Innovation

  There is a quote from Francis Bacon: The human mind is often so awkward and ill-regulated in the career of invention, that it is at first diffident, and then despises itself.  For it appears at first incredible that any such discovery should be made, and when it has been made, it appears incredible that it should so long have escaped men's research.  So with that now on your mind, I'm giving you advance notice that i'm splitting this idea in two, that 1) we can see the joy and surprise in new products and inventions that we're amazed at humanity's progress; and 2) we can see and choose to ignore it.  There are lots of examples of the former, which I'll get to later because it's always nice to end on an upbeat note; and there are lots of examples of the latter...genocide, extinctions, histories altered or omitted, and of course, climate change.  This comes up primarily because of the recent report just last month from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC), a report done on a request from the United Nations just after the Paris climate talks (yes, it took that long and yes, the U.S. did pull out of the agreement).  In a summary from the NY Review of Books, it noted that the original Paris agreement asked signatories to pledge to: ...holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.  But it soon discovered that even with all the pledges from the countries (it should be noted that the U.S., the world's largest carbon emitter for over a century, pulled out of the agreement once the new administration arrived), temperatures would still increase by 3.5 degrees Celsius.  Now, says the article, the lower 1.5°C temperature increase alone would be devastating: The takeaway messages are simple enough: to keep warming under 1.5 degrees, global carbon dioxide emissions will have to fall by 45 percent by 2030, and reach net zero by 2050.  We should do our best to meet this challenge, the report warns, because allowing the temperature to rise two degrees (much less than the 3.5 we’re currently on pace for) would cause far more damage than 1.5.  At the lower number, for instance, we’d lose 70 to 90 percent of coral reefs.  Half a degree higher and that loss rises to 99 percent.  The burden of climate change falls first and heaviest on the poorest nations, who of course have done the least to cause the crisis.  At two degrees, the report contends, there will be a “disproportionately rapid evacuation” of people from the tropics.  As one of its authors told The New York Times, “in some parts of the world, national borders will become irrelevant.  You can set up a wall to try to contain 10,000 and 20,000 and one million people, but not 10 million.” 
 

Photos by Diane Burko from the NY Review of Books article with photos based on USGS photos of Grinnell Glacier at Glacier National Park, Montana, between 1938 and 2006. Burko’s work is on view in ‘Endangered: From Glaciers to Reefs,’ at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C., until January 31, 2019.

    Hmm...that change is apparently already happening right in front of us, as visually seen by the above photos. But here's one more (then done with the depressing side of this, promise).  You likely know of the "socially aware" side of investing, funds or companies that insure your investments are not heading into stocks or companies that damage the environment or stability and health of peoples (this would include categories such as weapons manufacturing, tobacco and coal companies, etc.).  The largest pension fund in the nation, known as Calpers (the Caifornia Public Employees' Retirement System) adhered to such standards as approved by its board...or at least it did.  Apparently a sector of voters wasn't happy with the 8% return that the fund was generating, especially as it watched the S&P 500 return 13.4% (and when you're talking about a $351 billion investment, those numbers can add up).  Said the newest board member, Sgt. Jason Perez: Calpers social investment focus and lack of returns received a lot of attention of labor up and down the state...We have a fiduciary duty, and I intend to hold them (Calpers) to that.  By pulling out of investing in tobacco stocks alone back in 2000, the fund missed out on an extra $3 billion.  So all bets are off.  Perhaps as David Brooks of the NY Times implied, it's turning out that we are just a nation of just wanting money after all, no matter the cost to others or to our beliefs or morals (in his case, he was referring to some of the pre-election polls).

   Okay, enough with the depressing news you say; but there is something to such repetition.  But why I threw all of that in is that less covered in the news, along with all the horrific fires and mass shootings and melting glaciers and dropped bombs, there are some good things happening.  Many people out there are indeed trying to make a change however small it might be.  Granted, some companies are aiming at our consumer and technological side, such as the 8K upcoming broadcast for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (recent 4K televisions at 50" are down to as low as $300).  As a comparison the older 1080 HD screens had about 2 million pixels, with today's 4K sets showing about 4 times that amount or a little over 8 million pixels; but the newer 8K sets will show over 4 times that rate or about 33 million pixels.  What about foldable skis (duh!), or a stadium roof that opens and closes like a camera lens (open air concert venues?); or there's the facial recognition boarding pass (security aisles in Europe already use this sort of software) or the new grand mal seizure monitor (if you've ever experienced or been near someone who has experienced an epileptic seizure, such events often happen at night or at unexpected times with the person affected often not fully remembering the seizure so this is indeed a big advance).  Or what about carbon fiber making its way into running shoes (I threw that in simply because of the quote from Popular Science: Legend has it that, in the late 1800s, students eluded their headmasters in stealthy rubber-soled shoes, earning the kicks the name "sneakers." )

   Okay, enough tech and science stuff (although the new hypersonic missile race could start a new arms race, said Barron's).  What truly captured my eye once again was the ingenuity happening with the younger crowd.  Beyond tech, there is a resilience and optimism that seems to be pervading and almost overriding my generation's older views of bigger, better, faster.  One example is that of the new trend of silicon wedding rings which not only bids adieu to blood diamonds but saves fingers in the process; ask Jimmy Fallon (most working environments will suggest taking off metal rings as a safety precaution)...and beyond being durable, they look pretty cool and only cost $20-40.  Or the use of cadaver bones, shredded, purified and used as fillers in spinal surgeries (yes, it sounds horrible but there really is a need for this type of material; an unbiased report comes from Berkshire).  And then there's moringa (if this is all old news to you, then make fun of me as the old timer still out of touch, because I've only now discovered jackfruit); high in nutrients, drought-resistant and fast to grow, the moringa tree could have become simply another commercial big-ag product; but Lisa Curtis and Jordan Moncharmont wanted to not only introduce it to the world but "...wanted to make sure it was done in a way that helps support women moringa farmers around the world."  Kellogg's liked the idea and is providing funding to keep the venture going.  That spark, that innovation is what seems to separate this new generation from others, a determination to overcome adversity and to also help others in the process.  INC. featured many such young companies, including that of Eddilisa & Marcus Martin who told the magazine: Our growth and innovation happened because our entrepreneurial vision exceeded our resources...When you grow up poor, you don't have anything to lose.  Starting from nothing is a tremendous advantage.  Every setback I faced as a child made me resilient and persistent.  Or take the successful venture of Jarrett Bauer whose company works to prevent hospital readmissions: I grew up with dyslexia and attention deficit disorder.  My test scores were bad and I hated school.  My mom knew that had to change...I thought, "The worst thing in the world is not to have the tools to be successful in life."  When my grandma didn't take her medication, she fell.  Then she had a stroke.  Once that happened, mentally, she wasn't there.  She was no longer my grandma...My mother passed away a year later...I couldn't believe that when you're in the hospital you get all these services, and then when you go home, there's no one to help you...I have my company only because people looked out for me.  My mom helped me to get to where we are.  If it weren't for her, we would have nothing.
  
  In my humble opinion, the takeaway from all of this would be that there will always be change (yes, even with our planet as new theories evolve such as that of it not being an asteroid that killed the dinosaurs but rather a surge of gases in a changing climate, says National Geographic; hmm sound familiar?).  Author Mark Kurlansky in his book Paper wrote about our view of a rapidly changing world: There is also a popular belief that now the world is changing more dramatically or more swiftly than it ever has before.  That too is probably not true.  During the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century, scarcely a year passed without at least one life-changing new invention.  The invention of the cell phone has changed our lives, but has it had as great an influence as did the invention of the telephone?  Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone in 1876, the same year that Nikolaus August Otto developed the first usable internal-combustion engine, which led the way to automobiles.  The following year, Edison invented the phonograph, and Eadweard Muybridge the moving picture.  The year after that, Joseph Wilson Swan built the incandescent lightbulb, the first bulb that would burn long enough for practical applications, and transparent film was invented.  And it should be mentioned that yet another year later, the British Perforated Paper Company came out with the first toilet paper. 

   Does it seem as if change is happening too quickly, that it's difficult to keep up and maybe we're losing touch with what were better times and possibly, when there was a better us?  In a world filled with news channels spewing out so much negative information (and there is a lot of negative stuff happening for sure), it's refreshing to see a balance of sort, to read that such negativity hasn't gotten to all of us, that there are those --many of them younger-- using their creativity and resilience to not just sit there but to get up and make that difference.  And in an odd twist, I think that an ad from Modern Agriculture (caveat: sponsored by Monsanto) might be summing up this feeling of overwhelming change we're all going through: Millions of Data Points, One North Star.  Don't lose sight of that star, that beacon, that person that is...YOU.