Mystery, climate-saving invention to be unveiled at swanky dinner

While some past pronouncements of world-changing inventions haven't exactly panned out as promised, this latest one will at least have a pretty large stage on which to prove itself, with none other than Al Gore and others paying £1,000 or more apiece in the audience. As you might expect, however, things are being kept as vague as possible ahead of the big unveiling, which is set to go down later today in London. One of the few apparently clued in in the matter, British Inventors' Society founder Kane Kramer, would only go so far as to describe it as "a new science, a Super Material," adding that, "It would be 80 per cent cheaper than any alternative means of production, and it will contribute in a major way to reducing climate change." So, it's "something," but we'll just have to wait and see if it delivers as advertised.

[Flashpoint @ Nov 30th 2007 11:59AM]

DUH - Its called an "atmosphere proccessor". Just review your "Aliens" DVD disk.

[superfresh @ Nov 30th 2007 3:54PM]

Finally! A 64GB iPod Touch!

[Le Master @ Nov 30th 2007 4:12PM]

@superfresh

I don't get it.

[superfresh @ Nov 30th 2007 4:25PM]

neither do I.

[Tristan @ Nov 30th 2007 4:55PM]

What about a cheaper and more efficient alternative to the Platinum in catalytic converters?

[Luke @ Nov 30th 2007 11:59AM]

Well shesh, if the interweb inventor will be there then it must be good.

[John M @ Nov 30th 2007 12:53PM]

Please stop repeating this stupid lie.
Al Gore never claimed to be inventor of the internet.

[Robert @ Nov 30th 2007 1:10PM]

Plus he scores 98 MegaFonzies of the Coolometer.

[mark @ Nov 30th 2007 1:25PM]

@John M: "Please stop repeating this stupid lie. Al Gore never claimed to be inventor of the internet."

Looks like that's a matter of interpretation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_gore#Internet_and_technology

"Gore stated, 'During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the internet.'"

[DQ @ Nov 30th 2007 1:35PM]

John M...actually you're wrong. Al Gore did say in a speech that he "invented" the internet. Granted, he might not have completely said what he meant, but he did say it. The audio can be found all over the internet. I hope this is better than the last World Changing Invention. Does everyone remember about 3 or 4 years ago when Dean Kamen hyped up his "IT" invention that was going to change the way humans looked at transportation? It was the damn segway....not quite life altering. I hope this one's better.

[Sickman @ Nov 30th 2007 5:28PM]

@DQ: Hey, find me a quote where he literally says "I invented the internet". It's a misquote that was perpetuated all over the place. People picked up on it because it's funny. End of story. Read that Wiki page.

Swear to god, people blow this Gore thing out of proportion. Can we all agree that the internet as we have it today would not be what it is without government assistance? Can we agree that Al Gore actually played a role in getting the internet on the floor for discussion? Some might say he took the initiative in congress to get the ball rolling.

Oh, and hey look, I just plugged two computers together and CREATED a network. Did I invent it? No. Jesus, people who really take that to mean he invented it need to take a reading comprehension class.

I really don't give a crap about Gore but stuff like this is just stupid.

[decypher44 @ Nov 30th 2007 12:00PM]

"Computer. Computer? Ahh, a keyboard. How quaint."

[MikeG @ Dec 2nd 2007 7:25PM]

That's pretty funny, no idea why though, it just sounds funny.

[Citizen024 @ Nov 30th 2007 5:54PM]

yep, definitely transparent aluminum:)

[stoneymonster @ Nov 30th 2007 12:06PM]

Bah. Last time something like this happened we got this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segway

[Tim @ Nov 30th 2007 12:07PM]

Flubber

[Phillip @ Nov 30th 2007 3:56PM]

I was sooooo gonna say that.

[Ethan Rom @ Nov 30th 2007 12:07PM]

I'd be more interested in the smelloscope or a deathclock.

[Luke @ Nov 30th 2007 12:15PM]

Or a what-if machine. Or even a finglonger!

[ToonPac @ Nov 30th 2007 6:03PM]

I'd rather have some Element Zero =)

[John @ Nov 30th 2007 12:07PM]

Cheap to manufacture, flexible, high efficiency solar panels maybe?

[Luke @ Nov 30th 2007 12:09PM]

You might be on to something there.

[Jon Niola @ Nov 30th 2007 12:11PM]

I was thinking that too at first, but that has already been long-announced and now in production by Nanosolar (http://www.nanosolar.com/)

Not sure what it could be. Hope it is not a let down. Remember all the hype before the Segway came out that it would be "earth-changing" - everyone was speculating that Kamen came up with everything from fusion to a perfected stirling engine, and it turned out to be a fancy scooter.

[js @ Nov 30th 2007 3:36PM]

Made in China?

[JuggleNuts @ Nov 30th 2007 3:40PM]

My guess is that it's just some sort of extremely good insulator.

Less heat loss = less need for heat production = less power production = less greenhouse gases.

It'd make sense b/c it's not super-sexy, so it could be developed without a whole lot of media buzz until they really want to trump it up.

[siriusfox @ Nov 30th 2007 8:29PM]

@ JuggleNuts

Energy that we pull from the environment around us, DOESN'T cause any forms of warming. The energy was already on the planet, you just moved it around. The entire basis for something like global warming is that energy from the sun is being trapped here.

[James Yopp @ Dec 1st 2007 3:00PM]

It could be along the lines of that oscillation-based kinetic wind-energy convertor we saw online some weeks back. That invention had a thin synthetic strip that resonantly vibrates in the wind (like the Tacoma Narrows bridge, its inspiration) to produce power. Supposedly many times more efficient, many times cheaper, and many (hundreds of times) smaller than turbine-based windmills for energy harvesting. My bet goes to that; Either that invention specifically, or a modified version for hydro-power.

Even if this isn't what they're announcing, I think that the little wind-energy bars that can charge a laptop and a cellphone in unwired rural areas will be just as life-changing for many. Especially if it's practical to have a few strung together to operate, say, a refrigerator.

[Weo @ Nov 30th 2007 12:08PM]

I still don't believe that we are changing the environment one bit; we are so small compared to the earth, how can we really drastically change something that big?

[james @ Nov 30th 2007 12:12PM]

You, my friend, must not have thought a lot about this. There are a lot more people than you'd think using a lot more products than you'd think and the world is a lot smaller than you'd think.

[Nick @ Nov 30th 2007 12:32PM]

@Weo - I presume your post is a joke? This particular claim is SO last year. Go on, keep up...

[Chris @ Nov 30th 2007 12:47PM]

@James, and it is a lot more complicated than you think. Just recently the NHC came under major criticism for how badly they screwed the pooch on this past year's hurricane predictions. And this is just a single season prediction. With that sort of capability, and considering the enormously complex nature of ... uh... the entire world... how can we gain confidence about predictions of the future.

[Andrew @ Nov 30th 2007 1:15PM]

YOU can't hurt the earth. I can't hurt the earth.

But 6 BILLION people can hurt the earth in a lot of very bad ways. Have you ever seen a polluted lake or river, or a clearcut forest, or a smogbank over a city? Yeah, it's pretty clear that we can screw things up pretty badly.

[Weo @ Nov 30th 2007 1:34PM]

But have you noticed how small that city is compared to the whole surface of the earth, how few there are compared to acreage of forests and whatnot?

[Chris @ Nov 30th 2007 1:29PM]

@Andrew... I can drop a turd in the toilet and dirty that water... but that is hardly evidence that:
-global warming exists
-if it exists how strong are the effects and how much is natural
-if it is even possible to stop
-if it is possible, is it economically feasible to fix

I hate pollution as much as the next person, honestly, but I don't think we should rush into bankrupting the world to fix something before we are 100% sure of all those things I said above.

Think of it this way. Before a drug is allowed to come to market, it must under usually a quadruple blind study. One group lans the study, another administers the drug to patients, another observes the effects on patients, and a fourth analyzes results. These people are never allowed to communicate with each other and usually don't even know who the other groups are. Environmental research has no such thing, and the concept of peer review absolutely pales in comparison to the rigors of blind studies. All I want is certainty, beyond reasonable doubt, that all this global warming stuff is true before we spend a gazillion dollars on it. And the first step in that is truly independent and blind studies.

[nima @ Nov 30th 2007 4:01PM]

@nick
I thought people like weo were joking for a long time. then i googled "flat earth society".

depressing, ain't it?

[Andrew Jones @ Nov 30th 2007 2:33PM]

@Chris - There is a fundamental flaw in that method of investigation in this case. In the event that global warming IS real, by the time we are able to 100% verify, validate and cross-check the source of the problem, it would likely be too late to do anything.
Even if human activity ISN'T negatively affecting the environment permanently, there is already ample evidence that it IS affecting the quality of life for everybody. Polluted lakes prevent many recreational activities, air pollution aggravates a host of respiratory conditions, water pollution depletes a very necessary natural resource, etc. Looking at the problem that way, you are either investing a "gazillion" dollars to improve the quality of life for everybody on Earth with the possible benefit of saving the Earth, or you're allowing the quality of life to continue to deteriorate and potentially dooming mankind.
Also, it's ridiculous to say that spending any amount of money on anything would bankrupt the world. In a worse-case scenario, you would bankrupt several nations and distribute their wealth to the rest of the world. Since most R&D seems to be done in large nations anyway (US, Japan, EU) even that scenario is highly unlikely.

[brett @ Nov 30th 2007 2:49PM]

Chris,

I would recommend you do some research before spouting off; reading wikipedia at the very least would be helpful.

First of all, quadruple-blind is a spurious term. In the pharmaceutical industry, randomized clinical trials (RCT's) are used to reduce bias and confounding factors in the attempt to prove or disprove efficacy. The best way to do this is by employing double-blind strategy, whereby the patient does not know what treatment he receives (one part blind) and the doctor does not know what treatment he administers (other part blind). Triple- or quadruple- blindedness is spurious because it's not possible for someone to analyze the results of a study without knowing the full details of that study.

For discussion's sake, let's take the analogy further. In order to have a double-blind global warming study, we would need two earths. On the first earth, we would have only wind-power and global economy where CO2 was only naturally produced (respiration, volcanos, et al.) On the 2nd earth, we would have life as we currently know it. Then, we would have to have two sets of observers in space stations orbiting each earth. The observers know nothing about what's going on on the surface but may take measurements of air quality, temperature, CO2 percentage, etc. Based on their observations over several millennia, statistical analysis would reveal whether global warming is inextricably linked to man-made production of CO2.

You can see by the ridiculousness and impossibility of the situation that RCTs are not useful in the scope of environmental study. The scientific community can at best make intelligent and informed assumptions from measurements and models. It is up to them to do "good" research, and up to us to hold them accountable.

brett

[Chris @ Nov 30th 2007 3:16PM]

Brett-

I think I wasn't perfectly clear... I wasn't suggesting that we needed a control group. I was suggesting that when climatologists gather their data, it is often very dirty. They have to make assumptions about that data. Anomalies are removed, geographically local factors are adjusted, etc. When there is no separation between the people collecting the data, analyzing (and frequently changing the data), and interpreting what it means, bias is the inevitable outcome.

[guilt+1 @ Nov 30th 2007 4:07PM]

It's totally irrelevant whether or not global warming is an issue. Common sense tells you that you don't shit in your living room, so don't fill the air with unbreathable toxins.

[Mike10010100 @ Nov 30th 2007 4:41PM]

@Weo and everyone who supports him

also @ everyone who says we can't hurt the world and that global warming isn't real

http://xkcd.com/164/ truly sums it up.

[John @ Nov 30th 2007 12:09PM]

Ever noticed how things that change the world are almost never given large amounts of fanfare when they first appear? But I guess when you have no real position of importance or consequence on world events apart from appearing in a Futurama movie, you have to find something to do on Friday nights...

[Matthew Hilario @ Nov 30th 2007 12:22PM]

yea like copernicus' heliocentric theory. no one wants to listen.

[Matthew Hilario @ Nov 30th 2007 12:10PM]

physics..string theory..

[Brodie @ Nov 30th 2007 12:12PM]

I didnt even bother to read this article.... the picture was just to awesome...

"Buddha! Zeus! God! Somebody help me!

Satan, you owe me!"

[Nick @ Nov 30th 2007 12:33PM]

Now I KNOW you're joking...!

[Nick @ Nov 30th 2007 12:35PM]

My comment was supposed to be @weo, but for some reason it is being displayed before his comment rather than after it (at least in my browser it is).

[Weo @ Nov 30th 2007 12:18PM]

i think you are mistaken; how about global cooling? what do you think of that?

[incanvas @ Nov 30th 2007 12:14PM]

when is this dinner going down?

[Luke @ Nov 30th 2007 12:17PM]

RTFA

"which is set to go down later today in London"

[Jason @ Nov 30th 2007 12:16PM]

"a new science" = I've lost interest