TYMHM: End of November
My regular feature sharing some interesting things that I've seen, heard or read over the last few weeks: they are Things That You Might Have Missed.
💼🌍The UK government is finally taking steps to hold businesses to account for their contribution to climate change. It has announced plans to require climate risk reports from big business within the next five years. It would be great if it was from now, but we’ll take it. Of course, measuring and reporting is only the beginning. Action then needs to be taken on those reports to create real change.
🦟A new study confirms that pet flea treatments are poisoning England’s rivers, so it seems sensible that if you are applying these treatments you try not to let your dog ‘wild swim’ for a few days afterwards.
🙋🏽🌱I loved this Planet Service Announcement podcast interview with Leah Thomas (@greengirlleah), which addressed the confusion that I also feel about environmentalists not also taking a stand against racism and subconscious bias. She’s the founder of Intersectional Environmentalist which, by the way, feels like the descriptor for what I do that I’ve been looking for. If you are interested in racial diversity in the environmental fields, you may also be interested in this article about how Black Women are Leaders in the Environmental Movement in the US and information on how environmental professions in the UK rank second-least diverse.
📸 I’ve had a few people ask me about the relatively new addition of image descriptions on my Instagram posts. I’d noticed them appear on a few other accounts I follow, did some research and realised that for five more minutes of my time, I could make my posts far more useful and interesting to people with vision impairment. Turns out I might enjoy writing them more than I enjoy writing my actual posts! If you’d like to do this too, check out this helpful guide to using image descriptions and alt text.
🗞️My favourite e-newsletter at the moment is Unpacking Media Bias and in a recent mailout it introduced me to Local Purse – a new concept that allows you to buy global souvenirs from global sellers. It’s a great way to support them through this time of reduced international travel and to learn more about locations in the world directly from locals.
⏳I’ve been sharing a lot on how to stay safe in water over the last few TYMHM, but do you know how to safely escape quicksand? Now you can learn in this handy two-minute video – you’re welcome.
🎩This article from TED is the best explanation I’ve seen recently on when it is appropriate to wear an item from another culture and when it could be considered to be cultural appropriation.
🧣🦙The complexities around ‘sustainable fashion’ and ‘sustainable materials’ continue in this article from Ecocult which highlights that according to the Higg index natural fibres are worse for the environment than synthetic ones. It shows the challenges with any sort of certification or ranking system – what you choose to include or not include, and what is easily measurable and comparable and what isn’t, can significantly skew results. We are trying to distill a very complicated issues into a single number, there are going to be problems here.
🤖I was blown away to discover that there is a whole world of Virtual Influencers on social media, who are working around the clock to sell us stuff while looking like the most stereotypically ‘perfect’ human beings. I’m both disturbed and fascinated. The accounts look like real people or at least like real models. One of them has been on the cover of Grazia Middle East. Yep.
🚢The shipping industry is one of the world’s biggest polluters and for a long time it went under the radar because its emissions were not accounted for anywhere. This is why the news of wind-powered car carrier Oceanbird is so exciting – innovative and meaningful changes across the industry will be important for lower-impact international trade. You don’t have to worry about who is accounting for the emissions if you aren’t creating them in the first place!
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