Tag Archive for 'environment'

Google Earth Engine launched to aid global environmental monitoring and measurement.

Published on December 7, 2010 in Google, clean tech, environment and technology. View Comments

Google has launched Google Earth Engine at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, currently underway in Cancun, Mexico. The new platform enables global monitoring and measurement of changes in Earth’s environment.

Google Earth Engine will allow scientists to use Google’s huge infrastructure to analyse imagery (running analyses across thousands of computers), in order to study data related to such things as the state of deforestation, disease mitigation, disaster response and water resources.

Google says it’s particularly excited about the use of Google Earth Engine to support development of systems to monitor, report and verify efforts to stop global deforestation. Deforestation is responsible for a substantial amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere, and loss of biodiversity.

It’s a timely launch, as a United Nations proposed framework  for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) is a key agenda item at the Cancun conference.

Because of the huge amount of satellite imagery, and the substantial computer resources needed to analyze the images, many images have never before been seen or analyzed. Google says that scientists will now be able to build applications to mine the significant amount of data they have built up.

Google is also donating 10 million CPU-hours a year for 2 years on Google Earth Engine, to help developing nations track the state of forests. The aim is to provide transparency and certainty to efforts to stop deforestation; both important and significant issues.

It’s good to see Google using its resources in a project such as this, which I notice is also supported by several partners, including key strategic and funding partner the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Facebook co-founder launches Jumo, a social network for activism.

Published on November 30, 2010 in Facebook, environment, politics and social media. View Comments

Jumo is a new social network I’m certainly going to be keeping an eye on. That’s not easy to do at the moment. Because of all the initial interest, no doubt generated by the significant amount of launch coverage, I understand they are having a few initial problems.

Not such a bad situation to be in really, although a new network started by Facebook co-founder and Obama campaign director of online organizing, Chris Hughes, was always going to get a lot of attention. So far I have managed to create an account, log in, and have an initial poke around.

Jumo

The idea behind Jumo is to let us find, follow and support causes that are the most important to us – a social network for social activism. Apparently there are already around 3,500 organizations signed up. No doubt many more will join in. Jumo is a also not–for–profit venture itself.

I’m not going to give any sort of review just yet, as it seems way too soon. I  haven’t had a chance to properly suss it out. Will you join me in checking it out? Jumo just requires you to connect your Facebook account when you sign up.

What would a global civilisation with a collective mind look like?

Published on November 11, 2010 in Twitter, environment, politics, social media and technology. View Comments

Lately I’ve been thinking more on the subject of this great human hive humanity is currently creating, in the form of our insatiable and widening use of the internet.

In just 20 years we have come to the point where almost 2 billion of us now use the internet, and no doubt that will continue to grow until most of us are communicating online on a regular basis, however long that takes.

Star Trek references aside (to The Borg hive mind), as I know someone will mention it, the question remains: is all this mass connectivity leading to a global civilisation with a collective mind? Is it an inevitable part of our social, technological and cultural evolution as a species?

Let’s just say the answer to that question is yes. Will this collective mind be able to help solve our greatest problems, such as climate change? Will it create new problems, such as large scale cyberwarfare? Will life on the internet just play out as it does offline or will it be different? Perhaps the answer is all of the above.

As usual I’ve already floated these ideas on Twitter, a part of this global hive mind in the making (now close to 2oo million users worldwide). It was suggested at one point that the general level of discourse on the web is not high enough at present to be able to achieve anything of real value in a collective sense.

My answer is that it doesn’t all have to be of crucial importance and of great value. Like conversation, the collective mind will wander, will concern itself with trivial matters and pointless entertainment, and “oh look at that silly cat” and celebrities and so forth. Like conversation itself, it can be trivial, it can be awkward, it can be small, it can be big, it can be vitally important. It can have a sense of urgency. It can be relaxed and slow. It can be a lot of things.

Someone also mentioned that it may be a disastrously disconnected global mind rather than a cohesive, perfectly in-tune collective consciousness. My answer to that is that perhaps it doesn’t need to be pretty or perfect, maybe it just has to be.

Facebook is all Green now, don’t give us any more suggestions please.

Published on November 8, 2010 in Facebook, business, clean tech, environment, social media and technology. View Comments

Perhaps in response to the earlier reported pressure from Greenpeace and others, Facebook has put up a ‘Green on Facebook’ page, highlighting the company’s “efforts to be a green and sustainable global citizen”.

Green On Facebook

The page has information on Facebook’s environmental and energy efficiency programs, and has links to its energy efficiency partners, such as Digital Energy Solutions Campaign, Alliance to Save Energy and The Green Grid.

Facebook may be correct in asserting that “By enabling millions of people from diverse backgrounds to easily connect and share, we believe we can help unleash innovative environmental initiatives across the globe.”. In addition, it appears that Facebook has now realised, with more than a little pressure it has to be said, that it should also lead by example.

An obvious question now, given how big Facebook has become, is: do you think Facebook is doing enough? Facebook’s stated programs and energy efficiencies now include:

  1. Encouraging recycling and composting throughout Facebook facilities.
  2. Reducing water consumption by nearly 60%, including auto/dual flush toilets and motion sensor faucets.
  3. Motion sensor controlled lighting, reducing energy consumption by 60%.
  4. A Green transportation program offering shuttles, car and vanpooling, bike racks and subsidised public transport for employees.
  5. Facebook has designed a programming language (HipHop for PHP) that provides 50% CPU savings, meaning fewer servers are needed.
  6. Facebook has made the storage of user photos more efficient, so it uses 20% less power than industry standard storage architecture.
  7. Facebook has invested in and is introducing various data center efficiencies on an ongoing basis.

Not bad. They have also added a “Have any further suggestions related to Facebook and the Environment, submit it here” link, but strangely enough, when I clicked it, it came back with:

Facebook page not foundHmm, bit of an oversight there. No doubt they’ll fix that. They do allow comments on their wall though. I noticed quite a lot of “No To Coal” spam there as it happens.

I took a holiday and that included not blogging, so there.

Published on October 27, 2010 in Australia, Twitter, blogging, environment and social media. View Comments

Well it’s been pretty quiet around here for the past couple of weeks hasn’t it? I took a couple of weeks off for a beach holiday with the fam, up the coast in Port Stephens. Beautiful spot! (see pic).
Port Stephens

Obviously I didn’t blog while on holiday, and I didn’t pre-write any posts and schedule them to be published while I was away, as many would advise. I just had a much needed holiday and I’m not apologising for it, just explaining where I’ve been. It was good. I think taking some time off to recharge and reflect on life is important.

If you follow some of my tweets you’ll know that I didn’t take a holiday from tweeting. I just tweeted less, and about holiday activities, and on thoughts mostly stimulated by holiday reading. Holiday tweeting is different from usual tweeting, so there.

I’m back now. What did I miss?

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