On Saturday, July 26, tens of thousands of people, including large numbers of families, are expected to join Families First protests and rallies against the Trump administration’s policies.
Those policies range from reversals of environmental protections to the newly passed big beautiful bill, with its massive cuts to Medicaid, to the White House’s immigration policy, which has led to raids and arrests carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) across the country.
Here’s what to know.
What’s happening?
Thousands of parents, grandparents, immigrants, caregivers, children, and religious leaders are planning to gather in peaceful demonstrations in all 50 states, with major events scheduled in Washington, D.C.; Tucson, Arizona; and Chicago.
“At a time when too many families are already struggling to afford what they need, these cuts will take away families healthcare coverage, food, and essential care, and some families have already had loved ones disappeared by ICE, Ai-jen Poo, executive director of Caring Across Generations, told Fast Company. “Our families come first, and well continue showing up for one another.”
What to expect
According to organizers, Families First is a nationwide day of action with family-friendly rallies, youth art-making fairs, teach-ins, canned-food drives, and community events to raise awareness about the need for healthcare, safety, food, education, and climate action to protect children and families in the United States.
Like many of the recent anti-Trump protests, Families First is expected to include people from all walks of life and parts of the country. As previously reported, protestors have included struggling middle-class families with young children; retirees worried about cuts to Social Security and Medicaid; teachers in schools where funding has been pulled and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs are under attack; and recently laid-off government workers targeted by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Who’s organizing Families First?
Families First events are being organized by a coalition of more than 75 organizations, led by the National Domestic Workers Alliance, MoveOn, Community Change Action, Caring Across Generations, MomsRising, Planned Parenthood, Peoples Action, Family Values @ Work, Families Over Billionaires, and the Service Employees International Union.
A full list of coalition partners and scheduled events is available at the Families First Now website.
Outdoor product company Yeti is best known for its coolers, but this summer, it has a surprise hit product that doesn’t having any cooling functionality at all. It’s a tote bag that’s been part of its existing product offering for yearsbut has gone viral on TikTok after taking a page out of the Stanley playbook, with product offerings that are colorful, accessorizable, and collectible.
Launched in 2018, the durable, waterproof, $150 Yeti Camino Carryall Tote Bag isn’t new, but now dubbed the hottest mom tote of the summer, it’s taking on a new life as the sort of colorful must-have consumer product we’ve seen previously with the likes of Stanley cups or Trader Joe’s totes. At least one analyst credits the bag’s new level of popularity with a rise in stock price for the company, which reported quarterly sales of $351 million, up 3% from the same period last year.
[Photo: Yeti]
The bag’s hefty design is at the heart of its appeal. At 18.1 inches by 15.2 inches, the bag is big, “but not too big,” according to Yetis product page. And though it weighs barely more than 3 pounds empty, the tote’s oversize handles were built for carrying a lot at once, including bottles and half-gallon jugs that can be organized with deployable dividers. As its name implies (camino means road in Spanish), it’s tough and designed to be used on the go.
“You can carry everything from firewood to kids’ sand tools to water for washing your hands after camping somewhere,” Yeti’s head of marketing, Bill Neff, told Fast Companys Jeff Beer in March. “Then you can hose it out. It became the super versatile piece for us.”
The idea behind the Camino was Yeti cofounder Roy Seider’s, but not everyone at the company saw its potential at first. It was Yeti’s second bag product after branching out into the category in 2017, it and became a quick hit.
“We didn’t know what it was going to be,” Neff said in March. “We thought it was going to skew female. No one really understood it, except for Roy, but we launched it and it was bananas how fast, for both male and female customers, it became the product that they used for everything.”
For a company whose coolers have been called a luxury good for bros, though, the tote has offered an avenue to market specifically to women. Product images and TikTok videos tagged with the bag skew female, while colorways like influencer beige, pink, and cherry blossom cater especially to female tastes. As of this writing, all the fun colors are sold out on Yeti’s website and you can only order the Camino in boring colors: olive or navy.
It’s clear the Camino is not just a bag for the outdoorsman anymore. It’s become a bag for moms too, as a heavy-duty, all-purpose utility purse or as a beach or diaper bag for long summer vacations or a quick trip to the park. It’s functional for sure, with room for everything, but like a dude donning North Face in the city, there’s an element of gorpcore in its appeal as an accessory. The ability to customize the bag with patches, charms, or Labubus, plus a rotating, limited-edition seasonal colorways, gives the product an extra edge on TikTok, where newness, exclusivity, and conspicuous consumption reign supreme.
Yeti is now doubling down on bags. The company bought the Montana bag brand Mystery Ranch in January, and on its earnings call in May, CEO Matthew Reintjes credited the Camino specifically for helping Yeti’s strong quarter.
“Yeti is bringing a unique point of view to this fragmented bag space supported by our strong design, brand and commercial engine,” Reintjes said. “We remain very optimistic about the massive global addressable market we see in front of us across premium bags, packs, and luggage.”
Reintjes calls the Camino tote “the sleeper product” in Yeti’s portfolio. “It’s like the Swiss Army knife of bags,” he said in March. It’s more than just its versatility and durability, though, that have proven valuable for the company. Every brand is looking for its Stanley cup moment, and with the Camino tote, Yeti has found in its portfolio a product capable of viral TikTok infamy of its own.
Legos newest set is a replica of a Nintendo Game Boy, and its designed to tap into the millennial nostalgia thats ruling the cultural zeitgeist.
The 421-piece set is the latest in a series of collaborations between Nintendo and Lego, which have included builds based on the Super Mario, Animal Crossing, and Mario Kart worlds. Currently, the Game Boy is available for preorder at a price point of $60; it will be purchasable online and in stores starting October 1.
[Photo: Lego]
According to a press release, the collectible is an almost one-to-one replica of the original Game Boy, standing at just over 5.5 inches tall and 3.5 inches wide. It comes complete with a control pad, A and B buttons, a contrast adjustment, and a volume dialessentially, all the elements youd find on the original device.
The main drawback is that, tragically, the brick-based Game Boy is not playable. However, it does come with a Game Pak slot and two Game Paks (also made of Legos, of course) based on The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and Super Mario Land. The Game Paks come with lenticular screensor screens that use light deflection to mimic movementreplicating scenes from the respective games, so you can briefly pretend that its a functioning electronic.
Legos Game Boy replica comes as 80s and 90s IP has flourished in pop culture. Movies like Barbie and Twisters, fast-food menu throwbacks, and the return of 90s fashion (like via the long-dead J.Crew catalog) have all brought millennial nostalgia into the limelight.
[Photo: Lego]
Theres also renewed interest in retro tech aesthetics, even among younger generations who werent around during the products heydays. In 2024, that meant product releases like Anduril founder Palmer Luckeys 90s-esque portable gaming device and a pager by Sega that only sends emojis.
So far this year, the Commodore 64 PC has already made a comeback and the iPod Nano got turned into a design object. Now the Game Boy is on sale againif only in Lego form.
For the third consecutive year, venture capital investment in climate tech fell in 2024. Investment in the sector reached only $37.8 billion, nearly 40% lower than its all-time high in 2021.
Looking ahead to 2025, a report from PitchBook suggests climate tech investments could fall even further. The broad scope of climate tech means the companies focused on it are subject to policy and industry changes impacting many sectors, such as energy, agriculture, and transportation. However, even as tariffs and shifting policy priorities threaten companies bottom line, many venture investors in the space say there is no cause for alarm.
This isn’t surprising to us, says Sara Simonds, executive director of Venture Climate Alliance, an organization that brings together climate-focused venture capital firms. Many of the VCs that we work with have been investing in these sectors for the better part of a decade or longer and are accustomed to the ebbs and flows in industry outlook.
The last surge of investment started in 2021, when the market for renewable energy and other climate technologies looked very different. Favorable policies under President Joe Biden bolstered the sector and made it a hotbed of activity even for venture capitalists who werent previously involved in the space.
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, for example, invested billions in clean energy, electric vehicles, and other climate-friendly technologies. That act built on tax credits for electric vehicles, carbon sequestration, and other initiatives provided by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed by Congress in 2021. On the venture capitalist side, those policies led to expensive deals that pushed the annual VC deal value over $60.5 billion in 2021 and $53.8 billion in 2022, according to the PitchBook report.
Now some climate-favorable policies and tax breaks are gone under President Donald Trump, and tariffs are raising the cost of clean energy in the U.S. (China remains the leading supplier of solar panels, wind turbine components, and lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles, according to the International Energy Agency.)
Many tourist investors who temporarily entered the climate space during its period of high growth have taken these changes as a sign to scale back investments or leave the space. This, combined with declines in the number of VC deals in the tech sector more broadly, has added to climate techs troubles.
However, venture capitalists who specialize in climate tech investments arent worried. In fact, they see opportunities for growth that may outweigh the financial risks these policy and market changes bring.
Part of their confidence in the sector comes from having experienced past boom-bust cycles in climate technology markets. The CleanTech 1.0 eraa period in the mid-2000s when venture capitalists heavily staked renewable energy startups that ultimately failedwas a formative experience for many of todays climate tech investors. They observed not only how these businesses failed but also how others succeeded in their wake as the need for climate-friendly solutions grows.
Climate change is the macro of all macro trends, says Andrew Beebe, managing director at Obvious Ventures. Maybe not as a human, but as an investor, the macro on climate is amazing. The challenge becomes greater by the day and that means the opportunities just become greater by the day.
Additionally, many of the changes on the policy side have greater impacts on mature industries that venture capitalists are less directly involved in, says Matt Eggers, managing director at Prelude Ventures. Venture capitalists tend to invest in startups and other early-stage companies with potential to grow.
While there is always innovation going on behind the scenes of mature industries, some that are well-established (like traditional solar and wind technologies) are less appealing to investors looking for groundbreaking new technologies or unexplored areas of industries.
What many dedicated climate tech investors are looking for remains the same as when the sector hit its peak three years agonew or improved technologies that are scalable and have strong market potential.
Last year, North America remained the largest market for climate tech investment, and it saw big gains in the energy sector, according to the PitchBook report. In particular, growth was notable in dispatchable energy sources whose output is easily increased or decreased to meet demand, and in infrastructure to produce, store, and transport hydrogen. Similarly, the first quarter of this year saw more investments in energy, with large fusion and nuclear deals.
Weve got technology that were really excited about in the portfolio, Eggers says. He and Beebe both see opportunities in companies using electrification and artificial intelligence to transform the climate tech sector. Beyond the technology, Eggers adds that investors look for companies with strong leadership teams and ideas that appeal to big or fast-growing markets, particularly those that have been disrupted by the types of policy and economic changes plaguing many industries today.
When theres disruption, theres opportunity, Eggers says. This extends to the investment space as well, where investors are finding promising companies to fund in this now less-crowded area of the venture market.
Theres a quiet unraveling happening in business. You feel it in the glassy eyes of employees. You see it in customers ghosting once-beloved brands. You hear it in leadership meetings when someone asks, Why arent people sticking around? and no one has a real answer.
The truth is that brand loyalty is fading. Not because people are distracted. Because theyre disillusioned. And no, a new logo wont fix it.
The Belief Gap
There was a time, not long ago, when brand was a kind of secular faith. We believed in Nike, Apple, or Patagonia. These brands stood for something, or at least they made us feel like they did. They gave shape to aspiration. They helped us orient ourselves in a world that often felt chaotic. But faith, as theologians have long known, requires more than symbols. And trust, once broken, is a difficult thing to restore.
What used to bind uscustomer to brand, employee to companyis fraying. Not because people are fickle, but because brands became false idols. The modern brand machine promised meaning and delivered margin. They said people first, but meant until the next earnings call.
Todays consumers are savvier, and employees are more vocal. Neither will tolerate brands that say one thing and do another. Theyre not impressed by slogans. They want to know what your company actually stands forand if your actions align with that claim.
Theyre asking, Do I see myself in this? Do I trust this? Does this matter to me? And if the answer is no, theyre gone.
The Quiet Collapse of Brand Meaning
According to McKinsey, three out of four consumers have changed brands in the past two years. Meanwhile, research from MIT Sloan reveals that toxic culturenot payis the number-one predictor of employee attrition. Its not just bad bosses or weak onboarding. Its something deeper: a breach of belief.
The breach happens quietly. The brand deck claims innovation, but inside, risk is punished. The values on the wall say people first, but layoffs come before leadership cuts. The company celebrates diversity in its marketing while sidelining it in its hiring practices.
People notice. And once they do, no creative or bold rebrand can undo it. This isnt a customer service issue or an HR problem. Its a crisis of meaning.
Brands Built for Yesterday Cant Survive Tomorrow
For decades, brand loyalty followed a predictable pattern: identify a target audience, claim a point of view, build a story, develop an identity, and launch. Then, pour money into media and hope the message sticks. Meanwhile, culture, what it feels like to actually work there, was a separate track, typically owned by HR, reduced to perks and performance reviews.
In an era where every employee has a microphone and every customer has a camera, the gap between what a company says and how it behaves is visible. Its searchable. Its shareable. The line between internal and external is invisible.
The pandemic, political polarization, economic volatility, and a new generation of employees and customers have shifted the calculus. Today, people dont just want good products or clever taglines; they also want meaningful experiences. And when the story you tell the market doesnt match the one your team lives every day, brand loyalty dissolves.
The Brands That Still Have Devotion? Theyve Earned It.
Trader Joes, for all its cult-favorite snacks, has never been about product alone. Its about people. The staff doesnt feel like theyre trapped in a fluorescent prison. Theyre trusted, empowered, often joyful. That energy transfers. The experience feels human. It makes loyalty feel easy.
Costco didnt build its billion-dollar business by playing it safe. It pays better wages than nearly anyone else in retail. Its benefits rival some tech companies. It knows that loyalty at scale starts with respect, not perks.
And then theres Chobani. Its founder, Hamdi Ulukaya, didnt just democratize Greek yogurt. He redefined what it means to lead with conscience, giving refugees jobs and equity, turning profit into purpose without ever preaching about it. The brands moral backbone is the brand.
None of these brands engineered loyalty. They didnt split-test their way into affection. They simply aligned what they stood for with how they behaved.
The Old Brand Playbook? Burn It.
You know the one:
Identify your audience (our audience is . . . everyone!).
Conduct market research regarding their preferences, values, and unmet needs, (probably just a hunch, its gotta be a millennial).
Stake out a position (throw in a cheesy tagline for good measure).
Develop your brand story (two people found an alpaca farm, cut out the middle man, and brought you a better poncho).
Develop your visuals (fingers crossed this looks good for as cheaply as possible).
Throw lots of money at marketing (nothing like wasting a lot of money to market a bad brand!).
This formula used to work when people asked fewer questions. But today, a brand that only looks good is a brand thats already behind. Today, you cant brand your way out of a broken culture. You cant market your way past mistrust. You cant buy loyalty with a new logo and some values in a pitch deck.
Rebuilding Loyalty Is a Leadership Mandate
This is no longer a task for the marketing department. Brand loyalty has become a test of leadership and vision. Rebuilding loyalty isnt about going louder; its about going deeper. It starts with asking better questionsand being willing to sit with the answers. Ask your employees:
What do we stand for, from your perspective?
What do we ignore that truly matters?
What would make you proud to work here?
Ask your customers:
What values should this company embody?
Where are we falling short?
What would make you proud to buy from us?
What change would make you stay?
These are not marketing questions. They are questions of identity. What youll find in those answers is not just sentiment, but structure, and a blueprint for rebuilding not just brand loyalty, but brand integrity.
Loyalty Isnt Gone. But Its No Longer Passive.
Lets stop pretending people are loyal to colors, fonts, or discounts. Theyre loyal to how your company makes them feel, to whether they believe youre worth their time, attention, and energy. The good news? Loyalty is still possible. Its just more discerning.
The brands that will win in this new era wont be the noisiest. Theyll be the clearest. The ones who know exactly who theyre customer is and theyll run through brick walls to keep them.
People arent loyal to campaigns. Theyre loyal to conviction. So dont just try to win loyalty back. Build something bigger:belief.
In a new stadium under construction in Egypt for Cairos Al-Ahly Football Club, the soccer field and more than half the seats are sunken slightly underground. The design is partly a way to meet local height restrictions. But the lower temperature below ground also helps keep the outdoor stadium more comfortable, even in sweltering summer weather.
Al-Ahly Stadium in Cairo [Photo: Gensler]
It allows us to benefit from natural cooling, says Ryan Sickman, who leads the sports practice at Gensler, the architecture firm behind the design. The stadiums facade, designed for LED displays, is also perforated so breezes can easily flow through.
Its one of many ways that architects are designing sports venues for extreme heat as the world gets hotter and it’s becoming more difficult for athletes to playand for fans to watchsafely.
In Austin, another Gensler-designed stadium is oriented so that as many fans as possible can sit in the shade during games. To keep the space ventilated, it isn’t enclosed. Instead of typical plastic seats, the designers chose mesh to help keep fans cooler.
Q2 Stadium in Austin [Photo: Gensler]
In Qatar, a stadium designed for the 2022 World Cup uses a white roof to reflect sunlight. Zaha Hadid Architects, the team that created the design, also shaped the roof to help channel hot air away from the stadium. It can be rolled out like a sail to shade the field or fully enclose the space. Inside, a solar-powered cooling system pumps cool air to each seat while also forming a cool bubble over the playing field.
Materials also help. In Las Vegas, engineers at Arup used several different materials in the facade of Allegiant Stadium to keep it cooler inside. A translucent ETFE (ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) roof insulates the space. Black-and-silver coatings use infrared reflective pigments to reflect as much sun as possible. Tinted glass also helps reflect sunlight and reduce glare.
Al Janoub Stadium in Doha [Photo: Hufton + Crow]
Some approaches take inspiration from older ideas. A technology that circulates water under a field to help keep natural turf healthy, for example, can double as a way to keep the field cooler for players.
In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the Arup-designed King Abdullah Sports City Stadium uses traditional Islamic screens for shade and ventilation. The cladding is designed to pull cool air in, then let it rise and exit the top of the stadium. On the roof, perforated mesh inserts inspired by bedouin tents let air flow through.
Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas [Photo: Jason O’Rear]
Passive techniques like this reduce or sometimes eliminate the need for energy-intensive air-conditioning. Sickman says architects “can use some of the things that maybe we forgot because of the advent of technology and active cooling, and go back to strategies that served the test of time.
Still, outdoor stadiums can only go so far. In cities like Cairo, soccer games are already played at night when the temperature is lower. The World Cup in Qatar was moved from summer to winter because of the heat. But as extreme heat waves become more common, it may sometimes be too hot to play even as teams try to adjust their scheduling.
A report in the medical journal Lancet found that in 2023 people around the world experienced an average of 50 more days of health-threatening temperaturestimes when it could be dangerous to play sportsthan they would have without climate change.
Every few years, the tires on your car wear thin and need to be replaced. But where does that lost tire material go?
The answer, unfortunately, is often waterways, where the tiny microplastic particles from the tires synthetic rubber carry several chemicals that can transfer into fish, crabs, and perhaps even the people who eat them.
We are analytical and environmental chemists who are studying ways to remove those microplasticsand the toxic chemicals they carrybefore they reach waterways and the aquatic organisms that live there.
Microplastics, macro-problem
Millions of metric tons of plastic waste enter the worlds oceans every year. In recent times, tire wear particles (TWPs) have been found to account for about 45% of all microplastics in both terrestrial and aquatic systems.
Tires shed tiny microplastics as they move over roadways. Rain washes those TWPs into ditches, where they flow into streams, lakes, rivers, and oceans.
Along the way, fish, crabs, oysters, and other aquatic life often find these TWPs in their food. With each bite, the fish also consume extremely toxic chemicals that can affect both the fish themselves and whatever creatures eat them.
Some fish species, like rainbow trout, brook trout, and coho salmon, are dying from toxic chemicals linked to TWPs.
Researchers in 2020 found that more than half of the coho salmon returning to streams in Washington state died before spawning, largely because of 6PPD-Q, a chemical stemming from 6PPD, which is added to tires to help keep them from degrading.
But the effects of tire wear particles arent just on aquatic organisms. Humans and animals alike may be exposed to airborne TWPs, especially people and animals who live near major roadways.
In a study in China, the same chemical, 6PPD-Q, was also found in the urine of children and adults. While the effects of this chemical on the human body are still being studied, recent research shows that exposure to this chemical could harm multiple human organs, including the liver, lungs, and kidneys.
In Oxford, Mississippi, we identified more than 30,000 TWPs in 24 liters of stormwater runoff from roads and parking lots after two rainstorms. In heavy traffic areas, we believe the concentrations could be much higher.
The Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council, a states-led coalition, in 2023 recommended identifying and deploying alternatives to 6PPD in tires to reduce 6PPD-Q in the environment. But tire manufacturers say theres no suitable replacement yet.
What can communities do to reduce harm?
At the University of Mississippi, we are experimenting with sustainable ways of removing TWPs from waterways with accessible and low-cost natural materials from agricultural waste.
The idea is simple: Capture the tire wear particles before they reach the streams, rivers, and oceans.
In a recent study, we tested pine wood chips and biochara form or charcoal made from heating rice husks in a limited oxygen chamber, a process known as pyrolysisand found they could remove approximately 90% of TWPs from water runoff at our test sites in Oxford.
Biochar is an established material for removing contaminants from water due to its large surface area and pores, abundant chemical binding groups, high stability, strong adsorption capacity, and low cost. Wood chips, because of their rich composition of natural organic compounds, have also been shown to remove contaminants. Other scientists have also used sand to filter out microplastics, but its removal rate was low compared with biochar.
We designed a biofiltration system using biochar and wood chips in a filter sock and placed it at the mouth of a drainage outlet. Then we collected stormwater runoff samples and measured the TWPs before and after the biofilters were in place during two storms over the span of two months. The concentration of TWPs was found to be significantly lower after the biofilter was in place.
The unique elongated and jagged features of tire wear particles make it easy for them to get trapped or entangled in the pores of these materials during a storm event. Even the smallest TWPs were trapped in the intricate network of these materials.
Using biomass filters in the future
We believe this approach holds strong potential for scalability to mitigate TWP pollution and other contaminants during rainstorms.
Since biochar and wood chips can be generated from agricultural waste, they are relatively inexpensive and readily available to local communities.
Long-term monitoring studies will be needed, especially in heavy traffic environments, to fully determine the effectiveness and scalability of the approach. The source of the filtering material is also important. There have been some concerns about whether raw farm waste that has not undergone pyrolysis could release organic pollutants.
Like most filters, the biofilters would need to be replaced over timewith used filters disposed of properlysince the contaminants build up and the filters degrade.
Plastic waste is harming the environment, the food people eat, and potentially human health. We believe biofilters made from plant waste could be an effective and relatively inexpensive, environmentally friendly solution.
Boluwatife S. Olubusoye is a PhD candidate in chemistry at the University of Mississippi.
James V Cizdziel is a professor of chemistry at the University of Mississippi.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
India is on the moon, S. Somanath, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, announced in August 2023. The announcement meant India had joined the short list of countries to have visited the moon, and the applause and shouts of joy that followed signified that this achievement wasnt just a scientific one, but a cultural one.
Over the past decade, many countries have established new space programs, including multiple African nations. India and Israelnations that were not technical contributors to the space race in the 1960s and 70shave attempted landings on the lunar surface.
With more countries joining the evolving space economy, many of our colleagues in space strategy, policy ethics, and law have celebrated the democratization of space: the hope that space is now more accessible for diverse participants.
We are a team of researchers based across four countries with expertise in space policy and law, ethics, geography, and anthropology who have written about the difficulties and importance of inclusion in space.
Major players like the U.S., the European Union, and China may once have dominated space and seen it as a place to try out new commercial and military ventures. Emerging new players in space, like other countries, commercial interests, and nongovernmental organizations, may have other goals and rationales. Unexpected new initiatives from these newcomers could shift perceptions of space from something to dominate and possess to something more inclusive, equitable, and democratic.
We address these emerging and historical tensions in a paper published in May 2025 in the journal Nature, in which we describe the difficulties and importance of including nontraditional actors and Indigenous peoples in the space industry.
Continuing inequalities among space players
Not all countries space agencies are equal. Newer agencies often dont have the same resources behind them that large, established players do.
The U.S. and Chinese programs receive much more funding than those of any other country. Because they are most frequently sending up satellites and proposing new ideas puts them in the position to establish conventions for satellite systems, landing sites, and resource extraction that everyone else may have to follow.
Sometimes, countries may have operated on the assumption that owning a satellite would give them the appearance of soft or hard geopolitical power as a space nation, and ultimately gain relevance.
In reality, student groups of today can develop small satellites, called CubeSats, autonomously, and recent scholarship has concluded that even successful space missions may negatively affect the international relationships between some countries and their partners. The respect a country expects to receive may not materialize, and the costs to keep up can outstrip gains in potential prestige.
Environmental protection and Indigenous perspectives
Usually, building the infrastructure necessary to test and launch rockets requires a remote area with established roads. In many cases, companies and space agencies have placed these facilities on lands where Indigenous peoples have strong claims, which can lead to land disputes, like in western Australia.
Many of these sites have already been subject to human-made changes, through mining and resource extraction in the past. Many sites have been ground zero for tensions with Indigenous peoples over land use. Within these contested spaces, disputes are rife.
Because of these tensions around land use, it is important to include Indigenous claims and perspectives. Doing so can help make sure that the goal of protecting the environments of outer space and Earth are not cast aside while building space infrastructure here on Earth.
Some efforts are driving this more inclusive approach to engagement in space, including initiatives like Dark and Quiet Skies, a movement that works to ensure that people can stargaze and engage with the stars without noise or sound pollution. This movement and other inclusive approaches operate on the principle of reciprocity: that more players getting involved with space can benefit all.
Researchers have recognized similar dynamics within the larger space industry. Some scholars have come to the conclusion that even though the space industry is pay to play, commitments to reciprocity can help ensure that players in space exploration who may not have the financial or infrastructural means to support individual efforts can still access broader structures of support.
The downside of more players entering space is that this expansion can make protecting the environmentboth on Earth and beyondeven harder.
The more players there are, at both private and international levels, the more difficult sustainable space exploration could become. Even with good will and the best of intentions, it would be difficult to enforce uniform standards for the exploration and use of space resources that would protect the lunar surface, Mars, and beyond.
It may also grow harder to police the launch of satellites and dedicated constellations. Limiting the number of satellites could prevent space junk, protect the satellites already in orbit, and allow everyone to have a clear view of the night sky. However, this would have to compete with efforts to expand internet access to all.
What is space exploration for?
Before tackling these issues, we find it useful to think about the larger goal of space exploration, and what the different approaches are. One approach would be the fast and inclusive democratization of space, making it easier for more players to join in. Another would be a more conservative and slower big player approach, which would restrict who can go to space.
The conservative approach is liable to leave developing nations and Indigenous peoples firmly on the outside of a key process shaping humanitys shared future.
But a faster and more inclusive approach to space would not be easy to run. More serious players means it would be harder to come to an agreement about regulations, as well as the larger goals for human expansion into space.
Narratives around emerging technologies, such as those required for space exploration, can change over time, as people begin to see them in action.
Technology that we take for granted today was once viewed as futuristic or fantastical, and sometimes with suspicion. For example, at the end of the 1940s, George Orwell imagined a world in which totalitarian systems used tele-screens and videoconferencing to control the masses.
Earlier in the same decade, Thomas J. Watson, then president of IBM, notoriously predicted that there would be a global market for about five computers. We as humans often fear or mistrust future technologies.
However, not all technological shifts are detrimental, and some technological changes can have clear benefits. In the future, robots may perform tasks too dangerous, too difficult, or too dull and repetitive for humans. Biotechnology may make life healthier. Artificial intelligence can sift through vast amounts of data and turn it into reliable guesswork. Researchers can also see genuine downsides to each of these technologies.
Space exploration is harder to squeeze into one streamlined narrative about the anticipated benefits. The process is just too big and too transformative.
To return to the question of whether we should go to space, our team argues that it is not a question of whether or not we should go, but rather a question of why we do it, who benefits from space exploration, and how we can democratize access to broader segments of society. Including a diversity of opinions and viewpoints can help find productive ways forward.
Ultimately, it is not necessary for everyone to land on one single narrative about the value of space exploration. Even our team of four researchers doesnt share a single set of beliefs about its value. But bringing more nations, tribes, and companies into discussions around its potential value can help create collaborative and worthwhile goals at an international scale.
Timiebi Aganaba is an assistant professor of space and society at Arizona State University.
Adam Fish is an associate professor at the School of Arts and Media at UNSW Sydney.
Deondre Smiles is an assistant professor of geography at the University of Victoria.
Tony Milligan is a research fellow in the philosophy of ethics at King’s College London.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Starting a new job can be exciting and intense. But most new hires fall into traps that can lead straight to burnout: going all-out to impress their bosses, or just trying to survive the transition. The problem isnt that new jobs are demandingits that these default approaches often work against you.
Shooting for work-life balance from the start isnt the answer, as it sets unrealistic expectations around works role at this early stage and can leave the wrong impression. To be sure, you want to establish positive norms. Instead, think about work-life sustainability.
Your first month will require more time and energy than the long-term,but you can navigate it strategically without burning out. Start by motivating, focusing, and managing your effort.
Own Your Motivation to Fuel Your Effort
Creating motivation behind our work directly impacts our success. According to research by BetterUp, motivation accounts for 80% of what drives our performance. While many of us look to our employers to create meaning in our work, we can take control in shaping motivation for ourselves.
Dr. Ayelet Fishbach, an expert on motivation, writes in her book Get It Done about how we can pull ourselves by shaping our circumstances. We have more agency to motivate ourselves than we realize, driving our actions and feeding our energy.
You can build your motivation through three strategies:
Link the role to your personal values. Connect to what is meaningful and matters to you, along with how it aligns to who you are. Doing so taps into whats called identified motivation, and academic studies have shown it leads to more satisfaction, higher persistence, and greater goal attainment.
Ask your leader for stories about your works real-world impact. According to research by Adam Grant, making such associations can increase motivation up to 400%.
Be strategic about cultivating relationships with positive, self-motivated colleagueswhile avoiding energy-draining cynics. The people you surround yourself with not only provide an essential support system to help you achieve your goals, but their attitude is also contagious. Avoid going negative about the job at the start, which can drain your energy and undermine your motivation.
Strategically Focus Your Effort to Build Confidence
New hires are often overeager and take on too much. This can be exhausting and counterproductive, not allowing you to focus your effort where it will matter to gain confidence and demonstrate competence. Instead, prioritize what actually matters in your first 30 days.
Start by managing your own expectations for performance. In your first month, youre in learning mode more than proving mode. Invest time in understanding cultural norms in your organization and on your team.
Next, work with your leader to get crystal clear on priorities and what good and great outputs look like in your first 30, 60, and 90 days. With this clarity, you can channel your effort to gradually build confidence without overextending yourself.
When it comes to your development, even in your first month, dont wait for your manager to direct your learning. Demonstrate your commitment to improvement by owning your growth. Proactively seek feedback to clarify expectations, course-correct, and continuously improve. In this way, you can prove your growing competence to your leader and build professional self-efficacy.
Proactively Manage Your Energy to Sustain Your Effort and Yourself
Going all-out when you start a new job wont be sustainable, and managing your time isnt sufficient. It helps to be discerning about your energy management, considering two human states: using your energy and replenishing it.
Manage your effort to avoid exhaustion with these strategies:
Be selective about what is worthy of your hard work. Not every task deserves equal investment. Know where it matters to put in the effort, keeping in mind your leaders expectations. Before diving too deep into deliverables, challenge perfectionist tendencies by asking, Is this good enough? Seek feedback to ensure youre moving in the right direction before investing excessive time.
Be smart in setting boundaries around life and work to protect what sustains you. Disconnecting from work and turning off devices is critical for sustaining ourselves. But checking out can backfire without demonstrating commitment. When establishing boundaries around your work hours and responsiveness, be transparent, build mutual trust, and avoid surprises. Work collaboratively with your leader, consider team norms, and remain adaptable as you learn your teams rhythm.
Know what you require and have a plan in place to support sustaining your energy. During the intense period when you first start a role, youre unlikely to be able to do all that youd ideally want. Small actions can help, like taking regular breaks throughout your day (half of knowledge workers skip this, despite the proven benefits of short pauses like brief walks, daydreaming, and mindfulness).
Participate in activities that allow you to psychologically detach from work for mental and emotional recovery. Active pursuits like sports or creative activities restore our energy better than passive ones like scrolling social media or watching TV.
Your first month at a job starts to set in place long-term patterns. The professionals who thrive arent those who sprint hardest at the starttheyre the ones who build sustainability from day one. These practices can help you avoid getting on a path to burnout and can position you as a resilient professional.
When I ran into a former client at the grocery store, and asked him how things were going, I expected some polite small talk. Instead, what he said blew my mind.
The guy (lets call him Jim) was an employee of a company that our agency, Blueprint Creative, had worked with a few years back to improve their employee experience program. One of our main brand interventions included articulating and documenting the companys core values: the nonnegotiable principles that would provide their employees with guidance on what on-the-job behaviors would be encouraged and rewarded, and what behaviors simply would not be tolerated.
During our conversation, I asked Jim how things were going at the company after our brand intervention. He said (and this is a direct quote), Things are going well for the company, but they are going even better for me. I decided to adopt the companys core values in my personal life and I feel like Im now a better husband and a better father.
Wait, what?
What we were aiming for during our brand intervention was for the organization to have core values that every employee could embrace and use as a compass to guide their actions in the workplace. But, clearly, by integrating his companys core values into his outside-the-workplace routine, Jim had become not just his best version in his professional life, but also in his personal life.
Unfortunately, this isnt the case at many companies around the world. After all, one of the core values of Enron, the company at the center of one of the U.S.s biggest fraud and accounting scandals, was integritya core value that employees had violated with impunity.
But, at Jims company, their core values were so sticky that they stuck with some employees even after they left the office to go home. This is pretty extraordinary, considering that research shows that just 23% of U.S. employees strongly agree that they can apply their organizations values to their work every day. Presumably, even fewer people believe that they can apply their organizations values to their personal lives.
So, how do some companies end up with compelling core values that, as in Jims case, transform lives, while at other companies, employees dont even know what their organization’s core values are, or (like Enron), openly flout and disrespect their organizations core values? Here are a few tips on how you can develop a set of sticky core values that are adopted and respected by your employees.
Avoid generalization and ambiguity
Avoid generalized core values like Teamwork, Integrity, and Trust. Whether we like it or not, words like these mean different things to different people. Take integrity, for instance. Some companies codes of ethics may prevent them from ever engaging in fraudulent behavior like Enron did, but the company may have no problem developing products that harm the environment, which some individuals may consider to be unethical behaviormaking a core value of integrity ambiguous, open to interpretation, and, by extension, difficult to enforce.
When articulating your core values, avoid using words wrapped in language of generalization or ambiguity. Instead, be specific and unambiguous by getting to the very core of your core values. Read on to find out how.
Get to the core of your core values
Identify the core element of the principles you want your employees to embrace. For instance, at Blueprint Creative, while we wanted our team members to embrace the principle of teamwork, we drilled down to the specific element of teamwork that we want all of our staff to embodythat of having each others backs.
Thats why one of our most treasured core values is look out for each other. This action-oriented core value has become one of our team members favorite principles and is extremely effective in maintaining a culture where each individual knows that their colleagues will go the extra mile to help and support them.
If you want your core values to be effective, be very specific about the core elements of each principle you want your staff to follow. For instance, if your definition of integrity involves environmental protection, your list of core values could include minimize damage to the environment.
Similarly, the core of the broad principle of Innovation could be Be a Problem Solver or Solve Customers Most Burning Problems. If you want to articulate a core value that emphasizes exceeding coworkers and customers expectations, your core value could be Go the Extra Mile.
Be highly descriptive
In order for core values to be truly compelling, you must describe and document in no uncertain terms what it means to live your core values. Consider developing a Core Values Handbook, or an audio or video series that explains what each one of your core values means and how each individual can apply your core values to their roles.
Use real-world examples, stories and analogies that leave no room for misinterpretation. By being highly descriptive, you can provide the clarity employees need to live your core values the way they were intended to be lived.
Integrate core values into everyday conversation
If you want your core values to be lived every day, refer to them every day. Thats exactly what Tasty Catering does. At the beginning of every meeting of three or more employees, Tasty Catering employees repeat the companys core values, leading to employees repeating core values multiple times per weekmaking it virtually impossible for employees to forget what their core values are.
Staff members are also encouraged to use their core values to resolve disputes and make decisions. If you want your core values to be effective, find ways to integrate your core values into the daily lives of your employees.
Choose core values that extend beyond the workplace
People are more at peace when the principles that guide their personal and professional lives are aligned. No one wants to be guided by one set of principles at home and by another set of (oftentimes conflicting) principles at work. As Mahatma Gandhi is often quoted as having said, Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
What Jim did by adopting the companys core values in his personal life led his thoughts, words, and actions to be in perfect alignment whether he was in the workplace with his colleagues or whether he was at home with his wife and kids. But, that only happened because the core values themselves were worthy of being adopted in his personal lifenot just his professional life. Choose core values that add value to your employees professional and personal lives.
Enact accountability
Never allow your employees to disrespect your core values. If the infraction is minor, a transparent and direct conversation with the employee who has acted counter to your core values should be enough to get that employee back on the right track.
But serious (or repeated) infractions may require disciplinary action or even dismissal, especially if that infraction threatens the companysfuture or puts employees at riskfor example, if an employee ignores safety procedures or acts in ways that put the company in legal jeopardy.
Having compelling core values can make it much easier to manage your employees and can lead to a competitive advantage in the marketbut only if your employees embrace and live them every single day. The above tips can help transform your core values from being forgettable into powerful, sticky tools that help you to build a stronger brand and a stronger business.
