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The things we are separating and putting into recycling bins are probably not being recycled. Recycling validates waste and it is a faux solution to the complex waste crisis we have designed ourselves into. Systems Thinking recognizes that everything is interconnected. Solve a complex problem with a simple solution, and we inevitably cause other […]
The impact of climate change is increasingly hard to ignore. According to the 2020 Global Risk Report by the World Economic Forum (WEF), environmental threats are now the dominant global risk in terms of likelihood, taking the top five spots on the list. The effects of climate change are well-known and difficult to overstate. The pressure on […]
I ran across a music video on YouTube last night. It was produced in 1987 by an Australian band named Midnight Oil. The song (you may remember it) is “Beds Are Burning”. It resonated with me because of the recent fires in Australia. It seems eerily prescient now. “How do we sleep while our […]
Local communities come together to recover from disasters. It is human nature to help when we see others in distress. We’ve all seen it dozens of times. Strangers pitch in together and lift a car that has pinned a woman. People go door to door after a hurricane to find those who need assistance. The […]
As climate change impacts become more severe, cities and communities are seeking to become more resilient. One obvious place to start is infrastructure (roads, bridges, water treatment facilities, etc.) that are designed to last fifty years or more. If we can make our investments in infrastructure resilient to the impacts of climate change, they will […]
The one factor most likely to affect how well we endure a global crisis is the quality of our cooperation and collaboration. A great deal depends on whether we exhibit pro-social attitudes and responses, or we panic and blame. We must recognize that we’re all in this together. By cooperating and collaborating, we can salvage […]
“Climate resilience is the ability to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to hazardous events, trends, or disturbances related to climate. Improving climate resilience involves assessing how climate change creates new, or alters current, climate-related risks. We can take steps to better cope with these risks.”1 Humanity has a lot of problems. Climate change, political […]
Since the recent events that have greatly escalated tensions between the United States and Iran, there’s been a lot of talk about the possibility of war. Though it’s an uncomfortable subject, it is worth examining. War and climate change are closely related in a number of ways. If a major military conflict was to break […]
In the writing of “Moving to a Finite Earth Economy”, we were lucky enough to get a personal introduction to Herschel Specter, a nuclear industry veteran. Here are some highlights from his bio: Herschel Specter, President of Micro-Utilities, Inc., holds a BS in Applied Mathematics from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn and an MS […]
Many of our efforts to reduce our impact on the Earth have limitations. We keep running into old habits, family priorities, clunky infrastructure and a sense that we just can’t get good enough. There is an answer to this conundrum. I call it Handprint Thinking. Decades ago, I read a book on […]