Search

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry is a vociferous fan of renewable energy, but in recent weeks he has gone out of his way to reinforce the Trump administration's promotion of large, centralized coal and nuclear power plants for electricity generation. That's despite the consensus among energy stakeholders, who are converging on distributed power generation and decentralized "smart" microgrids as the key to a resilient, reliable grid. Last week, NRG Energy Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mauricio Gutierrez provided some insights into how and why the Rick Perry power plan will not gain much traction outside of the coal and nuclear field -- nor even within it.

The Rick Perry power plan

For those of you new to the topic, last spring Perry raised eyebrows by assigning his agency to issue a report on grid reliability. The agency already has a sprawling grid modernization initiative well under way, and it is moving toward renewable energy and the decentralized, distributed electricity generation model. Nevertheless, a leaked memo from Perry indicated that the new study would be designed to justify the continued operation of conventional coal and nuclear power plants.

The study that finally did emerge was relatively consistent with the Energy Department's ongoing grid efforts. However, it has formed the basis of two recent proposals that Perry put forth. Both proposals are aimed at enabling coal and nuclear power plants to continue operating, even if less expensive options are available.

Though not stated in so many words, the Perry proposals would commit taxpayers and/or ratepayers to providing additional financial support for coal and nuclear power plants, which already benefit from significant public largess.

NRG speaks up for electricity options

The Perry proposals have met with significant blowback from energy stakeholders. Among the critics is NRG, a leading diversified energy company that also holds a good deal of coal fired power in its portfolio as well as natural gas and nuclear.

Last week NRG's Gutierrez sat down for an interview with Bloomberg that laid out the main issue.

In particular, Gutierrez addressed Perry's proposal to compensate coal and nuclear power plants that could demonstrate a 90-day supply on hand, as a means of ensuring continued operation in case of widespread outages.

Gutierrez described the Perry proposal as a "stink" bomb. On the plus side, it helped draw more attention to serious vulnerabilities in the nation's electricity grid. On the negative side, Gutierrez told Bloomberg that "specifically rewarding nuclear and coal-fired power plants, as Perry’s plan would do, isn’t the answer to ensuring a reliable U.S. power mix:"

What regulators need to do is define what makes a power plant “resilient,” he said, and then perhaps create a fuel-neutral, “resiliency market” in which all resources can compete to keep the lights on.

Gutierrez elaborated:

Whatever the commission comes up with needs to be fuel-neutral and markets-based, as opposed to depending on subsidies for specific power resources, Gutierrez said. “We cannot discriminate certain types of fuels,” he said, describing competitive markets as “the bedrock” of industries.

The non-discrimination argument doesn't just work for wind and solar. It also works for another one of NRG's major interests, natural gas. Stakeholders in the natural gas industry have actually joined with renewable energy companies to push back against Perry's plan. The basic argument -- presented by the American Petroleum Institute, for example -- is that natural gas is a cleaner, more flexible fit for the decentralized grid of the future.

With that in mind, NRG is focusing its future electricity generation efforts broadly on reducing carbon emissions. In an article published in Triple Pundit last summer, NRG head of sustainability Bruno Sarda made the case for focusing on the company's existing assets (emphasis his):

In 2014, we set industry-leading, science-based goals to reduce absolute greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 50 percent by 2030 and 90 percent by 2050.

These goals can only be met by reducing the carbon emitted by our conventional power generation assets – not by diluting our carbon profile through adding low-carbon assets like renewable generation and storage solutions.

Sarda further notes that the strategy -- which largely rests on converting coal units to natural gas -- is already proving to be effective, at least in terms of emissions from power plants (methane emissions attributed to drilling, transportation and storage are an issue yet to be addressed).

He also left the door open for a renewed focus on renewables and related clean tech:

New technologies are coming to the market regularly, so we don’t necessarily know all the additional levers that will emerge to help us meet these goals – but we’re already ahead of schedule and I like our odds of meeting or exceeding this goal by 2030.

Although NRG has adopted a source-neutral strategy for reducing its power plant emissions, customer demand is still engaging the company in renewable energy projects.

In the most recent development, health industry leader McKesson -- which ranks #5 on the Fortune 500 list -- has just partnered with NRG on a massive solar array for its Robbinsville, New Jersey distribution center. The 3-megawatt array is equal to almost 75 percent of the facility's electricity consumption.

Image: solar installation via NRG.

You've heard of garbage-eating wigglers and microbes that clean up wastewater from wineries: Mother Nature's own little helpers in combating pollution. Now we bring you moths that crunch through plastic.

Actually, to be fair to its larvae, credit should go where credit is due: Its the insect's sleek-looking worm-like caterpillars that are getting all the attention these days, proving that Nature, when called upon, has ways to clean up humans' detritus.

And in this case, it's a huge find. Scientists are already imagining how this incidental discovery can help get rid of the tons of material that has stumped scientists for eons when it comes to cleaning up ocean gyres and local landfills. More than 90 percent of the plastic found in landfills comprise either polyethylene or polypropylene, the two plastics that are the most difficult to dissolve. Efforts to develop a bacteria that could disintegrate the plastics haven't gone as well as hoped.

So it was a lucky chance when biologist and beekeeper Dr. Federica Bertocchini of Cantabria University, Spain, happened to cart a bunch of greater wax worms to her house after finding them in and around her beehives. Wax worms are the scourge of beehives and Bertocchini knew that she had to identify them to be sure. She placed them gingerly in a plastic shopping bag and headed back home. By the time she was able to retrieve them from the bag, the insects had escaped, making themselves at home in her house. She looked at the hole-ridden plastic bag and had an ah-hah! moment.

Realizing she might be onto a way to degrade these two plastics, she joined up with two other biochemists, Paolo Bombelli and Christopher Howe of Cambridge University and went to work to test the insects' capabilities in greater detail. Her two colleagues already knew that there's a molecular similarity between beeswax and these plastics and that likely, that's why the wax moth caterpillar was able to chew through its confines.

What was encouraging was that it took the caterpillar relatively little time to break down the molecular "bridge" that held the plastic together and gain freedom. That means that left to their own devices in a rubbish heap of plastic, the little caterpillars might actually be able to break down the polyethylene in the same way they ingest beeswax.

But that isn't exactly the result that the scientists are hoping to produce. Their aim, said Bertocchini in a recent interview, is to find a way to simulate the caterpillar's method of ingestion. In other words, to discover what Bertocchini refers to as the  "molecular devices responsible for this effect."

The scientists aren't convinced that that the insects were chomping through the plastic because they were hungry. Rather, it might have been simply to gain freedom. So the most logical step forward, said Bertoccini, is to simply put, figure out how the critters did it.

"In the past few years, and even more in the past year, the issue of plastic pollution, or pollution in general, has been discussed more and more. In my opinion, given the dramatic situation of our planet, talking about climate change, pollution and similar matters is never enough, they should talk more and push more, generally speaking," Bertoccini said.

The research was published in the April 2017 edition of Current Biology.

 

Flickr image: Andy Reago and Chrissy McClaren

By Rachel Jonat

The following post is excerpted from the upcoming book The Joy of Doing Nothing: A Real-Life Guide to Stepping Back, Slowing Down, and Creating a Simpler, Joy-Filled Life, available in December. 

Why do you work? Sure, everyone needs to pay the bills… But why do you have the job you have? For some people, their job is their passion and a big part of their identity. For others, their job is simply a way to make a living. For some of us, it’s a combination of both. No matter where you are on this spectrum, doing nothing will help you remember why you work and give you guidance on how to strategize your career.

Taking the Focus Off Money

Most people think it’s a given that they should be working toward increasing their earnings—which usually means working harder and working more hours. After all, making more money should be the goal, right? Make more money so we can buy more stuff and be happier.

Maybe not. It turns out that more money does not always equal more happiness. A 2010 study from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School found that happiness increases as income increases up to the point of making $75,000 a year. Once people reach that $75,000 income benchmark, earning more money doesn’t bring any greater happiness. We say money can’t buy happiness, but really, it can buy some happiness. However, that happiness tops out at a certain ceiling.

Taking the time to do nothing gives you an opportunity to mull over exactly what fulfills you and makes you happy. You may find it surprising that making more money isn’t actually what will make you happier. Through doing nothing, you’ll figure out what activities and people contribute to your overall contentment. The other “things”—more money, more stuff—probably aren’t a big part of what makes you feel good daily.

Let’s say you’ve been eyeing that office with an exterior window that comes with your own team to lead and a big raise for three years. The day finally arrives when it’s all yours. You’re thrilled until a few weeks in…when you realize that you’re now working 40 percent more for a 15 percent raise.

It’s ingrained in our culture that we should be seeking more money and power. To simply enjoy where you are at is often thought of as being unambitious or lazy. Doing nothing will enlighten you to the radical and life-changing concept that there are positives and negatives to getting promoted.

In addition, responsibility, stress, and work hours are not always proportional to salaries. If you’ve ever wondered why your colleague, the happy one who everyone likes, has turned down promotions twice, here’s her secret: She knows that job titles grow in inverse proportion to personal instability and stress. This life lesson is a hard one to come by, and many people refuse to believe they wouldn’t be happier with more responsibility, power, and a higher salary. They think the higher you get, the easier it gets, because more people are “under” you to do the hard work. But that’s really not how it works. You have less free time and more pressure to perform at a high level. Some people really do thrive professionally in those situations, and that’s where they find true happiness in their life. If that’s you, great—just be sure that you arrive at that decision thoughtfully and intentionally, not by blindly following the crowd.

The next step in this process might be realizing that making more money isn’t where you want to focus your energy on a daily basis. It’s life-changing to figure out that you don’t actually want to pursue a bonus or a new job title. Suddenly you’re free from the burden of pursuing more money. Doing nothing brings out the joy you find in the simple things in your life, the things that don’t really cost much. Once you have that realization, the pursuit of money won’t hold the same power over you.

Many people want more money but many of us don’t need more money. See the difference? When you practice doing nothing regularly, when you have this new peace in your life, you can see that when your basics are covered—shelter, food, clothing—you don’t need a lot more to be any happier. Relationships and activities become much more fulfilling when we are doing nothing because we learn how to give them our full attention. The shopping for fun, buying stuff just out of habit or because it once felt good, falls by the wayside. Stepping out of the constant quest for more money lets you:

• De-stress and simply enjoy your work more.


• See that you don’t want to hunger after more money, accolades, and promotions.


• Focus on just enjoying the work you do and taking pride in it.


• Become less concerned with big-picture results and more concerned with process, enjoying the work for work’s sake instead of as a path to the next promotion or raise.

Ironically, deciding to just enjoy your job and not worry about money and advancement can lead to more money and advancement because it encourages the kind of earnest and engaged work that results in recognition from your boss.

Fall in Love (Again) with Your Job 

Doing nothing can help you fall in love with your job all over again. The increased focus and motivation from taking those do-nothing breaks can help you find the parts and perks of your job that you enjoy most and lead you to focus your energy on them. It’s like starting a new career or taking a new job or position without any of the stress or hassle. In Kerry Hannon’s book Love Your Job: The New Rules for Career Happiness, Hannon outlines many strategies for enjoying your job more, including:

• Find what you like about your job. This is something that taking breaks to do nothing can clarify: What part(s) of your job do you return to work energized and looking forward to? Once you know what you like about your job, aim to do more of it. If you like things outside of your actual job—great coworkers, good vacation time, great health coverage—focus your thoughts on those job perks.


• Explore finding joy in the social side of work. Join the work softball team or volunteer for an event your company supports. Join an employee committee around office recycling, employee fitness or event planning. Those restorative breaks to do nothing can give you that extra energy to join in when, in the past, you would have said you needed a break from anything affiliated with work. Embracing social and volunteer opportunities through your workplace give new meaning and fulfillment to your job. You’ll get to know coworkers in a new way and bond with them over a shared experience. This positive experience related to work will soften any negative feelings about parts of your job you don’t enjoy. You will associate work with new and good things in your life.

Rachel Jonat is the author of Do Less and The Minimalist Mom. A sought-out expert on minimalism and simplifying, she has been featured on television and radio, The Globe and Mail, Babble, and Business Insider. She lives in Vancouver, Canada, with her husband and three sons. You can read more of her work at her popular blog TheMinimalistMom.com.

Image credits: Pixabay; Simon and Schuster

Copyright © 2017 Adams Media, a division of Simon and Schuster. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

File this one under "T" for That Was Fast. Last month the now notorious company Whitefish Energy nailed down an unusual $300 million contract to help restore power to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria tore through the island's power grid. As of last week, the contract appears to have evaporated and Whitefish could be in serious trouble, along with anyone else who signed off on the deal. Aside from any nefarious scheming involved, the whole episode has turned into a case study on how not to do corporate crisis management.

Was Whitefish Ready For Its Closeup?

For those of you new to the topic, Whitefish Energy is named after its hometown of Whitefish, Montana. With -- apparently -- only two full-time employees and a handful of small contracts under its belt, the company won a $300 million no-bid contract to repair transmission lines in Puerto Rico.

The company has maintained that its experience, though limited, was a good fit for the island's mountainous terrain. The company also claimed that its business model of hiring subcontractors enabled it to ramp up operations quickly.

Nevertheless, Whitefish had never handled any business remotely on the scale of the Puerto Rico operation. That is evident from an October 19 statement released by the company announcing the contract.

Typically, a corporate public statement concludes with an "about us" boilerplate that lists scope of operations, experience and/or other qualifications.

The October 19 statement concludes with a single line:

Word of the contract began to spread last week and became a major national news story, in large measure because of the difference between Whitefish's previous experience and the size of the contract.

More trouble brews for Whitefish

In hindsight, Whitefish might have been able to mitigate the damage by including more details about its relevant experience and business model in its initial statement.

Anecdotal accounts indicate that the company was in fact making progress on transmission line repairs, and Whitefish detailed its work on a followup statement issued last weekend, on October 29:

...In less than a month we brought 350 workers with specific expertise in this task and were on track to have more than 500 linemen on the island by this week if allowed to continue.  We also brought over 600 pieces and 2,500 tons of equipment, including 400 trucks, cranes and excavators, as well as five helicopters.

The Whitefish Energy team completed significant work on two major transmission lines that crossed over the mountains of Puerto Rico and some critical work on very remote parts to the south which are only accessible by helicopter and heavy equipment. Those efforts led to the restoration of power to hospitals, businesses and residents of Manati, and very shortly, another 500,000 people in the city of San Juan will have power because of the extension of our work on transmission lines east of Manati...

However, the issue of Whitefish's experience was only part of the problem. Another factor that raised eyebrows was the acquaintance between the company's leadership and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, who both share the town of Whitefish as their home.

Although Zinke initially portrayed it as a nodding acquaintance, the ties seem to run deeper: one of Zinke's sons worked for Whitefish CEO Andy Techmanski on a summer-job basis, and apparently Techmanski contacted Zinke at the Interior Department (the contact reportedly occurred after the contract was awarded).

As reporters dug into the company's history, additional ties between the company and the Trump Administration emerged. The Daily Beast reported that Whitefish is financed by the private equity firm HBC Investments, the founder of which is a major Republican donor named Joe Colonnetta:

...Colonnetta contributed $20,000 to the Trump Victory PAC during the general election, $2,700 to Trump’s primary election campaign (then the maximum amount permitted), $2,700 to Trump’s general election campaign (also the maximum), and a total of $30,700 to the Republican National Committee in 2016 alone.

Colonnetta’s wife, Kimberly, is no stranger to Republican politics either; shortly after Trump’s victory, she gave $33,400 to the Republican National Committee, the maximum contribution permitted for party committees in 2016.

To ice the cake of problems for Whitefish, the contract itself ended up in the hands of journalist Ken Klippenstein and was promptly subject to close examination. Among the many unusual and onerous clauses in the contract was one that apparently prohibits any authoritative audits.

Stay off social media!

Hindsight or not, it's difficult to see how Whitefish could mitigate a brewing scandal involving financial ties to the beleaguered Trump administration and a contract that seems designed to protect the company against any and all oversight.

Whitefish certainly did itself no favors when it initially reacted to the brewing scandal by tweeting a threat to pull out of Puerto Rico. The company later apologized -- on Facebook, not via Twitter -- but by then it was too late.

The company is now subject to multiple investigations including the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Natural Resources Committee, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General. FEMA is also upset.

In a bad sign for Whitefish, the House committees are acting on a rare bipartisan basis, with Republican leadership on point.

As of October 29, the Governor of Puerto Rico requested PREPA, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, to cancel the contract, and the agency is apparently working toward that end.

It looks like Whitefish could still enjoy a hefty payout. The contract includes a 30-day cancellation notice and continuation of work already under way.

However, it looks like Whitefish faces a long, hard slog to restore its name and grow its business.

Image: Whitefish Energy via Facebook.

The milk industry is having a cow these days, and rightfully so. That old standby for a quick breakfast, the 8-ounce glass of milk that for years was the all-purpose panacea to a mother's guilt trip about eating well just isn't getting the respect it used to. What used to go perfectly well with cold cereal, oatmeal and the irresistible hot chocolate has been unceremoniously replaced in many households with a bevy of plant alternatives. Almond milk, soy, even even coconut milk have found their way into the average North American refrigerator.

And it's about to get even rougher for the dairy industry, which for years has been seeing declining sales. Dairy farmers have been able to claim that their product has higher amounts of protein than almond and soy milk (almonds are wonderfully rich in protein and essential minerals, but the highly processed milk isn't). But they are going to find it much more difficult to do so against their latest competitor: Ripple Foods.

Made from yellow peas, Ripple's milk sports all of the benefits of foods made from legumes. Yellow and green peas are high in protein and fiber and low in fat. It took decades for the milk industry to accomplish that last feat with skim milk, a product some still shun because of its weaker taste.

But Ripple has another benefit that dairy milk will likely never be able to match, boast its manufacturers: Low carbon emissions.

According to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization, the global dairy industry was responsible for about 4 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions in 2010.  If you take away emissions associated with meat produced specifically from the dairy sector, notes FAO, the total drops to about 2.7 percent. But that's still a sizable portion of the world's carbon emissions.

Yellow peas don't carry that same stigma. They are simple to grow, and according to the company, produce a clean, even tasting product.

And foods made from pea isolates aren't exactly a brand-new idea, either. Green and yellow peas have become the latest source for vegetarian/vegan products that can serve as an alternative for people affected by common food allergies and gluten-related conditions. Products like Beyond Meat, which produces both imitation beef and chicken products from pea isolates, have taken a bite out of the meat industry's profits.

Ripple it the brain child of two entrepreneurs: Adam Lowry, co-founder of popular Method cleaning supplies, which was sold to Ecover for $100 million and was just recently sold to SC Johnson for an undisclosed amount; and Neil Renninger,  who helped engineer the renewable, no-petroleum fuel company Amyris Biotechnologies.

From their standpoint, Ripple's creation epitomizes what the food industry generally doesn't do: deep research when it comes to creating a brand-new technology.

"[The conventional food industry's] idea of innovation is a brand extension,” Renninger told Bloomberg. “We saw huge potential for impact—a lot of white space in the world of food innovation through technology.”

Of course, they are also capitalizing on the acceptance that many vegetarian and vegan consumers are showing toward plant-based engineered products. It's a hunger for alternative options that isn't likely to fade in the near future, especially for those who may be concerned about the real environmental cost of that conventional glass of milk.

Image credit: Ripple Foods 

By Megan Wild

New buildings can bring income to the communities in which they’re built by attracting new business and residents to the area. The materials and fuels used to build a new structure also have significant environmental impacts, and new impacts arise once the building is in operation.

Do the many economic benefits of new buildings outweigh the environmental harm they can cause? Could we reduce new buildings’ environmental footprints while still retaining their financial advantages?

Economic Benefits

Building new homes attracts customers for local businesses and additional taxes for the local government. A study from the National Association for Industrial and Office Parks (NAIOP) found that the more than $1 billion spent on construction in 2016 resulted in a $3 trillion increase in gross domestic product.

Both residential and commercial buildings bring economic enhancements. According to a National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) study, the construction 100 single-family houses typically generates $28,670,800 in wages, taxes and income for local businesses. It also supports 394 jobs. After construction is finished, 100 occupied new homes add around $4 million and 69 jobs each year to the local economy.

The effects can be even more pronounced when the new building is a commercial or industrial facility, especially if it’s a large company that creates a lot of new jobs. For instance, even a year before Apple opened its new campus in Cupertino, California, property value in the area increased by $1.7 billion. During peak construction, business activity in the city increased by 33.5 percent. The economic impacts are expected to continue to grow now that Apple has opened the new facility.

Amazon recently announced that it’s looking for a city to host a similarly large-scale expansion — what it’s calling its second headquarters. Amazon’s development of its headquarters in Seattle brought an estimated $38 billion to the local economy between 2010 and 2016, which means the city got $1.40 for every dollar Amazon put into the projects. Understandably, interest in hosting the new headquarters has been high.

Environmental Impacts

New buildings, of course, don’t come without environmental impacts. Building a typical two-bedroom house produces around 80 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, which is equal to the emissions of about five new cars. Building bigger buildings, such as commercial and industrial facilities, naturally creates more emissions. Sourcing the materials used and clearing land for homes has significant impacts as well.

Most of the environmental impact of home occurs while people are living in it. Buildings use about 41 percent of the energy in the United States — even more than the industrial and transportation sectors — and also use 14 percent of all drinkable water. Overall, they’re responsible for around 40 percent of U.S. carbon emissions.

Green Buildings

Although buildings provide substantial economic benefits, they can be a real detriment to the environment. The green building movement seeks to reduce the damage they cause.

Green construction involves sustainably sourcing materials, improving energy efficiency and sometimes using renewable energy. A green building uses about 25 percent less energy and creates 34 percent less carbon dioxide emissions than a standard building. Around 90,800 projects are currently rated by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) on its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) scale. Those projects have avoided around 80 millions tons of waste, a number that’s expected to grow.

Green buildings have property values that are around 4 percent higher than standard buildings because of their lower energy and maintenance costs. Between 2015 and 2018, the sustainable building industry is expected to contribute more than $3 billion to the U.S. GDP.

Many of the largest new commercial buildings incorporate green construction principles. Apple’s new campus will run purely on solar energy and use recycled water. Many of Amazon’s Seattle buildings have LEED certification, and some recycle heat generated at a nearby data center rather than produce their own heat.

How to Build More Sustainably

Green builders use many different strategies to make their projects more sustainable. Here are a few of them:

• Sustainable Materials: Materials account for a large portion of the environmental costs of building construction. Using materials that are locally sourced and can regrow quickly can significantly reduce that impact. Local resources require less fuel to transport. Bamboo is a popular green material because it grows so quickly.


• Using Less: In order to reduce the environmental impact of construction, people working on green building projects often rent equipment rather than purchase it. An added bonus is that environmental compliance is handled by the equipment provider. Those who want to live a greener lifestyle might rent items or use shared ones as well. They might use a car-sharing service or go to the laundromat, for example, rather than buying their own car or washer and dryer. 


• Energy Efficiency and Renewables: Green buildings are designed to use less energy than a standard building. Green designers take care to insulate any spots where air may escape to make heating and cooling more efficient. They also often use energy-efficient appliances. Green buildings also often use renewable energy, such as solar and wind. Some may have large windows to allow ample amounts of sunlight in for passive heating and lighting.

Today, arguments often revolve around the environment versus the economy. Many investments, such as constructing new buildings, can boost the economy while hurting the environment. Ideas such as the green building movement may provide a way to have the best of both worlds — and save our world, too.

Image credit: Pixabay / Nikguy

Megan Wild is a writer who is interested in sustainable construction and design. When she isn’t brushing up on the latest in green technology, you can find her tweeting about the latest developments in technology @Megan_Wild.

 

A recently concluded study has come up with findings that will hardly surprise commuters either stuck in their cars or on the buses and trains comprising America's creaky public transportation systems: Sustainable transit is severely lacking across North America.

That is according to a survey conducted by Colorado-based Arcadis, an engineering and design consultancy. The study considered several factors, including financial investments and infrastructure improvements in urban transportation systems, access to various means of transit, active commuting (as in physical activity such as walking) and bicycling infrastructure.

The results are disappointing for advocates who are pushing Americans and Canadians to set themselves free of the car culture that defines most metropolitan areas. Not surprisingly, New York City ranks first in North America for the overall sustainability of its public transit systems (and that is probably why the Big Apple often ranks as one of America's "thinnest cities."). But among the 100 global cities Arcadis evaluated, New York only ranks 23rd worldwide.

Years of declining infrastructure investment, said the authors of the Arcadis study, are the overarching cause of why North American cities' public transportation options are inadequate compared to what is available in larger European and Asian cities.

Arcadis's survey mirrors conclusions other organizations have reached in recent years. "Overall, investments have been declining as needs have risen," said the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities this summer.

The outcome of declining infrastructure investment is that more commuters become frustrated and hop back into their cars, which in the end only makes traffic worse. Cutbacks in public transportation systems leads to declining ridership - except in cities where city bus lines have been drastically redesigned, as in changes such as dedicated bus lanes that usually allow commuters to whiz through traffic.

Other analysts have suggested that ridesharing can complement bus and rail networks, though that conclusion is a dubious one for a commuter sitting in the backseat of an Uber or Lyft car while stuck in traffic in San Francisco or Manhattan. In addition, a danger of relying on on-demand ride services for the long term is that neither Uber or Lyft have consistently turned a profit. Furthermore, the risk that the U.S. automobile loan market could crater due to a surge in dodgy underwriting practices also could soon create a "perfect storm" that would turn commuting into even more of a headache for many workers.

The Arcadis study points out the obvious: even though we have access to the most sophisticated technology ever experienced in human history, those advances have not been applied to how we get to work and school. Our transportation systems are still antiquated, despite the hype and enthusiasm many share for the "smart cities" of the future.

Unfortunately, Arcadis suggests solutions that are not inventive and are no different from what we have been hearing the past few decades. "Bold actions need to happen soon," declares the company, and those steps include overcoming the negative perception many commuters have of public transportation. Companies and real estate developers should derive ways to incentivize citizens to try alternatives to the automobile, such as buses, cycling and other "alternative modes" of commuting. Technology could streamline transport systems, as in smart fare cards or smartphone apps, and it should also be accessible while commuters are in transit. Finally, insists Arcadis, cities should work "collaboratively" with transportation departments, counties, state governments, businesses and investors to improve mobility in North American cities.

The nut that has to be cracked, however, is that public transportation has to be affordable for the commuter, profitable for the agency operating these systems, and convenient. But they are rarely all of the above, and are almost never profitable, which is why private companies often will not touch public transportation. And in the event there is an innovative idea for commuting proposed by a privately company, they are often stifled by governments who see infrastructure as their fiefdom.

Furthermore, cities are often more focused on attracting a marquee company such as an Amazon with generous tax breaks than funding infrastructure projects that could benefit the businesses already paying taxes and contributing to local coffers. Until transportation is seen less as a cost and more as an investment, do not expect transportation systems in North America to improve at any point soon.

Michael Trapp/Flickr

If you want to know if conservation spending is working, just talk to the birds. The brown pelican and the Aleutian Canada Goose to be exact.

Both species were in perilous decline by the late 20th century. Today, thanks to both funding and more aggressive conservation efforts, both species have recovered from near extinction.

But then, the same can be said for a host of other members of the animal kingdom, like the greater one-horned Asian rhinoceros, whose count has doubled since 1975; the gray whale, which was hunted almost to extinction in the early 20th century and now numbers in the several thousand; and the black rhinoceros, which is still considered critically endangered but is under protection.

The message here, say researchers who looked at both the benefits and the shortcomings of today's conservation funding, is that money does make a difference. And even more to the point, just a bit more funding could have had an even greater result.

An international team of researchers that included experts from the UK, U.S. and Canada looked at the impact that such funding can make on reducing biodiversity loss across the world.

"Inadequate funding levels are a major impediment to effective global biodiversity conservation," note the international team of authors in their earlier report (2012), which examined how to increase conservation efforts in developing nations, where monies are less available for biodiversity conservation. The researchers realized at that time that conservation efforts "have been hampered for decades by poor and incomplete data on actual spending, coupled with uncertainty and lack of consensus over the relative size of spending gaps and that " very modest increases in international assistance would achieve a large improvement" in saving species that were on the brink of extinction.

In their more recent work, published in Nature, the nine researchers looked at ways to create an evidence-based model that stakeholders can use to predict and adjust the impacts of funding. Using their model, they found that global efforts to reduce species loss due to habitat loss and other environmental factors amounted to $14.4 billion between 1992 and 2003. They found that biodiversity loss (that includes animal, plant, insect and other species) in the 109 countries they studied decreased by 29 percent over that decade. What's more, a "mere" $5 million more would have decreased species loss by as much as 50 percent in Peru and 90 percent in Rwanda, two of the countries hit hardest by conservation funding restrictions.

Flickr images: NH53; leeo13; Richard

As the sun set over Huntington Beach on the last night of BSR, I sat down with the organization's new Director of the Sustainable Futures Lab, Jacob Park, to better understand the point of five- and ten-year time horizons in a world of quarterly returns and continuous social media updates. This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for space. 

TriplePundit: Futurist is basically the coolest job title ever. What does it mean? 

Jacob Park: It's truly fascinating work. We take complex, disruptive ideas and break them down to see how change happens, what the possible uncertainties and implications might be, and how to respond more strategically.

What I do is called 'scenario planning.' It provides a framework for thinking about the unpredictable developments in the future. The point of scenario planning is to make better decisions today based on the various possibilities that might unfurl in the future. It teases out those game-changing shifts that entirely reshape the landscape. Scenario planning gives us the tools to uncover 'what could be coming that would be really disruptive.' Once we have a set of possible outcomes we can prepare for them.

3p: How far out do you look? 

JP: At least 10 years. 2030 years is a good waypoint. We want to get far enough out to allow for big change. Big, complex global organizations need to be thinking that far ahead. We set our scenarios there. We explore what might be different, politically, technologically. We then backcast, walking back from the future to see what we’d need to do in, say, 2025, 2020, and next year to prepare. This allows us to make decisions in the present based on what might happen down the road.

3p: How do you set the scenarios? 

JP: It's a combination of research and informed speculation. We do as much research as we can, but we don't limit ourselves to experts because they can have their own blind spots. Trends are useful up to a point but over the long term the trendlines always break. They can show us a pattern of what has happened in the past but by definition they cannot signal disruptive change ahead.  For example, the solar boom. No one would have predicted costs falling as quickly as they have, all the trend lines were more conservative than the actual rate of price decline.

The global adoptions of renewable energy -- the booms in China, India and Chile -- were also unexpected.

In China, there became a political issue around air pollution. The government said, 'we need to deal with air pollution,' and solar expansion was the fastest approach to manage the local air pollution issues with fossil fuel powered energy. Similarly, India had a ton of coal and a large number of people without access to electricity. The government wanted to focus on powering up the nation, they saw access to electricity as their main sustainability issue. Their greenhouse gas emissions were accelerating quickly. But then they joined the Paris Accords, which was huge and by no means guarenteed.

Now India and China are talking about outlawing gas-powered cars. And California's political leaders are considering following this path. It's revolutionary.

Scenario planning helps us spot the weak signals before they become mainstream. It helps us anticipate unlikely events that could reshape the whole landscape.

3p: Why think so far out? Most companies are focused on quarterly returns. 

JP: Of course there are some companies like Unilever that are taking a longer view, but yes, this is a challenge. One of my favorite writers on this subject is neuroscientist Iain McGilcrist. He uses a great analogy I like to borrow. Look at a bird pecking for food in a field. The left side of the brain is focused on distinguishing food particles from rocks. The right side is scanning up and around, watching out for approaching predators or mates. We need both -- the focus on the immediate, which is basically what a quarterly return is, -- and the focus on the long term context, which could change everything. Businesses are over-invested in the left brain and futurists advocate for a more balanced approach.

3p: Does scenario planning turn you into a pessimist? 

JP: [laughs], no. Futurist Jay Ogilvy calls it the tragic-comic perspective. Scenario planning gives us a realistic perspective. We do spend lots of time thinking about the scary stuff, so we do make a point to do hopeful scenarios as well. We've weathered an awful lot as a species. Imagine being alive in Europe at the end of WWII, it must have felt like the end of the world.

3p: And here we are 75 years later and Angela Merkel is the conscience of Europe. 

JP: Exactly. There's also been an increased conscience around eating meat, animal welfare, marriage equality, good change can come super fast too.

Giving stakeholders space to speculate allows them to move more closely together in perspective.

Scenario planning was actually key to ushering in a peaceful resolution in South Africa after apartheid. The Mont Fleur scenarios process involved key political actors from across the spectrum in exploring possible futures for South Africa. There was only one peaceful scenario and they all decided to throw their weight behind that.

3p: Are the robots going to get us? 

JP: Probably not the robots but the fast advance of artificial intelligence (AI) is a concern. There are a lot of real benefits. For example, Google used AI technology DeepMind to massively reduce the environmental impact of data centers. However AI is a "dual use" technology which could be used to hurt people and things too. This is an area where scenario planning is especially useful because we can see all the attributes of a particular technology and trace it through the second, third and forth orders of implications to see surprising impacts. With uranium, it's quite obvious what the good (nuclear energy) and the harmful (bombs) implications are. With AI technology interacting in a complex sociopolitical world there are a lot of unexpected outcomes.

3p: Like what? 

JP: Well, take Facebook's facial recognition. It's nifty, it can tag your friends for you. But what happens when people can be tagged by race or gender? There was some spurious research that claimed to be able to identify a person's sexuality from a photograph. Now, imagine that in use in a country whose government thinks all gay people should be in prison.

And what happens to the people who opt out? The data refugees?

Our opportunity with scenario planning is to anticipate the unexpected so we can adapt, not so we can stop it. With multistakeholder collaborations we can also the envision the future we want to work together to help bring into being.

Image credit: NASA, Wikimedia