COPS AND GOBBLERS

Today, we are headed to the dessert. Or desert. Maybe both. Haven’t you heard? There has been a (conference) party going on over in Dubai the last few weeks.

Hot Topic

COP28

Lets give a round of applause for our world leaders willing to sit in the same room and discuss climate change mitigation. That is about as far as my praise is going to go. We have seen that we can talk circles around climate change. We can also agree that not changing anything is easier than compromising just about every single time.

The big question at this year’s Conference of Parties (COP), an annual meeting set up by the United Nations to address climate change, is… what are we going to do about fossil fuels?

This article, published by the UN, talks about the themes in past COPs, starting with the Paris Agreement in 2015 that committed most countries to curb climate change to 1.5 degrees Celsius. From 2015-2021 countries at the COP discussed “what” to do about climate change. 2022 began a shift to “how” we are going to implement change. This year, the conclusion of the first global stocktake–an assessment of how we are doing at curbing climate change since the Paris Agreement–was presented. In short, it’s not going well. “Global emissions are not in line with modeled global mitigation pathways consistent with the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement,” and “much more ambition in action and support is needed in implementing domestic mitigation measures”.

Five different statements had been drafted as options to agree upon regarding what to do with fossil fuels, ranging from essentially “Do not acknowledge fossil fuels connection to climate” to “Phasing out fossil fuels is imperative” (with some nuanced, ambiguous options in between). Keep in mind that this conference of parties is being hosted in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). OPEC had banded together to prevent any language that addresses fossil fuel reduction from passing in agreements, causing other parties like the EU and the US to be pessimistic about the outcome of this COP28.

Most of you are probably not international diplomats who have the power to commit a country to any particular climate goals, but you do vote for those who assign them. And it is important to know that there is an attempt in the COPs to collaborate on a global front against a very global threat. It is a daunting task to get countries to act in agreement.

What is not quite as hard is to look a little more local. I’ll bet you that you do have a sphere of influence that you can commit to actually acting on some of these environmentally friendly ideas. And action leads to more action—it’s easier to say yes to bigger things if you have already said yes to smaller things that make the bigger thing look not so big. (Foot in the door technique yourself).

If you become more open to work and change in your own life, then others around you will follow, and then it might not be so hard to imagine creative solutions to combat climate change.

Things you didn’t notice

REDUCE REUSE RECYCLE

Yes, it's a bit of a played-out slogan. But everyone knows it. It’s simple. Catchy.

Reduce Reuse Recycle is characteristically applied to material waste.

My pitch: If good ‘ol triple-R is easy enough for a 6-year-old to know and apply, let’s expand our application to energy. It might be just the direction we need for doing what our world leaders can’t seem to agree on—phasing out fossil fuels.

Much like any complex problem, phasing out fossil fuels needs a multidimensional approach. Good thing we have three dimensions right here.

1. Reduce. Identify anything we can do to reduce our demand for fossil fuels. That means first knowing where fossil fuels are being used and then creating concrete plans to use them less. Our goal is to find ways in which extra energy is expended and cut back. This first one is the hardest sell for most people (as it is with materials too).

2. Reuse. Use energy again. Here we focus on efficiency. How can we make the energy that we consume go further? Two common ways energy use is inefficient are when there is heat loss and when there is a better way to combine tasks. Think of leaving the door open when you are heating your house or when single people drive multiple cars versus carpooling together. This approach craves creative and critical problem-solving.

3. Recycle. Energy can not be created nor destroyed, only transformed. The idea of recycling is founded on transformation, but we need to achieve a balance in energy recycling in order to be sustainable—by creating energy at the same rate we use it up. This can only happen by shifting energy production to renewable sources rather than using up something that took a million years to make.

Cool Sips

• Mentality: Who is talking about climate change? If you are creative, it very well might be you! BeWorks published a study showing that though public confidence in our ability to act on climate change is low, those with creative mindsets were more optimistic about the climate transition, which led to greater motivation to act in sustainable manners and enact change in their respective businesses.

• Health: Violets are blue, roses are red. Wake up to cold showers?… I’d stay in bed. However, this article brings up some good points on the benefits of cold showers, from mood and immunity boosting to increasing circulation and metabolism.

• Transportation: “Overlanding” is the hot new term for car camping (but somehow with even more expensive gear), and is a great excuse to buy a sweet all-terrain vehicle… or maybe not?. By purchasing a car that fits the majority of your driving (i.e., commuting), and retrofitting it with cargo racks for those special occasions where you need more space, you can save thousands of dollars a year on gas and prevent tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere.

• Community: Can we please stop dropping bombs of death and start dropping seeds of life instead? Seems like a better use of military equipment. Drones and new technology might make this old idea more of a reality.

Mouthwatering

PANNA COTTA

It’s like créme brûlée meets whipped cream meets jello. Say hello to my favorite dessert.

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons cold water

• .25 ounce envelope unflavored gelatin (1 tablespoon)

• 2 cups heavy cream

• 1 cup half and half

• 1/3 cup granulated sugar

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

When serving, add sliced strawberries marinated in balsamic vinegar for a surprisingly delicious complement on top.

We Out Here

DECEMBER GOBBLERS

With all the holiday festivities, family gatherings, and busyness of the season, my mind sometimes feels like scrambled eggs. I think this season makes people self-conscious about aesthetics and presentation. It is fun to clean up a place and make it special and warm, but I am struck by the weird juxtaposition between the elation of spending quality time with people we do not see for much of the year and the guilt from our frivolous consumption that is the mark of making that time “special”.

Is it possible to make the holidays special in a way that doesn’t go hand in hand with throwing away all the food that is left over from the meals we gobble till we burst? Or with giving each other new plastic toys and clothes that just replace attention from the new plastic toys and clothes received last year or last month?

My grandma turned 90 years old this year and is my first grandparent who hasn’t had Alzheimer’s. She’s written about the best holiday she remembers being the one that both her parents and her parents-in-law came to her house when she was pregnant with my mom and could not do any traveling. Just having them all at the house for the first time was the mark of a special occasion. Maybe we do take being together for granted now because travel is cheaper and we have Facetime. On top of that, we now get everyone together and spend time just sitting on our phones or watching TV.

So how do we have a special season without gobbling up so much fluff? What marks quality over quantity? We want to pull out the confetti and celebrate all the people we love, the successes found, and the reasons for joy. But does that have to come with so much stuffing?

By living in a car most of the year, I am very space limited, and only fit the essentials. But at the same time, this focuses gifts away from material things to experiential things. I have been thinking about how to give experiential gifts more. I have realized that something in our culture does make me feel like, without a physical token, that experiential gift doesn't feel as real. Maybe because it is more fleeting—it happens, and then it’s done.

For my grandma, the experience of having her family together for the first time was more memorable than any of the things received. For my birthday this past year, Jesse surprised me with a gathering of high school friends who had not been together since high school. That was more memorable than any material gifts.

I think that experiences that are new, unexpected, or unusual can be more impactful than most physical items. This might not apply to younger kids so much since everything is so new. Maybe they want the latest toys. But as my grandma would say, things used to be built to last and fixed when broken, but are made to be thrown out nowadays. We must question and challenge the idea of disposability. Kids love learning and discovering new things, why can those things not be skills such as building and repair, how to use tools, and how to craft things that last?

Can we empower people to share the knowledge they have with others so that together, we can build the things we actually want? Can we gift that knowledge to our friends and family through the quality time spent with them this holiday season? Are we open enough to perceive that knowledge is a gift in and of itself?

Game of the week

SOCCER

I’ve been thinking about soccer a lot lately. I miss playing and am also sad that FC Cincinnati lost to Columbus Crew in the MLS semifinals.

What excites me is how much the women’s game is growing. The women’s World Cup this year drew more spectators and more talented teams than ever before, and the downfall of Team USA just added fuel to the fire in attention to the sport.

The recently released Netflix documentary, Under Pressure, takes an insider look at the build-up to preparing a World Cup team and the budding players that have yet to prove themselves on the world stage.

To start playing, find something round, and kick it. It is fun. You’ll see.