Gulf Wars
July 21, 2010Leave a Comment
July 14, 2010
Around the world, a lot of gulfs are in what The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration classifies as one of 64 Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) based on ecological factors, not human ownership or political divisions. Collectively, LMEs account for about 80% of the ocean wild fish catch, most of our [...]
The Expanding Case for Compression
July 7, 2010Leave a Comment
July 2, 2010
The opening chapter of the book, Compression, could only reference a few reasons why Compression appears necessary. The main objective, of course, is to drastically reduce consumption of resources. Almost any problem of the 21st century can be alleviated by simply processing and consuming less stuff. But why?
The case [...]
The Nigerian Muddle
June 28, 2010Leave a Comment
June 25, 2010
Nigeria’s muddle is more like the muddle we all face in Compression than the oil spill in the Gulf. Nigeria sits on a lot of oil, sweet crude preferred by American refineries. About 40% of Nigerian oil exports go to the the U.S., and it accounts for about 10% of [...]
Our “Titanic Syndrome”
June 17, 2010Leave a Comment
We suffer from “Titanic Syndrome”: a collective disbelief that a big, state-of-the-art ship can sink, and that disaster is real, not cosmetic. That disbelief blinds us to the realities that we now face.
First off, no amount of money will restore the Gulf to what it was. We can only pay for partial remediation, and even [...]
Foiling Malthus
June 14, 2010Leave a Comment
Were we successful stabilizing global population at about 9 billion people in a post-expansionary society, say by 2040, how would this play out? What to do may be counterintuitive if we’re not to replicate the fate of long ago societies. For instance, population has now leveled off in Japan and many [...]
Light Cones and Model Myopia
June 4, 20101 Comment
June 3, 2010
Fumbling in the dark, we grab a flashlight to “expand our light cone.” In a car at night, we hit the high beam for the same reason. And if infrared night vision is an option, a driver can indirectly expand her light cone using another wavelength of radiation. Anything warm [...]
Endocrine Disruption
June 4, 2010Leave a Comment
June 3, 2010
Worrywart’s are beating endocrine disruptor drums louder and louder.
In very small concentrations these are known to adversely affect glandular functions and chemical balances in animals. Accumulating evidence suggests that endocrine disruption may seriously affect humans, for instance, by cutting sperm counts. Well-known effects on animals like frogs were [...]
Compression and Sustainability
May 31, 2010Leave a Comment
May 27, 2010
Sustainability is a big umbrella term addressing a host of issues. Many writers emphasize only a few aspects of sustaining the planet in condition to support life, but the scope of concerns is so broad that it’s difficult – or impossible — to think about them all at once.
Consequently, an [...]
Natural Balance?
May 21, 2010Leave a Comment
May 20, 2010
A recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) party-pooper report estimated that 63% of all methane and 36% of all nitrous oxide (N2O) in the atmosphere is man-made. Despite imprecision, these suggest pushing nature out of balance. The National Academy of Sciences just released a report on how to deal [...]
Prepping Ourselves
May 21, 2010Leave a Comment
May 20, 2010
In a recent speech, Dick Schonberger packed a PowerPoint slide with a list of techniques associated with lean operations, a looooong list, in fine print. That’s why organizations that regard lean as a collection of techniques can never master them; nobody lives long enough. And if management “runs the [...]