Serving people, planet and profit: An 'integrated bottom-line' approach to looking at business for entrepreneurs, activists, and decision makers
Welcome to Triple Pundit. Economy, environment, and society are interdependent. For too long business has thought of itself as separate. We aim to change that. If you would like to contribute by becoming a columnist or simply have some ideas to share,
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Interested in viewing 3-D visualizations showing how climate change projections for the 2030s and 2050s will affect selected landscapes? Well, USAID, NASA, the Institute for the Application of Geospatial Technology, the University of Colorado and CATHALAC (Centro del Agua del Trópico Húmedo para América Latina y el Caribe) have just the thing for you. The development partners on May 2 announced the beta release of the Climate Mapper tool for SERVIR Viz, the Regional Visualization and Monitoring System.
Climate Mapper should “enhance vulnerability assessments as development planners consider adaptation strategies for projects,” according to the group’s press release.
Modeled data is based on monthly data averaged over the decades 2031-2040 and 2051-2060. Three models output data based on the models used in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report: the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Climate System Model; the European Centre/Hamburg Model (ECHAM); and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Coupled Model.
These three models “were chosen because they represent the highest, middle, and lowest projections for changes in Africa in the Climate Moisture Index (CMI), a measure of the relative balance of precipitation and temperature and run using the A1B SRES scenario, a scenario of economic activity and carbon emissions that most closely represents the current or business-as-usual economic and carbon emissions trajectory,” according to the group’s press release.
In addition, the software renders historical temperature and precipitation for the 1961-1990 base period taken from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit database of monthly climate observations from meteorological stations interpolated 0.5° grid covering the earth’s land surface.
Initial complementary Climate Mapper data sets are available for Africa for ½-degree x ½ degree grid cells, which cover approximately an area of 50 square kilometers near the equator. Future data set releases are expected to cover the entire planet.
Both the Climate Mapper and SERVIR Viz can be downloaded here.
Two significant and contrasting news items related to climate change and energy appear in the April 23 edition of the International Herald Tribune: Europe will increasingly rely on coal to meet its growing electricity needs while two US VCs team up with Norway’s ThinkGlobal to manufacture recyclable, emissions-free electric vehicles in California.[read more]
Growing concerns about aging and inadequate water and wastewater treatment infrastructure and technology is spurring investment in a wide range of new companies, such as Aqwise, looking to take advantage of natural means and processes to devise new and cheaper means of ecological wastewater treatment and sanitation.[read more]
The second highest imperative for life as we know it, conflicts over water resources and management are coming into sharp relief, exacerbated by growing population, land use, climate change and a surge of investment.[read more]
The NSF announced two breakthroughs that help pave the way for the development and widespread use of a variety of green fuels derived from cellulosic biomass such as corn stover, wood waste, switchgrass and fast growing poplar trees. Criticism of such efforts continues, however. [read more]
Rainforest Alliance's SmartWood certification guarantees that the hardwoods provided were harvested responsibly. Accordingly, the certified producers of these hardwoods are...[read more]
Foresters, climatolgists and environmental agencies are devoting much time and effort to figure out a way to include deforestation abatement into the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development and carbon trading schemes. A recently released discussion paper examines the potential effects carbon credits would have on forest conservation and use.[read more]
Israel’s southernmost Eilot region is a special place in several respects. For one, the desert blooms here, thanks to an aquifer that has turned it into an agricultural center. It also holds a unique place in the hearts and minds of the world’s birds, ornithologists and birding enthusiasts, as it in the migratory route for hundreds of species making their way north to Eurasia and their breeding grounds. It’s also a budding center of entrepreneurial spirit and renewable energy, home to the Arava Power Co., which is hatching plans to build a 500 kWhr solar farm on Kibbutz Ketura.[read more]
“Somebody has to do something, it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us”-Jerry Garcia, The Grateful Dead Jerry...[read more]
As is the case more broadly, shares of alternative energy businesses are getting hit hard of late…But the fundamentals underlying the sector provide support and portend that investors may look back on this period and see an excellent buying opportunity, argue analysts at London’s Ambrian Partners.[read more]
Looking to draw attention and redress the staggering fact that some 49% of the world's population lack access to basic sanitation and safe, sustainable water sources, the UN has launched a global financing mechanism, the Global Sanitation Fund, and is organizing World Sanitation Day events in Geneva and New York.[read more]
One problem consumer’s face when wanting to use biofuels is building an in-house processor for creating biodiesel to further...[read more]
We in the West take it for granted that you turn on the faucet, and water comes out. But for...[read more]
The Peak Oil hypothesis has gained much credence in recent years, though some experts, particularly oil producers – state-owned and private multinationals as well as others – dispute it. Lack of transparency, as well as politically and economically biased reserve data clouds the issue.[read more]
Waste management. Two words that have in the past been little more then a euphemism for trash pickup, one...[read more]
I'm not a big reader of magazines or periodicals but one I always look forward to receiving is High...[read more]
Are you eating? Here's a few statistics to chew on: In the US, restaurants are the top electricity consumer...[read more]
Issues of environmental justice are increasingly coming to the fore in local, state and federal legislatures and the courts, as evidenced by 12 state district attorneys bringing suit against the EPA over revisions to the Toxic Release Inventory program. Indicative of developments in the West, a precedent recently set in New Mexico’s Supreme Court and interpretation of a 2005 gubernatorial EJ executive order are likely as communities, municipal and the state government wrangle over landfill permits.[read more]
With political and regulatory change in the air and on the ground, renewable energy has risen quickly to become Wall Street and the City’s latest moveable feast. Well organized, funded and staffed wind power companies were among the first to attract the attention of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Testimony to just how quickly capital and labor can be mobilized these days, successful start-ups, such as Dublin’s Airtricity, have grown into attractive targets for the world’s largest power and energy companies.[read more]
Forget about the toxic lead-lined MRI suites, and do not throw to the wind the outdated CT systems. Squash...[read more]
HP’s been a big proponent of a range of more environmentally sustainable business practices for quite some time now. Welcome news is that it is finding ways of doing a lot more in the way of recycling, and in rapidly industrializing China. An initial 31 HP equipment drop-off centers have been established in Chinese cities and more are coming, making it easier for individual consumers and SMBs to do their part in closing the product lifecycle loop.[read more]
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