Apr 22nd 2017

Six articles to make you optimistic about the planet’s future this Earth Day

April 22 is Earth Day, one of the world’s largest environmental movements against climate change. It’s a time when people around the world come together to defend the environment against the impact of humans.

With a climate change-denying Trump administration in the White House and fear-inducing predictions of what our world might look like a few degrees warmer, it’s understandable that many people have lost hope about the future of our planet.

But the scientific community is on the constant search for solutions, making advances and breakthroughs to fight climate change. Others including Hollywood celebrities are also speaking up about the crisis and what can be done about it.

Here are six reasons to be optimistic.

1. A bunch of countries finally ratified a climate change agreement

In early October 2016, 55 countries with 55% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions ratified the Paris climate change agreement. On November 4, it came into force. The main long-term goal is to keep the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

Read: How will the Paris climate agreement change your day-to-day life?.

2. Coal’s best days are over

Great Britain’s annual electrical energy mix. Author calculations: data source National Grid and Elexon

Socially and politically, 2016 was a momentous year for Britain. It was also a record breaking year for energy and the environment, but thankfully for all the right reasons. Britain’s electricity was the cleanest it had been in 60 years, as coal collapsed and renewables rose to record levels.

Read: The year coal collapsed: 2016 was a turning point for Britain’s electricity.

3. Electric cars are actually becoming a thing

Electric cars are becoming more affordable - and attractive. Motor Blog, Author provided

There is huge potential for using electric vehicles to tackle climate change, giving us cleaner air and growing the green economy. The question is, when will it make sense for most of us to ditch diesel and petrol, and go electric? Given the pace of innovation in the sector, it looks to be just around the corner.

Read: Five reasons why you might be driving electric sooner than you think.

4. Britain is becoming all about wind power

In 1993, nine 300kW turbines were installed on the eastern pier at Blyth Harbour, near Newcastle on England’s east coast. One can question whether this really counted as an offshore wind farm, but it was the UK’s first tentative step towards building wind turbines at sea. Ten years later, the country’s first truly offshore wind farm was built at North Hoyle in Liverpool Bay, 6km from the coast of North Wales. Thirty 2MW turbines were installed which could provide the electricity needs of around 40,000 homes.

Fast forward to 2016 and the UK is the world’s leading developer of offshore wind power with a total installed capacity of more than 5,000MW.

Read: Britain is only just beginning to exploit its vast resources of offshore wind.

5. But lava might be the next best thing in renewable energy

Iceland is a nation built on about 130 volcanoes resting above a divergent plate boundary which brings a continuous supply of hot, fresh magma up from the mantle just a few kilometres below. Icelanders have capitalised on this, and now generate more than a quarter of their electricity through geothermal, accessing boiling temperature water within 2km of the surface.

Read: Magma power: how superheated molten rock could provide renewable energy.

6. Trump might not believe in climate change, but China is stepping up


The world’s largest green house gas emitter could certainly use US inaction as an excuse to backslide on its promises of greenery. But China could instead see this as an opportunity to project itself as the planet’s leading custodian. It is already heavily investing in renewables. Opening the annual National People’s Congress in March, Premier Li Keqiang pledged to “make the sky blue again”. The report he presented and the legislation and decisions made at the congress all stressed environmental issues.

Read: Why China is serious about becoming the global leader on climate change.

Now go and switch some lights off.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Browse articles by author

More Essays

The Measure of Moral Progress 
by Peter Singer
Jun 10th 2021
EXTRACT: "“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress,” Mahatma Gandhi said, “can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” If we apply that test to the world as a whole, how much moral progress have we made over the past two millennia? ...... That question is suggested by The Golden Ass, arguably the world’s earliest surviving novel, written around 170 CE, when Emperor Marcus Aurelius ruled the Roman Empire. Apuleius, the author, was an African philosopher and writer, born in what is now the Algerian city of M’Daourouch."
Type 2 diabetes: sitting can cause problems with blood sugar levels, so get up and move
by Aye Chan Paing and Sebastien Chastin
Jun 4th 2021
EXTRACT: "Research we’ve done, which looked at 37 adults with type 2 diabetes, found that over two weeks, prolonged sitting was associated with high blood sugar levels. But we also found that when people stood up or walked around between periods of sitting, they had lower blood sugar levels. Other studies have also had similar results."
An Experimental Entrepreneur
by David Galenson
May 28th 2021
EXTRACT: "Paul Van Doren's legacy lies in a famous company, and in his advice to young entrepreneurs to get their hands dirty, and to know what goes into making what they are selling."
The Lasting Significance of David Hume
by Sam Ben-Meir
May 19th 2021
EXTRACT: "May 7th marked three hundred and ten years since the philosopher David Hume was born. He is chiefly remembered as the most original and destructive of the early modern empiricists, following John Locke and George Berkeley." .... " Shocking as it may (and should) sound, Hume is implying nothing less than that the next time you turn the key in your car ignition, you are as justified to expect the engine will start as you are in believing it will turn into a pumpkin. For there is a radical contingency that pervades all our experience. We could wake up tomorrow to a world that looks and behaves very differently to the one we are in now. Matters of fact are dependent on experience and can never be known a priori — they are purely contingent, and could always turn out different than what we expect."
Israel’s Greatest Stigma
by Alon Ben-Meier
May 1st 2021
EXTRACT: " The sad reality is that the Mizrahim (Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent) were discriminated against from the day of Israel’s inception, whose Ashkenazi (European Jewish) leaders viewed them as intellectually inferior, “backward,” and “too Arab,” and treated them as such, largely because the Ashkenazim agenda was to maintain their upper-class status while controlling the levers of power, which remain prevalent to this day." ..... " The greatest heartbreaking outcome is that for yet another generation of Israelis, growing up in these debilitating conditions has a direct effect on their cognitive development. A 2015 study published in Nature Neuroscience found that “family income is significantly correlated with children’s brain size…increases in income were associated with the greatest increases in brain surface area among the poorest children.” "
The Present  
by James J. Zogby
Apr 25th 2021
EXTRACT: "We all owe Farah Nabulsi an enormous debt of gratitude. In a short 24-minute film, The Present, she has exposed the oppressive indecency of the Israeli occupation while telling the deeply moving story of a Palestinian family. What is especially exciting is that after winning awards at a number of international film festivals​, Ms. Nabulsi has been nominated for an Academy Award for this remarkable work of art. " 
 Theater of the mind: The world of hallucinations
by Michael Johnson
Apr 25th 2021
EXTRACT: "When I crashed to the floor of my home in Bordeaux recently after two months of Covid-19 dizziness, I was annoyed. The next day I collapsed again. Now I was worried. What I didn’t know was that my brain was sloshing around inside my skull, causing a mild concussion. Nor did I know that I was in for a whole new world of weird and wonderful hallucinations."
Are vegan diets good for your heart?
by Clare Oliver-Williams
Apr 13th 2021
EXTRACT: "Overall, our review has found that there isn’t evidence to back up the claims that veganism is good for your heart. But that is partly because there are few studies ....... But veganism may have other health benefits. Vegans have been found to have a healthier weight and lower blood glucose levels than those who consume meat and dairy. They are also less likely to develop cancer, high blood pressure and diabetes. "
Jackson Pollock’s Mural at the Guggenheim Museum
by Sam Ben-Meir
Apr 8th 2021
EXTRACT: "Pollock’s universe, the universe of Mural, cannot be said to be a rational universe. Nor is it simply devoid of all sense. It is not a purely imaginary world, although in it everything is in a constant state of flux. Mural invokes one of the oldest questions of philosophy, a question going back to the Pre-Socratic philosophers Parmenides and Heraclitus – namely, whether the nature of Reality constitutes unchanging permanence or constant movement and flux. For Pollock, the only thing that is truly unchanging is change itself. The only certainty is that all is uncertain."
How to stop psychopaths and narcissists from winning positions of power
by Steve Taylor
Apr 8th 2021
EXTRACT: "Many present day politicians appear to have psychopathic and narcissistic traits too. It’s easy to spot such leaders, because they are always authoritarian, following hardline policies. They try to subvert democracy, to reduce the freedom of the press and clamp down on dissent. They are obsessed with national prestige, and often persecute minority groups. And they are always corrupt and lacking in moral principles."
Free thought: can you ever be a truly independent thinker?
by Tom Stafford
Apr 6th 2021
EXTRACT: "This has led some to claim that not just half, but perhaps nearly all advertising money is wasted, at least online. There are similar results outside of commerce. One review of field experiments in political campaigning argued “the best estimate of the effects of campaign contact and advertising on Americans’ candidates choices in general elections is zero”. Zero!"
The Father: Movie Review
by Mary L. Tabor
Mar 30th 2021
EXTRACT: "The Father is an extraordinary film, from Florian Zeller’s 2012 play entitled Le Père and directed by Zeller. I’m here to tell you why it is a ‘must see’." EDITOR'S NOTE: The official trailer is attached to the review.
Preconception and Creativity
by David Galenson
Mar 28th 2021
EXTRACT: "Picasso was 26 in 1907, when he completed the Demoiselles; de Kooning was 48 in 1952, when he finished Woman I.  The difference in their ages was not an accident, for studies of hundreds of painters have revealed a striking regularity - the conceptual painters who preconceive their paintings, from Raphael to Warhol, consistently make their greatest contributions earlier in their careers than experimental painters, from Rembrandt to Pollock, who paint directly, without preparatory studies."
Mental toughness can help you cope with challenging events like the pandemic – here’s how to cultivate it
by Dara Mojtahedi
Mar 26th 2021
EXTRACT: "Mental toughness levels are influenced by many different factors. While genetics are partly responsible, a person’s environment is also relevant. For example, both positive experiences while you’re young and mental toughness training programmes have been found to make people mentally tougher."
‘Every day is war’ – a decade of slow suffering and destruction in Syria
by Ammar Azzouz
Mar 20th 2021

The city of Homs has been ravaged by war, leaving millions of people homeless and

Coronavirus: do we have a moral duty not to get sick?
by Vittorio Bufacchi
Mar 20th 2021
EXTRACT: "There are two main rival models of ethics: one is based on rights, the other on duties. The rights-based model, which traces its philosophical origins to the work of John Locke in the 17th century, starts from the assumption that individuals have rights ....... According to this approach, duties are related to rights, but only in a subordinate role. My right to health implies a duty on my country to provide some healthcare services, to the best of its abilities. This is arguably the dominant interpretation when philosophers talk about rights, including human rights." ........ "Your right to get sick, or to risk getting sick, could imply a duty on others to look after you during your illness." ..... "The pre-eminence of rights in our moral compass has vindicated unacceptable levels of selfishness. It is imperative to undertake a fundamental duty not to get sick, and to do everything in our means to avoid causing others to get sick. Morally speaking, duties should come first and should not be subordinated to rights." ..... "Putting duties before rights is not a new, revolutionary idea. In fact it is one of the oldest rules in the book of ethics. Primum non nocere, or first do no harm, is the core principle in the Hippocratic Oath historically taken by doctors, widely attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher and physician Hippocrates. It is also a fundamental principle in the moral philosophy of the Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero, who in De Officiis (On Duties) argues that the first task of justice is to prevent men and women from causing harm to others."
Coronavirus is evolving but so are our antibodies
by Sarah L Caddy and Meng Wang
Mar 18th 2021
EXTRACT: "Several studies have recently compared the difference between antibodies produced straight after a coronavirus infection and those that can be detected six months later. The findings have been both impressive and reassuring. Although there are fewer coronavirus-specific antibodies detectable in the blood six months after infection, the antibodies that remain have undergone significant changes. …….. the “mature” antibodies were better at recognising the variants."
Human Folly and the Nature of Evil: Francisco Goya at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
by Sam Ben-Meir
Mar 15th 2021
EXTRACT: "Like Shakespeare, Goya sees evil as something existing in itself – indeed, the horror of evil arises precisely from its excess. It overflows and refuses to be contained by or integrated into our categories of reason or comprehension. By its very nature, evil refuses to remain within prescribed bounds – to remain fixed, say, within an economy where evil is counterbalanced by good. Evil is always excess of evil." ....... "Nowhere is this more evident than in war. Goya offers us a profound and sustained meditation on the nature of war ........ The image of a Napoleonic soldier gazing indifferently on a man who has been summarily hanged, probably by his own belt, expresses the tragedy of war – its dehumanization of both war’s victims and victors."
NFT art: the bizarre world where burning a Banksy can make it more valuable
by Paul J Ennis
Mar 14th 2021
EXTRACT: "A blockchain company has bought a piece of Banksy artwork and burnt it. But instead of destroying the value of the art, they claim to have made it more valuable, because it was sold as a piece of blockchain art. The company behind the stunt, called Injective Protocol, bought the screen print from a New York gallery. They then live-streamed its burning on the Twitter account BurntBanksy. But why would anyone buy a piece of art just to burn it? Understanding the answer requires us to delve into the tricky world of blockchain or “NFT” art."
Staying active throughout adulthood is linked to lower healthcare costs in later life – new research
by Diarmuid Coughlan
Mar 14th 2021
EXTRACT: "Exercise is good for your health at every age – and you can reap the benefits no matter how late in life you start. But our latest research has shown another benefit of being physically active throughout life. We found that in the US, people who were more physically active as teenagers and throughout adulthood had lower healthcare costs."