Gates, Zuckerberg and Other Tech Titans Team Up to Push Clean Energy Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and several other of the world's wealthiest tech and business titans are banding together to fight climate change by investing billions in clean-energy research and technologies. The Breakthrough Energy Coalition was announced ahead of the opening day Monday of the U.N.-organized climate talks outside Paris. More than 150 heads of state and government were gathering at the summit to try to find common ground on how to slow the rise in global temperatures. The coalition has pledged to invest in innovative ways to produce "clean" energy, especially in the developing world, and thereby cut down on climate-warming greenhouse gases. "The renewable technologies we have today, like wind and solar, have made a lot of progress and could be one path to a zero-carbon energy future," Gates said in a blog post. "Our primary goal with the coalition is as much to accelerate progress on clean energy as it is to make a profit," Gates said.
A Carbon Tax for Steak May Be the Best Way to Get People to Eat Less Meat From renewable energy to carbon sequestration to cap and trade, a lot of different ideas for arresting the change under way in the climate are going to be discussed at the upcoming international climate talks in Paris. There is, however, one carbon-producing issue that the international group would appear to deem somewhat marginal—only 21 out of 120 national plans included it in their reduction goals—but that could lead to significant cuts in emissions: meat consumption. The problem is, achieving those reductions would require a huge upending of deep-seated habits and cultural norms the world over. The meat industry accounts for 15 percent of emissions globally—equal to the amount of greenhouse gases generated by the world’s cars. A new report published last week by Chatham House, a policy think tank in London, puts forward an expansive, sometimes aggressive road map for how countries could curb emissions by both encouraging and discouraging people from eating meat.
The Koala in the Coal Mine GUNNEDAH, Australia—Scrambling up a rock-strewn hill, I crane my neck and scan a row of trees for koalas. Truth be told, I’ve never been all that good at spotting koalas in the wild. The cartoon-cute marsupial may be one of the world’s most recognizable animals, but try finding one silently snoozing 40 feet off the ground in a leafy eucalyptus tree among hundreds scattered across this former farm in the Liverpool Plains, a fertile agriculture district 250 miles northwest of Sydney. Koalas, which sleep up to 22 hours a day, don’t snore or do much of anything else that would attract attention. But on this sunny antipodean spring day in late September, even the koala experts from the University of Sydney I’m accompanying aren’t having much luck. They aren’t bouncing back. “These heat waves are happening more and more with climate change,” Mathew Crowther, the wildlife ecologist who leads the research team, says as we take a break for lunch. Plant a Tree, and They Will Come Nowhere to Run
Soft drink tax war to bubble up in cities across the U.S. There’s something even more polarizing than whether to call soft drinks pop, soda, or coke: the debate over taxing them. Depending on the results of next year’s elections, your city government might turn your soft drink sugar rush into a source of tax income. Politico has the scoop on the plan to bring these tax initiatives to the polling booth: Public health advocates, flush from victories in Mexico and Berkeley, Calif., are plotting to bring voter referendums and legislation to tax soda in as many as a dozen U.S. cities in 2016. When policy concerning sugary beverages has surfaced before — as in Bloomberg’s ill-fated large soda ban in New York City in 2012 — some people voiced concerns about a nanny-state government meddling in their personal pop-drinking business. In the past, proposed soft drink taxes have proven difficult to pass, partially due to Big Soda’s deep-pocketed interference.
How to read the jargon at the Paris climate change talks Maybe climate change tends to take a back seat because the talks themselves are a jargon-filled monstrosity of diplomatic protocol, which means no one — not even the diplomats themselves! — understands what’s happening half of the time. Here we are, closing out what’s quite possibly the warmest year since the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago, with our atmosphere’s carbon dioxide at record levels and emissions still rising. But, alas, the most interesting drama and diplomatic wrangling are buried in a sea of legalese and acronyms. Case in point: Peru’s environment minister, Manuel Pulgar Vidal — a key figure in recent years at international climate negotiations — recently tweeted a link to a document designed to provide a more-or-less official guide to the Paris talks. So, here is my attempt to translate diplomat-speak to commoner language, focusing on why everyone’s in Paris, what the major sticking points are, and what it all means: Among the major sticking points:
Microsoft buys carbon credits in forest near Rainier to offset pollution Microsoft bought carbon credits certified by a California regulatory program that will preserve 520 acres of forest near Mount Rainier. Washington has no such tool to fight carbon pollution. Lush and lofty, the big trees in a 520-acre forest gracing the vista of Mount Rainier are now doing double duty, in the first-ever carbon-capture program of its kind in the Pacific Northwest. Microsoft bought the carbon credits in this forest under California’s rigorously verified cap-and-trade program. The forest, near Ashford in the Nisqually watershed, will generate 37,000 carbon-offset credits, the equivalent of taking 6,000 cars off the road. Microsoft bought 35,000 of the credits from the Nisqually Land Trust for an undisclosed price. Through photosynthesis, trees, using only water and light energy from the sun, split the carbon from carbon dioxide to make sugar for food. Trees don’t just stand there, they make life, and sustain it. “Forests provide so many values beyond lumber,” Kelley said.
Epson unveils world’s first in-office paper recycling system Printer giant Epson has developed an in-office paper recycling machine. Called the PaperLab, you put waste paper in, and then new, bright white printer paper comes out. Epson says this process is more efficient than sending paper to an off-site recycling plant, and it's also much more secure: the PaperLab, which breaks paper down into its constituent fibres before building them back up into new sheets, is one of the most secure paper shredders that money can buy. The specs of the machine are truly impressive. Epson says that the PaperLab is the world's first paper production system to use a "dry process." As for how the PaperLab actually works, Epson (unsurprisingly) doesn't provide a whole lot of details. Updated: An Ars commenter found an Epson patent, published in 2013, that describes one method of mechanically "crushing and defibrating paper," and then using a cyclone of air to de-ink the crushed paper bits. This post originated on Ars Technica UK
Why real estate needs Tesla-style buildings, used 'Uber-style' While the financial industry is still reeling from recent stock market gyrations, it is tempting to forget about long-term issues, such as extreme weather events, the rising sea levels and demographic change. It’s short-termism versus long-term thinking in its purest form. And it’s human. But even amidst the current turmoil, there seems to be a sea of change in investment beliefs that is becoming ever more prominent, and ever more articulate: The belief that for long-term investors, long-term trends can have real implications for capital values and income returns. Whether it is drought in western North America, flooding in Chinese cities or the rise of renewable energy, some of these “long-term” trends are starting to become real, happening every day, at many places in the world. While long-term trends affect all industries, they are particularly relevant for the real estate sector, where assets are long-lived and typically cannot be moved to another place. Action on buildings
Amazon, data center turn hot idea into cool technology Saving millions of kilowatt-hours a year, the innovative heat-transfer system between Amazon’s downtown high-rises and the region’s chief telecom hub could be a model for others. When Amazon.com’s eye-catching spheres and towers open over the next year, the heat for their thousands of tech workers and hundreds of green plants won’t be a drag on the power grid. Instead, the heat for Amazon’s high-rise Denny Triangle campus will be recycled, essentially, from the Pacific Northwest’s telecom hub on an adjacent block — an innovative partnership that could spread to other downtown buildings. Heat coming from the 34-story Westin Building Exchange will be used to warm just over 4 million square feet of development on Amazon’s four-block campus, saving 80 million kilowatt-hours over 20 years, or about 4 million kilowatt-hours a year, officials said Thursday. The first 1.1 million-square-foot tower opens next month, and a second is expected to open by next fall.
Why Isn't Big Ag's Huge Contribution to Climate Change on the Agenda at COP21? Tackling carbon emissions from agriculture from farming isn’t even on the table at the UN climate talks in December. It ought to be and it’s big agribusiness that’s at the heart of the problem. In 2006 a report from the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) threw the climate change effects of farming into the spotlight. The majority of ensuing studies have only considered emissions released directly through farming. Despite the severity of the situation and although food security is stated as a core objective of the UN climate negotiations, agriculture is still off the agenda at COP21 in Paris this December. Beyond the Burp Industrial agriculture is at the heart of social and ecological costs of farming and integral to this are monocultures. These harmful effects are intensified with meat and dairy production, which requires huge amounts of grain feed and bring belching cattle into the equation, which accounts for a huge chunk of direct emissions. Addressing Agriculture
US to ban soaps and other products containing microbeads The US is set to ban personal care products that contain microbeads after the House of Representatives approved a bill that would phase out the environmentally-harmful items. The bill, which had been backed by a bipartisan committee, will now go to the Senate for approval. The Microbead Free Waters Act would start the phase-out of the tiny pieces of plastic found in soap, toothpaste and body washes beginning 1 July 2017. Microbeads are typically smaller than a pinhead but are causing significant problems in the Great Lakes. Ohio, which has most of the Lake Erie shoreline, is considering microbead legislation, as is Michigan. Research by Oregon State University found that a stunning 8tn microbeads a day were being emitted into bodies of water in the US. “These microbeads are tiny plastic, but make for big-time pollution,” said Republican Fred Upton, a co-sponsor of the bill.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Doesn't Care What You Think About Climate Change “Come with me if you want to live”—it’s a now-legendary line of dialogue from the Terminator film series. But instead of trying to save Sarah Connor from the T-1000, a more advanced cyborg sent from the future to kill her, the original Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is out to rescue Americans from the effects of climate change—whether or not we believe in it. Indeed, on Tuesday morning, the actor and former governor of California, who is in Paris for the UN Cop21 summit, tweeted the line, along with a link to an open letter to climate change deniers that he posted on Facebook on Monday. Schwarzenegger's blunt approach to the subject seems to have struck a nerve—his post has been liked more than 103,000 times, including by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and shared more than 66,000 times. “There are always a few of you, asking why we should care about the temperature rising, or questioning the science of climate change,” wrote Schwarzenegger.
Chinese Researchers Unveil Brain Powered Car