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Software

Finland Has an App Showing Shopping's True Carbon Footprint (bloomberg.com) 57

Posted by BeauHD from the more-you-know dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Unlike other carbon-footprint calculators already on the market, the application developed by Enfuce Financial Services Oy, a Finnish payment services provider, does not rely on users inputting the data manually. Instead, it combines data from credit cards and banks with purchase data from retailers to provide real-time calculations of how a given product affects the climate. With an estimated 70% of carbon emissions globally attributed to end users, Enfuce chairman and co-founder Monika Liikamaa says the app will help people adapt their lifestyles and make them compatible with the goal of keeping global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius.

After the initial set up and opt-in, the app will calculate a carbon footprint based on the user's purchases -- to the level of individual steaks or tomatoes. It will then propose actions to reduce their carbon impact. Typical suggestions may include taking a shorter shower, hopping on the bus instead of the car, turning down the thermostat and going vegan for a week. The app is a side project for Enfuce, which already handles sensitive payments data securely. Its core business is to run credit card systems for clients that do not require owning expensive computer servers. Enfuce is in talks with three major banks and is already working with Mastercard Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.'s cloud-server unit. No vendor will have exclusive rights to the system, which should be available by March, the company said.

Comment Re:This has been true for awhile (Score 2) 261

by XxtraLarGe (#59436198) Attached to: Researchers Warn That Your Political Ideology May Affect Job Offers

And not have your boss as a Facebook friend. (Well, there's lots of reasons why that's a bad idea, of which this is one.)

I have a strict policy of not having ANY of my current coworkers as friends on Facebook. It's not personal. I do have several former coworkers & 2 of my bosses as friends on Facebook though.
Earth

Sea Levels Will Rise For Centuries Even If Greenhouse Gas Emissions Goals Are Met 280

Posted by BeauHD from the good-news-for-people-who-like-bad-news dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Weather Channel: Sea levels will continue to rise for the next three centuries even if governments meet carbon emissions pledges for 2030 set in the Paris climate agreement, a new study indicates. Greenhouse gas emissions from 2016 to 2030 alone would cause sea levels to increase nearly 8 inches (20 cm) by 2300, research led by Climate Analytics and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research showed. And that doesn't take into account the effects of already irreversible melting of the Antarctic ice sheet, according to a news release about the study.

"Our results show that what we do today will have a huge effect in 2300. Twenty centimeters is very significant; it is basically as much sea-level rise as we've observed over the entire 20th century. To cause that with only 15 years of emissions is quite staggering," said Climate Analytics' Alexander Nauels, lead author of the study. The 8-inch increase is one-fifth of the nearly 40-inch total rise in sea levels expected by 2300, according to the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. More than half of the 8-inch increase can be attributed to emissions from the world's top five polluters: China, the United States, the European Union, India and Russia, the study found. "Only stringent near-term emission reductions" aimed at preventing global temperatures from rising more than the Paris agreement goal would provide a chance of limiting long-term sea level rise to below 40 inches, the study said. Global greenhouse gas emissions, however, have not shown a sign of peaking since the adoption of the Paris agreement and the individual countries' pledges "are inadequate to put the global community on track to meet the Paris agreement Long-term Temperature Goal by the end of the 21st century."
Earth

More Than 11,000 Scientists From Around the World Declare a 'Climate Emergency' (theguardian.com) 395

Posted by BeauHD from the climate-emergency dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The world's people face "untold suffering due to the climate crisis" unless there are major transformations to global society, according to a stark warning from more than 11,000 scientists. "We declare clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency," it states. "To secure a sustainable future, we must change how we live. [This] entails major transformations in the ways our global society functions and interacts with natural ecosystems." There is no time to lose, the scientists say: "The climate crisis has arrived and is accelerating faster than most scientists expected. It is more severe than anticipated, threatening natural ecosystems and the fate of humanity."

The statement is published in the journal BioScience on the 40th anniversary of the first world climate conference, which was held in Geneva in 1979. The statement was a collaboration of dozens of scientists and endorsed by further 11,000 from 153 nations. The scientists say the urgent changes needed include ending population growth, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, halting forest destruction and slashing meat eating. Prof William Ripple, of Oregon State University and the lead author of the statement, said he was driven to initiate it by the increase in extreme weather he was seeing. A key aim of the warning is to set out a full range of "vital sign" indicators of the causes and effects of climate breakdown, rather than only carbon emissions and surface temperature rise. "A broader set of indicators should be monitored, including human population growth, meat consumption, tree-cover loss, energy consumption, fossil-fuel subsidies and annual economic losses to extreme weather events," said co-author Thomas Newsome, of the University of Sydney. Other "profoundly troubling signs from human activities" selected by the scientists include booming air passenger numbers and world GDP growth.

The scientists did identify some positive signs, including decreasing global birth rates, increasing solar and wind power and fossil fuel divestment, and a falling rate of destruction in the Amazon. They also listed a series of actions people can do to help the "climate crisis":

- Use energy far more efficiently and apply strong carbon taxes to cut fossil fuel use
- Stabilize global population -- currently growing by 200,000 people a day -- using ethical approaches such as longer education for girls
- End the destruction of nature and restore forests and mangroves to absorb CO2
- Eat mostly plants and less meat, and reduce food waste
- Shift economic goals away from GDP growth

Comment Re:Sounds great (Score 2) 27

by XxtraLarGe (#59380698) Attached to: Buying Fitbit Won't Save Google's Failing Wear OS

Ditto everything you said. Add on top the battery life. I have a Charge 3.They say it has a 7 day battery life, but mine has lasted as long as 9 days without a charge. However, I now charge mine once a week on Sunday afternoons when I know I'm not going to be overly active. It only takes about an hour to reach 100%.

I originally had considered an Apple Watch, but I knew I wanted it for sleep tracking (in addition to the other things you outlined), but the Apple watch only has an 18 hour battery life. I thought to myself, for which 6 hour period in a 24 hour period do I NOT want to use this thing? As far as I'm concerned, until the Apple Watch can last multiple days, it's a non-starter as being a fitness tracker is concerned. Fitbit is a lot less sophisticated than an Apple watch, but it does exactly what I wanted it for, and it's only down for 1 hour a week. The only thing I wish is that it would also sync with Health Kit on my iPhone.
Medicine

Asthma Carbon Footprint 'As Big As Eating Meat' (bbc.com) 221

Posted by BeauHD from the eco-impacts dept.
Cambridge University researchers say some inhalers are bad for the environment because they release greenhouse gases linked to global warming. They recommend patients with asthma talk to their doctors to see if there's a "greener" medication they could switch to to help cut their carbon footprint and save the environment. The BBC reports: There are more than five million people with asthma in the UK. The research looked at the environmental impact of different inhaler medications prescribed to patients on the NHS in England. In 2017, about 50 million inhalers were prescribed. Seven out of every 10 of them were metered-dose inhalers - the type that contain greenhouse gases. The gas -- hydrofluoroalkane -- is used as a propellant to squirt the medicine out of the inhaler.

Metered-dose inhalers account for nearly 4% of NHS greenhouse gas emissions, according to experts. The researchers estimate replacing even one in every 10 of these inhalers with a more environmentally friendly type (dry powder inhalers) would reduce carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by 58 kilotons. That's similar to the carbon footprint of 180,000 return car journeys from London to Edinburgh, they say. And at the individual level, each metered-dose inhaler replaced by a dry powder inhaler could save the equivalent of between 150kg and 400kg (63 stone) of carbon dioxide a year - similar to the carbon footprint reduction of cutting meat from your diet.

Comment Re:I've been doing my part! (Score 1) 218

by XxtraLarGe (#59342488) Attached to: America's Pile of Uneaten Bacon Is the Biggest in 48 Years

The other staple of the Keto diet is the requirement to tell everyone that you're on the Keto diet at every opportunity. (See also: vegan and gluten-free)

I seldom ever mention it, except when it's on topic--like a post about bacon. Still, I've lost over 55 lbs so far, so if it can help other people, why not mention it?
Earth

Forecast Suggests Rainforest Could Stop Producing Enough Rain To Sustain Itself By 2021 (theguardian.com) 164

Posted by BeauHD from the irreversible-tipping-point dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Soaring deforestation coupled with the destructive policies of Brazil's far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, could push the Amazon rainforest dangerously to an irreversible "tipping point" within two years, a prominent economist has said. After this point the rainforest would stop producing enough rain to sustain itself and start slowly degrading into a drier savannah, releasing billions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, which would exacerbate global heating and disrupt weather across South America.

The warning came in a policy brief published this week by Monica de Bolle, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington DC. The report sparked controversy among climate scientists. Some believe the tipping point is still 15 to 20 years away, while others say the warning accurately reflects the danger that Bolsonaro and global heating pose to the Amazon's survival. The policy brief noted that Brazil's space research institute, INPE, reported that deforestation in August was 222% higher than in August 2018. Maintaining the current rate of increase INPE reported between January and August this year would bring the Amazon "dangerously close to the estimated tipping point as soon as 2021 beyond which the rainforest can no longer generate enough rain to sustain itself", de Bolle wrote.

Comment Difficult Question (Score 1) 48

by XxtraLarGe (#59318188) Attached to: Berkeley City Council Unanimously Votes To Ban Face Recognition
While I can see the benefits of facial recognition tech, at the same time it makes me uneasy with the rates of false positives they get. From what I've read, it also has difficulty identifying African Americans. They're using it in Detroit, but they have a multi-step verification process, so that should help. I also don't like the idea of the government being able to know where everyone is all the time, though they can already do that by and large with phone metadata.

Comment Re:No Shit Sherlock! (Score 1) 280

As I said elsewhere the only solution that seems workable is to abandon gender classification and use something else. Otherwise it will just be an endless debate about what biological attributes are important, what the limits are, how much someone has to nerf themselves to get into a category.

No, that's not the only solution. Another solution would be to keep things they way they've been for over a hundred years. We shouldn't need to overhaul the entire system to cater to an extremely minuscule minority. This entire issue has been extraordinarily unfair to natural female athletes.

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