The Future Is Now (536)

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We begin the show this week with a couple of stories that show just how far we've come with renewables over the last few years. So far have we come in fact, that it is predicted that solar energy with surpass coal as the cheapest form of energy on average in the world by 2025. The second story is about Teslas new 'gigafactory' for producing batteries. Combined they show that the clock is ticking on oil as the most important form of energy not just at some fuzzy future date, but soon.

In the middle section we discuss a Guardian article talking about some of the biggest environmental technological advances in 2016 particularly focusing on the rapid adoption of 3D printing technologies. The importance of the story is not that these printers exist (they've been around for a while) or even that they are getting cheaper, but rather that waste materials can now be fed into them as raw material potentially closing the loop on plastic and making the immense amounts of waste plastic polluting the planet into a valuable input. Not only would this drastically reduce waste, but create the all important profit motive for cleaning it up as it would now be a commercial input for a wide variety of consumer products.

In the last section we talk about the untold cost of resource extraction. Taxpayers regularly pay millions and billions of dollars each year to pay to clean up the mess made by resource companies while claiming to be benefit the Canadian economy. Maybe they do, maybe they don't but has anyone actually done the math? Have you ever heard these numbers discussed? Just how much DO we pay to clean up after they strip mine and pollute our land and water?

Bonus Show:

Deirdre is back! We hear from a former volunteer on the cool work she's been doing on a documentary about the Great Bear Rainforest ecosystem.

This Weeks Music:

Digging Roots 'AK47' & Chad VanGaalen 'Willow Tree'

What do you think?

Let us know what you think of what we discussed in the show! Click here to find us on social media, leave us a phone message to play on air or send us an email!