The potential energy of being entertained
Netflix just published a report drafted by its Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, estimating – among other things – its environmental footprint for operations during the year 2019. According t…
climate change
37 posts
Losing sight of the agricultural finish line
In The Guardian, Joanna Blythman pokes an important pin into the frustrating but unsurprisingly durable bubble of vegan cuisine and the low-hanging fruits of ethical eating: These days it's fashi…
Free speech at the outer limits
On January 12, Peter W. Wood, president of an American organisation called the National Association of Scholars (NAS), wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal against attempts by one individual to p…
A why of how we wear what we wear
There are many major industries operating around the world commonly perceived to be big drivers of climate change. Plastic, steel and concrete manufacturing come immediately to mind – but fashion does…
A windier world
A new paper in Nature Climate Change reports a reversal in "terrestrial stilling" since 2010 – i.e. global wind speeds, thought to be in decline thanks to deforestation and real estate devel…
The climate and the A.I.
A few days ago, the New York Times and other major international publications sounded the alarm over a new study that claimed various coastal cities around the world would be underwater to different d…
The virtues of local travel
Here's something I wish I'd read before overtourism and flygskam removed the pristine gloss of desirability from the selfies, 360º panoramas and videos the second-generation elites posted ever…
Prestige journals and their prestigious mistakes
On June 24, the journal Nature Scientific Reports published a paper claiming that Earth's surface was warming by more than what non-anthropogenic sources could account for because it was simply mo…
The Meerut mahayagya
Did some back-of-the-envelope calculations about the Meerut mahayagya, where a bunch of Hindu priests are burning 50 tonnes of mango wood and approx. 10 million tablespoons of ghee in a mega-ritual to…
Veblen cars and useless concerns for the climate
Lexus has an ad on the jacket of today's The Hindu for its new premium hybrid electric vehicle, the LS 500h. The product description states that the car "extends relentless innovation to envi…
A flood as an opportunity
Our preparedness for the effects of climate change is both mitigating global avg. surface temperature rise and better planning public spaces and improving the distribution/accessibility of resources.…
Establishing trust across the aisle on issues of climate change
Making people anxious even to ask honest questions, and robbing them of the opportunity to respectfully disagree, isn't good for science.…