Last year, the United Nations predicted that Earth’s average temperature could rise more than 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) by 2100 if we don’t reduce global emissions. That level of warming would cause catastrophic, irreversible damage to ecosystems, underscoring the urgent need to slow the pace of climate change.

Still, the amount of greenhouse gases humans pump into the atmosphere continues to rise. Without sufficient progress on the emissions front, some scientists have suggested another route: artificially counteracting global warming through geoengineering. Many of these controversial solutions aim to mitigate climate breakdown in the polar regions, but a review published Tuesday in Frontiers in Science concludes that even the most widely recognized proposals are likely to cause more harm than good.

“I find that there’s been confusion between urgency and haste,” co-author Ben Orlove, a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University, told Gizmodo. “Though we recognize the urgency of action, that should never serve as an excuse for incompletely reviewed proposals moving forward.”

Polar regions under pressure

Earth’s polar regions are warming faster than the average global temperature. Experts predict this will lead to severe and irreversible consequences both regionally and globally, such as local ecosystem collapse and sea level rise. Proponents of geoengineering often cite this as a driving force behind efforts to implement such strategies in the Arctic and Antarctic, but none of them are backed by robust, real-world testing at scale.

For this review, an international team of researchers evaluated five geoengineering concepts designed to slow the pace of ice melt in the polar regions. The ideas include spraying reflective particles into the atmosphere, using giant underwater curtains to shield ice shelves from warm water, artificially thickening or boosting the reflectivity of sea ice, pumping water out from underneath glaciers, and adding nutrients to polar oceans to stimulate blooms of carbon-sequestering phytoplankton.

More problems than solutions

The researchers evaluated each proposed solution’s scope of implementation, effectiveness, feasibility, negative consequences, cost, and governance with respect to their deployment at scale. According to their assessment, all five ideas would lead to environmental damages such as the disruption of habitats, migration routes, the ocean’s natural chemical cycle, global climate patterns, and more.

Additionally, the authors estimate that each proposal would cost at least $10 billion to implement and maintain. This is likely an underestimate, they say, pointing to hidden costs that would undoubtedly arise as environmental and logistical consequences come into play. What’s more, polar regions lack sufficient governance to regulate these projects, necessitating extensive political negotiation and new frameworks before large-scale deployment.

Even if these tactics offered some benefit, none could scale fast enough to meaningfully address the climate crisis within the limited time available to do so, the researchers concluded.

“It is clear to us that the assessed approaches are not feasible, and that further research into these techniques would not be an effective use of limited time and resources,” the authors write, emphasizing the importance of focusing on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and conducting fundamental research in the polar regions.

Not every fix is worth the risk

Orlove hopes these findings encourage the scientific community and decision-makers to exercise scrutiny before investing time and money in polar geoengineering projects. “One of the things that troubles me is the claim that climate change is so severe that we need to try all possible methods, and blocking any possible solution is an error,” he said.

“There is a long history in medical research of not undertaking certain experiments on living humans and not attempting extreme cures that just seem unethical,” Orlove said. “But when it comes to experimenting on the planet—and its immediate effect on people—that kind of awareness doesn’t come forward.”

This post has been updated thanks to the sponsorship by Plum Diamonds, a women-owned Responsible Jewelery Council-certified jewelry company that makes lab grown diamonds in its own facilities. 

The diamond industry has been rife with controversy for decades, both humanitarian and environmental. Recently, there has been a growing hype around lab-grown diamonds, which many see as a more ethical and environmentally conscious alternative to traditionally mined diamonds. The brands producing them certainly market them that way. 

Research has shown that nearly 70% of millennials, the demographic that comprises a majority of the market for diamonds for engagement rings, would consider a lab-grown diamond for an engagement ring. In addition to ethical and environmental reasons, many stated the lower cost of lab-grown diamonds as an important factor in their decision. According to a report conducted by Bain, the price of lab-grown diamonds is expected to continue dropping, making them accessible to a larger section of the market. 

But is this sparkly solution too good to be true? We did some digging to find out. 

 

First up, what exactly is a lab-grown diamond? 

There are two methods used to create diamonds in labs: high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD). For HPHT, the diamond is engineered from graphite, using machines that generate extreme pressure or heat, replicating conditions in which naturally formed diamonds were created. CVD, on the other hand, is a method of growing a solid diamond from a hydrocarbon gas mixture on a substrate material. 

Physically, the resulting synthetic diamond is nearly identical to a mined diamond, and you definitely won’t be able to differentiate it just by looking at it.  

Lab-grown vs. Mined Diamonds: Environmental Impact

When comparing the environmental impact of lab grown versus mined diamonds, both the total amount of energy needed as well as the kind of energy used are important factors to consider. For example, a lab may have a high energy usage to produce a diamond, but if that energy comes from clean, renewable sources, it could still be a better option than a mine that uses oil to power its activities. 

“Diamond mining typically requires diesel for the trucks and other equipment. Power is also required for the processing plant,” says industry analyst Paul Zimnisky. “Lab-diamond production can consume very significant amounts of energy, as in some cases the growth chamber has to be heated to the temperature of the sun. The process can also require gases such as methane, nitrogen, and boron.” 

Energy and fuel usage varies widely among synthetic diamond labs and mines. According to a 2016 paper by Saleem H. Ali, Professor of Energy and the Environment at the University of Delaware, the Argyle mine in Western Australia has a fuel usage of 4.2 pounds per carat, and the Diavik mine in remote northern Canada uses 11.5 pounds per carat created by diesel generators. 

Meanwhile, when it comes to energy, the Argyle mine required 7.5 kWh of energy per carat, synthetic lab Gemesis used 20 kWh of energy per carat, the lab Apollo Diamonds required 28kWh per carat, the Diavik mine used 66.3 kWh per carat, and the De Beers’ marine mine off the Skeleton Coast of Namibia consumed 80.3 kWh per carat, at least in 2016. Those numbers could have changed, but it demonstrates that neither mines nor labs can be assumed to be better than the other.  

However, Ali cautioned in his paper that we shouldn’t take these numbers at face value. For proprietary reasons, diamond producers don’t always disclose the materials they use to make the synthetic diamonds. And this matters a lot. If relatively abundant metals like iron and copper are used for production, the environmental impact will be significantly lower than if the production process uses rare earth metals.

Similarly, when it comes to chemical usage, there’s no way to really know what exactly is going into those lab-grown diamonds, and how those chemicals are being disposed of, unless the company decides to release that information. 

On the other hand, “Chemicals are not typically used in diamond mining and recovery, as the process typically just consists of crushing the rock until the diamonds are liberated. Diamond mining is considered one of the cleanest forms of mining, but it does require water to ‘wash’ debris when liberating the diamonds,” says Zimnisky. 

Looking at the whole picture

When discussing sustainability, we can’t stop at facts and figures related to environmental impact. The societal, economic, and humanitarian impacts on local communities are equally important factors to consider, and certain mines (if managed well) provide strong benefits to these communities. 

“We work with artisanal diamond mining communities to support their empowerment and diamond mining is an important source of income for these communities and producer nations,” says Zuzia Danielski, Communications Director at IMPACT, a non-profit working to manage the sourcing of natural resources in areas of conflict. “Lab-grown diamonds are diverting important income away from developing communities. Our work is to ensure natural resources, like diamonds, can support sustainable development in producing countries and artisanal mining communities.”

In “The Diamonds of Botswana,” the third part of “Fashionscapes,” a docu-series exploring the fashion supply chains, Livia Firth talked to people working in the diamond mining industry in Botswana and found that the diamond industry provided many opportunities to the locals, whether it was employment, education, or access to technology. 

“We were the poorest country in Africa, and diamonds were discovered just after independence. And the structures that were put in place at that time have benefitted Botswana going forward,” Naseem Lahri, the Managing Director of Lucara Botswana, told Firth. “I was born in Botswana, I’ve schooled in Botswana, and I’ve gone to University in Botswana, and it’s all because of the diamonds that have created the schools that I’ve schooled at, and even the employment right.”

“In Botswana, what happens is that all government revenues from minerals are put into a central pool and then it’s used for the development of the country,” says Susanne Swaniker, CFO of Global Sightholder Sales at the De Beers Group. She acknowledges that the diamonds aren’t a renewable resource and some point the mines will run dry. That’s why, according to her, it’s key for the government to use the revenue from the industry smartly, and invest it in development to create other sustainable industries that will continue to sustain the economy even after the diamond mines are tapped out. 

“The socio-economic empowerment that’s happening as a result of diamonds in Botswana is a test of what can be done,” says Pat Dambe, vice president of corporate affairs and government relations at the De Beers Group. “I’m a product of the diamond industry. Everybody that you meet in Botswana is a product of it because it’s been our heart and soul. It took us from being the third poorest country in Africa to being probably the most successful medium-sized economies.”

Of course, this isn’t always the case. There have been several instances where diamond mining has been destructive to local communities and people. For example, a study by the Kimberley Process Civil Society Coalition examined the impact of diamond mining on nearby communities in Lesotho in Southern Africa and found shockingly high levels of nitrate in water sources for communities in surrounding villages, as well as a lack of employment opportunities and environmental pollution. Another study by the same coalition found that 133 children under the age of 15 were working across 13 mining cites in Boda, and another 15 each in Berberati and Nola in the Central African Republic. 

One of the main responses to the outcry against blood diamonds was the Kimberley Process, which aims to eradicate conflict diamonds from the global supply chain. However, the key here is to understand how it defines conflict diamonds: “rough diamonds used to finance wars against governments.” 

“A Kimberly Process certificate (just) means that a diamond was not a source of profit for a rebel group overthrowing a legitimate government,” says Zimnisky. 

It doesn’t get into other impacts of diamond production, including worker conditions and environmental impact. So while it’s a good benchmark to avoid diamonds that are used to fund rebel groups, it doesn’t tell us much more beyond that.

It All Comes Down to Transparency

Unfortunately, there is no hard-and-fast rule when it comes to choosing between lab versus mined diamonds. As in most things in fashion, it’s less about the material and more about transparency. 

“In my opinion, right now at least, the lab-diamond industry is much less transparent than the natural diamond industry,” says Zimnisky. “There is a lot of “greenwashing” by many lab-diamond companies, which is why, again, this needs to be taken on a case by case basis.”

So theoretically, while a lab-grown diamond could have a lower environmental impact than a mined one if created under optimal conditions, we have to take claims made by brands with a grain of salt. 

Additionally, and this is the surprising one, mined diamonds (when mined responsibly), provide significant benefits for the local communities. If stopped, the livelihoods of these communities could be lost. 

“Our view is that the industry needs to support the conditions for traceability and due diligence so that consumers can have confidence in the choice they make if they are buying a mined diamond,” says IMPACT’s Danielski.

Bottom line: Do your research. Mined or synthetic, your jeweler should be able to tell you the journey of the diamond all the way from where and how it was mined or created, to how the jewelery was produced and sold. 

“I would argue that a recycled (repurposed or second-hand) diamond has the lowest environmental impact of all – and this does not typically come up in this conversation,” concludes Zimnisky. 

We tend to agree. You can also look for brands that responsibly source their metals and offers lifetime care to, like Plum Diamonds.

Plum Diamonds makes wedding and fine jewelry with lab grown diamonds and responsibly-sourced gold and platinum. Its jewelry is made in its own Responsible Jewelry Council-certified manufacturing facility, and it only works with diamond growers who meet the same sustainability standards. Plum intentionally designs timeless styles, and it offers free lifetime sizing and care to extend their lifespan.

The lavish wedding between Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his partner Lauren Sanchez is scheduled for June 26-28 in Venice, Italy. For months, however, protests against the event have taken place in the city, intensifying in recent days with the “No Space for Bezos” campaign—which refers to his aerospace investments—over the social and environmental impacts of the wedding, which will occupy much of the historic lagoon center that’s already under pressure from high tourist flow.

What We Know About the Event

The three-day celebration promises unprecedented pomp, situated among historic buildings, luxury yachts, and international VIPs. Three major events are already scheduled: the exclusive gala evening on June 26 at the Lido of Venice, the exchange of vows the following day in the Teatro Verde on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, and the grand finale on June 28 that will take place in the sixteenth-century Scuola Grande della Misericordia.

The guest list for the Bezos-Sanchez weddings includes Microsoft founder Bill Gates, TV host Oprah Winfrey, and actors including Leonardo DiCaprio, Barbra Streisand, Eva Longoria, Orlando Bloom, and Robert Pattinson.

Exclusive private parties are also planned at secret locations in the smaller islands of the lagoon, including Burano, Giudecca, and Sacca Sessola. It is an event that will surely leave its mark on Venice, including in terms of environmental impact and the possible inconvenience it could create for the city’s transit infrastructure.

80 Jets and Over 30 Private Water Taxis

The guests will arrive on 80 private jets and travel aboard more than 30 already reserved water taxis, yachts, and gondolas.

According to some official sources, flights from New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Dubai are planned. Not to mention the luxury yachts coming to Venice, with moorings already planned between the Maritime Station, Punta della Dogana, San Basilio, and Riva degli Schiavoni.

Among these is Bezos’s own majestic vessel, Koru, the 417-foot-long superyacht that cost $500 million, along with its 246-foot support vessel Abeona, equipped with a helicopter deck and dedicated staff, although there is still no confirmation that it will enter the lagoon.

The only yacht already docked as of Tuesday is the M’Brace of legendary basketball player Michael Jordan, who arrived with his wife. Between 30 and 50 water taxis have been reserved full-time for all three days of the event, each of which will cost the bride and groom up to 400 euros an hour.

For or Against

The grand celebrations have divided public opinion. According to some, the enormous expenses for the organization of Bezos’ wedding could have a positive impact on the territory, going to finance hotels, transportation, catering and exclusive locations. The Washington Post, owned by Bezos, has declared that about 80 percent of products and services come from local Venetian suppliers.

But at what cost? The other side of the coin includes a collective of activists and residents who the “No Space for Bezos” campaign months ago, denouncing the spectacularization of the city at the expense of residents. The protesters are drawing up several plans to block roads and waterways. Among the reasons for the protest is the environmental impact that the mass mobilization of so many vehicles may have on the lagoon city, which has already been battling overcrowding caused by tourists.

However, the City of Venice has given reassurances that the marriage between Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez will not cause “any disruption for the city, its residents, or tourists.” Over the years, in fact, Venice has successfully handled international events even more impactful than this one, such as the G20 Economy, the G7 Justice, bilateral state meetings, and the Art, Architecture, and Cinema Biennials. The organizers, the municipality then specifies, “have not booked an excessive number of gondolas or water taxis, as read in the newspapers, as the interest is to ensure that the city functions normally, for everyone, without any disturbance to anyone.”

This story originally appeared on WIRED Italy and has been translated from Italian.

Wanting is the menacing margin of error between desire and need. It is the blade that vivisects your serenity, the hammer that shatters your wholeness — to want anything is to deem your life incomplete without it. It is a perpetual motion machine that keeps you restlessly spinning around the still point of enough. “Enough is so vast a sweetness, I suppose it never occurs, only pathetic counterfeits,” Emily Dickinson lamented in a love letter a century before Kurt Vonnegut, in his shortest and most poignant poem, located the secret of happiness in the sense of enough. Wanting is a story of scarcity writing itself on the scroll of the mind, masquerading as an equation read from the blackboard of reality. That story is the history of the world. But it need not be its future, or yours.

An epoch after John J. Plenty and Fiddler Dan — John Ciardi’s magnificent 1963 spell against the cult of more — author Martine Murray and artist Anna Read, living parallel lives close to nature in rural Australia, offer a mighty new counter-myth in The Wanting Monster (public library) — an almost unbearably wonderful modern fable about who we would be and what this world would be like if we finally arrived, exhausted and relieved, at the still point of enough. Having always felt that great children’s books are works of philosophy in disguise, speaking great truth in the language of tenderness, I hold this one among my all-time favorites.

The story begins in a town so tranquil and content that no one notices the Wanting Monster, who stands sulking on the edge of the scene, part ghost out of a Norse myth, part Sendakian Wild Thing.

And so the Wanting Monster stomps over to the next village, “bellowing and crashing about as monsters do,” but still the magpie keeps singing, the bees keep laboring at the flowers, and the children keep playing in the square. The Wanting Monster redoubles the growling and the howling, but not even Billie Ray, “the littlest child of the village,” pays heed.

This inflicts no small identity crisis:

What good was a monster if it couldn’t raise any trouble? If it couldn’t even raise the eyebrow of a small, curly-headed child? The Wanting Monster had its head in shame.

But then it comes upon Mr. Banks, napping serenely by the stream. With that “terrible compulsion” that turns the insecure monstrous, the Wanting Monster moans its siren growl of want into the sleeping man’s ear.

Mr. Banks began to wriggle. His heart began to jiggle.

A little note of misery sounded in his mind.

What could possibly be wrong?

It was a perfect day for a snooze by the stream. But now he wanted something else, something more.

Suddenly, he wants the stream itself, shimmering so seductively in the sunlight that it has to be had.

As soon as Mr. Banks builds a swimming pool at his house and fills it with the stream’s water, Mr. Bishop perches to peek over the fence and begins “to twitch and prickle and hop around” with the restless desire for a pool of his own.

So goes the cascade of envy, that handmaiden of wanting, until pool by pool the streams begins to run dry.

Soon it was only a trickle.

The fish gasped and flapped, the frogs jumped away, and the reeds withered and died.

Triumphant and drunk on its own power, the Wanting Monster now wonders how much more damage it can do to these peaceful people. So it turns to Mrs. Walton next, who is gathering flowers in the field for her dear friend Maria, and whispers into her ear.

Mrs. Walton began to frown and fret.

She was irritated. Why was she picking flowers for Maria when it was really she herself who deserved them?

She should fill her own house with flowers.

Yes, she should have the most fragrant, the most colorful, the most stylish house in the whole village.

Everyone would admire it. Everyone would envy her.

The other women watch Mrs. Walton pick all the flowers she can carry, and suddenly they too are aflame with the mania for owning the flowers. Soon, no flowers are left and the bees are bereft of pollen, the butterflies fly away, and the wrens and finches have nowhere to nest.

The Wanting Monster stomps across the flowerless fields, gloating.

That night, it visits Mr. Newton — the town’s most passionate stargazer — and whispers into Mr. Newton’s ear.

Suddenly possessed with the desire to own the stars, he heads to the forest and cuts down a great old tree to build himself a ladder, then climbs into the night and takes a star.

I am reminded here of this miniature etching by William Blake, which I suspect might have inspired Read’s art:

Ms. Grimehart watches Mr. Newton and, unable to bear possessing no stars herself, she cuts down not one tree but two to make an even bigger ladder and snatches not one star but five.

More and more ladders rise up and the sky soon grows starless. With the stream gone and the flowers gone and the forest gone, with the birds silent and the bees still, this tranquil little world finds itself unworlded.

The village was quiet and colorless and gloomy. The children wept. They had loved their forest and their little stream. They missed the singing birds, the sunlit flowers, the shining stars.

People, unable to console the children, begin to leave. The Wanting Monster roars with self-congratulation.

This time, everyone hears the roar and begins to wonder about the menacing presence. It is Billie Ray who first sees it and, pointing, tells the townsfolk that there is a monster in their midst. Naming a hurt has a way of opening up the space for healing — as soon as the little girl names the menace, everyone sees it clear as daylight. Suddenly, the Wanting Monster grows “no bigger than a beetle.” It is only those things of which we are not fully conscious that have the power to possess us.

But when the grownups lurch to stomp the tiny monster, Billie Ray stops them, leans down and asks the suddenly helpless creature if it needs a cuddle.

The Wanting Monster climbed into the palm of her hand. It was tired, after all, and the hand was soft and warm. It lay down. Billie Ray cupped her other hand to make a roof, and then she wandered toward the dry river bed, where she sat on its banks and began to rock her hand and sing the lullaby her mother had once sung to her.

No one had ever sung to the Wanting Monster before. Nor had it ever been cared for. And the Wanting Monster didn’t know quite how those things felt — not really.

Listening to the lullaby, the Wanting Monster begins to weep. “There, there,” Billie Ray comforts it, “Oh, dearest heart.” The Wanting Monster doesn’t know how to bear all this tenderness — how many of us really do — and so it goes on weeping “sorrowful, endless tears” that begin replenishing the stream.

Everyone else, listening and watching, begins to weep too.

A great mournful lament filled the valley.

Tears swelled the little stream, and it rushed like a river…

What had been withheld was released; what had dried up, flowed.

What had hardened was becoming soft again.

People unpack their suitcases, take the stars out of their pockets, and set about collecting seeds, tilling the ground, and filling watering cans to replant the trees and flowers.

As the birds return and the night reconstellates, the Wanting Monster finally stops weeping and, looking up wonder-smitten at the stars lavishing the world with all that abundant beauty, feels, finally, slaked of want.

Couple The Wanting Monster with The Fate of Fausto — Oliver Jeffers’s kindred fable inspired by Vonnegut’s poem — then revisit Wendell Berry on how to have enough.

Illustrations courtesy of Enchanted Lion Books; photographs by Maria Popova

You hear it often enough – want to save the planet? Try shaving 2 minutes off your shower every day. And…yes, you *could*, of course, do that. But…doesn’t that feel like a sacrifice? And we’re all about saving the planet but doing so without it ever feeling like a sacrifice. But for a moment, let’s look at the numbers.

2 minutes of showering, even with a traditional, low efficiency 2.5 gallon per minute showerhead, yields 5 gallons a day. Multiply by 365, and you’re looking at 1825 gallons per year. Not bad, I guess.

But what does that look like in the bigger picture? And what other very simple, non-sacrifice feeling opportunities do you have to reduce your water footprint? Well, the US Geological Survey put together a food impacts water calculator, which you can find here. I took the quiz and really didn’t do well – I grossly underestimated the water impact of some foods, in particular beef and chicken.

A 1/4 pound of beef is 460 gallons of water, or 1840 gallons per pound of beef. So in other words…one single pound of beef uses more water than reducing your showers by 2 minutes a day for an entire year.

With a traditional low efficiency showerhead (2.5 gallons per minute), you’re looking at 736 minutes of showering being equivalent to the water used for one pound of beef. So…you can literally take a 12+ hour shower…or eat one pound of beef…and use the same amount of water.

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