Recent Posts:
Action Time
After long delay, The Compression Institute recently received 501c3 status from the American IRS. Our web page will soon explain how you too can make a tax-exempt contribution. We’re not greedy, but contributions will be welcome. So what might you contribute? Time and...
Blinded by Light
Artificial lighting illustrates another principle of Compression Thinking, quality over quantity, always. Several other principles align with quality over quantity, including trying to avoid being blindsided by unintended consequences. This is the second in a series...
Redefining Development
This post is the first of a series on “principles” of Compression Thinking, which is so different that it can redefine what is meant by economic development. Let’s begin with a key principle, global return on energy (EROI) decreasing for many, many reasons. Less...
Out of Our Own Complexity
Complexity is automatically difficult to discuss because something truly complex is murkily understood, therefore impossible to precisely define. Yogi Berra nailed complexity: “If I understand it, it’s simple; if I don’t, it’s complicated.” Something intricate, like a...
Biomes in Buildings
We know too little about quality of life in an indoor environment to be confident that we can make it truly better. Nonetheless, imaginative ideas for buildings that inhale pollution and exhale clean air are being proposed. A coalition by the name of The Healthy...
Bubbles of Trust
Executives loved Francis Fukuyama’s 1995 book, Trust. It posited that broad social trust is necessary to form big corporations, complex economic systems, and innovative start-ups. People must quickly learn to trust strangers. However, that trust is thin. It’s...
Battling the Blob
Discussion of issues on a global scale usually mires in philosophical wishing with few feasible ideas for concrete action. That also happens with systems that are much smaller, but still too big for anyone to grasp how they work in detail, so they take on “a life of...
Food Security
Although obscure to most of us, the phrase “food security” is significant to those serious about global food. To them, food security denotes food adequate in quality as well as in quantity, or non-interrupted sources of nutrition on which humans can thrive, not just...
Evaporate Our Problems
Lean practitioners are familiar with the wonders of system simplification. Simplify a work process and the baggage needed to manage a complicated mess evaporates with it. For example, eliminate the reasons for using a warehouse, and poof; the inventory control systems...
Soil Biodiversity and Glyphosate
Of all the Jeremiads that environmentalists invoke, declining biodiversity is probably the easiest to see, because it is all around us, but hardest to fully comprehend. The notion that biodiversity is essential to ecosystem survival is hard to technically grasp, so...
Green Infrastructure Overview
Green Infrastructure Lets Nature Help Carry the Load of Our Cities Ashwani Vasishth Associate Professor, Environmental Studies Director, Sustainability Studies vasishth@ramapo.edu (201) 684-6616 http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~vasishth Our urban areas desperately needs...
Trends in Books
Several recent books reflect an environmental movement broadening and shifting into a higher gear of urgency. Keeping up is becoming harder. Below is a quick rundown on three books. The first two are “think” pieces that diverge from the norm. However, for those into...
EROI and Quality of Life
EROI is becoming the standard acronym for energy returned on energy invested to obtain it. A rough consensus of those estimating EROI from various sources is about like the chart below. Different estimators’ calculations vary because a standard methodology is not...
Social Butterfly Effect
This title is a mixed metaphor. Picture a social butterfly, flitting from person to person and group to group. Then picture the butterfly effect from chaos theory, “Can a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” Are these connectable? Yes....
Honeybee Crisis
Last winter, between 40 and 50% of U.S. honeybees disappeared in the worst season of colony collapse disorder (CCD) since it was first reported in 2006. For a day or so, this penetrated national news. Both beekeepers and growers of crops dependent on pollination...
Compression and “Deep Innovation”
Axiomatic to Compression Thinking is that the world is finite; therefore for all practical purposes, all resources in it are finite. Almost all other thinking is up for grabs. Therefore we must deal with the consequences of the depletion of all kinds of natural...
Why Issue Learning Groups?
We are struggling to form these groups. They are intended to be full-scope system learning laboratories, larger than the internal operations that are the usual domains in which lean conversions begin. There are similarities, however. We’re looking, for example, for a...
The Journey Beyond Waste
Suppose you have made the commitment to make dramatic changes reducing use of resources. Now what do I do personally? What should a company do? Experience with lean operations is good training for the next transition. Our friends in Australia, Ian Young and Anthony...
Why Must We Innovate?
Innovation is widely regarded as the key to the future. Almost everyone wants to promote innovation, but nearly all of us dislike change disrupting our life. So why must we innovate? Beyond the sheer joy of being cool, why innovate? Promoters of innovation note that...
Learning to Think System
Why should we establish local issue learning groups? They should become learning laboratories to guide us into practical systems thinking while making headway on local problems. Global problems are too big and diverse for single, actionable treatment. The global...