An essential and relatively simple response to the climate crisis is to eat less meat. Improvement in three seemingly simple areas would underpin societal wellbeing and economic sustainability. NPLs are bound to be on the up. Why are the simple solutions often the hardest to spot? Our body’s physiological and psychological state are interdependent-put simply they are inextricably linked.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“If people decided that they would be happy with less meat and more vegetable-intensive diets (…), food could become like road transport, with consumers gaining from the shift to zero carbon rather than facing a cost burden”. (Adair Turner in “Food, Not Steel, Is Our Biggest Climate Challenge”)

ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
Adair Turner, Food, Not Steel, Is Our Biggest Climate Challenge
(Project Syndicate, 1 April 2021)
The estimated costs of achieving net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions from the world’s energy, building, industrial, and transport systems are plummeting. In some sectors, like road transport, consumers will even pay less for going green. In others, like steel, they’ll face a “green cost premium” (but how much steel do we consume as individuals?). The biggest challenge lies in the food system where in order to avoid a substantial cost burden, consumers will have to stay away from the most emissions-intensive sectors (like meat).  Put differently, they’ll have to become happy with less meat and more vegetable-intensive diets (reads in 7-8 min).
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Johannes Kasinger (and colleagues), Preparing for a wave of non-performing loans: Empirical insights and important lessons
(VOXeu, 1 April 2021)
When the pandemic’s support measures are unwound, European banks are likely to be confronted by a wave of non-performing loans. To best deal with them, it is essential to assess early and realistically potential loan losses to avoid adverse incentives for banks. Also, secondary loan markets can help in this process and further facilitate bank resolution. Most likely, what is true for Europe is also true for the rest of the world (reads in 7-8 min).
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Carol Graham, Making wellbeing a policy priority: Lessons from the 2021 World Happiness Report
(Brookings, 6 April 2021)
Every year, the World Happiness Report tracks individual life satisfaction and the emotional “temperature” of societies around the world. This year, three lessons stand out for improving societal wellbeing and sustainable economies (the two go hand-in-hand): (1) Mental health has declined—especially among the most vulnerable; (2) Greater trust in others and institutions is linked to higher wellbeing; (3) Worker wellbeing is linked to labor market protections and social safety nets. What is remarkable is how simple these lessons are and how much variance there is across countries (reads in 6-7 min).
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Matthew Sparkes, People are bad at spotting simple solutions to problems
(New Scientist, 7 April 2021)
A very short (3-4 min) but important read. When solving problems, we tend to add elements rather than removing them. As many experiments show, we should do it the other way around because subtraction is almost always the most efficient option. Addition is culturally valued but our tendency to add complexity may cause us to miss potentially superior options and designs.
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Tami Bulmash, How the Physical Body Holds Mental Tension
(Elemental Medium, 7 April 2021)
The article explores the connection between mind, body, posture, and stress. The relationship between thoughts and body tension is murky and complex, but obvious: the two are interrelated. It can be summed up by the following: “every change in the physiological state is accompanied by an appropriate change in the mental-emotional state, conscious or unconscious, and conversely, every change in the mental-emotional state, conscious or unconscious, is accompanied by an appropriate change in the physiological state” (reads in 8-9 min).
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