Tag: Earth system

What is Sustainability? Even the Experts Struggle with its Complexity

October 21, 2019

Many folks toss about the term, “sustainable” quite cavalierly these days. Like “green products” and “green consumption,” it often implies that a practice or product can continue as part of the industrial-consumer economy for a very long time. Yet the global corporate economy as presently constituted is hardly sustainable itself. Well, quite often the product … More What is Sustainability? Even the Experts Struggle with its Complexity

How to Control Complex Adaptive Systems to Survive

September 30, 2019

We live in increasingly complex systems, more and more of them are of our own making, though not always of our own conscious design. There are two basic kinds, natural complex adaptive systems, such as the Earth System and its many subsystems, and human-made complex adaptive systems, such as social groups and corporations. It appears … More How to Control Complex Adaptive Systems to Survive

Water Wells and Appropriate Technology

May 20, 2019

When my well failed a while back, I had just begun re-reading E.F. Schumacher’s book, Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered. It is a remarkable book, even more relevant today than in 1973, and available in many newer editions. Schumacher’s perspective of “Buddhist Economics” emerged from his experience as an economic development expert … More Water Wells and Appropriate Technology

Simple Complexity at ten thousand five hundred feet

April 19, 2019

I never stop marveling at the sophisticated complexity of modern technology. The fine performance of that flathead V-8 engine in my 1951 Ford when I was in high school was fully understandable by the average teenager at the time. Today, most of us do not have a clue about how the technologies we use every … More Simple Complexity at ten thousand five hundred feet

On the Road Again: Huanacaxtle and Martín

January 18, 2019

(continued from January 11, 2019 post) After a few days and a couple of back-and-forths with Seff Ramirez, locating a source of Huanacaxtle near La Peñita didn’t work out, so I tried another tack. I’d seen what appeared to be a tiny carpinteria in Los Ayalas, a small nearby beach town dominated by hotels and condos. I went … More On the Road Again: Huanacaxtle and Martín

Individual Climate Ethics and Global Change

September 10, 2018

Can we do it ourselves? If we recycle everything and take shorter showers, install some solar panels, buy low-emissions products, etc., etc., can we avoid climate catastrophe? Sorry. Absolutely not. The problem runs much deeper than that – it involves the entire Earth System. The climate crisis is endemic to industrial civilization itself. That means, … More Individual Climate Ethics and Global Change

On the Urgency of Abandoning Lifestyle

August 22, 2018

I never liked the term, “lifestyle.” It reflects an extreme version of the American obsession with personal individualistic consumerism, which ultimately is at odds with the hard facts of life on planet Earth. The unattainable “lifestyles of the rich and famous” promoted and enthusiastically accepted in the industrial era are built on illusion and propel … More On the Urgency of Abandoning Lifestyle