The last week I’ve been busy with traveling and haven’t had the same opportunity to read as much as I normally do. But here are a few things I came across the last week:
Texas daily - an article about the climate scientist and christian Katharine Hayhoe. Famous for her communications skills and probably one of the most experienced when it comes to climate change denial. The article of her interesting profil gives you new perspectives on science, climate change and arguments for those who don’t believe in climate science.
Health benefits of forest bathing. Just as much as I read about sustainable development I read about human health. Because my passion is really about how can human beings and other living things av a good and prosperous life? I’m glad research tells us what’s actually good with spending time in nature. We need the evidence for serious forest protection. Healthy ecosystems leads to healthy immune systems.
Hunger in Zambia and children out of school in Mali. It’s important to stay in tuned with what’s happening in the world. When discussing sustainable development, let us never forget the people and children who’s primary needs are not being met. It’s a very sad story that hunger, terror and lack of education is still happening and even though more and more people are being lift out from poverty, it doesn’t mean that development is always progressing on all places.
New Year for United Nations. Many people might have seen Greta Thunbergs speech but not everyone know during what meeting she was participating. The general secretary of United Nations opened its 74th meeting and climate change was high on the agenda but not the only topic being discussed. Actually less then half of the members states participated in the climate top meeting and countries efforts are still not in line with the Paris Agreement. For a week all member states are having a speech and out of 192 of them, only 16 were women (!). Current conflicts were also discussed and other political statement was made from Donal Trump and Jair Bolsonaro among others. United Nations can never be better then it member states, something I concluded already in high school while writing a paper on United Nations.
Good News! Recently me and a friend disagreed upon if the world gets better and not. I say no, he says yes. Maybe for the majority of human beings, life is improving in terms of basic needs and material standard. But what about quality of life? And what about the environmental costs of climate change and biodiversity loss? I’m not sure if we can say things are improving. However, child mortality is decreasing, stores in Thailand will stop giving plastic bags to consumers and investment in renewables from 2010 to 2019, four doubled. Always something to be happy about.
Sweden and Agenda 2030. There are a few areas where we are doing good and in others we are not. Carbon based consumption emissions are not decreasing, deadly violence has increased the last few years, there’s still gender gap in some area even though our aid policies are being cherished. Good and bad, still not enough. Will we reach the goals?
Then two inspiring videos - Abba Björn about Greta Thunberg and this wonderful fictional narrative by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez presented by The Intercept and Naomi Klein.