Jaime Green You have a problem. You gather a group of smart, creative people and say, Let’s brainstorm. Together, you bounce around a bunch of ideas, whittling and honing them until you arrive at it: The Solution. ‘How I Work’ with Josh Gondelman 12/08/2017 Well, if that’s how you’re doing it, you have another problem: you’re brainstorming wrong. Using brainstorming to focus …
Joe Romm says the future is here: solar, wind, battery, and electric car “miracles” have gone mainstream
By Joe Romm, 14 Dec 2017 The competition for the biggest clean energy story of 2017 is intense. Building and running new renewable energy is now cheaper than just running old coal and nuclear plants. The lowest price for solar power last year is the highestprice now. Battery prices were cut in half just since 2014. And who could have imagined — just a few years after Tesla …
Research shows that every $1 invested in restoring degraded land generates an estimated $7–$30 in economic benefits
Be Helen Ding, Sofia Faruqi, Caroline Gagné and Andrés Anchondo Ortega – December 19, 2017 WRI Costa Rica is a restoration success story. Photo by Aaron Minnick/WRI Trees are obviously good for the planet. What’s not so clear to most people—governments, NGOs, investors, the public—are their socioeconomic benefits. Trees are essential for the economy, our health and our wellbeing. , including improved food production, carbon sequestration, and …
On track to what? Colonialism, climate change and COP23 Nic Beuret, Anja Kanngieser, and Leon Sealey-Huggins explore the effects of the COP23 negotiations on the global south
December 19, 2017 The most prominent global conference on climate change – the UNFCCC 23rd Annual Conference of Parties meeting – recently closed with much fanfare, talk of success and ‘being on track’. There was little to indicate that any significant headway had been made to curb the predicted catastrophic levels of global warming however. Hosted by the COP23 President …
New Research Confirms ‘Catastrophic’ Climate Threat: Global Sea Levels Could Rise 174 Feet From Melting East Antarctic Ice Sheet
By Tim Radford, EcoWatch Dec 18 2017 New research has confirmed one of the worst nightmares of climate science: the instability of the East Antarctic ice sheet. This vast mass holds enough water to raise sea levels by 53 meters (approximately 174 feet) worldwide. And researchers have confirmed that one stretch of the southern polar coastline has melted many times in the past: by enough to …
Hong Kong Smart City Blueprint follows aspects of Los Angeles’
Hong Kong has released its “Smart City Blueprint” to guide its leaders in achieving their vision of becoming a world-class smart city. The blueprint maps out development plans for the next five years and beyond. The plan is based on a study the government commissioned that contains short-, medium- and long-term plans in six “smart” areas: mobility, living, environment, people, government and …
Arctic shows no sign of returning to reliably frozen region of recent past decades
By Eric Holthaus on Dec 18, 2017, Grist Last week, at a New Orleans conference center that once doubled as a storm shelter for thousands during Hurricane Katrina, a group of polar scientists made a startling declaration: The Arctic as we once knew it is no more. The region is now definitively trending toward an ice-free state, the scientists said, with wide-ranging …
How Massive Inequality Permeates ‘All Areas of American Society’ in 12 Simple Charts
“Unfortunately the policy focus on the last year, culminating in the end-of-year passage of massive tax cuts for corporations, addressed nonexistent problems rather than the real problems we face.” by Jessica Corbett, staff writer Common Dreams Dec 2017 Twelve charts about American inequality, compiled by the Economic Policy Institute, depict data about issues that include stagnant wages and wealth gaps based on …
To Save the Internet We Must Own the Networks
The FCC and Congress have given us both the incentive and the opportunity to build a nationwide democratic Internet governed in the public interest. By David Morris ILSR “Our focus right now and for the foreseeable future must be on promoting democratic broadband networks,” writes Morris, “guided by the needs of their customers and their communities. Which means doubling, tripling, increasing ten …
Really committed to zero deaths in transportation?
Is Your City Committed to Vision Zero, or Just Paying Lip Service? in Streetsblog, by Angie Schmitt, Dec 20, 2017 Again this many deaths are from air pollution from fossil fueled vehicles Change in total traffic deaths in six cities, with the year 2010 indexed to 100. The year of Vision Zero adoption is marked in black. Nearly three dozen American cities have …