According to local media, Innogy Middle East, a company established by the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) and Ragni Group, a French company agreed to collaborate in the production of smart lighting poles for Dubai. DEWA goes Smart the French way means for the lighting poles to support obviously energy-saving lighting and a wide range of environmental intelligence like autonomous driving and traffic control.
Such memorandum of understanding between a public utility provider from a hydrocarbon based energy producer and a non-hydrocarbon country based producer of smart hardware seems to be more and more trending these latter days.
Within the UAE and the Gulf region’s most densely populated area, Dubai although being hampered by the recently felt and long-awaited oil peak, carries on at looking at how getting “smart” and keep itself moving towards its share in its fight against climate change.
Two things of the above will have to be clarified and are to do with our use of the “long-awaited oil peak” phrase and our assuming that hydrocarbons related activities of production, distribution and usage have had consequences on the so called climate change now well-known notion.
A WEF produced on September 4th, 2017 and published in collaboration with Quartz, this article written by Olivia Goldhill, Weekend Writer, gives us a feeling of the latest happenings. We republish it for purposes of possibly helping its spread further in the MENA region.
A study has found that there is a deep divide in beliefs about controversial scientific issues among the most educated.
Image: REUTERS/Mark Ralston/Pool
Climate change is dividing the highly educated. Here’s why
Many people concerned about climate change assume that eventually, the growing weight of facts will persuade those who dismiss humans’ role in the problem to think again. Surely, the theory goes, the plentiful evidence will eventually make any naysayer understand the severity of the situation.
But political ideology has a powerful effect, and new research shows that education and facts don’t prevent climate change deniers from cherry picking evidence to support their own beliefs.
A study published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that among the most educated, there’s actually a deep divide in beliefs about controversial scientific issues.
The researchers analyzed public opinions on six topics—stem cell research, the big bang, human evolution, climate change, nanotechnology, and genetically modified foods—based on more than 6,500 responses from the General Social Survey (a national survey conducted once every two years). Overall, they found that education level was “at best weakly related” to acceptance of the scientific consensus.
“We found that where religious or political polarization existed, it was greater among individuals with more general education and among individuals with greater scientific knowledge, as measured by both whether they had taken science courses and how they scored on a test of science literacy.”
The study follows several previous studies that show political conservatives are more likely to dispute the scientific consensus on climate change if they have more education.
There are two plausible explanations for this finding, according to the researchers. Firstly, the notion of “motivated reasoning,” namely that “more knowledgeable individuals are more adept at interpreting evidence in support of their preferred conclusions.” And secondly, over-confidence—as the researchers explain, “knowledge increases individuals’ confidence more quickly than it increases that knowledge.”
So if you fail to persuade dogmatic family members to see reason, don’t be too surprised. Given the terrifyingly real dangers posed by climate change, it’s still worth presenting the facts—just don’t assume that deniers are dumb.