Essays by Larry Barnett
Listening to today’s everyday commentary makes it sound as if the end is near. The climate is changing, the economy is faltering, our resources have been degraded and threatened, population continues to increase among the world’s poorest people, reefs are dying, fish populations are collapsing … Read the rest
As the world economy continues its tailspin, like many, I am wondering how we got into this mess. While it’s easy to point fingers and demonize politicians and government, target deregulation and find fault in the global capitalist system, assigning blame is always easy when we look outside ourselves.… Read the rest
The recent Broadway revival of the ‘60s musical “Hair,” along with my increasingly barren pate, prompts reflection on our contemporary obsession with matters hirsute. Americans spend billions of dollars each year to increase hair, and billions yet again on products to decrease it. We style it, shave… Read the rest
When water becomes hot and agitated enough, it becomes a gas. When solid iron is heated to 2,800 degrees, it becomes a liquid. These are examples of what physicists call a phase transition or shift, a radical restructuring of matter from one form into another.
While the actual transformation can be sudden,… Read the rest
The world is the sum total of its parts, a constantly emerging manifestation of all that has come before. The actions of causes and conditions – natural forces such as weather and human behaviors such as technology – naturally produce effects, and these effects become the causes and conditions for effects… Read the rest