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check out this post on Can Robots Do A Better Job Of Building Peace?

Every day it seems I read an article about the march of robots into our jobs and our lives. They can drive cars, milk cows and make burgers, apparently. And often, enthusiasts claim, they will do these jobs better than us flawed human beings. Logically then, let’s turn to robots to solve our most intractable problems. Human beings seem unable to kick the habit of fighting and killing one another. Enter the peacebot.

In our increasingly uncertain world, more than one in five people’s lives are affected by the rising conflicts, over 40 wars are being fought and we face the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time. Those who believe in division and foster hatred have grabbed the microphone and are dominating the airwaves. It is time that all those who work quietly for peace raise their voices more loudly too if we are to be heard over the cacophony of hatred. So to celebrate UN International Day of Peace on 21 September, at International Alert we will be creating and letting loose a flock of peacebots who have been programmed to tweet away their messages of compassion supporting #peaceday.

It’s a fun action, and one that reminds us how our everyday actions can contribute to peace. As Martin Luther King said: ‘We can very well set a mood for peace out of which a system for peace can be built’.

Both the mood and the system for peace are badly needed urgently, with recent figures showing the amounts invested in proactive measures to prevent violent conflict, to bring people together and to rebuild after war are absolutely dwarfed by the towering expenditure on the military. The Global Peace Index estimates total expenditure on peacebuilding at around $10billion in 2016, just over half a percent of the $1.72trillion global military expenditure. It would be a joke except it isn’t very funny.

That is why we are calling on global leaders to at least double the current amount spent on building peace. We know that money will be well-invested. In a report published on International Peace Day, we have surveyed the literature and case-studies to see if there is evidence that peacebuilding does work. And the evidence is there.

Of course, peacebuilding is no recipe for immediate success. There are countless examples of when governments and communities turn their backs on dialogue, preferring die-hard habits, to pick up their trusty AK47s or to send in the troops. That is why some conflicts such as in the Philippines, have dragged on for over half a century.

But there is also extensive research and a myriad of evidence-based examples showing how peacebuilding has tangibly contributed to reducing violence and helping communities and nations rebuild and reconcile once the guns have fallen silent. From training provided to Muslim and Christian community leaders in the Central African Republic, improved political collaboration across sectarian lines in Lebanon, through to mediating land conflicts in the Philippines and community-friendly policing in Afghanistan, examples abound of initiatives that have demonstrably contributed to reconciliation or resilience. At a macro level, our report shows how a range of initiatives contributed to a critical mass of energy for peace in Northern Ireland, Nepal and South Africa.

Obviously that is good news for people. But it also makes hard economic sense. According to the Institute for Economics and Peace, every $1 invested in peacebuilding, reduces the costs of conflict by $16. Clearly, conflict costs, and peace pays.

At the UN and many member states, the rhetoric on peacebuilding is good, sometimes very good. But it just isn’t yet backed-up by the hard cash and serious policy follow-through that would deliver results. New polling by Conciliation Resources and the Alliance for Peacebuilding shows that this would be popular. In the UK over seven out of ten respondents believe that peacebuilding plays a vital role in ending violent conflicts, and six out of ten state that the UK should be investing more in peacebuilding. The responses were even higher in Germany. And in the US, 74% agreed that peacebuilding plays a vital role in ending conflicts and supported greater investment in it – a significant finding in light of threatened cuts to peacebuilding budgets.

So we will be knocking on the doors of governments around the world, showing the evidence that peacebuilding works, is popular and even cost-effective. And meanwhile, we will also be getting on supporting all those communities who undertake every day peace actions: from the brave people gathering in the park in Yangoon to call for peace in Myanmar, to the refugee teachers giving traumatised children a chance to play again. These everyday actions deserve our support. Now more than ever. Let’s hope the peace bots do a great job at creating that mood for peace and that our humanity catches up.

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check out this post on Can Robots Do A Better Job Of Building Peace?

Every day it seems I read an article about the march of robots into our jobs and our lives. They can drive cars, milk cows and make burgers, apparently. And often, enthusiasts claim, they will do these jobs better than us flawed human beings. Logically then, let’s turn to robots to solve our most intractable problems. Human beings seem unable to kick the habit of fighting and killing one another. Enter the peacebot.

In our increasingly uncertain world, more than one in five people’s lives are affected by the rising conflicts, over 40 wars are being fought and we face the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time. Those who believe in division and foster hatred have grabbed the microphone and are dominating the airwaves. It is time that all those who work quietly for peace raise their voices more loudly too if we are to be heard over the cacophony of hatred. So to celebrate UN International Day of Peace on 21 September, at International Alert we will be creating and letting loose a flock of peacebots who have been programmed to tweet away their messages of compassion supporting #peaceday.

It’s a fun action, and one that reminds us how our everyday actions can contribute to peace. As Martin Luther King said: ‘We can very well set a mood for peace out of which a system for peace can be built’.

Both the mood and the system for peace are badly needed urgently, with recent figures showing the amounts invested in proactive measures to prevent violent conflict, to bring people together and to rebuild after war are absolutely dwarfed by the towering expenditure on the military. The Global Peace Index estimates total expenditure on peacebuilding at around $10billion in 2016, just over half a percent of the $1.72trillion global military expenditure. It would be a joke except it isn’t very funny.

That is why we are calling on global leaders to at least double the current amount spent on building peace. We know that money will be well-invested. In a report published on International Peace Day, we have surveyed the literature and case-studies to see if there is evidence that peacebuilding does work. And the evidence is there.

Of course, peacebuilding is no recipe for immediate success. There are countless examples of when governments and communities turn their backs on dialogue, preferring die-hard habits, to pick up their trusty AK47s or to send in the troops. That is why some conflicts such as in the Philippines, have dragged on for over half a century.

But there is also extensive research and a myriad of evidence-based examples showing how peacebuilding has tangibly contributed to reducing violence and helping communities and nations rebuild and reconcile once the guns have fallen silent. From training provided to Muslim and Christian community leaders in the Central African Republic, improved political collaboration across sectarian lines in Lebanon, through to mediating land conflicts in the Philippines and community-friendly policing in Afghanistan, examples abound of initiatives that have demonstrably contributed to reconciliation or resilience. At a macro level, our report shows how a range of initiatives contributed to a critical mass of energy for peace in Northern Ireland, Nepal and South Africa.

Obviously that is good news for people. But it also makes hard economic sense. According to the Institute for Economics and Peace, every $1 invested in peacebuilding, reduces the costs of conflict by $16. Clearly, conflict costs, and peace pays.

At the UN and many member states, the rhetoric on peacebuilding is good, sometimes very good. But it just isn’t yet backed-up by the hard cash and serious policy follow-through that would deliver results. New polling by Conciliation Resources and the Alliance for Peacebuilding shows that this would be popular. In the UK over seven out of ten respondents believe that peacebuilding plays a vital role in ending violent conflicts, and six out of ten state that the UK should be investing more in peacebuilding. The responses were even higher in Germany. And in the US, 74% agreed that peacebuilding plays a vital role in ending conflicts and supported greater investment in it – a significant finding in light of threatened cuts to peacebuilding budgets.

So we will be knocking on the doors of governments around the world, showing the evidence that peacebuilding works, is popular and even cost-effective. And meanwhile, we will also be getting on supporting all those communities who undertake every day peace actions: from the brave people gathering in the park in Yangoon to call for peace in Myanmar, to the refugee teachers giving traumatised children a chance to play again. These everyday actions deserve our support. Now more than ever. Let’s hope the peace bots do a great job at creating that mood for peace and that our humanity catches up.

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check out this post on Cooling Comes In From The Cold At Climate Week NYC

Economic and social development and the environment have to live together; you can no longer have one at the expense of the other. Rather our aim has to be a world where everyone can live well and within the sustainable limits of our planet; cold sits at the nexus of this challenge.

Effective refrigeration could help to preserve essential food and medicine, make better use of land and water. It underpins industry and economic growth, and could provide a ladder out of rural poverty. Yet increased cooling will create massive demand for energy and, unless clean and sustainable cooling solutions can be rolled out, this will cause high levels of pollution. The world must not solve a social crisis by creating an environmental catastrophe.

Luckily, cooling is coming in from the cold. After many years on the side lines of the energy debate, the importance of artificial cooling to modern civilization, and the damage it causes to the environment and health, is at last beginning to be recognised. A two-day work shop – Cooling for All, a new initiative led by Sustainable Energy for All – brought together a strong leadership team in New York to start to work out how to move cooling to the centre of the debate and how we embed growing cooling demands that can reach everyone within a clean energy transition.

Clean cold – sustainable, affordable artificial cooling with minimal global warming or environmental impact – is nothing less than critical to environmental and business sustainability worldwide. A report published by the University of Birmingham Energy Institute earlier this year was the first to point out that achieving all 17 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (‘Global Goals’) would depend to a greater or lesser extent on developing clean cooling technologies – and for many Goals, clean cold would be vital. http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-eps/energy/Publications/Clean-Cold-and-the-Global-Goals.pdf

One problem is that when people talk about energy, they often mean electricity, and when they talk about energy storage, they mean batteries. This blurring of concepts matters because it fails to recognise some basic energy facts-of-life: that a large slice of our consumption comes in the form of thermal energy; that one of the fastest growing sources of energy demand over the next twenty years will be for cooling; – and that cooling would often be better served by energy carriers other than electricity and batteries.

If cooling is to be sustainable, we don’t simply need more efficient air-conditioners and fridges, but a fundamental overhaul of the way cooling is provided. This demands a new needs-driven, system-level approach to understand the size and location of the thermal, waste and wrong-time energy resources and the novel energy vectors, thermal stores, clean cooling technologies and new business models to integrate those resources optimally with various cooling loads.

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check out this post on Scientists Find That If You ‘Trust Your Gut’ You’re More Likely To Believe Fake News

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check out this post on If Earth Was Even A Fraction Further From The Sun It Would Be Completely Unrecognisable

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check out this post on Teachers Vs Social Media

Teachers have always faced challenges – time changes the medium but not the content. The teachers of today still face the issues of bullying and abuse, fighting against a tide of inattention. In 2017, however, they are working against smartphones and the digital world rather than pieces of paper and fisticuffs.

One of the areas that teachers find hardest to tackle is social media. Nominet’s recent research into the impact in the classroom found that secondary school teachers lose an average of 17 minutes every day to social media disruption – that’s over 11 days each year. This is not only short-changing our kids but each school’s potential too.

The youngsters of today were born into a digital world and use social media to operate within it. Social media platforms are a place for them to express themselves and discover who they are. They can connect with likeminded people at a distance as they carve their own place in the world.

Unfortunately, sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are playing catch-up when cyberbullying and abuse inevitably appear. Social media has expanded many issues that teachers deal with in the classroom, with students found to be the victims of cyber bullying and online abuse, as well as even sharing explicit content during lessons.

Also alarming is the news from the NSPCC that social media exacerbates mental health issues such as anxiety and depression despite also offering a lifeline for adolescents; it’s a double-edged sword. Our own research found that half of all teachers believe social media contributes to their pupils achieving lower grades than their potential, while 57% think it has negatively affected their students’ mental health.

But social media is here to stay. Young people will find a way of using it however carefully a school tries to clamp down on usage. A case in point comes from one of England’s leading independent schools that admitted to monitoring their students’ comments on social media to check for criticism of the school, prompting protests from the students themselves. Perhaps the only way to progress is to harness social media for good as far as possible in the school environment.

This starts with ensuring teachers feel confident and able to educate their pupils on social media issues, including sharing coping strategies for cyber bullying and making clear the potential ramifications of creating or sharing explicit content. We found that less than a quarter of teachers believe they definitely have the right skills to cope, making a strong case for more training and support of teachers – or even creating roles for Digital Leaders in schools.

Teachers also need to feel confident to take the next step, from broadcasting on social media to using it to communicate with the children they educate or even as a classroom tool. Many schools have already joined the social media bandwagon, using Twitter to contact and communicate with parents and update students on closures or changes to the school day. Positive use of platforms in the classroom could be encouraged with simple steps such as incorporating sites such as Facebook into lesson plans – great for closed group class projects and sharing relevant research and ideas. This must be considered with regard to the official age restrictions for each of the social media platforms, which sits at 13 for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

I hope you enjoy this writeup on Teachers Vs Social Media

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