If you have a pension or investments or hope to have either, here’s an important Need-to-Know:

The economic models and forecasts that governments, banks, pension funds, and investment managers use dangerously underestimate the risks of climate change and the decline of nature.

Our global and national economies are utterly dependent on a stable climate and the multitude of services nature provides, such as clean air and water, fertile soil, and so on.

Our carbon emissions and destruction of nature are weakening the very foundations of our economies and societies. Continuing to do so risks collapse and calamity.

Need-to-Know: When the risks are properly assessed by climate and risk experts, the results are truly shocking.

We’re on a path to 2 degrees C by 2050. At that point, there is a high probability of a 25% cut in GDP, and up to 50% cut, along with two to four billion deaths in the decades that follow.

We can expect food system shocks, increased water insecurity, heat stress, and infectious diseases, leading to mass mortality, mass displacement, and severe economic contraction, along with widespread conflict by mid-century.

“Without immediate policy action to change course, Catastrophic or Extreme impacts are eminently plausible, which could threaten future prosperity.”

This is from a 2025 report by the UK Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) and climate experts at the University of Exeter. The IFoA is the professional body for UK actuaries. An actuary’s expertise is in quantifying and managing financial risk and uncertainty.

There is currently no realistic plan to avoid this outcome, the report warns.

Need-to-Know: A dystopic future can’t be ruled out

This outcome may seem implausibly dystopic, but only because previous climate-risk assessments have been far too optimistic. Consider:

• Economic models of climate impacts are based on averages and cannot properly account for extreme weather events. Extreme events such as the catastrophic flooding in Pakistan in 2022, 700,000 homes were destroyed, eight million people were displaced, and an already weak economy was crippled.

• Climate-risk models do not account for the acceleration in the severity and frequency of extreme events in recent years.

• Climate-risk models fail to assess the potential impacts of climate-tipping points, ecosystem decline, and their interactions, which compound risks.

• Climate-damage models assume economic growth will continue and that growth will compensate for any impacts.

Government policies, pension plans, long-term investment plans, insurance, and other industries are making important decisions based on dangerously bad economic models and forecasts.

There are efforts to improve these economic models. One recent UK financial risk group recommended that firms seriously consider a climate and nature-shock scenario that could cause a 15-20% contraction in global GDP over a five-year period.

For comparison, during the COVID-19 crisis, GDP contracted 3%, and only 2% during the Global Financial Crisis.

Avoiding the 15% to 20% scenario means big cuts in emissions and urgent protection of nature.

Sadly, that is not any government’s or institution's highest priority.

Until next time. Be well.

Stephen

There is no precedent for continuous uptake of foreign particles into the human body that does not result in some adverse health effects.

— Rolf Halden, Director, Environmental Health Engineering, Arizona State University.

Micro and nanoplastic particles and fibers are everywhere. Every person likely has billions of micro and nanoplastic particles (MNPs) circulating in their blood or deposited in their organs. MNPs are found in soil, water, air, plants, and animals.

MNPs exhibit an enormous variety of sizes, shapes, and compositions. As many as 16,000 different chemicals are used in more than 100,000 plastic formulations. At least 4,200 plastic chemicals pose a hazard to human health and the environment, according to a recent study in the journal Nature.

It gets worse.

MNPs act like tiny magnets, attracting other chemicals, including toxic compounds, as well as bacteria and viruses.

To be clear, detecting ultra-tiny MNPs has been very challenging, requiring the development of new scientific tools. Even more challenging is assessing the effects of MNPs on living organisms, including humans.

That said, many studies now examine the potential health effects of MNPs.

Need-to-Know: Plastics linked to increases in many diseases

MNPs in our gastrointestinal systems are altering our gut microbiome, making it more acidic, according to a new unpublished study.

This has caused shifts in bacterial composition similar to the changes seen in people suffering from depression and colorectal cancer. Both conditions, along with acid reflux, have doubled since the 1990s, with the biggest relative increase in the 25 to 35-year-old age group.

This study does not prove there is a link between MNPs and these conditions. It proved that MNPs altered our gut microbiome.

Other studies have linked MNPs with lung diseases, liver cirrhosis, and strokes.

Exposure to chemicals linked with MNPs represents the biggest risk to our health, according to The Lancet Countdown on Health and Plastics report.

Early-life exposures to plastics and plastic chemicals are linked to increased risks of miscarriage, prematurity, stillbirth, low birthweight and birth defects of the reproductive organs, neurodevelopmental impairment, impaired lung growth, and childhood cancer.

The health of plants and animals is also being impacted by MNPs. some studies indicate that MNPs can thin intestinal tissue, leading to a “leaky gut” that allows bacteria to enter the bloodstream.

MNPs disrupting the gut microbiomes of cattle affect digestion and increase stress-related proteins, according to the first-ever study in cattle.

Agricultural soils contain about 23 times more MNPs than oceans and waterways combined.

Need-to-Know: Plastics are reducing the yields of food crops

MNPs and the chemicals they contain, including phthalates and UV stabilizers, directly impact plant growth. This could be reducing global yields of staple crops such as rice, wheat, and maize by up to 360 million metric tons annually, according to a recent meta-analysis.

Not surprisingly, the fruits and vegetables we eat all contain MNPs. For example, apples and carrots were the most contaminated fruits and vegetables, respectively, with over 100,000 microplastics per gram, according to a 2020 study.

Need-to-Know: How to reduce your exposure

1. Avoid food and drinks stored in plastic or packaged in plastic.

2. Fresh food is generally lower in MNPs than processed or ultraprocessed foods.

3. Read Three Easy Ways to Protect Yourself from Plastic Pollution

It’s worth reflecting on Halden’s statement at the top of this post:

Even if we don’t yet know the precise health impacts of MNPs on us, it would be a miracle if there were none, given the amount entering our bodies.

Until next time. Be well.

Stephen

“Do you know the Children of the Moon story?” asked Alejandro Argumedo, a Peruvian scientist, glancing toward an albino child entering a straw-roofed hut.

Alejandro and I were sitting under some palm trees overlooking a very languid South Caribbean sea. It was mid-afternoon; windless, hot, and humid; siesta time. I was exhausted and jet-lagged but still wired with excitement, having arrived a few hours earlier in the village of Ustupu, which covered most of a small, low-lying island off the eastern coast of Panama, and home to 4,500 Kuna Indians.

”We’re pretty close to the equator. The Kuna are very dark-skinned, so they’re protected from the sun’s ultraviolet rays,” Alejandro explained.

While we sat, two Kuna men began loading fishing nets into a dugout canoe called an ‘ulu that’s fashioned from a single enormous tree. Another Kuna, not quite five feet tall, staggered across the white coral sand carrying an outboard motor as big as he was.

“I couldn’t even lift one end of that motor,” I said in amazement.

Alejandro just smiled. He was a Quechua from the Andes Mountains and well aware of the practical strength, toughness, and endurance of indigenous people living traditionally. He continued: “Albinos don’t have any protective melatonin, so they get skin cancer, and the sun damages their eyes. They usually don’t live very long,”

“That’s horrible,” I said, recalling the slim albino teenager who’d eagerly hauled me and my luggage out of the canoe that brought me to the island. His eagerness had an anxiousness, as if trying to prove he was as capable as the other short, wide-bodied, dark-skinned Kuna teens.

“Less than 100 years ago any albino child was killed soon after birth,” Alejandro said. “Called Children of the Moon for their pale skin, they were considered bad luck.”

The Kuna are a subsistence culture that relies on fishing and small gardens. Healthy, strong children who could pass on their skills as adults were essential to the survival of the community.

Surprisingly, the Kuna have the highest rates of albinism in the world, with one child in 150 born albino.

Alejandro continued:

In the early 1900s, the Kuna had increasing conflicts with officials from the new Republic of Panama who wanted them to give up their culture and lands. In addition, some Kuna men were tricked or forced into doing work on sugar and banana plantations. Conflicts became violent with police raiding villages and arresting Kuna men.

Genetics was a new science at this time, and the abundance of Kuna albinos attracted growing interest. American adventurer Richard Marsh believed the albinos were a “white” race descended from errant Vikings who arrived in the Americas long before Columbus. In the early 1920s, Marsh brought several albino Kuna to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington to be studied by researchers.

However, doing additional genetic research with the Kuna in Panama was difficult due to the ongoing conflict.

The Panama Canal had been completed by then, and the US had a considerable presence in the country, including several naval vessels. Marsh lobbied the Panamanian government to give them autonomy. The Kuna, seeing US support, declared independence and attacked police outposts in their territory, freeing Kuna prisoners. In response, the Panamanian military was about to invade Kuna territory until, at Marsh’s urging, the US Navy intervened.

With American support, the Kuna obtained autonomy over their territory — all because of their Children of the Moon. They were now seen as a blessing; a special gift from the ancestors, Alejandro concluded.

One result of that autonomy is that over 90 percent of the original forest in their territory remains after nearly 100 years.

This isn’t unique. An estimated 80 percent of the Earth’s plants, insects and animals are found in Indigenous territory.

What’s more remarkable is that Indigenous people rarely have autonomy over the lands they have occupied for hundreds and thousands of years. Nation-states are loath to give up control of “public lands”, although happy enough to sell or auction off those lands to the highest bidder.

Clash of worldviews

During the era of colonization, the invaders were occasionally considerate enough to read a statement laying out their claims to the local native people. There wasn’t much discussion since the local people didn’t understand Spanish, French, English, Dutch, or other foreign language. And even if there was a good translation, their claims involved strange and bewildering concepts of “property” and “ownership of land”.

For many Indigenous peoples, individual ownership of a piece of ground was an alien, even absurd concept, akin to claiming you owned the air or the clouds.

Concepts like property, boundaries, and the economy are imaginary constructs.

A useful Need-to-Know to keep in mind is that we invented these abstract ideas. They don’t exist in the real, physical world.

The living world, that we’re a part of, is a complex web of relationships and interactions. Everything is connected to everything else. That’s why if you slap a big glass bowl over your home and the surrounding area, things will start to go bad pretty quickly. That’s our fundamental ecological reality.

It makes the idea of private property ownership — ‘this is mine and I can do whatever I want to it’ — absurd.

Even more problematic in our interconnected, finite world is a market-based economic system that encourages buying a piece of land, stripping and selling off the trees, minerals, soil, etc to buy more land to do the same thing again, and again. Those abstract concepts — property ownership and a market-based economy — are two of the main reasons more than 75 percent of Earth’s land areas have been severely altered, putting up to a million species at risk of extinction.

We are nature, and nature is us

If nature is in trouble, then we are in trouble. This is an overarching Need-to-Know.

Here’s a practical suggestion based on something Indigenous architect Alfred Waugh told me:

Let’s put nature at the centre of our lives.

There are lots of ways to do this. Acknowledging that “we are nature and nature is us” is one way.

For me, it also means being outside as much as I can. I wrote this in a small forest I walk to every day when I’m home. It means walking or riding a bike to go places so I can feel the wind, hear the leaves, and smell… well, life, I guess.

And it means stopping often to truly see and appreciate nature in its bazillion variations.

Until next time, be well.

Stephen

How can someone believe that a flood disaster in southern Brazil that forced more than half a million people from their homes was caused by Madonna?

The pop star was dabbling in a rain ritual that caused the flooding, according to a widespread conspiracy.

How can someone believe that contrails (crystalized water vapor from high-flying planes) are toxic chemical spraying?

How can someone believe______ or _____? I’m sure you can easily fill in the blanks.

We are not nearly as rational or logical as we like to think. Each of us has a biased view of reality.

Our perceptions—how we see and understand the world—evolved to help us survive. Things that aren’t relevant to our survival are usually filtered out. We literally can’t see them without a lot of effort.

Here’s an example known as the “Invisible Gorilla” study:

Study participants watched a short video of two teams, one in white shirts and one in black shirts, passing a basketball back and forth. Each participant had to accurately count the number of passes made by the white team.

Partway through the video, a person in a full-body gorilla suit walked into the middle of the players, stopped, faced the camera, beat their chest, and then left.

About half of the viewers did not report seeing the gorilla at all, even though it was in clear view.

Here’s another example:

Participants had to jog behind an assistant and count the number of times he touched his hat. As they jogged, they ran past a staged fight in which two men appeared to be beating a third. Even in broad daylight, over 40% missed the fight. At night, 65% missed it.

This is called inattentional blindness. Our ability to ignore distractions around us allows us to retain our focus. So now you know why your partner completely ignores you when they’re watching an important sports event on TV. You’re simply invisible to them. (Unless you turn into a roaring lion!)

Need-to-Know: We’re chock full of biases.

That’s just one aspect of our limited perception of reality. We not only ignore things, but our perceptions also shape the information we seek, how we think, what we consider important and worth remembering, and what we ignore.

All this becomes our reality. What each of us thinks of as reality is uniquely our own.

This is a big problem since we need to cooperate to survive.

Need-to-Know: We need shared realities to survive

So we developed ways to have a shared reality.

For thousands of years, we relied on trusted individuals such as elders, chiefs, clan mothers, wisdom keepers, or storytellers who would describe a reality that group members would agree to—often after considerable discussion.

Share

Another way is the scientific method.

A scientist has an idea, they test it and provide the results to other scientists, who point out errors or things that were missed. More tests are done, and the results are discussed with others again.

Eventually, a paper or report is written for publication so everyone can discuss it. Before publication, editors send the paper to anonymous reviewers who are experts on that subject. They send back their comments and critiques. The paper is often revised and then sent out for review again.

When the final version is published, it’s usually pretty bulletproof—especially when published in a major journal like Nature or Science. Still, there is ample opportunity for correction or criticism. These are often published as a comment or letter in the journal.

This is why scientific publishing takes a very long time. It’s an arduous process designed to get as close to the truth as possible at a particular point in time. A big part of that process is designed to eliminate bias of all kinds.

The phrase—point in time—is important. All knowledge is imperfect knowledge.

We’re endlessly discovering and learning new things, expanding on what we think we know. So, scientific reports are cautious and conservative in their claims. New discoveries or new data can provide hard proof that what we thought we knew wasn’t quite accurate.

Need-to-Know: All knowledge is imperfect knowledge

Science learns, and we all benefit from a better understanding of our world.

This is the gold standard for minimizing bias and getting at the truth.

Traditional or mainstream media also have processes to verify accuracy before publication. I’ve had plenty of experience with this as a freelance journalist writing for dozens of publications in various countries.

For example, after I submit a draft article, it’s reviewed for content and accuracy by one or more editors—questions are asked, details confirmed, changes and additions made. The revised draft may go through another round with editors.

Depending on the publication, the final draft article may go to a fact-checker who verifies every quote, source, and substantive fact, including calling the people interviewed to make sure they’re quoted accurately.

After the article is published, if a reader finds an error, a notice is posted noting the error and the correction made in the story if it’s online.

This process is based on my experience as a journalist who writes news and feature articles. For opinion pieces (Op-Eds), vetting for accuracy is often less thorough. (Seemingly nonexistent in some cases.)

There’s been a great deal of change in the media landscape over the 30 years I’ve been reporting.

A few final Need-to-Knows:

• Each publication has its own editing and fact-verification process.

• The editing and verification process is less thorough than it once was at most publications due to staff cutbacks.

• Mainstream media generally still have fact-checking and try to track down the truth. They also acknowledge errors and make corrections. And they fire journalists who get things wrong too often.

• Many online-only publications have only a single overworked editor to review an article. So they are forced to trust the journalist or contributor to get everything correct.

Most importantly, there is a growing number of propaganda outlets masquerading as news media. Their purpose is to persuade readers to adopt their biased worldview as their own, for power and profit. Beware!

Until next time, be well.

Stephen

P.S.

A couple of previous posts to help sharpen your BS meter:

Disinformation Designed to Ingrain Erroneous Beliefs and Lies

A Perfect Storm of Misinformation: How to improve your BS detector

P.P.S. Courtesy of Tom Tomorrow from 2010!

An electrotech revolution is underway.

Solar and wind are taking over the electricity supply. Electric vehicles (EVs), and heat pumps are electrifying new uses. Batteries and smart digital controls are making a once-variable supply stable and a once-static demand flexible.

Transport, buildings, industry, and much more are electrifying, using clean electricity instead of inefficient, dirty fossil fuels.

Need-to-Know: A fundamentally better, more efficient, and healthier energy system organized around electricity is being built.

Electrotech is the newish term that better describes the energy transition and shift to electrification. It is the most profound transformation of the energy system since the shift from wood as the main source of heat and energy to coal, oil, and gas in the 18th century.

A reminder from my the last NtK:

Need-to-Know: Fossil fuels are inefficient and costly

More than 60% of the energy generated by fossil fuels is lost as waste heat. It’s like buying a dozen eggs and then throwing away 8 of those eggs.

Here’s an incredible stat: The energy wasted by inefficient fossil-fuel combustion costs $4.6 trillion globally every year.

We pay that $4.6 trillion cost every year. (For every $100 you put in the gas tank, you only get $20 worth of mileage. See Why Complain About Gas Prices When 80% of the Gas in Your Tank is Wasted?)

Need-to-Know: Electrotech brings energy security and stable power prices

Solar and wind can guarantee long-term energy security by providing the means to generate your own electricity as long as the sun shines and the wind blows. And all this electricity comes at a lower cost without adding to the thick blanket of CO2 pollution that is driving dangerous, costly extreme weather.

Need-to-Know: Solar prices have fallen by 99% since 1990, and battery prices have plummeted by 99% since 1991.

Electrotech costs have been falling for decades. Solar is now the cheapest source of electricity in history, according to the International Energy Agency.

Wind isn’t far behind.

Electricity is poised to become the dominant energy source in buildings, industry, and road transportation. Electrotech is now “too cheap to contain and too big to ignore”, according to Kingsmill Bond, Director of Ember’s Energy Futures Initiative.

Need-to-Know: Two-thirds of global energy expenditure is now going into electrotech.

EVs are now at or near price parity with combustion vehicles in many major markets. In China, new electric models retail for as low as $10,000. Sales of EVs have gone from 4% of all cars sold globally to 22% in the last five years.

And it’s not just China (50% of new sales) and Europe (25%) buying EVs:

• 65% to 75% of all new cars sold in Nepal are EVs

• 60% of new cars sold in Ethiopia are EVs in 2024, and it has banned fossil car imports.

• Brazil will see a 40% increase in EV sales this year

  

Need-to-Know: Electrotech components can be repurposed or recycled when they reach the end of their life.

For example, after 15 years of use, EV batteries are being repurposed as stationary-storage batteries in electrical grids, or as back-up and emergency power systems. After that, recyclers can recover up to 95% of the metals and materials from depleted batteries.

This is where the puck is going. It could go a lot faster if more people, businesses, and politicians at all levels understood this. Spread the word.

Until next time. Be well.

Stephen