CNN's 'Tech for Good' meets the innovators tackling invisible pollution

HONG KONG, July 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- In the season three premiere of 'Tech for Good', CNN anchor and correspondent Kristie Lu Stout learns more about the unseen sources of pollution in our world, such as space junk, tire particles, greenhouse gas emissions and noise, and meets the innovators who are working to stem the tide of pollution to ensure a cleaner future – not just here on Earth, but beyond.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, long-term exposure to noise pollution can adversely affect human health. With our cities getting louder, it's more important than ever to muffle this unseen hazard. In Singapore, Gan Woon-Seng, Professor of Audio Engineering at Nanyang Technological University, is focused on developing technology that can mitigate urban noise. Gan has developed a device that can be mounted on windows and emit soundwaves to cancel out offending noise from outside. He and his team are also working on another noise-reduction technology using a technique called 'intentional masking', where a positive natural sound is played to divert attention away from negative noise.

CNN also hears from Moriba Jah, an Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin, who is on a mission to clean up space debris left from inactive satellites. With nowhere to go, this space junk continues whipping around our planet at great speeds – creating a potentially dangerous situation as a growing number of new satellites continue to be launched. To address this space congestion, Jah built ASTRIAGraph, a program that tracks human-made objects in earth's orbit and feeds their locations into a database, allowing users to see what the current traffic patterns are.

Lu Stout then meets Gavin McCormick, an environmental activist and entrepreneur who is turning to technology to get a clearer picture of pollution levels on Earth. McCormick co-founded the global Climate TRACE coalition, which uses artificial intelligence and satellite imagery to track carbon pollution in real time. McCormick calls the Climate TRACE inventory a kind of Wikipedia for pollution data, which can be used and accessed by policymakers, regulators and the general public in order to provide real-time transparency on emissions data.

Finally, tire dust – made up of fragments released by vehicles as they move – is the second largest microplastic pollutant in our oceans besides single-use plastics. The Tyre Collective is a British start-up with a mission to clean up this invisible pollutant. The collective has developed an award-winning car-mounted device, which is suspended from each wheel's steering knuckle, where electrostatically-charged copper plates gather the tire dust. According to the company, the dust itself accounts for more than half of all particle emissions created by vehicles on the road, which are then released into the air and waterways. Electric vehicles, heavier than gas-powered cars due to their batteries, make this an even more pressing issue. 

Tech for Good trailer: https://bit.ly/3BgyLKS 

Tech for Good images: https://bit.ly/3OthnFD 

Tech for Good microsite: https://cnn.it/3PB5DSq 

Airtimes for 30-minute special:

Saturday, 30^th July at 12:30pm HKT
Sunday, 31^st July at 12:30am, 11:00am and 6:00pm HKT
Monday, 1^st August at 10:30am HKT 

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