO2 every year – more than three times the annual emissions from aviation. That’s because, when you cut down a tree, it releases all the carbon it has absorbed over its lifetime back into the atmosphere. And it takes a very long time for a newly-planted tree to start absorbing carbon (read more in a past issue here). What’s more, past studies have found that burning wood pellets as a form of biomass energy releases more CO2 than coal. Meanwhile, in Sweden, developers are getting ready to build the world’s largest wooden city.

Well, that's interesting disturbing

Crab shells could play a vital role in harnessing renewable energy and reducing planet-warming emissions.

Researchers at the University of Maryland have been exploring the use of a chemical from crustacean shells in a zinc-ion battery designed to store renewable energy.

They say using this chemical makes the battery safer and extends its lifespan.

Beyond batteries, the substance – chitosan – has an array of applications, from bio-pesticides in agriculture to bandages that aid wound healing in medicine.

We know that the transition to green energy will have a significant environmental impact, but this new development is not good news for Sebastian and friends.

One small thing you can do

Keep your car tyres pumped.

Ever tried riding a bike with flat tyres? You have to pedal a lot harder to get moving. Same thing with car tyres.

Deflated tyres need more energy to begin moving and maintain speed.

Properly inflated tyres improve your car’s fuel efficiency, which leads to lower carbon emissions. In fact, inflating tyres to their proper pressure can improve mileage by about 3.3%.

Because lots of little actions combined can add up to something remarkable.

I'll leave you on this happy note...

This groundhog gives two fucks: zero and none 😂

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