The Daily Valet. - 11/2/21, Tuesday

✔️ Doomsday?

Tuesday, November 2nd Edition

Cory Ohlendorf, Editor in Chief of Valet.

Happy Election Day to those planning on voting today.

Cory Ohlendorf, Editor ⋯ @coryohlendorf

Today’s edition is presented by

Today’s Big Story

A Climate ‘Doomsday’?

The opening day of the COP26 summit was heavy on dire warnings and light on substantive proposals

President Joe Biden on Monday sought to assure world leaders the United States would fulfill its promise to slash greenhouse gas emissions in half by the end of the decade. And today, his administration will propose rules to heavily regulate methane, a potent greenhouse gas that spews from oil and natural gas operations and can warm the atmosphere 80 times faster than carbon dioxide.

Biden joined leaders from over 100 countries in Glasgow for the start of the COP26 climate conference, which kicked off on the heels of the G20 summit that concluded with a statement that urged “meaningful and effective” action on climate change but left huge work for negotiators to ensure an ambitious outcome.

Even though practically every country previously agreed to limit future warming to less than a total of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), ideally to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), back when they signed the Paris climate agreement in 2016, they are now far off track.

“It’s time to say enough—enough of brutalizing biodiversity, enough of killing ourselves with carbon, enough of treating nature like a toilet,” António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, warned the leaders in the room. “Enough of burning and drilling and mining our way deeper. We are digging our own graves.”

But for all the dire warnings Monday, there was little in the way of specific proposals about how to reduce emissions in the immediate future, reports the New York Times. India, which has contributed relatively little to the world’s emissions so far but looms as a growing source of them, announced targets that will keep coal at the heart of its power sector for at least a decade.

Meanwhile, China and Russia, two major greenhouse gas emitters, didn’t even have leaders in attendance.

↦ Dig Deeper: From polluted waters in Cambodia, to smog-heavy Pakistan and bushfire-prone Australia, these images depict children at the front lines of the climate crisis.

2021’s Word of the Year

This seems fitting

What would you consider to be the word of the past year? The Oxford English Dictionary has made its official selection and it should come as no surprise that the honor goes to “vax.”

Heck, I'd probably name a new puppy Vax if I got one today. Okay, maybe not ... but we've sure heard the word over and over in 2021, right? And that's what this classification is all about.

According to the BBC, the news of the famous dictionary's decision, which follows last year's choice to highlight a number of words that had broken into daily parlance. Among them were “lockdown,” “bushfires,” “Black Lives Matter,” and “WFH.” The Collins Dictionary, meanwhile, opted for the singular choice of “lockdown” as its word of the year for 2020.

Put another way, it sounds like we've moved from “lockdown” to “vax” in the span of a year, which sounds about right.

↦ However: We're still unsure on whether “vaxed” or “vaxxed” is the correct spelling to describe someone who's received the vaccine.

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COVID-19’s Death Toll Tops 5 Million

U.S. has highest number of total confirmed deaths, followed by Brazil, India and Mexico

The global death toll from COVID-19 topped 5 million on Monday, less than two years into a crisis that has not only devastated poor countries but also humbled wealthy ones with first-rate health care systems.

The U.S. has the highest number of total confirmed deaths from Covid-19, with nearly 746,000 recorded since the start of the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins. Brazil, India and Mexico have the next highest reported death tolls.

Of course, the data collected reflects official counts from nations around the world. Due to a lack of adaquate testing and medical intervention, the true toll is likely substantially higher, disease experts say. But despite the uncertainty on the numbers, it's believed the virus hit wealthier nations harder as they have a higher proportion of people particularly vulnerable to the disease, including seniors and cancer survivors.

While there are still some COVID-19 hotspots in the U.S. and around the world, public health experts have hopes that the pandemic is nearing an end. But they also expect an uptick in cases as we head into cold weather months.

More Travel Chaos?

The airline-industry breakdown is causing some serious problems for travelers

As you might've heard, American Airlines canceled around 475 flights on Monday, bringing the total number of cancellations since last Friday, according to Flight Aware, to well north of 2,000.

American says the wave of cancellations came as a result of bad weather and staffing shortages—the later of which will be aided by more than 1,800 staffers coming back to work today from leave. Pilot and flight attendant availability was listed as the main reason for most of the cancellations.

Of course, this was just one operational breakdown out of a great many of its kind over the past few months. Southwest Airlines just canceled upwards of 2,000 flights for similar reasons. In August, Spirit stranded thousands of customers across the country as a result of mass cancellations and chaotic delays. In short: this wasn't totally unexpected.

According to NBC News, many airlines—American included—are still running on “skeletal” staffing as a result of employees having accepted buyouts or voluntary leaves of absence last spring. And CNN reports that a spokesman for the pilots recently expressed concern on behalf of their union regarding how the airlines will manage the Thanksgiving and December travel surge. As if holiday travel could get any more stressful.

In Other News

↦ Here Are the Major 2021 Races to Watch Today

↦ Supreme Court Questions Controversial Texas Abortion Law

↦ Spotify Has Tried Being Netflix. Now It Wants to Be YouTube.

Other Things We’re Talking About Today

This affordable collaboration

Pajama danger

Remote hotels

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Best Down Vests

Cascade down expedition vest,$275 by Buck Mason

We’ve reached that time of year when the temperatures seem to drop a few degrees consistently week by week, but it's not cold enough to bring out the super heavy outerwear. Cardigans, thermals and heavier tees check all the transitional weather boxes, but what about down vests?

Down is super-lightweight, but insulates body heat and makes for the perfect winter layer. The key to staying warm and cozy throughout the colder months is to trap in the heat that surrounds your core area. Also, you can size down with these vests to wear under your favorite fleece or denim jacket; you can also size up to wear over your favorite Harris tweed suit or a heavyweight hoodie.

Fill this void in your wardrobe with this piece and you'll soon find yourself reaching for it every day. The vests come in great colors and a range of styles yet they all are incredibly functional. You can toe the line of going full Gorpcore and get technical with your vests or just style it causally. So the only question remaining ... are you down?