“The world is running out of options to hit climate goals, U.N. report shows” Is this headline from the WaPo (April 4, 2022) correct? I do not believe so. This old “joke” may help understand why. A policeman goes to help a drunk searching for something under a streetlight and asks what he has lost. He says his keys and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes, the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them here, and the drunk replies, “No, I lost them in the park.” The policeman asks why he is searching… Read More
Continue ReadingMore Technology Will Not Bring Us Flourishing
I am generally a fan of David Brooks. That doesn’t mean that I always agree with him, but I think he has a pretty good handle on what needs to be said at the right time. But his column today in the New York Times bothers me a lot. In a nutshell, he paints the possibility of technological breakthroughs as the bright light against all of today’s dark shadows. I think he is wrong, but worse, very wrong. I am not a Luddite, given my doctorate in Chemical Engineering from MIT, standing athwart the road to the artificially intelligent, autonomous,… Read More
Continue ReadingFinding and Making the Right Choice
We, in the US and other so-called modern, capitalistic, market-driven nations, need a different framework for the way we discuss and decide our political choices. The traditional polarization between left and right, or liberal and conservative, or some other pair no longer enables anyone to find and examine the real issues facing everyone on the Planet. Any conversation that takes economic growth for granted, whether implicit or explicit, creates a blindness that will make whatever choices are made eventually exacerbate the problems for which the choices are believed to be the solution. The planet cannot stand any additional material growth… Read More
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