Machine learning, predictive analytics, big data, and IoT are quietly making a massive impact toward a more sustainable planet. More
Tag Index / Showing 1 - 16 of 16 results for “climate change”
EDF to Launch Satellite to Track Methane
Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, told the audience at Techonomy NYC that EDF is launching a purpose-built satellite to locate and measure methane emissions from human-made sources worldwide. "This is our chance to create change, right now," he said. More
The Short-Term Triumph of Short-Termism
Technology is rapidly changing every sector of the economy, as well as the nature of warfare. President-elect Donald Trump doesn't seem to get it. But if you lack a sense of the role of tech, you will only be operating for the short-term. More
Energy & Green Tech Techonomy Events
TE16: Climate Change Calls for “Taboo Techs”
Speakers on climate change at TE16 aimed to dispel the stigma associated with nuclear power and geo-engineering–controversial technologies that might help address the climate change caused by humankind’s use of fossil fuels. One said that radiation risks are actually a problem with coal-fueled power, too. More
Energy & Green Tech Internet of Things
How The Internet of Things Will Fight Climate Change
The Internet of Things may shift how our energy system works as much as the steam engine reconfigured Western economies at the start of the industrial revolution. As the world focuses on its climate crisis, we must become more energy-efficient, produce less carbon dioxide, and power more things with electricity from wind and solar. IoT can make it possible. More
The House Science and Tech Committee Disregards Both
The U.S. House of Representatives Science Committee is a joke, but not a funny one. It spends much time on witch hunts against climate scientists, because climate change denial is its chairman's passion. The ranking member of the committee's Democratic minority calls it "mean-spirited and meaningless." Rather than helping, it actively harms our nation's ability to develop policy for science, tech, and innovation. More
Energy & Green Tech Media & Marketing Society
What the Pope’s Climate Message Means to Marketers
The climate movement has gained what may be the ultimate celebrity spokesperson in Pope Francis. Marketers should take heed: the Pope has the ear of Millennials and other consumers who are willing to change their behavior and their purchasing to make a difference. More
Obama Wants to Fight Climate Change with Lasers
The Obama administration is arming cities across the country with lasers to help combat the effects of climate change. The lasers won’t be used, however, to blast tornadoes to pieces or to zap flash floods before they devastate a town. Instead, they’ll help spot potential climate change hazards before they become a problem. Earlier this month, the U.S. Geological Survey announced that it would launch a $13 million 3-D elevation program using light from lasers to create an advanced mapping system that could make it easier to detect potential flooding issues or find ideal spots for wind turbines and solar panels. More
Energy & Green Tech Startup Culture
Microsoft’s Craig Mundie on Why He’s a Techno-Optimist
Take a monolithic problem like climate change and consider its solutions. Many would say the only answer is to get all of us to alter our lifestyles so we can cut back on greenhouse gas emissions. But a "techno-optimist" like Microsoft's Craig Mundie would urge us to approach the problem from a different, more novel angle: Instead of hinging Earth's health on changing all of society, what about engineering a method of reflecting heat out of the atmosphere? At our Techonomy 2013 conference in November, Mundie spoke with us about how creative traits like "risk tolerance" and "novelty seeking" will help us confront big challenges like climate change. "If you give us a big problem, we'll invent a big answer," he says. "We're [not] bound to live within the constraints of the capabilities we only know today." More
What Will the Energy Landscape Look Like in 2030?
In last week’s New York Times, Daniel Yergin gave readers three possible energy landscapes for 2030: a climate-friendly redesign, a renewable ideal, and a troubled, coal-reliant outlook. He admits that the rapidly changing energy industry makes it nearly impossible to predict our energy future. But scenarios “help to identify what seems to be predetermined,” he says, while also highlighting driving forces and big uncertainties. Which future would you like to see? And how do we harness the innovative thinking necessary to get there? More
Wildfires in the American West: Can Technology Help Save Lives?
In the wake of the June 3oth Granite Mountain tragedy, in which 19 of 20 members of an elite Hotshots team died fighting a huge wildfire outside Yarnell, Arizona—the greatest loss of firefighters in a single day since the 9-11 attacks—there is a shift in focus toward the “new normal.” Prevention and preparedness clearly are not enough; by all accounts, the Hotshots were experienced, well-prepared experts, an elite force combat-trained to handle even the toughest wilderness fires. This fire, said their local fire chief, was “just too dangerous.” More
Energy & Green Tech Jobs Manufacturing
Deloitte’s Chris Park: 3D Printing for Cleaner and Leaner U.S. Manufacturing
Revitalizing manufacturing is essential to U.S. economic recovery, but it’s not clear yet how this new phase might look. One thing is certain: it won’t look anything thing like manufacturing did 15 or even 5 years ago. PARC CEO Stephen Hoover has spoken at Techonomy events about how innovations like 3D printing and crowdsourcing can drive a paradigm shift in manufacturing. But can a new American manufacturing approach also be eco-friendly? Techonomy spoke with Chris Park, a principal at Deloitte who helps clients with their environmental, social, and sustainability performance, about how next-generation manufacturing technology could reduce environmental impact and bring jobs back to the U.S. More
Can Chinese Investment in Clean Tech Cut Through Record-breaking Smog?
With Beijing suffering its worst levels of air pollution on record, news that China was the world's biggest investor in clean energy in 2012 may offer a ray of hope—hopefully one that can cut through the thickening smog. As reported at SmartPlanet, a year-end study by Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows that Chinese investment in clean energy reached $67.7 billion in 2012, up 20 percent from 2011. More
Canadian Company to Scour Carbon Dioxide from the Skies
The Canadian company Carbon Engineering, formed in 2009 with partial funding from Bill Gates, has developed technology to scrub carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. A pilot plant for capturing the gas will open by the end of 2014, reports The New York Times. While the process is aimed primarily at cleaning up the environment, there may be a profit opportunity as well. The oil industry could purchase captured carbon dioxide to inject into oil fields to help extract additional oil, a widely used procedure that Howard J. Herzog, a senior research engineer at MIT, says poses little environmental risk. As oil becomes scarcer, demand for carbon dioxide will likely increase. More
Climate Change Threatens America’s Ski Resorts
The next victims of global warming are America’s skiers and snowboarders. Scientists say that climate change means the nation’s ski centers will eventually vanish, the New York Times reported today. After last winter’s record-breaking warmth, the long-term outlook for winter sporting is bleak. More
Will We Finally Get Serious About Climate Change?
To those of us who believe in science, which includes the rest of the world and apparently no more than half of Americans, it has been painful in recent years to see continued bizarre and destructive weather, even as data clearly suggested climate change is at least partly responsible. Now in the wake of Hurricane Sandy's devastation, experts like Eric Pooley of the Environmental Defense Fund are clearly articulating yet again why we must act. This will be hard politically, because reasonable action will by necessity be global, not just national. We're not too good at that here. Not to mention that many Americans, including powerful politicians, still willfully disregard reality and the likely costs of inaction. This essay by Pooley from The New Republic eloquently underscores the basics. Business Week's cover story entitled It's Global Warming, Stupid! also is a must-read. (Pooley, a great supporter of Techonomy, was my editor at Fortune.) More
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