Concrete is one of the most used commodities in the world, second only to water, and among the most polluting. The industry accounts for about 2.6bn tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, or about 6 per cent of global emissions. If it were a country, it would be the fourth-biggest emitter, just behind India, ahead of Russia and Japan.

Start-ups trying to produce low-carbon cement are attracting some of the most prominent tech investors, such Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy, Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, as well as venture capitalist John Doerr, of Kleiner Perkins. More than $100m in venture funding has gone to cement start-ups in the past 12 months.

The basic chemistry of cement makes it very difficult to decarbonise: the main ingredient is clinker, made from limestone heated in a kiln. As the limestone heats it releases a lot of carbon dioxide and changes its molecular structure.

This chemical reaction accounts for as much as 70 per cent of the emissions from cement making, and a remaining 30 per cent come from the energy to heat the kiln. For every 10 tonnes of cement produced, six tonnes of carbon dioxide end up in the atmosphere.

Original article:
https://www.ft.com/content/24d610a0-fb65-45bb-b747-e015e1f10c1a

Your perception is your reality. This concept is the fundamental premise behind living a happy, fulfilled life. 

The way you perceive yourself, the world, and the future will always influence what comes next for you in life.

The term perception in this sense refers to ‘the way in which something is regarded, understood, or interpreted’. 

As people, we tend to give ourselves conditions we have to meet before we can feel content in our lives. We have to earn this much money, or we have to achieve certain milestones, or we have to be in the perfect relationship before we can feel satisfied with ourselves.

Here is something I find fascinating about humans. Our desires are mimetic, meaning that we make many of our choices according to the desires of others. This means that as we experience more of life with each passing second, those conditions we place on ourselves are constantly evolving with us.

This ultimately places our mindset in a constant state of lack, where we find faults in ourselves and start to beat ourselves up for never quite meeting those expectations we put on ourselves. 

The trick to real, lasting self-improvement is first and foremost loving and accepting yourself unconditionally. No matter what your reality is now, the first step to a happy life is learning to be content in the present moment. 

If you can align yourself with that constant feeling of unconditional gratitude for ourselves and for the world around us, then you can also feel that same gratitude for the future. 

It may be a slightly counter-intuitive concept, but if you can thank yourselves now for putting yourself in a place where you are trying to achieve your goals, and can love yourself unconditionally despite what you (or others!) may initially perceive as failures along the way, you can do whatever you set your mind to doing.

Original post here.

Globalisation sought to make our world larger but ultimately made it smaller: a tsunami of Western certainty – and its franchised way of living – further suffocating our ability to think laterally. Cultures, each with their own complex history of myth and story, are now encouraged to think singularly and unimaginatively in terms of capital, in terms of input-output. You are here – but, if you do this, and do it enough times, you will be there. This trap is everywhere. The (large) market for self-improvement is less about discovery, and more about greater utilisation of your most valuable resource: time. You’re to wake up earlier, sleep less, read more and reach financial fulfilment (with the fallacious expectation of broader fulfilment as back payment for your efforts).

In maximising each moment, we minimise ourselves. We are what’s utilised and expired: the tool of the system. We wrangle life’s beauty for its expedient expiration, the movement from one point – which is never a point enough – to the next. In the name of expedience and maximisation, we sacrifice experience. We read, but do not learn. We listen, but do not hear. We accumulate, and yet are without.

More here.

Bill Gates publishes something called Gates Notes on subject matter, this one was around climate action.

“Currently, companies can get credit for reducing emissions by purchasing offsets, investments in a wide range of projects with climate impact, including forestry and land use or solar and wind power projects. These are worthwhile investments, but offsets as currently conceived do not offer a path to meaningful global reductions, much less zero”

“Offsets completely skirt the collective action problem that bedevils the fight against climate change. There will always be governments, companies, and individuals who either can’t afford
to or don’t care to offset their own emissions. Even if every single government, company, and individual could afford to and cared to, there simply aren’t enough offsets to zero out global emissions. So until we address the root causes of climate change, the temperature will keep rising. It is one thing to avoid contributing to the problem; it is another to be part of the solution.”

“We need to develop a new paradigm for thinking about net zero so that companies get credit not just for doing the thing we happen to measure right now but the thing that will make the biggest difference toward the one number that matters: global net-zero emissions”

“We intend to directly invest up to $3 billion over 5 years to advance vetted projects in four key areas: direct air capture, green hydrogen, long-duration energy storage, and sustainable jet fuel”

At first glance, KlimaDAO looks less DeFi and more a protesting collective forcing carbon credit prices higher.

Polluting companies often have an emissions cap; they can either purchase carbon credits to offset excess emissions, or they can invest in efficient production infrastructure to produce more and emit less.

Carbon credits are more affordable and simpler to manage in the short term – but it’s not a long term solution to combat climate change. Therefore the increase in carbon credit prices makes capital investment competitive.

Here’s a useful summary, with access to their manifesto at the bottom.