My wife and I are in Australia, in Brisbane, a beautiful thriving city on the east coast, with roughly 3 million people in the metropolitan area that includes the paved-over beaches along tens of kilometers of a formerly pristine habitat in places that used to be the surfer's paradise and sunshine coast. It is highly impressive what developers can do to a fragile coastal area by pouring millions of tons of concrete onto it and making a financial killing. The biggest concrete enclave is called the Gold Coast for good reason. Communion with nature in Australia's former pristine ecosystem, now known as Gold Coast. Several hundreds of thousands of vacationers can come here each year and take three showers a day in air conditioned condos. Please do not get me wrong. Brisbane is a splendid city with wonderful public transportation, universities, and restaurants. In the 39-floor condo building, where we have stayed, all elevators are globally optimized to min...
In this blog, I continue to write about the environment, ecology, energy, complexity, and humans. Of particular interest to me are human self-delusions and mad stampedes to nowhere.