Coming to you from near Cambridge, England
October 14, 2024
Every other week, the award-winning Nett Report provides readers with thoughtful perspectives helpful to navigating life in a changing world. Past issues.
Coming to you from near Cambridge, England
This edition of The Nett Report will be shorter than usual. I am writing from Royston, England, 10 miles south of Cambridge, in the middle of an 18-day trip in Great Britain. Despite fears of precipitation, the weather has been mostly dry and often clear. We are visiting with friends, living the British lifestyle from their home.
An early highlight of our trip was a private tour of Christ’s College at the University of Cambridge, given by the college master. We were privileged to have access to the office of Charles Darwin, once a Christ’s College student, which is still maintained as if he might return. We also saw the statue of Darwin as he might have looked as a young man.
When we visited Norway and Sweden in the dead of winter in 2023, the primary goal was to see the Northern Lights. They were a no-show. On Thursday, October 10, we drove several blocks up the hill from the home where we were staying in Royston and found the Northern Lights in all their glory.
While much of the enjoyment of this trip comes simply from being with friends, we did do some touring, including:
The sobering Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial which consists of 30.5 acres donated by the University of Cambridge. It contains the remains of 3,811 of U.S. war dead; 5,127 names are recorded on the Walls of the Missing. A tremendous reminder of how we all joined together to protect democracy.
The Imperial War Museum Duxford, Britain's largest aviation museum, which includes the Concorde and a special hangar with a tremendous display of many of the most well-known American warplanes.
We punted on the River Cam in Cambridge.
Flew kites on the beach at Hunstanton. I always carry a pocket kite on my travels!
Ate fish and chips at the fishing village at Wells.
Toured the Anglesey Abbey, Gardens and Lode Mill, a country home founded by Henry I in 1135 as the Hospital of St. Mary, where our friend is a volunteer tour guide.
And we hiked part of the 3,000 acres surrounding Wimpole Estate, another historic property.
And there was so much more. Tomorrow, we move on to London.
Political Divide
“The free men [people] of the world are marching together to victory.” - General Dwight D. Eisenhower, on the wall at the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial
“Nobody can go back. To go back is impossible in existence.” - from “Fear,” Khalil Gibran
Labour Party and the Democrats forge a similar investment path
In a September 28, 2024, opinion in the Wall Street Journal, Greg Ip, the publication’s chief economics commentator, describes how the approach of Britain’s Labour Party is similar to that of the Democratic Party in the U.S. The Labour Party had moved strongly to the left, losing badly in 2019 after “embracing nationalization of several industries and vastly increased taxes and spending.” Keir Starmer, who was elected prime minister little more than 100 days ago, wants to change the Labour Party into a pro-business party and has “set up a National Wealth Fund to invest alongside private investors in “industries of the future” and Great British Energy, a state-owned vehicle to build low-carbon energy projects across the country.” Ip writes that “President Biden and Harris don’t put much priority on economic growth, preferring to talk about how income is distributed, between companies and workers, the rich and the middle class, and prosperous and poor communities.” Yet, Ip reveals later that the combined $21 billion earmarked for Britain’s economic growth “pales next to what the U.S. has done under Biden: $53 billion for semiconductor fabrication and up to $1 trillion for renewable energy in the Inflation Reduction Act. Harris this past week proposed $100 billion in tax credits for advanced manufacturing.”
UK’s £22 billion carbon capture pledge aims to create jobs
On October 4, 2024, the UK passed a law pledging the investment of £22 billion in technology to capture carbon from the atmosphere. According to an opinion in The Guardian by Rachel Reeves, the chancellor of the exchequer (essentially the secretary of the treasury in U.S. terms), “This game-changing technology will bring 4,000 good jobs and billions of private investment into Teesside and Merseyside – and support 50,000 jobs in the long term, while powering up the rest of the country.” An opinion by freelance investigative reporter TJ Jordan on October 7, 2024, also in The Guardian, took another point of view. Jordan said “the growing engagement by oil and gas companies has sharpened concerns among climate advocates that industry is skewing the UK’s carbon capture strategy to preserve demand for fossil gas – a significant source of planet-heating carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane emissions.”
Future of Work / The Economy
“The best time to solve a problem is the minute you know you have one, because problems don’t usually get smaller.” – General Motors CEO Mary Barra
Ranked: The World’s Most Innovative Countries in 2024
In an October 4, 2024, post, Visual Capitalist ranked the world’s most innovative countries. The analysts used seven pillars to make their assessments. These are the top ten countries and their scores.
Switzerland, 67.5
Sweden, 64.5
U.S., 62.4
Singapore, 61.2
U.K., 61
South Korea, 60.9
Finland, 59.4
Netherlands, 58.8
Germany, 58.1
Denmark, 57.1
Climate Change / Environment
UK makes changes to reduce plastic waste
We saw it in Scandinavia last year, and now this year in the U.K. Fast food cutlery here isn’t made of plastic, it’s made of bamboo. It works just as well and eliminates one source of plastic. Yet another change is the move to aluminum and glass containers for soft drinks, water, and juices. It’s by no means universal, but we have seen several refrigerated cases with the same selection of drinks that would be expected in the U.S., all in either aluminum or glass and none packaged in plastic.
Another innovation is the European Union law requiring all plastic bottles to have their caps permanently attached to the bottle. The Wall Street Journal on October 4, 2024, claimed “its driving tourists crazy” and said it is “an instant annoyance.” The idea is to ensure more of the caps are recycled rather than littered. “When the caps are screwed off, they stay there, dangling from the top of bottles and bumping into drinkers’ lips, noses and cheeks.” But it makes an important environmental change. On a funny note, in the image below, you can see the new plastic bottle cap on the left, and on the right, a much earlier version, from maybe 1,000 years B.C., on display in the Egyptian exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.
Plastic bottles and bottle caps are consistently in the top five items collected by beach cleanups. If the Brits can eliminate these primary sources of plastic waste, the U.S. can do it, too.
UK has closed its last coal power plant
The BBC reports that the UK shut down its last coal power plant on September 30, 2024. In a story the same day, it said “This marks a major milestone in the country's ambitions to reduce its contribution to climate change. Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel producing the most greenhouse gases when burnt. The UK was the birthplace of coal power, and from tomorrow it becomes the first major economy to give it up.”
The Nett Light-Side
“The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.” - from “The Sun Also Rises,” Ernest Hemingway
Tadpole image wins Wildlife Photographer of the Year award
I don’t yet know if we will be able to visit the Natural History Museum while we are in London. If we do, we will be sure to see the exhibition of the 60th edition of Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards. According to a story in the BBC, on October 9, 2024, this year the grand prize was won by Shane Gross and his photo of wriggling tadpoles in the “Wetlands: The Bigger Picture” category.
Health
Nothing to report!
Carl Nettleton is an award-winning writer, speaker, thought partner, facilitator, and subject-matter expert regarding water, climate, sustainability, the ocean, and binational U.S.-Mexico border affairs. Nettleton Strategies, the consultancy he founded in 2007, is a trusted source of analysis and advice on issues at the forefront of public policy, business, and the environment. He helps people and organizations to think strategically about their options for change. He is also the founder of OpenOceans Global, a nonprofit addressing ocean plastic in a new way.