I hear folks complain that the overload of information and change is driving us crazy. A phone call used to be a rare interruption. Now, even robo calls “reach out and touch someone.” Continue reading
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Blog 119. Arctic ice, blue lies, and echo chambers
Why does climate denial flourish despite the evident facts of melting polar ice and the increasing blanket of greenhouse gases? Logic isn’t the answer.
Blog 117. Barking up the wrong tree?
The scientific societies are barking, complaining about the anti-science movement in the federal budget. Continue reading
Blog 116. Understanding the social angst
There’s an angst in American society that has no single focus, no single cause. Why do the political right and the political left promote simplistic, unrealistic solutions? Because the system itself promotes those who promote the problems. Continue reading
Blog 110. Climate in one picture
The present temperature is not the key index to predicting the future climate any more than the current temperature in a cold room tells how warm it will be if you add insulation to the walls. It’s knowing the insulation that’s important for prediction. Below is a drawing that explains earth’s energy budget—as affected by the insulation of the atmosphere— in one glance. Continue reading
Blog 108. Can a system have integrity?
The notion of integrity—being what you say you are—remained unwritten but implicit in a recent magazine column* entitled “Issue of the week: Too wealthy to pay taxes?” Continue reading
Blog 105. What trickles down?
President Reagan proposed that it’s ok for the rich to get richer because wealth would “trickle down” to the poor. That doesn’t seem to have worked well, but something else does trickle down. Culture. Continue reading
Blog 103. Are we terrorizing ourselves?
There’s a social science of terrorism. Science News magazine* devoted a special article to the research of anthropologist Scott Atran** of the University of Michigan. Atran has been on the battlefields of ISIS, Continue reading