Weekend Reading: Maybe Don’t Drink the Coffee

Ah, readers, it’s been another tough week for those who care at all about the environment. It seems the world is falling apart, and maybe our parents’ and grandparents’ generations (if they lived in a Western country) were and will be the only generations to live in optimistic comfort and expanding wealth. I’m actually grateful I don’t have children, and terrified for my little nephew, who will most likely be alive right around the time the earth could become uninhabitable.

I’m really sorry to be so heavy. But you know what? Even with all this terribleness, I’m reminded every day how easy it is to forget about the big picture and get sucked into the tiny dramas of human life, of wanting, of consumerism, of pleasures. I sigh and lament to myself about the concrete landscape of my life and pine for the forest, then a few hours later lap up the sunshine on a hotel roof with a cocktail, because, what else is there to do? It’s actually a good thing for my mental health, to be distracted from our impending doom and the tragedy of coral reefs dying and beautiful animals disappearing off this earth. But of course, it bodes badly for our collective political will to actually do something about it.

Fashion

American Airline’s uniforms are making flight attendants sick. | Racked

There seems to be no clear reason for a boiler explosion a Bangladesh garment factory that killed 10. | Reuters

But the reason for mass faintings in Cambodian sneaker factories is quite clear. | The Guardian 

This Nike designer is teaching me so many new things about sustainable design. | Esquire

Apartment

When a friend mentioned Prime Day to me, I was so confused. This article bottles up my feelings about it. | The Verge

Food

Fewer than half of the 480 billion bottles bought in 2016 were collected for recycling and just 7% of those collected were turned into new bottles. Instead most plastic bottles produced end up in landfill or in the ocean. | The Guardian 

Just multiply this inner anxiety about coffee times 362 other decisions a day. | Eater 

In Other Terrible News…

Utilities are successfully lobbying to shut down solar. | NY Times

Why is the sustainability movement so white? | Narratively

Pruitt is the most effective person in this new administration. Effective at poisoning the environment. | NY Times

Genetic modification could help us be more sustainable. If it doesn’t ruin everything. | Newsweek/Blendle (a service where you pay a few cents to read articles. I recommend it!) 

All the negative effects of climate change are terrifyingly close. | NY Mag

The scientists conclude: “The resulting biological annihilation obviously will have serious ecological, economic and social consequences. Humanity will eventually pay a very high price for the decimation of the only assemblage of life that we know of in the universe.” | The Guardian 

Coral reefs are dying, but some could still be saved. | NY Times

The courts may save us. | NY Times

But maybe we just need to rethink capitalism. | Fast Company

Anyways, this is how I want to be dead. | NY Times