Author Archives: Harry Katz
The Optimist’s Telescope
Bina Venkataraman thinks we need to get way better at thinking ahead. The decisions we make today will impact ourselves and our planet for generations to come. Her book, The Optimist’s Telescope, is about why we make reckless decisions and how we can develop the foresight to make better ones. Continue reading
Dematerialization in The Cloud
Whenever you log on to Facebook or YouTube or your bank or your favorite online game, you’re connecting to computers in some data center somewhere on the planet. All those servers and all those data centers consume a huge amount … Continue reading
Doughnut Economics
How do we shift our economy from a focus on never-ending GDP growth to living within the “Doughnut?” Continue reading
No growth, slow growth or green growth?
In the February 10, 2020 issue of The New Yorker magazine, journalist John Cassidy has a very interesting article called Can we have prosperity without growth? (In the print version, the article is titled “Steady State.”) Cassidy surveys a wide spectrum of … Continue reading
The Case for Growth: An Interview with Marc Andreessen
In my last few posts I’ve been looking into the relationship between economic growth and environmental sustainability. Can we find a healthy balance between them? Or are they fundamentally at odds? Well a couple of weeks ago I was listening … Continue reading
A Safe and Just Doughnut
Today’s post is about the doughnut. I’m not talking about an ordinary sugar-glazed, jam-filled, deep-fried doughnut. No, this is a safe and just doughnut we can all live in together. If safe and just aren’t the flavors you normally look … Continue reading
Is Decoupling GDP Growth from Environmental Impact Possible?
Can we have economic growth while reducing our impact on the environment? Some people believe growth is incompatible with sustainability and that we need to move to a “no growth” or even a “de-growth” economy. Others think we can still … Continue reading
20/20 Foresight
What better way to start 2020 than a book called 20/20 Foresight? There’s an old Danish proverb that says, “It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” Difficult for sure, but we do it all the time anyway. … Continue reading
2019 Recap: A Meta-Post
New Year’s Eve seems like a fitting occasion for a meta-post; a post about posts. Looking back over 2019, I wrote 19 posts. Coincidence? They break down into these categories: Management & personal development: 4 Environment & energy: 4 Personal … Continue reading
Range
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World By David Epstein Riverhead Books, New York, 2019 I didn’t finish Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World for the same reason I don’t eat chicken wings: too much effort for … Continue reading
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