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☀️ Hottest Ever
Crown Crew
August 08, 2023
☕ Good Morning! This is TC, the UK business newsletter that's as satisfying as turning on a hotel TV right at the beginning of a movie.
Today's reading time is 4½ minutes.
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
TURN UP THE HEAT
The results are in… and they confirm that July has clinched the title for Earth's hottest month since instruments started recording in the 19th century.
Why it matters: New data from C3S is a somber sign of how the world is being affected by climate change.
Even a quick scan at the front pages of newspapers worldwide can impart a sense of deep unease.
Zoom out: Nearly every facet of the climate system is flashing red this summer.
The global average temperature was 16.95°C in July, surpassing the previous record set in 2019.
July has been about 1.50°C warmer than the average for 1850-1900, and 0.72°C warmer than the 1991-2020 average.
About 80% of humanity experienced unusually hot temperatures during July that were attributable in large part to human-caused climate change.
Meanwhile: The UK is not likely to see any scorching heat waves for days or weeks.
TECH
YOUR DETAILS? GONE IN A HACK
The UK Electoral Commission fessed up on Twitter (yes Twitter; we ain’t callin’ it “X” around here) today that they'd been hacked.
What happened: Voting data of over 40M individuals has been compromised by a cyber attack.
The attack, described as “complex” (meaning it wasn’t done by giggly teens wearing absurd dresses) was started back in August of 2021. But went undetected for over a year.
Yep. A year.
Zoom in: The hackers gained access to email systems and file-sharing networks, and made copies of the electoral register.
The compromised data includes names, home addresses, and voting age — spanning 2014 to 2022.
Who was behind the attack...still a mystery.
Yes, but: The commission says the breach doesn't risk vote manipulation, and that registers did not include the details of those registered anonymously.
BIG PICTURE
Press “X” to doubt. Elon Musk said he might need back surgery after Mark Zuckerberg suggested Musk would likely back out of a much-hyped IRL battle of the billionaires.
Ouch. Facebook’s metaverse division recorded $3.74B in losses during Q2. Losses this year now total $7.7B!
RT-no. The poster boy of remote work, Zoom said WFH employees within 50 miles of an office must now come in at least 2x/week. Guess Zoom isn’t good enough for Zoom.
SCIENCE
A MAJOR ENERGY BREAKTHROUGH
Sun's power is closer to our grasp — sort of.
Driving the news: For the second time, scientists have achieved net energy gain in a nuclear fusion reaction (the same type of energy that powers the sun), marking progress towards harnessing a new sustainable energy source.
Scientists have tried for over 70 years to develop nuclear fusion as a source of limitless clean energy but until December, no group had produced more energy than they put it (aka “ignition.”)
In this case: the amount of energy produced is enough to use a household iron for about an hour.
Why it matters: The goal is to build a machine that can control nuclear fusion reactions (when two atoms are heated to a frenzy, fuse and pop; out comes a bang of energy)
Reactors producing more energy than we put in are required to achieve this, so this is a step in the right direction.
But, but, but... We won’t be building fusion power stations anytime soon. Promising progress? Totally. But commercial power stations for you and I are still a fair way off.
BY THE NUMBERS
🚰 1.75 million hours. The amount of time raw sewage was pumped into rivers and seas in the UK.
🚌 1,500. Bus routes England has lost in the last two years.
🌊 500 million. Age of the world’s oldest jellyfish, the fossil of which was discovered this week. The ancient jellyfish’s shape resembles the modern-day deadly box jelly.
CROWN PICKS
The best Prime Day deals still live in the UK.
Watch: London double-decker bus racing! (there are a few comments for this video that are worth reading, too, from one of the drivers and a child of one of the drivers.)
Read: Why facts don’t change our minds…
If you missed August’s first rare blue moon, you can still catch the second.
Try this fitness test designed for Premier League soccer players.