This week’s Present Local weather, which each and every Saturday brings you the most recent information concerning the enterprise of sustainability. Signal as much as get it in your inbox each week.
Forbes
This previous week we held the inaugural Forbes Sustainability Leaders Summit, the place we introduced in leaders from a number of industries to speak about fixing urgent environmental points whereas nonetheless guaranteeing a wholesome, vibrant economic system. I led a panel that includes Todd Brady, who has been a pacesetter at Intel in driving down its power use and carbon footprint (Intel, he informed the group, makes use of 100% renewable power in the USA); Gaurab Chakrabarti, the CEO of Solugen, a startup that’s making industrial chemical substances like hydrogen peroxide with out the messy, energy-intensive processes that make the most of oil; and Maddie Corridor, whose firm Residing Carbon is bioengineering bushes to each retailer extra carbon dioxide and to develop bushes in blighted areas the place regular bushes can’t develop.
The entire summit was energizing. However what actually hit house for me was this straightforward concept: there’s actually no battle between setting and economic system. Intel’s strikes in the direction of power conservation have been good for the corporate’s backside line. Solugen is promoting its merchandise cost-competitively, with none advertising premium for being inexperienced. And Residing Carbon’s bushes? They produce wooden that’s extra sturdy than what’s available on the market. You might be inexperienced and make inexperienced on the identical time–all it takes is a few intelligent science and engineering.
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The Huge Learn
JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES
California’s Water Emergency: Satisfying The Thirst Of Almonds Whereas The Wells Of The Individuals That Harvest Them Run Dry
Broiling warmth in the midst of the worst drought in 1,200 years has strained the state’s underground water provide, pitting the Central Valley’s $20 billion agriculture trade towards lots of its personal employees.
Learn extra right here.
Discoveries And Improvements
Researchers have found out a option to construct lithium-ion batteries with out utilizing cobalt, which makes them each safer and fewer vulnerable to market volatility.
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California was capable of climate a historic warmth wave with out rolling blackouts as a result of it has gone all-in on clear power know-how like wind, photo voltaic, battery storage, and demand response.
NASA scientists developed a option to weigh land lots utilizing two satellites in area, which allowed them to doc Greenland’s staggering weight reduction from melted ice.
Sustainability Offers Of The Week
Fusion Growth: The Division of Vitality introduced a brand new $50 million program to help firms, universities and different organizations in creating industrial fusion energy applied sciences.
Aluminum Bottles: Ball Company introduced that it has partnered with Boomerang Water to offer aluminum bottled water for resorts, cruise ships and different places; the bottles might be extra simply crammed and recycled than their plastic counterparts.
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On The Horizon
Sustainable know-how can discover its inspiration in all places – even older applied sciences. Right here’s a dialog about the place future inexperienced tech could be going.
What Else We’re Studying This Week
For years, Chile exploited its setting to develop. Now it’s attempting to reserve it. (Well-liked Science)
Excessive Warmth Saps Billions in Employee Productiveness (Scientific American)
The Tonga Volcano Shook the World. It Might Additionally Have an effect on the Local weather. (New York Occasions)
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Inexperienced Transportation Replace
Getty Photos
The ongoing transition away from fossil fuels to electrical energy for our automobiles and vehicles is nice for carbon emissions however will possible set off shortages of key metals utilized in electrical car batteries requiring a whole lot of recent mines. That is in keeping with trade consultants who count on demand for EV batteries to spike to tens of hundreds of thousands of models yearly within the years forward.
The Huge Transportation Story
Tony Ponds
Black Founders Of EV-Charging Startups Have Extra Than Earnings On Their Minds
Sheryl E. Ponds, whose firm designs and builds electrical car charging stations, has had success touchdown enterprise from clients in search of house installations as adoption of the brand new inexperienced know-how grows. However for Ponds, who’s Black, it’s arduous to disregard the truth that these clients are usually suburban, prosperous and white. She values their enterprise, however desires to ensure the infrastructure she develops additionally reaches city and Black communities. So final yr she began pitching her service to managers of condo properties in areas the place demographics are usually extra numerous — despite the fact that gross sales have been harder to return by.
Learn extra right here.
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Extra Inexperienced Transportation Information
Class 8 Hydrogen Truck Competitors Disrupted By A Canada-United Kingdom Partnership
Charging EVs At Dwelling In a single day Might Not Be The Least expensive Choice For A lot Longer
Reside Longer, Look Sexier And 43 Different Causes To Journey A Bicycle This World Automobile Free Day
Battery-Swapping Unlikely To Ruffle Fragile U.S., European Chargers
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By The Numbers: How A lot Electrical Automobile Battery Vary Is Sufficient?
Amazon Will Energy Vehicles With ‘Electrofuel’ Diesel To Curb Carbon Emissions
For Extra Sustainability Protection, Click on Right here.
A new law requiring many California bars and nightclubs to offer common date-rape drug test kits will take effect Tuesday, according to the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
The law, Assembly Bill 1013, requires approximately 2,400 establishments with a Type 48 license to have signage letting patrons know that drug testing kits are available.
Type 48 licenses are issued to bars and nightclubs and authorize the sale of beer, wine, and distilled spirits, according to the department.
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The signage reads, “Don’t get roofied! Drink spiking drug test kits available here. Ask a staff member for details.”
The drug testing devices will either be offered for sale at a reasonable price or be given to customers for free, according to the department.
Devices could include test strips, stickers, or straws that can detect the presence of controlled substances in drinks.
Eagles singer Don Henley filed a lawsuit in New York on Friday (June 28) seeking the return of his handwritten notes and song lyrics from the band’s 1976 album Hotel California.
The civil complaint filed in Manhattan federal court comes after prosecutors in March abruptly dropped criminal charges midway through a trial against three collectibles experts accused of scheming to sell the documents.
The Eagles co-founder has maintained the pages were stolen and had vowed to pursue a lawsuit when the criminal case was dropped against rare books dealer Glenn Horowitz, former Rock & Roll Hall of Fame curator Craig Inciardi and rock memorabilia seller Edward Kosinski.
“These 100 pages of personal lyric sheets belong to Mr. Henley and his family, and he has never authorized defendants or anyone else to peddle them for profit,” Daniel Petrocelli, Henley’s lawyer, said in an emailed statement Friday.
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According to the lawsuit, the handwritten pages remain in the custody of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which declined to comment Friday on the litigation.
Lawyers for Kosinski and Inciardi dismissed the legal action as baseless, noting the criminal case was dropped after it was determined that Henley misled prosecutors by withholding critical information.
“Don Henley is desperate to rewrite history,” Shawn Crowley, Kosinski’s lawyer, said in an emailed statement. “We look forward to litigating this case and bringing a lawsuit against Henley to hold him accountable for his repeated lies and misuse of the justice system.”
Inciardi’s lawyer, Stacey Richman, said in a separate statement that the lawsuit attempts to “bully” and “perpetuate a false narrative.”
A lawyer for Horowitz, who isn’t named as a defendant as he doesn’t claim ownership of the materials, didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
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During the trial, the men’s lawyers argued that Henley gave the lyrics pages decades ago to a writer who worked on a never-published Eagles biography and later sold the handwritten sheets to Horowitz. He, in turn, sold them to Inciardi and Kosinski, who started putting some of the pages up for auction in 2012.
The criminal case was abruptly dropped after prosecutors agreed that defense lawyers had essentially been blindsided by 6,000 pages of communications involving Henley and his attorneys and associates.
Prosecutors and the defense said they received the material only after Henley and his lawyers made a last-minute decision to waive their attorney-client privilege shielding legal discussions.
Judge Curtis Farber, who presided over the nonjury trial that opened in late February, said witnesses and their lawyers used attorney-client privilege “to obfuscate and hide information that they believed would be damaging” and that prosecutors “were apparently manipulated.”
