Kivalina is one of four Alaskan seacoast native villages eroding so quickly that they need to relocate within 10 years or less. Ice in the Bering Sea keeps diminishing; ice that until the last 20 years or so diminished the waves pounding the coast for much of the...

E.O. Wilson is first of all, a naturalist. That differentiates him from specialized biologists studying little slices of the field. Naturalists observe a total ecology. Wilson became well known for studying ant societies, but he had to do it by immersing himself in...

By Frank Dixon A Whole System Approach to Corporate Responsibility and Socially Responsible Investing A large opportunity exists to substantially improve the effectiveness of the corporate responsibility (CR) and socially responsible investing (SRI) movements. Over...

What would a system based on increasing not quantity, but quality of all life look like? All projections are speculative, but any will differ substantially from the current tech-based, growth-oriented system. But as long as “establishment” business leaders are in the...

As they say, there is no free lunch. However, our illusions easily deceive us that there is. Illusions may stem from the structure of modern systems (don't worry; we have insurance), or simply from our ignorance of how a system works. If systems work poorly,...

How do we know is something is “true?” We usually assume that observations supporting an explanation verify truth. Often this is basic. Who needs a formal proof of gravity to realize that a dropped brick may hit a toe? But when cause and effect become murky, proving...

A nearly forgotten old risk assessment is the Doomsday Clock from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. As nuclear scientists’ bullhorn, the Bulletin’s editors obviously draw on information dark to most of us. In 1947 the Bulletin began its annual announcement of the...