We’ve all noticed the phenomenon associated with “things coming in clumps.” For example, we may have lived to this point in our lives without ever having come across a certain word, only to hear it used two or three times in an amazingly brief stretch of time. Or maybe we become aware of some model of car for the first time, and then start to notice them everywhere in our travels. (more…)
All around the world, companies working in different industries are seeing the benefits of going green, whether it is from a purely financial aspect or because they want to help Mother Earth by being more environmentally friendly. The food hospitality trade as a whole is a wasteful industry, due in large part to the considerable amount of water, electricity and paper that a restaurant uses on a daily basis. Thankfully, in recent years there has been a notable change in the amount of restaurants going green in a proactive attempt to curb the amount of pollution and waste that is starting to envelop our planet. (more…)
Drones, in spite of the stigma surrounding them, are proving to be an asset in the modern world. For all of the deaths that result from the deployment of drones by militaries, there are several ways that drones improve society, from delivering medical supplies in emergencies to collecting data for researchers – all with low fuel cost and little damage to the environment. (more…)
Recently, the United States Naval Research Laboratory put into plans to build solar panels that are to be placed in space with the capability to beam the energy collected directly to Earth. Sounds like a plot to a James Bond film? Nope. In fact, it’s becoming a reality. There are even plans in the works to use robots to assemble the solar panels which are estimated to be a kilometer long. If the US Navy is successful in this project, what kind of benefits could humanity see from future developments on a civilian scale? (more…)
My mother wrote to me earlier today about the need for immigration reform, noting that any successful political party needs to embrace the notion. At the risk of sounding pessimistic, I responded:
I agree, both that a) our immigration processes are broken, and b) everyone associated with law-making needs to participate actively in fixing this and all other broken processes (or at least appear like they’re participating), lest they leave voters angry, and anxious for retribution.
This is what has me so vexed about our energy (more…)
I can’t be the only one who keeps coming across a press release suggesting that the U.S. Navy is successfully making fuel out of seawater. Here is a conversation I had with a friend in which I explain why this has to be a hoax: (more…)
My friend Jon Lesage is an extremely senior journalist in the transportation space, and offers the following note on Uber.
Uber is public enemy No. 1 for taxis and other ground transportation companies. (more…)
As his term in office draws nearer to a close, U.S. President Obama has begun again to talk about climate change and the imperative to reduce our contributions to its causes. If I were he, I would inform the nation (and the rest of the world) that America stands ready to adopt a responsible energy policy, and that this is important, not only from the standpoint of global warming, but from a great number of other completely unrelated perspectives. (more…)
If you’re of a certain age, you may think of the Dow Chemical gas leak in Bhopal, India that resulted in conflicting reports of 3,000 to 8,00 deaths. More recently, there was the BP Gulf oil spill. But industrial accidents most often involve individual workers hurt on the job.
What is the dollar cost?
The estimated annual cost of occupational injuries and illnesses is estimated to be $250 billion. (more…)
As I’ve reported before, I find the appeal of crowdfunding is something of an enigma; in fact, it’s totally lost on me. According to an expert on the subject I happen to know, “Over 80% of what we see on sites like IndieGogo is vaporware; normally, investors are sending money to someone they don’t know, to enable that someone to build and sell something that doesn’t as yet exist, and, in most cases, never will.” (more…)
