🌱 The Grumpy Optimists #96
I'M HIRING - Can you help?
Happy Monday. 👋
Welcome back to episode 96 of The Grumpy Optimist and your recap of the latest in positive climate news. Last week was a little bit of a grumpy episode, a tad more climate anxiety than I normally have and while there is a lot of bad news this week too, I wanted to keep this one all optimistic.
We still have the opportunity to limit the warming of the planet and continue to work for a better future, so why not feel like that’s possible while you’re reading this, ey? Without further ado, let’s dig in. Oh, and stay until the end to find out why beetroot tastes so good.
👀 Articles to read
💼 33% of LinkedIn UK job postings are green. A new report from LinkedIn has found that green jobs make up 1/3 of UK job postings, however, around the world, that drops to one in eight. Green jobs are on the rise, in demand and much needed. Speaking of, I’M HIRING. 🚨
For those of you that don’t know, I’m a co-founder of Zevero, a carbon accounting platform that works with some incredible consumer goods brands, breweries and marketing agencies. We’re a team of 6 and we’re looking for somebody to join the team as a carbon consultant to work directly with our clients, measuring their emissions and helping them build world-class climate programs. If you want to find out more about the role, you can connect with me on LinkedIn and view the job here. If you know anybody for the role, please refer them and I'‘ll pay you £££ if we hire them.
🚲 Tasmania provide $1.2 million in grants for E-bikes. With the average car journey emitting 243.8 grams of CO2e per km travelled and an e-bike emitting just 6, replacing short car journeys with active travel is a great way to reduce emissions. The Tasmanian government is following countries like France in providing grants to increase the uptake of e-bikes.
💨 World’s largest (for now) offshore wind farm is complete. The 1.5 GW Dutch offshore wind farm is the largest operating wind farm highlighting the incredible rise in wind capacity over the last few years.
🌎 NASA make carbon emissions visible. One of the biggest hurdles to reducing our emissions is that they're invisible. Not anymore. New computer modelling techniques by NASA have allowed us to dissect the atmosphere and understand the contributors to the rise in emissions and the blanket of heat were creating. The key takeaway for me is that this is a powerful demonstration of making our emissions visible, perhaps the pale blue dot moment of the 21st century.
👀 What you’re looking at. The visualisation shows the carbon dioxide being added into the atmosphere over the course of the year 2021, split into four major contributors: fossil fuels in orange, burning biomass in red, land ecosystems in green, and the ocean in blue.
The dots on the surface also show how atmospheric carbon dioxide is also being reabsorbed by land ecosystems in green and the ocean in blue.
This view highlights what is happening over Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. There are more in the link to NASA’s website.
🚱 Drought is becoming an increasingly big issue. This article is a fantastic summary of why and how we need to change the way we think about water, we’re wasteful and we simply don’t have enough to continue as we are. Interestingly, London gets less rainfall than both Sydney and Rome and has only 90 days of water in reserve at any one time. Huge brands like Diageo, who rely heavily on water to produce alcohol are already highlighting the risk that water shortages face to their business, with a company backed by Bill Gates creating a beer from wastewater as the risk of drought becomes increasingly prevalent.
🇨🇳 China surpasses target of 50% non-fossil fuel energy, achieving 50.9%. China has made significant progress in its transition to renewable energy in recent years. By the end of 2022, non-fossil fuel power sources accounted for 50.9% of China's total installed capacity, up from 38.4% in 2015. However, China's energy consumption mix remains weighted toward fossil fuels, mainly coal.
👷🏻 Construction industry goes green with electric equipment. When you think of construction equipment, you may typically think of large diesel-powered, maybe yellow, machines that are loud and bad for the planet, but that is changing. Well, the yellow may well stay but more operators are shifting towards electric machines. The good news from this is that it’s not just for environmental reasons, electric is just better. It’s cheaper to run, requires lower maintenance because of fewer moving parts and it’s also quieter.
🎙️ A podcast to check out
We need trillions to fix the climate, but where the money will come from is a challenge, especially for developing countries. In this episode of Bloomberg’s Zero podcast, Avinhas Persaud, a special envoy on investment and financial services for Barbados talks about how he is trying to work with the IMF and World Bank to turbocharger the roll-out of clean technologies. It’s a win for the planet, reducing poverty and creating growth. A true optimist story.
Thanks again for reading, this week’s episode was written to some old Bombay Bicycle Club and the wonderful smell of rain after what feels like months without it here in London. Fun fact, the smell of rain is called Petrichor and is produced by the release of a mixture of bacteria and oils called geosmin. Geosmin is also what gives beetroot its earthy flavour. Pretty cool right? Anyway, that’s enough of me. Have a great week everyone.
George, The Grumpy Optimist. 💚