Radiative cooling is a phenomenon that allows people to make ice in the dessert on a clear night, but practical uses in our modern world have been limited — primarily because it’s most useful at night. Aaswath Raman and his team of researchers are using nanotechnology to create a material that reflects solar radiation and disrupts thermal heat enough to make radiative cooling possible during the day. It’s an incredibly elegant solution to how to keep materials cool without using mechanics or electricity. They’ve commercialized the tech into a way to make air conditioners more efficient.

I genuinely love solutions like this to the biggest problem we face as a planet. It’s innovative, cheap, works with existing systems, and doesn’t require some massive sacrifice. When I see how these small changes can add up, it give me hope, as well as infuriates me that we waste so much time arguing over whether climate change is even a problem worth addressing instead of getting to the urgent work of making the world a better place.