Private equity's mining of American business, employees, and citizens Note: This is the full version of the article on private equity published on Anthropocene Dynamics. Capitalism is the most effective system for producing economic growth.  One of the downsides of capitalism is recessions or crashes.  When things are going well in the economy, people are optimistic.  Entrepreneurs start businesses, banks lend more credit, investors become more speculative, companies take on

Good vs less bad, and not losing sight of the big picture. If we want to move towards a better world, we have to set a direction.  That's what a goal is for.  Then we have to establish a method to determine our progress on the journey from where we are to our goal.  That's what measurements are for. The goals we set and the measurements we use influence the results we get.  But when we zoom out, we may find that a lot of our metrics for success are not aligned with what we wa

Technological convergence and dematerialization's impact on energy and materials In 1991, the electronics retailer RadioShack ran an ad in the paper for the devices it sold.  Today in 2025, the ad seems like an artifact of a bygone era, as the ubiquitous smartphone has replaced all those electronic gadgets. Technological convergence, or device convergence, is when multiple once-separate tools or devices are replaced by a single device that can perform all the previous functio

Why Earth's largest rainforest is being destroyed The world's rainforests do many vital things, from providing habitat for millions of species to regulating the world's climate and rainfall patterns that we all depend upon.  By far the world's largest rainforest, the Amazon, is under threat of deforestation and degradation from human activities.  If we ignore what's happening there, we risk not only a regional loss but a change in the global climate system. The Amazon rainfor

It has been almost 2 years of writing Energy Resource Dynamics. I've learned a lot, and I hope you have too. My original intention was to help readers understand the physical details of how we humans use energy and other natural resources. I've written 50+ articles about how cogeneration, oil refineries, nuclear reactors, and photosynthesis works, explored the implications of biofuels and trophic levels, and investigated thermodynamic concepts like how entropy and exergy a

Water, heat, and soil in ancient and modern desert cities The desert is alive before the sun rises.  In the faint gray light, a...

How tiny creatures feed the world and support life on Earth Last week, a friend asked me, "I heard recently that bees were introduced to...

The cause, horror, and legacy of the American Dust Bowl For 20,000 years, the American Great Plains thrived as a vast grassland...

The pollutants and forever chemicals that harm our health and our environment We have filled our world with chemicals that don’t go away,...

Why we feel comfortable, how can it influence sustainable design, and how hot you can survive "I'm freezing." "Are you kidding me? I'm...

How it works and how we've changed it Without the nitrogen cycle, there would be no life as we know it. Plants can’t grow without...

Business and Organizational Structures for Doing Good If you have an idea to do some good in the world beyond what your own physical...

A Guide to Finishes for Renewable Materials and their Durability, Health, and Sustainability Recently I've been exploring using natural...

Everything that exists, whether in nature or society, arises not from moral value but from conditions that allow it, and our judgments of good or bad are simply the meanings we choose to assign. If we want to make a change in the world, we need to understand the conditions and dynamics that allow something to exist and change them.

Once buried by politics, hemp is reemerging as a hero of sustainable building. Humans build lots of stuff. We need sustainable materials...

Solving climate change one imaginary carbon credit at a time. Carbon offsets have become a popular tool for businesses and individuals...

Why cheap, abundant energy is problematic—even if it's renewable. Cheap energy sounds like an obvious win. Who wouldn’t want lower bills...

The many uses of fossil hydrocarbons, and what we do and don't have alternatives for. We tend to call the coal, oil, and natural gas...

How Composite Wood Saves Trees But Harms Our Health—But Doesn't Need To. When we think of wood, we often picture solid planks or logs. ...

The history, irony, and idiocracy of American lawns A lawn is a strange thing. It is a patch of land where nothing happens, a landscape...