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Category: Climate Change

An Homage to Earth Day

An Homage to Earth Day

Image by Ericve from Pixabay

Climate engineering is nothing new. We’ve been allowing Bill Gates et all to crisscross the skies with chemtrails to block out the sun in order to reduce global warming, or so goes the unproven hypothesis. “Controversial spraying method aims to curb global warming,” CBS News reported in 2018.

Odd, as four years later, “CNBC report on climate research didn’t confirm ‘chemtrails’ theory,” AP reported, contending that “The story reported on a federal plan to research technology such as “stratospheric aerosol injection,” the concept of placing materials in the atmosphere to reflect sunlight away from Earth. Experts say the idea is being investigated and not currently in use.”

Well, look! Up in the skies! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s superscientist Bill Gates crisscrossing the skies with chemtrails! “A Bill Gates Venture Aims To Spray Dust Into The Atmosphere To Block The Sun. What Could Go Wrong?” Forbes reported the year before. “Widespread research into the efficacy of solar geoengineering has been stalled for years due to controversy. Opponents believe such science comes with unpredictable risks, including extreme shifts in weather patterns not dissimilar to warming trends we are already witnessing.” Read More...

The Current Climate and Other Changes

The Current Climate and Other Changes

We sometimes like to look at various parts of tech and do the math. We know that climate change and reducing the carbon footprint is a high priority for the planet, because Al Gore warned us in 2009 that “the North Pole will be ice-free in the summer by 2013 because of man-made global warming.” According to life-long politician/non-scientist Gore, carbon emissions are the culprit and note to self: that didn’t happen. Which may have contributed to the president of Cop28, Sultan Al Jaber’s, claim that “there is “no science” indicating that a phase-out of fossil fuels is needed to restrict global heating to 1.5C,” as The Guardian reported.

There isn’t even a consensus among scientists that carbon emissions/fossil fuels are a problem (Putting the ‘con’ in consensus; Not only is there no 97 per cent consensus among climate scientists, many misunderstand core issues).

If the billionaires who flew to the Cop28 are so concerned about carbon emissions and the seas rising, why did they all fly to the summit on private jets and own beachfront properties? In fact, “Jeff Bezos’ Superyacht Generates 447 Times the Yearly Carbon Emissions of Average US Household,” said Gulf Insider. And “the Tennessee Center for Policy Research charged (in 2007, just after he won the Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth, his documentary about the coming climate ‘disaster’) that the gas and electric bills for the former vice president’s 20-room home and pool house devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-hours,” ABC News reported. Read More...

What If Elected Officials Were Scrutinized the Way Startups Are?

What If Elected Officials Were Scrutinized the Way Startups Are?

Given recent world events, we decided that wouldn’t it be interesting to examine what the results would be if elected officials and their policies were put under the same scrutiny as are startups – using an investor lens.

We use the following simply as an example.

There have been several mandates/regulations coming from the current administration and state and local governments that are pushing the population to reduce the amount of fossil fuels burned for residential purposes and pushing us increasingly onto the power grid. Read More...

And the Winner of this Year’s Darwin Awards of Tech is…

And the Winner of this Year’s Darwin Awards of Tech is…

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

It’s time to offer something of a Darwin Award for Tech, which we will call the SOSy Awards – for SOS, of course, bestowed on people who are so off base in their pursuits, they clearly need help. Or a serious intervention, at the very least.  Our suggestion for this inaugural winner is none other than everyone’s favorite doctor, even though he has no medical degree, received a C+ in organic chemistry, and is a college dropout…

Bill Gates!

We’ve chosen Gates as the premier recipient for many reasons, not the least of which is his latest foray into pseudoscience: Bill Gates Funds Plan to Chop Down, Bury Millions of Trees in the of climate change, of course. You know, those things that convert carbon into oxygen, which are necessary for carbon-based species such as people to survive.

MIT Technology Review reported that Kodama Systems had raised around $6.6 million, a hefty sum, from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, billionaire Bill Gates’s climate fund. Trees will be cut down in California and buried in Nevada for this “stealth effort,” which Kodama characterizes as “biomass burial,” PJ Media reported. Read More...

Time to Stop and Smell the Absurdities

Time to Stop and Smell the Absurdities

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

It was something of a travel week for us, and a good time to at long last look at articles in the ‘save for later’ pile, which we did: stopped to smell the absurdities.

Incandescent lightbulbs were outlawed recently in favor of the longer lasting and supposedly more climate friendly LED bulbs, but according to greenmatters, LED Bulbs May Not Be as Great as We Thought — Studies Show Health and Environmental Risks, reporting that “Per a recent study published in the journal Science Advances, researchers from the University of Exeter have noted various health and environmental risks that come with LED lights. According to The Guardian, LED bulbs are becoming increasingly more common, and even though they are more energy efficient, they emit more blue light radiation”…which is harmful to human health and the environment.

What to speak of the fact that they arguably create more of an environmental hazard when it comes to their disposal. Read More...

The Heat of Summer: Cue Up the Global Warming Warnings

The Heat of Summer: Cue Up the Global Warming Warnings

Photo by unsplashed

Since we’re in the heat of summer in most parts of the world, it’s a good opportunity to address climate change. For the record, according to Weather.com, last “July (was) on track to be the coolest in the U.S. since 2015, according to Todd Crawford, Director of Meteorology at Atmospheric G2.” Although not many of us were around to experience those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, to quote Nat King Cole, re last summer, how quickly we forget.

 

CNN has been all over ‘climate change’ and recently hosted the founder (whom CNN misidentified as the co-founder) of the Weather Channel, climatologist John Coleman. Read More...

What Do Quicky Vegas Weddings and VC Funding Have in Common?

What Do Quicky Vegas Weddings and VC Funding Have in Common?

Image by Dariusz Sankowski from Pixabay

Back in 2010, Mark Suster penned a blog post entitled Invest in Lines, Not Dots and like many investors, Suster has sat on both sides of the table. It a must read for entrepreneurs, especially if you plan on raising money from investors, now or any time in the not-too-distant future, or ever. It’s also a great explanation of the importance of establishing relationships with investors before you need the money – and gives you something of an idea of a good investor’s mindset.

Why can’t investors simply understand what a monster company you’re building and just write the bloody check?

As Suster points out, “We want to make sure we’re in love. This sometimes frustrates entrepreneurs who just want to “get back to running the business.” But if you understand it you’ll see that it is perfectly rational and it should also influence how you form relationships with investors. And remember, if we get married you’re stuck with us, too.” Read More...

Eco-Friendly? Sustainable? Things that Make You Go ‘Hmmm.’

Eco-Friendly? Sustainable? Things that Make You Go ‘Hmmm.’

And thank you, C+C Music Factory.

‘Sustainable,’ ‘circular economy,’ and ‘environmentally conscious’ are definitely practically de rigueur among entrepreneurs these days and we are totally on the same page. In fact, we’ve been composting for years. But are products et al that people call sustainable, truly sustainable – or eco friendly. There are just a few points/examples of things that make you go hmmm that we’d like to share as a sort of nudge to you, and/or to provoke something of a head-scratching moment. Pay attention: science can sometimes be something of a shifting target:

  Read More...

The Earthquake in Chile: A Parable for a Green World

The Earthquake in Chile: A Parable for a Green World

The reference is to a novel by Heinrich von Kleist, where nothing happens the way one would expect, and all things are not what they seem.

Jenny Fielding, Managing Director of Techstars New York City Accelerator, which recently selected its latest batch of cohorts, penned a piece (New World, New Focus. How Application Trends at Techstars NYC Point to a Changing World) about the shift in focus of the entrepreneurs, given the current climate. And always important for founders to look to what the problems are, find the white space, and take it from there.

Speaking of climate, much attention has been given in the past few years to climate change. As always, important to look around, see what the problems are and find the white space. Glaringly obvious this past week were the events in Texas, when a devastating cold snap caused the windmills to freeze and the power grid to fail. Read More...