Newsletters

The Atlantic Daily: Three Hints About Our Climate Future

The big Glasgow summit on climate change offers clues about our climate future. Also: Does having kids make you happier?

By Caroline Mimbs Nyce
Red background with a white envelope and red letter A
Saved Stories

The United Nations’ annual summit on climate change is in a frantic push for a final agreement. But no matter the outcome of the high-profile proceedings in Glasgow, the global checkup has already previewed where the conversation goes from here.

  • Nuclear power is having a hot moment. Meltdowns gave the technology a bad rap. This year “it’s been invited to the cool kids’ table,” Robinson Meyer points out in his latest.

  • All eyes are on methane. A new international pact to limit emissions of the gas is “unusually good near-term climate news,” Rob tells me. But “the deal is like fiddling at the margins, because it … doesn’t reduce our overall use of oil and gas, which is what truly matters.”

  • Climate justice is top of mind. The costs of the coming crisis will be borne unequally. Right now, the world is on track for a sort of demi-armageddon, Emma Marris explains: The planet may avoid the worst outcome—but certain populations will get stuck with the burden.

Want more coverage of the climate crisis? Subscribe to my colleague Robinson Meyer’s newsletter, The Weekly Planet.

Photos are pinned to a bulletin board on the left side of this photo a looking through doors to a VFW bar. Wood panel doors are on the right side. A bartender is standing behind the bar in the middle of the photo.
(Maureen Drennan)

The news in three sentences:

(1) Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko threatened to cut off gas supply to Europe amid the crisis on the Belarus-Poland border. (2) An appeals court granted former President Donald Trump’s request to delay the release of records related to the January 6 assault on the Capitol. (3) President Joe Biden faces new pressure to address rising inflation in the fallout from yesterday’s Labor Department report.

What to read this Veterans Day:

My colleague Andrew Aoyama explores what will become of veterans’ halls across the country as membership drops.

Today’s Atlantic-approved activity:

Rewatch The Ring. You won’t regret it, our critics argue on the latest episode of The Review.

A break from the news:

Here’s what becoming a parent really does to your happiness.