...the poetry of logical ideas.

Albert Einstein

A recent post,

Thinking with Words resonated with a bunch of you. The ability to appreciate quantitative storytelling is likely the first step in parsing the significance of a small perceptible difference in how we share information or ideas.

Thinking with words — at least in how it lands with me — encourages you to say whatever you might have heard somewhere about something regardless of truthiness.

Let me remind you — if there are asteroids heading to earth they are coming whether you believe in asteroids or even if you know they are coming. That is sort of a loose definition of objectivity — your buy-in isn’t required.

The same with the economy. You don’t need to believe this pundit or that one. We have the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Funny thing about facts. You can find them if you are interested, tin-foil hats aside…

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas—Albert Einstein

All of this to provide an example of thinking with facts — a.k.a — quantitatively.

Discussions about climate science run the risk of being the equivalent of a reality show. The facts are tarted up and paraded about for our amusement.

I prefer the sensibility of mathematics to describe a complex world. First, yes the climate has always “changed”. The fact is the rate of change is what is indeed changing. Remember the first derivative from high school Calculus? How about the second derivative, a personal favorite, the rate of change of the rate of change. The tangent of the curve describes the first derivative while the second derivative is represented as concavity or curvature of the graph of the function.

Urban metabolism is not simply thinking with words. We can actually measure energy in and energy out and compare models between cities to say something meaningful about consumption and production. This is the bread and butter of my “enterprise”. The ability to engage complex ideas utilizing the power of storytelling.

For example, the angle delta in the upper-right quadrant of the graphic refers to the ratio between total energy throughput, TET (in PJ) and the THA or total human time available for work in the entire population (in Gh) of a society. Think about countries like China facing a huge decline in their working age population. We can now see how this will directly impact production in their supply chain.

Here is a link to the article that made me a fan, Multi-scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism (MuSIASEM): Theoretical concepts and basic rationale if you want to dig deeper but I think the point I am making is evident. There are a series of linear mathematical equations allowing us to make assumptions about the societal metabolism as a whole. The point if we zoom out, is that a change in any of these quadrants impacts the entire system.

I rely on urban metabolism to describe the impact of materials, water, food, energy, and waste on planet earth and what increased energy demands will mean for the rest of these parameters. I know. Dwindling natural resource capital isn’t a popular topic of conversation. I landed here because all of the pompoms for AI were already taken ;)

Similar to the metabolism in living organisms, these factors in urban metabolism are consumed and used to generate our built environment — what are we doing about the waste?