Both environmentalists and space-enthusiasts want the human species to survive long term.
Is there really a conflict between the two movements?
Here is a short youtube video I did today.
Category: climatology
Many people reject scientific expertise and prefer ideology to facts. Lee McIntyre argues that anyone can and should fight back against science deniers.
Watch the Q&A: https://youtu.be/2jTiXCLzMv4
Lee’s book “How to Talk to a Science Denier” is out now: https://geni.us/leemcintyre.
“Climate change is a hoax—and so is coronavirus.” “Vaccines are bad for you.” Many people may believe such statements, but how can scientists and informed citizens convince these ‘science deniers’ that their beliefs are mistaken?
Join Lee McIntyre as he draws on his own experience, including a visit to a Flat Earth convention as well as academic research, to explain the common themes of science denialism.
Lee McIntyre is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University and an Instructor in Ethics at Harvard Extension School. He holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). He has taught philosophy at Colgate University (where he won the Fraternity and Sorority Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching Philosophy), Boston University, Tufts Experimental College, Simmons College, and Harvard Extension School (where he received the Dean’s Letter of Commendation for Distinguished Teaching). Formerly Executive Director of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University, he has also served as a policy advisor to the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard and as Associate Editor in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a force for good that could play a huge part in solving problems such as climate change. Left unchecked, however, it could undermine democracy, lead to massive social problems and be harnessed for chilling military or terrorist attacks.
That’s the view of Martin Ford, futurist and author of Rule of the Robots, his follow-up to Rise of the Robots, the 2015 New York Times bestseller and winner of the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year, which focused on how AI would destroy jobs.
In the new book, Ford, a sci-fi fan, presents two broad movie-based scenarios.
ORF Genetics in Iceland is growing 100,000 genetically engineered barley plants in a greenhouse measuring over 22 square feet (2 sq m) to create lab-grown meat.
This cutting-edge approach has the potential to lower prices, eliminate reliance on live animals in the lab-grown meat sector, and speed up the scaling-up process, according to BBC. And, with the fact that meat accounts for nearly 60 percent of all greenhouse gases from food production in mind, such a development could have far-reaching implications in the fight against climate change.
Who Wants To Be An Astronaut
Posted in climatology, space travel
Axiom Space, a venture-backed unicorn building the next generation International Space Station, is teaming up with Discovery Channel to give away a trip to the space station onboard SpaceX to the winner of a series of rigorous challenges meant to simulate astronaut training. The series is expected to air in 2022 and for those wanting to go up, casting is underway at discovery.com/astronaut. What this means is that the commercialization of space is happening in a very real way. No longer the realm of science fiction, private startups are joining forces with Fortune 500 companies to build industrial complexes in low Earth orbit for a multitude of commercial purposes including research, development, manufacturing, climate sensing, and even hospitality, with space hotels being planned to serve as WeWorks for those seeking off-planet retreats and remote work offices. you ever gazed up at the stars and wondered what it would feel like to be looking back down at Earth? Are you a space enthusiast who would give anything to travel to space, but never thought you’d have an opportunity? Welcome to WHO WANTS TO BE AN ASTRONAUT — the ultimate chance of a lifetime. Compete for a seat on a flight to the International Space Station where the winner will be able to do something only a handful of humans have ever done…travel into space.
We’re not looking for rocket scientists — this is an opportunity for regular people to have the chance to travel to space and share that journey with the world. (Ok, ok, if you’re a rocket scientist you’re welcome to apply too!)
If this sounds like a mission you want to be part of, now is your chance. Fill out the application below and submit a short video (30−60 seconds) telling us about yourself, why you deserve a chance to travel to space, what it would mean to you, and why you want to participate. We can’t wait to hear from you.
A simple cooling system driven by the capture of passive solar energy could provide low-cost food refrigeration and living space cooling for impoverished communities with no access to the electricity grid. The system, which has no electrical components, exploits the powerful cooling effect that occurs when certain salts are dissolved in water. After each cooling cycle, the system uses solar energy to evaporate the water and regenerate the salt, ready for reuse.
“Hot regions have high levels of solar energy, so it would be very attractive to use that solar energy for cooling,” says Wenbin Wang, a postdoc in Peng Wang’s lab. In many parts of the world, there is a greater need for cooling because of climate change, but not every community can access electricity for air conditioning and refrigeration. “We conceptualized an off-grid solar-energy conversion and storage design for green and inexpensive cooling,” Professor Wang says.
Professor Hasselmann developed a method for satellite ocean wave measurements.
This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics laureate Klaus Hasselmann helped to shape a ground-breaking Earth-observation mission that paved the way for the modern study of our planet’s environment.
The German oceanographer and climate modeler was awarded the coveted prize for his contribution to the physical modeling of Earth’s climate that has enabled scientists to quantify the climate’s natural variability and better predict climate change. Hasselman won half of the 2021 Nobel Prize for Physics last week, with the other half shared by scientists Syukuro Manabe and Giorgio Parisi for their own research on disorder and fluctuations in physical systems.
Sixty-three percent. That’s the proportion of mammal species that vanished from Africa and the Arabian Peninsula around 30 million years ago, after Earth’s climate shifted from swampy to icy. But we are only finding out about it now. — HeritageDaily — Archaeology News.
Vertical Farming has come a long way since the original series was posted 3 years ago, and there have been many developments that are shaping the future of the industry. Whether it’s large scale plant factories, community urban farms, or even new types of farm, the size of vending machines, and even vertical farms at home, the way we grow is changing.
But it’s not just the way we grow, what we grow is also changing. Vertical Farms are adding new crop types like tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries and many other types of fruits and vegetables, and this change has happened sooner than the original series projected.
But to really have a significant impact on the global challenges of climate change, food security and water security, we will have to grow energy intensive crops like wheat and rice in vertical farms.
Are we on track to meet this challenge, or is vertical farming struggling to improve its energy efficiency? Is vertical farming closer to changing the world?
Advanced Nuclear Power Advocacy For Humanity — Eric G. Meyer, Founder & Director, Generation Atomic
Eric G. Meyer is the Founder and Director of Generation Atomic (https://generationatomic.org/), a nuclear advocacy non-profit which he founded after hearing about the promise of advanced nuclear reactors, and he decided to devote his life to saving and expanding the use of atomic energy.
Eric worked as an organizer on several political, union, and issue campaigns while in graduate school for applied public policy, taking time off to attend the climate talks in Paris and sing opera about atomic energy.