10 groundbreaking scientific discoveries in 2015

Source: Indiatoday

CLIMATE CHANGE - AN ANALYSIS
Author: Swati dalmia 

Climate change is a long-term shift in weather conditions identified by changes in temperature, precipitation, winds, and other indicators.

The earth's climate is regulated by the balance between incoming and outgoing solar energy, which determines the Earth's energy balance. Any factor that causes a sustained change to the amount of incoming energy or outgoing energy can lead to climate change.

Factors causing climate change

Factors that cause climate change can be divided into three categories, viz., external natural factors, man-made factors and natural internal factors.

External natural factors include changes in volcanic activity, solar output, and the Earth's orbit around the Sun. These factors primarily influence the amount of incoming energy and generally have a short-term effect. On the other hand, natural internal factors include variations in ocean currents or atmospheric circulations.

It is the man-made factors, that is, climate change caused by human activities, which is of greatest concern. This is because it influences both incoming and outgoing energy and could have far-reaching environmental, social, and economic consequences.

Why does it matter?

If climate change continues at the present rate, then earth in future (by 2100) will be no longer liveable. Already the signs in the form of changes in precipitations (Chennai floods in 2015); rise in sea levels; changes in seasonal periods as visible from no fix period for winters, summers or rainy seasons; warmer sea surface temperatures means stronger and frequent typhoons (in 2015 almost every other typhoon or hurricane was a category V storm); and last but not the least, the emergence of environmental refugees which will entail a huge political, economic, social and strategic cost for countries living on the fringe of coasts.

Efforts so far

The first instance of awareness towards this phenomenon was made in 1962 when the Club of Rome published “Limits to Growth” and later on Brundtland Commission in 1987 emphasised in sustainable development.

But the first concrete steps towards controlling climate change came in the form of Montreal Protocol (1987) that emphasised on controlling Ozone gas so as to lessen the size of Ozone hole. This treaty has been so far the most successful treaty in environmental space.

To tackle the climate change more effectively, in 1990s, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) came into being leading to organisation of Conference of Parties (COP) that saw the coming together of all the UN member nations. So far 21 COP have been held with the COP 21 being held in Paris, France.

Paris climate summit 2015

United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 21 or CMP 11 was held in Paris, France, from 30 November to 12 December 2015. It was the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 11th session of the Meeting of the Parties to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

The conference negotiated the Paris Agreement, a global agreement on the reduction of climate change. The agreement facilitates enforcement of global green house emission reduction measures in the post-2020 (post Kyoto Protocol) scenario.

The agreement will become legally binding if joined by at least 55 countries which together represent at least 55 percent of global greenhouse emissions.  Such parties will need to sign the agreement in New York between 22 April 2016 and 21 April 2017, and also adopt it within their own legal systems

Achievements of the summit

• The accord achieved one major goal. It limits average global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures and strives for a limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) if possible.
• Every country will need to submit their plans every five years. Moreover, the reporting and monitoring system is to be more transparent and comprehensive. In particular, emerging and developing countries that now dominate emissions like China will be part of that system.

• The agreement calls for developed countries to raise at least 100 billion dollars annually in order to assist developing countries

Sticking points in the accord

• COP21 does not mandate exactly how much each country must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Rather, it sets up a bottom-up system in which each country will set a "nationally determined contribution” and then explain how it plans to achieve it.
• Though, the agreement calls for the creation of a committee of experts to "facilitate implementation" and "promote compliance", but it won't have the power to punish violators.

• Another issue, was whether there would be compensation to be paid to countries that will see irreparable damage from climate change but have done almost nothing to cause it. Not much is achieved on this.

The Paris summit is a step in the right direction, although a small one. As it stands, it will at best slow the pace at which the world reaches a possible disaster. Growth of the world economy has been more than the fall in emissions per unit of output. If growth is not to be sacrificed this rate of decline must be increased.

What really matters is not the Paris agreement, but what follows. The national plans must be ambitious and swift. The world also needs a new pattern of investment and technological innovation, new sources of finance, backed by changed incentives. It is far too early to feel confident that the curve of emissions will now bend downwards.

OpenAI:
Source: Indiatoday

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the future. But is it the right kind of future where AI can end up controlling everything, from how toasty is your toast to how and when to land a plane? That is the question some of the most brilliant engineers and scientists are asking as they form a group to research AI.

Tech behemoths like Infosys and Amazon have joined hands with a few other companies to work on AI that could benefit the world. Elon Musk, Vishal Sikka and Peter Thiel are among people who have come together to invest $1 billion in a group called OpenAI.

The group claims to be a non-profit organization that will use digital intelligence to solve problems faced by people.

The company informs through a blog on its official website that it aims to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, "unconstrained by a need to generate financial return".

It will encourage the researchers to publish their work be it blogs, posts or code. It also would share its patents with the world, if any.

"It's hard to fathom how much human-level AI could benefit society, and it's equally hard to imagine how much it could damage society if built or used incorrectly" notes the company. Ilya Sutsveker, former research scientist at Google Brain Team is the research director at OpenAI while the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is Greg Brockman, former CTO of tech-company Stripe.

Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka, along with Alan Kay, is an adviser to the group. "Our wish is that together the OpenAI team will do unfettered research in the most important, most relevant dimensions of AI, no matter how long it takes to get there, not limited to just identifying dancing cats in videos, but to creating ideas and inventions that amplify our humanity, that help us learn more, see/perceive and understand more, and be more", writes Sikka in a blog post .

Elon Musk, the man behind Tesla who is considered one of the most brilliant futurists right now, too is part of the endeavour. Interestingly, Musk has also been critical of the AI efforts.

"I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it's probably that. So we need to be very careful," Musk once toldThe Guardian.

It's time to take AI:

Smartphones may disappear in five years, says study,

source: Indiatoday

Smartphones will become obsolete within five years and would be replaced with artificial intelligence, according to a consumer survey by the Ericsson owned ConsumerLab.

Half of the study's respondents said they thought mobile technology would be redundant by 2021 as the growth of artificial intelligence starts enabling interaction with objects without the need for a phone or tablet, Sydney Morning Herald reported.

"A smartphone in the hand, it's really not that practical. For example, not when one is driving a car or cooking. And there are many situations where display screens are not so good. Therefore, one in two think that smartphones will belong to the past within five years," Ericsson ConsumerLab's Rebecka Cedering Angstrom was quoted as saying.

The research lab surveyed 100,000 people across Sweden and 39 other countries.

With around 1.9 billion smartphone users globally, this means ConsumerLab covered just 0.0052 percent of active users for its study.