One analyst: “It’s not a slam-dunk.” JASON DEIGN MARCH 19, 2018, GTM media Using electric vehicles for grid services isn’t easy. The U.K. launched a major vehicle-to-grid (V2G) study last month. But it could still be a long time before the technology goes mainstream. “V2G projects often get stuck in pilot,” admitted Simon Daniel, CEO of energy storage firm Moixa Energy, …
Climate change is “most systemic threat to humankind,” says UN Chief
By Somini Sengupta, NYTimes.com March 29, 2018 ImageAntónio Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, said, “I am beginning to wonder how many more alarm bells must go off.”CreditGiuseppe Lami/European Pressphoto Agency, via Shutterstock. UNITED NATIONS — Nuclear weapons? Famine? Civil war? Nope. The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, on Thursday called climate change “the most systemic threat to humankind” and …
How Facebook Helps Shady Advertisers Pollute the Internet
By Zeke Faux, Bloomberg, March 27, 2018 It was a Davos for digital hucksters. One day last June, scammers from around the world gathered for a conference at a renovated 19th century train station in Berlin. All the most popular hustles were there: miracle diet pills, instant muscle builders, brain boosters, male enhancers. The “You Won an iPhone” companies had display …
High-quality social interactions building intimacy and trust with others can promote egalitarianism and is essential to happiness and well-being
Quarz.com March 2018 The new World Happiness Report again ranks Denmark among the top three happiest of 155 countries surveyed—a distinction that the country has earned for seven consecutive years. The US, on the other hand, ranked 18th in this year’s World Happiness Report, a four-spot drop from last year’s report. Denmark’s place among the world’s happiest countries is consistent with many other national …
Between Debt and the Devil by Adair Turner review – should the government start printing money?
Guardian Book Review Analysis of real force … Adair Turner. Photograph: Ben Smith/Rex After the crisis of 2008, every concerned citizen wanted to understand what had been going on in the City to take us all to the brink of bankruptcy. It suddenly seemed important to unravel mysterious acronyms – CDOs, SIVs, CDSs – that you might previously have skimmed breezily over …
Highlights from Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business by Rana Foroohar
Finance holds a disproportionate amount of power in sheer economic terms. (It represents about 7 percent of our economy but takes around 25 percent of all corporate profits, while creating only 4 percent of all jobs.) But its power to shape the thinking and the mind-set of government officials, regulators, CEOs, and even many consumers (who are, of course, brought …
Counter to utility claims, studies show solar users provide net benefits
Phoenix, AZ – Solar panels provide pollution free energy that delivers far reaching benefits to the environment and the electric grid, said a new report released today by Environment America Research & Policy Center. The report outlines how solar panels on homes, schools and businesses often provide more benefits than they receive through programs like net metering, counter to utility …
Cambridge Analytica parent company SCL Elections had access to secret info from Defense Ministry, which praised SCL for training it gave to psychological warfare group
Revealed: graphic video used by Cambridge Analytica to influence Nigerian election: Whistleblower says firm directed AggregateIQ to target voters with Islamophobic video in 2015 By Carole Cadwalladr, The Guardian, Wed 4 Apr 2018 Play Video 2:05 How Cambridge Analytica tried to intimidate Nigerian voters – video report Cambridge Analytica sought to influence the Nigerian presidential election in 2015 by using graphically violent imagery to …
Paris Agreement commits to keep temperature rise to 1.5C or “well below 2 C” goals
At the UN Climate Conference in Paris, known as COP21, 196 countries joined together in the Paris Agreement, a universal pact that sets the world on a course to a zero-carbon, resilient, prosperous and fair future. While the Agreement is not enough by itself to solve the problem, it places us clearly on the path to a truly global solution. Building on …
Explainer: Taking Greenhouse Gases from the Sky: 7 Things to Know About Carbon Removal
By Kelly Levin, James Mulligan and Gretchen Ellison – March 19, 2018, wri.org Restoring degraded landscapes like this one in Costa Rica is a natural way of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Photo by Luciana Gallardo Lomeli/WRI With greenhouse gas emissions climbing and climate impacts becoming increasingly severe, the urgency to address climate change has never been greater. Many of the solutions to date have …