A few news items or other fun and interesting reading or viewing…
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! (As you read this, I hope to be out birding on a beautiful fall Friday).
Money Talks:
While government-led regulatory requirements are coming into force soon, mandating that companies disclose climate risk and emissions inventories (yep - even in the US; more on this soon), it is arguably even more effective when investors demand change.
The massive wealth fund, Norges Bank Investment Management (with over a trillion dollars under management), just announced that it will require all the companies in its portfolio to decarbonize by 2050. This is still a long way off, and a few of the companies (like Apple) have already committed to net zero targets well ahead of the 2050 timeline, but most (90%) of the companies in the portfolio do not currently have decarbonization targets. This will undoubtedly create positive change among some big emitters.
When investors say that businesses with a carbon-intensive business model are too risky, things change.
Rewilding:
This is a concept that has been growing in popularity and is, in part, a move away from hard or ‘grey’ (built) infrastructure that simply defends against hazards and disruption, to green infrastructure, or nature-based infrastructure that accommodates and supports natural processes so that it can minimize of disruption while also supporting the ecosystem. In this story, Rewilding Europe has restored The River Meuse in The Netherlands into a biodiversity hotspot, that has also reduced flooding.
I really love these kinds of stories that increase economic benefit, restore and even improve biodiversity, AND make places that we can love and visit and enjoy.
(By the way, the Substack editor wants to flag ‘Rewilding’ as a non-word, whereas I notice that Microsoft does not….guessing it’s a new word-trend too!)
Animals and Empathy:
Anyone who has spent more than 5 minutes around a dog, or even better, two dogs, will know that they can feel connection, jealousy, joy, sadness and a seemingly endless array of emotion. But dogs are domesticated, and we haven’t always believed or properly researched emotion in other animals.
This Nat Geo article highlights a ton of research showing a far greater array and depth of emotion, cognitive ability, and rich inner lives than we might have believed in all sorts of animals and birds. Even though I have a sense of science finally catching up with what we’ve known intuitively for much longer, there are some genuinely new (and newly proven) insights. It’s really fascinating. Just the language ability of dogs is a really cool part.
And for some joy-sparking….
I am reacquainting myself with some Marie Kondo episodes on Netflix in anticipation of some pairing down and deliberate inside renovating this winter. Fun! (And also a bit scary).
See you Monday!
You do have a way of collecting the most interesting (and encouraging) “bits and bobs.” Thank you! 🙏
Update: the NatGeo article requires a subscription so I didn’t get to it, but the entire history of the Border Meuse rewilding project was fascinating!