Adam Clare

Get Drunk While Wasting Nothing

Alcohol production is very energy intensive due to the temperature changes and sheer number of plant resources that go into it. Alcohol production is therefore quite wasteful.

However, on the consumption side of alcohol the waste can be dramatically reduced. You may have seen bartenders squeezing a lime then discarding it or similar practices. Soon you may never see a bartender waste anything. There is a new movement to make serving alcohol less wasteful and therefore more po

â€œSustainability is unsexy. Itâ€™s a challenge,â€ acknowledged Griffiths, speaking to a group of bartenders as they sipped his blended sour. This is an industry that thrives on late nights and bad habits, not restraint and long-term planning, to sell alcohol.

His pitch: Atruism is certainly great, but reducing costs related to water, energy, and raw ingredients “actually earns you money in the long term.â€

The Importance of Infrastructure Changes for a Sustainable World

With COP21 happening this week in Paris there are many approaches to fighting climate change being discussed. No matter what approach is used there will have to be structural changes in how energy is delivered and how goods are transported. Over at Gizmodo they took a look at how quickly we can transition to a low-carbon energy system and it turns out we can do it rather quickly. Infrastructure takes time to rebuild and adopt to new technologies and the sooner we start the better.

Many different policy approaches could help, both to reduce consumption and to increase the share of renewables in the energy mix.

Building codes could be gradually adjusted to require that every rooftop generate energy, and/or ratcheted up toÂ LEED â€œgreen buildingâ€ standards. A gradually increasing carbon tax or cap-and-trade system (already in placeÂ in some nations) would spur innovation while reducing fossil fuel consumption and promoting the use of renewables.

In the United States, at least, eliminating the manyÂ subsidies that currently flow to fossil fuelsÂ may prove politically easier than taxing carbon, yet send a similar price signal.

Simple Ways to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions

We have the technology today to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 12 gigatonnes! This is based off of looking at only 17 possible climate change solutions. The world can be saved from catastrophic climate change if we want to dave. Let’s hope that these solutions are being considered at COP21.

A new report by European think-tank Sitra, supported by a group of 11 world-leading institutions, has found that the world could cut annual greenhouse gas emissions by about 12 gigatonnes in 2030, using only established and proven climate solutions. No new inventions are required, nor vast amounts of capital.

The Sitra report took 17 climate solutions that have already proven successful in 36 countries, and asked what would happen if these were scaled up internationally, using realistic projections through 2030. The findings indicate that that the solutions could go a long way towards closing the â€œemissions gapâ€, the extra emissions reductions required to limit global average warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius, as calculated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)[

How CO2 is Measured

Today, world leaders are meeting in Paris to discuss climate change at the COP21 conference. They are going to be discussing many issues around climate change from how to lower emissions to how to deal with rising sea levels. It is up to every country to change how their policies to be more sustainable and the wealthy countries that made their riches by exploiting the environment need to do even more. How then, do they decide what to do and based on what information?

The CBC is doing a series of investigations into issues and the like related to climate change that people may still be unclear on. One of their first articles is about how CO2 is measured.

When we measure carbon dioxide, can we tell how much came from burning fossil fuels?

Yes. The carbon in carbon dioxide comes in different forms called isotopes, namely carbon-12, carbon-13 and carbon-14. Levels of each vary depending on the source of the carbon dioxide, says Doug Worthy, study lead for Environment Canada’s greenhouse gas observational program.

Natural gas, coal and oil each also have distinct signatures for carbon-13, Worthy said.

Meanwhile, higher levels of carbon-14 mean that carbon dioxide sample is mostly from natural sources, such as plants. Lower levels mean it’s mostly from burning fossil fuels.

Children Should be Taught Philosophy

Studying philosophy has greatly influenced my life and I encourage everybody to also study the field and practice. Engaging in philosophy can improve one’s sense of self while improving their ability to discern which arguments have value.

Teaching critical inquiry through philosophy to children can have a very positive impact on them as human beings. We should have every kid engage in philosophy in their schools because kids are want to know about all aspects of what’s around them. That is what philosophy is about at its core.

Since then, training in various jobs has made me into various kinds of professional, but no training has shaped my humanity as deeply as philosophy has. No other discipline has inspired such wonder about the world, or furnished me with thinking tools so universally applicable to the puzzles that confront us as human beings.
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By setting children on a path of philosophical enquiry early in life, we could offer them irreplaceable gifts: an awareness of lifeâ€™s moral, aesthetic and political dimensions; the capacity to articulate thoughts clearly and evaluate them honestly; and the confidence to exercise independent judgement and self-correction. Whatâ€™s more, an early introduction to philosophical dialogue would foster a greater respect for diversity and a deeper empathy for the experiences of others, as well as a crucial understanding of how to use reason to resolve disagreements.