Review Article from The New England Journal of Medicine — Climate Change, Fossil-Fuel Pollution, and Children’s Health
— Read on www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra2117706
Tag: sustainable
Scientists spot a massive group of feeding fin whales | Popular Science
Once hunted to the brink of extinction, a new survey signals that the world’s second-largest animal is staging a comeback.
— Read on www.popsci.com/environment/fin-whales-rebound-feeding-frenzy/
60. Cassandra Quave Thinks the Way Antibiotics Are Developed Might Kill Us | People I (Mostly) Admire
By mid-century, 10 million people a year are projected to die from untreatable infections. Can Cassandra, an ethnobotanist at Emory University convince Steve that herbs and ancient healing are key to our medical future?
Humanity’s Impact | Studio Birthplace
Short film Humanity’s Impact explores the question:
‘How many plastic bottles do we produce globally in real time?’
And the accompanying Augmented Reality app
invites users to interact with the data on a personal level.
Animated Series
Did you know that globally, we produce about 1 million plastic bottles per minute?
What does that number even look like? This is what you’re about to find out in Humanity’s Impact.Set in a 1960s American suburb test site that is populated with plastic test dummies, the film unleashes 20,000 bottles per second that crash onto the unknowing cast of dummies. The bottles burst through the kitchen window, and engulf the family dog. The suburban paradise is quickly flooded, revealing the terrifying scale and rate at which we pollute our planet. Only 9% of the overwhelming pile of plastic bottles actually gets recycled, the rest is dumped or burnt, or ends up in landfills and our oceans.
Augmented Reality App
To be able to understand our own consumption behavior better, we partnered with interactive design studio Superposition to release the augmented reality app Humanity’s Impact to help users relate to consumption-related data on an even more personal level. For example, users can drop 20,000 bottles into their own kitchen or bedroom, pledge to reduce their own plastic use, track their progress, take a photo with their data and share it on social media to motivate others to take part. The app is available for free right now on the Apple App Store and on Google Play.
view more work
Before we made the highly successful film Wasteminster for Greenpeace, we made the pilot film Humanity’s Impact. With the film, we wanted to explore if we could make visible the incredible data related to humanity’s impact on our planet, putting a picture to the numbers.Both the animated series and the accompanying augmented reality app unleash impressive data simulations, visualizing the tremendous scale in which our consumer culture operates.
The project aims to create awareness and inspire action towards a more sustainable future
— Read on www.studiobirthplace.com/humanitysimpact
UN Committee Finds Violation of Indigenous Peoples’ Right to Traditional Lands | ASIL
The community complained that the process killed their animals and plants, and had an adverse impact on the environment. The Committee found that Paraguay failed to prevent contamination in violation of the their right to traditional lands, and recommended that Paraguay complete the relevant criminal and administrative proceedings. This decision affirms that the term “home” in the context of the indigenous community should be interpreted “within the context of the special relationship between them and their territories including their livestock, crops and their way of life such as hunting, foraging and fishing.”
— Read on www.asil.org/ILIB/un-committee-finds-violation-indigenous-peoples-right-traditional-lands
Why the U.N.’s Biodiversity Conference Is So Important – The New York Times
Countries are gathering in an effort to stop a biodiversity collapse that scientists say could equal climate change as an existential crisis.
— Read on www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/climate/un-biodiversity-conference-climate-change.html
NASA Turns to the Cloud for Help With Next-Generation Earth Missions | NASA
As satellites collect larger and larger amounts of data, engineers and researchers are implementing solutions to manage these huge increases.
— Read on www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-turns-to-the-cloud-for-help-with-next-generation-earth-missions
Scientists Show How They Gave A 70,000-Year-Old Neanderthal His Smile
Experts reconstructed the caveman’s face from just a fossilized orbital bone.
— Read on www.newsweek.com/scientists-show-how-they-gave-70000-year-old-neanderthal-his-smile-1637223
Volcanic Grit, Water Shortage Threaten La Palma’s Banana Crop
Once the ash lands on the bananas, it is almost impossible to remove.
And it causes further damage in the handling, transport and packing, with the huge bunches, which are known as “pineapples” and can weigh up to 70 kilos (150 pounds), carried on the shoulders.
“You have to blast it off with water or something — to be honest, I don’t know how to do it,” said Sanchez, 60, who owns a small plantation. “When the dew forms overnight, it really makes the grit stick, and in the morning it just won’t come off.”
Can’t be sold
The skin blackens in the form of a scratch but nothing like the brownish-black markings that show the fruit is ripe.
And although the banana is perfect, it is rejected and cannot be sold.
“European quality regulations ban the sale of bananas with more than four square centimeters of scratches per fruit, even if they are perfect inside and can be eaten without risk,” said Esther Dominguez of ASPROCAN, which represents banana producers in the Canary Islands.
The volcano’s eruption has predominantly hurt the Aridane valley on the western flank of La Palma, although the problem caused by volcanic ash and grit has affected a much wider area.
— Read on www.voanews.com/a/volcanic-grit-water-shortage-threaten-la-palma-s-banana-crop/6263865.html
NFTs Seem Like a Frivolous Fad, But They Should Be the Future of Music – Rolling Stone
The wild boom and bust of art NFTs made many onlookers wary of blockchain-based technology — but new developments in gaming, ticketing, and music royalties reveal NFTs’ true power
— Read on www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/crypto-nft-gaming-ticketing-royalties-1197979/