Library

Welcome to the Library — Please be careful with your beverages.

Please excuse the mess, many of the volumes have been scattered here and there and it is turning out to be a bit of a project getting everything back into the stacks.  In addition, some of the key volumes are proving to be harder than anticipated to locate and translate.

The organization is roughly reverse chronological (older toward the bottom).  As it evolves I will try to impose some order that is more useful than time. For now: happy browsing!

Manifesto for the Future –  This was written as an example for how the Institute on the Environment might set a course for leadership regarding sustainability.  It is  centered around my ambition to improve the quality of life on Earth and gives broad metrics for how progress might be assessed.  It is short and a tad on the geeky side.

Muscles to Molecules – Earth entered into a new region of its system state space in the late 18th Century.  Where once energy expenditure on the surface of Earth was limited by the metabolism of animals, with the invention of the steam engine that limit expanded to the limit of human technological ability to capture the energy released from breaking molecular bonds.

Grand Challenge College – On one of my many drives between Madison and Minneapolis, I set my self thinking about how undergraduate education might be different if learning resources were free.  I ended up with an extreme version of a project driven education where faculty are mentors and learning is driven by need rather than disciplinary traditions.

Knowledge-based Partnerships Provide Strategic Opportunities – Research funding landscapes are increasingly complex and traditional models are rapidly becoming disadvantaged.  This white paper lays out the some ideas regarding knowledge partnerships as a framework for thinking about new research funding models for academia.

Happiness syllabus – In my early thinking about how we might think about improvements in the quality of life on Earth, I developed a syllabus that was to be taught in the Institute of Liberal Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  My happiness was degraded a bit as I did not, in the end, get to teach it.  Still pondering on this front…

The Future of WICCI – This white paper outlines a possible organizational structure for the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts following the successful production of the first climate assessment for Wisconsin.  The new structure was needed to accommodate strategic decision making as we worked to identify the future path of WICCI.

Sustainability Is More Than Green – This paper is the published version of a white paper which laid the foundation for the establishment of the Office of Sustainability at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

 The Case for Carbon Cycle Management – This presentation was prepared during the early development stages of CINCS.  We were exploring the possibilities for using carbon credits to finance sustainable development programs.

A Climate Policy Framework – This was prepared in support of John Kerry’s run at the presidency in 2004.

 

 Dynamic Policy Instruments – The importance of designing public policies that are responsive to changes in our Earth system knowledge base is articulated here.  The core idea is that we should find ways to embed objectives into policy instruments.

 Disciplinary Breadth – This paper lays out the idea that there are at least two classes of interdisciplinary challenges: those that can be arbitrated by single underlying physical concept; and those for which no such single translating object exists.

Strategic Initiatives Program Overview – This presentation was prepared for Jonathan Cole, then Provost at Columbia University.  It gives an overview of the investment portfolio that I managed as the leader of the Strategic Initiatives Program.

The Boxes Paper – This paper is the second of three drafts of the introduction to my Ph.D. thesis.  It captures my early thinking on the advance of science and was part of my effort to understand the history of geodetic thinking related to the San Andreas Fault.