Hot in Herre
Edition 68
Happy Sunday!!
Secondly — My apologies for the dawdling and slightly late letter this Sunday afternoon. Blame lethargy and a slightly befuddled brain thanks to what the world looks like right now! It’s HOT!
It’s heatwave season and across the world, people are sweltering, seeking shade, drinking water (if they have access) and we are all coming to the realisation that life on this planet is changing forever.
In the U.K. we are about to hit 40C for the first time ever. It’s an unheard-of temperature for an island that sees more rainclouds than the sun. When it does shine, Brits have a tendency to strip down to their skivvies and sunbathe in our multitude of parks and beaches, even if it’s freezing cold. Not this year!
In 2022, British schools are shutting, workers are being told not to travel, and emergency plans are being put into place to prevent the inevitable risk to our most vulnerable. Low rainfall going into the summer, means drought like conditions have led to forest fires across the Mediterranean, Spain’s broken multiple temperature records this week, people are being evacuated in France, hundreds have died in southern Europe and the intense heat from North Africa has moved north and eastward this weekend. It is going to get worse into next week - engulfing us here in the U.K., northern France, Belgium and Germany. Climate scientists are now predicting that droughts are due to intensify in the future due to climate change.
The climate scientist who was the first to flag the climate crisis in the U.K is also the lead author of a new report published in Science Advances on rising heatwaves over the past 50 years. Dr Vikki Thompson at the University of Bristol, and her team of scientists and co-authors have used sophisticated climate model projections to anticipate heatwave trends in the rest of this century. The modelling indicates levels of heatwave intensity are set to rise in line with increasing global temperatures.
The main heatwave studied was 2021’s western North America heatwave which was record-breaking — remember that all-time Canadian high of 49.6 °C (121.2°F) in Lytton, British Columbia, on June 29? That was an increase of 4.6 °C (40.2°F) from the previous peak. Forest fires and severe infrastructure damage, alongside hundreds of deaths shocked the western hemisphere.
The new findings have now uncovered five other heatwaves around the world which were even more severe — but went largely underreported. Blame the fact that they happened in poor countries, with no large media scrutiny. And as the report’s authors concluded – their findings, “adds confidence to, the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report.” One key message from THAT report was “globally, population exposure to heatwaves will continue to increase with additional warming, with strong geographical differences in heat-related mortality without additional adaptation.”
Dr. Thompson has a stark warning for us all - It is time to adapt!
"The western North America heatwave will be remembered because of its widespread devastation. However, the study exposes several greater meteorological extremes in recent decades, some of which went largely under the radar likely due to their occurrence in more deprived countries. It is important to assess the severity of heatwaves in terms of local temperature variability because both humans and the natural eco-system will adapt to this, so in regions where there is less variation, a smaller absolute extreme may have more harmful effects. The recent heatwave in Canada and the United States shocked the world. Yet we show there have been some even greater extremes in the last few decades. Using climate models, we also find extreme heat events are likely to increase in magnitude over the coming century -- at the same rate as the local average temperature."
What struck me most in Dr. Thompson and team’s report? That the science tells us regions that have not had a recent extreme heat wave may be less prepared for potentially imminent events.
Considering we have politicians around the world playing down these heatwaves and droughts; the global policy rollback on COP26 commitments (of sticking to 1.5°C) in fear of the economic consequences of this winter’s energy crisis; and since no one in any position of responsibility seems to want to move fast enough to make these extreme weather events a blip in the Earth’s history – I want to introduce you to a few of the women around the world trying to fix some part of the problem! It is women after all, who are most impacted by extreme weather events!
Kotchakorn Voraakhom
I met Kotchakorn Voraakhom in Germany earlier this year and by golly was I blown away! This Thai landscape architect designs parks to help Southeast Asia’s megacities cope with climate change. Last year, her 11-acre project became Bangkok’s first new public park in 30 years adding much needed “green lungs” to a dense metropolis. It absorbs and reuses excess water plaguing Thailand’s capital—one of the locations most at risk from worsening storms, floods and sea-level rise.
Anastasia Hofmann
Anastasia Hofmann founded Swiss start-up KITRO in 2017 with the aim of harnessing the power of technology for sustainable change. With artificial intelligence as the foundation, KITRO offers an automated food waste data collection and analysis solution that can be adopted by food and beverage outlets.
Cristina Aleixendri Muñoz
Cristina Aleixendri Muñoz is the founder of bound4blue, a Spanish engineering company which provides automated wind-assisted propulsion systems to shipping companies looking to cut down fuel costs and pollutant emissions. The company is also working on the concept of a wind powered vessel, capable of producing hydrogen and oxygen by means of the electrolysis of seawater in a clean and cost-efficient way.
Magali Anderson
I first met Engineer Magali Anderson in Glasgow at COP26 as she was very vocally transforming the leader in one the hardest to abate sectors — cement. Magali is Swiss headquartered Holcim’s first Chief Sustainability and Innovation Officer (CSIO) and under her leadership, sustainability has become part of every business decision the company makes.
Science based targets are key to that with concrete being the second most used material in the world after water. Holcim is the first company in its sector to have its 2050 net-zero targets — including Scope 3 — validated by the Science Based Targets initiative. It is a founding member of the First Movers Coalition, agreeing to step up its purchases of zero-emissions trucks. The company has also agreed to tie 40% of its financing strategy to sustainability metrics by 2024.
Jennifer Holmgren
US based chemist Jennifer Holmgren is the CEO of carbon-tech company LanzaTech, which turns recovered carbon dioxide into materials and feedstocks for other products. In 2020, the company spun out its sustainable aviation fuel work into a separate company, LanzaJet, which in January raised $50 million from the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund.
Lanzatech partners with companies like Inditex brand Zara, which is working with LanzaTech to turn CO2 captured from steel mill emissions into ethanol and eventually a low-carbon polyester yarn. LanzaTech has similar relationships with apparel company Lululemon, cosmetics maker L’Oreal, fragrance and perfume producer Coty, and Unliever, which is using LanzaTech’s carbontech for a surfactant in laundry capsules. It has also got a strategic partnership with steel giant ArcelorMittal. Together — the two are building a plant expected to produce 80 million litres of bio-ethanol annually.
Karolina Ling-Vannerus
Sweden based Circulate is a B2B marketplace for sustainable packaging and a purchasing tool for European SMEs. It’s founder and CEO Karolina Ling-Vannerus is on a mission to speed up the world’s transition to more sustainable consumption and a circular economy, where every week counts!
These are just handful of women driving the change we need. But until more of us realise that these extreme weather events are here to stay and don’t push our governments to do more and quickly - much of their efforts may be too late. So, hydrate, stay cool and when you can write to your representatives to keep to their climate commitments and work harder and faster for our future to not be a barren, insecure one.
Do you know a woman innovating to save the Planet? Drop me an email, or leave a comment so I can shout from the roof tops about her!