Re: [Wikimedia-l] California drought and WMF

[Tim Starling]

On 15/09/15 22:32, Milos Rancic wrote:
> For the last few years I am thinking about this issue, and as I didn't see
> anybody talking about that, I think we should start a kind of low level
> discussion, as it doesn't require immediate action.
> 
> From what I read, Bay Area is not particularly endangered (although it
> could be in the future). Even so, I am sure all WMF employees have enough
> money to buy bottled water. I know, of course, they are not in the same
> position as Google or Facebook employees, but I think the whole story is
> not about water safety of our headquarters.
> 
> It's about responsibility. WMF shouldn't spend resources unreasonably if it
> doesn't have to. And it's not just about possible "fund for water", which
> could become a standard for every Bay Area employer, but also about the
> environmental harm of the attitude of keeping yourself in hostile place if
> not necessary.

California is not a "hostile place" in terms of water resources. And
according to [1], no long-term trend is evident in the historical
record, and preciptation is forecast to drop by only 10% through to
the late 21st century.

California has by far the cleanest power in the US, and could easily
afford to desalinate its way out of a drought if it chose to do so.
Although it may be more efficient to use groundwater recharge as a
multi-year reservoir instead of allowing farmers to make unrestricted
withdrawals as is currently the case.

-- Tim Starling

[1] Our Changing Climate 2012 Vulnerability & Adaptation to the
Increasing Risks from Climate Change in California - Brochure
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2012publications/CEC-500-2012-007/CEC-500-2012-007.pdf


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] California drought and WMF

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
When the WMF is to consider the environment, investing in green energy is
the most obvious priority. As it is the locations do use standard grid
energy. Most of the big boys on the Internet, Google, Apple, Microsoft,
Facebook have committed themselves to going green. The Internet if it were
a country would be the eigth country in the world comparatively...

This is only for our servers..

As we are moving into endowments, why not invest in green energy worldwide?
The objective being in two.

   - Invest money
   - offset the use of our projects by our servers and our user communities

When we do this in a collaborative manor we build a large body of knowledge
on green energy and green energy investment opportunities. In the process
we will expose many scams that abuse subsidies for green energy and do not
have the desired positive effect. We would also demonstrate that old ideas
about energy are no longer true. Among them the need for oil from the North
Pole.

Yes, we will make a profit that IS the purpose of an endowment fund.

Thanks,

  GerardM

On 15 September 2015 at 23:41, James Salsman  wrote:

> One thing the Foundation could do to help with climate change and
> water issues other than move office locations, and which is on topic
> because the Foundation has chosen to purchase renewable energy through
> contracting with suppliers in the past, is if the Foundation attempted
> to secure desalinated water from electrodialysis through contracting
> with San Francisco Public Utilities:
>
>
> https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B73LgocyHQnfV1Q4VE45RmFFeFlPSDlKalctVS1nRlYyY3lR
>
> There are two benefits: first, electrodialysis is much less expensive
> than reverse osmosis, in which almost all existing desalination
> companies have a huge amount of institutional inertia-causing
> investments of expert personnel, time, money, tooling, and effort;
> secondly, the same process can directly remove carbon from seawater:
>
> http://talknicer.com/co2extraction.pdf
>
> That is the least expensive method of removing carbon from the
> atmosphere other than collecting it at the smokestack, flare, exhaust,
> and tailpipe. And it pays for itself because it produces fresh water
> as a side effect.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] California drought and WMF

[James Salsman]

One thing the Foundation could do to help with climate change and
water issues other than move office locations, and which is on topic
because the Foundation has chosen to purchase renewable energy through
contracting with suppliers in the past, is if the Foundation attempted
to secure desalinated water from electrodialysis through contracting
with San Francisco Public Utilities:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B73LgocyHQnfV1Q4VE45RmFFeFlPSDlKalctVS1nRlYyY3lR

There are two benefits: first, electrodialysis is much less expensive
than reverse osmosis, in which almost all existing desalination
companies have a huge amount of institutional inertia-causing
investments of expert personnel, time, money, tooling, and effort;
secondly, the same process can directly remove carbon from seawater:

http://talknicer.com/co2extraction.pdf

That is the least expensive method of removing carbon from the
atmosphere other than collecting it at the smokestack, flare, exhaust,
and tailpipe. And it pays for itself because it produces fresh water
as a side effect.

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