The year 2021 saw extreme weather events outside the range of what experts had thought possible, signs of a growing acknowledgement among scientists of the need to take risk assessment more seriously, and the launch of a new initiative that might finally tell heads of government what they need to know.

At any moment in time, you can ride a bike with least effort by cycling in first gear. But if you want to ride around the block with least effort, first gear will not be ideal. By failing to distinguish between these two different situations, economists have recommended the worst possible climate change policy to governments. Contrary to their belief, emissions trading will achieve decarbonisation at maximum cost, and minimum speed.

In science, to be ‘conservative’ is to understate your findings. In insurance, it means the opposite: erring on the side of overstatement of risks. For a clear assessment of the risks of climate change, we need these two cultures to meet in the middle. This requires a separation of tasks: between those who gather information, and those who assess risk.

Chapter 2 investigates the ascent of technocrats to key roles in defining the technological foundations of the hydropower nation. The wartime crisis and the active involvement of the state in hydropower development and the training of engineers deepened the connection between hydropower and the Chinese nation. Before the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), the National Resources Commission of the Nationalist government conducted studies on China’s hydropower potential. During the war it began constructing hydropower projects in the southwest to mitigate the energy shortage the war produced. By uncovering the many interactions between American and Chinese institutions and individuals, this chapter explores the importance of transnational exchange in strengthening the technological foundations of the hydropower nation. It also delves into the early social and environmental impacts of the nascent hydropower nation. Despite being limited in scale, social and environmental disturbances in the 1940s foreshadowed the significant human toll and ecological changes that would occur in later decades in a fully realized hydropower nation.

Microalgae, with cyanobacteria, are the major primary producers in aquatic, predominantly marine, ecosystems, contributing to the biogeochemical cycling of multiple elements despite their small instantaneous biomass. Their evolutionary history revealed by genomic analyses has shown a complex past that produces a polyphyletic group including organisms that have undergone primary, secondary and tertiary chloroplast endosymbiosis with genetic integration and also horizontal gene transfer. All but one genus of photosynthetic eukaryotes arose by endosymbiosis of a gloeomargarita-like β-cyanobacterium in a eukaryote with the retention of some genes in the plastid, the transfer of more genes to the eukaryote nucleus, and the loss of many others, to produce the Archaeplastida. A second, much later, endosymbiosis of an α-cyanobacterium in a euglyphid amoeba yielded Paulinella. The diversification of the Archaeplastida yielded Glaucophyta, Rhodophyta, Chlorophyta and Streptophyta. Secondary endosymbiosis of red algae in eukaryotes led to microalgae of the ‘red line’, that is, photosynthetic Ochrista (= stramenopiles), Haptophyta, Cryptophyta and Alveolata (dinoflagellates and chromerids). Secondary endosymbiosis of chlorophyte algae in eukaryotes yielded microalgae of the Chlorarachniophyta and Euglenophyta. The ‘red line’ of secondary endosymbionts are dominant marine phytoplankton, possibly related to the occurrence of chlorophyll c that has high absorbance of blue light that dominates in deep ocean waters.

Pathogenesis of orthorexia nervosa is hitherto an under-researched field; thus, it urgently needs exploration. Unfortunately, no research indicates which factors cause orthorexia nervosa. Therefore, the identification of potential risk factors of orthorexia seems to be warranted (Bundros et al., 2016). The socio-cultural context related to social media’s influence on orthorexia nervosa has been explored for several years, mainly using qualitative research methods (e.g. Fixsen, Cheshire & Berry, 2020; Scheiber, Diehl & Karmasin, 2023; Santarossa et al., 2019; Turner & Lefevre, 2017; Valente et al., 2022a, 2022b; White et al., 2021). The popularity of orthorexia nervosa on social media platforms, such as Instagram and Twitter, is perceptible (Valente et al., 2022b). To date, there are over 194,000 posts with the hashtag (#) orthorexia on Instagram (as of 6 December 2023).

Traditional economics tells us that to meet policy goals, government should only do the minimum needed to fix a ‘market failure’. A new understanding shows that when the goals are innovation and change, a ‘do the maximum’ approach can be more effective. We should stop aiming to achieve ‘decarbonisation at least cost’, and instead aim to move to the clean economy at maximum gain.

This essay reexamines Shakespeare’s A Lover’s Complaint and The Rape of Lucrece in light of recent work on early modern women’s complaint poetry. It explores the limits of feminine sympathy in Shakespeare’s framed ‘female complaint’ poems and, in comparison, women writers’ distinctive use of the form to eschew the ekphrastic contemplation of women’s ‘pretty’ pain.