Almost 40 years ago, 1982, a book was published called “Megatrends”. The author had been an intelligence officer in WWII and was using a technique that had been developed during the war to intuit what was happening to society, primarily in Germany, at that time. The general concept was to count the number of lines in the local papers that various…
It’s real easy to be overwhelmingly pessimistic about what the future of our planet and civilization will look like due to all the planet heating chemicals we’re putting into the atmosphere. I’ve read a couple of articles recently lamenting the negative psychological impact that a bleak/apocalyptic vision of the future is now having on youth around the world. That’s easy to comprehend because…
No matter what we do now, we’ve already baked in increasingly severe consequences from a warming climate. That said, if we do nothing and stay on the trajectory upon which we are currently headed, the future of our civilization is in extreme jeopardy. As it stands right now, we will unquestionably have to adopt to some changes but by being proactive…
In the past I have written about potential pivotal technology advances that will change the paradigm for electric vehicles (including planes and ships). We have all read many announcements with hope, only to never see these come into commercial fruition. (Although in an upcoming post I am going to be following up on one that I wrote about not too long ago that actually IS going into full…
Back in the 80’s when it was obvious to me that the science of global warming was clear and convincing I began trying to get others to believe it was happening as well. That has been a long, gradual and uphill process. Nevertheless, in the last two years or so it seems like a critical mass has been achieved here in…
The following article is long and primarily focused on the risk of investments in fossil fuels. While I have been cautioning you about this for years the chickens are now coming home to roost. The financial markets are finally seeing the signs of a fundamental shift in where energy production is going. And the markets are reacting. While this is…
I ran into a friend at a party a short while ago who I hadn’t seen in quite a while. He gets this newsletter and remarked to me that he appreciated getting the info and my passion for the subject matter. And then he asked me if we were really in any big trouble. Of course I answered with a…
On June 15th I sent you this article: Can Concrete Really Save the Planet? As a follow up to this is the following article which describes the pressure that investors are placing on cement companies to reduce and ultimately eliminate their CO2 emissions. “Members of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate change and the Climate Action 100+, a coalition…
Our youngest of 4, our daughter Melanie, got married last weekend. What a spectacular, magical event. We had hoped to hold the ceremony outside on the shore overlooking Lake Michigan. Thank goodness we had an indoor backup plan. The country was baking under a massive heat wave and the temperature that day was 96 degrees. But this weather,…
Continuing on the theme of how the growing climate crisis is being recognized by the financial community as an existential threat, the following article describes the growing recognition (can I say panic?) that has finally dawned on the financial world. With this financial constituency now crying out for action maybe we have a chance of finally recognizing the urgency of action…