Posts tagged with "sustainability"
7 Technologies Powering Renewable Growth in 2023
It’s a wonder humanity isn’t powered 100% by alternative energy technologies with just how many innovations there are. The green energy sector is booming, driven by demand and falling prices. It’s causing companies to think even bigger and more imaginatively to find creative solutions to power the world through a green...
3 Things a Climate Scientist Wants World Leaders to Know Ahead of COP27
Andrew King, The University of Melbourne World leaders and climate experts are gathering for pivotal United Nations climate change talks in Egypt. Known as COP27, the conference will aim to put Earth on a path to net-zero emissions and keep global warming well below 2℃ this century. The world must rapidly decarbonize to avoid...
Benefits of Debt-for-Climate Swaps
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley spoke passionately to the United Nations General Assembly in September about the mounting debt many developing countries are shouldering and its increasing impact on their ability to thrive. The average debt for low- and middle-income countries, excluding China, reached 42% of their gross...
3 Amazing Technologies That Help Make Drinking Water Safer
Clean drinking water is essential to maintaining your general health. Going without clean drinking water for too long can cause lasting health problems and make you extremely sick. Fortunately, new technologies make it easier to drink water anywhere you go without worrying. Please continue reading to learn about three amazing...
AgTech Steps in to Meet Carbon Credit Demand, Expected to Hit $50B by 2030
Environmental efforts that have been a major part of every major government and organization around the world for the past years. Of these efforts, carbon credits have proven to be one of the most popular and effective means of countering climate change by allowing groups and individuals to offset their emissions. Now, carbon credits...
5 Challenges of Doing College in the Metaverse
Nir Kshetri, University of North Carolina – Greensboro More and more colleges are becoming “metaversities,” taking their physical campuses into a virtual online world, often called the “metaverse.” One initiative has 10 U.S. universities and colleges working with Meta, the parent company of Facebook, and virtual reality...
Cheap Material Could Capture CO2 Exhaust From Auto Tailpipes
BY ROBERT SANDERS-UC BERKELEY Researchers have created a cheap, easy, and energy-efficient way to capture carbon dioxide from smokestacks. They used an inexpensive polymer called melamine—the main component of Formica. The new work is a key goal for the United States and other nations as they seek to reduce greenhouse gas...
OAC is Creating the Model for the Future of Construction Intelligence
Technology in the construction industry has been evolving for over 6,000 years. As one of our most basic necessities, construction and architecture chart back to the earliest days of civilization during the neolithic age. While leaps in knowledge and application eventually led to the creation of mysterious pyramids, towering castles,...
Net Zero Water Challenge Innovations Spring Forward
Emission-cutting innovations from three global technology leaders are being accelerated through the UK water sector, thanks to new collaborative platform Spring. Technologies from Siemens, Xylem and Cobalt Water Global are being mobilized through a collaboration of 10 water companies as part of the first Spring Accelerator...
Virtual Reality Platform ecosphere Releases New 360° Doc 'Sea of Islands' with the United Nations
ecosphere, the award-winning documentary title from immersive technology studio PHORIA, and Meta Quest, will today release brand new 360° content in partnership with the United Nations. Since its initial launch in 2020, ecosphere has wowed Meta Quest users with intimate natural history films, produced with the World Wide Fund for...
Dear Elon Musk, We’d Like These by Christmas. Thanks.
Few minds have the level of creativity and checkbook to back it up quite like Tesla founder Elon Musk. From Neuralink to normalizing the electric car, Musk has introduced the world to many creative new concepts. Moving forward, we thought he could use a hand with some neat ideas, so we put together a few fun ones for Musk to get to...
Ice World: Antarctica’s Riskiest Glacier is Under Assault from Below and Losing its Grip
Ted Scambos, University of Colorado Boulder Flying over Antarctica, it’s hard to see what all the fuss is about. Like a gigantic wedding cake, the frosting of snow on top of the world’s largest ice sheet looks smooth and unblemished, beautiful and perfectly white. Little swirls of snow dunes cover the surface. But as you...
50 Years of UN Environmental Diplomacy: What’s Worked and the Trends Ahead
Mihaela Papa, Tufts University In 1972, acid rain was destroying trees. Birds were dying from DDT poisoning, and countries were contending with oil spills, contamination from nuclear weapons testing and the environmental harm of the Vietnam War. Air pollution was crossing borders and harming neighboring countries. At Sweden’s...
Into the Unknown: Stone Recalls Filming New Doc 'Explorer: The Deepest Cave'
In true National Geographic fashion, Explorer: The Deepest Cave follows Dr. Bill Stone and his team into the deepest recesses of the unknown. The one-hour special follows renowned cave explorer Bill Stone as he and his team push the boundaries of what has ever been done before as they attempt one of the greatest achievements of...
While Many Solar Roofing Options Make Big Promises, GAF Energy’s Timberline Solar™ Delivers
Modern solar roofing options are getting a lot of attention lately. In addition to rack-mounted, bolted-on solar panels, sleeker designs have emerged, like edge-to-edge glass solar tiles. These new products are making bold promises, but so far, many have failed to deliver. Enter Timberline Solar™: a new solar roofing product from...
Social Issues Driving Innovation in Tech
Social issues have always been the preeminent force behind innovation, and technological innovation is no exception. After all, what is the purpose of technology if not to meet a human need, serve human interest, or accommodate human values? The connection between social issues and technological innovation, however, has perhaps never...
How Is AI Changing the Environment for the Better?
Significant investments and research developments in artificial intelligence (AI) have made the technology a powerful asset in many industries — including environmental studies. AI isn’t a new technology, but businesses and consumers feel its impact and witness it seep into everyday life. It’s turning into a ubiquitous...
Who is Leading the Way to Sustainability in Travel Tech?
Sustainability is at the forefront of peoples’ minds more than ever before, and with the 2021 COP26 Summit in Glasgow, Scotland still fresh in our collective psyche, travelers are looking for ways to enjoy a much-deserved vacation that doesn’t put unnecessary stress on the environment. These leaders in sustainability are...
Converting CO2 to Sugar: Air Company’s Winning Plan
The Air Company in New York has won first place in NASA's CO2 Conversion Challenge. The competition was for competitors to come up with a way that CO2 conversion could allow future inhabitants of the planet to manufacture products using Mars’ atmospheric carbon dioxide and water as resources. In hopes that someday we can sustain life...
How a few geothermal plants could solve America’s lithium supply crunch and boost the EV battery industry
Bryant Jones, Boise State University and Michael McKibben, University of California, Riverside Geothermal energy has long been the forgotten member of the clean energy family, overshadowed by relatively cheap solar and wind power, despite its proven potential. But that may soon change – for an unexpected reason. Geothermal...
Robotic Food Delivery? It’s Coming
Imagine ordering out from your favorite short-order restaurant half-asleep, pining for that first cup of coffee. The delivery arrives, you look up — and find a robot with your order. And these robotics don’t have arms … “Make that five cups of coffee,” you probably want to say — just to drive this surreal dream out of your...
Going Green at the Tokyo Summer Olympics
First published in the Winter 2021 issue of Sustianability Today. When it finally arrived a year late, the Tokyo Summer Olympics proved to be an amazing two weeks of world and Olympic record-setting performances, a number of huge surprises, one great feat after another. As Olympics should be. But these Games also featured something...
Innovation & Tech Today Names the Top 50 Most Innovative Products of 2021
Innovation & Tech Today (I&TT), one of the leading publishers of content on innovation, technology, and the sciences, today has announced the winners of its Top 50 Most Innovative Products competition. The Top 50 Most Innovative Products is I&TT’s most popular feature every year. The feature includes a collection of...
An Infrastructure Bill with a Sustainable Twist
When Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, they also ushered in something new — a major commitment to a clean energy future. For the past decade, we’ve experienced quite a few unsettling things, including crumbling roads and bridges, highways that badly need expansion to alleviate city traffic, and the terrible ways...
How Brad Pitt’s Green Housing Dream for Katrina Survivors Turned Into a Nightmare
Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation built 109 eye-catching and affordable homes in New Orleans for a community where many people were displaced by damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Now this housing development is in disarray. The vast majority of the recently constructed homes are riddled with construction-related problems...
Why Can’t We Throw All Our Trash Into a Volcano and Burn It Up?
Emily Johnson, US Geological Survey Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. Why can’t we throw all our trash into a volcano and burn it up? – Georgine T. It’s true that lava is hot enough to burn...
4 New Year’s resolutions for a healthier environment in 2022
Viniece Jennings, Agnes Scott College When many people think of New Year’s resolutions, they brainstorm ways to improve themselves for the year ahead. What if we expanded those aspirations to include resolutions that benefit our communities, society, and the planet, too? It might not be a typical approach, but it can broaden...
5 Things to Know This Morning — Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2021
Every day we wake up, drink a cup of coffee, and get ready for work. Following are a handful of stories from around the tech world condensed to fit into one single cup of coffee. These are the things you need to know before you step foot out of your door (or in front of a webcam) and into the real world this morning. So sit back,...
Tornadoes and Climate Change: What a Warming World Means for Deadly Twisters
John Allen, Central Michigan University The deadly tornado outbreak that tore through communities from Arkansas to Illinois on the night of Dec. 10-11, 2021, was so unusual in its duration and strength, particularly for December, that a lot of people including the U.S. president are asking what role climate change might have played...
3 Overlooked Industries Helping to Push Renewable Energy and Sustainable Resources Forward
There’s no doubt we have reached a point of climate crisis. The decisions we make and actions we take as a society now could have grave consequences for our planet. As a technologically and scientifically advanced society, you might think we have the tools we need to counter issues and thrive in the decades beyond. But it’s not...
In the fight against climate change, China is doing more than you think — but still not enough
Phillip Stalley, DePaul University When it comes to climate change, no nation is more important than China. It consumes more coal than the rest of the world combined, and it is the leading emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for nearly 30% of global emissions. Unless China takes rapid steps to control its greenhouse gas...
Bringing Paper and Fiber Products Full Circle with Sustainable Innovation
Today’s consumers are eco-conscious in their expectations of brands. The long-used manufacturing model of producing, using, and discarding packaging and products is now unacceptable. In fact, the majority of Millennials (71%) and Gen Zs (67%) say addressing climate change should be a top issue, however, 60% of Millennials and Gen Zs...
How Manchester is making material gains for cities of the future
Manchester’s international reputation for innovation is entering new realms — with an ambitious community of experts, next-generation materials, new investment, and big plans for the future. Recognized as one of the most innovative cities in the world, the city that was at the center of the Industrial Revolution, is delivering...
Anthony Cross’ Love of Sustainable Innovation Gives a Fresh New Look at Electric Motorcycles
When the pandemic hit, Anthony Cross faced a daunting choice: do I keep publishing Salt magazine, or venture into something equally or more beneficial for the community? The Colorado-based publisher leaned into his lifelong love of cars and desire for a more sustainable world and hit upon an idea — a new way forward in electric...
CES 2022: C Space Keynote to Highlight Transformed Consumer Experience
The Consumer Technology Association (CTA)® today announced its CES® 2022 C Space keynote. In conversation with MediaLink Chairman and CEO Michael E. Kassan, the keynote will feature a panel discussion with Carolyn Everson, President, Instacart; Tariq Hassan, Chief Marketing & Digital Officer, McDonald’s; Edward Kummer,...
4 unexpected places where adults can learn science
Jill Zarestky, Colorado State University Modern society benefits when people understand science concepts. This knowledge helps explain how cryptocurrency works, why climate change is happening, or how the coronavirus is transmitted from person to person. Yet the average American spends less than 5% of their lifetime in classrooms...
Electrify America Jolts Rural Areas in Southern California with Solar Charging Stations
In the ambitious push to install EV charging stations across the country, rural areas have largely seemed left behind and underserved. Increased efforts are underway to rectify that situation through access to solar charging in suitable geographic areas. One of the biggest campaigns to provide rural areas access to solar charging...
6 priorities could deliver energy breakthroughs at the Glasgow climate summit – there’s progress on some of them already
Dolf Gielen, Colorado School of Mines and Morgan Bazilian, Colorado School of Mines Much of the news coming out of the U.N. climate conference has focused on the spectacle, and how countries’ pledges aren’t on track to prevent dangerous climate change. But behind the scenes, there is reason for hope. In many countries, the...