China’s tipping point

China’s heavy pollution has been well documented. Last year, Beijing issued two “red alerts” for pollution, the highest level warning which calls for emergency measures such as closing schools and restricting car use. Poor air quality is also having a significant knock-on effect on the country’s tourist trade.

Some businesses are taking advantage of the air pollution – food delivery services that meet the needs of those staying indoors; bars which push their air purifiers as a marketing tool to get customers in; and beer that gets cheaper as the air quality decreases. But these are not long-term solutions.

According to Ma Jun, one of China’s most prominent environmental voices, China has reached its environmental tipping point. “I think its time to change and balance the environment and growth. If we don’t do that we’re going to suffer a hard landing one day very soon,” says Ma.

From top-down, engineering solutions providing wind turbines and solar panels, to NGOs and citizens forcing local government and industry to act, China’s next steps are going to be closely scrutinised.

Technology’s role in mental health

The comments on an article we published last September about Ellie, the machine that can detect depression, ranged widely, from “So CLEVER. My God. Amazing” to “creepy” to “Oh bloody hell, I’m not even fully qualified as a counsellor and already there’s a robot taking my job”.

Ellie, a virtual interviewer created by USC Institute for Creative Technologies’ SimSensei project. Photograph: Teresa Dey/USC Institute for Creative Technologies

Ellie is a virtual interviewer, a machine that has been developed to help diagnose depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Like apps for combatting low mood and online cognitive behavioural therapy, she’s an example of the ways that technology can be put to good use by helping improve people’s mental wellbeing.

“We hear a lot about how the rise of technology use, such as smartphones, is harming our mental health, but I believe the same technology can be a real safety net too,” says Sarah Bateup, clinical lead of Ieso Digital Health.

With at least 350 million people worldwide living with depression, the development and adoption of such technology is set to continue.

The toll of industrial farming

Industrial farming methods are increasingly coming under scrutiny, especially when it comes to the routine use of antibiotics.

Although our growing resistance to them can in part be put down to poor prescribing and use, Dr David Wallinga points out that more than 70% of medically important antibiotics sold in the US are used for livestock to promote growth or for routine disease prevention in the “less-than-healthy conditions found on industrial farms”. This is exacerbating antibiotic resistance.



The pig superbug and the baby – video Guardian

As a recent Guardian editorial points out, “Antibiotic resistance may not seem as urgent as terrorism or the NHS funding shortfall. But it is actually a threat that could kill many more people and degrade the quality of civilised life much more”.

The Guardian’s investigation into the poultry industry, a key user of antibiotics, has uncovered a catalogue of other disturbing practices. From alleged hygiene failings leading to contaminated chicken to serious concerns about working conditions, the revelations show the heavy price some pay for cheap chicken.

Then there’s pesticide use. Numerous studies have suggested its links with a range of health impacts, including cancers and Parkinson’s disease. The French wine industry, where only 8.4% of vineyards are organic is one sector particularly enamoured with pesticides. However, experts predict that dozens of legal proceedings could be in the pipeline across France related to their health impacts.

The madness of bottled water

Few things are as ridiculous as transporting water around the world in disposable plastic bottles.

Globally, we now drink as much packaged water as we do milk. Over one fifth of the water in the UK is sourced from overseas, despite the country having abundant sources of water. There have also been trends for water from remote areas, such as Fiji Water, which is sourced from the Fiji Islands, 1,600 miles from the nearest continent.

In the context of a world that is struggling with acute water scarcity in some areas, there are serious questions to be answered about our role as stewards of the Earth.

Money and climate change

Climate change is funded in numerous, often opaque ways, from the issuing of bonds that support the relentless expansion of palm oil plantations to the lobby groups seeking to undermine government action on climate change.

Some argue that climate change leaders should join forces with fossil fuel companies to put a price on carbon. According to Hunter Lovins and Felix Kramer, for example: “Fossil fuel companies receive $5.3tn [£3.6tn) in worldwide subsidies every year – that’s $10m a minute – exceeding global spending on health. Pricing carbon fuels to reflect their true social and environmental impacts will help to speed up the transition to renewable energy and more energy efficient living standards.”

Other ways to tackle climate change that have risen to prominence over the past year include scaling up the divestment movement and driving more investment into renewables.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is one of several high-profile entrepreneurs behind the Breakthrough Energy Coalition. Photograph: Stephen Lam/Reuters

The divestment campaign has had some significant recent successes, including the Church of England divesting from tar sands oil and coal last April and Californian lawmakers passing a bill in September requiring the state’s two largest pension funds to divest from coal.

Last summer, Bill Gates announced that he would invest $2bn in renewable technologies, and in November it was announced that entrepreneurs including Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Richard Branson were to form the Breakthrough Energy Coalition to support early-stage clean energy companies.