A better understanding of how light reflects off different surfaces has improved action movies, videogames and now solar panels. Researchers have found a way to get more sun to shine on the panels and crank up the output by 30 percent or more.
Clayton AldernPeople are spectacularly good at throwing things away — recyclables, dreams, reputations (lookin’ at you, Ben Carson) all come to mind. And then there’s the mother of all landfill fillers: food. Up to 40 percent of food in the U.S., for example, is wasted. But Thursday sounded a new rallying cry: Two initiatives — both announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland — aim to target humanity’s tendency to throw away the stuff that keeps us alive. The first, dubbed Champions 12.3, is run by a patchwork coalition of 30 heavy-hitters from the likes of Nestlé, WWF, Unilever, and the African Union. The coalition, which aims to cut global food waste in half and reduce food loss by 2030, is named after U.N. Sustainable…
This story was originally published in the Toronto Star. By Tyler Hamilton When solar entrepreneur Jeremy Leggett bumped into Suncor Energy boss Steve Williams at the World Economic Forum in 2014, odds were high that tempers would flare. The two men were among about 40 dinner guests – a mix of CEOs, pension fund managers, economists and government leaders. They had gathered in Davos, Switzerland, to talk about “short-termism” in the financial and corporate worlds and how it undermines efforts to tackle climate change. At one point during the dinner, Leggett recalls in his book The Winning of the Carbon War, Williams mentioned the difficulty he had in pushing through a 50-year investment plan for the oil sands. Leggett, who is also non-executive chairman of London-based…
