MEDEAS Project: The Next Step After the Paris Climate Agreement
Let me start with something to dispel the confusion about what models are for. When you deal with complex, adaptive systems, models are NOT meant to predict the future.
Ugo Bardi
New (free) E-book Offers Sustainable, Equitable Solutions to Building Resilience
In an era rocked by environmental, economic, and political upheaval, our communities must be resilient to survive and thrive. But what does resilience mean, exactly?
Monsters of the Financialized Imagination: From Pokémon to Trump
In the summer of 2016 the global imagination was consumed by monsters…I am talking about Pokémon, Japan’s most successful international brand, which once again stormed onto the cultural stage with the release of its first “augmented reality” (AR) video game for smartphones.
A Rather Different Mafia: The Budapest Bike Maffia
The word “mafia” immediately calls to mind menacing figures engaging in shady business. The Budapest Bike Maffia has something completely different in mind.
Two Ways to Build Global Community: Facebook vs. Platform co-operatives
Last Thursday Mark Zuckerberg published a long piece called ‘Building a Global Community’. In it he explained that his company could help ‘develop the social infrastructure to give people the power to build a global community that works for all of us.’ The effect was unnerving.
Brace for Impact: It’s Time to Build the Fight for Climate Adaptation
The fight to tackle climate change has two core branches: mitigation (curbing excessive greenhouse gas emissions) and adaptation (addressing the effects of climate change that are already unfolding). But although both areas are needed, the public tends to focus on the former in discussions on climate change.
Abalimi Bezekhaya: Improving Food Security with Urban Agriculture
Abalimi Bezekhaya is an organization focused on using urban agriculture to develop and improve food insecure communities in and around Cape Town, South Africa. Operating for more than 30 years, the organization has helped dozens of communities improve their health and lifestyles.
A Muddle of Mind and Matter
The philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, which we’ve been discussing for the last two weeks, has a feature that reliably irritates most people when they encounter it for the first time: it doesn’t divide up the world the way people in modern western societies habitually do.
Land as Insurance: Part 1, A Primer
This is a three-part series based on an idea I recently had around the subjects of farming, black swans, and creating a product that can help insure against risk.
To Billionaire Doomsday Preppers: Your Wealth Won’t Save You
With Donald Trump’s election and the rising perils of war, climate upheaval, accelerating inequality, and civil unrest, some of the richest people in the United States are making escape plans.
Energy and Environmental Regulation in the Age of Trump: The Role of the States, Part 2
Scott Pruitt has now been sworn in as the new Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Agency. It is likely the dismantling of the Clean Power Plan (CPP), and ultimately much of the Agency itself, will begin in short order.
Vietnam’s Low-tech Food System Takes Advantage of Decay
Although food spoils much faster in a tropical climate, the Vietnamese will often store it without refrigeration, and instead take advantage of controlled decay. Vietnam’s decentralised food system has low energy inputs and reduced food waste, giving us a glimpse of what an alternative food system might look like.
