Two new appointments, of a very different nature, will make a difference to the planet. Elizabeth Dowdeswell, recently appointed Lieutenant Governor for Ontario, gave a wonderful speech to the Woman for Nature event in Toronto, talking about the importance of sustainable development and especially the conservation of biodiversity for the planet.
We recently led an e-Dialogue on waste management in Canada as part of our Solutions Agenda research project. Some interesting nuggets of gold, maybe we need to reframe the issue and reorient our values, is it waste or is it lost productive capacity. Are landfills really stranded assets?
50 million used laptop batteries are discarded every year. The thing is, researchers have found that not only do roughly 70% of these batteries still provide a source of power, they could power an LED light for up to 4 hours a day for a whole year. The technology exists to combine solar panels with an LED light source, and by repurposing these laptop batteries, they can replace what is the most costly component of the existing technology. The IBM group, alongside a hardware R&D firm called RadioStudio, are harvesting working cells. Testing them, and combining them to create new packs.
As more solar and wind electric generating capacity is added in California, the electric grid operator for the state is seeing an increasingly different net load shape. Utility-scale solar now represents more than 10% of the system’s 2014 year-to-date hourly peak demand, more than two-thirds higher than the peak hourly solar output level in 2013. Check out this article for further information.
I recently participated in the Trudeau Foundation Conference in Toronto, Weathering Change Pathways to Sustainability in Canada. There were a number of very interesting panels, mainly because they exposed critical dialogue on key public policy issues for Canada. The panels are available here, including the key note speakers. I encourage you to watch them, it is almost as good as being there.
Our upcoming e-Dialogue as part of our Solutions Agenda research project, will be on the critical topic of waste, Wednesday, December 10th, 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. EST. I will be questioning the expert panel on why Canada does not have progressive policies on waste management, as we are one of the most wasteful countries on the planet.
A French and Dutch design firm called The Cloud Collective has come up with an amazingly innovative and creative way to extract damaging Co2 from busy roadways and convert it into oxygen, using algae. The algae absorb the Co2 emissions, and combined with the absorption of sunlight, convert it into oxygen through the process of photosynthesis. The benefits don't end there. Their innovative design allows for the algae to be even more useful once it has matured.
2014 is on track to break records as being the hottest year yet. Global temperature readings indicate that we’re on track for the warmest worldwide temperatures since we started keeping records in 1879. September 2014 has been the warmest to date, with an average temp of 15.7 C. Though it may come at a great cost, in the form of expected worldwide drought and severe weather patterns, this is a very important piece of the puzzle when it comes to getting the world to recognize and address climate change.
What will the U.K. collaborative economy look like in 2025? Six scenarios have been created to explore this pathway--rise of the micro-entrepreneur, hyper-productive goods, international monopolies, a million local economies, on demand, convenient and embedded and increased sustainability. Interesting food for thought.
These maps and charts are great in revealing the aggregate impacts of human activities. Although we live in an information age, we often can't 'see' the effects of our decision making on the commons and the landscape. For example, there are 450 billionaires with American citizenship, and half of them live in New York and California; Switzerland is the best place to be born; fewer people are dying from war than ever before; the most dangerous drugs in America are perfectly legal.