Every Monday on Global Comment, we share the slow, thoughtful, considerate words that our brains – and souls – need but that it’s easy to miss in our busy world. We distil the best of the web and recommend just three links every week that you absolutely must see.
No fluff, no fuss, just three exceptional reads.
Here are this week’s recommendations:
Gaza and the End of Western Fantasy (Bruno Maçães / TIME)
The Western narrative, valid and true in its context, becomes a ruinous myth when it replaces other stories and experiences. No single narrative can encompass the whole of human history. Those charged with building order must strive for a full picture.
Inside the Crime Rings Trafficking Sand (David A. Taylor / Scientific American)
Very few people are looking closely at the illegal sand system or calling for changes, however, because sand is a mundane resource. Yet sand mining is the world’s largest extraction industry because sand is a main ingredient in concrete, and the global construction industry has been soaring for decades. Every year the world uses up to 50 billion metric tons of sand, according to a United Nations Environment Program report. The only natural resource more widely consumed is water. A 2022 study by researchers at the University of Amsterdam concluded that we are dredging river sand at rates that far outstrip nature’s ability to replace it, so much so that the world could run out of construction-grade sand by 2050. The U.N. report confirms that sand mining at current rates is unsustainable.
Richard E. Grant’s new oven (Elton John)
@liveinconcert_ Wait until the end! 🤯 #eltonjohn #elton #john #piano #fyp ♬ original sound – LiveInConcert
If you have any suggestions for future words to feature, contact us on our socials or at editor@globalcomment.com
Image: Joonas kääriäinen