​France prepares for the worst in terms of climate ● More than half of the planet’s great lakes are drying up at an alarming rate ● Used diapers – the building material of the future?

In climate terms, France is preparing for the worst

The Paris Agreement, which called for limiting global temperature increases to just 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, has failed. The limit will be exceeded in 2025, that is, in just two years, announced international organizations that monitor the situation around the world.

In fact, the most likely scenario predicts an increase in global temperatures of 2.8-3.2 degrees by the end of the century, even by 4 degrees in some regions.

France, through the voice of the Minister of Environmental Transition, Christophe Bechu, has already announced that it will start preparing for this scenario. In fact, the French minister has already asked other members of the government to start discussing the strategies to be adopted.

If some representatives of the French government still consider the scenario pessimistic, then Christophe Bechu called it rather realistic. In his opinion, the most optimistic forecast is to limit the increase in global average temperatures to a threshold of 2 degrees Celsius. But it is unlikely to happen.

Rather, he argues, France must prepare for what is to come, because a rise of 4 degrees Celsius would equate to a major change. Extreme events such as prolonged droughts or strong storms will become normal, coastal areas will disappear under water, and the south of France will turn into a tropical zone.

This is all the more so because in the south of Europe there is an increase in temperature above the average, and extreme phenomena can already be observed, as is currently happening in Italy.

More than half of the planet’s great lakes are drying up at an alarming rate

From the Caspian Sea to Lake Titicaca in South America, the planet’s most important water reserves are losing about 22 gigatons per year. And that’s for nearly three decades, according to a study published in the journal Science by Sarah Colley, a researcher at the University of Oregon.

According to the data provided, 53% of the planet’s lakes are losing significant amounts of water due to global warming and human consumption, with the first factor being the most important. Another factor would be the construction of dams on large rivers.

The information was provided by measurements made using satellites that observed more than 2,000 lakes from all over the planet. As a result, more than 2 billion people are already suffering from water shortages or water rationing.

A frankly alarming situation is developing in Central Asia, where the case of the Aral Sea, which is at risk of disappearing altogether, is already well known. A similar situation is recorded in the Middle East, in the case of the Dead Sea. Lakes in Afghanistan, Mongolia, and Egypt are also among the worst affected, which also results in less water in the atmosphere.

A temporary solution, according to the author of the study, would be to stabilize the growth of global warming at the limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius, as established in the framework of the Paris Agreement of 2015. But, as I mentioned earlier, this agreement has already failed.

Used diapers, the building material of the future?

The child uses diapers up to 1.5-3 years. Some even more. On average, a child needs about 3,000 disposable diapers per year. Multiply that by the 656,640,181.5 children under the age of five currently living on Earth (data provided by UNICEF) and you can see that the number of diapers used annually is in the trillions. Yes, even if not all children have access to such.

The main problem with diapers is that most of them contain polyester, polyethylene and polypropylene. And that means they take about 500 years to disintegrate. A source of pollution that few of you have thought about.

Instead, it was done by some Japanese researchers from Kitakyushu University. These scientists washed, disinfected, dried and ground up disposable diapers, then mixed the result with sand, cement, water and everything else to create strong concrete. Apparently they tested different concentrations to see which one was more effective.

It turned out that diapers reused in this way can replace between 10% and 40% of the sand needed for construction. And this, they say, is accompanied by lower costs for the received building materials. In short, they found a way to get rid of a major source of pollution and, on top of that, a way to build cheaper housing.

Would you move into such a house now?

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