Lifeboat Foundation

“We face two global crises in housing and climate change.”

Southern California met its first-in-the-world 3D-printed zero net home thanks to Mighty Buildings. As part of a 40-unit community in Desert Hot Springs, these 3D-printed houses also draw attention to environmental and economic strategies.

“We are excited to be the first company in the world to complete what we believe to be the sustainable housing standard of the future,” said Mighty Buildings CEO Slava Solonitsyn, as per Dezeen.

Continue reading “This company built a 3D-printed net zero house to decrease carbon dioxide” »

Nature is (actually) healing.

Thanks to effective bans of harmful chemicals, the hole in the ozone keeps getting smaller.

A spectacular and explosive volcanic eruption in January 2022 produced the highest plume of steam and ash in recorded history.

The towering column that arose from Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai reached a tremendous altitude of 57 kilometers (35 miles) above sea level.

Continue reading “Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai Eruption Released The Highest Volcanic Plume Ever Recorded” »

A recently released set of topography maps provides new evidence for an ancient northern ocean on Mars. The maps offer the strongest case yet that the planet once experienced sea-level rise consistent with an extended warm and wet climate, not the harsh, frozen landscape that exists today.

“What immediately comes to mind as one the most significant points here is that the existence of an ocean of this size means a higher potential for life,” said Benjamin Cardenas, assistant professor of geosciences at Penn State and lead author on the study recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

Continue reading “Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars” »

Demand is growing for effective new technologies to cool buildings, as climate change intensifies summer heat. Now, scientists have just designed a transparent window coating that could lower the temperature inside buildings, without expending a single watt of energy. They did this with the help of advanced computing technology and artificial intelligence. The researchers report the details today (November 2) in the journal ACS Energy Letters.

Cooling accounts for about 15% of global energy consumption, according to estimates from previous research studies. That demand could be lowered with a window coating that could block the sun’s ultraviolet and near-infrared light. These are parts of the solar spectrum that are not visible to humans, but they typically pass through glass to heat an enclosed room.

Energy use could be even further reduced if the coating radiates heat from the window’s surface at a wavelength that passes through the atmosphere into outer space. However, it’s difficult to design materials that can meet these criteria simultaneously and at the same time can also transmit visible light, This is required so they don’t interfere with the view. Eungkyu Lee, Tengfei Luo, and colleagues set out to design a “transparent radiative cooler” (TRC) that could do just that.

From swerving to sheltering in place, here’s how the International Space Station handles hazards on the increasingly cluttered space lanes.

The most recent maneuver happened last week when the ISS boosted itself into a higher orbit to avoid debris from a 2021 Russian anti-satellite missile test. It’s likely that such close calls will only get more common as humanity keeps cluttering up the space lanes with old satellites and bits of wreckage from collisions and missile tests. Here’s what you need to know about space debris and how to avoid it.

How does the International Space Station dodge space debris?

Continue reading “Space is increasingly hazardous — here’s how NASA dodges deadly debris” »

Is solar geoengineering an alternative solution to the climate crisis?

Solar geoengineering is a branch of geoengineering that focuses on reflecting sunlight back into outer space to reduce global warming. There are several solar geoengineering techniques being researched; the most feasible one consists of spraying reflective aerosols in the stratosphere.

Continue reading “Cooling the Earth” »

Watch The Kardashev Scale Type 1: What Would Be Our CIvilization?
https://youtu.be/zHFN8VrLBdc.
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A type 1 civilization on the Kardashev scale manages to take advantage of 100% of the energy produced by its planet, control the climate, move continents and even change its planet’s rotation. In this sense, how long does the human race lack to become a type 1 civilization? Are we close to achieving it, or are we still far away?
Ready, let’s start! “Introduction“
The level of technological development of any civilization can be measured mainly by the amount of energy they need. But, it also encompasses the management of that energy and how they use it to develop and grow on their home planet.
Following Kardashev’s definition, a Type I civilization is capable of storing and using all the energy available on its planet; this includes all known electricity generation methods, as well as those that depend on the elements available on the planet, nuclear fusion and fission, geothermal energy, as well as that which they can collect from their star without leaving the planet.
The human race has not yet reached this level of development, but will we ever reach it? And if so, when will we achieve it?
Previously we already made a series of 3 videos in which we address the three types of civilizations that exist according to the Kardashev scale. “Enter here images of the series on the scale of Kardashev.“
But today, we will focus on analyzing why the human race has not yet managed to become a type 1 civilization and how far we need to become one.
The Great Filter.

Continue reading “What Do We Lack To Be A Type 1 Civilization On The Kardashev Scale?” »

How resilient are solar panels in the face of extreme weather events?

Guest contributor Jane Marsh explores the current capability of solar panel technology in the face of increasing extreme climate events.