Climate change and capitalism

https://jacobinmag.com/2021/08/capitalism-climate-crisis-global-green-new-deal-clean-energy-fossil-fuel-industry

But whether we deal with climate change or not can’t be held hostage to executives’ ability to turn a profit. To handle this crisis, capitalism will have to be replaced as society’s operating system, setting out goals other than the boundless accumulation of private wealth.

Billions are pouring into the business of decarbonisation

“Climate tech now makes up about a tenth of new investments made by Sequoia Capital, a legendary Silicon Valley VC firm. This month Chris Sacca of Lowercase Capital, a high-flying internet investor known for early bets on Uber, Instagram and Twitter, said he would launch climate-tech VC funds worth $800m. Nancy Pfund of DBL Partners, another VC veteran, reports that whereas in 2004 she barely scraped together $75m for a clean-tech fund, her new climate-tech vehicle raised $600m—and was oversubscribed.”

Billions are pouring into the business of decarbonisation
https://www.economist.com/business/billions-are-pouring-into-the-business-of-decarbonisation/21803649
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DeGrowth?

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/10/can-we-have-prosperity-without-growth

Once confined to the margins, the ecological critique of economic growth has gained widespread attention. At a United Nations climate-change summit in September, the teen-age Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg declared, “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!” The degrowth movement has its own academic journals and conferences. Some of its adherents favor dismantling the entirety of global capitalism, not just the fossil-fuel industry. Others envisage “post-growth capitalism,” in which production for profit would continue, but the economy would be reorganized along very different lines. In the influential book “Prosperity Without Growth: Foundations for the Economy of Tomorrow,” Tim Jackson, a professor of sustainable development at the University of Surrey, in England, calls on Western countries to shift their economies from mass-market production to local services—such as nursing, teaching, and handicrafts—that could be less resource-intensive. Jackson doesn’t underestimate the scale of the changes, in social values as well as in production patterns, that such a transformation would entail, but he sounds an optimistic note: “People can flourish without endlessly accumulating more stuff. Another world is possible.”



Charging a price for pollution

https://www.politico.eu/article/fit-for-55-eu-5-things-to-know/

The main vehicle for putting a price on pollution is the Emissions Trading System (ETS), which sets prices for emissions permits needed by over 11,000 power plants and industrial installations, as well as airlines, covering around 40 percent of the bloc’s greenhouse gases. After years of very low prices, a mix of reforms and the pressure of tougher climate legislation has driven prices to more than €50 per ton of emitted carbon.


Cities are key to the green future

https://www.exponentialview.co/ev-332p/

Cities are the key to achieving net-zero emissions targets by 2050, argues the IEA (and me!). According to the International Energy Agency, cities account for more than 50% of the globe’s population, 80% of its economic output, two-thirds of global energy consumption and more than 70% of annual global carbon emissions. For cities to lead, they will need to emphasise smart city digitalisation efforts along with ambitious local leadership so they can scale investment in urban net-zero projects.


The global carbon incentive idea

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/global-carbon-incentive-for-reducing-emissions-by-raghuram-rajan-2021-05

The economic solution is simple: a global carbon incentive (GCI). Every country that emits more than the global average of around five tons per capita would pay annually into a global incentive fund, with the amount calculated by multiplying the excess emissions per capita by the population and the GCI. If the GCI started at $10 per ton, the US would pay around $36 billion, and Saudi Arabia would pay $4.6 billion.


Gerd Leonhard
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Kim Stanley Robinson on Cities as a Climate Survival Mechanism

“To see the climate city, look to planning texts from Holland that describe “vertical farms,” which are skyscrapers that include agriculture, aquaculture, chickens, pigs, and recycling of all waste within towers of food production. Hydroponics and vat-based food production using yeast, algae, and even meats will also be integrated into these towers. This kind of concentrated agriculture will free up land for other purposes while reducing the transport costs of goods from where they’re grown to where they get eaten.”

Kim Stanley Robinson on Cities as a Climate Survival Mechanism
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-17/the-city-as-a-survival-mechanism-kim-stanley-robinson
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Algoritmos não podem aprender sentimentos, diz futurólogo Gerd Leonhard | Suplementos | Valor Econômico


Valor: A inteligência artificial faz frente à inteligência humana?

Gerd Leonhard: As máquinas, essencialmente, usam zeros e uns, encontrando padrões e respondendo a eles. Isso é chamado de “machine learning” ou “deep learning”. Os humanos, na verdade, não aprendem a partir de padrões, porque são inteligentes de dez diferentes formas. Há questões como felicidade e consciência que são difíceis de ser definidas. Quando se fala de inteligência humana, muitas vezes nos referimos a um só tipo de inteligência, mas há a inteligência criativa, musical e cinestésica, entre outras. As máquinas só têm uma inteligência, que é a computação, o processamento. Um computador pode ler todos os livros de filosofia em todos os idiomas em poucos minutos, mas isso não fará dele um filósofo. Os computadores têm os dados e nada mais.