JM Review | Geological Crisis Triggered by Groundwater Over-Extraction
【能源与环境】 | Energy & Environment
By Yibai, Jointing.Media, in Shanghai, 2025-02-15
According to 2023 satellite monitoring data jointly released by NASA and NOAA, parts of California’s Central Valley have experienced land subsidence at a rate of 30 centimeters per year due to prolonged groundwater over-extraction, with some areas sinking over 3 meters cumulatively in the past decade. This phenomenon directly correlates with California’s cyclical droughts and surging agricultural water demand, having already caused infrastructure damage and increased flood risks.
California’s subsidence is not an isolated case, but rather a microcosm of global geological system imbalances. When humans alter nature at industrial speeds, land subsidence has transformed from a “natural evolution” into a “man-made disaster.” Behind this phenomenon lies the compounded effects of resource exploitation, short-sighted planning, and climate change.
Invisible “Black Holes” Devouring Our Cities
Home to over 10 million people, Indonesia’s megacity is subsiding at 25 cm annually—with its northern districts projected to vanish beneath the sea by 2050. Rampant groundwater extraction and the crushing weight of skyscrapers are overwhelming its alluvial foundations.
The ancient decision to build on a drained lake now haunts modern Mexico. The city center has dropped 12 meters in a century, crippling drainage systems and turning rainy seasons into urban floods.
The Adriatic’s romantic jewel has sunk 23 cm in the 20th century from rising seas and subsidence. Its €5.5 billion “MOSE Project” floodgates offer only temporary respite.
Across the Yangtze River Delta and North China Plain, 50+ cities report land subsidence. In Shanghai’s Lujiazui financial district, skyscrapers compress the earth, while Tianjin’s petrochemical zone pumps away its underground support.
UNESCO confirms human-induced subsidence now affects 150 nations—a silent crisis rewriting the world’s coastlines.
Satellites Can Monitor Subsidence, But Not Mend Systemic Fractures. NASA’s InSAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) technology can detect ground movements as subtle as millimeters, while the Netherlands has pioneered the world’s first real-time subsidence early-warning system using satellite data. Yet these technological feats reveal a deeper paradox: the more humanity relies on cutting-edge tools to “monitor” nature, the more it exposes its departure from sustainable development principles.
In California, farmers relentlessly drain aquifers to sustain almond crops (each nut requiring 4 liters of water). Jakarta’s affluent districts flout municipal bans, drilling illegal deep wells for clean water. Oil-rich Middle Eastern nations pump groundwater to maintain emerald golf courses… When “development rights” and “survival rights” are reduced to resource warfare, technological monitoring ironically becomes a “certificate of impunity” for exploitation.
Land subsidence and climate change form a vicious cycle—droughts force increased groundwater extraction, while subsidence damages water infrastructure, exacerbating waste. Rising seas invade sinking coastlines, demanding energy-intensive levees. This “combat-against-nature” mindset peaks in projects like Venice’s canal diversions and Tokyo’s Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel, yet traps societies in a paradox: the grander the engineering, the more fragile the system.
At its core, the subsidence crisis reflects civilizational unsustainability. Contrast this with the Netherlands’ “Room for the River” program post-1953 floods, where dikes were dismantled to restore floodplains, replacing rigid resistance with adaptive resilience. Or Bangkok’s 300% groundwater tax hike, spurring corporate rainwater harvesting. These prove subsidence isn’t a technical glitch, but a value-system failure.
The IPCC’s 2023 report notes nature-based solutions could address 35-40% of global subsidence—if paired with pumping regulations and land-use controls. Humanity must learn to design progress within planetary thresholds.
Four Natural Pathways to Reverse Land Subsidence
At its core, land subsidence signals a destabilized geological system—yet humans are now recruiting nature’s allies to restore balance. From wetland regeneration to microbial soil stabilization, from aquifer recharge to saltmarsh barriers, a quiet revolution is leveraging ecological wisdom to counter ground collapse. These pilot projects not only prove nature’s capacity for repair but also challenge the engineering-first governance dogma.
1. Aquifer Recharge
Diverting stormwater and recycled water to replenish overexploited aquifers restores pore pressure and slows strata compression. Examples:
- California’s Central Valley: Launched in 2014, its groundwater recharge program floods fallow farmland during winter, replenishing 320 million m³ annually. Some areas saw 40% slower subsidence.
- Jakarta, Indonesia: Built 200 infiltration ponds in its sinking north (25→18 cm/year after 2021-2023), paired with pumping restrictions.
2. Wetland & Vegetation Anchoring
Root systems weave subsurface rebar nets—stabilizing soils while transpiration reduces water extraction needs. Case studies:
- Tianjin, China: Planting tamarisk-reed wetlands around petrochemical zones boosted soil bearing capacity by 15%, cutting subsidence 22% over 5 years.
- Mexico City: Restored Chinampas floating farms in Xochimilco, using aquatic plant roots to bind lakebed sediments. Subsidence plummeted from 40 cm/year (1990s) to 5 cm/year (2020).
3. Microbial Mineral
Injecting urea-degrading bacteria triggers calcite precipitation, cementing loose sediments. Delft University’s MICP trial at Rotterdam Port increased sand layer strength by 300% in 6 months—at 1/3 the cost of grouting.
4. Coastal Saltmarshes
Tidal plants like Spartina build land while buffering sea rise-subsidence synergy. San Francisco Bay’s 1,600-hectare saltmarsh restoration (paired with oyster reefs) reduced nearby land subsidence by 1.5 cm/year (NOAA 2022).
Nature-based solutions have revolutionized the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of traditional engineering approaches. Take California’s San Joaquin Valley as an example:
However, nature-based restoration approaches also face limitations and challenges. In densely urbanized areas, land scarcity makes wetland construction difficult—Jakarta has experimented with “vertical infiltration wells” to compensate for space constraints. Arid regions lack sufficient water for aquifer recharge, prompting Saudi Arabia to trial “atmospheric water harvesting + nanomembrane filtration” to produce infiltration water. Policy inertia remains another hurdle, as seen in Mexico City’s continued reliance on a $1.3 billion concrete drainage tunnel rather than fully transitioning to ecological restoration.
The governance of land subsidence is undergoing a paradigm shift—from “combating nature” to “negotiating with nature.” The Netherlands’ “Sand Engine” project exemplifies this: by depositing 21 million cubic meters of sand offshore and letting ocean currents naturally distribute it into protective barriers, the country saved 70% of traditional coastal reinforcement costs. Similarly, China’s Xiongan New Area employs “underground reservoirs,” using natural depressions to store stormwater while replenishing aquifers and creating urban sponge spaces, achieving a projected 90% subsidence control rate.
The geological clock cannot be rewound. Land subsidence serves as a mirror, reflecting industrial civilization’s “bulldozer-style exploitation” of Earth. As cities sink into the red zones of predictive models, the true solution lies not in more advanced monitoring or sturdier levees, but in rediscovering reverence for geological time—humanity must learn to plan development within ecosystems’ carrying capacity, or risk civilization sinking into the abyss of its own making.
When subsidence is reframed from a “technical problem” to a “civilizational model problem,” nature-based restoration’s value transcends ground elevation—it forces humanity to renegotiate its contract with Earth. Only by relinquishing the arrogance of “dominion over nature” can we discover the wisdom to coexist with geological time.
References：
- https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/central-california-sinking-at-alarming-rates-nasa-uci-study-finds)
- https://ca.water.usgs.gov/projects/central-valley/land-subsidence-monitoring.html
- https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/sealevelrise/sealevelrise-tech-report.html
- https://water.ca.gov/News/News-Releases/2023/June/DWR-Releases-Updated-Land-Subsidence-Data
- https://water.ca.gov/Programs/Groundwater-Management/SGMA-Groundwater-Recharge
- https://www.ecologica.cn/jzy/index.aspx
- https://idp.nature.com/transit?redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41587-023-01769-w&code=df2f2add-0165-4847-8a30-f09102fa2fc8
- https://coast.noaa.gov/data/digitalcoast/pdf/sfbay-restoration.pdf
- https://www.zandmotor.nl/en/
- https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/
- https://water.ca.gov/Programs/Groundwater-Management/SGMA-Groundwater-Recharge
- https://pupr.jakarta.go.id
- https://www.ecologica.cn/jzy/index.aspx
- https://idp.nature.com/transit?redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41587-023-01769-w&code=df2f2add-0165-4847-8a30-f09102fa2fc8
- https://coast.noaa.gov/data/digitalcoast/pdf/sfbay-restoration.pdf
- https://www.zandmotor.nl/en/
Text Editor: Jas
Image Editor: SQM
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China Finally Enacts National Legislation to Protect Ancient Trees
【能源与环境】 | Energy & Environment
By Windswept Wheatfields, Jointing.Media, in Shanghai, 2025-03-08
Crochet Art by Julia
At age 23, Julia Hill lived atop a 1,500-year-old redwood tree named “Luna” for 738 days to save it from logging, ultimately forcing a timber company to back down.
In 1997, Pacific Lumber Company planned to clear-cut an ancient redwood forest in California’s Headwaters Forest. Julia, reevaluating her life’s purpose after surviving a car accident, climbed Luna and built a makeshift tree platform. She relied on volunteers to deliver food and collect rainwater, powered her communications with solar panels, and endured extreme weather—from winter storms to scorching summers. Loggers harassed her with helicopter noise, nighttime climbing threats, and even forced her to defend herself with a knife.
By December 1999, Julia struck a deal: Pacific Lumber agreed to permanently protect Luna and a 60-meter buffer zone in exchange for $50,000 from her supporters. After 738 days, she descended. Her protest became a global environmental symbol, inspiring books, documentaries, and even the film Flipped.
Yet tragedy struck when vandals nearly felled Luna in 2000 with a 1.8-meter-deep chainsaw gash. Environmentalists stabilized the tree with steel cables and bark grafts, sparking public outrage that fueled legislative debates.
Reading Julia’s story 25 years later, I’m reminded of Hayao Miyazaki’s heroines—resilient, fearless, and radiant as rainbows. They are “gentle revolutionaries,” confronting the world’s harshness with quiet strength.
Ancient trees often fall victim to human shortsightedness. By the late 1800s, California’s redwood forests had been reduced to 10% of their original expanse, spurring the 1918 founding of Save the Redwoods League and later protections under the Endangered Species Act (1973) and National Forest Management Act (1976).
In China, 5.08 million ancient trees remain—over 40% of the world’s temperate ancients—but only 10,745 are millennia-old. A 2,600-year-old nanmu tree illegally cut in Guizhou (2022) epitomizes ecological and cultural loss.
Hayao Miyazaki’s animated works consistently critique industrial civilization’s destruction of ecology. Heroines like Nausicaä from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and San from Princess Mononoke reject violent confrontation, instead forging connections through empathy. Julia Hill, writing diaries and giving media interviews from her treetop perch, transformed protest into public narrative; Nausicaä, standing bodily against the rage of the Ohm swarm—both used “vulnerability” to dismantle the rigidity of power structures.
Geologists mark humanity’s dominance over Earth with the term “Anthropocene,” while the growth rings of ancient trees record climate shifts, the rise and fall of civilizations, and human awakening. The “Guardians of Ancient Trees” now write the possibilities of a “Symbiocene” through concrete action, demonstrating the symbiotic wisdom between humans and nature.
Zhao Sikong, a forest ranger in Guangyuan City, has devoted 28 years to safeguarding the millennium-old “Wu Family Cypress” in Tianzhao Mountain. He pioneered a unique tree-care method inspired by traditional Chinese medicine’s “observation, listening, inquiry, and palpation” diagnostic approach, assessing tree health through leaf patterns and bark aroma.
His innovative conservation techniques include reinforcing trunks with carbon fiber “vests,” performing “minimally invasive surgery” to remove decay, and reviving 2,478 endangered ancient cypresses. Applying TCM’s holistic philosophy, he treats trees as living organisms with vital energy flow—a perspective echoing Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of the body, where perception precedes analysis, and empathy guides action.
As a civilian forest chief in Xiangtan County, Zhao Zijun has dedicated himself to protecting a 305-year-old camphor tree without compensation. Even during National Day holidays, he forgoes rest to conduct daily patrols, clean the surrounding environment, and prevent human damage. His actions have inspired villagers to join conservation efforts, fostering a community spirit of “collective stewardship and shared benefits.”
After retirement, Cao Yunquan surveyed over 350 ancient trees in Nantong, compiling the Nantong Ancient and Notable Trees compendium to promote the restoration of endangered specimens. Traveling on foot and by bicycle to remote locations, he applied agricultural techniques to improve tree habitats—remediating soil, controlling pests, and even developing a new cotton cultivar “Tongjian No.1″ to bridge ecological preservation and farming. His vigorous advocacy saved a 1,500-year-old “Nantong Tree King” ginkgo from fatal trunk fissures, earning him the title of the city’s “foremost civilian tree guardian.”
Guangzhou’s “Plant Doctor” Bi Keke successfully revived over 20 ancient trees toppled by Typhoon Meranti in Xiamen, including a 4,000-year-old giant cypress. She developed customized “one-tree-one-solution” conservation plans and established a digital management platform. Pioneering biological pest control with the “using insects to combat insects” technique, she reduced pesticide use while developing 12 species of natural predator insects now deployed across Guangzhou’s parks. Her expertise contributed to the Tibet Giant Cypress Conservation Project, helping establish the World Cypress King Garden scenic area to promote ecotourism of endangered species.
Wang Kang, Director of the National Botanical Garden’s Science Education Center, has dedicated 27 years to ancient tree conservation. He created China’s first archival system for ancient trees in botanical gardens and spearheaded the national census of notable trees that informed the Regulations on Ancient and Notable Tree Protection. Advocating “long-term monitoring and perpetual care,” he warns against the risks of transplanting ancient trees during urbanization. His research on extracting ecological value from ancient tree genetics—such as cold-resistant genes from northern elms—could revolutionize frost-resistant urban greening projects.
In Zhejiang’s Shaoxing, 78,000 ancient Torreya trees have become “prosperity trees,” generating ¥2.66 billion in 2024. This proves conservation and development can coexist—ancient trees aren’t obstacles to progress, but rather the root system of a sustainable economy. Their knotted trunks now bear witness to an economic model where cultural heritage and green GDP intertwine like symbiotic mycorrhizal networks.
Legally, China’s journey mirrors this shift. The Regulations on the Protection of Ancient and Famous Trees, effective March 15, 2025, mandates decadal surveys, upgrading localized rules into national law. Meanwhile, Shaoxing’s 78,000 ancient torreya trees now yield $2.66 billion annually, proving conservation and prosperity can coexist.
A 2,300-year-old cypress in Sichuan’s Jiange has witnessed empires rise and fall. Humanity’s 300-year industrial spree now threatens civilizations built over millennia. As philosopher Alfred North Whitehead observed: “The advancement of civilization lies in the continual expansion of the range of thingswe ought not to destroy.” Protecting ancients isn’t just ecology—it’s safeguarding the roots of our shared future.
In 2001, the National Greening Commission conducted China’s first comprehensive census of ancient and notable trees, systematically documenting these living relics for the first time. The 2019 Forestry Law broke new ground by incorporating specific provisions for ancient tree protection. On January 27 this year, a watershed moment arrived as the State Council promulgated the Regulations on the Protection of Ancient and Notable Trees, set to take effect on March 15, 2025. The legislation mandates decennial national surveys, marking the evolution from regional ordinances (already adopted by 17 provinces) to unified national statutes—China’s first legal framework specifically designed to safeguard its arboreal heritage.
This legislative milestone embodies both sober reckoning with past ecological damage and aspirational vision for harmonious coexistence. Consider the 2,300-year-old cypress in Sichuan’s Jiange County: this silent witness to the rise and fall of Qin and Han dynasties has endured millennia, while humanity’s industrial revolution spans a mere three centuries. Our civilization, having exploited nature in the name of “progress,” now faces the paradoxical truth that destroying our natural foundations ultimately undermines our own survival. Protecting ancient trees transcends environmental duty—it represents nothing less than safeguarding the very roots of human continuity.
（DeepSeek also contributed to this article)
Edited by Jas
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JM Review | On ‘315’: The Ethical Dilemmas of China’s Internet Enterprises
【企业社会责任与可持续发展】| CSR & Sustainability
By Jointing.Media, in Hangzhou, 2025-03-15
Many internet companies claim to uphold “user-first” as a core value, yet in practice, they frequently sacrifice user rights for short-term gains. For instance, certain social platforms tolerate the spread of misinformation and vulgar content to attract users and boost traffic, even deploying algorithms to keep users addicted, squandering their time and energy. E-commerce platforms turn a blind eye to merchants’ false advertising and counterfeit products—or even collude with them—to deceive consumers and drive sales. Financial technology firms, under the banner of innovation, peddle high-risk, high-return investment products to lure users, only to evade responsibility when risks materialize, leaving investors in financial ruin. Such practices, though framed as profit-maximization strategies, ultimately expose a void in corporate values. These companies chant “user-first” as a slogan but operate by a “profit-first” playbook. This misalignment of values leads enterprises astray, harming not only users but also their own reputation and long-term interests.
As pillars of commercial civilization, corporate value systems are rooted in cultural DNA and the founder’s ethical blueprint. Corporate culture—an organization’s “spiritual code”—not only dictates strategic choices and behavioral norms but also bears the social responsibility of guiding technological ethics in the digital age. A founder’s values, serving as the moral compass for growth, shape strategic decisions, institutional frameworks, and cultural evolution, ultimately forging a value system reflective of its era.
AI technology is reshaping the foundational logic of information production and dissemination. Some companies exploit algorithmic black boxes to cultivate ecosystems of misinformation, flooding platforms with AI-generated fake reviews and recommendations to construct profit-driven virtual realities. This technological alienation distorts market mechanisms and erodes the bedrock of trust in the digital era.
Confronting these ethical challenges, China is accelerating its AI governance framework. The Interim Measures for the Management of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services, enacted on August 15, 2023, established initial guidelines for AI-generated content. Further, the Labeling Measures for AI-Generated and Synthetic Content, set to take effect on September 1, 2025, mandates explicit labeling of AI-produced materials to curb misinformation.
Corporate malpractice stems from the tension between human nature, profit motives, and accountability. At the intersection of technology and commerce, “ethical tech” has become the litmus test for corporate values. As digital productivity breaches traditional ethical boundaries, corporate decision-making transcends mere commercial rivalry, evolving into a social contract for the digital age. Only by embedding user rights into the DNA of innovation and prioritizing social responsibility in algorithmic design can businesses achieve symbiotic growth of commercial and societal value. This is the historic imperative facing enterprises in the technological revolution—and an indispensable crucible for the maturation of digital civilization.
（DeepSeek also contributed to this article)
Edited by Jas
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Planned Obsolescence Isn’t the Only Path to Sustainable Business Growth
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JM Review | Planned Obsolescence Isn’t the Only Path to Sustainable Business Growth
【企业社会责任与可持续发展】| CSR & Sustainability
By Tea，Jointing.Media, in Zhuhai, 2024-12-31
Modern products are increasingly short-lived, often failing within just a few years of use. When minor issues arise, consumers are frequently advised to replace rather than repair devices—a trend driven by scarce replacement parts and repair costs that often exceed the price of new purchases. This intentional shortening of product lifespans, coupled with manufacturers discontinuing support for older models, constitutes a deliberate corporate strategy termed planned obsolescence (or “planned汰旧”). By designing products to become technologically outdated, functionally limited, or physically irreparable, companies artificially stimulate demand, boost sales, and fuel short-term economic growth.
Key Characteristics of Planned Obsolescence
Planned obsolescence is an industrial strategy rooted in consumerism, defined by four core practices:
1. Engineered Product Shortevity
Products are deliberately designed with limited lifespans through:
Substandard materials: Use of wear-prone components or fragile parts.
Non-repairable designs: Sealed units (e.g., glued batteries) or components that degrade irreversibly.
2. Forced Technological Redundancy
Older products are rendered obsolete via:
Hardware incompatibility**: New technical specifications (e.g., charging ports, processing standards) that break backward compatibility.
Software manipulation**: Updates that throttle performance (e.g., slowed smartphones) or disable functionality (e.g., non-supported apps).
3. Systematic Repair Barriers
Manufacturers actively hinder maintenance through:
Proprietary restrictions: Specialized tools (e.g., pentalobe screws), unavailable spare parts, or encrypted repair software.
Cost inflation**: Repair pricing strategies that make fixes economically irrational (e.g., replacing a $300 smartphone screen vs. buying a new $400 device).
Physical sabotage: Fragile connectors, adhesives replacing screws, or components prone to planned failure (e.g., printer ink chips).
4. Artificial Demand Generation
Sales cycles are accelerated by:
Functional expiration**: Products programmed to self-disable (e.g., ink cartridges blocking use after preset page counts).
Perceived obsolescence**: Marketing campaigns framing older models as inadequate (e.g., “5G-ready” labels stigmatizing 4G devices).
Planned Obsolescence vs. Sustainable Innovation
The earliest documented case of planned obsolescence traces back to lightbulbs. In 1924, a secret pact known as the Phoebus Cartel was signed in Geneva by global monopolies—including Germany’s Osram, the Netherlands’ Philips, France’s Compagnie des Lampes, and the U.S.’s General Electric. This collusion aimed to artificially shorten bulb lifespansto maximize profits. Pre-cartel bulbs lasted 2,500 hours; post-agreement, they were engineered to fail at 1,000 hours. Violators faced penalties—calculated in Swiss francs—for exceeding lifespan limits.
Modern-Day Planned Obsolescence: Industry Case Studies
This strategy remains pervasive, particularly in tech and consumer electronics:
- Apple (2010s): Phased out iPhone 6s support (e.g., halted sales and reduced repairs), pushing users toward newer models.
- Microsoft (2014): Terminated Windows XP security updates, forcing upgrades to Windows 7/8.
- Canon (ongoing): Discontinued technical support and parts for older camera models to drive new purchases.
- Nokia (early 2010s): Abandoned feature phone lines to accelerate smartphone adoption.
- Dell (ongoing): Obsoleted legacy hardware support to compel enterprise and consumer upgrades.
- Sony (2016): Ceased PlayStation 3 production and support to transition users to PS4.
- Ford (ongoing): Retired older vehicle models while limiting spare parts availability.
- Samsung (ongoing): Reduced repair services for older TVs to promote new technologies.
Beyond Obsolescence: Profitable Alternatives
Many companies thrive without planned obsolescence by prioritizing long-term value:
1. Durability-Driven Design
Tesla: Extends vehicle lifespan via over-the-air software upgrades (e.g., battery optimization, autonomous driving enhancements).
Mercedes-Benz & BMW: Build premium, repairable vehicles with decade-long parts availability, fostering brand loyalty.
2. Service-Centric Innovation
Amazon: Retains customers through expanding services (e.g., Prime, AWS) rather than disposable hardware.
IBM & Cisco: Monetize enterprise solutions via continuous tech support and modular upgrades.
3. Sustainability as Strategy
Patagonia: Designs ultra-durable apparel, offers free repairs, and resells used gear through its Worn Wear program.
Columbia: Focuses on weather-resistant, long-lasting outdoor gear to minimize replacement cycles.
4. Industrial Longevity Models
Caterpillar: Generates recurring revenue through maintenance contracts and legacy equipment support for decades-old machinery.
The Environmental Cost of Planned Obsolescence
Planned obsolescence has drawn widespread criticism for its ethical, economic, and environmental impacts. While it may occasionally spur technological innovation, its negative consequences are profound—generating massive waste, perpetuating unsustainable consumption cycles, and causing irreversible harm to natural resources. Some scholars even argue that planned obsolescence constitutes corporate environmental crime, as it prioritizes short-term profits at the expense of consumer trust and environmental sustainability.
The Case of Smartphones
A study by geologists at the University of Plymouth’s School of Geography, Earth, and Environmental Sciences highlights the environmental toll of smartphone production:
Resource extraction: Manufacturing a single iPhone requires mining 10-15 kilograms of ore, including 7 kg of high-grade gold ore, 1 kg of typical copper ore, 750 g of tungsten ore, and 200 g of nickel ore.
Carbon emissions: Producing one phone emits an average of 49.18 kg of CO2 equivalent. Given that a tree absorbs 11.32 kg of CO2 annually, it takes 4.34 trees to offset the carbon emissions of one phone.
Global impact: In 2022, 5.3 billion phones were discarded worldwide, equivalent to the annual carbon absorption of 23 billion trees—enough to circle the Earth 560 times.
The Global E-Waste Crisis
According to the United Nations’ Global E-Waste Monitor 2020:
E-waste generation: In 2019, the world generated **53.6 million metric tons of e-waste, averaging 7.3 kg per person. Since 2014, global e-waste has grown by 9.2 million tons and is projected to reach 74.7 million tons by 2030—nearly doubling in just 16 years.
Recycling rates: Less than 20% of e-waste is properly recycled. The remainder is either landfilled or illegally exported to developing countries, where it is processed under unsafe and unregulated conditions, posing severe risks to public health and the environment.
Discarded electronics contain hazardous substances like mercury, lead, and cadmium. When improperly disposed of, these toxins can leach into soil and groundwater, causing widespread contamination and long-term ecological damage.
What Can Be Done?
To abandon the strategy of planned obsolescence, innovative business models are essential. Many startups are exploring the circular economy. For example:
Grover, a German company, offers subscription services for laptops, smartphones, and other tech devices, pricing based on depreciation rates.
Huidu, a green packaging materials company, adopts a rental model, charging monthly fees. Within the normal wear period, customers only pay rent without additional wear costs.
ROEHL, a Chinese subscription-based lifestyle service company, provides subscription-based home appliances, replacing the linear economic model of “resource-manufacture-disposal” with a low-carbon alternative.
The rise of the “sharing economy” in recent years has also spurred business model innovations across various sectors, enabling traditional companies to achieve new growth.
What can consumers do? Fix products when they break to extend their lifespan; purchase well-maintained used items or donate those no longer needed but still functional;Opt for products with long lifespans, robust repair policies, and strong recycling programs; choose products that are guaranteed to last a long time or have a good repair and recycling policy; and look for brands that prioritize durability and offer multi-year warranties on spare parts；Look for companies that prioritize durability and offer multi-year spare parts guarantees.
Remove the firewood from under the stove to stop the water from boiling. Legislation at the national level to stop this practice, which generates a lot of pollution, is also important. In Europe, legislative measures have been taken towards the right to compensation.
For example, all products sold in Spain from 2022 must have a three-year warranty and manufacturers are obliged to guarantee spare parts for 10 years. Apple was fined 25 million euros by the French Consumer Protection Agency for reducing the execution speed of some iPhones through a system update without informing users in advance.
Experts have called for the promotion of “durability labels” to ensure that consumers are fully aware of the lifespan of the products they buy, while urging producers to take responsibility for waste management. Once companies are forced to pay a price for waste, they will work to make their products more reusable.
（DeepSeek also contributed to this article)
References:
- https://zh-cn.renovablesverdes.com/%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88%E6%98%AF%E8%AE%A1%E5%88%92%E6%8A%A5%E5%BA%9F/
- https://www.x-mol.com/paper/1509602760881922048/t
- https://finance.sina.com.cn/stock/usstock/c/2019-09-28/doc-iicezzrq8906203.shtml
- https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1726999857675593478
Edited by DeepSeek, DeepL
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A Harvard Doctor’s Practices: Dopamine Pump
By George from SpoonFedStudy
What I am about to tell you is a secret to how I’ve structure my entire life. It’s a strategy I’ve been following for the past 20 years, and it served me well. As a Harvard doctor with three Ivy League degrees.I’ll share with you some of my most essential practices.
First up, you are being set up to fail. Society’s underlying message is this: wake up, shut up. consume, trade your life, money and energy for quick hits of instant gratification. Giant corporations are spending billions of dollars to make you as mindless as possible. They’re reaching to your brain, ripping out controls and plugging a direct line into your reward system. They say scroll, you ask how far. They say buy. you ask how much. That’s why your life stays the same, why you’re always broke, why you doom scroll into the night. You try your best to change these behaviors, but it’s not surprising why it doesn’t work. Because these things are all just symptoms of something far more problematic.
“Happy Meal” Digital Diet
Your brain is rotting. You’re feeding your brain what I call the “Happy Meal” digital diet: convenient, artificially processed packets of instant gratification. Eat McDonald’s all day, and what happens? You become a fat guy and died in my ER(Emergency Room) from a heart attack.
Give your brain the same mental fast food and what happens? You die in some distant future filled with regret.Your forgotten dreams littering your dark room like the empty syringes of some heroin addict.
To start fixing this, you need to understand the difference between simple and complex dopamine. Take carbs, for instance. Simple carbs like sodas and candies get metabolized quickly with huge spikes and sugar in your bloodstream. Sure, it’s great for quick boosts of energy, but you end up crashing later, and in the long run suffer diabetes so advanced your leg gets amputated. Simple carbs give you high sugars with zero nutrients, but complex carbs like quinoa and whole grains, chock-full of nutrients that get slowly broken down with this gradually increase in blood sugar. You get an extended release nutrient capsule that gives you energy over time, even when you aren’t eating. That’s the secret to the entire sauce.
Complex dopamine is like that too, the extended release type of dopamine you want, not the ultra-fast rapid onset, rapid decline version of simple dopamine. Because what does that sound like? Drugs, right? Each time you blast your face with another dose of Tik Tok, you take a hit of the juice, the most temporary of rewards. Hence why you always want more, why you never truly satisfied, why you withdraw when you stop.
One-minute Test
Only solution is to keep on scrolling to get more hits of that digital fentanyl. When you think of it this way, it’s clear what you must do: get rid of all ”Happy Meals” from you life. No one does fentanyl recreationally on the side. and lives an enviable life. To figure out if something is a “Happy Meal”, do what I call the one-minute test. How long does the joy from this activity actually last when you stop. If it’s only a minute or less, then clearly it’s not worth your time.
What is worth your time? Sustained release complex dopamine. This happens why you have a meaningful conversation, when you’er out in nature, maybe when you have a breakthrough moment during a session of deep focus.
Take working out, for example. Not only do you get a quick high in the moment, the positive effects of the workout carry forward into the future too, as you bran gets flooded with a soup of positive feel-good chemicals boosting your overall state and energy. Not to mention later when you check yourself out when no one’s looking, you get another rush of feel-good chemicals. Or even later, when everyone’s old as crap breaking their hips from sneezing, you carry forward like that 70-year-old old boss that you’ve become.
All these activities clearly pass the one-minute test. I’ll let you in on a huge secret though, you can still partake in the pleasures of simple dopamine. In fact, you should. this secret is the first cheat code of life. You just have to convert it into complex dopamine first. Let me explain how.
Convert Simple to Complex Dopamine
There’s this annoying phone game I’m addicted to. I used to waste hours every day playing it. instead of using willpower to not play, my rules was this: I can play, but I have play in the plank position, no exceptions. and like a switch, something amazing happened. not only do I play less, as the pain of the plank limits the amount of tie I can play. One, when I do play, it’s guilt-free; and Two, I now plank a lot more. A lot more. I’ve planked now over 1,000 hours of total time. 15 minutes a day, every day for the past 15 years adds up real fast.Even more weird is the fact I crave planking like Pavlov’s dog. The mere thought of planking gives me an instantaneous boost of simple dopamine because the game is so strongly associated with the plank position.
Even cooler is the fact that stopping the game is incredibly easy too. I’m not telling myself “Just one More Game” to try and avoid the withdrawal, because my bran gets a natural bump in dopamine, the moment i realize my body from the pain of the plank. I’m literally dying to stop playing. Hours later, my rear centers are still buzzing from the natural boost in energy and mood from such a high intensity exercise.
And throughout the day, random spikes of dopamine keep on coming in: the felling pride from such an accomplishment, feeling good every time you get naked, never worrying about core strength, back pain, pr posture issues every again.
The list goes on and on. I’ve give you a few more examples of how to convert simple to complex dopamine.
Take video games. Instead of playing Call of Duty with 10-year-olds who say not very nice things about your mom, only play if your college buddies are on. Relish in the complex dopamine that comes from bonding with your buddies when you blast them in the face. want to drink more water, only have water at home. You only get to drink something else when you go out and intentionally celebrate something with a friend.
Maybe Netflix is your problem. Instead offending a show, how about you fly watch if you’er feating a healthy meal. The moment you finish your salad and start chewing a tasty donut, you stop watching.Speaking of which, this donut concept is actually the second cheat code. I call dopamine bridging. The idea is if you do find yourself stuck in a simple dopamine binge, you should always have a d figure of donut ready to escape with. Because this way, when one pool of dopamine ends (i.e Netflix), you have another pool of dopamine to look forward to(i.e the donut), minimizing the negative withdrawal you fell when stopping. This gives you something to look forward to, making the transition a lot easier. The trick is to pick a second pool of dopamine with a finite source. Donut is the perfect example, because after a few bites, that delicious circle of goodness is gone.
An even more advanced trick is only give yourself permission, to start the second pool of dopamine when you start something productive. in other words, you cannot take the first bite until you start work. This way, the instantaneous gratification of the dot only comes when you start bing productive, incentivizing you to start as soon as possible. this is how you creatively kill procrastination.
And when you start, a third pool of complex dopamine starts dripping pleasure into your reward centers. You feel good because, holy crap, you just skipped the most painful part of work: starting it. five minutes in, when you take your last bite, and the donut’s smile dopamine ends, you don’t care. you now have momentum. You’re about to enter a flow state and enjoy the fourth pool, an almost infinite source of complex dopamine.
See what just happened there. without a dopamine bridge, going from an exciting Netflix show to boringly sitting at a desk with nothing but work to look forward to is doomed to fail . This is what I call pointing cold turkey, which I’m sure you know is incredibly painful. It’s incredibly painful because you have’t optimize your brain chemistry.
Dopamine Pump
Remember those giant corporations. They don’t care. They want you addicted. They built their stuff so you never want to stop. That’s the whole point. The consequence of all this is, of course, procrastination. Feeling crappy, looking for other ways to numb the pain. You only start when the guilt of not starting is worse than the withdrawal. But with the second cheat code, you break the system. An infinite simple dopamine source bridges to a finite simple dopamine source, which bridges to a finite complex dopamine source, which bridges to an infinite complex dopamine source.
you are now ready for the final, most ultimate secret cheat code of them all: passive dopamine.
The easiest way to make money in today’s society is to trade time for money, whether that’s $15 an hour or $ 300 an hour. The truly wealthy, though, they play a different game entirely. they divorce their time from money and build money-making machines instead. This is a concept of asset. Dopamine is no different. Most people trade their time for dopamine on a one-to-one scale. That’s what you do when you watch Tick Tok videos. You’re investing your time in inefficient, instantaneous gratification-type ventures. The moment you stop watching is the moment that dopamine stops coming in. Why not build a passive dopamine asset that continually pumps dopamine into your brain irrespective of what you do.
I call this concept a dopamine pump. For example, I am a hip-hop dancer, but when I lived in Boston for residency, I started taking salsa and bachata lessons. Not only was it fun and open up new sources of dopamine I never would have imagined, instant new community, new friends to go out with, a sense of belonging, a skill to enjoy every Friday night with , which compounds as you get even better and make even more friends, a skill that made you feel good about yourself. Even your brain benefits. There’s a 2003 New England Journal of Medicine study that looked at 11 different types of physical activity like cycling, golf swimming, tennis and found only dance lowered the risk of dementia. Get good enough, and you become recognized. you start teaching others and feel good when people start to look up to you. Even going to parties and weddings becomes completely different experience when everyone’s fighting to dance with you. It’s boosted my love life in ways you can’t even imagine. Dancing is now part of my core identity. Something I’m proud of and enjoy deeply. My life is infinitely richer because of it.
The amount of complex dopamine that has been generated with this pump over the years has compounded to a ridiculous amount. You never come close to matching simply scrolling through TikTok. And that’s just one dopamine pump. Add a few more pumps, and your life becomes unrecognizable. Once you’ve tasted it, the simple dopamine rushes society wants you to consume to get addicted to simply pales in comparison.
With that said, building a pump can be hard. It’s an investment. Just like it’s easy to blow your next paycheck on a new pair of shoes rather than invest it wisely, we often make the same mistake with our dopamine. And then there’s the insecurity trying something new. I almost didn’t even start dancing because someone told me I sucked at it. Luckily, if insecurity is what’s holding you back, I’ve already made a video addressing that very problem.
George from SpoonFedStudy, YouTuber & Registered Doctor
George comes from Yale-trained doctor and popular YouTuber SpoonFedStudy, who calls it “The Clean Morning” – aka, no junk and no dopamine from devices. He says it takes only 15 minutes to complete and works like a series of dominoes that lead from one to the next.
Edited by tiantian coffee and WindRalated:
Eat for Mental Health
Oranges turn to bitter fruits when moved north of the Huai River
By Chen Ya，Jointing.Media, in HongKong, 2023-11-30
Since the resumption of customs clearance between Shenzhen and Hong Kong this year, there have been media reports of a flood of “reverse shopping”. Just in time to go to Hong Kong, visit Hong Kong pharmacy, found that it is still crowded, tourists “punch” heat is still. The most popular products are those producs made in Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Thailand. I cannot help but wonder, “If there is such a strong demand for these products in the Chinese domestic market, why are these companies of products not developing the mainland market?”
Friend was born in Hong Kong, although he grew up with Western education, studied in Europe and worked in Europe and the United States for many years, but he also studied the business environment in the mainland: “First, the cost of the channel is very high, and second, it is difficult to control the quality. The quality of genuine goods in regular pharmacies in Hong Kong is guaranteed. This statement immediately reminded me of China’s longstanding food safety problems. To prescribe the right medicine, the medicine will cure the disease. The quality of our infant formula has not been well managed, and it is indeed difficult to ensure that the medicine is good.
Although China is the birthplace of Chinese medicine and has a huge market base, it is far less advanced than Japan in the modernization of proprietary Chinese medicines. Ostensibly, this is because the Japanese have applied the technology of the Western pharmaceutical and chemical industries to the mass production of Chinese herbal preparations, and have adopted a much stricter level of quality control than the Chinese.
According to the Japan Association of Chinese Herbal Pharmaceutical Preparations, 80% of Japan’s raw medicines are produced in China. Japan’s largest Chinese medicine company Tsumura in China has established more than 70 Chinese herbal medicine production quality management standard (GAP) planting bases, as a comparison, the domestic Baiyunshan GAP base of more than 60, the Ministry of Commerce identified the first batch of “old Chinese” a Tongrentang only 12, the strength of the disparity. Overseas for Chinese herbal medicine has two core requirements, one is the safety indicators, the second is to require traceability. Japan at least need to test more than 200 safety indicators, the Europeans need to test more than 400 indicators. For example, check whether the heavy metals such as aflatoxin, lead, zinc, iron, cobalt, nickel, vanadium, niobium, tantalum, titanium, manganese, cadmium, mercury, tungsten and so on are above the standard, or whether there are residual pesticides. And most of the Chinese herbal medicines circulating in the domestic market are not checked for pesticide indicators.
My friend in Hong Kong uses Chinese traditional patent medicine, but he does not trust “Chinese medicine”. The reasons are the treatment method and the government’s ability to control it.
Many of his friends have similar views that medicines must undergo relevant scientific experiments such as double-blind tests, who are generally highly educated and most have studied in the West or lived overseas for many years.
Japanese Kampo medicines are marketed according to the standards of Western medicine, and their effectiveness has been proven by a whole series of scientific methods. So this friend of mine thinks that the research and production process of Japanese Kampo medicine is rigorous and no different from Western medicine.
What he really believes in is the Western scientific system. Under this scientific system, products are standardized to ensure a consistent formula with the same efficacy.
To a certain extent, standardized treatment protocols and drugs have indeed unleashed the productivity of doctors and treated more patients. However, doctors are not workers on the assembly line of a factory, and what they face is not the repair and assembly of industrial product parts, but the complexity of the mechanism of multi-organ high correlation, physical and mental interactions, which is still being explored.
The core of Chinese medicine, which treats the symptom but not the disease, is treatment based on syndrome differentiation. If the diagnosis is wrong, the subsequent treatment is wrong. Individual symptoms are independent and multiple symptoms are correlated. How to diagnose and predict quickly, and how to use the most concise prescription or treatment method will be a test of medical skill. Therefore, different TCM practitioners will use different treatments and prescriptions for the same disease and the same patient. This is the flexibility of TCM.
The second factor is the environment or called the government’s ability. The same Chinese traditional patent medicine, using the same workers, in the mainland production is difficult to ensure the quality and the source of herb cultivation is difficult to control. It is about the whole administrative system not individual or anyone firm. According to my friend’s point of view, Hong Kong will be stronger than mainland Chinese cities, because after all, Hong Kong has a long history of abiding by the rules, the punishment is relatively severe, relatively more rule of law, and the makers of industry rules have been elected by the people, who give votes for whom. On the contrary， if these makers are not elected but appointed by their superiors, their superiors’ satisfaction with them, not the public, is the key to their promotion.
Oranges turn to bitter fruits when moved north of the Huai River.
Products produced on the same land are subject to high standards if they are for export, while those entering the domestic market are subject to low standards. Every step of the production process determines the quality of the final outcome. Who is responsible for this production result? Who profits or suffers due to the quality of the outcome? Rational individuals pursue gains and avoid losses; providing sufficient incentives can lead to high-standard output, and strong penalties can achieve the same effect. In my opinion, “it is not that it cannot be done, but that it is not done.” Technology is not an issue, and there are also management methods from other sources that can be learned and借鉴. It takes more than one cold day to freeze three feet of ice; to break the existing chain of interests, it is necessary to introduce disruptors. The weighing of short-term and long-term interests lies with those in higher positions, not the lower ones. Such situations are common across various industries.
But it is also this ambiguity that leads some people do not believe in CTM： there is no standard of treatment, cure or not all depends on what kind of doctor encountered. After all, it is not easy to judge whether the doctor is reliable threshold for ordinary people. While there is a uniform standard of Chinese herbal medicine have administrative departments to gatekeeper, ordinary people recognize is the “official” word of credit endorsement. Although official credit has a natural authority, it can be destroyed at any time.
The second factor is the environment or called the government’s ability. The same Chinese traditional patent medicine, using the same workers, in the mainland production is difficult to ensure the quality and the source of herb cultivation is difficult to control. It is about the whole administrative system not individual or anyone firm. According to my friend’s point of view, Hong Kong will be stronger than mainland Chinese cities, because after all, Hong Kong has a long history of abiding by the rules, the punishment is relatively severe, relatively more rule of law, and the makers of industry rules have been elected by the people, who give votes for whom. On the contrary， if these makers are not elected but appointed by their superiors, their superiors’ satisfaction with them, not the public, is the key to their promotion.
Oranges turn to bitter fruits when moved north of the Huai River. Products produced on the same land are subject to high standards if they are for export, while those entering the domestic market are subject to low standards. Every step of the production process determines the quality of the final outcome. Who is responsible for this production result? Who profits or suffers due to the quality of the outcome? Rational individuals pursue gains and avoid losses; providing sufficient incentives can lead to high-standard output, and strong penalties can achieve the same effect. In my view, it’s not a matter of inability but of unwillingness. The issue isn’t technical—there are proven management methods and best practices to learn from. However, deep-rooted problems aren’t solved overnight. Breaking existing interest chains and introducing disruptors require balancing short-term and long-term interests, a responsibility that lies at the top rather than the bottom. Such phenomena are not unique; they are prevalent across all industries.”
This friend mentioned that “the channel costs in mainland China are particularly high,” hinting at the underlying issue of industry “unspoken rules” driving up the intangible costs of introducing overseas traditional Chinese medicine products to the market. If these additional costs cannot be passed on to consumers, they inevitably eat into companies’ profit margins. When you take into account the data uncovered by the ongoing anti-corruption efforts in the healthcare sector in recent years, the extent of these hidden costs becomes quite clear. Of course, there are deeper factors at play as well. That said, these are matters that extend beyond the scope of a casual conversation he and I might have on the streets of Hong Kong today.
An ant cannot shake a tree, and an individual cannot change the environment. Either the international macro-environment alters the national micro-environment, or the national macro-environment reshapes the industry micro-environment, which in turn influences individual choices. What kind of tide is truly irreversible? From this perspective, going with the flow seems to be the right choice—and indeed, it is the choice most people make. Our current situation is ultimately the result of our own decisions.
Edited by Wind、DeepL write
Ralated:
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SpaceX Now Valued at $350 Billion Facing Space Debris Problem(IV)
【企业社会责任与可持续发展】| CSR & Sustainability
By Yibai, Jointing.Media, in Shanghai, 2024-12-28
Managing space debris is far from over
In 1993, the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) was established by the world’s leading spacefaring nations to serve as an intergovernmental platform for the exchange of information on space debris research and to promote cooperation on space debris among member agencies.
China has been a formal member of IADC since 1995 and there are now 12 IADC member states, covering almost all the world’s major spacefaring nations. In April 2002, the 20th IADC Conference formally adopted the IADC Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines, which require all countries to formulate policies to ensure that the generation of large amounts of space debris from future space activities can be effectively controlled. It requires that “when planning and operating space systems, an organisation should take systematic action, starting from the mission requirements analysis and definition phase, to reduce the adverse impact on the orbital environment by incorporating space debris mitigation measures into the life cycle of space systems”.
Since the turn of the century, a number of test spacecraft launched by major spacefaring nations, including China, have incorporated space debris mitigation technologies, such as space target capture or docking with non-cooperative objects. In recent years, orbital transfer operations for real spacecraft or space debris have become a reality.
February 2020. The United States launched a MEV (Mission Expander) satellite, which successfully docked with the retired Intelsat 901 communications satellite in graveyard orbit. The satellite has been towed back to geosynchronous operational orbit and resume operations on 2 April, 2020. Five years later, when the propellant carried by the MEV is nearly depleted, the MEV will again tow the satellite into a graveyard orbit before descending to re-enter the atmosphere on its own, and in April 2021, a second MEV satellite will perform a similar ‘resurrection’ operation on Intelsat 10-02.
In January 2022, China’s Practice 21 satellite successfully captured the defunct Beidou G2 satellite and sent it into a ‘graveyard orbit’ (a higher, permanent orbit away from the crowded geosynchronous orbit). After completing its mission, Practice 21 then returned to geostationary orbit.
Currently, space debris response efforts focus on four main areas: monitoring and warning, collision avoidance and shielding, de-orbiting and disposal strategies, and active removal.
Space debris monitoring relies heavily on ground-based radar and optical sensors capable of detecting objects larger than 10 centimetres. One of the most significant advances in ground-based tracking is the Space Fence radar. Designed to detect and track objects as small as 1 centimetre in LEO, Space Fence, a next-generation S-band radar system, is expected to increase the number of trackable objects from approximately 23,000 to more than 200,000 and is the most advanced radar system operated by the United States Space Force (USSF).
Other ground-based systems are also being upgraded to improve tracking of smaller debris. Improvements are also being made to optical tracking systems, such as those in Australia, which use telescopes and cameras to capture images of objects in space, allowing more accurate tracking of tiny objects at high altitudes that cannot be detected by radar.
One of the most promising advances in debris tracking technology is the Belgian company Arcsec, which has reportedly developed an innovative system that extends the functionality of the Star Tracker to detect space debris as small as 1 inch (2.5 cm). It’s debris tracking system can be retrofitted to existing satellites already in orbit. This means that currently operating satellites can be equipped with the technology without the need for a re-launch, helping to expand the network of debris sensors in space. Arcsec’s technology has already sold around 50 star trackers worldwide and is expected to become an important part of the space debris monitoring ecosystem. Arcsec’s system can also be integrated into existing satellite infrastructure without the need for major overhauls, making it an efficient and cost-effective solution.
The development of Active Debris Removal (ADR) systems and improved collision avoidance technologies is also crucial. Projects such as ESA’s $120 million ClearSpace-1 mission aim to capture and de-orbit end-of-life satellites. However, these systems are still in the experimental phase and large-scale deployment would take years, not to mention the long mission development cycle with its many variables. It has been reported that the target of ESA’s ClearSpace-1 mission has been hit by other debris and it is feared that the original plan will not be implemented.
As space exploration has accelerated in recent years and Earth’s orbit has become increasingly crowded, the challenge of space debris will continue to grow. To ensure the continued safety and sustainability of space activities, a more comprehensive approach to space debris management is needed, including better international cooperation, stronger regulation and innovative technologies to detect, mitigate and remove debris.
But it is easier to say than done. Orbital and frequency resources are scarce and a matter of national security, and on a “first come, first served” basis, countries compete to launch satellites and occupy orbits. In this context, the more and faster SpaceX launches satellites, the more space junk will be generated in the future, and the cost of recovering an end-of-life satellite can be far greater than the value it contributes when it is ‘on duty’, and as a commercial company it certainly does not currently have the motivation and strength to increase its investment in satellite recycling.
Looking at the development history of other industries, perhaps the status quo will only change when space debris seriously affects the interests of all parties. Perhaps then space waste recycling will become a new field full of business opportunities, just like e-waste recycling. Hopefully, with the application and proliferation of new technologies such as quantum computing, digital twins and artificial intelligence, we will be able to keep this threat from above at bay and prevent it from happening in the first place.
（The end）
References：
- https://news.bloomberglaw.com/capital-markets/spacex-share-sale-is-said-to-value-company-at-about-350-billion
- https://physicsworld.com/a/satellites-burning-up-in-the-atmosphere-may-deplete-earths-ozone-layer/
- https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/z_9tI9n2SHjWlYxIPwLRXQ
- https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/27879/20201026/experts-reveal-that-3-of-spacexs-starlink-satellites-have-failed-in-orbit-so-far.htm
- https://ccaf.casicloud.com/news/1788.html?id=803?code=24164
- https://starwalk.space/zh-Hans/news/space-junk#%E5%A4%AA%E7%A9%BA%E6%9C%89%E5%A4%9A%E5%B0%91%E5%9E%83%E5%9C%BE
- https://www.nasachina.cn/info/13036.html
- https://xueqiu.com/2080365279/281326110
Edited by Wind and DeepL
Image:Starlink Satellites over Carson National Forest M Lewinsky | M Lewinsky/CC BY 4.0
Ralated:
SpaceX Now Valued at $350 Billion Facing Space Debris Problem(I)
SpaceX Now Valued at $350 Billion Facing Space Debris Problem(II)
SpaceX Now Valued at $350 Billion Facing Space Debris Problem(Ⅲ)
SpaceX Now Valued at $350 Billion Facing Space Debris Problem(Ⅲ)
【企业社会责任与可持续发展】| CSR & Sustainability
By Yibai, Jointing.Media, in Shanghai, 2024-12-27
Space debris – a threat to the sustainability of the space industry
On 21 October, SpaceNews reported that a 6,600-kilogram US communications satellite, Intelsat 33e, had suddenly disintegrated. Astronomer Jonathan McDowell said the disintegration could have been caused by a collision with other space debris or an explosion in the satellite’s internal propulsion system.
Space debris is a product of human space activities and consists mainly of non-functional man-made objects in orbit or re-entering the atmosphere, and their debris and components, also known as space junk, mainly distributed in the airspace between 2,000 kilometres and 36,000 kilometres above the ground. Mission debris accounted for 13 per cent, rocket debris for 17 per cent, failed spacecraft for 22 per cent and disintegrated debris, i.e. debris from spacecraft explosions or collisions, for 43 per cent. In terms of orbital distribution, space debris is mainly distributed in three regions, namely the LEO (low earth orbit) region below 2,000 km, the medium and high orbit region at 20,000 km and the geosynchronous orbit region at 36,000 km, with the most intensive distribution in the region between 600 and 1,000 km.
According to the European Space Agency (ESA), between 1957 and January 2021, more than 10,000 satellites were put into orbit by mankind. Of these, about 6,250 satellites are still in orbit, of which about 3,600 are still operational. By January 2020, more than 28,000 pieces of debris will be regularly tracked and catalogued by the Space Debris Monitoring Network (SDMN), and the total mass of man-made objects in near-Earth orbit will exceed 9,200 tonnes. ESA is currently tracking more than 34,000 objects larger than 10 centimetres, but in reality there are millions more smaller pieces of debris. It is estimated that there are more than 130 million pieces of debris smaller than 0.4 inches (1 cm) in Earth’s orbit, many of which are undetected by current monitoring systems.
The number and variety of objects in space posed a major challenge to the safety and sustainability of future space missions. Since 1999, the ISS has changed course more than 25 times to avoid space debris. However, some debris continues to collide with the ISS. By 2019, more than 1,400 meteoroids and orbital debris have been recorded as hitting the ISS. In particular, in low Earth orbit (LEO), there are thousands of objects travelling at speeds in excess of 28,000 kilometres per hour1 (17,500 miles per hour). Extremely fast, active satellites and spacecraft colliding with debris as small as 1 centimetre can cause catastrophic damage. The average impact speed of space debris is 10 kilometres per second, so the kinetic energy generated by centimetre-sized debris is equivalent to that of a small car hitting a satellite at 50 or 60 kilometres per hour.
One of the most significant space debris events in history was the 2007 Chinese anti-satellite missile test, which deliberately destroyed the Fengyun-1 weather satellite and created thousands of pieces of debris. In 2009, two satellites, Cosmos 2251, which had been abandoned for 14 years, and Iridium 33, which was in service, collided in orbit. This was the first time that two satellites had collided in orbit. The collision occurred at a relative speed of about 11 kilometres per second (25,000 miles per hour) and resulted in the total destruction of both satellites and the creation of more than 2,200 new pieces of space debris.
These events have raised awareness of the growing threat of the Kessler Syndrome. The threat of the Kessler Syndrome is becoming more real as the number of objects in space increases, particularly with the proliferation of satellite constellations such as SpaceX’s Starlink and OneWeb. While these constellations provide vital global communications services, they also exacerbate already crowded orbits and increase the likelihood of collisions. The growing number of space missions being undertaken by commercial enterprises, government programmes and private companies may exacerbate this problem.
(To be continued)
Notes:
1. The speed at which an object moves in a circular motion just above the Earth’s surface is the first cosmic velocity, 7.9 km per second, and is also the minimum launch speed for artificial Earth satellites and the maximum orbital speed.
2. In 1978, NASA Johnson Space Center scientist Donald Kessler and colleagues made some points about the future development of space debris predictions, known as the Kessler Syndrome. It predicts that when the density of objects in a given orbit reaches a certain threshold, a chain reaction will occur. In this case, each collision creates more debris, which leads to more collisions, creating a self-perpetuating cycle. Over time, this could render certain regions of space unusable for new missions, severely hampering space exploration and satellite operations.
Edited by Wind and DeepL
Image:Starlink Satellites over Carson National Forest M Lewinsky | M Lewinsky/CC BY 4.0
Ralated:
SpaceX Now Valued at $350 Billion Facing Space Debris Problem(I)
SpaceX Now Valued at $350 Billion Facing Space Debris Problem(II)
Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit
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SpaceX Now Valued at $350 Billion Facing Space Debris Problem(II)
【企业社会责任与可持续发展】| CSR & Sustainability
By Yibai, Jointing.Media, in Shanghai, 2024-12-26
Retired satellites will continue to deplete the ozone layer
Ozone levels in the stratosphere are in a dynamic equilibrium.The ozone layer acts as a filter for harmful ultraviolet light from the sun’s rays, and it is likely that ozone breaks down into oxygen molecules during this process. However his balance can be disrupted by human activity, such as the release of Freon into the atmosphere. Since 1987, when many countries around the world signed the Montreal Protocol to phase out the use of Freon as a refrigerant, there has been a gradual recovery of the ozone layer.
However, the number of satellites is increasing, and they are becoming a significant source of concern due to their potential to cause pollution. According to the European Space Agency’s Space Debris Office (SDO), there are approximately 3,200 failed satellites as of February 2020, and the number of malfunctioning satellites from just one project, the Starlink programme, may amount to 12-38% of the total number of satellites that have failed over the past 60 years. Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, cross-referenced data from SpaceX and the U.S. government and surmised that about 3% of the Starlink satellites that have been launched so far may have failed.
It is estimated that the total number of satellites planned for future launches will exceed 100,000. This means that the number of failed satellites is likely to be significant, regardless of whether the failure rate is 3 per cent or 1 per cent.
International guidelines recommend that once a satellite has reached the end of its useful life, it should be re-entered into the atmosphere within 25 years to minimise the risk of collision with other satellites.Generally, a satellite is composed of approximately one-third aluminium. When a satellite re-enters the atmosphere, aluminium metal particles produced by friction from the high temperature, high speed airflow react with the surrounding oxygen to form aluminium oxide nanoparticles (AlO). These particles have been found to be chlorine-activated catalysts, which deplete ozone in the stratosphere.
The study indicates that a standard 250 kg decommissioned satellite generates approximately 30 kg of aluminium oxide nanoparticles, which have the potential to persist in the atmosphere for extended periods, potentially decades. The satellites re-entry in 2022 contributed approximately 17 tonnes of alumina compounds, marking a 29.5% increase compared to natural levels. Furthermore, re-entry scenarios involving giant constellations suggest potential annual emissions of more than 360 tonnes of alumina compounds, which could lead to severe ozone depletion.
The number of objects in LEO is set to triple over the next century. Researchers predict a dramatic rise in ozone depletion levels in the coming decades if the problem is not addressed.
Aluminium oxide particles are produced at altitudes in excess of 80 kilometres above ground and take 30 years to reach the stratosphere, 10 to 50 kilometres above ground, where the Earth’s ozone is predominantly distributed.
(To be continued)
Edited by Wind and DeepL
Image:Starlink Satellites over Carson National Forest M Lewinsky | M Lewinsky/CC BY 4.0
Ralated:
SpaceX Now Valued at $350 Billion Facing Space Debris Problem(I)
FCC approves Starlink first generation upgrade plan
What is space junk and why is it a problem?
SpaceX Now Valued at $350 Billion Facing Space Debris Problem(I)
【企业社会责任与可持续发展】| CSR & Sustainability
By Yibai, Jointing.Media, in Shanghai, 2024-12-25
SpaceX and its investors have agreed to purchase as much as $1.25 billion of insider shares in a transaction valuing Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite maker at about $350 billion, according to Bloomberg. The proliferation of satellites in low-Earth orbit (LEO), as SpaceX continues to deploy star-linked satellites, is not only having a tremendous impact on the global communications network, but also creating new challenges for the space environment. The Federal Aviation Administration of the United States of America stated in a report that large constellations in low Earth orbits could increase the risk of re-entering debris on Earth and in the aviation sector. The report specifically mentions SpaceX as contributing more than 85% of the expected risk. A recent paper published in Geophysical Research Letters shows that satellites lose 51-95% of their mass when they re-enter the atmosphere. But these masses do not disappear into thin air, they become particles floating in the atmosphere as a result of violent friction. These particles can pose a threat to the Earth’s high-altitude environment by depleting ozone and slowing the recovery of the ozone hole. The booming satellite industry behind Starlink could affect or threaten the entire world.
The satellite industry is growing fast, and SpaceX is riding the wave
From weather forecasting to navigation satellites are a critical component of many of the systems we rely on. Since 1957, when the former Soviet Union launched the world’s first artificial Earth satellite into space, there have been 6,572 launches worldwide through the end of 2023. There will be 231 launches in 2024, more than double the average number of launches over the past 60 years. Half of those launches are performed by SpaceX. Total 2023 global satellite industry revenues are estimated at $285.3 billion. Payload Research estimates SpaceX’s 2023 revenues to be $8,721 million, with launch revenues of $3,509 million, Starlink revenues of $4,178 million, and other revenues of $1,034 million. For the first time, Starlink revenues have surpassed launch revenues to become the most profitable business. Starlink is now available in 70 countries, with more than 2.3 million active users by the end of 2023, well above the 1 million by the end of 2022, and unprecedented profitability. Starlink revenues jump from $1.9 billion in 2022 to $4.2 billion in 2023 as demand far exceeds expectations, and are expected to exceed $10 billion by 2024. Since 2024, SpaceX has continued to accelerate the deployment of the Starlink, reducing the average launch frequency from 5.8 days in 2023 to 4.1 days. As of November 2024, SpaceX had 7,213 Starlink satellites in low-Earth orbit, representing more than 60% of the total number of satellites in orbit worldwide. In addition, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has approved the deployment of 12,000 satellites by 2027 for the Starlink program. The total number of satellites in the entire Starlink program is 42,000. SpaceX’s 4,216 Gen1 satellites in orbit have a design life of about five years. SpaceX claims it will then use the propulsion systems on the satellites to lower them from their operational orbits at an altitude of about 550 kilometers and burn them up like meteors against atmospheric drag to avoid hitting people’s rooftops. Scientists who study the atmosphere have questioned the destruction of satellites by burning them in the atmosphere, which they say could exacerbate global warming. Recently, a team accidentally found a number of ozone-depleting metals in the stratosphere, where ozone is formed.
(To be continued)
Edited by Wind and DeepL Image:Starlink Satellites over Carson National Forest M Lewinsky | M Lewinsky/CC BY 4.0
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