Two Degrees Cooler

This week we’ve seen in the news that a large boat has gotten stuck in the Suez Canal. This is a high traffic area which means it’s holding up hundreds of boats crossing from Asia to Europe, or vice versa. The shipping industry is a big contributor to carbon emissions - specifically black carbon which are tiny black particles produced by burning marine fuel- which are terrible for the environment. This is why it's important for them to be efficient and burn the least amount of fuel. Having hundreds of ships waiting to pass through a canal is not good for emissions, especially when some are choosing to take the longer route around Africa which causes more fuel to be used. To fix the problem, a lot of people are saying to just pull it out, but it’s more difficult than that. I thought this was a really interesting physics problem that would be worth having a look at. The Suez Canal The Suez Canal is a manmade waterway connecting Asia and Europe. It is one of three of the most import...

Happy Women’s History Month! I’ve been looking for opportunities to explore intersectionality, last week I had a look at tokenism and hearing from diverse voices, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to look into feminism as well. The motivation here is anecdotal; in my experience there’s a huge overlap between people who care about women’s rights and about the planet. Why is that? Tik Tok and the Environmental Aesthetic If you don’t know much about teen culture, the words “VSCO girl” and “cottage core” might seem completely alien. Along with styles like “alt” and “plant mom” these are like lifestyles that incorporate not just clothes and decorations but also values and actions. The first time I noticed environmentalism as a ‘trend’ was with VSCO girls in 2018. This is a style that involves oversized T-shirts, scrunchies, and Kankan backpacks. Common phrases included “save the turtles”, referring to using reusable straws over plastic, and they also popularised hydro-flasks ov...