tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-339746092024-03-05T02:51:42.142-08:00escaping the progress trapif it doesn't solve problems, it isn't progressUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-11524972939869942362020-03-22T14:17:00.004-07:002023-05-25T13:25:27.007-07:00Progress, innovation and risk management - planning and prediction
Chapter 2, Summary: Ingenuity helps create critical situations from which humans are unable to emerge. Societies often become accustomed to hardship, unmotivated to prevent it. While learning is one of the human species' special skills, it sometimes fails. Innovation has unpredictable results that defy solutions unless humans are boldly creative. Science creates complex factors such as pollutionDaniel B. O'Learyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09487169729308225519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-6054141680054572682018-04-04T17:02:00.001-07:002018-04-04T18:13:33.715-07:00Five key lessons other cities can learn from Cape Town’s water crisis
The Berg River Dam on 7 March 2018 about 48% full.
Author supplied
Kevin Winter, University of Cape Town
Postponing Day Zero in Cape Town for 2018 comes as no surprise. There was no sense to it once the day had been pushed into the winter rainfall period. It also didn’t make sense for the Western Cape and Cape Town governments to continue drafting detailed logistical plans for points of water Daniel B. O'Learyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09487169729308225519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-24811367078633275882018-01-12T11:11:00.000-08:002018-01-18T11:09:29.834-08:00Corruption is directly involved in the inhibition of true progressCorruption is directly involved in the inhibition of true progress, in keeping vested interests vested and in keeping the status quo static.
How many societies have not been mired in violence due to bribery and arms trading? How many refugees would be spared the resulting voyage of despair? How many alternative energy innovations have not been stifled by oil barons? How many societies have Daniel B. O'Learyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09487169729308225519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-20215765769875778782017-11-05T09:03:00.000-08:002017-11-05T09:07:53.230-08:00USA Government: Most of the warming of the past half-century is due to human activities
First published at progresstrap.org
According to the U.S. Global Change Research Program*, "it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence."
Daniel B. O'Learyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09487169729308225519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-80652380520117000392017-06-05T06:40:00.003-07:002017-07-02T16:27:07.831-07:00Make the world a better place (there is no planet B)On Earth day 2017, a march was organized by scientists, skeptical of the agenda of the Trump administration and critical of Trump administration policies widely viewed as hostile to science. The organizers state that an "American government that ignores science to pursue ideological agendas endangers the world." More than a million people participated worldwide.
The Photo album (of the Montreal Daniel B. O'Learyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09487169729308225519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-56924740474751491652017-01-20T19:10:00.000-08:002020-01-02T15:23:58.947-08:00Virtual Politics - Faking Democracy (book review)Anyone who witnessed the 2016 election in the United States can be forgiven for asking, "what just happened?!" There is a consensus that what happened was surreal - the word became Merriam-Webster's word of the year. But more specifically, with the hyperbole, the bluster, grandstanding, reality TV and yellow press influence, internet fakery, leaks, relentless below-the-belt tactics and much, muchDaniel B. O'Learyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09487169729308225519noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-11408672486180212792016-12-02T16:58:00.001-08:002016-12-04T05:50:21.538-08:00"This is inevitable, it is progress, but it is also socially destructive" - Stephen Hawking
Hawking at NASA, 1980s
On December 1, 2016, Stephen Hawking wrote in The Guardian: "The concerns underlying these votes about the economic consequences of globalisation and accelerating technological change are absolutely understandable. The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job Daniel B. O'Learyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09487169729308225519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-58933631422564779032016-10-18T20:43:00.000-07:002016-11-22T17:48:45.660-08:00New York's Mount Sinai hospital schooled by South Africa's Mamelani ProjectsThe Mount Sinai Hospital in New York is one of the largest and most advanced hospitals in the world. And yet, it is being tutored in patient care by Mamelani Projects, a community patient support system in Cape Town, South Africa.
The PBS video shown here explains the challenge of having community health workers reach patients where professionals are not available: "Mamelani’s health coaches Daniel B. O'Learyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09487169729308225519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-33460737253712600622016-09-25T09:47:00.004-07:002017-04-21T17:24:34.881-07:00Something to celebrate, even in these dark times. A scientific paradigm shift in the making: climate change - beyond a reasonable doubt.
On September 20, 2016, three hundred and seventy five members of the National Academy of Sciences, including 30 Nobel laureates, made history. They published "An Open Letter Regarding Climate Change From Concerned Members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences".
Their main concern was that in "Daniel B. O'Learyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09487169729308225519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-4122946093425028862016-09-19T21:58:00.000-07:002020-01-02T15:24:10.837-08:00An uncomfortable truth about bigotry and the mediaIn a satirical article, the Onion has Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying contritely: "To those who were forced to read a headline they did not agree with when they visited Facebook yesterday, we are deeply sorry. It’s an inexcusable failing on our part if your viewpoints were not reinforced by what you saw onscreen. I want all Facebook users to know that you’ll never again encounter any ideas onDaniel B. O'Learyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09487169729308225519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-2130504248697299792016-09-14T19:53:00.000-07:002016-09-17T16:52:19.556-07:00World, we have a problem (Hint: It's Not Investing)From the web!
SEE ALSO:
Revealed: the £1bn of weapons flowing from Europe to Middle East
You'll Never Guess Who the..
Daniel B. O'Learyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09487169729308225519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-52020035617794238772016-06-19T07:04:00.000-07:002016-08-15T09:25:36.709-07:00Each of us is a living miracleThe use of weapons (excerpt from Escaping the Progress Trap, chapter 6)
The reason that these points are raised here is that we accept that humans kill humans, evil though it may be, and this is greatly exacerbated by the use of weapons. Unlike other primates, we no longer confront the victim on an equal footing at close range, and our ingenuity allows us to kill in large numbers. The Daniel B. O'Learyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09487169729308225519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-63460618671682716842016-04-21T19:43:00.001-07:002017-06-22T15:48:31.739-07:00On Earth Day, let's all pat ourselves on the buck.Unicorns aren't real, everybody knows that. However, there are 146 private companies listed at the Wall Street Journal as being valued at more than 1 billion dollars each. At the top of the list is Uber, valued at $51 billion and at the bottom is a cluster of companies each valued at a mere 1 billion. That 1 billion mark is symbolised by the unicorn. Altogether the companies are valuedDaniel B. O'Learyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09487169729308225519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-17984734596354289282016-04-10T21:32:00.000-07:002018-01-02T07:00:19.224-08:00Alternative energy innovation, investment and the Valley of DeathWith the Paris Conference COP21 behind us, one welcomes the flowering of new funding, financing and investment opportunities aimed at developers of solutions for problems wrought by climate change.
According to Reuters (11 Mar 2016) :
The Green Climate Fund (GCF), set up by the U.N. climate change negotiations, has so far allocated just $168 million to eight projects, in a Daniel B. O'Learyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09487169729308225519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-32328402601286920382016-03-06T13:29:00.001-08:002016-03-08T20:26:20.817-08:00Chimps and religion?Excerpt from Escaping the Progress Trap:
As we step through evolutionary development we can go much farther back on the timeline than Gilgamesh, to see how homo sapiens may have coped with disorientation brought on by new phenomena. One notices a trend in the growth of rituals that became accepted as religion. In Lost Gods1 John Allegro notes Jane Goodall's description of the chimpanzees' Daniel B. O'Learyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09487169729308225519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-20438965991734060622016-01-23T10:13:00.002-08:002022-04-14T13:27:26.268-07:00Most threats come from progress in science and technology ̶ Stephen Hawking
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
- Shakespeare, Hamlet (1.5.167-8),
The renowned physicist recently discussed his BBC* Reith Lecture1 on black holes.2 It emerged that in response to a question submitted by a schoolboy on whether the world is likely to end on account of humans, or through natural disaster, Daniel B. O'Learyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09487169729308225519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-39879552609917993632015-12-13T07:42:00.000-08:002016-01-02T08:05:16.947-08:00Governments have signalled an end to the fossil fuel era, committing for the first time to a universal agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions
- from the Guardian.com (Saturday 12 December 2015):
"Six years after the chaotic ending of the Copenhagen climate summit,
the agreement now known as the Paris Agreement for the first time
commits rich countries, rising economies and some of the poorest
countries to work together to curb emissions.
Rich countries agreed to raise $100bn (£66bn) a year by 2020 to help
poor countries Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-31357636832995124042015-01-10T11:29:00.000-08:002015-01-17T07:10:13.659-08:00Economy of scale - small scale.
Since the beginnings of industry, economy of scale1 meant large scale. It was natural to get as much as possible done with the fewest resources. Over time, this meant larger farms, larger houses, larger cities, larger states, transport systems, and much, much more. Then came machines, electricity and factories - which gave us economies that never slept. One disadvantage of all the bountyUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-56406427164503449402014-11-09T12:39:00.001-08:002016-01-02T08:06:41.622-08:00Wind of Change
The Wind Empowerment 2014 conference (3-7 Nov.) has just ended in Athens. Their video below shows how this technically challenging resource can be harnessed on a community scale, by people who need it most and have the will to make it work.
WindEmpowerment is an association for the development of locally built small wind turbines for sustainable rural electrification.
The keynote Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-37409211732137565372014-09-20T09:01:00.004-07:002015-03-12T05:38:49.670-07:00What's all this about a Win-Win climate situation? (IMF and Paul Krugman)
Merely three months after The World Bank and former U.S. treasury secretary Henry Paulson presented plans that show how we can address climate problems while prospering economically, the IMF and the New Climate Economy project1 have come up with very similar ideas!
The International Monetary Fund's idea is that putting a price on CO2 emissions would actually enhance economic growth. The Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-77045349592679333142014-07-07T04:15:00.001-07:002014-07-10T05:27:27.780-07:00SHOCKER - no electronics at the Faraday Cafe!
“There was life before the Internet,” said artist Julien Thomas, adding “Smart phones mean people can cede memory to their
devices. There’s no need to remember phone numbers, geography or
definitions. We have given up that responsibility to remember things
that are important.”
The Faraday Café in Vancouver is temporarily home to a place where folks can go to leave all their digital Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-48828887489221011972014-06-28T08:09:00.004-07:002015-03-12T05:42:59.725-07:00The World Bank and Henry Paulson on Climate Change and Risky Business
We can deal with climate change AND create jobs.
June 2014. Introducing his 'Risky Business' program, Henry Paulson recently wrote in the New York Times1 that its goals are to:
"..develop technologies, lower the costs of clean energy and create jobs as we and other nations develop new energy products and infrastructure. This would strengthen national security by reducing the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-80918085568364642522014-05-28T20:25:00.001-07:002017-07-02T16:53:39.280-07:00Neil deGrasse Tyson, you wanted to know - what's our excuse?"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves" - Shakespeare
Allow me to transcribe some eloquent lines spoken by Niel deGrasse Tyson in Episode 9 of Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey. The topic is mass extinction of species, such as befell the dinosaurs. After extolling the human skills that gave rise to civilizations, he observes:There is nothing like the inter-glacial period—one of Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-55227873914375905502014-05-18T21:14:00.000-07:002014-10-28T04:27:57.824-07:00What is 10,000 times greater than the rate at which humankind consumes energy?
A new study by NASA finds that the rapidly melting section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet appears to be in "an irreversible state of decline, with nothing to stop the glaciers in this area from melting into the sea." The study suggests that sea level rise projections for this century are toward the high-end of the IPCC range, which is 1 - 3 feet (26 to 98 centimeters).
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33974609.post-41809598403711840402014-04-06T09:23:00.001-07:002014-06-11T20:15:43.681-07:00What is a science graduate and aspiring journalist to do?
- if you haven’t already been snapped up.
First let me thank the McGill (University) Daily for inviting me to participate in a panel on Science Journalism in the Digital Age. The March, 2014 event was coordinated by Diana Kwon, the Sci & Tech Editor. Co-panelists were Elizabeth Howell, space and science journalist, and David Secko, science journalism professor at Concordia University, in Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1