Good reads & charts - May 6, 2024

In this edition: China's holidays and spreading the word on hurricanes. Also, climate investment, progress on deforestation and the nudging approach!

Good reads & charts provides an assortment of interesting articles and data that I have come across recently that do not warrant a full article and might not be related to something I have previously discussed, but I feel are worth larger consumption.

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Holidays in China, not really holidays!

Is it a holiday if you have to work subsequent weekends to make up for the fact that you were on holiday?

[May 5 was] the last day of the Labour Day holiday (劳动节 láodòng jié) in China.

In the lead up to it, there was much criticism of the five-day break, and the Chinese practice of "holiday days adjustment" (调休 tiáoxiū).

National holidays in China often involve "adjusting" weekend days into working days. It's intended to extend the holiday period by aligning holidays with weekends, creating longer breaks.

This year the Labour Day holiday started on Wednesday 1st May, and ends today, on Sunday 5 May.

That’s five rest days in total. But "adjustment days" on either side of the holidays are Sunday April 28, and Saturday May 11, when people are required to work, meaning two six-day weeks to "adjust" for the time off in the first five days of May.  

So not including the two weekend days in the Labor Day break (May 4 and 5), and two adjusted holidays from the two weekends before and after the holiday, workers in China actually only get one additional day of rest.

Many people are now calling for a change to the policy, which has been in place since 1999:

Whether or not to adjust holidays has caused heated discussion for many years, and it's difficult to find the right answer.

However, these debates have clearly shown: people want more holidays and they are tired of the existing practice of "tearing down the east wall to repair the west wall", i.e. borrowing weekend days to seemingly extend a holiday.

要不要调休是一个争议多年的话题，很难有绝对正确的答案。然而透过这些争议，可以听到人们的心声：人们期待更多的假期，而不是“拆东墙补西墙”的调休。

"Yàobuyào tiáoxiū shì yíge zhēngyì duōnián de huàtí, hěnnán yǒu juéduì zhèngquè de dá'àn. Rán'ér tòuguò zhèxiē zhēngyì, kěyǐ tīngdào rénmen de xīnshēng: rénmen qīdài gèngduō de jiàqī, ér búshì 'chāi dōng qiáng bǔ xī qiáng' de tiáoxiū."

Source: "Tear down the east wall to repair the west wall" — Phrase of the Week (Sinica)

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Climate change makes hurricanes more powerful

With hurricane season starting in a few weeks, this is an important reminder that climate change has had a direct impact on the strength of hurricanes.

Last year, Andrew Dessler at The Climate Brink put together a nice summary of all the ways climate change exacerbates hurricanes. He reshared that information this week, with the explicit request that readers “help get the word”.

So hear I am, spreading the word!

Climate change is making hurricanes more destructive