Slavenka & Obi

Friday, July 7, 2023

Winding Road, Trey Ratcliff

Amazon deforestation down by a third in 2023

Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon fell by 33.6% in the first six months of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's term compared with the same period in 2022, the government says. Its suggests the rainforest shrank by 2,649 sq km this January-June, down from 3,988 sq km in those six months last year under President Bolsonaro. The released government satellite data has not been independently verified. Lula has pledged to end deforestation, or forest clearance, by 2030. But he faces a huge challenge to achieve this target, as the area of rainforest still reported to be lost under his rule is more than three times the size of New York City. The past few years have seen an alarming rise in deforestation.

The Amazon rainforest is a crucial buffer in the global fight against climate change.

Thursday, July 6, 2023

Scientific Principles and Craft Traditions Converge in Tauba Auerbach’s Research-Focused Practice

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BAJAO Cabin

We usually think of sleeping on land, when we talk about camping, but BAJAO is offering a new way to experience the outdoors.

The German brand has created an all-in-one tent that can be affixed to your paddle board so that you can sleep on the water and not get wet. This innovative product fits any paddle board longer than 11 feet 6 inches and comes with stabilizing pipes so that the tent remains safely attached. In addition to providing shelter from the sun, this tent also includes a barrier to keep insects out.

And if you're ever in the mood to look at the moon, you can remove the flysheet on top and still have a transparent layer to deter bugs. BAJAO Cabin also features a durable and waterproof floor made from 150D Oxford polyester fabric. This makes the tent usable for water, but also on other surfaces like mud, sand, or rock. When it's not in use, the tent can be packed down into an easy-to-carry backpack.

Beach Day by @thankswillem

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Rethink Plastic by @javier_jaen

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First impressions of Threads: can Meta do this?

The app looks almost identical to Twitter. The character limit, the reposting, the feed. It's all incredibly familiar.

Mark Zuckerberg claims millions of people have signed up in the first few hours. You should always be sceptical when a tech boss says how many users have signed up to a platform. But it does feel like a lot of people are already on it. That's partly because it's connected to Instagram.

If you are already on Instagram, you are given the option to "follow all" of your Instagram followers when you sign up. The option gives you a ready-made follower list, but also means you'll be likely to gain followers as your Instagram friends sign up. This is clever from Mr Zuckerberg, and why Big Tech companies have massive advantages over smaller ones. Meta isn't creating an app from scratch.

It's benefiting from its billion-plus Instagram followers that are giving it a massive shot in the arm. Platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon did not have this luxury. They started with zero users.

But whether this is "fair" or not, Mr Zuckerberg doesn't care. He's copied other apps before to great success (Reels is a clone of TikTok) and he's happy to do so again.

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

(Im)Migration, Sarah Conti

Tuesday, July 4, 2023

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California sea lion,Simon Biddie

The winners have been announced in the third edition of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation’s Environmental Photography award.

The waiting is the hardest part

The Cornish Seal Sanctuary has been rescuing and rehabilitating pups for more than 60 years.

Between September 2022 and March 2023, 50 grey seal pups were treated by the animal care team, with 86% of them being released back into the sea. The sanctuary also provides a permanent home to those needing special care.

All photographs: Alexander Turner

El Niño has arrived and threatens lives, declares UN

The arrival of a climate-heating El Niño event has been declared by the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO), with officials warning that preparation for extreme weather events is vital to save lives and livelihoods.

The last major El Niño was in 2016, which remains the hottest year on record. The new El Niño comes on top of the increasing global heating driven by human-caused carbon emissions, an effect the WMO called a “double whammy”. This can supercharge extreme weather, and temperature records are already being broken on land and at sea across the globe.

The WMO said there was now a 90% probability of the El Niño event continuing to the end of 2023 at a moderate strength or higher.

Neil Farber

Monday, July 3, 2023

What We're Reading

Artwork by Michael Dumontier & Neil Farber

Please Keep Silence

Photography by Nti Styling by Joana Zibat.

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Are your clothes making you sick?

Jaclyn is a former fashion production manager in New York City. She told me about her experience opening boxes of samples from Asia and South America every day and being hit in the face with the pungent smell of synthetic chemicals. After years of touching this freshly made clothing, she developed rashes on her hands and arms. When her dermatologist tested her for allergies, she found out she was allergic to several chemicals typically used in fashion production, including a blue disperse dye used to dye polyester. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do to protect herself – all those allergens are perfectly legal to put on and in clothing. Even if she quit her job, she has to wear clothing to live.

Her health spiraled after that, a result, she believes, of the stress of her job combined with touching and breathing in fashion chemicals day in and day out.

Chemicals in clothing are a complex, opaque and an under-researched area. “There’s not necessarily a lot of evidence that goes into deciding what is a safe limit of a chemical,” Mordukhovich said. “Even if each chemical is below thresholds that would be considered a direct safety issue, what we don’t know is if you have hundreds of chemicals interacting together, what effects does that have?”