Posts by Timothy Carter

I ran across a new term today: Crisification. It doesn’t show up in any online dictionary, and I’m honestly not sure it’s a real word, but it seems to refer to the act of framing something as a crisis that may otherwise exist as a “problem” or “issue.”  Crisification happens in our household on a […]

We can treat annual events as if they are commodities. The same thing cut and pasted year over year with a similar result. There is comfort in that familiarity, but also a tendency to expect less of these convenings as they persist. The UN Climate Change Conferences are the annual conferences of the parties participating […]

As any fan of the West Wing (or real-live politics for that matter) knows, the idea of a “proportional response” is well-known. In essence, the idea is that retaliation for an action taken against a government should be relatively similar to the original affront. Often this is a military context: if a country bombs an […]

The black swan: it challenged ancient ornithologists and spawned a modern theory. Analogous to unexpected plumage on a common bird, Black Swan events are those that occur which: 1) are difficult, if not impossible, to predict, 2) have a huge impact and, 3) are retrospectively rationalized. Black Swan theory has been applied to everything from […]

We recently had the privilege of joining college and university presidents, students, and other invited guests to a White House roundtable for the American Campuses Act on Climate day. This gathering provided a rich forum for hearing passion and dedication from leading institutions working to create climate solutions leading up to the Convention on Climate […]

I kind of love October. Growing up in southern Pennsylvania, it firmly established the shift to a new season. And after living in the south for a long time, October signals to the heat and humidity that no more will they cling to your skin and dictate your mood. I celebrate another year of life […]