Bitcoin Global News (BGN)
September 18, 2018 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire -- The World Economic
Forum recently released a lengthy report on blockchain technology’s
ability to improve our current methods to combat environmental
protection issues, as well as create entirely new ones. The report
highlights the six major areas of the environment that humans are
causing harm and eight broad features of blockchain technology that
are beneficial for the issues at hand. Within those six key areas,
they found 65 unique use cases.
Six “Global Challenge
Areas”
Climate Change - precipitation
changes, extreme storms, sea level inconsistencies, coastal
inundation and unprecedented heatwaves are causing drastic problems
in people’s security, economic well-being and health.
Biodiversity and Conservation -
deforestation rates in the Amazon Basin may lead to an 8% drop in
regional rainfall by 2050. This could trigger a “savannah state”
where Earth’s atmospheric circulatory systems are completely
altered.
Healthy Oceans - roughly 8 million
tons of plastic are expected to enter the oceans each year. This
accumulates in the food chain and find their way into humans, an
estimated 6,400 microplastics per year are ingested by the average
European shellfish consumer.
Water Security - water scarcity is
a reality for 1.9 billion people, and that number is expected to
rise to 3 billion by 2050. Microplastics were found in 83% of tap
water samples around the world and more than 90% of bottled
water.
Clean Air - about 7 million people
die annually from exposure to air pollution, which comes to one
death out of every eight globally.
Weather and Disaster Resilience -
weather events caused about $330 billion in damages last year, and
most is not covered by insurance. 23 million people were displaced
in these events.
Fourth Industrial
Revolution
These challenges are paramount for
the continued improvement to quality of life around the globe.
Their onset also coincides with an era of unprecedented innovation,
technical change and global connectivity, which the report refers
to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
“This industrial revolution, unlike
previous ones, is underpinned by the established digital economy
and is based on rapid advances in technologies such as blockchain,
artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, robotics,
autonomous vehicles, biotechnology, nanotechnology and nascent
quantum computing among others. It is also characterized by the way
in which the combination of these technologies increasingly merges
the digital, physical and biological realms, and collectively
increases the speed, intelligence and efficiency of business and
societal processes.”
8 Blockchain Features For
Change
This new phase could allow
unforeseen blockchain-enabled innovation through its computational
architecture and wide range of potential uses. The report
identifies eight “game changers” that could disrupt, or
substantially optimize, the systems that addressing many
environmental challenges.
“See-through” supply chains”:
Transparency creates an opportunity to increase efficiency of
supply and demand, build resilience to changes and enable more
sustainable production of food, logistics and consumer
choice.
“Decentralized and sustainable
resource management”: blockchain platforms could collate
distributed data on resources such as household-level water and
energy data from smart sensors. Further, decentralized
decision-making could facilitate peer-to-peer transactions, dynamic
pricing and optimal demand-supply balancing.
“Raising the trillions” – finance
platforms could allow retail-level investment in green
infrastructure projects with a blend of finance and charitable
donations for developing countries.
“Incentivizing circular economies”:
the way that raw materials and natural resources are valued and
traded could be overhauled to incentivize individuals, companies
and governments to unlock financial value from things that are
currently wasted, discarded or treated as economically
invaluable.
“Transforming carbon (and other
environmental) markets”: cryptographic tokens with a tradable value
could optimize existing market platforms for carbon and new carbon
credit transactions.
“Next-gen sustainability
monitoring, reporting and verification”: a new wave of
accountability and action would be built into blockchain systems
for a more complete picture for managing risk and reward regarding
the environment.
“Automatic disaster preparedness
and humanitarian relief”: an interoperable decentralized system
would facilitate rapid automated transactions with smart contracts
to improve efficiencies in the immediate aftermath of
disasters.
“Earth-management platforms”:
value-based transactions could monitor, manage and enable market
mechanisms that protect the global environmental
conditions.
By: BGN Editorial Staff
News:
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