2023 Recap / 2024 Prospectus
Thank you to my growing community of 120+ subscribers!
Hi everyone! Im back from a few months break from my blog. Life has been busy, but worry not I am back and excited to continue posting in 2024!
2023
Preview: Brazil pledges end of deforestation,
Spain charges tobacco companies for cigarette butts,
UN report finds ozone layer is recovered by 2040,
EU voted to make stand against greenwashing (vague, misleading, false claims),
France/Spain/New Zealand/Germany/UK bans deep-sea mining,
Australia rejecting coal mine protecting the Great Barrier Reef,
UN will hold highly polluting countries accountable,
Thailand bans import of plastic waste,
26 Australian species have recovered from being endangered,
Ireland announces rehabilitation of 85 acres of wetlands,
500 advertising/PR companies pledge to not work with fossil fuel companies,
Australian scientists discover fungus that can break down plastics,
Ecuador confers $1.6 billion of national debt for conservation efforts of Galapogos islands,
Wind & Solar overtakes fossil fuels in EU during May 2023, Brazil/Hawaii recognizes indigenous territories/conservation areas,
India’s Project Tiger has 50th anniversary/great conservation improvements,
Solar power overtakes oil production in June 2023,
clean energy investments expected to make up 2/3 of global energy investments going forward,
US approves largest offshore wind project, France bans short-haul flights,
Malaysia/Indonesia halved deforestation rates,
youth activists win landmark climate case against Montana,
Brazil transforms largest Latin-American landfill to ecologically vital swamp,
NGO/South Africa rewilding White Rhinos (endangered),
China installs largest wind turbine in the world sometimes generating enough to power 170,000 homes,
150 indigenous seed collectors joined forces to restore an area the size of Greece,
Netherlands plans to phase out fossil fuel subsidies,
dams being demolished in Northern California to help Salmon populations,
China becomes biggest investor in clean energy for 2022,
rapidly growing job market for clean energy,
India begins construction of world’s largest renewable energy site,
Indonesia begins construction of world’s largest floating solar farm to power 20 million homes,
$8.2 billion in US funding for passenger rail network,
US bans old-growth logging by 2025,
this does not cover all the good news from 2023 and shows how much change is happening with less than 0.1% of global productivity! (Don’t quote me on that, but probably true)
Preview: seaweed farming (fast growing carbon sink), edible/healthy, biodegradable & versatile material,
only 9% of plastic is recycled, plastic is more expensive to recycle than create anew, plastic can only be recycled 2-3 times, it does not biodegrade and eventually pollutes the environment no matter what,
resist greenwashing, attack the problem at the source, pick bioplastics (naturally derived not fossil fuel sourced),
cut out useless packaging, choose paper packaging, glass, no single use non-biodegradable materials
Preview: James Webb Space Telescope (early galaxies & blackholes??),
OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample collection (water & carbon found),
Alzheimer’s amyloid plaque controversy & emerging treatments (Lecanemab),
gravitational wave background (decades long pulsar studies),
Growing AI wave (chatbots, generated art, deepfakes, translators, smart pin, biotech revolution)
Preview: China sea disputes, deepfakes, Lee Harvey Oswald/Kennedy assisination conspiracy, UAV congress hearing, Berlin wall, geopolitics of microchips, Ukraine drone revolution, Chinese “weather” balloons, bank lending system, Sudan crisis, Myanmar crisis, Puerto Rico history, Yugoslavia history, Israel-Palestine-Hamas conflict, rural Greenland, Kim Jong Un cinema obsession, moon landing conspiracy, how congress gets away with insider trading, undersea cable highway, YouTube vs mainstream censorship, nuclear submarines, Henry Kissinger, pharmaceutical bacterial contamination, Joe Rogan, Somali piracy, nuclear power
I’m sure there are things I have missed, but please feel free to comment as I would love to see all the amazing things that happened last year!
2024
Preview:
1. vital democratic elections (1/2+ global population is democratic!) [USA, Taiwan]
2. eVTOL revolution/electric air taxis @ Paris 2024 Olympics
3. accelerating AI revolution, frontier models/intl. regulation talks, AI safety summits (South Korea, Paris) concerning extistential risk likely, investigation of government use of AI
4. 29% of global emissions by industrial use, unseen by common population, not a common topic of discussion, green industry revolution & regulations (carbon tax), resistance to infrastructure change/downtime losses
5. BRICS+ growing power over G7 (greater GDP), internal tensions within BRICS+, fight against Bretton-Woods system (American financial dominance), World Bank/IMF vs New Development Bank, multipolar world/new world negotiators: Russia-Ukraine conflict (Turkey mediator), Israel-Palestine conflict (Qatar mediator)
What to Expect
I won’t be sticking to any particular structure like last year, but I will be releasing a few delayed posts from last year including:
The Anthropocene Extinction Event
Neural Nets & Biocomputing
Homo Techno #7-9
This year I will be posting a lot more topics involving data science as I focus on my career development, however I will sprinkle in some subjects of personal curiosity similar to the regular posts you have been seeing. Thank you again for being a subscriber and I encourage you to share my blog :)
Also, if you found/find a certain topic interesting feel free to reach out by replying to any of my emails. My free blog posts only cover the surface level of complex ideas and there is always more to discuss; I am always open to guest authors!