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CLIMATE JOURNALIST MATT MAYNARD EXPLAINS HOW TO KEEP A COOL HEAD ON A WARMING PLANET
It’s hard to get your mind into a workout when there are people on the streets protesting against climate and ecological collapse. The facts are simple: in 1859 a clever chap named John Tyndall proved that so-called ‘greenhouse gases’ such as carbon dioxide – produced when making a pair of running shoes, powering a car, flying a plane or gas-heating your home – and especially methane, which is burped and farted like crazy from cows, trap heat. Just like in a greenhouse, too much heating is catastrophic on a planetary scale. We’ve already heated the planet by more than one degree. We are still increasing global emissions and we need to reduce them by 45 per cent by 2030 to avoid disaster. World leaders once again failed to make the necessary commitments to begin reductions in New York this September – which puts that missed deadlift PB into perspective.