“We only have to internalize the externalities”.¹ That’s what “environmental economists” say. For example by imposing a tax on the production/consumption that damages the environment, or by requiring producers/consumers to buy tradable emission rights.

But there are some fundamental issues in their way of thinking:

This blog post first appeared in February 2024 on the website of OpenTech(AUC). Whatsapp is a bad deal Normally, when you feel you’re getting the short end of a stick, for example when the supermarket sells you expensive mushy cauliflowers, or when the organization you volunteer at treats you disrespectfully, you go and find what you need somewhere else. This ability to “defect” to an alternative when you feel you’re not getting a good deal, is an important “power” that helps you get reasonable deals.

Our little apartment in Medellín is on the 7th floor. But that doesn’t prevent nature from doing its thing. The food chain starts with a banana. We cut it up and put it on a wooden feeder. So far, we have been visited by Guacharacas (see video), Mieleros, Bichofues, Candelarias, Azulejos, Verdulejos, Mayos and today even a Carpintero. No matter how hard these birds try to scrape the last piece of banana from the feeder, there is always something left.

(To go straight to the customizable online version of the new graph, click here. But note that 1. it doesn’t work that well on a phone, and 2. it is running on my own server, so it might be a bit slow. For the non-interactive, default image, see below.) (A small discussion can be found underneath this Lemmy post). For some years now, I have seen this graph go around on social media.

Nodules are red, violates are blue I was today years old when I learned why the nitrogen fixing nodules on the roots of legumes tend to be red when you open them. It has to do with the Great Oxidation Event, which happened around 2.5 billion years ago, and is directly connected to the reason why our blood is red. (This article also exists in Spanish: link) Nitrogen is naturally scarce.

If you like to go down a Python rabbit hole with me, to explore some of the basic dynamics of the greenhouse effect, Please continue. If not, get out while you still can! Ok, so this page of Kump et al.’s “The Earth System” (third edition, 2010) briefly presents a simple model of the greenhouse effect: the “greenhouse effect of a one-layer atmosphere”. It basically shows (with interesting, but ultimately, unnecessarily complex equations) that if…

The shamelessness with which gringos in Medellín relish in their financial advantage puzzles me. “I worked hard for the money I’m spending.” I’m sure you did, but not even close to as hard as you make your Colombian counterpart work for it. “But I’m helping people by spending my money here.” If you are serious, stop trying to 1. find the cheapest way to 2. satisfy your preferences and desires, and find ways to make your undeserved comfort alleviate other people’s undeserved discomfort.

Meeting yourself Warning: This post contains some spoilers about the movie “Coherence”. Imagine that, right now, through the door that is closest to you, someone walks in, and it is… you. A complete, full, physical double of yourself. This other you is as perplexed as you: similarly shocked to find a complete, full, physical double of itself. If you think this would merely be interesting and cool you probably have not seen the movie “Coherence”.

Intro and disclaimer I read this book with some friends. Someone had recommended it, and we felt that it was an appropriate time to reflect on what antisemitism has meant in the past, to better understand what it means in the present. At the start I was a bit sceptical about this contemporary relevance: after all, a lot has happened since Sartre wrote this book (written in 1944, published in 1946).