What could be more fitting for Mother’s Day but starting a weekly blog for the NRF on behalf of your Mother. My Mother, Joan Kaufman Levine, is 82.5 years old, and wants me to continue doing NRF work until I am 70 so my intention is to write about 1000 words every Sunday to stimulate […]
Smart Cities Week Silicon Valley May 7-9, 2018
Smart Cities Week Silicon Valley May 7-9, 2018 Santa Clara, CA My initial trepidation about having municipalities interacting with the tech industry was kind of well founded; the notion of “Smart” Cities versus “Sustainable & Resilient” Cities, I believe is a real distinction and my personal concern and interest has been the latter rather than […]
Just finished reading Conscious Capitalism — Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business
This book was published in 2013, written by Co-Ceo of Whole Foods Market John Mackey and Harvard Business School professor Raj Sisodia. I especially liked the following paragraphs that appears on page 269-270 of the book. The Chapter is entitled “The Power and Beauty of Conscious Capitalism” and the sub-heading that I quote is “The […]
Social Media and our Social Skills
Several months I embarked on an experiment to take one of my Facebook accounts and liberally accept “Friends” to see what would happen. As of this writing this particular account has just under 4,000 Friends and the laboratory has yielded somewhat disconcerting results. Many people place profiles that are not real and that many “women” […]
The Importance of Resilience Planning in Infrastructure Projects
The Importance of Resilience Planning in Infrastructure Projects: The Trump Challenge Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo last year announced two massive long-term infrastructure projects at NYC’s two main airports: LaGuardia ($5 Billion) and JFK Airport ($10 billion). The elevations of the airports are 20.6 feet for LaGuardia and 13 feet for JFK. Sea Level […]
About Self-Publishing
On April 1, 2017, Joaquin F. Matias and I self-published our first book: A Call to Action: How to Save Millions of Lives; the book is about relocating people out of flood and drought areas into sustainable & resilient communities (Plan Relocation or Plan R). We have decided to publish through Amazon’s www.createspace.com. This self […]
Malcolm Gladwell — David and Goliath
I recently finished reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book David and Goliath that consists of a series of biographies about special people who exhibit enormous resilience and illustrates examples where smaller entities conquer bigger entities. There is a general trend appearing where monolithic institutions are on the run and it is up to succeeding Generations […]
White House Forum on Smart Finance for Disaster Resilience
White House Forum notes: On Wednesday, August 3rd I was invited, along with another 100+ experts, to a forum about smart financing ideas for Disaster Resilience. You have to give the Obama Administration credit for advancing the term “resilience.” Over the past several years, the term “resilience” has come to the forefront of the discussions […]
How to Save Million(s) of Lives — A Call for Action
As some of you may know, I have started writing a book I call “How to Save Million(s) of Lives — A Call for Action.” My work at The NRF and Built Environment has involved what I call Plan A efforts to reduce our collective carbon footprint (i.e., consistent with Paris COP 21 objectives). This […]
Words to Live By…
From the Old Master In dwelling, be close to the land. In meditation, go deep in the heart. In dealing with others, be gentle and kind. In speech, be true. In ruling, be just. In business, be competent. In action, watch the timing. — Lao Tsu (Old Master) www.naturalresiliencefund.org www.viridian.com/natresilience www.twitter/natresilience www.facebook.com/naturalresiliencefund