Tag: climate emergency

Charade: As Cities Burn, Perverse Politics Prevail

January 15, 2025

What will it take to cause “shock and awe” over increasingly frequent and devastating catastrophic climate events? Consider this context: “The average temperature in 2024 was 1.6C above preindustrial levels, data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) shows.” (see story in  The Guardian, 1/10/2025.) Climate science predicts the devastating consequences clearly. Even so, LA burning becomes … More Charade: As Cities Burn, Perverse Politics Prevail

Are We All Here? “Balance” and Meaning in Seeking a Livable Future

December 18, 2024

 Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash There is an old statistical principle having to do with probability and risk in trying to estimate future conditions and how to prepare for or take action to mitigate them to try to alter the outcome of our past and present bad behavior. In assessing the two potential errors in judging the … More Are We All Here? “Balance” and Meaning in Seeking a Livable Future

The Empire Is Not Us

September 11, 2024

I vaguely remember when I first encountered sociology and wondered, ‘what’s that about.’ I had taken an ‘aptitude test’ during my first year in college. It indicated that my highest strengths were in ‘science’ and ‘social.’ My first thought was, “What’s ‘social?” When I explored the social sciences, especially sociology and psychology, I encountered a … More The Empire Is Not Us

Financially Deaf, Ecologically Dumb, and Energy Blind

June 5, 2024

I read a some articles and listened to a couple of podcasts over the last week or so, all of which, taken together, were quite sobering especially in the context of the great changes we increasingly see these days. That led me to the following thoughts on the difficulties so many have in accepting the … More Financially Deaf, Ecologically Dumb, and Energy Blind

Madness or Method: We Know What to Do, But Not How to Do It

January 30, 2024

The obvious can be very difficult for people to see. That is because people are self-correcting systems. They are self-corrective against disturbance, and if the obvious is not of a kind that they can easily assimilate without internal disturbance, their self-corrective mechanisms work to sidetrack it, to hide it, even to the extent of shutting … More Madness or Method: We Know What to Do, But Not How to Do It