When did telling lies become the norm? And why aren’t more people concerned about how much information spread today is false? Continue reading “Fabricating our future”
Fabricating our future
The Cost of Living
The cost of living is determined by affordability and availability. When we say energy, food, or housing are affordable we mean that the prices charged for energy, food, or housing are within the range we can afford to pay. The amount we can afford to pay depends on how much we earn. So, first off, the cost of living is dependent on affordability, which in turn is related to access to jobs and the rate we are paid to perform a service. Affordability isn’t directly measured by availability, but if a product isn’t easily available the price will be higher. So indirectly, affordability does relate to availability. Economics has long taught that supply and demand determine the pricing of goods and services. If supply is low, the price will be high. Continue reading “The Cost of Living”
Standing at the edge of change
The world’s population of humans stands at the edge of rapid change and the future appears unimaginable. The greatest challenge (and danger) we face is climate change. We are faced with the undeniable fact that if we don’t stop adding green house gas emissions to the atmosphere our planet is going to overheat and the consequences are already catastrophic. In order to stop emitting green house gases we need to stop burning fossil fuels, hopefully replacing our energy needs with renewable sources. Continue reading “Standing at the edge of change”
Inflationary pressure in the US
We are seeing more news about rising inflation, but in reality the US data isn’t as bad as the news coverage would lead us to believe. The following table shows the data of seasonally adjusted price changes by month published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The Era of Cheap Living is Over
Thanksgiving food prices will be higher this year due to supply chain issues, limited trucking, limited labor, and higher costs to food producers. Thanksgiving could be seen as a symbol of the American life style, our tendency to over-consume an abundance of cheap goods. We’ve lived this way for decades, but if we are going to address climate change it’s time for us to recognize that the era of plentiful, cheap goods is over. We will pay more for everything. Continue reading “The Era of Cheap Living is Over”
Winter’s discontent
“Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds that low’r’d upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.”
Shakespeare, Richard III
This may become the winter of our discontent as people around the world face a widening energy crisis, rationing because supplies are limited due to delivery shortages, production limits, cost, or by government mandate. Continue reading “Winter’s discontent”
What the IPCC report should have told us
The problem with the recent IPCC report is that it is still talking about ‘average’ changes over the earth, discussing what might happen decades from now as a result of increased rate of change. Even if the message is labeled “code red” or urgent, it is still understating what is already happening. We continue to flog a dead horse; the ‘dead horse’ being the fact that scientists are still trying to convince people that climate change is happening and our situation is getting worse. People should already accept that this is true. It isn’t the average changes that will happen over the rest of this century that are threatening us. The earth’s climate has already destabilized to the point where abrupt, extreme weather events are already happening. It isn’t my poor diet that will kill me, it’s the heart attack. Continue reading “What the IPCC report should have told us”
Skewered on the Horns of Plenty
No one likes to see prices going up, especially people with little money saved or who live paycheck to paycheck because they rarely have ability to pay more for their basic costs of living (housing, food, utilities, clothing, child care, transportation, and healthcare). Continue reading “Skewered on the Horns of Plenty”
Healing the Hearts and Minds of America
The Vatican has announced Pope Francis’s new encyclical, Fratelli tutti – dedicated to “fraternity” and “social friendship”.
“We live in a time marked by war, poverty, migration, climate change, economic crises, and pandemic. Recognizing a brother or sister in everyone we meet…reminds us that no one can ever emerge from the present hardships alone, one against the other, the global North against the global South, the rich against the poor or any other excluding differentiation.”
These words resonated with me as our nation faces the outcome of one of the most difficult and consequential presidential elections in our history. Continue reading “Healing the Hearts and Minds of America”
Climate hell is here. We cannot afford to ignore it.
As I read a recent headline in The Atlantic “The US is on the Path to Destruction” I realized once again that climate change is truly an existential threat.
“Climate change is killing Americans and destroying the country’s physical infrastructure. The federal government spends roughly $700 billion a year on the military. It spends perhaps $15 billion a year trying to understand and stop climate change. I thought about those numbers a lot last week, as I tried to stop my toddler from playing in ash, tried to calm down my dogs as they paced and panted in mid-morning dusk light, tried to figure out whether my air purifier was actually protecting my lungs, tried to understand why the sky was pumpkin-colored, and tried not to think about the carcinogen risk of breathing in wildfire smoke, week after week. The government has committed to defending us and our allies against foreign enemies. Yet when it comes to the single biggest existential threat we collectively face—the one that threatens to make much of the planet uninhabitable, starve millions, and incite violent conflicts around the world—it has chosen to do near-nothing. Worse than that, the federal government continues to subsidize and promote fossil fuels, and with them the destruction of our planetary home. Climate hell is here. We cannot stand it. And we cannot afford it either.” Continue reading “Climate hell is here. We cannot afford to ignore it.”