Month: February 2014

The Day We Fight Back Against Spying

- Adam Clare

Thanks HuffPo!

The Day We Fight Back against mass surveillance is today!

Thanks to Edward Snowden we have learned about America’s and other countries illegitimate and immoral mass surveillance operations. More revelations about the extent of the surveillance programs are sure to come. Just in the past couple of days it was revealed that the NSA operates a kill list based on SIM cards in cell phones regardless of who actually uses the phone.

The argument that we shouldn’t care about the surveillance because they only look at metadata is bunk. SIM cards are an example of the metadata the NSA (et. al) care about and it has led to too many civilian deaths from drone strikes.

People like myself find this type of surveillance to be rather problematic and insanely dangerous. If you’re in Canada be sure to tell your local MP that you are opposed to the spying done by Canada’s NSA: CSEC.

More than 5,300 web-based companies and other organizations, including Reddit, Imgur, Tumblr, Mozilla the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, have joined forces to protest National Security Agency surveillance on Feb. 11.

More at the Huffington Post.

Infographic: Footloose and Car Free

- Adam Clare

Riding bicycles is not only fun, it’s also great for the environment. Readers of this site already know many benefits of switching from a car-fcoused transportation society to one focused on sustainability and humanity. Because the internet is what it is, some people put together this infographic about the benefits that bike riding can bring to the USA.

Did you know that 30+ minutes of biking per day lowers women’s risk of breast cancer? Or how about three hours of biking per week reduces risk of heart disease and stroke by 50%?

From here.

Solar Power Rising in the Gulf

- Adam Clare

2013 saw great things happen on the Arabian Peninsula in relation to energy production. The region has invested heavily in installing solar power plants and reducing their own reliance on oil (so they can export more). In fact, the UAE is looking to start export in renewable energy!

For the Gulf’s solar industry, 2013 was a year of firsts: In addition to the opening of Abu Dhabi’s Shams 1 plant, Dubai’s first solar power plant became operational, and Kuwait and Oman decided to build their first as well. In Saudi Arabia, one energy analyst found the cost of generating electricity from solar there had become as cheap as generating electricity from oil-fired power plants.

Saudi’s solar goals appear to be the most gung-ho in the region: The kingdom has announced that it plans to throw down $109bn on solar energy and get one-third of its power from the sun by 2032. This target is “too ambitious”, said Hussam Khonkar of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, but added the technology to do so is available.

Read more.

Cities Are The Key For Adjusting To Changing Climate

- Adam Clare

Readers of this site have seen lots of evidence that in the 21st century the best place one can live for a small carbon footprint is in urban areas. Things like increased infrastructure costs and higher costs of living associated with automobile use in rural & suburban places are obvious reasons why denser areas are better.

Now we can add even more reasons to live an urban life thanks to research from the IPCC and WWF.

The latest assessment by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicates a global carbon budget, or the estimated amount of carbon available to burn if the world is to limit runaway climate change. We also know that, if action is not taken soon, all the allowable emissions would be locked in by energy infrastructure existing within five years from now. Time is short.

The good news is that we know where to take action to prevent such lock-in and build a resilient energy future. Most of today’s emissions come from cities, and within that, the vast majority from three sources: the energy used to create electricity, to heat and cool buildings, and for transportation. From the Earth Hour City Challenge, a year-long programme launched by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) to identify and promote cities that are leading climate action, it is clear that cities, and their mayors worldwide, are already demonstrating innovative solutions to reduce dependence on fossil fuels in each of these sectors.

Read more.

Walking or Biking Through Neighbourhoods Makes You Like Them More

- Adam Clare

Walking or biking through neighbourhoods will increase the likelihood that you think positively of that space. A bunch of research has concluded that people have an increase tendency to positively judge an environment when exposed to it using more personal means of transportation. Whereas people who opted to drive a vehicle through neighbourhoods tended to have negative feelings.

The moral of this? If you want to feel like you’re in a positive community all you need to do is not drive through it.

Walkers and drivers had very different reactions. Walkers from the affluent neighborhood had positive things to say about the low-income neighborhood, while drivers held negative views. In general, the affluent neighborhood reacted the most strongly (both positively and negatively) to the low-income neighborhood, while those in the low-income neighborhood rated both areas similarly.

The differences partially confirmed the researchers’ hypothesis, explains Birgitta Gatersleben, an environmental psychology professor and lead author of the study. Generally, humans are pretty good at judging threats or a situation’s trustworthiness in just a few seconds. This is called “thin slicing,” referring to the thin slices of reality we can consume and digest quickly. It comes in handy in the wild, say, if you’re trying to decide whether to approach a pack of lions, or, more realistically, a very angry Apple Care customer.

Read more

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