»#RalphLauren’s CEO points to two key investment areas to attract #GenZ: #theMetaverse and #sustainability - "particularly in Europe".« https://fortune.com/2023/08/18/ralph-lauren-ceo-patrice-louvet-metaverse-sustainability-investment-gen-z/?Metaver.se #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #VR #AR #MR

What is the point in #CarbonCredits?

In a nutshell, they are instruments to 'short #sustainability' - Yes, betting on our own self-destruction.

The more the World fails to achieve its carbon reduction targets, the more valuable these useless credits will be... but they have ZERO effect in reducing the CO2 in the air.

So we will end up with an overheated planet, humanity at the brink of extinction... and a big pile of money...

Pathetic.

Carbon credits are the brainchild of someone who when presented with a disaster about to happen, doesn't search for solutions, but ways of profiting from it.

I don't even want to think about the new universe of carbon credit derivatives, futures, swaps and crypto tokens that will be build around this empty concept.

We need actual ways of removing CO2 from the atmosphere, so the big bucks and brains should be going to those ideas instead.

No more time and money spent on moving CO2 from left to right for a fee. This does not help at all.

#greenWash #CO2 #decarbonisation #humanity

@mpesce please, don't exaggerate!

We had a 'recent' period in which the temperature was above 17°C... and this was 'just' 125,000 years ago...

But even before that, if we go back 'only' 2.5 million years, the temperature was also above 17°C.

So please don't try to scare the crowd!

No kidding, all these are true... and the 'interesting' part is that the world was very different... and we didn't even have humans 2.5 million years ago... because that 'different' world was not very auspicious for us... 😬

#Sustainability #GlobalWarming

Just to illustrate how 'unsustainable' we are, I will use the actual example of my own family.

Let's start with my 4 grandparents about 100 years ago.

They have 10 children that we know about (probably a few more that we don't know, but let's stick to the ones we know).

Those 10 people had 21 children (my generation).

And we (those 21) had 45 children (so far!, because some of my cousins are still within reproductive age).

None of those 45 children has any offspring yet, but they are all about to start...

That give us a whopping 80 people, of which 74 of us are still walking on Earth. 9.25 x the original 8 in 100 years.

So, which is the 'unsustainable factor'?

For clarity, I am not suggesting 'supressing' people from having children, this is a personal and free choice... but we don't need to encourage them or make them feel that is 'their obligation' to have them because of us the oldies who are about to leave anyway... let them make their own choices.

(NB: I know there is a fallacy in the way I am counting here, because I am not counting the partners and the ancestors of all the partners in this calculation... but I hope you see my point).

#Population #AgingPopulation #Sustainability #Humanity #Migration

Not having enough children and the 'aging population' issue is on the news again.

IMHO, we don't have an 'aging population' we have a naturally 'shrinking population' (and actually not shrinking yet!)... and I belong to the group which is 'aging' and soon will be part of history... and that is all fine.

We are very far from going extinct because the last Human couple on the planet is considering not having children...

A shrinking population will help us in many ways:

- More willingly accept the migration of our brothers and sisters from other parts of the world.

- It will reduce the massive pressure on the ecosystem of our planet. 'Sustainability' requires a reduction in Human population. We are the 'unsustainable' factor. Yes, our population will shrink, but some other beautiful species may find ways to re-grow.

- It will force us to redefine our social and economic paradigms in a World where 'perpetual growth' is not the norm. Hopefully a system where it is a lot more easier to share than today, as there will be 'more planet per capita' than today too.

So let's not be too scared about Human population shrinkage.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/why-policies-boost-birth-rates-not-working-some-countries-world-population-day-united-nations-3621006

#Sustainability #Humanity #Population #Migration #AgingPopulation #Aging

I support putting satellites in orbit for communications and common good.

I consider burning fuel for space exploration already questionable when we have far more urgent matters to sort out in this planet.

But the idea of burning fuel for the fun of the rich is outright unacceptable, infuriating.

This should be ruled as illegal straight away, which is not possible due to our convoluted international legal system.

If you are one of those investors who are pumping the Virgin Galactic shares, shame on you.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65924495

#sustainability #humanity #VirginGalactic #RichardBranson

@jwcph @arstechnica

We would need to ask Hazel Southwell (author of the article) about the actual message they were trying to convey with this article, but IMHO they are basically saying:

"Synthetic hydrocarbon fuels are so absurd, that even a very bad idea such as Hydrogen starts looking like almost sensible."

The article clearly destroys the case for synthetic fuel (and I fully agree with that), but it is not very clear to me what their point was with regard to Hydrogen.

To this day we don't have any scalable energy-efficient way of producing H that is not from fossil fuels and generating CO2 as part of the process, so until we sorted that out, there is no much value in discussing the transport, storage and safety challenges.

Yes, we could inject the CO2 back into the oil field, but that is only reasonably possible if the H plant is virtually next the oil field, which is unlikely to be the scenario in almost every case.

Electrolysis can be a clean process to produce H, but only if the electricity required comes from a clean source, so we are back to score 1.

The elephants in the room here are the vehicle and our mobility paradigm... Regardless of the technology used, if we keep displacing a 1,000 ~ 2,000 kg vehicle to transport a 70kg human body, there is no way in which this is not going to be wasteful.

The same applies for flying live lobsters from Maine to Tokyo or Singapore.

Of course we need to shift to clean sources of energy, but we must reduce our insatiable energy thirst significantly too.

So the challenge is not about choosing a more efficient car the next time, but about giving up our cars entirely and shifting to public transport instead for most of our needs.

Similarly, we must limit our air cargo and travel, including the private jets, to a bare minimum as well.

#energy #sustainability #hydrogen #oil #GlobalWarming #PublicTransport

It is very concerning to realise that if America has not been able to ban their own guns after witnessing their own terrible stream of deaths by gun violence, how are we expecting the whole World to agree and act upon more complex and global issues such as climate change and sustainability?

#guns #Sustainability #ClimateChange #GlobalWarming #Humanity

@cambridgeport90 @FourOh-LLC no need anything artificial.

Population will decrease by itself.

Of course we can do something stupid and dramatically decrease it too... but that is not what I am referring to.

Look at the statistics of the number of children per woman per country (fertility rate).

You will find that in more than half of the countries this number is below 2.0. Which technically means shrinking withing 100 years.

This has been like this for many years now, if we don't see the population of those countries falling is because of immigration.

@FourOh-LLC is correct, the more educated the population, the lesser children they have... if we push for this population will shrink and will do it fast (less than 100 years).

#population #immigration #education #Sustainability

@eob wow!, yes, this is really wild, and he is probably right though... but it is not going to happen, of course.

At least not before some big screw ups with the current incarnation of AI.

People don't understand theoretical common sense... they understand money and screw ups.

So they will allow untapped chase for money (aka corporations allowed to do whatever they want for profits, even with the support of tax payer's money)... until they screw up multiple times over (ie. massive trains collisions, disrupted metro systems, power blackouts, accidental releases of weaponry... or my favorite one: drinking water supply disruption).

Examples: plastics, aerosols, fossil fuels, drugs, cryptocurrencies, GMOs and a very long etc.

Only then they will start calling up on 'common sense'. 🤷‍♂️

#AI #Sustainability #safety

@darnell Absolutely.

It might not be so obvious, but more than half of the countries in the world are technically shrinking in population.

The metric I am referring to is the 'Total Fertility Rate' or children born per woman.

Any country where this metric is lower than 2.0 is technically shrinking (stats linked below).

So immigration has been sustaining the system for quite some time already, despite all the pushback for a myriad of invalid reasons.

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/total-fertility-rate/country-comparison

#immigration #Sustainability #population

@darnell I don't believe promoting fertility for economic reasons is a good idea.

Yes, our pension funds and health care systems are going to suffer as we age... but eventually we all are going to die and the planet and future generations will be very thankful for the population shrinkage.

Promoting and accommodating immigration is a much better idea, it not only contributes to the economy much faster, it also alleviates suffering and social pressures in other parts of the globe.

#immigration #population #Sustainability

Just a thought...

Planets with no life at all look so peaceful, beautiful and happy...

Luckily we are well on track to convert ours in one of them...

#sustainability #GlobalWarming #war

@thoralf
We've been experimenting with systems to be used only when there is sunlight.
The most expensive components and by far the ones that age faster are the batteries, so our conclusion has been to not to used them at all.
Using solar power during the day hours without storing energy for the night is already helping to #Sustainability and the #Environment, while having a guaranteed financial feasibility.

@bbcworld
Overall, mostly a failure IMHO.
Sad.
#Sustainability

@bbcworld
Overall, mostly a failure IMHO.
Sad.
#Sustainability

The 'killing feature' of Humans which brought us to the top of the food chain of this planet was not our intelligence, creativity, curiosity, memory or strength.

It was our ability to collaborate.

It still is our only chance to continue moving forward.

#OpenSource #Sustainability

For everyone following me: nice of you to do so.

Please excuse me for being blunt. I don’t know how to do better, I’m Dutch.

Expect me to be extremely vocal on #Privacy #opensource #Transparency #equality #Sustainability #IT #infrastructure and much more.

I love a good discussion and the attention that goes with it.

Oh and I am #newhere but not on the Internet. 😎

New on the mstdn.ai instance having migrated from the mstdn.social instance. I do not have any claim to fame but do have a wide variety of interests.

#nature
#animals
#plants
#photography
#art
#crafts
#ClimateCrisis
#Sustainability
#SocialJustice
#kindness
#compassion
#TaiChi
#MentalHealth
#equality
#inclusiveness
#HumanRights
#LifeLongLearning
and I love #hippos, #otters, #octopus, and way to many other beings and varied interests to list.

#Metavesre »Could #TheMetaverse & #Web3 Save #Sustainability?« https://bit.ly/3Sy3wko