⚡Breakthrough
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Breakthrough by Secret Solar Startup
Heliogen, backed by Bill Gates, opened their curtains last week. They’re a clean energy startup focused on eliminating the need for fossil fuels.
Cut global carbon emissions by 20%. The company has discovered a way to replace fossil fuels in industrial plants, a space untouched by the sustainability movements. It figured out how to use AI and a bunch of mirrors to concentrate the sunlight. This concentrated beam can generate heat above 1,000 degrees Celsius. Think of it as a massive magnifying glass you probably played with as a child. But is it really that important?
It’s counterintuitive. You wouldn’t expect that the ability to make something extremely hot paves a new way to fight the climate crisis. Well, the only way to produce steel, cement, and other chemicals in industrial plants previously was to heat them to very high temperatures, temperatures which were only possible with fossil fuels.
The journey. The solar industry has been attempting for some time to produce higher and higher temperatures needed for manufacturing. No one has been able to hit over 600 degrees Celsius until now. Heliogen’s breakthrough uses cameras to observe the sun’s movements and make constant small adjustments to keep the rays pointed in the right direction.
Coming soon. The company believes it can get above 1,500 Celsius, which is enough to split water molecules and produce hydrogen fuel. This could solve hydrogen fuel’s biggest problem, which was that the energy to produce it negated any gains from using it.
Obviously, the changes won’t happen immediately. But, it feels exciting that there are people out there constantly fighting to figure out how to better our future. All we can say is…
Protests around the world
Palestine. In the West Bank and Gaza, demonstrators are protesting against Trump’s reversal of a longstanding US policy on Israeli settlements. These settlements are considered illegal under international law. The Arab League formally rejected the US position.
Colombia. Dilan Cruz, an 18 year old, died in Bogota on Monday after being injured by a teargas canister. Protests began last week with a 250,000-person march over issues including economic reforms, police violence, and corruption.
“Old people in this country are accustomed to deaths being just one more statistic, and we want that to begin to change,” said design student Sofia Murcia, 20, standing with friends carrying white flowers. “If you do nothing, you’re complicit.”
Crackdown on Uighur Muslims
Continuation of our conversation on China.
1 million people are being held in internment camps in the northwestern Xinjiang region. Here’s some background information if you haven’t read up recently on it.
Photo taken August 5, 2008 [Nir Elias/Reuters]
Uighur Muslims… why are they being targeted? Beijing has sought for decades to suppress Uighur resistance to Chinese rule. They’ve always been afraid of separatists. They feared that the Uighurs wanted to split off from China and make Xinjiang independent, so they painted them as a threat. A lot of Uighurs refer to Xinjiang as East Turkestan. “De-extremification” was deemed as necessary to protect the nation. This crackdown began after a surge of antigovernment and anti-Chinese violence that included ethnic riots in 2009 and a may 2014 attack that killed 39 people.
Why is Xinjiang important? The region is actually oil- and resource- rich and geographically important to China’s new infrastructure project, the Belt and Road initiative. They’re afraid that any separatist actions would jeopardize their project.
What happens at the internment camps? There is evidence that violence is being used in the internment camps and that conditions are bad. The stories from escaped detainees and former guards shed light on how terrible the detainees are treated. These papers are
Sigal Samuel from Vox asks us to try a thought experiment.
How would the world respond if this were a story about a million Christians being locked up in internment camps?
When she published an article on how China is likening Islam to mental illness, she was dismayed to find that a lot of people on social media responded by agreeing with China.
In terms of helping the Uighur people directly, we don’t know of much you can do at the moment. What would be helpful in general is to simply talk about it with friends and family, so more people are aware of what is happening.
Short takes
Save the Koalas. $1.6mm has been raised to support the furry animals that were harmed by recent fires.
Flash Funding. There’s a growing trend of large gifts that fund tons of crowdfunding campaigns at once.
Drop in suicide rate. Legalizing same-sex marriage has led to big drops in suicide rates in the gay community.
Mental health. Barbers are getting black men to talk about their mental health.
Wild theories: Michael Bloomberg doesn’t really want to win the 2020 election.
Women suffer needless pain because almost everything is designed for men.
Sustainability is key to economic viability of packaging companies.
Tomorrow Today
🎟️ Thursday, December 5: Intro to Unconventional Activism
Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are kicking off community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food, learn from some seasoned, unconventional activists, and meet others aspiring to change the world!
Our speakers:
Anjali Chandrashekar: Anjali is the founder of Picture It, a global social project that uses artivism to raise funds and awareness for various health, humanitarian, and environmental causes. Her projects have been featured by the UN, and she had opportunity to present her work at the Word Economic Forum at Davos in 2011. Anjali also works as an innovation strategy consultant at Doblin.
Karen Mac: Karen is a Business Development Associate at Acumen, an impact investment fund that invests in social enterprises that serve low-income communities in developing countries around the world. Before Acumen, Karen worked at the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship and has also spent time supporting female artisans in Bolivia and improving sanitation usage in India.
Why are we hosting this?
For us, community is the center of everything. In an age of prolific digitization, there's a great need for greater human connection. It's almost necessary to carve out time and space to purposefully engage in person. While it's amazing to be able to discuss and interact with multiple people online and exchange stories and insights, we don't think anything beats the experience of sharing a meal.
Is this for you?
If you're an individual making change at your organization or looking to find ways to better impact the world, this is the right space for you!
Only 8 spots remaining.
Password: tomorrow139
Igniting Tomorrow
💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding
UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.
Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you everyday. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!
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