One Kind of Sustainability

I am back home after about 5 days spent a Lahey Hospital getting a new knee. It’s made of Titanium and should not need repair during my lifetime. It didn’t come with a lifetime guarantee, but given my age, it should be quite good for the rest of my life. My stay was uneventful, unless you consider replacing one’s knee a big deal. Although this operation has become quite commonplace and as routine as ever major surgery can be, it is quite miraculous. In on Monday; out of Friday, walking to car from the Hospital exit. The one thing about… Read More

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Beware Moral Hazards, Systems Blindness, and Shifting the Burden.

Most of the response to COP21 has been positive. Fossil fuels have had their day. 2° C looks to be within reach. There seems to be little doubt that the rate of greenhouse gas emissions is going to slow. The naysayers point to the lack of strongly enforceable provisions and to the dependence on acceptance by future politicians. A few of my friends raise issues about the incompatibility of the targets with already established growth policies and the historical lag of efficiency increases relative to growth. In the systems thinking/dynamics world where I continue to spend time, The entire COP21… Read More

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For Every Complex Problem, There Is an Answer That Is Clear, Simple, and Wrong.

So almost said H.L. Mencken as part of a longer aphorism. The whole quote is, “Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.” This misquoted part does however make the point I am trying to do. This quote should be placed at the top of every story in every medium dealing with the latest round of terror and almost everything else being touched upon in the current political battles for the Presidential nomination. The best solution, one that I have yet to hear, is to… Read More

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