renewable energy

What cool new technologies are you seeing emerge? How do we know we can trust them? Curious about all, but I'd especially love to see non-AI versions, like:

• New batteries for solar: storing heat in big piles of dirt
• A while back Tommy mentioned cowfart backpacks
• Maybe it's something old for you, but we're not in your field so we don't know about it yet

Even though a lot of what we share won't make it, for a variety of reasons, I always find get an overview of the cool stuff humans are creating really inspiring and hopeful.

What cool new technologies are you seeing emerge? How do we know we can trust them? Curious about all, but I'd especially love to see non-AI versions, like:

• New batteries for solar: storing heat in big piles of dirt
• A while back Tommy mentioned cowfart backpacks
• Maybe it's something old for you, but we're not in your field so we don't know about it yet

Even though a lot of what we share won't make it, for a variety of reasons, I always find get an overview of the cool stuff humans are creating really inspiring and hopeful.

Finally they learned to cut off people's mics. Hot take: If the media wasn’t so Green and did this in 2016, I think Hillary would have won.

When it comes "the global warming debate," there are often third ways that are ignored. Often the framing is global warming and climate deniers or something like that.

but it seems like there are obviously multiple perspectives here, and these two black and white boxes keep us from really seeing potential solutions.

Bjorn Lomborg for example believes in man-made climate change, but also doesn’t like the alarmism. Although he cherry picks data like he accuses others of, he also I think rightfully points out lots of flaws in the arguments that help us identify solutions. Much of the hurricane damage increase over time is because we’re building bigger and more expensive houses in hurricane alleys; for this problem, we can stop building there; everybody stopping flying altogether until 2100 delays increases the increase by a few weeks, so stopping flying isn’t the solution. Often the solutions are smaller, more local, less sexy: want less polar bears to die? Increase regulation on poaching. (Polar bear populations are up over the past decade because of this, apparently). I would love to identify and popularize these solutions, so they are spoken in the same breath as global warming rather than it being all gloom and doom and end of the world.

There are real tricky questions about what we’re trying to preserve and for whom, as well. If all we care about are humans and climate migration, then building infrastructure in places like Haiti and even evolving to coal power would be more helpful.

When it comes "the global warming debate," there are often third ways that are ignored. Often the framing is global warming and climate deniers or something like that.

but it seems like there are obviously multiple perspectives here, and these two black and white boxes keep us from really seeing potential solutions.

Bjorn Lomborg for example believes in man-made climate change, but also doesn’t like the alarmism. Although he cherry picks data like he accuses others of, he also I think rightfully points out lots of flaws in the arguments that help us identify solutions. Much of the hurricane damage increase over time is because we’re building bigger and more expensive houses in hurricane alleys; for this problem, we can stop building there; everybody stopping flying altogether until 2100 delays increases the increase by a few weeks, so stopping flying isn’t the solution. Often the solutions are smaller, more local, less sexy: want less polar bears to die? Increase regulation on poaching. (Polar bear populations are up over the past decade because of this, apparently). I would love to identify and popularize these solutions, so they are spoken in the same breath as global warming rather than it being all gloom and doom and end of the world.

There are real tricky questions about what we’re trying to preserve and for whom, as well. If all we care about are humans and climate migration, then building infrastructure in places like Haiti and even evolving to coal power would be more helpful.