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The Rust Belt
The Rust Belt made the eastern USA rich and prosperous. From 1850 to 1980, the largest American companies were located near the Great Lakes: US Steel, Ford, General Motors, etc. Millions of Americans worked in these factories, at first in difficult conditions, then these conditions improved thanks to the organization of workers into unions. These…
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Is Artificial Intelligence good for humans?
Our understanding of how the brain and AI work has advanced considerably. The best model of the human brain we have today dates from the 1970s and is based on neural networks. For each characteristic, a knowledge or emotion is associated. We reconstruct concepts whenever we need them. Our memories are linked to each other…
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Hydrogen-powered aircraft
Which is better, the plane or the train? The plane pollutes more, but it’s faster, more convenient and cheaper than the train. Trains are expensive in terms of infrastructure and space: stations, rails, track maintenance, etc. Oil lobbies compete with nuclear lobbies. Yet aviation and ecology can be reconciled. Hydrogen-powered aircraft pollute less than trains.…
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Cut out the middleman
Four traders, suppliers of raw materials supply 90% of food for humans and livestock: Cargill, ADM, Louis Dreyfus Commodities and Bunge. They supply cereals, cocoa, cotton, oil, eggs, flour, meat, peanuts, rubber, salt, wool, chemicals and vitamins. The biggest of these, CARGILL, is the largest private company in the United States and controls a quarter…
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How can we win back trust?
Today, the far right in Europe and in the United States is only gaining ground. But is attacking immigrants, as the police are doing, a solution to the security problems we face? What can we do about the rise of jihadism in particular?Jihadism feeds on the exclusion advocated by the far right and applied by…
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Ecoterrorism
Terrorism is the use of terror for ideological, political or religious ends. The word “terrorisme” was first used in November 1794, when it was used to describe the “doctrine of the partisans of the Terror”, those who, some time earlier, had exercised power by waging an intense and violent struggle against the counter-revolutionaries. It was…
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Stop the all-concrete approach
Concrete dominates today’s buildings. And yet it has major shortcomings. It consumes a lot of water and energy, produces a lot of CO2 and lasts only 80 years at best for reinforced concrete. What’s more, it doesn’t provide sufficient protection from the heat, leading to increased use of air conditioning, which in turn exacerbates global…
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Peru, biodiversity in danger
The biodiversity in Peru is enormous and unique, 3000 to 4000 varieties of potatoes, 52 varieties of corn, 163 varieties of tomatoes, 7590 varieties of flowers that exist only there, 4400 varieties of butterflies, 3 varieties of cocoa, avocados, cotton. We use only a few varieties of each crop in Europe. If these were to…
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Sun Cream
Sun Cream Différences entre écran solaire minéral et filtre UV chimique – ecocentric: https://www.ecocentric.fr/blog/index/billet/14446_filtres-solaires-nanos Hawaii approves sunscreen ban in an effort to save coral reefs – TreeHugger: https://www.treehugger.com/ocean-conservation/hawaii-approves-sunscreen-ban-effort-save-coral-reefs.html La crème solaire est-elle vraiment efficace ?: https://youtu.be/LF6qK6j3vco Which sunscreen should you choose? – Mary Poffenroth – Ted ed: https://youtu.be/JX8rv_natkw To check if your sunscreen is…
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Turn
“Look back and take a picture of the Earth”, Carl Sagan told the Apollo 17 astronauts Who were oriented towards space Photographing distant planets and stars. “Turn back, there’s no need to look to the future!” When, for the first time, Humans cause disasters At the magnitude of natural disasters, You chose not to look…