Three things to read and watch on Sunday
A bit of a different newsletter for today. I have three thoughts or stories that are unconnected:
Some more comments on gun control
Looking back at the first 12 days of The Planet
A 'fireside chat' video to watch on a lazy Sunday afternoon
1. Those guns again
Last Wednesday, I had planned to write about The Planet and look back at the first week of this newsletter. Instead, I wrote about the Boulder massacre to express my sadness at these senseless killings. Gun control is long overdue in the U.S. We should keep repeating this message because there are powerful forces out there, selling a different narrative so they can sell more guns.
If you are my age or older, you may remember advertisements of doctors telling you in their authoritative white coats that smoking 'purifies your lungs.' Naomi Oreskes describes the public relations tactics of these disinformation campaigns in her book Merchants of Doubt. In 2014 it formed the basis of a documentary film with the same title. A couple of years later, Colorado University announced the screening of her movie in Boulder, and she would be there to answer the public's questions. Just hours before the screening, she had a minor accident and couldn't show up. As a last-minute solution, the organizers asked me to take her place. I watched the movie intensely.
My appearance was not related to the tobacco campaign but to these lobbyists' next move for big money. The fossil fuel industry hired them to create confusion about climate change ('there is disagreement among the scientists'). And today, we see the same tactics used by the gun lobby. Remember that people use guns to kill people. More guns lead to more killings. This graph in the New York Times says it all.
2. Looking back at the first 12 days of The Planet
You are now reading my twelfth post in as many days. Thank you, first joiners, for still being here. And welcome to those who just joined. Nearly 600 of you signed up to receive the free newsletter by email. I am delighted to see that some of you have taken the step to subscribe. I hadn't realized before how much every new subscription means for my motivation. I want to mention a special thanks to the growing group of founding members. Talking about inspiration: your support is so very much appreciated.
Having said this, for those who can't subscribe: I am delighted that you are here and signed up for the free version. Most content will remain available for free. But if more people subscribe to the paid version, I can commit more time to this initiative, which benefits all of you. The spending of some is beneficial to all. In two weeks, I have to speak on the theme of 'socialism or capitalism' (stay tuned); I think I have my opening lines ready by now.
Which subjects did I cover?
To analyze what I have been writing about, I uploaded all previous posts to a word cloud generator. Have a look at the result:
Which words do you notice? Does this word cloud represent the issues you liked to read about? These are serious questions to you. Which words would you have wanted to see more prominent? I will make another one in a month or so to compare to this one. I am always interested to hear your opinion. I like to write, but I do it for you.
Frequency
In the first days, I received questions about how often I plan to write. Since an honest 'I don't know yet' is not good enough, I answered that I commit myself to write a minimum of 100 times per year. So an average of about two per week. If you believe that twelve posts in twelve days indicate that I may end at a higher number, I understand that, but the number of 100 is what I can promise. Consider the rest as a bonus.
The logo
Have you noticed the new logo? When I started, I created a temporary logo. The very first idea was just a recognizable blue circle without any text. The design should speak for itself. But after five minutes of work, I had already changed my mind and had produced this version that I used for the first week. Still blue, still a circle, but much more fragile to make it more consistent with my ideas about the state of our planet.
I used this version for the first week because I was impatient to start. If you read about starting on Substack, you will learn how important it is to take at least a month of preparation before launching a newsletter. Full disclosure of my planning: there was hardly any. On Friday, 12 March, I googled what Substack is. On Saturday, I browsed the internet and looked at other Substack accounts. On Sunday, I made my account and announced that I would start the newsletter. The next day I took care of some logistics and declined a well-paid offer to write an article for a magazine. And on Tuesday, I wrote the first article that some of you that had already signed up received on Wednesday morning.
But I wanted a better logo, so I turned to the company that had helped me designing other ones in the past: Bossdesigners; you find them on the Fiverr site. In the four times that I worked with them, they always produced excellent designs. (And no, I don't get paid to write this). We worked on the logo design in daily email exchanges, and after five days, this was the result. It is a firmer planet because the previous logo was hardly visible on the tiny avatar used on Substack. But nature and fragility are still there; see, for instance, the leaves. We went for forest green instead of blue: a warmer color than blue and closer to nature's colors. The circle has Jugendstil elements, and therefore we used a matching (Art Nouveau) font. 'The' is in bold: this is THE planet, you know that there is no planet B.
3. The Fireside Chat
It was a pleasure to join in a virtual fireside chat organized by the 'Waste Not, Want Not' initiative at Concordia University in Montreal, in cooperation with CEED Concordia, Canada. Keroles Riad (@Kerologist on Twitter), who leads the initiative, led the discussion with Camina Harrison-Chery (CEED, Canada) and me. We spoke about international collaboration against the climate and waste crises.
It was great to do this together with Camina, an inspiring young entrepreneur and cultural programmer of Haitian descent. She is the communications coordinator for CEED Concordia, advancing African perspectives and youth leadership. She is the founder of BUYPOC, pop-ups geared towards supporting Black, Indigenous, and People of Color youth-run businesses, and owner of Urban Wrapper, a headwrap brand dedicated to positive representations of black women and black joy. She facilitated youth-centered skill-building workshops on media production, employment, and entrepreneurship in Uganda, Benin, Bolivia, and Nicaragua.
You can watch it here:
I loved reading the progression and rationale behind the logo, so many people just make a pretty icon with little thought to typography or sense. I pass a sign most days for “Half Moon Interiors” their logo depicts a crescent moon.
Thank you for deciding to do these newsletters. The topics you cover are very relevant. The Word Cloud Generator had many words to ponder and, probably because it is a rainy day here, the word water stood out. Living on an island it’s never to be taken for granted. The words I did not see were population and resources. These affect our lives as well. Looking forward to your next piece.