Tuesday morning news drop
Your work is not your god: welcome to the age of the burnout epidemic The reason why so many of us are at the end of our rope? We allowed work to be what gave our lives meaning. (The Guardian)
11 Trends that Will Shape Work in 2022 and Beyond We’ve been living through the greatest workplace disruption in generations and the level of volatility will not slow down in 2022. New Covid variants will continue to emerge and may cause workplaces to temporarily go remote again. Hybrid work will create more unevenness around where, when, and how much different employees are working. Many employees will be greeted with real wage cuts as annual compensation increases fall behind inflation. These realities will be layered on top of longer-term technological transformation, continued DE&I journeys, and ongoing political disruption and uncertainty. (Harvard Business Review)
More than 1 million fewer students are in college. Here’s how that impacts the economy. Compared with the fall of 2019, the last fall semester before the coronavirus pandemic, undergraduate enrollment has fallen a total of 6.6%. That represents the largest two-year decrease in more than 50 years. (NPR)
The Myth of Sustainable Fashion Few industries tout their sustainability credentials more forcefully than the fashion industry. But the sad truth is that despite high-profile attempts at innovation, it’s failed to reduce its planetary impact in the past 25 years. Most items are still produced using non-biodegradable petroleum-based synthetics and end up in a landfill. So what can be done? New ESG strategies such as the use of bio-based materials, recycling, and “rent-the-runway” concepts have failed. Instead, we must stop thinking about sustainability as existing on a spectrum. Less unstainable is not sustainable. And governments need to step in to force companies to pay for their negative impact on the planet. The idea of “win-win” and market-based solutions has failed even in one of the most “progressive” industries. (Harvard Business Review)
The past seven years have been the hottest in recorded history, new data shows Global temperatures in 2021 were among the highest ever observed, with 25 countries setting new annual records, according to scientists from NASA, NOAA and Berkeley Earth (Washington Post).
Protecting voting rights isn’t enough to save democracy Election law expert Richard L. Hasen on the problem of election subversion — and what can be done to stop it. (Vox)
COVID Hospitalization Numbers Are as Bad as They Look Many supposedly “incidental” infections aren’t really incidental, and cannot be dismissed. (The Atlantic)
We’re All ‘Experts’ Now. That’s Not a Good Thing. It is no wonder that so many of us think that we can parse vaccine trial data, compare personal protective equipment, write school policy and call career scientists idiots on Facebook. We are know-it-alls because we are responsible for knowing everything. And God forbid we should not know something and get scammed. If that happens, it is definitely our fault. (New York Times)