(토요모임) [17. Dec. 2016] Saturday meeting topic

[Scarlet]

Howdy ! 

It's me Scarlett !   

This week we have 4 topics. 

◈ Reflection : Write your biggest regret.

◈ Technology : Amazon just opened a grocery store without a checkout line

◈ Trump Administration's Economy 1

---- Overview : Here's what's coming from the Trump administration

---- Urban Infrastructures: Six maps that show the anatomy of America’s vast infrastructure

---- Environmental agenda: The nation’s environmental agenda under a Trump administration

◈ Trump Administration's Economy 2

---- Elon Musk and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick are joining Trump's economic advisory team

---- The trolling of Elon Musk: how US conservatives are attacking green tech

Hope you enjoy the topics. 

With luv 

Scarlett

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People were asked what they regret most in life and their answers were heartbreaking

Posted 5 days ago by Jessica Brown in people

With the New Year looming, it’s an unofficial tradition to reflect on the years passed and ahead, and set ourselves New Year’s Resolutions.

Earlier this year, New Yorkers were invited to write their biggest regrets on an empty chalkboard, and the results went viral. So if you need inspiration for your resolutions - and so their mistakes don’t go in vain – this is what New Yorkers had to say. 

- I regret all the time I wasted not saying yes to things

- Never going after my dreams

- I’e been told recently I was homeless, if I hadn’t hurt the people I had maybe I wouldn’t have been

- I wanted to do so many things but I can never seem to find the time

- I did all the things that were Plan B. I just never did it

- Never speaking up

- Not being a better friend

Then the video says:

- As the board filled up with so many stories we noticed that almost all these regrets had something in common.

They were about chances not taken.

They were about words not spoken.

They were abut dreams never pursued .

People were then given an eraser to wipe the writing off the board. Then the video gives the advice:

- Every day is a clean slate

- Do the things you regret not doing 

Article source : https://www.indy100.com/article/people-asked-their-regrets-7466971

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<Questions>

Q1. What is the biggest regret for you this year? Why?

Q2. What is the biggest regret in your whole life time? 

Q3. If you can change one thing in your past life, what would it be? Why do you want to change it?

Q4. What was the last thing you have regretted purchasing?  

Q5. Would you do different things for your regretful behavior if you have another chance? 

Q6. What was the biggest achievement this year for you? And for our society? 

Q7. What was your new year's resolution this year? How many goals did you achieve until now? 

Q8. Do you have any wish next year? 

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Amazon just opened a grocery store without a checkout line

Elizabeth Weise , USATODAY 9:35 a.m. EST December 9, 2016

A motion graphic showing how Amazon’s new shopping experience Amazon Go will work. 

Simply scan in, take what you want and “Go”. By Karl Gelles and Ramon Padilla, USA TODAY

Editor's note: This story first published Monday Dec. 5, 2016. 

SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon is testing a grocery store in downtown Seattle that lets customers walk in, grab food from the shelves and walk out again, without ever having to stand in a checkout line.

Customers tap their cellphones on a turnstile as they walk into the store, which logs them into the store's network and connects to their Amazon account through an app.

The service is called Amazon Go. It uses machine learning, sensors and artificial intelligence to track items customers pick up. These are then added to the virtual cart on their app. If they pick up an item they later decide they don't want, putting it back on the shelf removes it from their cart.

The Seattle-based company calls it, "Just walk out technology."

When the customer leaves, the app adds up everything the customer has taken and charges their Amazon account.

Amazon said it began to work on the project in 2012. It is currently being tested by Amazon employees at the location at 2131 7th Ave., near Amazon's offices, but will open to the public in early 2017, the company said.

The technology "is amazing," said Phil Lempert, a food marketing expert based in Los Angeles.

He's even more intrigued by the multiple images of "meal kits" show in Amazon's video. These "everything you need to cook a quick, high-quality dinner" kits have become popular, but the economics of delivering them has meant they're difficult to make economically viable. Stores such as Amazon Go may provide a sweet spot for them.

"When you look at the store itself in the video (and presumably it is the actual store), they have done a great job of merchandising, and having "meal kits" available is simply brilliant. As the meal-kit industry struggles due to the shipping/logistics aspect," Amazon Go could be a venue where they could succeed, said Lempert.

Article source : http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/12/05/amazon-go-supermarket-no-checkout-no-cashiers-artificial-intelligence-sensors/94991612/

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Amazon unveils smart convenience store sans checkouts, cashiers

Originally published December 5, 2016 at 6:31 am Updated December 7, 2016 at 6:03 pm

The 1,800-square-foot store, dubbed “Amazon Go,” is the latest beach in brick-and-mortar retail stormed by the e-commerce giant. It’s clearly a sign Amazon sees a big opportunity in revolutionizing Main Street commerce.

By Ángel GonzálezBy Ángel González/ Seattle Times business reporter

Call it Amazon.com’s driverless store.

The tech giant has built a convenience store in downtown Seattle that deploys a gaggle of technologies similar to those used in self-driving cars to allow shoppers to come in, grab items and walk out without going through a register.

The 1,800-square-foot store, officially dubbed “Amazon Go,” is the latest beach in brick-and-mortar retail stormed by the e-commerce giant, which already has bookstores and is working on secretive drive-thru grocery locations.

It’s clearly a sign that Amazon sees a big opportunity in revolutionizing the staid traditions of Main Street commerce.

In this Sept. 28, 2011 file photo, the Amazon.com logo is displayed at a news conference in New York.

In the much longer term, if the experiment works out and is adopted widely, it could radically transform the nature of work in the retail industry, much like driverless car and truck technology threatens to upend transportation.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that cashiers are the second-largest occupation, with 3.5 million employed in the U.S.

Analysts with Cowen say the move shows how aggressively Amazon is pursuing the grocery business, which represents about 17 percent of total U.S. retail, or nearly $800 billion. It’s an area dominated by Wal-Mart, an Amazon rival that is revving up its e-commerce game. For Amazon, it represents a huge source of potential revenue growth, plus another way to ensconce itself in people’s shopping habits.

While more and more people, especially among the younger cohorts, are going online for their groceries, “we acknowledge some people may never be comfortable with the idea,” say the Cowen analysts.

Amazon shares closed up 2.57 percent on Monday, trading at $759.36 and widely outperforming the market.

The Wall Street Journal has reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that success in its experiments could lead Amazon to open more than 2,000 brick-and-mortar stores in various formats. Amazon declined to comment on those plans.

“Clearly there is a strong user case in avoiding lines and automating payments,” says Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Baird who closely tracks the company. “It makes it just as convenient, if not more convenient, than online shopping in some cases.”

Amazon could get even more bang for its revolutionary technology, perhaps, by selling it to other brick-and-mortar retailers, Sebastian said.

After all, Amazon provides cloud computing, payment and even e-commerce platform services to retailers that otherwise compete with it.

The Amazon Go store is at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Blanchard Street, in the new Day One tower that lies at the center of Amazon’s new downtown campus. It’s right next to where Amazon’s “biospheres” are going up.

The store is open to those employees of the tech giant participating in a beta testing program. At lunchtime Monday, the sidewalk outside the place was crowded with those participants, clutching orange bags. The store is expected to be open to the public in early 2017.

Amazon says that what makes the store tick is a combination of computer vision, the aggregation of data from different sensors and machine learning. It calls the whole cocktail “Just Walk Out technology.”

It can tell, say, when a particular shopper picks up a carton of milk from a shelf, and the technology puts it in that shopper’s virtual cart. It can also tell when an item is put back on the shelf — and removes it from the virtual cart accordingly.

Shoppers walking into the store call up the Amazon Go app and hold their smartphone to a scanner as they would at an airport security line. That opens a gate. Then they just pick any combination of products and walk out. Amazon charges them after they leave the store.

Unlike the self-serve registers present at many supermarkets, there’s no need to stand in line or go through any register.

The store features ready-to-eat meals and snacks prepared by on-site chefs or local bakeries. There are also essentials such as bread and milk, as well as high-end cheese and chocolate.

Amazon says there will be well-known brands as well as “special finds we’re excited to introduce to customers.” That includes an “Amazon Meal Kit,” which contains ingredients needed to make a meal for two in 30 minutes.

The digitalization of brick-and-mortar stores has taken gradual steps in the past few years.

One example is Starbucks, a global retail empire that’s been banking on an increasingly robust smartphone app to lure consumers into its loyalty program and payment system.

“Elements of these technologies have existed for a while. But building a store that’s based around it is a very interesting concept,” said Tom Coughlin, president of data storage consulting firm Coughlin Associates and a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

He thinks, however, that human troubleshooters will be, at least for a while, a critical part of the shopping experience. “It’ll be interesting to see how well it works not having anybody there,” he said.

In a blog posting, Neil Stern, an analyst with retail consultancy McMillan Doolittle, wrote that Amazon Go was a “game changer for the retail industry” at a time when labor costs are increasing.

It could “drastically change not just food retailing, but every segment of retail,” Stern wrote. “One can envision a future of Amazon brick-and-mortar outposts: book stores, beauty stores, drive-thru grocery stores and convenience locations all using this technology.”

Article source : http://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazoncom-unveils-self-driving-brick-and-mortar-convenience-store/

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<Questions>

Q1. How do you think of this kinds of grocery stores? 

Q2. Could you name specific technologies which are involved in this kinds of store? 

Q3. Do you have any intention to use those facilities? 

Q4. What would be the merits and demerits of this store? 

Q5. If we apply those technologies into some of domains in Korea, what would be the most popular facility ?

Q6. If we apply those technologies into our real life, every single step of yourself could be tracked by various digital gadgets. Is this OK with you? How do you think about this security issue ?

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Here's what's coming from the Trump administration

John W. Schoen | @johnwschoen

Wednesday, 9 Nov 2016 | 9:02 AM ET

The cheering has died down and the long, divisive, emotionally exhausting campaign is over. Now, attention turns to President-elect Donald Trump's agenda. 

American voters across the political spectrum, along with wary observers around the world, are asking: What will the new Trump administration set at the top of its list? And what will it accomplish?

The president-elect's first task will be to try to find a wider base of support for the "movement" that he credits with sweeping him into the White House.

"To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people," he told a cheering crowd in New York early Wednesday morning. "It is time. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all of Americans, and this is so important to me."

Unifying a deeply divided electorate will be a tall order, but it won't be a prerequisite for the new president to begin the political revolution he promised his supporters.

Throughout the campaign, Trump boldly promised a laundry list of accomplishments in his first 100 days that would rival the full-term achievements of any modern president. He has promised to:

Appoint judges "who will uphold the Constitution" and "defend the Second Amendment."

Build a wall on the southern border and restrict immigration "to give unemployed Americans an opportunity to fill good-paying jobs."

"Stand up to countries that cheat on trade, of which there are many" and crack down on companies "that send jobs overseas."

"Repeal and replace job-killing Obamacare — it is a disaster."

Lift federal restrictions on energy production.

"There is one common theme in all of these reforms," Trump has said repeatedly. "It's going to be America first."

For many of his critics, the list seemed wildly, improbably ambitious. But the Democratic Party's failure to win back control of either chamber of Congress means the Republican Party will control the legislative process. That will likely end at least some of the partisan gridlock that stymied much the Obama administration's agenda.

Still, the Trump White House will face a divided GOP on Capitol Hill, to say nothing of the deep divisions among Americans.

What the president-elect didn't address in his victory speech on Wednesday was immigration.

Trump's signature proposal, building a wall along the southern border, will be problematic. But having won his historic victory on such a singular promise, his supporters will demand that the pledge be more than symbolic.

The obstacles, though, are as large as the barrier he has promised to create for immigrants. Despite his pledge to send the bill to the Mexican government, he will need budget authorization to pay for the project.

More broadly, Trump's anti-immigrant stance will also face pushback from members of his own party's congressional caucus, especially those in states and districts who have been alarmed by the GOP's losses among a growing bloc of Hispanic voters.

Beyond the opposition he'll face from Democrats, Trump will have to contend with the large contingent from his own party who either withheld their support or called on him to step down as a candidate. The list includes some 15 Republican senators, along with dozens of current GOP House members and governors.

It remains to be seen whether Trump can convince enough of those Republicans to adopt his stance on closing the nation's borders to immigrants. Immigration reform could prove to become either a template for the remainder of Trump's agenda or a preview of the impact of divisions in the GOP.

But while Republicans may have split over Trump's candidacy, they remain unified on some of the key issues he campaign on.

The GOP-controlled House has voted more than 60 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration's signature health-care law. Now, that effort becomes much more likely to succeed.

The unity or division of the Republican Party will prove critical even before Trump takes office in January, in one of the most contentious and important issues of the campaign: the nomination to fill the Supreme Court seat left unfilled by the death in February of Antonin Scalia.

Senate Republicans have refused to consider President Barack Obama's nominee, U.S. Appeals Court Judge Merrick Garland, saying the nomination should wait until after the election. Late last month, Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake told reporters that he would press for Garland's nomination hearings in the lame-duck session before Trump is sworn in.

Democrats have failed to win the 60 votes needed for a cloture vote to block a filibuster and clear the way for Garland's nomination to move forward. To do so, they had hoped to win support from among the Republican senators like Flake who opposed Trump's candidacy.

But Republican hardliners including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz have vowed to block Garland, or any other nominee from a Democrat in the White House, indefinitely. Now, Trump's victory will only stiffen opposition to the lame-duck nomination.

With a free hand to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat and potential future high court vacancies during this term, along with lower federal court appointments, Trump will have the chance to reshape the high court and federal judiciary. That may turn out to be one of the most powerful forces for advancing his agenda and the most lasting impact of his presidency.

Some of Trump's campaign pledges will find wider consensus. After years of political gridlock, both parties faced voter backlash for failure to address some of the country's most pressing problems.

On top of that list is a multibillion-dollar investment in the nation's infrastructure, one of the most likely opportunities for consensus. (Trump's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, had also pledged to boost infrastructure spending.)

So long as the spending is widely distributed among congressional districts, an infrastructure bill would likely enjoy bipartisan support. The program would also produce thousands of relatively well-paid jobs, another major pledge through the campaign from both parties.

Regardless of his reception on Capitol Hill, much of Trump's agenda, including areas of regulatory enforcement and foreign policy, won't require congressional approval. The Obama administration's orders on immigration and the EPA regulation of carbon emissions, for example, could be easily reversed.

Trump's promise to roll back Dodd-Frank regulatory reforms wouldn't necessarily require a full-blown repeal of the law; the Trump administration's Treasury and Justice Department's will have broad discretion over how vigorously to enforce it.

But as the Obama administration learned, governing by executive order offers limited options without the support of Congress.

Article source : http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09/trumps-first-100-day-agenda-may-be-stymied-by-his-own-party.html

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Six maps that show the anatomy of America’s vast infrastructure

By Tim Meko/ Dec. 1, 2016

 President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to invest about $550 billion in new infrastructure projects across the country was a central theme in his campaign. “We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none. And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it,” Trump said. Details are still murky, but it appears that the plan will rely on tax credits to spur private investment.

The maps you are about to see show the massive scope of America’s infrastructure using data from OpenStreetMap and various government sources. They provide a glimpse into where that half-trillion dollars may be invested.

[ Clinton’s plans might add billions to the national debt. Trump’s could add trillions.]

There are more than 3,300 power utilities and about 7,700 power plants that produce and distribute electricity to homes, businesses and other consumers. That electricity travels through more than 160,000 miles of high-voltage electric transmission lines that reach into every nook and cranny of the country.

Experts describe the nation’s electrical grid as a patchwork of utilities, with transmission and distribution facilities — some dating to the 1800s — that will ultimately break down unless hundreds of billions of dollars are invested.

“When we started building what’s known as the electric grid, Thomas Edison didn’t sit down and develop a national plan — we built the grid as we went,” said Otto J. Lynch from the Committee on American Infrastructure at the American Society of Civil Engineers.

[ Mapping how the United States generates its electricity ]

But decades-old lines are bearing a heavier load than they were designed to carry. “We put more strain on our electric grid than any other country in the world, by far,” he said.

Not everybody thinks that this is a smart way to spend billions of dollars, though. Randal O’Toole, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, wrote in a blog post that government investment in our electrical infrastructure may not be necessary. “Private companies and public agencies are already taking care of this kind [of infrastructure], so if Trump’s plan applied to them, they would get tax credits for spending money they would have spent anyway,” he wrote. “That’s not revenue neutral.”

A 2016 study by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association found that nearly 10 percent of the 600,000 bridges in the United States are structurally deficient. Each state performs its own inspections to determine whether a bridge — from those that span rivers and creeks to those that span highways  — is deficient. This presents a unique issue with creating a consistent set of standards from state to state. 

Iowa has the highest number of structurally deficient bridges, with about 20 percent of its bridges — more than 5,000 — classified as such. According to the National Bridge Inventory database, this means that the bridge “has one or more structural defects that require attention.”  In Nebraska, older spans make up 60 percent of deficient bridges — 1 in 5 bridges were built in the early 1930s. Delaware, on the other hand, has a more modern collection of bridges, yet 75 percent of the state’s structurally deficient bridges were built within the past 50 years.

[ Trump chooses Elaine L. Chao to be transportation secretary ]

There are about 150,000 miles of oil pipelines and more than 1.5 million miles of natural gas pipelines in the United States. Since 2010, fracking booms in western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Oklahoma and west Texas have led to an increased production of natural gas, along with the need to expand pipeline infrastructure.

Much of the domestic oil and gas production comes from the Gulf of Mexico, and nearly half of the country’s refining capacity lies along the Gulf Coast.

[ A proposed gas pipeline and the fight of a lifetime]

But building infrastructure to transport the product from one place to another is not always easy or politically expedient. The recent controversy surrounding the Dakota Access Pipeline illustrates the difficulties in threading a pipeline across hundreds of miles.

In addition, several high-profile oil and gas pipeline accidents, such as one in San Bruno, Calif.,  that killed eight, have presented the need for better pipeline management and improved maintenance.

More than 160,000 miles of track, 76,000 rail bridges, and 800 tunnels across the nation are shared by hundreds of operators moving freight and passengers. Tens of millions of riders, mostly in the Northeast, rely on Amtrak and other commuter rail services each year.

The busiest freight rail corridor in the country originates in Wyoming where coal is shipped to power plants in the Midwest.

Our airways are the busiest in the world. In a three-day span in early November, Flightradar24, which tracks live air traffic, showed more than 160,000 flights arriving or departing U.S. airports. The most heavily-traveled routes are between Chicago and New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and Los Angeles and Chicago.

During the first presidential debate, Trump praised the airports of Dubai, Qatar and China, comparing them to U.S. airports such as LaGuardia, Kennedy, LAX and Newark. “Our airports are like from a third-world country,” he said.

[ A visual guide to Iran’s booming international air traffic]

And he was, at least a little, right. According to the 2016 Skytrax World Airport Awards, the highest-rated airport in the United States was Denver International Airport, which came in 28th. Kennedy airport was 59th, and LAX barely cracked the top 100, coming in 91st.

Meanwhile, airports in Asia and the Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East ranked consistently higher.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that more than 95 percent of overseas trade produced or consumed by the United States moves through our ports. According to the World Shipping Council, the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach rank in the top 25 busiest ports in the world, and several ports on the East Coast rank in the top 50.

Our inland waterways — especially the Mississippi River system — allow for the transport of goods between inland ports such as Pittsburgh and Cincinnati to those on the ocean. This infrastructure is critical for the transportation of coal from the hills of Appalachia to power plants upstream and downstream.

 What this means for Trump’s plan

Brian Pallasch, the managing director of government relations and infrastructure initiatives at the American Society of Civil Engineers, says that Trump’s lack of specificity about his plans is a good thing. “It allows for the infrastructure community to have more input as the administration develops the plan, allowing us to have a broader conversation,” he said.

O’Toole disagrees. “The problem with a top-down solution such as Trump’s proposal is that one size doesn’t fit all. Different kinds of infrastructure have different kinds of needs, and the financial solution will be different for each one,” he said.

In Congress, his plan may find more support among Democrats than Republicans. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) has expressed a lack of appetite for a huge surge in infrastructure spending. “We passed the biggest highway bill, the long-term highway bill, for the first time since the 1990s just a few months ago,” he said. “That's already in place at 10 percent above baseline spending on mass transit and highways.”

Sources: Energy Information Administration, OpenStreetMap, Federal Highway Administration, National Bridge Inventory, American Society of Civil Engineers, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, MarineCadastre.gov, World Shipping Council, National Energy Education Development Project. 

Article source : https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/maps-of-american-infrastrucure/?tid=sm_fb

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3Qs: The nation’s environmental agenda under a Trump administration

December 1, 2016 by Jason Kornwitz

Donald Trump has vowed to “rip up” the Paris cli­mate agree­ment, repeal the Clean Power Plan, and scrap NASA’s Earth sci­ence research while reviving the coal industry, approving the Key­stone XL pipeline, and expanding off­shore oil drilling.

We asked Jennie Stephens, Dean’s Pro­fessor of Sus­tain­ability Sci­ence and Policy at Northeastern’s School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, to weigh in on what the nation’s envi­ron­mental agenda might look like under Trump’s leadership.

Trump, Stephens says, “has focused primarily on fossil fuels with plans to reduce regulations for shale gas extraction and advancing clean coal, but he has also mentioned ‘renewable energies and technologies of the future.’”

 Question 1 : First and foremost, what is Trump’s energy plan? Second, what are some of the biggest political hurdles facing the president-elect as he works to dismantle many of the policies put in place by the Obama administration to fight the effects of climate change?

On the campaign trail, Trump outlined his “America First Energy Plan” promising energy independence by getting “bureaucracy out of the way of innovation so we can pursue all forms of energy.” He has made claims that accelerating extraction of fossil fuels will create millions of new high-paying jobs. He has focused primarily on fossil fuels with plans to reduce regulations for shale gas extraction and advancing clean coal, but he has also mentioned “renewable energies and technologies of the future.”

If the president-elect really wants to prioritize energy independence and creating energy-related jobs, then advancing renewable energy is essential. Renewable energy offers so much potential because harnessing the perpetual and abundant energy from the wind, sun, and water offers benefits that can be distributed around the country. But it is not yet clear whether those connections are yet being made within the incoming administration.

Some of Obama’s actions have been executive orders, so those can be easily changed with new executive orders. But other Obama administration policies and initiatives are more complicated and would involve complicated action to change.

The reality is that the world is gradually transitioning away from fossil fuels toward more renewable-based energy systems. If the new administration does not support that transition in the United Sates, our country will fall farther and farther behind and lose global competitiveness, but the rest of the world will continue. And cities and states throughout the country are not going to halt the rapidly accelerating deployment of renewable energy that brings so many benefits to communities throughout the country. The practical challenges of being a laggard rather than a leader on climate change at the international level will result in a whole host of political hurdles that could temporarily set us back in other areas too.

 Question 2 : Trump will soon be the only world leader to deny the science of climate change, prompting many climate change experts to fear for the future safety of the environment. In your view, what might Trump’s election mean for the future health of the environment?

Even before the election, it was often hard to maintain optimism about the future health of the environment. And now it is even more difficult because many environmental protections—that so many people and organizations have worked so hard to develop and implement over the past 50 years—appear to be at risk of being reversed or weakened. In my courses I encourage students to consider their own level of optimism versus pessimism with regard to environmental degradation and the future. A critical point that I always emphasize is that it is often under duress, hardship, and negative situations that human resilience is demonstrated and our collective ingenuity is sparked. So despite a bleak outlook, it is an exciting time for creative and potentially radical social change.

 Question 3 : Trump recently appointed noted climate change doubter Myron Ebell to lead his transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency, an indication that environmentalists could be, as one Time article put it, “forced to fight tooth and nail to protect existing checks on greenhouse emissions.” Under a Trump administration, what steps might environmental groups take to further their mission to slow the effects of climate change?

For concerned citizens who want to get involved, here are six specific principles that we can advocate with the new administration and within our own communities: (1) make America a clean energy leader; (2) reduce carbon pollution and America’s reliance on fossil fuels; (3) enhance climate preparedness and resilience; (4) publicly acknowledge that climate change is a real, human-caused and urgent threat,; (5) protect scientific integrity in policy-making; and (6) uphold America’s commitment to the Paris climate agreement.

With the negative national-level landscape, grassroots local, city, state, and regional action is more important than ever. Actions of resistance to fossil fuel expansion, including the Standing Rock protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline and the fossil fuel divestment movement, are growing in numbers and significance. We are also seeing new coalitions emerge that are bringing together environmental activists, human rights activists, social justice activists, Black Lives Matter activists, and others. New synergies and critical connections are being made that will empower change. Environmental issues in general and climate change in particular have historically often been too isolated from other issues, so I feel some optimism about how the new political landscape is resulting in new alliances and a broader recognition of interconnections among the many challenges currently facing humanity.

This entry was posted in Science & Technology, Society & Culture. Bookmark the permalink.

Article source: http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2016/12/3qs-the-nations-environmental-agenda-under-a-trump-administration/

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<Questions>

Q1. Where do you live between urban area and rural area? What kinds of urban infrastructures can you find in your region? 

Q2. What is the most urgent issue for Korea in the face of all the agenda offered by Trump's administration?

Q3. How do you think about the Trump's multibillion-dollar investment in the nation's infrastructure agenda? What would be the opportunity for Korea in terms of those movement in US?

Q4. How do you think about Trump administration's direction on Environmental agenda?

Q5. How do you think about the renewable energy originated from wind, sun and geothermal source? 

Q6. Do you think Korea turn their energy system into more eco-friendly and clean concept? 

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Elon Musk and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick are joining 

Trump's economic advisory team

Rob Price 

Elon Musk and Travis Kalanick, the chief executives of Tesla and Uber, are joining US President-elect Donald Trump's new economic advisory board.

The two tech-transportation executives have been named as members of Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum, it was announced on Wednesday, alongside PepsiCo chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi.

Launched in early December, the forum will provide economic advice and will "be called upon to meet with the president frequently to share their specific experience and knowledge as the president implements his plan to bring back jobs and Make America Great Again," the initial announcement said.

It is being headed up by the CEO of Blackstone, Steve Schwarzman.

The American technology industry was overwhelmingly opposed to Trump before the election, with particular concerns around his anti-immigration rhetoric — Silicon Valley is heavily reliant on immigrant workers. But following Trump's shock election victory, the industry is tentatively exploring how it can work with Trump.

Top-tier tech executives were scheduled to meet with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York on Wednesday, with attendees including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt of Google's parent company, Alphabet, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.

During the election, Musk, who in addition to the electric-car company Tesla is CEO of the aerospace firm SpaceX, supported Hillary Clinton and was critical of Trump, saying, "I think a bit strongly that [he] is probably not the right guy" to be president. Kalanick, the CEO of the ride-hailing company Uber, has also joked about the Republican president-elect, saying in 2015: "Oh my god, Donald Trump's gonna win. I'm going to move to China if Donald Trump wins." 

Musk, Kalanick, and PepsiCo's Nooyi will be joining General Motors CEO Mary Barra, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, Disney CEO Bob Iger, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, General Electric CEO Jack Welch, and others on the team.

Here's the previous list of members, not including the newest three:

   - Stephen Schwarzman (forum chairman), chairman, CEO, and cofounder of Blackstone

   - Paul Atkins, CEO of Patomak Global Partners, former commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission

   - Mary Barra, chairwoman and CEO, General Motors

   - Toby Cosgrove, CEO, Cleveland Clinic

   - Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO, JPMorgan Chase & Co.

   - Larry Fink, chairman and CEO, BlackRock

   - Bob Iger, chairman and CEO, The Walt Disney Company

   - Rich Lesser, president and CEO, Boston Consulting Group

   - Doug McMillon, president and CEO, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

   - Jim McNerney, former chairman, president, and CEO of Boeing

   - Adebayo "Bayo" Ogunlesi, chairman and managing partner, Global Infrastructure Partners

   - Ginni Rometty, chairwoman, president, and CEO of IBM

   - Kevin Warsh, Shepard Family Distinguished Visiting Fellow in economics at the Hoover Institute, former member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

   - Mark Weinberger, global chairman and CEO, EY

   - Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO, General Electric

   - Daniel Yergin, Pulitzer Prize winner, vice chairman of IHS Markit

Article source :  http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-uber-travis-kalanick-join-donald-trump-strategic-policy-forum-economic-team-2016-12

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The trolling of Elon Musk: how US conservatives are attacking green tech

Electric-car evangelist is the target of concerted negative online campaign linked to influential rightwing network

Jamie Doward/ Sunday 4 December 2016 00.05 GMT

He is the charismatic Silicon Valley entrepreneur who believes his many companies - including the electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors, solar power firm Solar City, and SpaceX, which makes reusable space rockets – can help resist man-made climate change.

South African-born Elon Musk is a billionaire green evangelist, a bete noire of the fossil fuels industry who talks about colonising Mars and believes it may be possible that we’re living in a computer simulation.

But having been feted by the Obama administration, he now faces an extraordinary barrage of attacks from rightwing thinktanks, lobbyists, websites and commentators. The character of the assault says much about which way the political wind is blowing in Washington – something that will have consequences that stretch far beyond the US.

One of Musk’s most trenchant critics has been the journalist Shepard Stewart, who writes for a clutch of conservative online news sites. In several articles in September, not long after a SpaceX rocket exploded, Stewart attacked Musk for receiving billions in government subsidies “to make rockets that immediately self destruct” and branded him “a national disgrace”. As Musk fought back on Twitter, it became apparent that Stewart was an invention. Even his photo byline had been doctored from a LinkedIn profile of a tech entrepreneur. “Definitely a fake,” Gavin Wax, editor-in-chief of the Liberty Conservative, one of the websites that published Stewart, admitted to Bloomberg.

The revelation triggered several theories: that Stewart was created by speculators shorting shares in Musk’s companies, or that he was invented by rival rocket companies keen to bring SpaceX down to earth. But Musk may be reassured to learn that Stewart’s attacks on him weren’t that personal. Rather, they appear to be part of a wider agenda against big government, the environmental lobby and liberals in general – an agenda reinvigorated by the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency. In recent months, Stewart has twice attacked Oregon’s former governor, John Kitzhaber, a supporter of ObamaCare and solar energy who was forced to resign from office, saying his appearance at a healthcare conference was like “having Bernie Madoff heading an upcoming conference on retirement savings”.

He has also taken aim at Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy for introducing an act that compels online contact lens sellers to seek approval from optometrists before selling their products. And he has lambasted the Obama administration for “banning payday loans despite the fact that there is an overwhelming need and positive reception for them”.

Stewart’s protean efforts have been erased from the internet. But the online attacks on Musk continue. A website, stopelonfromfailingagain.com, regularly publishes negative stories about him. The site is similar to another anti-Musk site, whoiselonmusk.com, created by an organisation called The Center for Business and Responsible Government (CBRG), which describes itself as a “non-partisan organisation dedicated to highlighting cronyism and its effect on American taxpayers and policy” and seems not to exist anywhere but cyberspace. Both sites were set up around the same time this summer and are registered to a domain-name allocation company in Arizona.

Whoiselonmusk carries stories from the Daily Signal, the news arm of the Heritage Foundation, a powerful rightwing thinktank whose mission statement is to promote “free enterprise” and “limited government”. It also republishes items from the Washington Examiner and the Daily Caller – online titles that have both published articles by Stewart.

Closer inspection of stopelonfromfailingagain.com reveals that it was established by Citizens for the Republic, a political action committee (Pac) set up in the 70s by Ronald Reagan. Dormant for years, CFTR resurfaced in 2008 under Craig Shirley, a biographer of Reagan, whose lobbying firm, Shirley & Banister, claims to have played a key role helping the “Tea Party Patriots in its rise to prominence as the premiere grassroots group in the country”.

Announcing its campaign against Musk, CFTR’s’ executive director, Diana Banister, the other half of Shirley & Banister, said they would mobilise “public opinion, advertising, grassroots advocacy, testimony and legislation” in their attack on federal solar subsidies, of which Musk has been a major beneficiary. But how and why did CFTR spring back to life? Reports at the time suggested it was revived due to widespread dissatisfaction with the direction of the Republican party. One stated: “The revitalized Citizens for the Republic has already secured $17m in solid financial commitments, according to an official involved in raising money for the organisation.” Whether CFTR really secured this sort of money cannot be verified. But documents filed with the US Internal Revenue Service reveal that two linked organisations – the Wellspring Committee and the Annual Fund – donated the best part of $1m between 2010 and 2011.

Few people in the UK will have heard of these two organisations, but they are part of a powerful conservative political network whose influence has global consequences. An investigation by the Center for Responsive Politics found that Wellspring was one of many organisations that in the past was used as a “dark money conduit” by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers, David and Charles, to channel money to their favoured causes, which have included climate change denial scientists, Tea Party activists and a host of other rightwing groups, including the Heritage Foundation. While Wellspring has reportedly distanced itself from the Kochs, it continues to draw donations from the brothers’ network of like-minded supporters.

One of the Kochs’ latest campaigns emerged in February when it was announced that James Mahoney, a vice-president at Koch Industries, had teamed up with a former lobbyist for American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers to launch a group promoting petroleum. The group is spending $10m a year talking up petrol while attacking government subsidies for electric vehicles, according to sources who spoke to the Huffington Post.

The announcement followed a pledge made last December by the Koch brothers that they and their supporters intended to spend nearly $900m this year helping favoured conservative candidates get elected to Congress, the presidency, and state legislatures. This was double what they spent in the last election cycle and almost as much as was expended by the two presidential campaigns.

Koch Industries did not respond to requests for comment. The Observer attempted to talk to Craig Shirley about CFTR’s relationship with the Wellspring Committee and its campaign against Musk. A spokesman for Shirley & Banister declined to comment on specific questions but said: “The Observer may not be familiar with our laws, and therefore we feel a duty to inform you that conservative philosophy is perfectly legal in the United States. While our hearts go out to the liberal groups who may be ‘upset’, Citizens for the Republic will continue to fight back against cronyism and corruption at all levels of government. If liberals can’t understand that, then that is further proof they have learned nothing from this election.”

Ironically, given the money they spent, the Kochs’ preferred presidential candidate – Scott Walker, the Republican governor of Wisconsin and a darling of many in the Tea Party movement – crashed and burned. Walker’s links to the Kochs may actually have hindered his chances, as they gave plenty of ammunition to his rivals. Hillary Clinton joked that Walker received “his marching orders from the Koch brothers and just goes down the list”. Trump derided Republicans who took Koch money as “puppets”.

Walker’s failure to secure the nomination was a blow for Shirley & Banister, which ran the communications operation for his super-Pac, The Unintimidated Pac, positioning their candidate as an opponent of the Washington elite “unintimidated by powerful political forces”.

And yet, despite the ostensible setback, Christmas has come early for the Kochs. The incoming vice-president, Mike Pence, has acknowledged the support of David Koch. Myron Ebell, the chair of the Koch-backed Cooler Heads Coalition, which questions “global warming alarmism”, will lead Trump’s transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency. Another Trump appointment to that team, David Schnare, is a former member of the Heartland Institute, which denies the scientific evidence for man-made climate change and is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), another organisation funded by the Kochs.

Meanwhile Thomas Pyle, of the Koch-backed American Energy Alliance, is off to the energy department, while Doug Domenech of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which has received millions in Koch funds, is joining the Department of the Interior.

As the campaigning website kochvsclean.com put it: Are The Koch Brothers Controlling Trump Through Appointees?

If the answer is yes, then Musk and other evangelists for the green economy will soon have a lot more to worry about than fake news. It’s the real news they should fear now.

Article source : https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/04/elon-musk-trolling-us-conservatives-green-tech

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<Questions>

Q1. What images are coming up in your mind, when you are listening to the word 'Silicon Valley'?

Q2. Do you find any changes of technician's attitude in Silicon Valley after Trump was elected in the US presidential election?

Q3. What will happen in the green tech. industry in the Trump administration? 

Q4. Why does Elon Musk pursue so many challenging tasks?