Hello there, and here we have yet another issue of Kat’s Kable. With no further ado, here’s this week’s (slightly curtailed) list.
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1. To Slow Down Climate Change, We Need To Take On Capitalism
An interesting take on the current situation: neoliberal market capitalism, the dominant form of the global economy, has gotten us borderline addicted to buying more and more things. Cheap new goods are cheap because the costs are subsidized in some other way; via cheap labor, outsourced environmental costs, and so on. It’s almost clear now that our consumerism is one of the biggest drivers behind climate change.
This market that rules the world also systematically underprices things. Sellers compete to charge less than each other, eventually lowering their prices below what they paid to make their products in the first place. Those costs are ignored or hidden in various ways, but they are never unpaid; they are merely translated into other, more dangerous currencies. Cutting labor costs? That means hurting workers. Externalizing environmental costs? That means pollution damaging the biosphere, which ultimately is our extended body and our life-support system. The upshot is this: Neoliberal market capitalism, an experiment in power that since 1980 has been doubling down on the previous forms of capitalism, is wrecking people’s lives and creating a climate catastrophe.
2. Climate Solutions: Is It Feasible to Remove Enough CO2 from the Air?
Another interesting thing I read a few weeks ago: Stephen Pacala, a professor at Princeton, was head of a panel in the US that investigated the feasibility and efficacy of various “negative emission technologies”. How do we pull out carbon dioxide from the air? It seems apparent now that to meet even realistic greenhouse gas goals, we’ll need to cut down emissions and pull previous ones out from the atmosphere. Pacala argues that in the last ten years, our technology to do so has made massive inroads, and so why shouldn’t that trend continue to bring costs down? The most interesting thing that I read was that with regard to an airplane trip, a tax of roughly 40% on the fuel would be sufficient to mitigate its CO2 emissions. If this can be brought down, then we can effectively deploy the negative emission technologies to mitigate at least these emissions.
3. At a Death Cafe, Tea and Couscous Make Mortality Easier to Swallow
In 2011, the first “Death Cafe” was organized by Jon Underwood in London in order to facilitate a space to help people “make the most of their (finite) lives.” This particular piece is talking about a Death Cafe in New York, in a Moroccan restaurant called Tagine. People interested in philosophical and practical musings about death are welcome to come talk, and they are given food and drink. It sounds like an interesting space.
While making death less taboo will help us understand it and plan for it, it can’t help us prevent it. So planning for it is both frightening and necessary. But by ensuring tea and food are present, hosts of the cafes are able to make discussions of dying a little less scary. “There’s a superstition that if you talk about death, you invite it closer,” said Mr. Underwood. “But the consumption of food is a life-sustaining process. Cake normalizes things.”
4. The Mystery Font That Took Over New York
More New York! This is about a font called Choc, which you must’ve seen at least a handful of times, whether or not you live in New York. Its rise to popularity is attributed to the fact that it was available for free use on CorelDraw, a cheaper alternative to Adobe Photoshop. I found that crazy. Another reason for the proliferation of only a few fonts is that once stores transitioned from handpainted to computer-designed signs, only a few designers knew how to create them and therefore used a limited repertoire of fonts.
5. An Aging Marathoner Tries to Run Fast After 40
Nicholas Thompson, who wrote this piece, is a pretty good marathon runner. He’s not an elite, but he runs often and comfortably completes marathons. When Nike contacted him asking if he wanted to be professionally coached for the Chicago Marathon, he said yes. Along with his coaching team, he explored how he could improve his performance over previous years despite getting on in years. He began to see the benefits of logging more data, creating more nuanced plans and targets, and so on.
The main reason that runners slow isn’t our bodies. It’s our lives. We get married, we have children, we work longer, our parents get sick. We have more important things to do with our time. Running is a sport that rewards consistent effort, and once you step away it’s hard to come back. Your body frays, which makes running less enjoyable, which accelerates the decline. We go slower as we age, but we also age when we start to go slower.
6. Do You Even Bake, Bro?
A fun and instightful exploration into the newish culture of a number of modern-day professionals baking artisanal bread at home. I’m someone who does the same, so I was able to connect with most of the points that the article raises. Among many things: “tech bros” love baking bread because it is a precise science that can almost be treated like a scientific experiment, with a number of variables tweaked in each iteration, and that it is primarily a man-dominated hobby as of now. Most of the books (at least in the US) that you can find about baking bread at home are written by men, and that’s something that should change.
7. The Accidental Perfection of the Beatles’ White Album
Most of the Beatles’ best music is turning 50 years old in these recent years, and now it’s the White Album’s turn. It’s something I love to listen to again and again, and this article is a deep dive into the ideas behind it, as well as a nuanced critique of its various aspects.
8. Messy desks and benign neglect allow ideas to grow
An essay from Tim Harford’s blog, it talks about what kinds of desks people like. Minimal and clean? Or peppered with things and disorganized? It draws from Harford’s book Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives , which I highly recommend. It’s a good read.