🌱 The Grumpy Optimists #38
New techniques to save coral reefs, albatross divorce rates, and a podcast for you to check out...
Happy Monday everyone and welcome to another week 👋
Hope everyone is starting to feel just a little bit festive as we edge into December. 🌲
This week's newsletter is a little shorter than usual, and we look at how scientists are using innovative techniques to help coral reefs beat the heat, why Germany is increasingly bullish on climate action, and how even albatrosses are affected by climate change.
Let's dig in.
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👀 Articles to read
🐠 Scientists are using innovative techniques to help coral reefs beat the heat. A team from the Australian Institute of Marine Science has developed an algorithm that can seek out heat-tolerant strains of coral from northern areas of the Great Barrier Reef, which they can breed with more vulnerable coral specimens. This accelerates the natural "gene flow" - a process by which corals' genetic material naturally spreads across a reef - hopefully giving them a better fighting chance at keeping up with climate change.
💭 Why is this important? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecasts that an average global temperature increase of 2°C will cause 99% of coral reefs to decline. Given that reefs provide coastal communities with a crucial buffer from sea storms, and are home to an abundance of marine species and ecosystem functions such as nutrient cycling, this would be a huge blow to both people and planet. Whilst reducing greenhouse gasses and managing damaging marine activities such as commercial fishing is a priority when it comes to protecting reefs, scientific solutions such as these are also a great reason to stay optimistic.
🦢 Climate Change is pushing up the rates of "divorce" in albatrosses. Albatrosses are a species of seabirds that are famous for mating for life. However, not altogether unlike humans, this monogamy is challenged when they undergo periods of stress. Food shortages and harsher environmental conditions, catalysed by climate change, are causing elevated rates of albatross couples to split up, impacting their mating patterns.
🇩🇪 Germany going green? Germany's new coalition, led by Olaf Scholz, is going big on climate commitments. It's planning to stop using any coal by 2030, eight years ahead of schedule, solar panels will be compulsory on new commercial buildings and the coalition aims for 80% of new vehicles to be electric by 2030.
💻 Are Microsoft leading the way for corporations on climate change? In January 2020, the company announced that it would be carbon negative by 2030, and by 2050 it would have removed from the atmosphere all the carbon it has emitted since it was founded in 1975. Read this really interesting insight into how they're hoping to achieve this.
⛏️ Illegal mining fuelling climate change in Madagascar. The Alaotra-Mangoro region in Madagascar was once a thriving forest but has since become one of the largest stale mining operations on the planet. It’s also a mass site of human exploitation. Thousands of livelihoods depend on this illegal mining industry, but Madagascar is paying the price in climate change.
🎙️ A podcast to check out
Former UNFCCC Executive Secretary and full-time living legend Christiana Figueres, the woman who was instrumental in bringing about the Paris Agreement at COP21, has made a podcast all about the need for balance between justified anger and resilient hope when it comes to the climate change dialogue. As self-professed Grumpy Optimists, we can only hope to walk in her mighty footsteps.
There are episodes dedicated to unpacking themes from COP26 to food sustainability, which we heartily recommend. This week, this particular episode starring Kenyan climate Activist Elizabeth Wathuti caught our ears.
That’s all from us this week folks. Send us a mail with any cheeky requests, thoughts, or feedback at thegrumpyoptimists@gmail.com, we’d love to hear from you.
Yours truly,
The Grumpy Optimists 💚