Tipping Points Part 1: Pass The Sunscreen
Climate is this generation's skin cancer
Welcome to the 18th edition of Honey Drops, where the usual format is out the window: this is Tipping Points Part 1.
Feel free to forward this on to anyone you think would benefit from a drop on their toast, a stir in their tea or a roadmap for behavioural change.
We Used To Think Vegetable Oil Was Good For Tanning
Before next week’s edition on climate tipping points, let’s start the conversation on a beach towel.
Many of us have enjoyed our current Summer lying horizontal on sandy beaches (apologies to our friends in the northern hemisphere, it’s just the truth). Swimming, building sand castles, reading, surfing, snorkeling, playing beach cricket, eating hot chips, slurping ice creams. This has been part of the Australian culture for generations.
The big difference over the past 50 years? Our increased understanding of the need to protect ourselves from the sun’s UV rays. In order to continue our fun in the sun, we’ve had to create a combination of mitigation and adaptation solutions.
Mitigation came in the form of the globally-ratified Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer in 1987 and implemented in 1992, which sits under the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer from 1985. It’s a big deal because it’s the reason you no longer hear people speaking about a hole in the Ozone Layer: the hole is well on its way to being repaired. In fact, while the size can fluctuate year to year and there is still much work to be done, 2024 was the 7th smallest region since 1992, allowing NOAA and NASA scientists to predict it will fully close above the Antarctic by 2066.
And the benefits of this improvement to date are already quite outstanding:
Up to 5,200 less cases of skin cancer per year in Australia.
Australia has avoided living under a UV Index of 25, when a UV Index of 9 is considered high.
Australia has also avoided 40 million tonnes greenhouse gas emissions since 1995 by phasing out chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs). Sorry Lynx Africa.
From an adaptation perspective, the clear winner is sunscreen, the history of which is pretty fascinating, and yes, this timeline was new to me as well.
A quick whirl through the ages shows us the link between sun exposure and skin cancer was first discovered in 1896 Germany by renowned dermatologist, Dr. Paul Unna, author of “Histopathology of Skin Diseases” (Histopathologie der Hautkrankheiten), which is still considered to be a foundational text in dermatology today.
In the 1920s, Coco Chanel was photographed returning tanned from a Mediterranean cruise, which led her friend, Prince Jean-Louis de Faucigny-Lucigne (naturally), to declare: “I think she may have invented sunbathing.” From this moment on, a tanned complexion was seen as “a sign of a healthy, leisurely, and privileged way of life.” (The Cancer Institute has been trying their best to undo this social meme: Tanning is skin cells in trauma, anyone?)
Just as World War II was starting to rumble on the horizon in 1938, Swiss chemist Franz Greiter suffered the dreaded burn of the sun during his summiting of Mt. Piz Buin, the highest peak of Austria’s Province of Vorarlberg. For those of you playing along at home, yes you are correct, he invented the first modern sunscreen brand, Piz Buin, ten years after the fact as an ode to his red-hot lightbulb moment.
Greiter is also credited with inventing the sun protection factor (SPF) rating in 1962. Australia was the first country to accept his definition of SPF as “the ratio of UV energy needed to produce a minimal erythemal dose on protected to unprotected skin”. Many countries soon followed our leadership and SPF quickly became the standard for the testing of sunscreen formulations’ effectiveness around the world.
The result of this two-pronged strategy of mitigation and adaptation to protect ourselves from the sun’s UV?
Spearheaded by the Melanoma Institute Australia, Cancer Council (Slip, Slop, Slap was launched in 1981! And now includes Seek, Slide) and many others, the five-year survival rate of melanoma cases in Australia has increased from <10% in 2011 to >50% in 2021.
This doesn’t mean the problem has been solved, but it does mean that awareness of the problem, solutions implemented to solve the problem, and advances in technology to create more efficient solutions has resulted in less families losing loved ones, less surgeries for the removal of cancers, lower healthcare costs at both the individual and public levels, and therefore higher productivity levels across the economy.
Positive tipping points. A global protocol has resulted in repairing of the Ozone layer and demonstrated our ability to mend Planetary Boundaries and create positive tipping points. Our adaptation has meant we have the opportunity to keep spending time at the beach.
Mitigation and Adaptation.
2 Quotes From Others:
President Biden in the days before he departed the White House, providing yet another example of why combining ethics and economics makes business sense:
“The existential threat of climate change has never been clearer. Just look across the country, from California to North Carolina. That’s why I signed the most significant climate and clean energy law ever, ever in the history of the world. And the rest of the world is trying to model it now. It’s working, creating jobs and industries of the future. Now we have proven we don’t have to choose between protecting the environment and growing the economy.”
Source: “Biden goes gangbusters on climate projects in final days in White House”, Trellis
Madison Keys post-match, reflecting on her resilience to qualify for the Australian Open women's final last night by upsetting Iga Świątek, whose dominance up until the semi-finals had seen her lose the fourth-lowest total of games ever within a single Aus Open tournament:
"I think that's probably one of the biggest lessons that I can take from [losing] that US Open final and just be OK with knowing that I'm probably going to be uncomfortable 99% of the time that I'm on the court, and that's okay, and I can still also play tennis through that."
Source: “Keys returns to Grand Slam final eight years on from New York heartbreak”, Tennis Majors
Until next week,
Dan
Brilliant information!