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The ugly truth behind ChatGPT: AI is guzzling resources at planet-eating rates | Mariana Mazzucato

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Thursday, May 30, 2024

When you picture the tech industry, you probably think of things that don’t exist in physical space, such as the apps and internet browser on your phone. But the infrastructure required to store all this information – the physical datacentres housed in business parks and city outskirts – consume massive amounts of energy. Despite its name, the infrastructure used by the “cloud” accounts for more global greenhouse emissions than commercial flights. In 2018, for instance, the 5bn YouTube hits for the viral song Despacito used the same amount of energy it would take to heat 40,000 US homes annually.This is a hugely environmentally destructive side to the tech industry. While it has played a big role in reaching net zero, giving us smart meters and efficient solar, it’s critical that we turn the spotlight on its environmental footprint. Large language models such as ChatGPT are some of the most energy-guzzling technologies of all. Research suggests, for instance, that about 700,000 litres of water could have been used to cool the machines that trained ChatGPT-3 at Microsoft’s data facilities. It is hardly news that the tech bubble’s self-glorification has obscured the uglier sides of this industry, from its proclivity for tax avoidance to its invasion of privacy and exploitation of our attention span. The industry’s environmental impact is a key issue, yet the companies that produce such models have stayed remarkably quiet about the amount of energy they consume – probably because they don’t want to spark our concern.Google’s global datacentre and Meta’s ambitious plans for a new AI Research SuperCluster (RSC) further underscore the industry’s energy-intensive nature, raising concerns that these facilities could significantly increase energy consumption. Additionally, as these companies aim to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, they may opt to base their datacentres in regions with cheaper electricity, such as the southern US, potentially exacerbating water consumption issues in drier parts of the world. Before making big announcements, tech companies should be transparent about the resource use required for their expansion plans.Furthermore, while minerals such as lithium and cobalt are most commonly associated with batteries in the motor sector, they are also crucial for the batteries used in datacentres. The extraction process often involves significant water usage and can lead to pollution, undermining water security. The extraction of these minerals are also often linked to human rights violations and poor labour standards. Trying to achieve one climate goal of limiting our dependence on fossil fuels can compromise another goal, of ensuring everyone has a safe and accessible water supply.Moreover, when significant energy resources are allocated to tech-related endeavours, it can lead to energy shortages for essential needs such as residential power supply. Recent data from the UK shows that the country’s outdated electricity network is holding back affordable housing projects. This will only get worse as households move away from using fossil fuels and rely more on electricity, putting even more pressure on the National Grid. In Bicester, for instance, plans to build 7,000 new homes were paused because the electricity network didn’t have enough capacity.In an era where we expect businesses to do more than just make profits for their shareholders, governments need to evaluate the organisations they fund and partner with, based on whether their actions will result in concrete successes for people and the planet. In other words, policy needs to be designed not to pick sectors or technologies as “winners”, but to pick the willing by providing support that is conditional on companies moving in the right direction. Making disclosure of environmental practices and impacts a condition for government support could ensure greater transparency and accountability. Similar measures could promote corporate accountability in global mineral supply chains, enforcing greater human rights compliance.In navigating the intersection of technological advancement and environmental sustainability, policymakers are facing the challenge of cultivating less extractive business models. This is not just about adopting a piecemeal approach; it’s about taking a comprehensive systematic view, empowering governments to build the needed planning and implementation capacity. Such an approach should eschew outdated top-down methods in favour of flexible strategies that integrate knowledge at all levels, from local to global. Only by adopting a holistic perspective can we effectively mitigate the significant environmental impacts of the tech industry.Ultimately, despite the unprecedented wave of innovation since the 1990s, we have consistently overlooked the repercussions of these advances on the climate crisis. As climate scientists anticipate that global heating will exceed the 1.5C target, it’s time we approach today’s grand challenges systemically, so that the solution to one problem does not exacerbate another.

Big tech is playing its part in reaching net zero targets, but its vast new datacentres are run at huge cost to the environmentMariana Mazzucato is professor of economics at UCL, and director of the Institute for Innovation and Public PurposeWhen you picture the tech industry, you probably think of things that don’t exist in physical space, such as the apps and internet browser on your phone. But the infrastructure required to store all this information – the physical datacentres housed in business parks and city outskirts – consume massive amounts of energy. Despite its name, the infrastructure used by the “cloud” accounts for more global greenhouse emissions than commercial flights. In 2018, for instance, the 5bn YouTube hits for the viral song Despacito used the same amount of energy it would take to heat 40,000 US homes annually.This is a hugely environmentally destructive side to the tech industry. While it has played a big role in reaching net zero, giving us smart meters and efficient solar, it’s critical that we turn the spotlight on its environmental footprint. Large language models such as ChatGPT are some of the most energy-guzzling technologies of all. Research suggests, for instance, that about 700,000 litres of water could have been used to cool the machines that trained ChatGPT-3 at Microsoft’s data facilities. It is hardly news that the tech bubble’s self-glorification has obscured the uglier sides of this industry, from its proclivity for tax avoidance to its invasion of privacy and exploitation of our attention span. The industry’s environmental impact is a key issue, yet the companies that produce such models have stayed remarkably quiet about the amount of energy they consume – probably because they don’t want to spark our concern.Mariana Mazzucato is professor of economics at UCL, and director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose Continue reading...

When you picture the tech industry, you probably think of things that don’t exist in physical space, such as the apps and internet browser on your phone. But the infrastructure required to store all this information – the physical datacentres housed in business parks and city outskirts – consume massive amounts of energy. Despite its name, the infrastructure used by the “cloud” accounts for more global greenhouse emissions than commercial flights. In 2018, for instance, the 5bn YouTube hits for the viral song Despacito used the same amount of energy it would take to heat 40,000 US homes annually.

This is a hugely environmentally destructive side to the tech industry. While it has played a big role in reaching net zero, giving us smart meters and efficient solar, it’s critical that we turn the spotlight on its environmental footprint. Large language models such as ChatGPT are some of the most energy-guzzling technologies of all. Research suggests, for instance, that about 700,000 litres of water could have been used to cool the machines that trained ChatGPT-3 at Microsoft’s data facilities. It is hardly news that the tech bubble’s self-glorification has obscured the uglier sides of this industry, from its proclivity for tax avoidance to its invasion of privacy and exploitation of our attention span. The industry’s environmental impact is a key issue, yet the companies that produce such models have stayed remarkably quiet about the amount of energy they consume – probably because they don’t want to spark our concern.

Google’s global datacentre and Meta’s ambitious plans for a new AI Research SuperCluster (RSC) further underscore the industry’s energy-intensive nature, raising concerns that these facilities could significantly increase energy consumption. Additionally, as these companies aim to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, they may opt to base their datacentres in regions with cheaper electricity, such as the southern US, potentially exacerbating water consumption issues in drier parts of the world. Before making big announcements, tech companies should be transparent about the resource use required for their expansion plans.

Furthermore, while minerals such as lithium and cobalt are most commonly associated with batteries in the motor sector, they are also crucial for the batteries used in datacentres. The extraction process often involves significant water usage and can lead to pollution, undermining water security. The extraction of these minerals are also often linked to human rights violations and poor labour standards. Trying to achieve one climate goal of limiting our dependence on fossil fuels can compromise another goal, of ensuring everyone has a safe and accessible water supply.

Moreover, when significant energy resources are allocated to tech-related endeavours, it can lead to energy shortages for essential needs such as residential power supply. Recent data from the UK shows that the country’s outdated electricity network is holding back affordable housing projects. This will only get worse as households move away from using fossil fuels and rely more on electricity, putting even more pressure on the National Grid. In Bicester, for instance, plans to build 7,000 new homes were paused because the electricity network didn’t have enough capacity.

In an era where we expect businesses to do more than just make profits for their shareholders, governments need to evaluate the organisations they fund and partner with, based on whether their actions will result in concrete successes for people and the planet. In other words, policy needs to be designed not to pick sectors or technologies as “winners”, but to pick the willing by providing support that is conditional on companies moving in the right direction. Making disclosure of environmental practices and impacts a condition for government support could ensure greater transparency and accountability. Similar measures could promote corporate accountability in global mineral supply chains, enforcing greater human rights compliance.

In navigating the intersection of technological advancement and environmental sustainability, policymakers are facing the challenge of cultivating less extractive business models. This is not just about adopting a piecemeal approach; it’s about taking a comprehensive systematic view, empowering governments to build the needed planning and implementation capacity. Such an approach should eschew outdated top-down methods in favour of flexible strategies that integrate knowledge at all levels, from local to global. Only by adopting a holistic perspective can we effectively mitigate the significant environmental impacts of the tech industry.

Ultimately, despite the unprecedented wave of innovation since the 1990s, we have consistently overlooked the repercussions of these advances on the climate crisis. As climate scientists anticipate that global heating will exceed the 1.5C target, it’s time we approach today’s grand challenges systemically, so that the solution to one problem does not exacerbate another.

Read the full story here.
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Power-Thirsty AI Turns to Mothballed Nuclear Plants. Is That Safe?

As Microsoft strikes a deal to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island to power AI, nuclear specialists weigh in on the unprecedented process

Microsoft announced on 20 September that it had struck a 20-year deal to purchase energy from a dormant nuclear power plant that will be brought back online. And not just any plant: Three Mile Island, the facility in Londonderry Township, Pennsylvania, that was the site of the worst-ever nuclear accident on US soil when a partial meltdown of one of its reactors occurred in 1979.The move, which symbolizes technology giants’ need to power their growing artificial-intelligence (AI) efforts, raises questions over how shuttered nuclear plants can be restarted safely — not least because Three Mile Island isn’t the only plant being brought out of retirement.Palisades Nuclear Plant, an 805-megawatt facility in Covert, Michigan, was shut down in May 2022. But the energy company that owns it, Holtec International, based in Jupiter, Florida, plans to reopen it. This reversal in the facility’s fortunes has been bolstered by a US$1.5-billion conditional loan commitment from the US Department of Energy (DoE), which sees nuclear plants — a source of low-carbon electricity — as a way of helping the country to meet its ambitious climate goals. The Palisades plant is on track to reopen in late 2025.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.“It’s the first time something like this has been attempted, that we’re aware of, worldwide,” says Jason Kozal, director of the reactor safety division at a regional office of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in Naperville, Illinois, and the co-chair of a regulatory panel overseeing the restart of Palisades.Here, Nature talks to nuclear specialists about what it will take to restart these plants and whether more are on the way as the world’s demand for AI grows.A change in fortunesSince 2012, more than a dozen nuclear plants have been shut down in the United States, in some cases as a result of unfavourable economics. Less cost-effective plants — such as those with only a single working reactor — struggled to remain profitable in states with deregulated electricity markets and widely varying prices. Three Mile Island, owned by the utility company Constellation Energy in Baltimore, Maryland, is a prime example. Today, 54 US plants remain in operation, running a total of 94 reactors.Nuclear energy, which accounts for about 9% of the world’s electricity, has seen some resurgence internationally, but is also competing with other energy sources, including renewables. After the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster, Japan suspended operations at all of its 48 remaining nuclear plants, but these are gradually being brought back online, in part to cut dependence on gas imports. By contrast, Germany announced a phase-out of its nuclear plants in 2011, and shut down its last three in 2023.In the United States, nuclear energy’s fortunes might be turning as technology companies race to build enormous, energy-gobbling data centres to support their AI systems and other applications while somehow fulfilling their climate pledges. Microsoft, for instance, has committed to being carbon negative by 2030.“It’s further confirmation of the value of nuclear, and, if the deal is right — if the price is right — then it makes business sense, as well,” says Jacopo Buongiorno, the director of the Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.A new startThis isn’t the first time that the United States has brought a powered-down reactor back online. In 1985, for example, the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federally owned electric utility company, took the reactors at its Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant in Athens, Alabama, offline. After years of refurbishment, they were brought back online, with the final reactor restarted in 2007.The cases of Palisades and Three Mile Island are different, however. When those plants closed, their then-owners made legal statements that the facilities would be shut down, even though their operating licenses were still active. Three Mile Island, which will be renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center under the proposed restart, shut down its single remaining functional reactor in 2019.Because the plants were slated for shutdown and safety checks were therefore stopped, regulators and companies must now navigate a complex licensing, oversight and environmental-assessment process to reverse the plants’ decommissioning.Safety checks will be needed to ensure, among other things, that the plants can operate securely once uranium fuel rods have been replaced in their reactors. When these plants were decommissioned, their radioactive fuel was removed and stored, so the facilities no longer needed to adhere to many exacting technical specifications, says Jamie Pelton, also a co-chair of the Palisades restart panel, and a deputy director at the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation in Rockville, Maryland.It will be no small feat to reinstate those safety regulations: to meet the standards, infrastructure will need to be inspected carefully. According to Buongiorno, any metallic components in the plants that have corroded since the shutdowns, including wires and cables used in instrumentation and controls, will need to be replaced.The plants’ turbine generators, which make electricity from the steam produced as the plants’ fuel rods heat up water, will also get a close look. After sitting dormant for years, a turbine could develop defects within its shaft or corrosion along its blades that would require refurbishment. In the case of Palisades, the NRC announced on 18 September that the plant’s steam generators would need further testing and repair, following inspections conducted by Holtec.Nuclear’s prospectsAs the plants near their restart dates, their operators will also have to contend with a challenge faced by even fully operational plants: the need to source fresh nuclear fuel. US nuclear utility companies have long counted on the international market to buy much of the necessary raw yellowcake uranium and the services that separate and enrich uranium-235, the isotope used in nuclear reactors’ fuel rods. Russia has been a major international supplier of these services, even after the country’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, because US and European sanctions have not targeted nuclear fuel. But to minimize its reliance on Russia, the United States is building up its own supply chain, with the DoE offering $3.4 billion to buy domestically enriched uranium.There probably won’t be too many other restarts of mothballed nuclear plants in the United States, however, even as demand for low-carbon electricity grows. Not every US plant that has been shut down is necessarily in good enough condition to be easily refurbished — and the idea of reopening some of those would meet with too much resistance. As an example, Buongiorno points to New York’s Indian Point Energy Center, which was closed in 2021. The plant’s proximity to New York City had long provoked criticism from nuclear-safety advocates.But that doesn’t mean that all of these sites will remain unused. One option is to build advanced reactors — including large reactors with upgraded safety features and small modular reactors with innovative designs — on sites where old nuclear plants once stood, to take advantage of existing transmission lines and infrastructure. “We might see interest in the US in building more of these large reactors, whether that’s fuelled by data centres or some other applications,” Buongiorno adds. “Utilities and customers are exploring this at the moment.”This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on September 30, 2024.

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Energy

Houston has its first vinyl-record manufacturer and it’s located in the East End

610 Record Manufacturing is the first vinyl record manufacturer in the Houston area, and it's located within the East End's $38 million innovation hub that opened three years ago. Joel Hoyle is the owner of the manufacturer.

Patricia Ortiz/Houston Public MediaJoel Hoyle’s first customer was a Houston-area band called Ghost Party. Their vinyl record is playing in the testing room at 610 Record Manufacturing.610 Record Manufacturing takes tiny PVC pellets and turns them into plastic pucks which are then flattened with metal stamps that have the grooves needed to hear music from a vinyl record. It’s the first vinyl record manufacturer in the Houston area, and it’s located within the East End’s $38 million innovation hub that opened three years ago. Joel Hoyle is the owner of the manufacturer. “I don’t remember a day without music, but I do remember being about 8 years old, riding in the car with my parents… one of them asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, and with no hesitation at all whatsoever, I was like, ‘I wanna be President of United States and a rock star,'” he said with a laugh. Hoyle’s first instrument was a guitar. He started playing when he was about 13 years old, and said he got into a band as soon as possible. He even got the chance to hit the road a few times. “I got called ‘band mom.’ The one who handled all the business stuff in the band,” he said. As he got older, Hoyle eventually chose to get a suit-and-tie job to pay the bills. But he quickly learned he didn’t “really get along well with Corporate America”. He began thinking about opening his own business and eventually settled on a vinyl-pressing facility. He officially opened up the shop on June 10 of this year, in honor of the company name. The New York Times reports vinyl records are now the music industry’s highest-grossing physical format. According to Billboard charts, 2023 was also the 18th consecutive year vinyl album sales grew in the U.S. Patricia Ortiz/Houston Public MediaJoel Hoyle next to one of two machines he uses to press vinyl records.Hoyle said music lovers like the physicality of records. “Getting [the record] nice and clean, turning the table on, the whole ritual. Everything about it. Putting the needle on, waiting for that sound to come in. Especially with something you haven’t heard before,” he said. “…I think also, maybe on a little bit larger scale, everything being attached to the digital world more so every day, I think kinda human nature, we like things that we can physically hold in our hand.” Some music experts will argue vinyl has the best sound because its frequency is usually closer to what the human ear can hear. According to the National Institute of Health, humans can detect frequencies from 20 Hz to 20kHz. Vinyl records can have frequencies ranging from 7Hz to 50kHz according to Furnace Record Pressing, the largest vinyl-pressing manufacturer in the nation. Furnace Record Pressing was acquired by the heavy metal rock band, Metallica, just last year as reported by Variety. “That’s why a lot of people describe the sound of records as being natural and warm,” Hoyle said. “And it’s true, it’s because it is. It’s a natural fit to our ears. … if you’re going for pure, direct replication of sound, a CD is probably gonna be one of the best things.” He said CDs and records are some of the best ways to support smaller artists. “Unless you’re large enough to get the good streaming contract, you’re not making any money from streaming,” he said. “You’re making money from selling something like records.” Customers of vinyl-pressing manufacturers can range from independent artists and bands to record labels and managers. Hoyle said he’s only had a few customers so far, but his first one was a Houston-area band named Ghost Party. VIDEO Local artists have a chance to listen to the master copy of their vinyl record in person, which Hoyle said speeds up the manufacturing process because he doesn’t have to ship the record back and forth if the artist isn’t satisfied with it. In the past, record-making has come with environmental concerns. According to a report from the Vinyl Record Manufacturers Association and Vinyl Alliance, found that 50% of emissions that come from record-making stem from the PVC material it’s made out of. Still, the environmental impact of buying a record is significantly smaller than filling up a car with a tank of gas, according to the report. Hoyle also said the process has become more environmentally friendly over the years and there are still more ways to keep improving. “Old school pressing plants were notoriously dirty, grimey places. Hydraulic oil all over the floor, steam flying everywhere, and dumping a lot of water down the drain. Pretty much no record-pressing plant on the planet does that anymore. … much more environmentally conscious industry, which is absolutely fantastic,” he said. Hoyle said he’s hoping to eventually reach out to some schools in the area to get added to field trip lists and teach the youth about record-making. But for now, he’s mostly focused on reaching out to more local artists. “People have different names for it. I call it Houstonitis. A lot of people in Houston still seem to think that we’re an underdog city in the music world, and we’re not,” Hoyle said. “This is where the talent’s from.”

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A federal attempt to foster ‘high-integrity voluntary carbon markets’ falls short, experts say

New guidance for credit-based derivatives gives “imprimatur to a system that doesn’t have credibility to begin with.”

After two years of meetings and consultation with the public, a little-known federal regulator this month issued its final guidance on the trading of derivatives based on carbon credits, the certificates companies buy and sell on a voluntary basis to say they’ve offset their greenhouse gas emissions. Experts had hoped that the guidance from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, would address widespread concerns about carbon credit-related fraud — essentially, the fear that credits are not delivering their promised emissions reductions. Scientific articles and media investigations over the past several years have revealed that many credits are based on forest conservation projects in areas that were never in danger of being chopped down, or that they sequester carbon in ways that are unlikely to last more than a few years. In a statement, CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam called the guidance “a critical step in support of the development of high-integrity voluntary carbon markets.”​​ But experts and environmental groups aren’t so enthused. Some don’t think it’ll make much of a difference, due to its limited reach, while others worry the guidance will lend undue legitimacy to the idea of carbon credits — the majority of which they believe shouldn’t be traded in the first place. “It’s giving this imprimatur to a system that doesn’t have credibility to begin with,” said Clara Vondrich, senior policy counsel for the nonprofit Public Citizen. To understand what’s going on, it’s important to understand the purpose of the CFTC. The agency was created by Congress in 1974 to regulate the U.S. market for derivatives, contracts in which prices are derived from the value of an underlying asset or benchmark. One easy-to-understand derivative is called a futures contract, a promise to sell an asset at a particular price at some point in the future. Farmers might sell futures contracts to lock in a selling price for wheat, protecting themselves from a future price collapse. In that case, the CFTC’s job is to ensure that the wheat actually gets delivered. Since 1974, however, the CFTC has sought to regulate increasingly complicated derivatives products. Carbon credit-based futures contracts are a prime example: In this case, a company buys a contract for credits based on emissions reductions that have not yet happened, but are promised to occur at some point in the future. Compared to the wheat example, it’s much less clear what counts as legitimate delivery of the carbon credit. It depends in large part on whether the credits really will cause the emissions reductions that buyers expect them to. As the CFTC was drafting its guidance, experts urged the agency to take a proactive role in regulating not only carbon credit-based derivatives, but also the credits themselves. No other federal agency has taken on that task, and there were hopes that the CFTC could do so — potentially by invoking its anti-fraud authority over markets for products whose derivatives are listed on CFTC-regulated exchanges. “If there is a commodity and if that commodity has a derivative on a regulated exchange,” said Todd Phillips, an assistant professor of law in the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University, “the CFTC has authority over the underlying” commodity. Last year, there were indications that the CFTC could be gearing up to regulate carbon credits. In June 2023, the agency put out a whistleblower alert asking the public to report manipulation in the voluntary carbon market, and not long after, it announced a new Environmental Fraud Task Force to help investigate cases of “fraud and misconduct” in offset-related markets. One of the CFTC’s five commissioners, Christy Goldsmith Romero, explicitly said in December that the agency’s anti-fraud authority should extend to the underlying market for carbon credits — “given the potential for impact to the derivatives markets.” Several high-profile carbon credit projects have claimed to protect parcels of rainforest that were never in danger of being chopped down. Jody Amiet / AFP via Getty Images But the final guidance — which is not legally binding, but rather intended to help clarify exchanges’ obligations under existing CFTC regulations — came up short of what many experts were hoping for. The 99-page document mostly asks futures exchanges to conform to an existing set of best practices for carbon accounting, as defined by a nonprofit governance body called the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, or ICVCM. These best practices involve transparent calculations of greenhouse gas emissions, third-party verification, and reporting on whether credits represent emissions reductions that would not have otherwise taken place. There are two potential problems with this approach. First, according to Phillips, the CFTC’s deference to the ICVCM essentially restricted its purview. “What the CFTC has done with this guidance is they have said that only offsets that meet the ICVCM standards can be listed on exchanges,” he said. “Which means there are no low-quality offsets that will be listed on exchanges, which means the CFTC does not have anti-fraud authority there.”  In other words, the CFTC designed its guidance in such a way that it cannot do anything about the underlying voluntary markets’ low-quality carbon credits, which are the most likely to be fraudulent. The guidance is “extremely limited in reach,” as Erin Shortell, a legal fellow at the nonprofit Institute for Policy Integrity, put it in a blog post. The second issue is that not everyone trusts the ICVCM standards to insure against issues like reversal, where credit projects prematurely release their stored carbon — such as when a forest tied to carbon credits is destroyed by a wildfire — or double-counting, where the same emissions reductions are counted by two separate entities. Rebecca Sanders-DeMott, director of ecosystem carbon management for the pro-carbon market nonprofit Clean Air Task Force, said in a statement that the CFTC was “continuing to rely on crediting protocols that are in need of a major overhaul.” In response to Grist’s request for comment, the ICVCM referred Grist to Nat Keohane, one of the organization’s senior advisers and president of the nonprofit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. Keohane said the ICVCM’s standards for carbon credits were developed in a “transparent and rigorous” fashion meant to model a regulatory process, and that they adequately address concerns about credits’ legitimacy. “These are expert issues,” he added. “They take a lot of specialized expertise … and I don’t think anybody would say that the CFTC has the kind of requisite understanding of the real issues and the details involved” not to defer to the knowledge of other groups such as the ICVCM.  While Sanders-DeMott’s organization believes better regulation is needed to help the voluntary carbon market grow — and “play a meaningful role in addressing climate change” — other advocacy groups think the market has been too plagued with problems to be redeemed.   According to Phillips, the root of the problem is that the CFTC was never designed to be a climate watchdog for the federal government. To the extent that markets for carbon credits and their derivatives should exist, he said, Congress needs to create a new agency — or designate an existing one — to be their overseer.  As an example, he pointed to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, a nonprofit corporation created by the federal government in 2002 to oversee audits of U.S.-listed public companies. Previously, corporate auditors had been entirely self-regulated — much like the voluntary carbon market is today. At present, “everyone has an incentive to just cut corners and allow low-quality offsets to exist,” Phillips said. “There is no government entity whose job it is to ensure that low-quality offsets are taken off the market, and someone needs to have that responsibility.”  This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A federal attempt to foster ‘high-integrity voluntary carbon markets’ falls short, experts say on Sep 30, 2024.

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Could pawpaw, the US-native fruit, become the new kiwi or mango?

Pawpaw, a tree fruit that can help farmers and the environment, stays resilient in face of a climate crisisAbout five years ago, Matt Feyerabend, co-owner of an Arkansas ice-cream business, wanted to explore new flavors and use more native fruits, so while delivering a batch of product to a restaurant in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, he asked if anyone knew a grower of pawpaws, a tree fruit native to the United States with a flavor described as a mix between a mango and a banana.A server said her father, a veterinarian, had trees on his property. Feyerabend and his wife, Meghan, now annually purchase hundreds of pounds of the fruit from the vet and other growers and sell pawpaw ice-cream and other treats containing the fruit and its seeds. Continue reading...

About five years ago, Matt Feyerabend, co-owner of an Arkansas ice-cream business, wanted to explore new flavors and use more native fruits, so while delivering a batch of product to a restaurant in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, he asked if anyone knew a grower of pawpaws, a tree fruit native to the United States with a flavor described as a mix between a mango and a banana.A server said her father, a veterinarian, had trees on his property. Feyerabend and his wife, Meghan, now annually purchase hundreds of pounds of the fruit from the vet and other growers and sell pawpaw ice-cream and other treats containing the fruit and its seeds.They are part of a growing industry. In recent years, people have started pawpaw festivals around the country, and in 2022, the US Department of Agriculture included the fruit in its agricultural census for the first time and reported that the country had almost 1,500 farms containing 800 acres of the fruit.Growers are trying to meet the increased demand but faced challenges this year because some trees flowered earlier than normal and were then hit by a late-season frost that destroyed some of the crop.Scientists said the unusual weather was related to the climate crisis and say that such events could create problems for growers, just as the industry in the US is taking off.Still, people in the industry remain optimistic about pawpaw’s potential because it is native to the United States and there are many varieties around the country. As such, the crop could be able to better adapt to the effects of the climate crisis than fruits like apples and peaches.“Since there are native stands of [pawpaws] all over the country, we have so much variation and lots of stuff with great fruit quality,” said Adam D’Angelo, director of research at Project Pawpaw, a company that aims to develop new varieties of the fruit. “We are able to draw upon that to make sure that we still have crops that can perform in varying conditions.”The pawpaw is the largest edible fruit native to the United States, and the crop typically ripens in the fall. It has a shelf life of just two to three days, which makes selling it harder.Universities have invested in research programs to improve propagation of the plant.Pawpaw enthusiasts have also launched festivals that have increased awareness of the fruit.D’Angelo thinks the fruit can help small farmers and the environment.“This tropical-tasting, delicious fruit that grows right here is, in some ways, displacing tropical fruit that is being shipped across the world”, which raises greater environmental and ethical concerns than something grown locally, said D’Angelo, who grew up in a family with a garden center and nursery in northern New Jersey.Feyerabend was unsure how to introduce a pawpaw flavor to Pure Joy Ice Cream customers not familiar with its taste, so he made a sorbet in which he used lime juice to “accentuate the tropical notes in the pawpaw fruit”, he said.Customers liked it.“They weren’t even super interested in what the pawpaw was. It wasn’t for any interest in tropical fruit or native fruit. They were legitimately just enjoying the flavor of it,” said Feyerabend, who went to one pawpaw festival in 2023 and plans to sell at four this year.But one of his suppliers recently had a webworm infestation damage his crop. The fruit was still usable, Feyerabend said. The farmer released wasps – rather than a pesticide spray – to attack the worms.“It’s a very valuable fruit” and “requires a fraction of the inputs of a traditional fruit crop and far less spraying”, D’Angelo said.Still, farmers in Ohio and Kentucky reported that the early flowering this year created a bitter taste.Kentucky State University, which has a pawpaw research program, lost 40% of its crop to unusual weather, said Kirk Pomper, a horticulture professor at the school. Still, he thinks that pawpaw farmers can adjust to new weather patterns by planting orchards on north-facing hillsides to slow the flowering and investing in new irrigation methods to contend with more frequent draughts, he said.“It’s just going to make it a little more challenging,” said Pomper, who has worked on the fruit for two decades.Pomper remains optimistic about the fruit’s potential because people have become more adventurous in what they eat, he said. He envisions pawpaws following a trajectory similar to fruits like the kiwi and mango, which became more popular in the United States in recent decades.“The pawpaw fits right in there with that tropical-like flavor, even though it’s grown in temperate areas,” Pomper said.People in the industry also expect entrepreneurs to find more uses for the pawpaw pulp. In addition to making ice-cream with it, Feyerabend delivered pawpaws to a local brewer who planned to make a beer with the fruit.Still even if the pawpaw market continues to grow, D’Angelo does not think people should dedicate an entire farm to the fruit.“Diversification is essential. If you have a bad year for pawpaws, you might have a great year for chestnuts, right?” D’Angelo said. “Spreading out that risk is what is going to help foster resilience in our food system and is going to help keep small farms innovating and keep them viable.”

Business
Climate
Crisis

NY Judge Denies Governor’s Bid to Toss Suit Challenging Decision to Halt Manhattan Congestion Fee

A New York judge has denied Gov. Kathy Hochul’s request to toss out lawsuits challenging her decision to halt a new congestion fee for drivers into Manhattan

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York judge on Friday denied Gov. Kathy Hochul’s request to toss out lawsuits challenging her decision to halt a new congestion fee for drivers into Manhattan. The tolling program, which had been set to start June 30, would have imposed on drivers entering the core of Manhattan a toll of about $15, depending on vehicle type, in order to generate about $1 billion annually for transit improvements. Andrew Celli, a lawyer representing the City Club of New York, one of the local groups that has sued Hochul, said afterward that the judge’s ruling means the lawsuits will move forward and the governor will have to justify her actions in court.“What the judge did here is he said that congestion pricing will not be delayed by legal technicalities,” he said outside court. “That’s a huge victory for people that care about the law and people that care about congestion pricing.”Alan Schoenfeld, a lawyer representing Hochul and the state Department of Transportation in the lawsuits, didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment. Groups challenging the governor’s decision, including the Riders Alliance, the Sierra Club and the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, argue the Democrat violated the state’s laws and constitution when she indefinitely paused the fee just days before its planned launch.Hochul at the time cited economic concerns, suggesting it wasn’t the right time to impose a new toll scheme as local businesses and residents were still recovering financially from the coronavirus pandemic. In court Friday, Celli argued that state lawmakers deliberately did not give the governor’s office authority on when the fee would be imposed when it passed it into law in 2019.Instead, he argued, the legislature charged the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, which oversees the bridges and tunnels in the New York City area, with making that final decision in order to remove politics from the equation. “She doesn’t have the discretion,” Celli said. But Schoenfeld said it was a “demonstrably false” to suggest that state lawmakers intended to put the tunnel and bridge authority “unilaterally” in charge of congestion pricing.He argued that the law also recognizes the critical role the governor’s office and state DOT play in the process.Engoron, at points in the hearing, appeared unmoved by Schoenfeld’s arguments. He also joked at the outset of the hearing that he drove into Manhattan for the hearing and the traffic was terrible.“Can’t anyone do anything about that?” Engoron said to laughs before launching into the proceedings. Dror Ladin, a lawyer with Earthjustice, which represented some of the groups challenging Hochul, also argued that the months since the governor’s decision this summer have been damaging.He says New Yorkers have dealt with more traffic, more negative health and environmental consequences from air pollution and further delays in desperately needed transit system upgrades.“There’s a real harm here,” Ladin said. Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

Business
Health
Pollution

Suggested Viewing

Small Footprints: Crafting an Eco-Lodge in Wild Alaska

In 2008, a sustainable development project began in the middle of the Kenai Fjords of Alaska, 3 hours by boat from the nearest port of civilization. Told from the points of view of crew members, project coordinators and the Native Alaskan corporation that owns the land itself, the film is both a celebration of and a blueprint for sustainable construction, as well as an exciting battle against time and the elements deep within wild Alaska.

Sustainable
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Documentary

Let There be Light

Genesis 1:3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Taiwan was founded on agriculture in the early days. However, in the face of rapid urbanization, there was no time to build infrastructure such as sewage pipelines, and a large amount of sewage was discharged indiscriminately, causing severe water pollution. To connect domestic sewage to the water purification plant and turn it into water resources that can be continuously recycled, the sewage engineering team adopted a most humane "equation" to appease and compensate the residents disturbed by the project. They invited the residents to participate in the beautification design of the back alley, which was damaged by the engineering project, and hired old painters who have painted "Roman Holiday" and "Back to the Future" movie billboards, and new generation painters to create with colorful brushes. The colorful paintings make the originally dark, dirty, and smelly back alleys clean and bright, and people are more willing to enter the back alleys to make tea and chat, a secret paradise for locals is then created. Let’s walk into the back alleys and see how the light makers light up the back alleys with human touch and let the light penetrate the water, creating Formosa’s unique “Light Making Equation”. This action has been carried out since 2016 and will continue in the future.

Water
Business
Pollution

1948 and Counting

Reports on Costa Rica's ability to manage without a military since 1948, despite invasions based in Nicaragua. Addresses the role of private armies serving multinational corporations, and whether the country's civil guard is a military by another name. Places Costa Rica in the context of Central and Latin American populist struggles against US backed regimes in El Salvador, Chile, Panama, Nicaragua and Honduras. Touches on the colonial history and explores whether Costa Rica depends on US military backing, and whether it is able to maintain independence from the US.

Government
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Last Chair

We pollute the environment upon which we depend. An exploration of the paradox of sustainable skiing and how we can protect the places we love.

Sustainable
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Conservation

Job 1

A puppet animation about employment.

Animation
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Music

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