Jonathan Cloud::Life, Examined Reflections on the Human Project, & on the ironies & opportunities of the 21st century.

JC Sketch NYC 2004

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"An unexamined life is not worth living." (Socrates)

                               

UN Environment Award,
received 1985.

       UN Environment Award (1985)

This is my personal web site, workspace, and web log. It is where I present myself professionally, as a speaker, a mentor, and a business advisor. In addition, it serves as a place for things that do not have a home elsewhere. Principally, at this point, this includes my work on "the Human Project," a multidisciplinary inquiry into the continuing evolution of our species. This is the underlying theme of all of my interests: given the reality of history, what is our direction as humans, as the most "advanced" expression of the force of life in our corner of the universe?

My principal everyday focus is on creating the Sustainable Business Incubator as "Entrepreneur in Residence" at Fairleigh Dickinson University's Institute for Sustainable Enterprise. I am also available to speak on a number of topics to groups of any size; my presentations are informative, interactive, and entertaining - and they make the point that we face both an overwhelming challenge, and an overwhelming opportunity, to transform our world.

My work is spread over several dozen web sites, personal, political, and professional. Some of these are listed below, with brief descriptions. Once this listing is more or less complete, it will give a good overview of my interests, preoccupations, and dilemmas.

The photos above include my grandfather Herman Bernstein, my mother Hilda Cloud, my sister Joyce Abell, my daughter Ilana, and my wife Victoria Zelin-Cloud. For more of my posted photos, click here.

The True American Faith — Transcendentalism

April 20th, 2025

In the unfolding narrative of American identity, one philosophical movement stands out as a uniquely homegrown creed: Transcendentalism. Emerging in the early 19th century as both a spiritual and intellectual revolution, Transcendentalism was more than just a literary phenomenon — it was, in many ways, the first true expression of an American faith. Rooted in individual freedom, reverence for nature, and an innate trust in the moral compass of the self, it offered a radical alternative to both dogmatic religion and mechanistic materialism. In its core principles, Transcendentalism laid the groundwork for what might be called the American soul.

Origins and Core Beliefs

Transcendentalism arose out of New England, sparked by thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller, among others. Drawing on European Romanticism, Eastern philosophies, and Puritan spirituality, Transcendentalists pushed back against both the rigid Calvinism of their forebears and the cold rationalism of the Enlightenment. They believed in the immediacy of truth, accessed not through scripture or reason alone but through intuition, conscience, and a direct connection with the Divine in nature and the self.

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The Chilling Effect of Trump’s Climate Actions on the Climate Community

February 8th, 2025

The non-governmental organizations and institutions dedicated to climate mitigation and adaptation have long been the backbone of efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, develop sustainable technologies, and build resilient communities. However, the chilling effect of Donald Trump’s climate policies has cast a shadow over this critical work, obstructing progress at a time when urgent action is needed more than ever.

Trump’s systematic dismantling of climate policies—ranging from withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement to rolling back emissions standards and cutting climate research funding—has created a hostile environment for those working in climate science, renewable energy, and environmental advocacy. With government leadership retreating, NGOs and private organizations face increased challenges in securing funding, influencing policy, and mobilizing public support for meaningful climate action.

Yet reducing global greenhouse gas emissions remains urgent. By reversing its climate policies, the U.S. is not only losing valuable time but actively accelerating the depletion of its remaining carbon budget. As climate models have long predicted, predictable climate-related disasters—wildfires, hurricanes, droughts, and sea—level rise—are arriving sooner and with greater intensity.

Recent reports confirm that we have already surpassed the critical 1.5°C warming threshold, and leading climate scientist James Hansen warns that surpassing 2.0°C is now inevitable. As Hansen states, “At the current rate, the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to somewhere between 2.7 degrees and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5-2 degrees Celsius) is pretty much dead.” (Source: [Inside Climate News](https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04022025/james-hansen-research-documents-global-warming-acceleration/)).

This stark reality underscores the importance of renewed and intensified efforts within the climate action community. Despite the chilling effect of political backtracking, non-governmental organizations, businesses, and individuals must redouble their commitments to carbon reduction, policy advocacy, and sustainable innovation. The fight for a habitable future cannot be abandoned—regardless of governmental roadblocks.

The challenge now is to rebuild momentum and push forward in the face of obstruction. The scientific consensus is clear: the climate crisis is accelerating, and every fraction of a degree matters. Whether through grassroots activism, corporate sustainability commitments, or local policy initiatives, the climate community must continue to act decisively. The cost of inaction is far too high.

(Originally published at DeadRiverJournal.org)

Avoiding the Worst Consequences of Collapse

February 7th, 2025

It’s important to take a moment in the midst of the current political turmoil to consider what‘s really at stake. What we’re seeing from the Trump White House may be a symptom of the breakdown occurring as the new Administration tries to turn back the clock in several critical areas—climate, equity, foreign aid, and public service—while pursuing global triumphalism. But the consequences of a world economy built on fossil fuels, mass consumerism, and conventional agriculture are unavoidable. We need to understand that we are in the midst of collapse, and that chaos and conflict will only accelerate it. Here’s what even ChatGPT recognizes to be the situation we face.

The Reality of Accelerating Collapse

Civilization as we know it is under immense strain. Climate change, biodiversity loss, desertification, and ocean acidification are just some of the existential crises unfolding at an accelerating pace. These environmental pressures are compounded by political instability, economic fragility, and disruptive social movements seeking to overturn the status quo. We are in the midst of what scientists and historians may come to call the most decisive decade of the 21st century. What we do—or fail to do—will determine whether the future remains habitable for humanity and countless other species

Defining a Habitable Future

A habitable future is one in which humans and ecosystems can thrive within planetary boundaries. It is a future where temperatures remain within a range that sustains food production and human health, where biodiversity supports resilient ecosystems, and where economic and social systems allow for well-being without the relentless exploitation of people and nature. It is a future in which our air, water, and soil are clean, and our societies are structured around cooperation, equity, and resilience rather than competition, extraction, and collapse Continue Reading »

Is AI Smarter than Donald Trump?

January 26th, 2025

Something led me to start reading the text of Donald Trump’s Executive Order on energy, “Unleashing American Energy,”  and I was astonished to discover an assault on an economic and scientific concept, the “social cost of carbon.”

The calculation of the “social cost of carbon” is marked by logical deficiencies, a poor basis in empirical science, politicization, and the absence of a foundation in legislation.  Its abuse arbitrarily slows regulatory decisions and, by rendering the United States economy internationally uncompetitive, encourages a greater human impact on the environment by affording less efficient foreign energy producers a greater share of the global energy and natural resource market.  Consequently, within 60 days of the date of this order, the Administrator of the EPA shall issue guidance to address these harmful and detrimental inadequacies, including consideration of eliminating the “social cost of carbon” calculation from any Federal permitting or regulatory decision. ((Source))

It’s been some years since Delton Chen and I worked on the real cost of carbon emissions on the planet, and I don’t remember all the arguments we made, except that we also distinguished a separate “risk cost of carbon” that took into account more than just the immediate deleterious effects of increasing greenhouse gases. But while we may not like estimating and reporting on the economic costs of increased carbon pollution, it’s just not useful to stick our heads in the sand.

And I very much wonder who came up with the idea of simply doing away with the concept. Continue Reading »

The Bias in AI

January 30th, 2024

The more I play with ChatGPT, the more it seems to me to have a bias — a bias toward the conventional, toward an incorrectly “balanced” view, as well as a superficial tone and an attraction for clichés and bad writing.

As an example of what I’m talking about, consider the Chatbot’s response to Jonathan Rowson’s recent provocation on war and peace:

“Do we have a theory and practice of peace that is worthy of the risks and challenges of the 21st century? If not, how do we expect to survive? And if so, what would that look like?”[1]

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Can AI Systems Learn to Behave Ethically?

December 24th, 2023

A dialog with ChatGPT — published in Medium and at A World that Works.

November 25, 1944

December 10th, 2022

If you count back approximately 270 days, you arrive at February 29, 1944 — and yes, 1944 was a leap year — and it’s around this time that Hilda and Joe made love or, to state it more bluntly, had unprotected sex, and I was conceived. It was a Tuesday, under the sign of Pisces. Perhaps a foreshadowing of the Age of Aquarius, though apparently astrologers disagree as to when the Aquarian Age began or whether it has even started. So much for astrological precision. Or even relevance. I assume they were already married by then, since my mother had to formally divorce my father a few months after I was born, though I don’t know for sure.

At any rate, by November 25 I was born a Sagittarian, a straight shooter, “the centaur of mythology, the learned healer whose higher intelligence forms a bridge between Earth and Heaven. Also known as the Archer.” None of which I knew at the time.

In fact, the first story told about me is that when Hilda brought me home from the hospital she found Joe in bed with another woman. Somehow I also knew — perhaps my mother told me — she was a woman of color. He was, above all, a lover of many women. He was also an alcoholic, a newspaper reporter — indeed city editor of the Washington Post — and an inveterate liar. He gambled on the horse races and mostly lost. I saw him only half a dozen times during my childhood. The last time he was with a minor Hungarian princess, to whom he had spun stories of wealth and fame, both of which forever eluded him.

What little I know about him is probably wrong. I was told he was born in Redwood City, CA. Ancestry.com has a “Joseph James Cloud, born in Washington City, California, USA on 10 May 1901 to Charles M Cloud and Lucille Cochran.” But that “Joseph James Cloud passed away on 31 Aug 1980 in Woodland, Yolo, California, USA,” and I doubt that my father could have lived that long. By 1953, when Hilda and I moved to Mexico in order to distance ourselves from Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Unamerican Activities Committee, he was already in declining health. He had also decamped from Maryland to parts unknown in order to avoid having to pay child support, or so my mother told me. Indeed everything I am recounting here came from Hilda.

I don’t remember a thing, though in my mind’s eye I see myself in swaddling clothes, being carried by her down the steps of the George Washington University Hospital, which at the time I imagined looked like the photo above (but probably did not).

[Continued at tssf.atg-host]

Latest Reflections (July 2022)

July 4th, 2022

A momentary pause in the midst of marginally-managed chaos. So much is going on, both good and bad, forward and backward. And yes, it’s still accelerating. The Earth’s population hasn’t leveled off yet; currently, it is estimated to be 7.96 billion (but see https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ for today’s calculated number). The rate of growth has however leveled off, from 2.2% to 1% per year during my lifetime. Eventually, the population will stabilize, but the question is, at what level?

At the moment the burden on the Earth is increasing. The planet is already in “overshoot” on seven of the nine (soon to be ten) ecological boundaries. So in some sense, we are already in the midst of collapse — and in which we are still accelerating, putting more CO2 into the atmosphere, degrading the environment, and continuing the loss of biodiversity. These trends need to be reversed, sooner rather than later.

To reach even the modest goals of the cities, states, and the national government, greenhouse gas emissions need to peak by 2024 and then start a rapid descent from their all-time high, when the temperature is actually expected to reach the 1.5°C level.

So this is the big picture, and indeed this is a large part of what I have been focused on in the process of joining and quickly becoming Earth Regenerators’ fiscal sponsor. Meanwhile, locally, we’ve moved to Rochester, bought a small house in Brighton (an inner-ring suburb), and I’m busy transforming what used to be a quarter acre of lawn into a permagarden — an orchard, a vegetable garden, and a pollinator garden.

Writing this I’m conscious of leaving out much of the narrative and of the context of how we got here, which will have to wait for another time. What’s new, though, is the intention to keep posting reflections on a regular basis, to begin to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for myself, to be able to reconstruct at least the story from here on.

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Hitler or Hillary? A Stark Choice

August 4th, 2016

Why we all need to stand up and be counted

The mere fact that Donald Trump has been designated the Republican nominee for President should give us all cause for concern. No one with such a clearly authoritarian personality has ever been a plausible candidate for the most powerful office in the world. The campaign that we see unfolding before us is not a reality show, but a sobering reality. It is not unreasonable that we should ask ourselves what would happen if we were to stand by and not speak out against it.
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Recently Discovered News Article on Rooftop Greenhouses

May 25th, 2016

Thanks to Google News, I’ve recently uncovered a 1981 article in which I was featured discussing rooftop greenhouses.

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