The information: Heat pumps, which use electrical energy to each warmth and funky houses, are actually simply as frequent in low-income households within the US as they’re in wealthier ones. This bucks the development amongst client local weather applied sciences, a lot of that are more likely to be adopted by the rich.
Why it issues: Heating buildings is a large local weather downside—roughly 10% of world emissions come from our efforts to maintain our indoor areas comfy. But whereas governments are looking forward to individuals to undertake new home equipment that would substitute methods that burn fossil fuels, traditionally, such adjustments haven’t been distributed equally. Heat pumps, at the least within the US, appear to be completely different. That’s excellent news.
The large image: The variety of households that depend on warmth pumps remains to be small, and there’s no assure that they are going to proceed to be adopted at equal charges by households with completely different incomes. But monetary incentives might assist to deliver the associated fee financial savings and local weather progress related to warmth pumps to everybody, not simply the wealthy. Read the total story.
—Casey Crownhart
The Twitter accounts that impersonate Chinese celebrities for clout and money
A rising variety of Twitter accounts have been impersonating outspoken Chinese intellectuals or celebrities. Their posts, which continuously criticize the Chinese authorities, usually draw tons of of 1000’s of followers earlier than the deception is publicly uncovered.
Although Twitter has been banned in China since 2009, extra Chinese customers have been accessing the platform with VPN instruments lately. It’s additionally turn out to be a spot rife with spam, scams, and content material farms, which has solely gotten worse underneath Elon Musk’s reign. But the emergence of accounts that impersonate Chinese celebrities who don’t have a Twitter presence—more likely to farm followers—is a brand new, and worrying, development. Read the total story.