Will the New U.S. Administration Make Sustainability a Theme?

The president-elect made hope and change key planks in his platform. Since past U.S. presidencies have failed to recognize sustainability as being of key importance to our future, let alone made it a consideration in the setting of policy, will this change in the new administration? There is certainly no single topic that is more important in the intermediate and long term pictures, and we need to be both planning and acting today to ensure the most comfortable glidepath possible through the coming period of population boom-and-bust as well as energy shortages and pollution problems. Does the new administration recognize our current and future issues, and will they take action to create and act on the kind of plans we will need to avoid major economic upheavals in the coming decades?

The Road to Sustainability: Individual Specialization is a Two-Edged Sword

Specialization and collaboration are the hallmarks of human success as a species. We may have started as generalists like members of most other species, but specialization has gotten us where we are today.  While all non-microscopic life forms are made up of specialized parts and symbiotic relationships, specialization in conjunction with cooperation between members of the same species has been raised to a high art by the human species.  Since long before recorded history humans have been collaborating as families and communities, and much success has been achieved, largely through increased efficiencies realized through individual specialization. For example, when a mother can care for the children the father can gather food, when a sentry is watching over the village everyone else can carry on their daily business without wasting energy on being vigilant, and when a farmer is raising large quantities of food, other community members such as the person making cloth for the farmer’s clothes are freed to optimize their efficiency and quality. The farmer is not only well fed, but also has better clothes. Like most things, however, specialization has a down side.

Trading in Abstractions – Is This Why We (and Wall Street) are in Trouble?

We are surrounded by financial abstractions we can rarely see, and even less often understand. Trading of securities created by bundling debts, for example, is an abstraction.  While there may be some assets behind those debts (they may be secured debts such as mortgages), the value of a debt is partly comprised of an expectation that the debt will be repaid.  This expectation is an abstraction, as you can’t easily measure it or place a value on it.  This is just the tip of the iceberg, however.  On top of that there are also commodity futures and other financial abstractions where the value is at least partly based on promises, expectations, and hopes.  People buy and sell financial instruments based on abstract notions such as debt every day.  The problem with trading in abstractions is that since there are few real assets attached to them, and thus little real value supporting them, emotions have an inordinately greater impact on how we value them.  Is this a key factor behind the incredible volatility and risk in our markets?  Is the fact that we have extended our financial world into heavy dependency on debt and other abstractions creating major risks for us all?  Does trading in abstractions put as at risk of panic and unrealistic expectations, positive or negative?  Given the enormous scale and presence of debt in our lives today, have we built a house of paper that can dance wildly in the winds of our emotions, hopes, and expectations, and which can therefore make and destroy fortunes within days or hours based purely on the news or propaganda? Given that such matters have become only more complicated over time, and are already beyond the ability of almost everyone to fully understand them, will they continue to become even more complicated in the future?

Could Nanotechnology-Enhanced Fabrics Yield High-Tech Clothing?

High-tech clothing could help us save energy in the future. Could nanotechnology be used to create fabrics that modify their insulating or heat-transferring capabilities on demand?   Clothing already exists with built in solar cells and connections to charge one’s cell phone or MP3 player.  In the future, though, saving energy on our biggest uses such as home heating will be important, and clothing that allows us to turn down the thermostat could be a great application for nanotechnology.