Problems, Predicaments, and Technology

  Wolf Creek Dam , Kentucky

  Seeing the forest through the trees can be difficult; this is the Section Eight Woods in the Cache River Wetlands in Southern Illinois

  Playhouse (for the landowners' grandchildren) in Jonesboro, Illinois Four of my articles over the past couple of years are part of a four-part series titled, " So, What Should We Do? " The first three articles were written, one after the other, back in 2021 after I discovered our lack of free will which condemns us to make choices based upon our biological (see the Maximum Power Principle ) and cultural conditioning (see this article ). This led me to realize that we truly lack agency to be able to control hyperobjects such as nature, climate change, ecological overshoot , the biosphere, etc. Not only is the predicament of overshoot too difficult for most people to grasp, many people unfortunately place it in the category of problems (with answers or solutions) rather than predicaments (with outcomes). Attempting to reduce issues seen as problems tends to turn those issues into bigger problems and/or predicaments. Often this is due to those working on these issues

  Pictures from Seneca State Forest, West Virginia

 

  Trail at Bell Smith Springs in Southern Illinois

Martin Marietta Park, New Bern, North Carolina

Recently, I have received several really awesome comments recently across the different media platforms I use, the subject of one of which is the topic for this article. However, I also wish to thank my readers for the encouragement you give for me to continue writing. That in and of itself is what actually keeps me going. Knowing that I am not wasting my time writing these articles and that others enjoy my musings keeps me active and researching.  I also appreciate the opportunity to (try) to explain the science as I understand it. My understanding is constantly being reshaped and clarified by the science as new science becomes available. Part of the reason I tend to focus on psychology is because of how my own beliefs have changed over the past decade or two. Much of how society operates is based upon our psychology and how our behaviors affect the interactions between ourselves and the rest of the planet. Here is a rather poignant quote in this instance, from Albert Einstein: "

  Lake Murphysboro State Park, Illinois

  A Wish For You by Neil Gaiman I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're doing something. May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself. So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make new mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life. Whate

Summit Overlook, Black Rock Mountain State Park, Georgia

Kure Beach, North Carolina

My dad on the Hiawatha Rail Trail (the old Milwaukee Route) just outside the St. Paul Pass Tunnel (Roland Trailhead). More info:  https://www.ridethehiawatha.com/ Not that I have all that large of a following, but it has been quite a few weeks since my last entry, and I do feel that an explanation is in order. Normally, I wouldn't find many issues in my own personal life something worth sharing on a blog about science and the set of predicaments we find ourselves in as a species. However, in this particular instance, I do think it reflects an issue connected to the wider sense of what this blog is all about - accepting predicaments we have little or no agency over. The picture above was taken in 2012, almost a decade ago. I had suggested that my dad accompany me on a trip out west. I had been telling my parents stories of my trips out west for the previous decade or so at the time, and while my mom had been to the Pacific Coast with a friend of hers, Dad had never been that far wes

  Pando, the Aspen Clone, at Fishlake National Forest in Utah

  Scenes from earlier times in Glen Haven, Michigan. From top, D.H. Day Farm, Glen Haven Canning Company, Outside of Glen Haven General Store, and the last two showing the inside of the Glen Haven General Store. When I began this blog last December, my main goal at that particular point in time was to replace the files in the groups I run with an outside source so I could get away from the unreasonable rules that Facebook had instituted regarding the editing of those files; of course once they did away with personal files (the files still exist but the only way one can get to them now is if they saved the address for them), the writing was on the wall that group files would also be going away. The group files are still around for the time being, but FB has discontinued the possibility of creating new documents in groups unless the file is a PDF or other recognized file. I had no idea that I would be writing all these articles, as that certainly wasn't what I originally had in mind.

My last article focused on mindsets and how they can lead us into traps. One of the most pervasive of these traps is the energy trap . People are constantly searching for new types of energy, new energy generation, and/or ways to improve energy efficiency, ALL of which unfortunately are ultimately dead ends. The search for this energy is often with the idea to reduce emissions in an effort to reduce the effects of climate change. The trouble is in the fact that this ignores the root predicament of ecological overshoot and that producing more energy requires destruction of our planet resulting in MORE ecological overshoot, not less. Ultimately, the only way to reduce emissions is to consume less globally, period. I pointed this out in my article, What Would it Take for Humanity to Experience Radical Transformation?  and added that continuing civilization is a non-starter. Yet, practically every single idea we see to "solve" climate change consists of ideas to ramp up energy p