Ethically Questionable

with Business of Fashion Journalist, Shayeza Wild

This year's heatwaves have produced what English wine growers are calling a genuine vintage year for sparkling wine, and that's not a coincidence. Jamila and Jenn get into three reports that landed this week and what they add up to. The UN's new Limiting Overshoot report says the world is on track to blow past 1.5°C, likely reaching 1.8°C or higher under current policies, and lays out what actually has to happen to bring warming back down once we overshoot it. Copernicus confirmed August 2026 as the joint-hottest month ever recorded globally, tied with July 2023, with ocean temperatures at their highest August level on record, alongside the human cost of a hotter world, including this year's glacial flooding disaster in Nepal. And The Earthshot Prize and the University of Exeter released a more hopeful counterpoint, "The Tipping Points Playbook," mapping five areas where climate solutions could hit a point where they become cheap, accessible and self-sustaining if the conditions are right. Jamila and Jenn talk through why a great wine harvest and a terrible barley harvest are the same story, why clean energy is closest to its tipping point in the UK, and what a good vintage really costs. Some questions we get into: What "overshooting" 1.5°C actually means for the next decade, not just the headline number Why carbon removal keeps getting sold as a fix it isn't What has to be true for a climate solution to go from niche to mainstream Whether we can toast a good vintage and reckon with a bad summer in the same breath Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Jamila and Jenn look at two very different "cancellations" making headlines right now. The Met Gala had to scrap a planned museum exhibition honoring designer John Galliano after backlash over antisemitic remarks he made back in 2011, remarks serious enough that a French court actually convicted him for them. Meanwhile, Washington Post opinion columnist Karen Attiah was fired within 24 hours of a single post about Charlie Kirk, only for an arbitrator to rule a year later that the firing was unlawful and order her reinstated with full backpay. Same news cycle, same word getting thrown around, but two stories that raise pretty different questions. Does everyone get a path back, and should they? Where's the line between accountability and overreaction? And is "cancel culture" even the right term for either of these? Jamila and Jenn break it down. Electrified by Polestar! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gen Z has a new insult and it is savage. This week Jamila and Jenn break down "polyester," the TikTok slang word taking over from "larp" to call something fake, janky, and low effort. Except it turns out the word did not come out of nowhere. Its a direct analogy to the actual fabric. Tune in as we trace how a fiber that was once sold to 1950s housewives as a wrinkle free miracle became such an insult that Gen Z is now using its name as a diss. We also get into the linguistic term for why this happens (semantic pejoration, try saying that three times fast), the case of "Karen" basically vanishing from birth certificates since 2017, and whether TikTok slang might be doing more to change how people shop than a decade of brand messaging ever did. Naturally we try to invent the next viral insults themselves: "emissions queen" (it backfires, sounds aspirational), "farmed salmon" as shorthand for anything cheap and gross, and "renewable" as an actual compliment. Consider this your homework: start using them immediately. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Ethically Questionable News, Jamila and Jenn pause to talk about the death of Cambridge professor Jason Arday following weeks of press scrutiny, and what it says about the responsibility we all carry (media and public alike) for the negativity we aim at real people, from Meghan Markle to public figures closer to home. Then it's onto some good news: a new Queen Mary University of London study tracking children's lung development in London versus Luton since 2018 has found that London kids' lungs, once measurably smaller due to pollution, have caught up to their Luton counterparts since ULEZ was introduced. Jenn and Jamila break down what ULEZ actually does, why Sadiq Khan took heat for implementing it with "no proof," and why this study changes that. They also get into the pushback ULEZ still faces, the affordability options people overlook, and how cities from Milan to Tokyo to New York are tackling emissions in their own ways. A story about clean air, common sense, and holding both the press and ourselves accountable for the impact we have on others. For more check us out on: https://www.instagram.com/ethicallyquestionable/ Electrified by Polestar Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.