Sinking Cities
The cause is often ascribed to climate change, but is there something else at play? Could our thirst for water actually be the culprit?
Also, how much do our urban environments contribute to the heating of the planet? A call to finally get serious about the climate impacts of city design.
Guests
Jeff Goodell — Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council. New York Times Best Selling author of "The Water Will Come"
Dr Philip Minderhoud — Assistant Professor and Veni laureate at the University of Wageningen
Associate Professor Anna Hullimann — Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne
Further information
Jeff Goodell — The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities and the Remaking of the Civilized World
Anna Hurlimann — Integrating Climate Change Action Across the Built Environment: A Guide for Transformative Action
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ABC News
6 hours ago
- ABC News
Did Donald Trump just give China a major advantage on AI?
Last month, the Trump administration quietly reversed one of its own policies by lifting a ban on US tech giant Nvidia's H20 microchip exports to China. For anyone who has followed Donald Trump's erratic record on trade, another U-turn might not sound like a notable development. But this time, the stakes are much higher because these microchips are critical to powering the next generation of artificial intelligence. Whichever country dominates microchip production will likely lead the global AI race, with massive implications for military strategy and economic output. For nearly three years, the US has tried to keep these powerful chips out of China's hands. Now, by reopening the door, has Mr Trump handed Beijing a major advantage on AI? We spoke to three experts to explain how we got here. Back in April, the Trump administration banned H20 microchip exports to China, toughening restrictions put in place by the Biden administration. It has since reversed that decision. According to Jason Van Der Schyff, a fellow at Australian Strategic Policy Institute's technology and security program, this backflip may be in response to the booming black market demand for high-powered US chips in China. "Over a billion dollars worth of restricted chips were smuggled into China in just a few months," he said. "The reversal may be a pivot by the administration, recognising if you don't offer a legal channel for the slightly degraded chips, buyers will simply go around you." Professor Shahriar Akter, who specialises in the study of advanced analytics and AI at the University of Wollongong said this move seems to follow "a philosophy in Silicon Valley that if you sell more" it will pour more back into "your research and development". Associate Professor in Information Systems at Curtin University, Mohammad Hossain, suggested the Trump administration is trying to kill two birds with one stone. The US is trying to maintain leverage in a broader geopolitical trade-off involving China's critical exports, rare earth elements, while "keeping China dependent on US technology", he said. Nvidia is the tech giant behind these highly sought after microchips and it is led by CEO Jensen Huang who is the ninth-richest man in the world. The H20 is a step-down from Nvidia's top-tier chips (H100 and B200) and was specifically designed to comply with US export restrictions while catering to the Chinese market. "Basically, [H100 and B200 chips] can do things much faster than the H20," Mr Van Der Schyff said. "If we consider how quickly AI is moving any impediment that could be brought to time more than anything is going to maintain that US strategic advantage." While the H20 is less powerful, Mr Van Der Schyff warns that "these aren't toys … even slightly downgraded chips still enable model training at scale". "If you're concerned about national security, letting an adversary access chips that are only one rung down the ladder still poses a strategic risk." While the US hopes to stall China's progress in artificial intelligence, experts warn this strategy may have the opposite effect. China's push to dominate AI is already underway and restricting exports to only H20 chips incentivises them to accelerate domestic developments. "At present in the world, 50 per cent of AI researchers are being produced by China alone," Dr Akter said. Chinese tech giants like Huawei and Biren Technology have been ramping up their own AI accelerators. "Huawei's chips are already being deployed in major training clusters," Mr Van Der Schyff said. Still, China's domestic developments trail behind industry leaders like Taiwan's TSMC and South Korea's Samsung when it comes to cutting-edge manufacturing. "There isn't necessarily a danger that China catches up overnight but these restrictions do however give Beijing a clear incentive to sort of go all in on industrial policy for their own semiconductors to accelerate domestic progress," Mr Van Der Schyff said. "We've seen this play out previously with 5G and also with aviation." All three experts cautioned that it's difficult to gauge China's true AI capabilities. "Given the closed nature of China's systems and their propensity to not always tell us the truth", it's unclear how much China's artificial intelligence has developed, Mr Van Der Schyff said. Dr Akter used an analogy to explain the uncertainty: "There are two types of AI technologies", one is called glass box and the other is called black box. "Glass box technology is basically explainable AI, which is open source and we can explain where data is coming from and how it is being used to develop AI models and what would be the outcome." Whereas, black box technology is the opposite, we cannot trace back to the source of the data and we cannot tell what models have been used. That opacity makes it difficult for the rest of the world to assess whether Beijing is playing catch-up or quietly pulling ahead. The country that has the upper hand in microchip production will likely lead the global AI race and that has significant repercussions, experts said. "The country that dominates compute will dominate AI, and AI will shape everything from military planning to economic productivity."
News.com.au
2 days ago
- News.com.au
In Darwin's wake: Two-year global conservation voyage sparks hope
After a two-year around-the-world ocean voyage inspired by Charles Darwin, scientists and crew sailed home on a historic vessel into Rotterdam Thursday bearing a warning about climate change -- but also a message of hope. The majestic three-masted Oosterschelde, the last remaining vessel from a fleet of Dutch schooners that criss-crossed the globe in the early 20th century, arrived to a welcome befitting a voyage of more than 40,000 nautical miles (74,000 kilometres, 46,000 miles). Ceremonially escorted by more than a dozen vessels ranging from tall ships to steamships, all blaring horns, the Oosterschelde received a "water cannon salute" from fire service boats, as hundreds waved and cheered from the banks. Like Darwin in 1831, the Oosterschelde departed the British port of Plymouth in August 2023 to embark on a voyage of discovery that took in the major stops explored during the British naturalist's world-changing mission aboard the HMS Beagle. From the Falkland Islands to the southern tips of Africa, South America and Australia, the trip closely shadowed Darwin's voyage that inspired his groundbreaking theory of natural selection described in "On the Origin of Species". Aboard the Oosterschelde at various points of the voyage were some of the world's best young conservationists, 100 scientists aged 18-25, selected to study a species also observed by Darwin, himself aged 22 at the time of his trip. Giant tortoises, Chilean dolphins, and howler monkeys were just some of the weird and wonderful creatures the young "Darwin Leaders" investigated, tracking changes since their appearance in "Origin of Species" two centuries ago. With "online classrooms" onboard and slick social media output, the mission also hoped to inspire a new generation around the message: "Conservation isn't about what we've lost, it's about protecting what we still have." - 'Barely anything left' - One of the Darwin Leaders, 23-year-old Lotta Baten, spent a week on the ship and conducted a study into the impact of tourism on forests in Tenerife, Spain. She said only roughly four percent of the forest that Darwin would have seen from the Beagle is still alive today, with much torn down to support the tourism industry. "There's barely anything left, mainly the strips around the coast," the Dutch-German scientist told AFP. She said it was "quite something" to follow in the footsteps of Darwin, but noted that the botanist's legacy is divided, as a European in colonial times. "He basically explored and discovered things that maybe had already been explored and discovered by people at the places themselves. And then he claimed he discovered them," said Baten. Science co-ordinator Rolf Schreuder admitted that "it's not a rosy picture", with habitat loss and climate change all transforming the environment beyond what Darwin would have recognised. "You see the natural world degrading in many places," the 55-year-old told AFP. But Schreuder, like many on board, found the mission inspiring rather than depressing. He ran more than 100 local projects during the trip with people seeking to preserve their landscapes. "We met so many great people that are actually on the ground working on the survival of those species," he said. He found himself inspired too by the young scientists, "full of ideas, full of commitment and determination to really make a difference." - 'Do another tour' - Crew member Daan van Roosmalen was a boy of 17 when he set sail on the Oosterschelde. He returned to his native Netherlands having just turned 19. "I've just been to so many places. To the Galapagos Islands, French Polynesia. We went so far away and to then sail back up this river and see the skyline of Rotterdam again is just super special," he told AFP. He said he hoped the round-the-world voyage completed by scientists and crew his age would send a message to his generation. "I think it's very important that we keep inspiring young people to look after our world, because we are going to be the ones taking over," he said. "So to see all these young conservationists putting so much effort in Mother Earth... I think that should inspire more people to also take care of our planet." And what of Darwin, the inspiration behind the mission? "I would say he would have been enthused by his fellow young people taking care of this natural world, which he described so nicely," said Schreuder. "I think he would hop on this boat again and do another tour."
ABC News
2 days ago
- ABC News
Sinking Cities
Cities across the world are beginning to sink — some by as much as 10 centimetres a year. A recent study suggests that more than a third of urban Chinese resident now live in a sinking city. The cause is often ascribed to climate change, but is there something else at play? Could our thirst for water actually be the culprit? Also, how much do our urban environments contribute to the heating of the planet? A call to finally get serious about the climate impacts of city design. Guests Jeff Goodell — Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council. New York Times Best Selling author of "The Water Will Come" Dr Philip Minderhoud — Assistant Professor and Veni laureate at the University of Wageningen Associate Professor Anna Hullimann — Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne Further information Jeff Goodell — The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities and the Remaking of the Civilized World Anna Hurlimann — Integrating Climate Change Action Across the Built Environment: A Guide for Transformative Action
