Big Bets and Small Fixes: Stories of Scale, Solutions, and Risks

From The Tricontinental Africa’s Faustian Bargain with the International Monetary Fund

I'm excited to share this week's collection of resources picked out just for each individual subscriber. Sign up via the Subscribe link above. Our tracking of the work of 1,000+ organizations around the world resulted in a selection of 921 updates this week. We've picked out 15 just for each subscriber, based on the interests they told us about when they subscribed. I continue to marvel at the recommendations that come out of the system we've assembled.

Looking at the collection as a whole, though, here are a few key items I want to share with everyone.

This Week's Key Updates

Most exciting large scale story of the week

The Inter-American Development Bank unveils green loans plan to unlock trillions for climate finance (Guardian). A delightfully ambitious international climate finance and renewable energy plan. Small changes are good, but for those aiming to make big plans - let's talk trillions already. Cautious grain of salt: see the Most Explanatory story below about the way that loans have been super anti-social in the past.

A small scale story that could transform the world

AI is gobbling up water it cannot replace – I’m working on a solution (The Conversation) A researcher at Northumbria University, Newcastle says he's developing a server cooling system with aluminum foil that could transform the water use of AI.

Most descriptive of the overall tone of the week

Science says plastic bag bans really do work (Grist). One of many stories this week offering evidence-based validation of practical solutions working incrementally.

Most explanatory of root causes

The Nyéléni Forum in Sri Lanka will address how global finance and debt crises undermine food sovereignty (Via Campesina). This is part of a larger discussion that says: don't call the collapse of food systems in the global south a climate crisis, it's a result of technocratic solutions sold for debt, willfully extracting not only wealth but self-determination.

 

Most predictive of possible futures

Growing electricity demand from AI data centers and intermittent renewables requires utilities to adopt new modeling approaches beyond traditional tools for resource adequacy planning by 2029. (Utility Dive) Software firm Energy Exemplar argues for modeling and simulation as key tactics. It's interesting to see how they thread the needle of "changing US priorities," "all of the above energy," and "the growth of distributed renewables and battery storage."

 Those are some of my picks but sign up and we'll send you 15 focused on just what you're interested in!