Yellowstone's supervolcano: The greatest threat to humanity? with Bryan Walsh Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ►► https://www.youtube.com/c/bigthink Up next ►► Are solar storms a threat to

Yellowstone's supervolcano: The greatest threat to humanity? with Bryan Walsh Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ►► https://www.youtube.com/c/bigthink Up next ►► Are solar storms a threat to humanity? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGYMgU7d00Q Although they might occur infrequently, supervolcanoes are by no means insignificant. When an extreme magnitude of volcanic materials are ejected into the atmosphere, sunlight can’t reach the Earth’s surface - making global starvation a very real threat. Fortunately, there are steps we can take to prepare the human race for the looming threat of supervolcanoes. This video was originally created and shared by Freethink. Read the video transcript: https://bigthink.com/videos/supervolcano/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Bryan Walsh: Bryan Walsh is the editor of Vox's Future Perfect section, overseeing coverage on policies and technologies that will make the future a better place. Previously he worked at Axios as the Future Correspondent, wrote the 2019 book "End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World," and worked at TIME magazine for 15 years as a foreign correspondent in Asia, a climate change writer and as the international editor. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Read more of our stories on volcano eruptions: Tonga volcano eruption was a once-in-a-millennium event ►► https://bigthink.com/hard-science/tonga-volcano-eruption/ What are dormant volcanoes good for? Copper mining ►►https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/dormant-volcanoes-copper-mining/ See remarkable NASA photos of a new volcano eruption ►► https://bigthink.com/hard-science/volcano-eruption/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Big Think | Smarter Faster™ ► Big Think The leading source of expert-driven, educational content. With thousands of videos, featuring experts ranging from Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, Big Think helps you get smarter, faster by exploring the big ideas and core skills that define knowledge in the 21st century. ► Big Think+ Make your business smarter, faster: https://bigthink.com/plus/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Want more Big Think? ► Daily editorial features: https://bigthink.com/popular/ ► Get the best of Big Think right to your inbox: https://bigthink.com/st/newsletter ► Facebook: https://bigth.ink/facebook ► Instagram: https://bigth.ink/Instagram ► Twitter: https://bigth.ink/twitter

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As we gear up for reintroduction of carbon-fee-and-dividend legislation in the new Congress, we heard from economist Dr. Noah Kaufman, lead author of the 2019 Columbia University assessment of the

As we gear up for reintroduction of carbon-fee-and-dividend legislation in the new Congress, we heard from economist Dr. Noah Kaufman, lead author of the 2019 Columbia University assessment of the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. The study confirmed the effectiveness of the bill from both an environmental and economic perspective. Dr. Kaufman is Research Scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia, leading research focused on climate change policies. He also teaches a course on Energy Decarbonization. During the Obama administration, he served as the Deputy Associate Director of Energy & Climate Change at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

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How concentrated solar power could fuel the future Watch the newest video from Big Think: https://bigth.ink/NewVideo Learn skills from the world's top minds at Big Think Edge:

How concentrated solar power could fuel the future Watch the newest video from Big Think: https://bigth.ink/NewVideo Learn skills from the world's top minds at Big Think Edge: https://bigth.ink/Edge ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What if we could not only harness the power of the sun, but actually use it to run the entire planet? Concentrated solar power (CSP) has the potential to do just that — using arrays of revolving mirrors called heliostats, light is reflected into a massive receiver. Thanks to recent advancements in technology, the cost to replicate these Sunlight Refineries™ is dropping. Soon solar energy will be cleaner and cheaper than using fossil fuels, which could mean adoption on a global scale. Heliogen, a company founded by Bill Gross and backed by Bill Gates, wants to eliminate all uses of fossil fuels. Using cameras, AI, and machine learning, they are working to make these CSP systems smarter and much more efficient. This episode is from Hard Reset, a Freethink original series about rebuilding the world from scratch and reimagining everything from first principles. Catch more Hard Reset episodes on their channel: https://www.freethink.com/shows/hard-reset ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT: NARRATOR: This might look like a death ray, but it's not. It's actually... One enormous, very accurate magnifying glass. NARRATOR: This magnifying glass has a technical name, a sunlight refinery. To use it, find somewhere really sunny, plop down a bunch of mirrors, bounce the sunlight into a single spot and you can melt just about anything. Okay, so it is kind of death ray-ish. Why do this? Because manufacturing steel or cement requires a lot of heat and making something super hot has historically meant burning dinosaurs. STEVE SCHELL: You look at the massive carbon footprint that is associated with these industrial applications and it can't be ignored. NARRATOR: Twenty percent of global carbon emissions to be precise. And because this technology is so good, it might just change the entire energy industry. And prevent World War III in the process. This is "Hard Reset," a series about rebuilding our world from scratch. Just east of Six Flags and north of LA is a place called Lancaster, which is very flat, very hot and a perfect place to test a takeover of the world's energy supply. [dramatic music] Yeah, that sounded more Bond villain-y than I thought it would. Anyway, these are called heliostats and the reason this solar refinery works so well is that under these mirrors and shot glasses are pretty simple motors that they can control remotely. And this allows the mirrors to change angles throughout the day, depending on where the sun is. How do they know where the sun is? Interns. No, AI, of course. BILL GROSS: You need to take each of thousands of mirrors and point them very, very precisely, accurate to about 1/10 or 1/20 of a degree. NARRATOR: That's Bill Gross, genius visionary and founder of over 150 companies. Also super nice guy. GROSS: Thank you, I really appreciate it. NARRATOR: At the top of the tower, high-resolution cameras monitor the position of the mirrors below. SCHELL: You can actually see the two at the top are the easiest to pick out 'cause they're on booms above the receiver. NARRATOR: So Heliogen gets all those mirrors to reflect sunlight into that big target at the top. SCHELL: So what we've got just above us is the solar receiver. So you can see that's what we saw from ground level. That's where that concentrated sunlight is focused when the field is operating. NARRATOR: The cameras know if the mirrors are bouncing into the sun because those cameras are assessing the quality of the sky's blue. Let's break that down with Steve, who has cool tattoos. SCHELL: This is my robot battle armor and what I have here is a jungle on an alien planet with robots tending the garden. NARRATOR: And is in charge of the technology stuff here. SCHELL: What these cameras see is the reflection of the sky close to the sun. Close to the sun, the sky appears very bright from the scattered sunlight coming through it and the further away from the sun you look, the darker or less bright that patch of sky appears to be. NARRATOR: So the cameras look at the color blue and the AI uses that information to assess the distance from the sun, deduce the orientation of the mirror and therefore, where the beam is going. SCHELL: So every few seconds, we get a measurement of where that beam is going and we can command the heliostat to make small corrections to optimize its tracking. In this industry, that is a complete game changer 'cause now we don't rely on the hardware to be so precise, we have software to make it precise. So it really changes everything about how that plant... To read the full transcript, please go to https://bigthink.com/videos/concentrated-solar-power

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The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment

The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment is an educational charity, created by The Prince of Wales to put people at the heart of the architectural design process. The Prince's Foundation teaches and practises timeless and ecological ways of planning, designing and building.

This film explains more about the charity and its projects, and features interviews with The Prince's Foundation's Chief Executive Hank Dittmar, and Ambassador George Clarke. Uploaded on May 26, 2011

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Production of animal protein is producing vast amounts of climate-eating gases. But a new generation of companies are creating innovative food products that mimic meat and have much smaller

Production of animal protein is producing vast amounts of climate-eating gases. But a new generation of companies are creating innovative food products that mimic meat and have much smaller environmental impacts. Some of this mock meat is derived from plants with ingredients designed to replicate the taste and pleasure of chomping into a beef hamburger. Others are growing meat cells that come from a laboratory and not a cow. Bill Gates, Cargill, Tyson and other big name investors are dabbling in so-called clean meat. Emerging technologies are already offering people new food choices at restaurants and grocery stores. Will those options wean enough people from burgers and chicken wings to go mainstream? Will that transition help reduce carbon pollution that is destabilizing the climate? Production of animal protein is producing vast amounts of climate-eating gases. But a new generation of companies are creating innovative food products that mimic meat and have much smaller environmental impacts. Some of this mock meat is derived from plants with ingredients designed to replicate the taste and pleasure of chomping into a beef hamburger. Others are growing meat cells that come from a laboratory and not a cow. Bill Gates, Cargill, Tyson and other big name investors are dabbling in so-called clean meat. Emerging technologies are already offering people new food choices at restaurants and grocery stores. Will those options wean enough people from burgers and chicken wings to go mainstream? Will that transition help reduce carbon pollution that is destabilizing the climate? #letstalkclimate https://climateone.org/ https://climateone.org/events/christiana-figueres-conversation-mindfulness-and-climate Making tuna without a fish? 1:25 Why meat tastes like meat 10:25 New frontier beyond Farm To Table 14:28 The fate of the world? 23:35 Lightening Round! 24:28

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