I have tried to keep the content of this blog non-political but the political environment has become too toxic for me to keep silent. In particular there is the growing disdain for the facts on the part of our President and, apparently, most or all of the Republican Party who favor alternative facts. Alternative facts indeed! Facts are facts and repeatedly testable, alternative facts are distortions at best, outright lies at worst.
I have been continually fretting about this state of affairs, wondering how to reverse the situation. Now Dr. David Brin, the renowned astrophysicist, science fiction author and fellow futurist, has come up with a direct approach: the FACT ACT. Let’s not just stand there complaining about alternative facts, let’s do something about it. First some background. Continue reading Just the facts, Ma’am→
Sustainability apparently means different things to different people. Fundamentally, sustainability refers to the ability of the human race to survive into the indefinite future. The crux of the sustainability dilemma is the tension between what we want to do and what Mother Nature allows us to do while remaining on Earth. I would like to summarize and expand upon an article that appeared recently in Nature Sustainability. The article’s title is “A good life for all within planetary boundaries”. It was produced by a team from the Sustainability Research Institute of the University of Leeds, UK and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, Berlin, Germany.
The fundamental constraint on sustainability derives from the fact that we’re stuck here on Mother Earth, therefore we must take pretty good care of her if we are to be around very long. What Mother provides us is breathable air, potable water, arable soil, sources of energy and a variety of raw materials that we can make into useful products. The fundamental constraint on “the good life” is our ability to realize at least a minimum level of health and other human needs. The researchers for the paper quoted above described this as the ability of humanity to stay within a doughnut; the inner boundary of the doughnut comprises the human needs requirements while the outer boundary comprises the constraints imposed by nature.
