Our r/DiscoverEarth subreddit has grown by +1100 subscribers this week, to 7,500! We’re picking up steam. Next stop 10,000! 🚂🌏

Every 6-7 years, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body of the UN) creates a report on the state of the world’s climate. The latest report came out yesterday, and it’s… not good. Global temperatures have already risen by 1.09C, we already have extreme weather to show for it, and it’s going to get worse. This is a “code red” for civilisation, and question is how quickly we can decarbonise. 🔗 Link

Thailand bans coral-damaging sunscreens in marine parks 🔗 Link

Whales in Alaska are happier than they’ve ever been, as a result of decreased boating traffic. Now they are having longer, more detailed ‘conversations’, and can let their calves roam at greater distances. 🔗 Link

Giraffes have social lives as deep as elephants. Far from the aloof and preening creatures of past understanding, they have cooperative social systems, matrilineal societies and elaborate systems of communication that we had no idea existed. 🔗 Link

Get more content like videos, podcasts, virtual reality, and more in the Discover Earth app.

Unbelievable.

What a foolish word. A rude and disrespectful word. We think we use it to flatter and give credit to: “What an unbelievable play.” “What an unbelievable act of courage.” “What an unbelievable film.” “What an unbelievable sunset.”” What an unbelievable break.”

Why would we define things that are incredible and awesome, things that actually make us believe in them more, with this pillar of antonymy? Something spectacular, phenomenal, outstanding, and most excellent, is most definitely not, unbelievable.

Awe -inspiring, magnificent, prodigious, and extraordinary? Yes.

It just happened, you just witnessed did it, you did it, believe it. Unbelievable? Quite the opposite. Give incredible more credit.

A man flies a suicide jet into the World Trade Center, the coronavirus comes, hurricanes ravage, fires burn, Enron’s a scam, our best friend lies to us, the government lies to us, we lie to our self, our fiancée says “I do”, our child says his first words we find a cure to cancer, we die in peace. Unbelievable? No.

It just happened, you just witnessed it, you did it, believe it.

Acknowledge the existence of greatness and phenoms, excellence and extraordinaries, pleasures and pains. Recognise them as true entities, both beautiful and horrible, tragic and heaven-sent. Be not naïve to awe inspiring feats of good or good fortune, nor gullible to mankind’s capacity for evil. Be not blind to the credence of natural beauties and disasters. Nothing God or Mother Nature does is unbelievable, and if there’s one thing you can depend on people being, it is people.

Don’t act so surprised, unbelievable happens all the time, sometimes it’s divine, and sometimes it’s a loogie in our face. Don’t deny it. Depend on it, expect it.

Believe it.

Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights