I had an email from a reader that in my last post about energy generation I had omitted Fusion energy, which they believed was a major energy solution technology. So, this week’s post is a more-geeky insight in to the problems of energy generation in the post fossil fuel era. Read more…
Technology is always a double-edged sword that can benefit us but can also have severe consequences when used inappropriately without wisdom. We have reached that time when moving blindly forward with uncritical thinking and unquestioning hubris about long-term consequences of technological innovations are swiftly coming back to haunt us all. Read more…
During the 2020 lockdowns, the phenomenon of ‘scientism’ was notable. I have talked about this a lot in the blog, but it is worth revisiting yet again because as we move into a more technological future, such as with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and energy transitioning, it is critical for us Read more…
“We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom (and). The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.” E.O. Wilson. A term I use a lot with specific purpose within this Read more…
Everything at this time is in a transformative phase of transition. Our economic system is also in transition from a failing casino capitalism to a new economic system. While I can outline what it could eventually look like, the very fact that it is in transition means it is full Read more…
“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand” Woodrow Wilson. Read more…
Before I talk about preparing for the sustainable transition, a friend commented that even though John Lennon asks us to imagine a world where we are not ruled by possessions, Klaus Schwab says that we will have no possessions and be happy. OK, the big difference. Lennon is talking about Read more…
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom” Viktor Frankel. If we are to thrive in the new world coming, we need two major things to change. One is to move Read more…
In the last post I quoted a passage by Bennett Sherry of the OER Project. Go back and reread that passage. Despite numerous efforts to force international agreements on human rights, none have worked. Now ask yourself why? I don’t think it is a problem of the human collective. No, Read more…
I ended the last post with an except by Walter Lippman on the absurdity and insanity of war, and in this case, WWI. Now did the common people really have any specific buy-in to the Austro-Hungarian Arch-Duke who was assassinated, in recently annexed Serbia, at the end of June 1914. Read more…
As I observe what is going on around the world, with large-scale protests and civic disobedience, the unrest, which is poorly covered by the mainstream media, is ushering in a change. What seems clear is that 2024 promises to be an interesting shitstorm of that change. I don’t foresee it Read more…
I have talked about Standard of Living (SOL) and Quality of Life (QOL) a lot in this blog (e.g., Centralized versus Decentralized Living 2 – Economic Considerations (Nov 2019} (click on the ‘Quality of Life’ at the bottom of this linked post tag as a search term for other similar Read more…
“Being engaged in some way for the good of the community, whatever that community, is a factor in a meaningful life. We long to belong, and belonging and caring anchors our sense of place in the universe” Patricia Churchland For many people, there is a cultural sense of place that Read more…
“What you’re doing now, or have done in the past, need not determine what you can do next and in the future” Ken Robinson. I spent the last few posts discussing a probable history of our modern destructive ‘Taker’ worldview. I’ve had people come up and shake their heads after Read more…
First, since globally we use the Gregorian civil calendar (despite many other types of calendars used locally around the world) a Happy New Year to all my readers. Secondly, my worldviews commentary was sidetracked for a few weeks with my Ishmael discussion to frame our modern problems from a historic Read more…
Dreamers are those that can find their way by starlight and moonlight, and their joy is to see the dawn before the rest of the world. Adapted from an Oscar Wilde quote. Continuing the Taker-Leaver Discussion from the last three posts. To sum it up, the innovation of the Taker Read more…
Continuing the Taker-Leaver Discussion from the last post. In his books, Daniel Quinn continues this dialogue much further, but the point being made is that the Taker mindset is now part of a society that produces excess food and of many kinds, so that no one has to be disappointed Read more…
I am continuing my overview of an end of semester college lecture from a Worldviews course I taught using the Ishmael stories by Daniel Quinn as part of the explanation of our modern views on scarcity and abundance. It’s also a story of why we believe in scarcity and competition Read more…
One individual apple seed creates a mature tree that can literally produces hundreds of apples each year. Abundance is normal in nature. Only we humans believe in scarcity. So how did we come to this belief? When I lectured in my worldviews class, I finished the class on a lecture Read more…
What is the true meaning of abundance? Too often we mean it as affluence and monetary wealth, but that only something that traps us in a singular frame of mind about abundance being money. As I have said several times in this blog, money is merely a tool, and not Read more…
“Most people are convinced that as long as they are not overtly forced to do something by an outside power, their decisions are theirs, and that if they want something, it is they who want it. But this is one of the great illusions we have about ourselves. A great Read more…
Continuing on with my observations of Scandinavia and weaving my thoughts of worldviews together today. Much as I wanted to find the Scandinavian countries as models of a possible sustainable future, the biggest factor to their credit (Electrical energy) is only because they have so much current alternate energy technology Read more…
I’m traveling with friends at this time. Some of our talks about worldviews. I decided to do a post today, with ideas excerpted from my still unpublished book about environmental worldviews. It a book first started by a wonderful colleague and mentor of mine, John Disinger, who passed away several Read more…
“War itself, is of course, a form of madness. It’s hardly a civilized pursuit. It’s amazing how we spend so much time inventing devices to kill each other and so little time working on how to achieve peace” Walter Cronkite. Despite earlier centuries of a reputation for Viking brutality, the Read more…
I have had visitors recently, and like myself, they are all supporters of a sustainable future. When we started discussing my ideas of why I believe we need a worldview change, they agreed with me, but could not easily see how a destructive humanity could change that readily. We talked Read more…
I have read several articles over the last few months about how people everywhere seem to be less compassionate or empathic to humanity’s problems. We seem so ready to resort to violence, something I find disturbing, especially since I believe that this is a conditioned reaction and not the non-violent Read more…
I have gone on at length in this blog about Spirituality and connectedness. I even wrote an 18-part series of posts in this blog starting June 2021 (Spirituality, service and Connectedness). I mentioned the Roseto effect briefly in an earlier Espe post (Pathways to a Better Future – Espe part Read more…
“When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure” Victor Frankl. The downfall for many indigenous peoples worldwide, when they met the outsiders (mostly European) roaming across the world’s oceans, was being seduced by technology. It’s human nature to want anything that makes life Read more…
I have been traveling a lot recently (through Iceland, Denmark, and Norway – I’ll call them collectively Scandinavia for this post). Wherever I went, and got into a conversation about sustainability, the same problem arose that I observed during my sabbatical trip in 2010. Most people are oblivious to the Read more…
“Living more [Sustainably] is not just where you come from. It’s also how you think, how you treat others and the world that surrounds you, and what you treasure” Scandinavisk. I saw this in a catalog for organic, earth-friendly products. What I liked about it was that it was a Read more…