People, Planet & Technology #8

Ahoy folks 👋

Some things have happened since the last issue. I gave a talk at Bits & Bäume (video and slides of my talk - German), and the list of subscribers to my newsletters has quadrupled. And Katowice was the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 24). Now the year is almost over. But I didn't want to release you for the Christmas holidays without a few reading recommendations...

Anne-Sophie from The Beam magazine has written a handy summary of the COP 24 in pictures and quotations. Furthermore, I don't want to withhold the courageous speech of the 15-year-old Greta Thunberg.

Carbon Brief has published a great tool that visualises the effects of global warming from 1.5 to 3 degrees Celsius. It illustrates how rain, temperatures, storms and floods as well as our economy and health are changing in different parts of the world.

Another new release is a loose group of activists called "Breather" by the New York Times. Equipped with a new generation of partially portable pollutant sensors, these hyperlocal sensors measure air quality to draw attention to the pollution and mobilise others politically.

👉 Miscellaneous things:

• Deadly weather: the human cost of 2018's climate disasters – visual guide (The Guardian)

• Want to save the ocean? There’s an app for that. (The Fourth Wave)

• Kickstarter's New Features Put Sustainability Top-Of-Mind For Creators (Forbes)

• Here’s a better way to argue about climate change (Grist)

• This New NASA Mission Will Create an Unprecedented, 3D Map of Earth's Forests (Earther)

• Blockchain-based mapping hopes to replace GPS. Can it be trusted? (The Atlantic)

• Bombora Wave Power: Fish-Friendly Underwater Energy (Reset)

• Explore the global coal capacity (Carbon Brief)

I hope you enjoy this issue. I want to encourage you to send me your feedback via mail (just reply), twitter or carrier pigeons 🐦.

We’ll read again in 2019. 🙌

Take care.
-Niklas