Rapidly Moving Events

What is the cost of inaction? Costly weather disasters have now cost the US a record $306 billion. Although it is difficult to definitively draw cause-effect relationships, “many scientific studies show that some of today’s extremes have climate change fingerprints on them”, according to University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd, and past president of the American Meteorological Society [National Post, January 8, 2018]. For another perspective, read further. Climate change is also having some very unanticipated effects on biodiversity, as about 99 in 100 newly hatched turtle babies are female at one of the biggest sea turtle nesting sites in the world. For impacts on immigration, read here.

This is why we need more climate leadership like Mayor de Blasio of New York City, who recently announced that the city pension funds would divest about $5 billion from companies involved in the fossil fuel business. Continuing his leadership, he also announced a lawsuit against five major oil companies, to collect billions of dollars in damages to pay for city efforts to cope with the effects of climate change.

Source: World Economic Forum

Read here about five shocking facts about the scale of plastic pollution that’s choking our seas, but as per my previous blogs, we can change this and very quickly with a mix of bold, innovative government legislation to accelerate the diffusion of business innovation already occurring. For example, the prime minister of England, Theresa May announced proposed policies to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste within 25 years and plastics-free aisles in supermarkets and a tax on takeaway containers.