This post was published in The Marin Independent Journal, Jan 27th, 2024. https://70andolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/The-Coming-Population-Decline-is-an-Opportunity.mp3   Global birthrates are dropping. In 50-60 years the world’s population will peak at 10 billion, then fall rapidly. That’s good news and coming soon. Sixty years ago, I was an architect in Toronto, where I designed the Ontario Government Pavilion for EXPO-67 in Montreal. The global population was then 3 billion. The planet was unstressed. Seems like yesterday. We are only beginning to imagine how the global populati ..read more

https://70andolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Accepting.mp3   Accepting Change When I was born the world’s population was about 2 billion people. Back then, tea came loose in one-pound rectangular paper sacks. There was only one kind, black, and perhaps three separate brands. You brewed your tea in a teapot. Today the global population is around 8 billion going on 10, while a dizzying variety of brands, flavors, cans, and bottled teas occupy one-half of a supermarket aisle. The rest of the aisle side has bottled or canned water. What similar previously inconceivable products will the ..read more

https://70andolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Visiting-The-Red-Zone-2.mp3   This is a follow-up to my August 21, 2021 blog where I parachuted into the alien world of COVID denial. This time I tumbled into misinformation, confrontation, and anger. Penni and I recently visited Ohio for my in-law family gathering honoring a member’s significant milestone. It was a wonderful four-day visit, but some jarring behavior at the Saturday evening celebration reminded us how we each stick to our comfortable tribes, and how disconnected we can be from the reality of people in other tribes and to o ..read more

https://70andolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/The-Biggst-News.mp3   (With liberal quotations from the New York Times opinion piece, The World’s Population May Peak in Your Lifetime. What Happens Next? 09/18/2023) I don’t know why this news item slipped under the media’s radar. Perhaps because it’s not bad news, and it’s far away. Are you ready? Here it is. The world population will peak sometime between 2065 and 2085. Then it will plummet. That’s good news indeed because feeding and maintaining the planet’s exploding population brings so much planet-wide destruction. The end of popula ..read more

https://70andolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Family-Visit.mp3   Penni and I recently returned from an 11-day tour along the Oregon coast to visit family in central Washington. Some “side effects” of climate change shortened our trip. This got us discussing letting go of expectations and (trying to) accept the new realities of uncertainty. Here’s our story. Oregon Coast We drove from the Bay Area on Highway 101 to Eureka, a beautiful old port town, staying nearby in Arcata. The light smoke seemed more like the humidity or inversion haze we often see. The next morning in Crescent City ..read more

https://70andolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Free-Lunch.mp3   All living creatures except humans evolve biologically and live sustainably. In their world there is no waste, everything has its ecological place. Culture, probably our greatest creation, stepped us outside biological evolution and the rules of ecology that govern other living creatures. But there is a cost. Evolution is adaptation. Every species, including humans, adapts to their environment. Biological evolution is the gradual adaptation of the organism’s body and behavior to its changing environment. In his visit to th ..read more

https://70andolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Enjoying-Time-With-Children.mp3   I just returned home from two weeks in the UK with one of my grandsons. He was 15 and now 16. We landed at London Heathrow late morning, checked into our hotel near St. Pancras Station by 2 PM (14:00), bought local cell phone numbers with new chips for our phones, and decided to walk to Trafalgar Square. My grandson, who is the same height as I am, held my hand as we strolled past the British Museum, heading for The Thames. Trafalgar Square was quiet. The last time I was there, hundreds of nude cyclists ti ..read more

https://70andolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Dont-Worry-1.mp3   Earlier this month I was in Ohio for a grandson’s high school graduation. It was truly wonderful seeing him and the family and being driven by him to visit the college he’ll attend next year. He still has the same adorable smile (see left) and lived most of his life with his great-grandmother who turns 100 in December 2023. She is very active, still drives to the supermarket (daytime only) or orders home delivery, keeps current on events, and is a keen thinker. I asked her what her key is to a long and satisfying life ..read more

https://70andolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/National-Caring.mp3   In our anxiety-obsessed nation, the latest big panic is around AI. If you believe the fringe, AI will soon match or exceed the intelligence of humans, will be exploited by the black hats to overwhelm us with disinformation, and be used by students to answer questions and write term papers. And that’s just for openers. But there’s no winding back evolution’s clock. We’ve opened industrialization’s Pandora’s box and it’s taking us on an exhilarating, scary, and totally unpredictable ride. Just in my lifetime, I’ve watch ..read more

https://70andolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Complaints-and-Loving-Life.mp3   Complaining It seems there’s no end to things to complain about and no end to people willing to complain. Personally, I’m a little tired of all this complaining. That’s my complaint. I complain about the political fights in Washington DC. “Why can’t they cooperate and get on with managing national issues?” My neighborhood park was recently remodeled. Some complainers on Nextdoor say it wasn’t done thoughtfully, “Out of character with the neighborhood.” Friends complain that young people use their cell phone ..read more