I heard a bloke on BBC Radio 4 say that, in 10 years, you won't be able to buy a pair of shoes that don't have an IP address. \u00a0Smart in more senses than one, then.<\/p>\n
I suppose the advantage of this is that you will never again lose that flash\u00a0pair of trainers, and that you might be able to use your shoe as a phone to connect to your smart meter and turn off the fridge. What a prospect. \u00a0A boon for parents, perhaps, who will know where their children are and whether they really are doing all that exercise they promised.<\/p>\n
I thought about this as I listened to John\u00a0Loughhead at Bath the other week talk about UK\u00a0energy and industrial strategy from his vantage point as Chief Scientist at the new Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy [BEIS] \u2013 pronounced \"baize\", apparently. \u00a0Loughhead was surprisingly up-beat about\u00a0about international collaboration and said that the UK would be making a big announcement at\u00a0COP22 in Marrakech. \u00a0If we\u00a0did, it got drowned out by trumpeting about Trumpism. \u00a0He was positive about battery storage, carbon capture, small modular nuclear reactors that you could order from IKEA\u00a0(well, sort of), and smart metres. \u00a0A new role for chief scientists, I thought: being sent out of London\u00a0to enthuse for your country.<\/p>\n
Mind you, I'm still waiting to hear what the UK's big idea was \u2013 some 2 weeks after the event. \u00a0Of course, there were few\u00a0fireworks at Marrakech, just a lot of promises\u00a0from a lot of countries about what they'll be doing (and not doing) in relation to emissions. \u00a0It looked like very necessary tedium. \u00a0Over-shadowing it all was what President-elect Trump has said about climate change. \u00a0However, given that he seems to have taken up every possible stance, perhaps we should just wait to see and not worry overmuch in the meanwhile. \u00a0Apart from the money, that is. \u00a0Maybe we should worry about the money as many of the promises\u00a0that economically developing countries are making are contingent on a\u00a0flow of cash from rich countries to ease the transition \u2013 some $100bn a year, I think. \u00a0Much of that was set to come from the USA, and turning off a money spigot may well\u00a0prove much easier than, for example, building a wall.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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