Discussion about climate change by mainstream media outlets and elected officials has gained a lot of momentum in the United States (and abroad) due in large part to the work of youth climate justice activists in organizations like Zero Hour.
Our work indicates that innovation for clean technology markets starts with a customer focus. The assumption that clean technologies are ready to come online if leaders set ambitious policy is too optimistic. While technologies may exist for a low carbon future, markets do not. Markets require both active buyers and sellers with adequate information. Grandiose goal-setting announcements do not create markets; it only distracts entrepreneurs from the job of creating and maintaining markets.
Something about Demo Day 2019 felt different than other startup events. Coming on the heels of the largest global climate protest the world has ever seen, a sense of urgency emanated from the crowd. The heightened significance of the evening was not lost on the founders, as they delivered their ideas with enthusiasm and conviction.
The ability to build more sustainably requires us to understand the current built environment. While urban designers and architects have a role to play in planning the cities of the future, all of us are invited to re-think and re-imagine the ways in which we live in and interact with the city landscape.
Large-scale efforts and resources have been directed towards low- and middle-income countries to encourage individual households to adopt more efficient clean cooking solutions including improved cookstoves and cleaner fuels. While households initially express enthusiasm for their new stoves, they eventually abandon them.
By The Beam Editor-in-Chief Anne-Sophie Garrigou “Many of us are aware, but not all of us are concerned.” 12-year-old Edelsin Linette Mendez lives with her siblings and parents on their small coffee farm in the beautiful highlands of Nicaragua. Coffee farming has supported the Mendez and thousands of other families … [continued]
One of the most dramatic paradoxes relates to climate change: we tell our children we love them and while doing so, we actively decide to live a life that loads their future with unprecedented tragedy, pain, and destruction.
With the number of people living within cities projected to rise to 5 billion people by 2030, it’s important to have a holistic view on how to approach the future and deal with the challenges brought by urbanization.
Our responsibility for future generations does not end as we get older.
Just a few years ago, the notion of a consumer-driven energy sector was unheard of, much less within the African context. Fast-forward to 2019, and blockchain is opening a new energy chapter, driven by smart technologies.
