Red alert: Kofi Annan on the photos that capture our choking planet. From a masked Tokyo commuter in a crush to the plastic particles killing our oceans, the former UN secretary-general hails the photographers shortlisted for tonight’s space-themed Prix Pictet prize.Guardian Kofi Annan  Thu 4 May 2017 .Guardian Kofi Annan  Thu 4 May 2017  We are Consuming the Planet and running out of space. Fly over Africa at night and you will see mile after mile of fires burning red in the dark as scrub is removed to make way for human beings. Satellite images of nocturnal Europe or America show vast areas lit up like an enormous fairground. From Shanghai to Sydney, from Moscow to Mexico City, the skylines of our major cities are no longer fixed and familiar. Where we cannot build into the sky, we construct vast chequerboards of smogbound, low-rise dwellings that stretch from one horizon to the other.

Our cities expand in every direction as we fight to house a population that is growing at the rate of 200,000 each day. That adds up to a headcount the size of Germany every year. To feed this growing number requires ever more land to farm: each year, more than 150,000 square kilometres of natural forest are lost to agricultural or urban development.

We speak reverentially of the savage beauty and teeming biodiversity of the world’s great wildernesses, from the tropical rainforests of Amazonia and central Africa, to our wetlands and deserts, and on to Patagonia and the frozen wastes of Antarctica. We are increasingly aware of the threats to such spaces and have encouraged sustainable conservation and ecotourism.But still the threats remain.The greatest unexplored space on our planet lies beneath the oceans. Yet rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere are causing acidification, which disrupts food chains and marine habitats. Huge floating masses of plastic dumped in the oceans turn into hazardous waste that endangers not only marine life but also, indirectly, human populations – and the planet itself. Overfishing, illegal and damaging trawling practices and past whaling have emptied the oceans before we have even properly understood what riches they contain. In 150,000 square kilometres of natural forest are lost to agricultural or urban development.......read on    https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/may/04/kofi-annan-photos-capture-choking-planet-prix-pictet-space

 Consumerism and the climate crisis threaten equitable future for humanity, report says. The Earth Commission says hope lies in sustainable lifestyles, a radical transformation of global politics and fair distribution of resources, Guardian Jonathan Watts   Thu 12 Sep 2024     All of humanity could share a prosperous, equitable future but the space for development is rapidly shrinking under pressure from a wealthy minority of ultra-consumers, a groundbreaking study has shown. Growing environmental degradation and climate instability have pushed the Earth beyond a series of safe planetary boundaries, say the authors from the Earth Commission, but it still remains possible to carve out a “safe and just space” that would enable everyone to thrive.That utopian outcome would depend on a radical transformation of global politics, economics and society to ensure a fairer distribution of resources, a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels and the widespread adoption of low-carbon, sustainable technologies and lifestyles, it said. This would probably mean that limits have to be placed on excess consumption and that taxes have to be used to address inequality and raise revenue for investment in technology and infrastructure. The scale of the required change will alarm many governments, acknowledged one of the lead authors. “It won’t be immediately welcomed. To some extent, it is frightening, but it shows that there is still a space for people and other species,” said Joyeeta Gupta, a former co-chair of the Earth Commission and a professor of environment and development in the global south at the University of Amsterdam.

The paper is a 62-page “thought experiment” by an international team of 65 natural and social scientists that seeks to map out how the world’s 7.9 billion people could remain within safe planetary boundaries while accessing necessary levels of food, water, energy, shelter and transport. It then projects how this may change by 2050, when the population is likely to be 9.7 billion people. Published in the Lancet Planetary Health journal on Wednesday, the paper first sets a justice “floor” of basic daily living standards – defined as 2,500 calories of food, 100 litres of water, and 0.7kWh of electricity, along with a living area of 15 sq metres and annual transportation of 4,500km (2,800 miles). Then they calculated how much space there was between this and a safety “ceiling” – which was defined by planetary boundaries – that estimated how much humanity can push the climate, ecosystems, nutrients and phosphorus and water sources without destabilising the Earth’s systems. The results showed that under the current highly unequal, fossil-fuel intensive social and environmental conditions, it is now impossible for all humans to live healthy lives within this “safe and just corridor”. That is underscored by previous studies that show that seven of the eight planetary boundaries have already been breached. The poor are disproportionately affected. 

The paper identifies the locations around the world where populations are most vulnerable to harm from climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, pollution and water shortages. This includes India, where approximately 1 billion people are living on degraded land; Indonesia, where 194 million people are exposed to unsafe levels of nitrogen; and Brazil, where 79 million people are exposed to unsafe and unjust levels of air pollution. In China, India and Pakistan, more than 200 million people are also being exposed to dangerously high wet-bulb temperatures with global climate heating of between 1C and 2C above preindustrial levels.......read on        https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/sep/12/consumerism-and-the-climate-crisis-threaten-equitable-future-for-humanity-report-says   

As fast fashion giant Shein embraces AI, its emissions are soaring. The company nearly doubled its emissions in 2023, making it the biggest polluter in the industry.Grist Sachi Kitajima Mulkey Sept. 10 2024 In 2023, the fast fashion giant Shein was everywhere. Crisscrossing the globe, airplanes ferried small packages of its ultra-cheap clothing from thousands of suppliers to tens of millions of custom er mailboxes in 150 countries. Influencers’ “#sheinhaul” videos advertised the company’s trendy styles on social media, garnering billions of views. At every step, data was created, collected, and analyzed. To manage all this information, the fast fashion industry has begun embracing emerging AItechnologies. Shein uses proprietary machine-learning applications — essentially, pattern-identification algorithms — to measure customer preferences in real time and predict demand, which it then services with an ultra-fast supply chain. As AI makes the business of churning out affordable, on-trend clothing faster than ever, Shein is among the brands under increasing pressure to become more sustainable, too. The company has pledged to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 25 percent by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions no later than 2050.  But climate advocates and researchers say the company’s lightning-fast manufacturing practices and online-only business model are inherently emissions-heavy — and that the use of AI software to catalyze these operations could be cranking up its emissions. Those concerns were amplified by Shein’s third annual sustainability report, released late last month, which showed the company nearly doubled its carbon dioxide emissions between 2022 and 2023. “AI enables fast fashion to become the ultra-fast fashion industry, Shein and Temu being the fore-leaders of this,” said Sage Lenier, the executive director of Sustainable and Just Future, a climate nonprofit. “They quite literally could not exist without AI.” (Temu is a rapidly rising e-commerce titan, with a marketplace of goods that rival Shein’s in variety, price, and sales.)

In the 12 years since Shein was founded, it has become known for its uniquely prolific manufacturing, which reportedly generated over $30 billion of revenue for the company in 2023. Although estimates vary, a new Shein design may take as little as 10 days to become a garment, and up to 10,000 items are added to the site each day. The company reportedly offers as many as 600,000 items for sale at any given time with an average price tag of roughly $10. (Shein declined to confirm or deny these reported numbers.) One market analysis found that 44 percent of Gen Zers in the United States buy at least one item from Shein every month. That scale translates into massive environmental impacts. According to the company’s sustainability report, Shein emitted 16.7 million total metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2023 — more than what four coal power plants spew out in a year.  The company has also come under fire for textile waste, high levels of microplastic pollution, and exploitative labor practices. According to the report, polyester — a synthetic textile known for shedding microplastics into the environment — makes up 76 percent of its total fabrics, and only 6 percent of that polyester is recycled.  And a recent investigation found that factory workers at Shein suppliers regularly work 75-hour weeks, over a year after the company pledged to improve working conditions within its supply chain. Although Shein’s sustainability report indicates that labor conditions are improving, it also shows that in third-party audits of over 3,000 suppliers and subcontractors, 71 percent received a score of C or lower on the company’s grade scale of A to E — mediocre at best. Machine learning plays an important role in Shein’s business model. Although Peter Pernot-Day, Shein’s head of global strategy and corporate affairs, told Business Insider last August that AI was not central to its operations, he indicated otherwise during a presentation at a retail conference at the beginning of this year......read on    https://grist.org/technology/as-fast-fashion-giant-shein-embraces-ai-its-emissions-are-soaring/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=dail