2021
August
10
Tuesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

August 10, 2021
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Yvonne Zipp
Features Editor

There’s no place like home.

And home is always worth fighting for, as Mary Annaïse Heglar, cohost of the “Hot Take” podcast, writes

That’s one counter to a sense of “doomerism” that can rise from reports like this week’s from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. While it’s too late to stop the Earth from heating up, it is not too late to prevent the most dire scenarios from becoming reality, as Stephanie Hanes writes in our top story. And there is, she says, still plenty of reason to reject fear and despair.

Some people draw hope from human innovation and the ability to problem solve their way out of past crises. Others take heart from the sense that “individual action actually does matter,” she says. And that doing “the next right thing,” as Jane Goodall famously puts it, is the way to solve big problems.

As Ms. Goodall recently told The New York Times, “You just plod on and do what you can to make the world a better place.” 

Still others, including Stephanie, her sources, and Ms. Goodall, point to young people and their willingness to help the Earth as a great source of hope.

It’s not hope as soft or fluffy – Emily Dickinson’s “thing with feathers.” It’s more a sense of resolve. Humanity has done hard things in the past, and can again.

One of her sources describes climate change as a “kitchen table issue,” one she sees people talking with their children about.

“The more people start thinking like that, the more big system changes happen,” Stephanie says.

The world is at a turning point, the scientist told her, “and she sees green sprouts everywhere. I do too.”


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters
A person holds an inflatable Earth as climate activists including Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future stage a protest demanding more action while G-20 climate and environment ministers hold a meeting in Naples, Italy, July 22, 2021.
Caitlin Ochs/Reuters
People are served at a restaurant in Manhattan Aug. 3, 2021, after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that proof of COVID-19 vaccination will be required for customers and staff at restaurants, gyms, and other indoor businesses.

Q&A

Courtesy of Alvin Hall
Author, educator, and broadcaster Alvin Hall recently won the inaugural Ambie Award for the best history podcast of 2021 from the Podcast Academy for “Driving the Green Book.”

Book review


The Monitor's View

Reuters
The European Union and Polish flags flutter in Mazeikiai, Lithuania.

A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A message of love

China Daily/Reuters
An aerial view shows a herd of wild Asian elephants crossing the Yuanjiang River in Yuanjiang county in the Chinese province of Yunnan on Aug. 8, 2021. The wandering elephant herd, which has drawn global attention in the past year, is on its way back to its traditional habitat, according to provincial officials.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us today. Come back tomorrow. Education reporter Chelsea Sheasley has been talking to teachers about how they plan to put the lessons of the past year in place to keep children in school.

Also: We’re watching today’s headline stories, including the resignation of New York’s governor, on our First Look page. And see this story by Harry Bruinius on how this could mark the end of old-boys politics in New York.

More issues

2021
August
10
Tuesday
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