A 🧵 of books I've read recently, and you might like.

1. Material World by @EdConwaySky.

A great tour of 6 materials that have built the world around us. Some crucial stories for the future energy transition too. 2. Blue Machine by @helenczerski

Beautiful journey through the depths of the ocean.

I thought it was going to be all about the human impacts on these ecosystems, but that was only a small chunk near the end.

Understanding the science makes me want to protect them even more.

I've heard several people say that renewables are not driving an "energy transition". It's really just an "energy addition".

This makes it sound like fossil fuels have been business-as-usual, and we've stuck renewables on top.

I think there is a better way of framing this...🧵 In rich countries it really is an "energy transition".

Renewables are replacing fossil fuels in the electricity grid.

And as EVs replace petrol, and heat pumps replace gas (which are in early stages), the broader energy mix will transition too.

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Terrible of the @guardian to publish this ill-informed, out-dated article on EVs.

Why does it build so much of its coverage around the climate crisis, then continually publish nonsense articles that undermine real solutions to address it?

theguardian.com/commentisfree/… @guardian Most of the claims in the article are wrong.

You only have to look at the first, on the CO2 emissions of EVs vs. petrol/diesel cars.

Yes, emissions are higher during the production of an EV but this very quickly pays off when you start driving it.

...

What impact have national greenhouse gas emissions had on global warming?

A new paper by @Jones_MattW & team at @gcarbonproject quantifies each country's contribution to global mean surface temperature rise.

I've added this data to @OurWorldInData. Here are some highlights 👇 @Jones_MattW @gcarbonproject @OurWorldInData First, the team calculcates contributions to temperature rise using cumulative emissions of CO2, methane & nitrous oxide since 1850.

They convert this into carbon-dioxide equivalents using the GWP* method.

Includes emissions from fossil sources, agriculture & land use

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It's easy to be skeptical that countries are taking little action on climate change.

This isn't true.

Looking at the shift in our trajectory in just a few years tells a different story.

I looked back at the past 6 years of @climateactiontr projections 👇 @climateactiontr 2016.

Policies in place would have taken us to 3.3 to 3.8°C by 2100.

Country pledges to 2.5 to 2.7°C.

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🆕 @f_spooner and I have published a major new redesign of our work on Biodiversity on @OurWorldInData 🐘🦁

A day after the world sealed a new deal on how to limit biodiversity loss & reverse it.

Explore all our data and articles in one place: ourworldindata.org/biodiversity @f_spooner @OurWorldInData This redesign includes a block of Key Insights on the topic 👇

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Eating locally is not an effective way to reduce the carbon footprint of your diet.

This is despite a recent paper in @NatureFoodJnl claiming that 'food miles' make up 20% of food emissions.

In my latest Substack post I explain why this is wrong: hannahritchie.substack.com/p/food-miles @NatureFoodJnl Some of the key points:

The new paper by Li et al. (2021) claimed that 'food miles' were 3.5 to 7.5 times higher than previous studies.

This is only because they redefined 'food miles' (to include things that are definitely not food miles).

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🆕 We just published a redesign of all our work on the Environmental Impacts of Food on @OurWorldInData

Summary of the different features below 👇🧵

ourworldindata.org/environmental-… @OurWorldInData Key insights.

We include a summary of key insights you need to understand the environmental impacts of food.

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This is an incorrect interpretation of this.

Deaths from natural disasters *have* fallen over the last century because the world has become:
1) Richer
2) More resilient to them
3) Better at predicting them
4) Faster to respond and cooperate in crises

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https://twitter.com/TonyClimate/status/1597396575831003141

This does not mean climate change isn't happening, or that it doesn't pose a risk.

With continued climate change we run the risk of reversing this progress in reducing disaster deaths.

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🆕 Today is the day that we get the annual update on global CO₂ emissions from the @gcarbonproject.

Projects a 1% increase in 2022.

This also gives us updated results for all countries in 2021. We've updated all of our CO₂ charts on @OurWorldInData for you to explore 🧵

1/ The best way to dig into this data is in our CO₂ data explorer.

You can switch between any combination of metrics, and compare any set of countries.

ourworldindata.org/explorers/co2

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Share of electricity that is low-carbon:

🇵🇾 Paraguay: 100%
🇨🇷 Costa Rica: 99%
🇳🇴 Norway: 99%
🇸🇪 Sweden: 98%
🇫🇷 France: 91%
🇨🇦 Canada: 82%
🇧🇷 Brazil: 80%
🇬🇧 UK: 54%
🇩🇪 Germany: 52%
🇺🇸 USA: 39%
🇨🇳 China: 34%
🇦🇺 Australia: 29%
🇯🇵 Japan: 26%
🇮🇳 India: 22%
🇿🇦 S. Africa: 12% Some countries get most (or all) of this low-carbon electricity from renewables 👇

...

Four ways to look at global CO₂ emissions.

1. Which countries have contributed most historically?

Share of cumulative CO₂ since 1750:
🇺🇸 US: 25%
🇨🇳 China: 14%
🇷🇺 Russia: 7%
🇩🇪 Germany: 5.5%
🇬🇧 UK: 4.6%
🇯🇵 Japan: 4%
🇮🇳 India: 3%
🇫🇷 France: 2.3%
🇨🇦 Canada: 2%
🇺🇦 Ukraine: 1.8% For the same countries as above.

2. What is their share of global CO₂ emissions today?

The new Living Planet Index report from @WWF & @OfficialZSL is out today.

This is a massive effort of data curation on what's happening to the world's wildlife.

I've just updated all of our @OurWorldInData data & content from the new report.

🧵on the update and what it means @WWF @OfficialZSL @OurWorldInData The Living Planet Index is very easy to misinterpret (I've done it in the past).

But it's important that we get it right. Otherwise we end up with bad & misleading headlines (like this one 👇)

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Most river plastic leaking into ocean comes from low-to-middle income countries – most in Asia.

BUT this doesn't account for rich countries exporting waste overseas.

What contribution does this make?

I've got some new estimates based on trade data 🧵👇
ourworldindata.org/plastic-waste-… This is a question that I've wanted to answer for a long time, but have lacked the data to do so.

But recent plastic trade data from UN Comtrade means I can make some estimates.

Note that these are estimates & based on the contribution rich countries *might* make.

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I’ve seen various (very valid) critiques of the “20,000 uses of an organic cotton bag to equal a plastic bag” stat over the last few days.

I’ve updated our chart at @OurWorldinData to provide more nuance to these numbers 👇

What’s going on? A short thread 🧵 @OurWorldInData We previously presented two charts on these comparisons.

1. Greenhouse gas emissions (this remains as it is)
2. Aggregated environmental impacts across many metrics

This data comes from a 2018 LCA report from the Danish EPA: www2.mst.dk/Udgiv/publicat…

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What are the most common types of waste we find in the world's rivers and oceans? 🌊

Here are the top 10, as a share of the total 👇

ourworldindata.org/grapher/most-c… The items of waste we find also depends on the river and ocean environment.

In rivers and shorelines we tend to find items such as bags and bottles.

Further offshore we find much more fishing material.

ourworldindata.org/grapher/ocean-…

In 2015, China set a target of reducing fertilizer use by 2020.

It has successfully reduced fertilizer use while maintaining the same (or higher) levels of food production.

ourworldindata.org/grapher/fertil… To be clear: the key take-home from this is not that we don't need fertilizer, or that it's not important.

Many poorer countries would benefit a lot from using more.

But there is also low-hanging fruit for many countries to improve the *efficiency* of their fertilizer use.

One of the easiest ways to limit climate change is to keep existing nuclear plants online.

Next is to install as much renewables and nuclear as possible.

Switching from fossil fuels is not just good for climate, but also for shorter-term human health.

ourworldindata.org/safest-sources… I recently did an update of our figures on energy safety.

The overall results are still the same: nuclear and modern renewables are much, much safer than fossil fuels. And there’s not much between them – the error bounds probably overlap.

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It's #WorldPopulationDay and the UN has just released its new World Population Prospects for 2022.

At @OurWorldInData we've built a new population data explorer for you to explore it all: ourworldindata.org/explorers/popu…

🧵👇A thread with some of the highlights: @OurWorldInData The UN projects that the world will pass 8 billion by November this year.

However, population growth rates are slowing significantly, and have dipped below 1% in the last few years.

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There is a new study in @NatureFoodJnl that suggests that 'food miles' account for nearly 20% of food emissions: nature.com/articles/s4301…

This is way higher than previous studies!

Except, this is not really the case & they're measuring very different things...

🧵👇 @NatureFoodJnl 'Food miles' is the distance * tonnage of food from where it's produced to where it's consumed.

This is a standard definition in the literature & how the public also thinks about it.

The authors of this study know that because they define it in the opening paragraph...

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For millennia, humans have used more and more land for agriculture, taking over wild habitats.

But, we are at a unique point in history: agricultural land use has peaked.

My latest article:
ourworldindata.org/peak-agricultu… While agricultural land use has fallen, the amount of food we produce has continued to increase.

This is a decoupling we saw much earlier in today's rich countries, but is now true at the global level.