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“Winning slowly is the same thing as losing” Alex Steffen In the previous blog post, we focused on Part 4 of The Climate Book created by Greta Thunberg. Now we are turning our attention to the fifth and last part of the book “What We Must Do Now”. In the introduction to the part, Greta suggests that educating ourselves and others is the best way to get out of this mess. Her campaign Skolstrejk…

Greta Thunberg has with the help of over a hundred experts created a book filled with ideas and research about the changes in our climate. The Climate Book looks at the changes from a wide range of perspectives and it is a valuable resource if you are looking for a summary of the problems. The first three parts are devoted to looking at How Climate Works, How our Planet is Changing, and How it…

Bill Gates’ Breakthroughs We Need – Global Warming and Sustainability

In our series on Global Warming the ideas by Bill Gates should not be missing. British newspaper The Economist praised Gates for the book’s “cold-eyed realism and number-crunched optimism ¨. Here we take the summary of How to Avoid a Climate Disaster `The Breakthroughs We Need from Wikipedia as an introductory text. We will conclude with some reflections on his line of thinking. The content of…

Recursive Roman Law – Sustainability and Global Warming

It has not been possible, for forty or fifty years now, to combat pollution, depletion of the earth, emissions of CO2 and NOx, reduction of diversity in nature, etc. Apparently we always do something the same, or more of the same, and that always leads to the same poor result. Or to ultra-solutions: seemingly perfect solutions that turn the other way around. What has been since the Club of Rome…

Sustainability – Possible ways to develop solutions that actually work

Quick solutions! Sounds great! But wait. . . the solutions need to be. . . Great Thunberg said, “Our house is on fire.” While this might be a good description of climate change, the quick getting out of the house and putting the fire out should not be applied when we are developing solutions. Instead, we need to carefully analyse the impact our proposal has on short-term as well as long-term on…

There is some concern that robots will take on human features and take over our lives. But what if humans will take on robot features that will take over our lives? To sharpen the point, we are not talking about robots as human-likes, but the other way around: humans who have been “enroboted” . This echoes the use of the word “enslaved” instead of “slave” which would needlessly be a…

Machine Learning – Thinking Task Nature & Humans

Conservationists are increasingly using AI – artificial intelligence to help protect species and tackle climate change. Technologies such as camera traps and satellite images to audio recordings can help us learn how to identify which photos out of thousands contain rare species. By using AI the manual labour that is required to collect conservation data has been significantly reduced. Open…

Implicit Biases and Machine Learning

“Biased? No, I am not!” An implicit bias is a bias that you are not aware of. A person who has an implicit bias may believe they treat everyone equally but their implicit biases may cause negative or positive associations that influence their behaviours. Research has shown that biases can result in differential treatment of patients based on, for instance, race, age, income, gender and…

Racism in Medical Algorithms

“What if Machine Learning could help to eradicate racial inequality in medicine?” In a previous blog post, we explored problems with machine learning. We will continue to look at the use of algorithms and some problems that urgently need new approaches. Analysis of algorithms widely used in US hospitals found that there has been systematic discrimination against black people. Researchers have…

Detecting Fake News – Think Dive

Recently we were thinking about approaches to detect Fake News. Fake news is false or misleading information presented as news. It often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity or making money through spreading the news. However, the term does not have a fixed definition and has been applied more broadly to include any type of false information, including unintentional and…

Biased Algorithms – Xenophobic Machines

Discriminatory and filled with institutional bias! The Dutch childcare benefit scandal has highlighted the need for ideas about how to deal with the use of algorithms. We have chosen Machine Learning (ML) as an interesting Problem Solving Topic for 2022, go here to read more. Algorithmic decision-making systems are increasingly used to identify and detect people who meet predetermined profiles.…

Excting Podcasts for 2022

End of the Year Book Lists We know our readers love our alternative approach to making an end-of-the-year list of books. Instead of following the mainstream media and selecting books that have topped the sales lists during the year, we invite our readers to make a list of their own about Interesting Reading Areas (IRA). The idea is to look for areas of your interest for developing and knowledge…

Graphic Novels by Yuval Noah Harari

A couple of years ago, inspired by the book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari we challenged ourselves to explore some of the lessons. Go here to read more about the challenges. Yuval Noah Harari’s first book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind has been turned into a graphic novel series. Yuval Noah has teamed up with comics artists David Vandermeulen and Daniel Casanave…

Problem Solving Topics for 2022

FPSI – Future Problem Solving Program International – is an international program that was developed in 1975 by the American psychologist Ellis Paul Torrance. The mission is: “To develop the ability of young people globally to design and achieve positive futures through problem solving using critical and creative thinking.” Students are asked to find creative solutions to future problems. In…

Lesson from the Ozon Layer

In 1989, one-hundred and ninety sevens countries agreed to ban the gases that destroyed the ozone layer. Climate change is a huge challenge and it is easy to get disillusioned. Yet, we can learn from success stories and by starting a discussion on a positive note, the chances of positive outcomes are higher. We, humans, are reciprocal creatures and we mirror each other, often without realising…

Distant in Time and Space – Climate Change

What can we learn from the way we handled the problems with the ozone layers? The video below explores why humans are so bad at thinking about climate change. A problem is that CO2 is invisible and various ways to make for example the energy use visible. Ways to use behavioural nudges and competitions to reduce energy consumption are discussed. After you have watched the video reflect on ways…

Restoring Bogs to Slow Climate Change

Would you spend your holiday exploring peatlands? Names like bogs, peatland, fens, and marshes are waterlogged landscapes that have been ignored for years. Ignored and dug up and drained. Parts of peatlands have been planted with Christmas trees in attempts to not only earn money but also to make the place more beautiful. Images of tropical rainforests are often promoted when you search for…