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The first industrial revolution began in the late 1700s when British inventor James Watt fed blocks of coal into a steam-engine boiler, catapulting Great Britain into a global power. On May 1 of this year, lawmakers in the country where it all began declared a “climate emergency,” essentially saying the experiment has run its course.
For over two centuries, fossil fuels made the world, on average, a better place to live. But if we don’t stop pumping greenhouse gases into the air, we’re going to leave behind an uninhabitable planet for a large majority of species and diminish our own civilization.
Declaring an emergency is not enough. The UK needs a plan, and, on May 2, the government-appointed Committee on Climate Change provided one. It recommended the UK reach “net-zero” greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050, saying this was possible at “manageable” costs—less than 2% of GDP annually—and using existing technologies.
If the government accepts this recommendation, which seems likely, the UK will become the first major economy to set legally binding climate goals in line with the Paris agreement. It’s fitting that the UK does more than others to cut emissions, since the country has been one of the world’s largest historical contributors to the problem.
The costs of low-carbon technologies, from solar and wind to batteries and carbon capture, are falling, and in many places renewables are replacing fossil fuels. Protests around the world, including those from schoolchildren, show that political will for climate action is finally coalescing.
“We’re in a remarkable moment,” environmentalist Bill McKibben writes in the New Yorker. “After years of languishing, climate concern is suddenly and explosively rising to the top of the political agenda.”
Such moments have come before, and there’s no guarantee other rich countries will follow the UK’s lead. But the chances have never looked better, and we need to act with urgency. On Monday, the UN’s top research body on nature will publish an 1,800-page report in which the world’s scientists say climate breakdown threatens to annihilate a million species. —Akshat Rathi
Five things on Quartz we especially liked
TED has a “snacks curator.” Sourcing novel “brain food”—cricket protein bars, focus-enhancing chewing gum, water-lily-seed puffs—is serious business at the elite ideas conference. Sad bran muffins won’t cut it and the influential attendees need to stay alert for 100-plus speaker sessions. Anne Quito tracks down the woman who spends all year composing TED’s free-for-all snacking stations, where the munchies must be “innovative, sustainable, unexpected, and tasty.”
Japan needs more people to teach Japanese. A greying Japan is opening its doors wider to foreign workers, putting Japanese language educators in high demand. Reporting from Okayama, Isabella Steger shows that much of the responsibility for teaching the notoriously difficult language to newcomers—from Vietnam, Pakistan, and elsewhere—has fallen to volunteers and the elderly, including a spirited 78-year-old woman she profiles. A multicultural Japan, she notes, can now be glimpsed.
Return of the slackers. It’s not hard to find evidence these days that our influencer-saturated culture of endless striving is reaching an upper limit. The question is: What comes next? If the cycle of history is any guide, speculates Rosie Spinks, once monetizing your lifestyle flames out, it might well be time for the slacker to rise again. Pretty soon, it may simply stop being cool to try so damn hard.
Cheap fashion needs a new business model. Despite the efforts of brands and watchdog groups, stories of abused workers earning poverty wages routinely surface in the global garment industry. One organization that has worked on the problem for 20 years believes the issue isn’t any one company or practice, but the business model the industry operates on. Until that changes, writes Marc Bain, the millions of dollars brands spend on corporate responsibility programs are treating symptoms but ignoring the disease.
Why young people are having less sex. Compared with previous generations, millennials don’t own homes, buy cars, or drink alcohol at the same rate. Perhaps most striking of all, they have less sex, and it’s for a simple economic reason, explains Allison Schrager. If you ever wondered what Netflix and US treasury bonds have in common, and what they have to do with the sex lives of today’s youth (or even if you haven’t but are now curious), read on.
Five things elsewhere that made us smarter
The largest lion reintroduction ever attempted. The civil wars that raged across Mozambique from 1977 to 1992 were not good for wildlife, which suffered severe overhunting. That was especially bad for lions, whose populations were decimated by the lack of zebra, reedbuck, and other prey—which has since made a comeback. For National Geographic, Paul Steyn reports on an effort to reintroduce the big cats that involved sedating and transporting 24 lions from South Africa on private planes.
An “experience economy” darling. Meow Wolf started in Santa Fe, New Mexico, as an artist collective focused on creating art out of trash. Today it employs hundreds of people and is working to bring Instagram-friendly immersive, interactive experiences to hotels, parks, and retail complexes around the US. For the New York Times Magazine, Rachel Monroe profiles (paywall) what some believe will become the “Disney of the 21st century.”
China’s wave-making navy. In Chinese schools, children are taught that the lack of a modern navy was partly responsible for the century of humiliation that China suffered starting with the First Opium War in 1839. Today, the nation has one of the world’s strongest navies, as David Lague and Benjamin Kang Lim illustrate in a Reuters special report. The maritime force already has the world’s biggest fleet, and it’s growing faster than any other major navy.
The opium decline in Mexico. In Mexico, a decades-long militarized war on drugs couldn’t force poor rural farmers to abandon the narcotics trade. But now many are doing so for economic reasons, with the market price for opium plummeting as US drug addicts increasingly swap heroin for fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid. Nina Lakhani reports for the Guardian from Mexico’s top poppy-growing state, Guerrero, to document what for many is the end of an era.
The “Bob emergency.” Around the world, sports leagues have seen a steady decline in athletes named Bob. While “So what?” leaps immediately to mind, a video on the subject by Jon Bois for SB Nation provides the patient viewer with unexpected laughs and insights into not only the evolution of particular sports, but also history, society, and entertainment in general. Some forgotten Bobs, it turns out, deserve to be remembered.
Our best wishes for a relaxing but thought-filled weekend. Please send any news, comments, Japanese tutors, and athletic Bobs to hi@qz.com. Join the next chapter of Quartz by downloading our app and becoming a member. Today’s Weekend Brief was edited by Steve Mollman and Holly Ojalvo.