The Last Christmas-As-Usual

Yes, you read that correctly. This could and should be our last Christmas-As-Usual. Why? Simply put it is now or never if we want the slightest possibility of staying below a 2°C rise – the common message from several key climate reports released over the last couple of months. CWR’s Tan laments over these and calls for us to get more radical & more out-of-the-box.

Part of getting radical means a lifestyle overhaul. China may be ahead on this with increasingly popular people-green-tech apps/ initiatives that promote greener or the new radical living. We look at three such technologies. But, before we all start designing apps, we need to have a serious look at the dark side of our runaway data use. Surfing YouTube, bingeing on Netflix, how bad can they be? Pretty bad as we show in our review.

Another big lifestyle aspect that needs to get radical is fashion. If fashion were a country, it would have the fourth highest carbon emissions behind the US, China & India. Plus, it will add over 1Gt of carbon emissions if business continues as usual. This is equivalent to the energy-related carbon emissions of  Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan and Hong Kong combined. Surely there is a way to accelerate the change. We share more on why fashion needs to be at the big bad boy table with coal.

Tea is one of the world’s most drunk beverages (especially during these colder months) but do we know what it means for water, for carbon? We deep dive into the industry’s implications but also what we can do as consumers to reduce our footprints.

A lot of the success of getting radical is dependent on our youth, accounting for 40% of the world’s population. What are they talking about on water now? Find out in our review of two events in Egypt & Stockholm.

Christmas is almost upon us so, as we go about celebrating, shopping, eating, drinking, remember it’s time to get radical – future Christmases, the climate, the world depends on it.

Happy holidays from the CWR Team.