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Republican lawmakers’ familiar blame game hangs COVID’s spread on young people

by TNYSidney742 Posted on July 2, 2020

Taking no responsibility for coronavirus infections raging to new records amid the rash reopenings of businesses, beaches and bars, the White House and governors are now playing the role of Aristotle: They blame the young for bringing us down.

Leading this ancient lament on excessive juvenile gratification is Vice President Mike Pence. Over the last week, as infections rose in 38 states and Puerto Rico, according to tracking by the New York Times, Pence admonished Americans under 35, saying they bear “particular responsibility” to not infect their elders. He urged them to wear masks to blunt the spread of the virus. On CBS’s Face the Nation, he wagged his finger at partying younger adults, saying they may “have disregarded the guidance that we gave.”

It is impossible to regard Pence as the nation’s nanny when he and President Trump have actually offered little guidance during the worst pandemic in modern medical history. Despite 126,000 Americans being dead, Trump rarely wears a mask. Rather, he has speculated on efficacy of ingesting disinfectant, promoted off-label use of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine — which the National Institutes of Health says confers no benefit — and went the last half of May without speaking with his infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci. The president’s March prediction of 50,000 deaths will likely be tripled in a month and may soar beyond 175,000 fatalities by October.

Both Pence and Trump are back at rallies and appearances where supporters and choirs shout and sing unencumbered by masks. There was no scolding by the administration of 20-somethings at Trump’s recent young conservative voter rally in Phoenix where masks were roughly as evident as Black Lives Matter t-shirts.

Following suit in viral hypocrisy are Trump-supporting governors who have overseen some of the nation’s most disastrous reopenings. Take Florida, which according to public health experts, has had a more than 200 percent spike in cases in its rolling 14-day average. The state saw 9,585 new coronavirus cases on June 27, seven-and-a-half times more than the previous high during April and May. Governor Ron DeSantis blamed younger adults for creating cramped conditions in bars – that, mind you, he reopened — where “caution was thrown to the wind.”

In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott blames 20-somethings for that state’s nearly 140 percent rise in its rolling 14-day average of cases. That includes a new record of high of 6,584 infections on June 24, more than triple the single-day record during April and May. Abbott complained that young adults are “not wearing face masks, they’re not sanitizing their hands, they’re not maintaining the safe distancing practices.” (This is quite the umbrage from a governor who banned municipalities from issuing mandatory mask orders with penalties, and only just now is looking the other way as localities are implementing them anyway in a desperate bid to fight the virus.)

To be clear, the frolicking of the young is being noticed in Democratic strongholds where the virus is ablaze, but they are not being assigned complete blame. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom is also blaming playdates, birthday parties, and adult family gatherings. Such events invariably are organized by parents and older adults.

As for the White House, DeSantis, and Abbott, even Aristotle might shake his head over a septuagenarian president who is burying science wherever he can, a sexagenarian vice president who was slow to address HIV/AIDS as governor of Indiana, and a host of lapdog governors past the age of 40 telling us to behave as they reopened unsafely, without a sustained decline in cases and without robust testing and contact tracing in place. National Public Radio and Harvard’s Global Health Institute reported Tuesday that only four states are doing enough testing to suppress the virus. DeSantis, Abbott, and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp are among the COVID hotspot governors who have been accused of cherry-picking, manipulating, or ignoring data to justify reopening.

Their own poor behavior on COVID-19 is a logical outcome of their general disregard for science, public health, and the environment. DeSantis this winter received a D from the Florida chapter of the Sierra Club for his performance on environmental protection. Abbott runs a state where environmental spending was cut 35 percent between 2008 and 2018. The governor’s blaming of the young is the latest volley in a generational battle, where baby boomers and older Gen Xers create a hot mess and then place an undue burden on younger people to save humanity.

That is literal with climate change and the planet frying up. Witness the sharp rise in youth climate activism over the past several years, where 20-somethings and teens — like Greta Thunberg and the members of the Sunrise Movement — have pointed their fingers at the older generation for dragging its feet on climate change. Instead of being moved by the pleas of the young, Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have belittled them, specifically Thunberg. Our supposed leaders, instead of mandating or modeling the behaviors needed to stem a crisis, are passing the buck to younger people even as their cowardice robs our youth of weddings, proms, and graduations.

Worse, it appears that game of relying on the young has infected more than the older fogies who told us to get back to work, get back in the barber’s chair, roll one down the bowling alley, and eat, drink and be merry. Administration officials who still have some credibility at coronavirus task force briefings or congressional hearings are joining the chorus.

Fauci and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield recently singled out people under 40 as having a societal responsibility not to spread the virus. After saying last week that the coronavirus has “brought this nation to its knees,” Redfield on Tuesday told a Senate hearing: “It is critical that we all take the personal responsibility to slow the transmission of Covid-19 and embrace the universal use of face coverings. Specifically, I’m addressing the younger members of our society, the Millennials and the Generation Zs — I ask those that are listening to spread the word.”

As necessary as it is for all of us to take personal responsibility on COVID-19, it is scary to see Fauci and Redfield creep down the same road as Pence and the red-state governors. Surely they know in their hearts who told America that the water was fine and firewater could flow again. If health officials are going to tell us that the young are silent time bombs for the virus, they also have to tell us who lit the fuse. It was not the 20-somethings.

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Republican lawmakers’ familiar blame game hangs COVID’s spread on young people

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Apocalypse Never – Michael Shellenberger

by Myrna Posted on June 22, 2020

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Apocalypse Never

Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All

Michael Shellenberger

Genre: Science & Nature

Price: $14.99

Expected Publish Date: June 30, 2020

Publisher: Harper

Seller: HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS


Climate change is real but it’s not the end of the world. It is not even our most serious environmental problem. Michael Shellenberger has been fighting for a greener planet for decades. He helped save the world’s last unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today’s Green New Deal. And he led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions. But in 2019, as some claimed “billions of people are going to die,” contributing to rising anxiety, including among adolescents, Shellenberger decided that, as a lifelong environmental activist, leading energy expert, and father of a teenage daughter, he needed to speak out to separate science from fiction. Despite decades of news media attention, many remain ignorant of basic facts. Carbon emissions peaked and have been declining in most developed nations for over a decade. Deaths from extreme weather, even in poor nations, declined 80 percent over the last four decades. And the risk of Earth warming to very high temperatures is increasingly unlikely thanks to slowing population growth and abundant natural gas. Curiously, the people who are the most alarmist about the problems also tend to oppose the obvious solutions. What’s really behind the rise of apocalyptic environmentalism? There are powerful financial interests. There are desires for status and power. But most of all there is a desire among supposedly secular people for transcendence. This spiritual impulse can be natural and healthy. But in preaching fear without love, and guilt without redemption, the new religion is failing to satisfy our deepest psychological and existential needs.

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Apocalypse Never – Michael Shellenberger

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That ocean breeze may be full of tiny bits of plastic

by MagdalenaTurriff Posted on May 28, 2020

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That ocean breeze may be full of tiny bits of plastic

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Here’s how coronavirus affected carbon emissions in every state

by NannieWhitelegg Posted on May 19, 2020

The pandemic is far from over, but some states are opening back up again, creating a situation where life is going back to some semblance of normal in some areas of the United States and staying eerily quiet in other places. A new analysis in the science journal Nature Climate Change sheds light on what happened to emissions during the months when the U.S. was maximally locked down.

Previous estimates of emissions reductions due to COVID-19 said the pandemic would take an 8 percent bite out of global emissions this year. This study, published Tuesday, is the first to analyze and quantify emissions drops on a day-to-day basis across 69 countries and state by state in the United States.

It found that the world is on track for the biggest emissions drop since World War II, or maybe even the biggest drop in history, depending on how long global lockdowns stay in place. (The study estimates that by the end of the year emissions could decline anywhere between 2 to 13 percent overall, depending on the nature and duration of governments’ lockdown policies.) During the peak of global lockdowns in early April, average daily emissions decreased by 17 percent compared to the 2019 average, hitting their lowest point since 2006. Nearly half of those emissions were from “surface transport,” like car rides.

In the U.S., emissions dropped by about a third for a couple of weeks in April, a development that Robert Jackson, a co-author of the study and a Guggenheim fellow at Stanford University, told Grist was “absolutely unprecedented.” On a national level, emissions decreased by about a quarter on average during each country’s peak of confinement.

Jackson and his fellow researchers created a “confinement index” to describe how locked down 69 countries were between the months of January and April according to three levels of confinement ranging from broad travel restrictions to “policies that substantially restrict the daily routine of all but key workers.” By examining six economic sectors — aviation, electricity, transportation, public buildings and commerce, residential, and industry — the study’s authors were able to determine to what extent economic activity, and the carbon dioxide emissions that accompany it, slowed as a result of which lockdown measures. The 69 countries they analyzed represent 97 percent of global CO2 emissions.

In the U.S., the study showed some major differences between states’ daily maximum emissions reductions. Washington state, for example, saw a more than 40 percent drop in emissions during its peak confinement, whereas the pandemic swallowed up just under 18 percent of Iowa’s emissions during its peak. Jackson says there’s a fairly straightforward reason why some states saw such big emissions deficits. “In general, states that are more rural acted much more slowly than states with big cities,” he said. In a few months’ time, those differences between states could deepen even more as the easing of lockdown restrictions in some states spur an increase in emissions.

Clayton Aldern / Grist

For the most part, the emissions decline will only last as long as the lockdowns. “Previous crises have not dented emissions very much,” he said, referencing the 2008 financial crash that decreased emissions globally by 1.5 percent for a year. By 2010, emissions had come roaring back, increasing 5 percent globally. “We’re forcing people to stay at home,” Jackson said. “That won’t last. If they hop back in their cars and consume at the same levels things will go back to normal.”

But Jackson says the pandemic has provided an opportunity for people to rethink transportation, at the very least. Sitting in an hour of traffic to get to work doesn’t sound super appealing after months of commuting 30 seconds to the dining room table. “That could jolt us into a longer-term drop in emissions,” he said.

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Here’s how coronavirus affected carbon emissions in every state

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Fire in Paradise: An American Tragedy – Alastair Gee & Dani Anguiano

by Myrna Posted on May 5, 2020

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Fire in Paradise: An American Tragedy

Alastair Gee & Dani Anguiano

Genre: Nature

Price: $12.99

Publish Date: May 5, 2020

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Seller: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.


The harrowing story of the most destructive American wildfire in a century. There is no precedent in postwar American history for the destruction of the town of Paradise, California. On November 8, 2018, the community of 27,000 people was swallowed by the ferocious Camp Fire, which razed virtually every home and killed at least 85 people. The catastrophe seared the American imagination, taking the front page of every major national newspaper and top billing on the news networks. It displaced tens of thousands of people, yielding a refugee crisis that continues to unfold. Fire in Paradise is a dramatic and moving narrative of the disaster based on hundreds of in-depth interviews with residents, firefighters and police, and scientific experts. Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano are California-based journalists who have reported on Paradise since the day the fire began. Together they reveal the heroics of the first responders, the miraculous escapes of those who got out of Paradise, and the horrors experienced by those who were trapped. Their accounts are intimate and unforgettable, including the local who left her home on foot as fire approached while her 82-year-old father stayed to battle it; the firefighter who drove into the heart of the inferno in his bulldozer; the police officer who switched on his body camera to record what he thought would be his final moments as the flames closed in; and the mother who, less than 12 hours after giving birth in the local hospital, thought she would die in the chaotic evacuation with her baby in her lap. Gee and Anguiano also explain the science of wildfires, write powerfully about the role of the power company PG&E in the blaze, and describe the poignant efforts to raise Paradise from the ruins. This is the story of a town at the forefront of a devastating global shift—of a remarkable landscape sucked ever drier of moisture and becoming inhospitable even to trees, now dying in their tens of millions and turning to kindling. It is also the story of a lost community, one that epitomized a provincial, affordable kind of Californian existence that is increasingly unattainable. It is, finally, a story of a new kind of fire behavior that firefighters have never witnessed before and barely know how to handle. What happened in Paradise was unprecedented in America. Yet according to climate scientists and fire experts, it will surely happen again.

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Fire in Paradise: An American Tragedy – Alastair Gee & Dani Anguiano

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Braiding Sweetgrass – Robin Wall Kimmerer

by Myrna Posted on May 1, 2020

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Braiding Sweetgrass

Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

Robin Wall Kimmerer

Genre: Nature

Price: $9.99

Publish Date: September 16, 2013

Publisher: Milkweed Editions

Seller: Perseus Books, LLC


As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass , Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (Elizabeth Gilbert). Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.

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Braiding Sweetgrass – Robin Wall Kimmerer

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Don’t look now, but the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season could break records

by delmarurd25506 Posted on April 29, 2020

Parts of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans saw record-high temperatures last month. Meanwhile, the average ocean temperature worldwide came in just shy of the record set in 2016.

On Saturday morning, a tropical depression formed in the eastern Pacific Ocean — the earliest tropical cyclone in that area since reliable record-keeping began in the early 1970s.

These two facts are related: Warming water is changing the size and frequency of tropical storms. And new forecasts show that this year’s Atlantic hurricane season, which will take place between June and November, is shaping up to be among the worst we’ve ever experienced.

Last week, Penn State’s Earth System Science Center released its predictions for the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season. The team of scientists, which include renowned climate scientist Michael E. Mann, said we could be looking at between 15 and 24 named tropical storms this year. Their best estimate is 20 storms. It could be one of the most active hurricane seasons on record.

That’s assuming there’s a La Niña — a weather pattern that blows warm water into the Atlantic and helps dredge up cooler water in the Pacific, sometimes leading to more tropical storms in the Atlantic Ocean and fewer in the Pacific. If a La Niña doesn’t develop, then the scientists predict slightly fewer Atlantic hurricanes this year: between 14 and 23 storms. But signs are pointing toward cooling ocean temperatures in the Pacific over the next several months, which could prevent an El Niño — La Niña’s opposite half, which suppresses storms in the Atlantic — from forming. That portends a busy Atlantic season ahead.

In order to get their results, Mann and his team looked at El Niño–Southern Oscillation — the periodic back-and-forth between El Niño or La Niña — in addition to Atlantic sea surface temperature anomalies in April and climatic conditions in the Northern Hemisphere. The scientists relied on a statistical model that considers the relationship among a large number of climate factors (water surface temperature, humidity, water vapor, etc.) and the historical Atlantic tropical cyclone record. The actual number of named tropical storms has either fallen within the model’s predicted range or exceeded it every year that the scientists have made a prediction since 2007.

Mann’s model isn’t the only Atlantic hurricane forecast out there predicting a busy season. The Weather Company’s outlook predicts 18 named storms, nine hurricanes, and four major hurricanes (category 3 or higher). Colorado State University also predicts a busy season, with 16 named storms, eight hurricanes, and four major hurricanes. The 30-year average is 12 named storms, six hurricanes, and three major hurricanes. The National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration will release its official outlook in late May.

Just because the forecast says the Atlantic is going to have an active hurricane season doesn’t mean that each of those predicted storms will hit land — there’s no way to predict that this far out. But we do know that the storm-suppressing El Niño looks like it’s going to take a sabbatical this year. The news couldn’t come at a less opportune time. The United States and other countries bordering the Atlantic already have their hands full with the coronavirus pandemic. Another disaster on top of that could strain our already-buckling disaster response system.

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Don’t look now, but the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season could break records

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The Age of Living Machines: How Biology Will Build the Next Technology Revolution – Susan Hockfield

by Myrna Posted on April 28, 2020

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The Age of Living Machines: How Biology Will Build the Next Technology Revolution

Susan Hockfield

Genre: Science & Nature

Price: $2.99

Publish Date: May 7, 2019

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Seller: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.


From the former president of MIT, the story of the next technology revolution, and how it will change our lives. A century ago, discoveries in physics came together with engineering to produce an array of astonishing new technologies: radios, telephones, televisions, aircraft, radar, nuclear power, computers, the Internet, and a host of still-evolving digital tools. These technologies so radically reshaped our world that we can no longer conceive of life without them. Today, the world’s population is projected to rise to well over 9.5 billion by 2050, and we are currently faced with the consequences of producing the energy that fuels, heats, and cools us. With temperatures and sea levels rising, and large portions of the globe plagued with drought, famine, and drug-resistant diseases, we need new technologies to tackle these problems. But we are on the cusp of a new convergence, argues world-renowned neuroscientist Susan Hockfield, with discoveries in biology coming together with engineering to produce another array of almost inconceivable technologies—next-generation products that have the potential to be every bit as paradigm shifting as the twentieth century’s digital wonders. The Age of Living Machines describes some of the most exciting new developments and the scientists and engineers who helped create them. Virus-built batteries. Protein-based water filters. Cancer-detecting nanoparticles. Mind-reading bionic limbs. Computer-engineered crops. Together they highlight the promise of the technology revolution of the twenty-first century to overcome some of the greatest humanitarian, medical, and environmental challenges of our time.

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The Age of Living Machines: How Biology Will Build the Next Technology Revolution – Susan Hockfield

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How vulnerable is your community to coronavirus? These new maps reveal a familiar pattern.

by FredricAIN Posted on April 2, 2020

The predominantly black and low-income communities living near the back-to-back petrochemical refineries of Louisiana’s “cancer alley” have long suffered compromised immune systems and high rates of disease. Now, the state’s fast-growing COVID-19 outbreak is poised to hit them especially hard.

Yet behind the veil of the pandemic, last week the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a temporary policy — with no end date specified — to suspend its enforcement of key environmental regulations, allowing industries like Louisiana’s petrochemical giants to make their own determinations as to whether or not they are complying with requirements to monitor pollution levels. Ironically, as the EPA relaxes its rules for polluters, the link between long-term exposure to environmental hazards and the most severe outcomes of coronavirus infections is starting to come into focus.

Jvion, a healthcare data firm, has collaborated with Microsoft to launch a new COVID-19 community vulnerability map to identify the populations most vulnerable to severe complications following a coronavirus outbreak. The interactive map aggregates socioeconomic and environmental factors, such as lack of access to transportation, exposure to toxins, unemployment, and mortality rate. According to the map, these factors make certain “cancer alley” communities particularly vulnerable.

“Our most heavily weighted and frequent determining risk factor was air quality, though that doesn’t mean that it’s the most predictive factor,” said John Showalter, chief product officer for Jvion. “There’s definitely a biologic rationale that environmental health hazards that lead to pulmonary and cardiovascular conditions would then lead people with those conditions to do poorly during a COVID-19 outbreak.”

JVION

Jvion used machine learning to analyze block-level data from the U.S. Census to help identify “environmental health hazard” as one key socioeconomic factor that makes a population more vulnerable to severe COVID-19 outcomes, based on the health effects of polluted air, contaminated water, and extreme heat. They also factored in how chronic exposure to outdoor air pollutants, such as fine particulate matter, can increase the risk of cancer, respiratory illnesses, and cardiovascular disease — preexisting conditions that physicians say can make the novel coronavirus more severe and fatal.

A side-by-side comparison of Jvion’s vulnerability map with the EPA’s Environmental Justice Screen (EJScreen) suggests a stark correlation between a community’s proximity to industrial facilities and its projected risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes.

Jvion labels Harris County, Texas, as having a high vulnerability for COVID-19 — and a key socioeconomic influencer for that determination is its “above average environmental health hazard.” A new analysis from the University of Texas Health Science Center echoes Jvion’s map: The report shows where risk factors for severe COVID-19 outcomes (mostly preexisting health conditions) are distributed across Harris County to determine which neighborhoods are most at-risk of hospitalization and intensive care for COVID-19. Cross-referencing the EJScreen, it becomes clear that the Harris County map highlights communities in close proximity to industrial facilities and those at a higher risk of cancer from breathing airborne toxins.

“There’s a familiar pattern in these maps, and it’s a pattern that you see in mobility rates and mortality rates, race and ethnicity demographics, as well as the distribution of industry in our country,” said Corey Williams, the research and policy director for Air Alliance Houston. “All those things overlap to a great extent, so there is a correlation, but it’s difficult to prove causation.”

Philadelphia has seen a rapid uptick in coronavirus cases, and its pockets of vulnerability have similar characteristics to Houston’s. Jvion’s map shows that the predominantly black and low-income neighborhoods of Point Breeze and Grays Ferry are considered to have an “extremely high” vulnerability risk for COVID-19 due to environmental hazards, elevated unemployment rates, and low incomes. The EJScreen shows that the areas are close to major highways with heavy traffic, wastewater plants, and industrial facilities.

It’s clear that the novel coronavirus is already compounding underlying systemic inequities in communities with more people of color, poverty, migrants, and those without access to resources like medical care. These maps can help ensure that government response and medical capacity in these at-risk populations can meet the needs of those likely to be severely ill from the virus, including those living near heavy industry and fossil fuel infrastructure.

In a letter submitted to the EPA last week, environmental groups demanded to know why polluting facilities are now excused from complying with environmental regulations, even as their operations continue relatively unfettered. “What is the basis for presuming that the pandemic means companies can no longer comply with environmental rules while they continue to operate and process all other forms of corporate ‘paperwork’?” the memo asked.

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How vulnerable is your community to coronavirus? These new maps reveal a familiar pattern.

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Paris Fashion Week meets the Paris Agreement on the Balenciaga runway

by KayleigBalog Posted on March 4, 2020

Balenciaga launched its fall 2020 collection on a flooded runway with images of fiery blazes and rushing waves projected across the ceiling. The first few rows of seats were empty because they were almost entirely underwater, and models strutted through the swampy raised stage in drapey oversized raincoats, Matrix-like full-length black leather jackets, and bodysuits that look straight out of the Black Panther wardrobe trailer, complete with knee and shoulder pads. One model was styled as a walking mace, his jacket flanked with sharp spikes.

Yes, the brand best-known for sock shoes, an ugly-cool take on the dad sneaker, and platform Crocs put climate change front and center in its Paris Fashion Week show on Sunday.

Estrop / Getty Images

Estrop / Getty Images

Clearly, the fire and brimstone vibe was intended as a warning about the catastrophe to come if we do not stem the rising tide of carbon emissions. Demna Gvasalia, Balenciaga’s creative director, hasn’t given any interviews about the show, but the outfits seem to imagine a world where rising seas, bursts of flames, and other environmental assaults are commonplace concerns and where protection from the elements is literally built into the fabric of our lives.

Estrop / Getty Images

Estrop / Getty Images

While I think it’s pretty cool any time the rich and famous are shaken out of their distorted version of reality and confronted with the signs of our times, the implications of Balenciaga’s show are complicated. First of all, it’s debatable whether shoving the apocalypse narrative in people’s faces is really all that helpful if you’re trying to make a case for climate action. Second, and far less debatable, the fashion industry is a disaster for the planet.

Data on the fashion industry’s footprint is not perfect, since brands have only recently begun measuring it, but here’s what we know: The industry uses exorbitant amounts of water, potentially as much as 2 percent of all freshwater use globally, in addition to being a major source of water pollution. It creates an extraordinary amount of waste, both in making the clothes and in creating a culture where people throw millions of tons of clothing into the trash every year. It contributes to deforestation, because common materials like rayon and viscose are made with wood pulp. And finally, the industry is believed to be responsible for a whopping 10 percent of global carbon emissions.

Anyhoo. If Balenciaga wants to warn people about climate catastrophe, I would hope the company is doing more than designing our future fire- and flood-proof uniforms. So is it?

Turns out, yes. Balenciaga’s parent company, Kering, is one of the more forward-thinking in the biz. In 2016, Kering set a goal of reducing its emissions intensity across most of its business by 50 percent by 2025, a goal which it’s currently on track to achieve, according to documents filed with the Carbon Disclosure Project. (Intensity, in this case, means the amount emitted per dollar of profit, so as the company grows, it will become more carbon efficient.) Kering was also the first ~luxury~ company to have its emissions targets approved by the Science Based Targets Initiative, a program that helps companies align their business with the Paris Agreement.

The company’s operations are powered by 100 percent renewable energy in seven out of the more than 20 countries where it does business. It is in the process of eliminating hazardous chemicals in its supply chains and works with other major international brands to do the same. Kering also forbids the use of leather linked to deforestation in the Amazon.

While its approach isn’t perfect — the company offsets some of its emissions through reforestation projects under the United Nations’ REDD program, which ProPublica exposed to be deeply flawed — I have to admit, I’m pretty impressed by the depth and breadth of what Kering has done so far. It takes a lot of time and money for an international fashion superpower to look up and down all of its supply chains and figure out what, exactly, its impact on the planet is every year.

So while I don’t think the end times are nigh, as was implied on the runway, golf claps for Balenciaga for talking about climate change, and for putting its money where its mouth is.

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Paris Fashion Week meets the Paris Agreement on the Balenciaga runway

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