Climate Lynx

First a request. I could use feedback. Recently, I was accused of “brainwashing”. You may think this type of feedback would not be welcome. This comment was appreciated because critical comments are an opportunity for me to re-examine my sources, my motivations, and to learn your concerns. Brainwashing is an interesting thing to be accused of. I think back to pertinent movies like the Manchurian Candidate. The   Manchurian  Candidate is both a novel and a movie. It is a political thriller about the son of a prominent U.S. political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for a foreign conspiracy. Given the fact we have been targeted by the Russians for societal brainwashing, this exciting movie might be a good place to start learning a bit about it.     In my opinion, brainwashing should incorporate at least three elements. One, it must have an evil motive.   Second, the content of the brainwashing message must contain lies, or be con...

What does sustainability mean? Does it mean different things in different situations? Is there a difference between economic sustainability and climate sustainability? Yes, and it is a rather dramatic difference. When walking up a mountain have you ever attempted to run a bit?   When I lived in Colorado, I signed up to run the 18-mile Quray to Telluride foot race over Imogene Pass. The first ten miles is uphill. I was in fairly good shape but hadn’t run any races so I didn’t know what pace would be one I could sustain. Some of the runners were pros and I ruled out trying to keep up with them. After a mile I found myself behind a stout gal with a ponytail. Since the pros were well up the mountain, I decided I would scale back my expectations and follow the swinging ponytail. Surely, I could handle her pace! As you go up a mountain the air gets thinner and your pace is limited by how much oxygen your lungs can take in. Most people slow but my pace mistress did not. I tried to ha...

While we are glued to our flat screens watching 800,000 of our American Brethren being held hostage to a contrived emergency, there is a real emergency out there and it is climate change. We are wasting a lot of money and time when we could be concentrating on climate solutions. On a positive note, let’s not forget that we live in a dynamic world with dedicated, and inspired engineers, scientists, and businessmen. And, for now, we can be proud the United States has most of them. Did you see the Sixty Minutes program about the 81-year-old nature inspired inventor from Wakefield? Ok, that is Wakefield, MA not MI.   Marshall Medoff’s Waldon Pond experience and concern about climate change inspired his bio-fuel invention that may just save the world and could have implications for our UP economy. In short, he has found a way to release the natural sugars of plants from their cellulose enclosure. Those sugars can then be manipulated into fuels. He achieved this by hyper-focusing h...

Some columns come quick to mind and others must be slowly cooked. This one is years old. It got a boost this week.   Unknowingly, a friend from the Air Force Academy unintentionally added the finishing touch to my work, the Three-Sided Coin of Human Progress. Jim is a fellow graduate of the Air Force Academy, a fellow helicopter pilot, a veteran of the first Gulf War, a graduate of the Naval War College and a retired professor who taught Ethics and Leadership. In full disclosure, I never spent a whole lot of time thinking of what is required to be a great leader because I did not have the ambition. My friends, all smarter than me, were quite tolerant of me, nonetheless. Maybe it was because I was an attentive listener. More likely, it was because I would volunteer to be the designated driver in my Rambler station-wagon called the Mallard. On a serious note, all our generals, such as the ones fired last year, men like McMaster, Kelley, and Mattis, have the ambition I lacked....