Marketplace Tech with Molly Wood

This week, world leaders are meeting at the United Nations climate summit in Madrid, talking about how to keep global warming in check. One thing that’s going to become increasingly valuable in the future is drinking water. Droughts, storms and sea level rise all affect the availability of potable water. India, in fact, is already running out. One startup is working on it with tech that collects water vapor from the air and stores it as clean water.

The 1982 science fiction classic “Blade Runner” was set in November 2019 in Los Angeles. But the LA envisioned by director Ridley Scott is very different from the LA you’d recognize today. For one thing, it’s raining all the time, and it’s a dystopian hellscape with flying cars, pervasive technology and artificial humans, or replicants, who are almost indistinguishable from real humans. Also, almost everyone smokes. Aside from the obvious, how far off is the movie from present-day 2019?

Amazon is by far the largest online retailer in the United States. Chances are you’ve clicked the buy button for holiday shopping or just some daily staples recently. Reporter Will Evans said he obtained records on injury rates from 23 Amazon fulfillment centers around the country and found the rate of serious injuries is more than double the average for the industry. At some warehouses, it’s as much as six times higher.

We’re revisiting some of our stories looking at how technology can help us adapt to climate change.  In this piece (which originally aired October 1), we look at the digital tools available to figure out a home’s flood risk.