Stephan: Here is what looks like very good news. When I said the other day that when you recognize that all life is interconnected and interdependent and you wish to foster wellbeing you make different choices about which technologies to emphasize and this is an example of what I mean.
Brilliant Planet says it can slash the cost of direct air carbon capture while de-acidifying the ocean, using carefully selected local strains of algae cultivated in pools of seawater Credit: Brilliant Planet
Direct air carbon capture is currently far too costly but this London company says it can do it at enormous scale for a tenth the price, using engineered algal blooms in ponds located near desert coastlines. Oh, and it’ll de-acidify the ocean, too.
As humanity fights to keep its only planet from becoming inhospitable, most of the focus will rightly be on decarbonizing everything we practically can. But it won’t be enough. Direct air capture will need to be part of the equation, and it’ll need to be massively scalable, energy efficient and much, much cheaper than today’s technology, so it can become profitable quickly as carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes kick in globally.
London startup Brilliant Planet believes it has a carbon capture and sequestration model that ticks all the boxes, promising scalability up to billions of tons per year, near-negligible energy requirements, and costs around […]
Stephan: The social outcome data makes it clear that unions generally produce increased wellbeing for workers. There are exceptions, of course, the police unions immediately come to mind. Therefore, I see this funding as good news.
Supporters of Amazon workers attempting to win a second union election at the LDJ5 Amazon Sort Center rally on April 24, 2022, in Staten Island, New York. Credit: Andrew Lichtenstein / Corbis / Getty
As labor uprisings heat up and spread across the country, a group of House Democrats is calling for an increase in budget for the federal labor board, which has been starved of the funding it needs to address the current upswing in labor activity.
The group of 149 Democrats, led by Rep. Donald Norcross (D-New Jersey), sent a letter to the House Committee on Appropriations on Wednesday, asking for a roughly 34 percent boost to the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) budget for fiscal year 2023 and requesting a budget of $368 million at minimum. The funding should be specifically directed toward addressing the “staffing crisis” at the board’s regional offices, they said.
The lawmakers also asked for the removal of an appropriations rider that bars the NLRB from conducting union elections with an electronic voting system, which the letter writers called an “antiquated prohibition.” […]
Stephan: I knew there was a large physician shortage in the U.S. but did not know about vets since we have a good one. But this is obviously a growing negative trend affecting many families and farmers not only because of the lack of medical care for the beings in their care but because of the rising prices.
Veterinary appointments are getting harder to come by, with clinics facing labor shortages stemming from pandemic disruption.
Why it matters: Americans are spending more than ever on their pets, which have provided us companionship during a time of isolation.
State of play: Veterinarians say they’re suffering from burnout and offering fewer appointments per hour than pre-pandemic times due to new safety protocols.
Vet shortages are “everywhere right now,” Susan Sholtis, president of treatment provider PetIQ, told investors in March.
“Everybody is pushing to hire veterinarians. … They’re working 1.5 to 2 hours longer every day, and their actual productivity is down. So they’re seeing fewer pets.”
The big picture: Some 1 in 3 Americans adopted a pet in the first several months of the pandemic — and vets are getting overwhelmed dealing with the resulting demand.
The number of monthly appointments per clinic was 1,012 in 2021, up 11% from 2019, according to VetSuccess, an analytics company.
Yes, but: Those appointments are stretched over longer periods. And pet owners — some flush with cash from wage gains, stock growth and stimulus checks — are making extra demands.
“Clients are asking for more veterinary products and services,” according to an analysis by the American Veterinary Medical […]
Stephan: It is beginning to dawn on people with coastal properties, that climate change and the sea rise and tectonic subsidence that accompany it are going to change their lives dramatically and fundamentally, and that is also going to change their local economy. Here is a story from a local publication in Hawaii that makes this point.
Credit: BeachGrit
If Bob Dylan sang it once, he sang it 1000 times and those times are certainly a-changin. Emmanuel Macron has just been elected president of France, professional surfer Kelly Slater is 4th in the world and the environment is threatening to eat people alive.
But what to do when the ocean’s waters rise and rise and rise and disappear whole properties? Well, Kauai County, part of the island state of Hawaii, is considering offering inland turf swaps for those who currently dwell in beachside homes.
“Every beachfront house will eventually fall into the ocean,” said Chip Fletcher, associate dean for academic affairs at the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at UH Manoa. “People just don’t realize that they’re doomed.”
Homeowners in this newly designated danger zone did not ask the county to bail them out, and several of those interviewed for this story said they’re against it. But property swapping is a concept that county planners are exploring as they consider the costs of doing nothing — […]
Nina Lakhani, Alvin Chang, Rita Liu and Andrew Witherspoon, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: Industrial, chemical, monoculture, agriculture is a system that developed with no recognition or concern for the interdependent and interconnected nature of earth's ecosystems. But it was, and is, very profitable for the corporations that make the products that sustained this unconscious system. But it is now becoming clear that this unconscious system of agriculture has also left humanity vulnerable to the effects of climate change, as this report describes. It is time for change.
Crops are already seeing losses from heat and drought. Can genetic diversity – a return to foods’ origins – help combat the climate challenges ahead?
The industrialization of agriculture in the last century boosted production around the world – but that success also made our food systems much more vulnerable to the growing climate crisis.
Modern agriculture depends on high-yield monocrops from a narrow genetic base that needs lots of fertilisers, chemicals and irrigation.
But why does this matter?
Because a richer genetic diversity of foods, like we had in the past, will help make our crops more resilient to higher temperatures and changing rainfall patterns.
Like an investor with stocks, savings and real estate, diversity in the field spreads the risk: so if an early season drought wipes out one crop, there will be others which mature later or are naturally more drought tolerant, so farmers aren’t left with nothing.
Here are five key graphics from our recent special report on the precariousness of […]
