Water water everywhere and plenty of drops to drink. Researchers from MIT have found a way to passively convert seawater into drinking water using a setup so simple it seems too good to be true. Their device basically uses heat from the sun rays and a siphon. The apparatus produces
Continue readingTag: MIT
Things Are Good: Open Source, 3D Printed, Pollution Monitoring
Efforts to monitor pollution levels around the world aren’t new, but what is new is a system created by MIT’s Senseable City Lab that anyone can make. Called Flatburn, the system is designed to be put on a vehicle to monitor pollution levels throughout a city, which will provide more
Continue readingThings Are Good: Treepedia Lets Cities See Where Trees are Needed
Treepedia is a new tool from MIT that uses Google street view to asses what the coverage of trees are in specific areas. It lets you know what your neighbourhood is like and doesn’t just bias cities with big inaccessible parks. This means that cities (and people!) can use this
Continue readingThings Are Good: Get Water from Air by Using a Windtrap
In Frank Herbert’s book Dune the inhabitants of a desert planet collect water using giant “windtraps,” now we can do the same on earth. Researchers at MIT have built a prototype, which can be easily scaled up, that can capture a lot of water from even the driest of places.
Continue readingThings Are Good: Get Rewarded for Supporting Civil Disobedience
If your idea to change the world is creative enough then you could get $250,000 from LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman. Technically, it’ll be from MIT Media Lab with money from Hoffman. The Lab and Hoffman teamed up to ensure that creative civil resistance in the USA doesn’t die under the
Continue readingThings Are Good: MIT Encourages Solar Energy to Power the Future
Solar roof Now that climate change has reached the point that it is happening regardless if we stop all human produced carbon output we desperately need to change how we generate electricity. MIT has concluded that a mass adaptation of solar energy is the best route to go. They argue
Continue readingFacing Autism in New Brunswick: "Professor" John Elder Robison’s Limited Understanding of Autism and Autism Research
MIT Technology Review: John Elder Robison is a professor at the College of William & Mary and the author of Look Me in the Eye. John Elder Robison is a former “free ranging “Aspie”, a successful businessman, writer and now apparently a professor as indicated in the MIT Technology Review article Fixing
Continue reading350 or bust: Alberta Oil Sands Not Economically Viable, MIT Report States
I’m on my way to Washington DC with 20 other Canadian climate activists, to join forces with 330 Americans from across the United States who are concerned that future generations will inherit a harsh and unforgiving world because of the climate crisis. The Citizens Climate Lobby diaspora collecting in D.C. intends to
Continue readingopenalex: Canadian Cities Lead on Planning for Climate Impacts
[I was suprised to see Canadian cities come out in the lead on adaptation. But also a bit disturbed to see just how nascent these efforts are, not just here, but globally. We’ve got a long way to go… @ sustainable cities canada] Canadian cities are world leaders in preparing
Continue readingopenalex: Canadian Cities Lead on Planning for Climate Impacts
Not long ago people didn’t want to talk about adapting to climate change. In some cities – particularly in wealthy Northern countries – there was a sense of optimism and invulnerability. Discussing adaptation was also taboo; it was seen to take away from efforts to reduce our emissions. It was like admitting defeat.
But with global efforts to cap emissions failing, that began to change.
Iconic metropolises like New York and London began assessing the serious impact that an unstable climate would have on them. Late in 2010 planning guides were released in both the US and Canada to help all cities to identify their vulnerabilities and plan for new conditions.
The M.I.T. report, lead by Dr. JoAnn Carmin a top expert on urban adaptation planning, gives us our first view of the overall state of affairs. Based on survey responses from 468 cities on six continents the report provides interesting big picture conclusions, as well as more specific regional insights.
Climate Change Has Landed, But Resources Are Lacking
The first is that climate change has landed. Fully 79% of cities surveyed report that they are already feeling the impacts of stronger storms, longer droughts, flooding, and higher temperatures. This is leading to concerns over their ability to deal with increased future risks ranging from damage to municipal infrastructure, to the emergence of new diseases and declining housing safety.
Overall, despite having identified high levels of vulnerability, cities globally report that they lack the financial, institutional, and political resources that they need to respond effectively. Even basic preliminary work – like creating a vulnerability assessment – is stretching available resources. Sixty percent of cities are receiving no support whatsoever for their adaptation work. This is exacerbated by difficulty winning support for adaptation from local officials, and a perception that national governments know little about the impact that climate change will have on their cities.
Canadian Cities Leading (Minus the Feds and Business)
Canadian cities stand out in a number of ways. They report the second highest rate of engagement with adaptation planning. They also report relatively high rates of support for adaptation work from local politicians and government departments. As a result Canadian cities lead their peers in various aspects of planning for the impacts of climate change. Canadian cities also stand out for the relatively high level of financial support they receive from the Provinces.
While the Provinces may be supportive, the story is different when if comes to the Federal government. Seventy percent of Canadian cities reported that national government had only a partial grasp of the local impacts of climate change; 30% reported that the federal government had no understanding at all. The only country reporting lower confidence in national government was the United States.
Interestingly, Canada is also the only country where not a single municipality reported involving business in the adaptation planning processes. Our cities are also exceptionally unconcerned with the economic impacts of climate change. Only a small minority report being worried about potential losses of revenue, tourism, or jobs. Put those two together and it seems to me we may be overlooking both valuable partners and important risks.
Working Alone
While these last two may be troubling for Canadians, overall the report draws attention to a much bigger challenge. Cities around the world are only just beginning to prepare for the impacts of climate change. Most are conducting preliminary meetings with local government departments, doing on-line research, and forming commissions or task forces to support adaptation planning.
Going from there to creating strategies and integrating them into municipal operations will be a huge leap. Everything indicates that cities currently lack the political, financial, and institutional resources that they need to accomplish that critical work.
[I’ve covered work on urban adaptation quite a lot over the past few years. If you are interested in more, see these past articles.]
Continue readingopenalex: Canadian Cities Lead on Planning for Climate Impacts
[I was suprised to see Canadian cities come out in the lead on adaptation. But also a bit disturbed to see just how nascent these efforts are, not just here, but globally. We’ve got a long way to go… @ sustainable cities canada] Canadian cities are world leaders in preparing
Continue readingThings Are Good: MIT and Harvard to Launch Full Free Courses Online
This is a really cool way to bring post-secondary education to more people via the internet. Harvard and MIT are launching a new initiative built upon MIT’s expertise in online course delivery to launch a new project called edX that’ll give unbridled access to the knowledge in the two acclaimed
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Can Geeks Defeat Lies? Thoughts on a Fresh New Approach to Dealing With Online Errors, Misrepresentations, and Quackery
fact check universe.png This afternoon, I’ll be at MIT for this conference, sponsored by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard and the MIT Center for Civic Media and entitled “Truthiness in Digital Media: A symposium that seeks to address propaganda and misinformation in the new media ecosystem.”
Continue reading