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There are two sides to this key question that make it vital in the debate about human caused global warming. There is a huge difference between the problem of smog (pollution} in advanced countries versus the problem of household air pollution in developing countries.First in the cities of advanced countries like Los Angeles and Paris the pollution is smog and annoying, but it has nothing I repeat nothing to do with carbon dioxide as CO2 is invisible, non polluting minute gas that makes all life possible through photosynthesis. We breathe out CO2 constantly to survive at 35,000 ppm. This gas is 100 % beneficial and has no proven climate effect.This is basic science not in dispute.Therefore reducing our so called carbon footprint of CO2 does not effect pollution in big cities directly.What does ending fossil fuel energy affect?The answer is that there is a horrible negative effect on the hope of > 2 billion living in the dark without grid electricity who die at the rate of 4 million annually from HOUSE HOLD AIR POLLUTION.Outdoor cooking causing household air pollution it is by far the greatest environmental problem facing the world today with at least 4 million fatalities annually.The greatest harm from the lack of cleaner air is for those living off the grid who cook outdoors and die early because of household air pollution. Extensive research shows their lives are horribly damaged by the smoke and pollution.HOW MANY LIVE OFF GRID AND COOK OUTDOORS? The research says > 2 billion.WHAT IS THE IMPACT? The research says at least 4 million die annually.WHY IS THIS A CLIMATE ISSUE? Because without advancing coal and fossil fuels the grid will not expand to these people because wind and solar alone lack the capacity without massive storage technology that is not available.WHAT CAN WE DO? Stop demonizing cheap accessible energy from coal and other fossil fuels on the false premise that with the net zero carbon targets from the Paris Accord global warming will end.REFERENCESWhat is the most harmful environmental issue that has been much ignored chasing the fable of run away global warming?HOUSEHOLD AIR POLLUTIONCookstove Smoke is “Largest Environmental Threat,” Global Health Study FindsPosted by Marianne Lavelle of The Daily Climate on December 13, 2012 (3)http://energyblog.nationalgeographic.com/2012/12/13/cookstove-smoke-is- largest-environmental-threat-global-health-study-finds/A woman bends over an improved cookstove in Cameroon. Photo courtesy of Trees for the Future/Flickr.In a finding that confirms the devastating health impact of energy poverty, the landmark Global Burden of Disease study published today tallied 3.5 million annual deaths from respiratory illness due to burning of wood, brush, dung, and other biomass for fuel.The Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) is the most comprehensive worldwide observational epidemiological study to date. It describes mortality and morbidity from major diseases, injuries and risk factors to health at global, national and regional levels. Examining trends from 1990 to the present and making comparisons across populations enables understanding of the changing health challenges facing people across the world in the 21st century.]Cooking on traditional cookstoves is a far greater risk factor than poor water and sanitation, lead or radon pollution, or smog (ozone) and outdoor soot, according to the study in today’s Lancet, the largest ever systematic effort to describe the global distribution and causes of mortality. The data indicate that respiratory illness from breathing the emissions from inefficient cookstoves causes more than double the annual deaths attributed either to malaria (1.2 million) or to HIV/AIDS (1.5 million).Seven research institutions from around the world, including Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Imperial College London, the University of Tokyo, and the World Health Organization (WHO), collaborated on the study, which was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (Related: “How Healthy is the World?”) The research was much expanded in scope from the 1990 Global Burden of Disease study funded by the World Bank.The new study, if compared to the figures from 20 years ago, marks a decline in global deaths due to cookstove pollution (which stood at 4.6 million in the 1990 study.) But it is roughly double the 2 million annual figure that WHO has been attributing to deaths due to indoor smoke from solid fuels.“These results provide further momentum to our mission to ensure that cooking doesn’t kill,” said Radha Muthiah, executive director of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a public-private partnership that has been working to deploy cleaner, safer cookstoves.Added Kirk R. Smith, a professor of global environmental health at the University of California, Berkeley, and a co-author of The Lancet article, “One of the most alarming findings is that smoke from cooking fires was found to be the largest environmental threat to health in the world today.”The most harmful environmental impact killing at least 4 million annually is often ignored and is relevant to future tragedy of advancing and following the unfounded theory of climate change. The alarmism carbon reduction targets implemented by the Paris Accord aimed at ending the use of cheap coal and other effective fossil fuels for electricity if followed will cause horrendous health harm to the underdeveloped living in the dark in Africa, India and Asia and more.COOKING OUTDOORS WITH HIGHLY POLLUTING SOLID FUELSHousehold air pollution and healthHousehold air pollution and health8 May 2018العربيةKey - Around 3 billion people cook using polluting open fires or simple stoves fuelled by kerosene, biomass (wood, animal dung and crop waste) and coal.·Each year, close to 4 million people die prematurely from illness attributable to household air pollution from inefficient cooking practices using polluting stoves paired with solid fuels and kerosene.·Household air pollution causes noncommunicable diseases including stroke, ischaemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer.·Close to half of deaths due to pneumonia among children under 5 years of age are caused by particulate matter (soot) inhaled from household air pollution.Indoor air pollution and household energy: the forgotten 3 billionAround 3 billion people still cook using solid fuels (such as wood, crop wastes, charcoal, coal and dung) and kerosene in open fires and inefficient stoves. Most of these people are poor, and live in low- and middle-income countries.These cooking practices are inefficient, and use fuels and technologies that produce high levels of household air pollution with a range of health-damaging pollutants, including small soot particles that penetrate deep into the lungs. In poorly ventilated dwellings, indoor smoke can be 100 times higher than acceptable levels for fine particles. Exposure is particularly high among women and young children, who spend the most time near the domestic hearth.Impacts on health3.8 million people a year die prematurely from illness attributable to the household air pollution caused by the inefficient use of solid fuels and kerosene for cooking. Among these 3.8 million deaths:·27% are due to pneumonia·18% from stroke·27% from ischaemic heart disease·20% from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)·8% from lung cancer.PneumoniaExposure to household air pollution almost doubles the risk for childhood pneumonia and is responsible for 45% of all pneumonia deaths in children less than 5 years old. Household air pollution is also risk for acute lower respiratory infections (pneumonia) in adults, and contributes to 28% of all adult deaths to pneumonia.Chronic obstructive pulmonary diseaseOne in four or 25% of deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in adults in low- and middle-income countries are due to exposure to household air pollution. Women exposed to high levels of indoor smoke are more than twice as likely to suffer from COPD than women who use cleaner fuels and technologies. Among men (who already have a heightened risk of COPD due to their higher rates of smoking), exposure to household air pollution nearly doubles that risk.Stroke12% of all deaths due to stroke can be attributed to the daily exposure to household air pollution arising from cooking with solid fuels and kerosene.Ischaemic heart diseaseApproximately 11% of all deaths due to ischaemic heart disease, accounting for over a million premature deaths annually, can be attributed to exposure to household air pollution.Lung cancerApproximately 17% of lung cancer deaths in adults are attributable to exposure to carcinogens from household air pollution caused by cooking with kerosene or solid fuels like wood, charcoal or coal. The risk for women is higher, due to their role in food preparation.Other health impacts and risksMore generally, small particulate matter and other pollutants in indoor smoke inflame the airways and lungs, impairing immune response and reducing the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood.There is also evidence of links between household air pollution and low birth weight, tuberculosis, cataract, nasopharyngeal and laryngeal cancers.Mortality from ischaemic heart disease and stroke are also affected by risk factors such as high blood pressure, unhealthy diet, lack of physical activity and smoking. Some other risks for childhood pneumonia include suboptimal breastfeeding, underweight and second-hand smoke. For lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, active smoking and second-hand tobacco smoke are also main risk factors.Impacts on health equity, development and climate changeWithout a substantial policy change, the total number of people lacking access to clean fuels and technologies will remain largely unchanged by 2030 (International Energy Agency, 2017 (1)) and therefore hinder the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.·Fuel gathering increases the risk of musculoskeletal damage, consumes considerable time for women and children, limits other productive activities (such as income generation) and takes children away from school. In less secure environments, women and children are at risk of injury and violence during fuel gathering.·Black carbon (sooty particles) and methane emitted by inefficient stove combustion are powerful climate change pollutants.·Many of the fuels and technologies used by households for cooking, heating and lighting present safety risks. The ingestion of kerosene is the leading cause of childhood poisonings, and a large fraction of the severe burns and injuries occurring in low- and middle-income countries are linked to household energy use for cooking, heating and/or lighting.·The lack of access to electricity for 1 billion people (many of whom then use kerosene lamps for lighting) exposes households to very high levels of fine particulate matter. The use of polluting lighting fuels introduces other health risks, such as burns, injuries, poisonings, and constrains other opportunities for health and development, like studying or engaging in small crafts and trades, which require adequate lighting.WHO responseWHO provides technical support to countries in their own evaluations and scale-up of health-promoting household fuels and technologies. WHO is building capacity at the country and regional level to address household air pollution through direct consultations and workshops on household energy and health. This is further complemented by the ongoing development of the Clean Household Energy Solutions Toolkit (CHEST) to support the implementation of WHO Guidelines for indoor air quality: household fuel combustion. CHEST is a suite of tools and information resources that help countries identify stakeholders working on household energy and/or public health to design, implement and monitor policies addressing household energy.Guidelines for indoor air quality: household fuel combustionTo ensure healthy air in and around the home, WHO’s Guidelines for indoor air quality: household fuel combustion provide health-based recommendations on the types of fuels and technologies to protect health as well as strategies for the effective dissemination and adoption of such home energy technologies. These build upon existing WHO outdoor air quality guidelines and WHO guidance on levels of specific indoor pollutants.Household energy databaseThe WHO Household energy database is used to monitor global progress in the transition to cleaner fuels and stove combinations in households. It also supports assessments of disease burden from the household air pollution generated from the use of polluting fuel and technologies. Currently the database includes housing data from more than 1100 surveys, representing 157 countries. It has been expanded to include information on household fuels and technologies used for heating and lighting.As the custodial agency for Sustainable Development Goal Indicator 3.9.1 (mortality rate from the joint effects of household and ambient air pollution) and 7.1.2 (population with primary reliance on clean fuels and technologies), WHO uses the Household energy database to derive estimates for tracking progress towards achieving universal clean energy access and related health impacts.Research and programme evaluationWHO is working with countries, researchers and other partners to harmonize methods of evaluation across settings so that health impacts are assessed consistently and rigorously and incorporate economic assessment of health benefits.Leadership and advocacy in the health, energy and climate communityHealth sectorIn May 2015, the World Health Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution on air pollution and health, calling for the integration of health concerns into national, regional and local air pollution-related policies. The following year, the World Health Assembly adopted a “Roadmap for Enhanced Action,” calling for increased cross-sector cooperation to address the health risks of air pollution.Building on this mandate, WHO is working to integrate guidance and resources for supporting clean household energy into global health initiatives and decision-support tools, such as the Global Action Plan for Pneumonia and Diarrheal Disease (GAPPD), or Global Strategy for Women and Children’s Health, as well as into other aspects of WHO's own health policy guidance. WHO emphasizes the compelling health arguments for cleaner household energy in a range of global forums addressing maternal and child health issues related to pneumonia as well as forums concerned with noncommunicable diseases. This advocacy can help increase awareness of the importance of providing and scaling up of cleaner household energy as a core preventive public health measure.Health and climate changeWHO is a partner of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (CCAC). As a member of the CCAC’s health task force, WHO is providing technical support for harnessing health benefits from actions to reduce short-lived climate pollutants, and working to scale up health sector engagement to address such pollutants and improve air quality.Health, energy and sustainable developmentReductions in air pollution-related disease burden (both for household and outdoor) will be used to monitor the progress towards attaining the Sustainable Development Goal on Health (SDG 3).Ensuring universal access to clean fuel and technologies is a target of the Sustainable Development Goal on energy (SDG 7). Achieving this goal could prevent millions of deaths and improve the health and well-being of the billions of people relying on polluting technologies and fuels for cooking, heating and lighting.To better assess the health risks of household energy use, as well as differentiated gender impacts from household energy practices, WHO is leading an effort with countries and surveying agencies (e.g. USAID’s DHS, UNICEF’s MICS, World Bank’s LSMS) to enhance, harmonize and pilot questions for national censuses and surveys. The effort will ensure that surveys better capture information on all the fuels and technologies used in the home for cooking, heating and lighting, as well as other impacts like time lost to fuel collection disaggregated by sex.WHO also supports international initiatives to improve air pollution and related health impacts such as the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves and the Climate Clean Air Coalition.(1) WEO-2017 Special Report: Energy Access Outlook, International Energy Agency, 2017 (WEO-2017 Special Report: Energy Access Outlook)Household air pollution and healthCHEAP PLENTIFUL COAL FOR NEW GRID ELECTRICITY IS THE ONLY REALISTIC RESPONSE TO THIS DEADLY ENVIRONMENTAL TRAGEDY.What follows is a summary of the key WHO sponsored research into household air pollution.Millions Dead: How Do We Know and What Does It Mean? Methods Used in the Comparative Risk Assessment of Household Air Pollution·Annual Review of Public Health· Volume 35, 2014· Smith, pp 185-206DOWNLOAD PDF FIGURESMillions Dead: How Do We Know and What Does It Mean? Methods Used in the Comparative Risk Assessment of Household Air PollutionAnnual Review of Public HealthVol. 35:185-206 (Volume publication date March 2014)Millions Dead: How Do We Know and What Does It Mean? Methods Used in the Comparative Risk Assessment of Household Air PollutionSchool of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-7360; email: [email protected], [email protected] Department of Public Health and Policy, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 3GB, United Kingdom; email: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Department of Environmental Health Engineering, Sri Ramachandra University (SRU), Chennai 600116, India; email: [email protected] Pulmonary Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, California 94143; email: [email protected] Energy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-3050; email: [email protected] Division of Epidemiology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York10461; email: [email protected] Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, Washington, DC 20006; email: [email protected] Department of Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology, University of Munich, Munich 81377, Germany; email: [email protected] Alerts*Smith and Bruce contributed equally as joint first authors. †Doug Barnes (retired); Michael N. Bates (University of California, Berkeley); Xaioli Duan (CRAEAS, Beijing); Santu Ghosh, Thangavel Guruswamy, Sankar Sambandam (Sri Ramachandra University, Chennai); Vinod Mishra (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, New York); Qing Lan (National Cancer Institute, Bethesda); Amir Sapkota (University of Maryland, College Park); Kurt Straif (International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon); Anna Zimmermann (University of California, Berkeley); Sophie Bonjour (World Health Organization, Geneva); Michael Brauer (University of British Columbia, Vancouver); Aaron Cohen (The Health Effects Institute, Boston); and Majid Ezzati (Imperial College London).SectionsAbstractIn the Comparative Risk Assessment (CRA) done as part of the Global Burden of Disease project (GBD-2010), the global and regional burdens of household air pollution (HAP) due to the use of solid cookfuels, were estimated along with 60+ other risk factors. This article describes how the HAP CRA was framed; how global HAP exposures were modeled; how diseases were judged to have sufficient evidence for inclusion; and how meta-analyses and exposure-response modeling were done to estimate relative risks. We explore relationships with the other air pollution risk factors: ambient air pollution, smoking, and secondhand smoke. We conclude with sensitivity analyses to illustrate some of the major uncertainties and recommendations for future work. We estimate that in 2010 HAP was responsible for 3.9 million premature deaths and ∼4.8% of lost healthy life years (DALYs), ranking it highest among environmental risk factors examined and one of the major risk factors of any type globally….CONCLUSIONSThe sensitivity analysis in Figure 6 implies that, at least for the purposes of the CRA, the results are not highly sensitive to the still-large uncertainties in PM exposure in solid cookfuel households across the world.13 We are not implying, however, that more exposure assessment is not needed. Indeed, additional assessment is critical to pinning down the IERs more accurately, particularly for the disease end points (IHD and stroke) for which there is little direct HAP information to date. It may imply, however, that more attention needs to be paid to developing monitors and protocols to pin down exposures at the lower end, i.e., <100 μg/m 3, as interventions are introduced to bring households into that range.Because CRAs depend on PAF calculations, the burden of disease from the CRAs is dependent on background health conditions. The CRA-2010 relies on the national GBD-2010 results for this purpose, but HAP is not a universal risk in any country, being confined nearly entirely to lower-income populations and, to a lesser extent, rural areas. The levels of the major diseases associated with HAP in such populations generally differ from the national averages. ALRI and COPD, for example, are likely to be higher, whereas lung cancer, IHD, and stroke may not be. This variance is complicated by smoking patterns, which also are not uniform across countries by HAP status but greatly affect the background rates of the same diseases. Future elaborations of the CRA for individual countries may wish to differentiate background disease patterns according to rural versus urban or by income quintile to better reflect these differences.There is a natural urge to forget that the CRAs, at best, estimate “attributable” impacts and apply them directly to estimate what might be achieved by interventions today, i.e., “avoidable” impacts. The CRA estimates how much less ill-health there would have been in 2010 if no one had used poorly combusted solid fuels for cooking in the past, and the analysis intrinsically incorporates all past history of population distribution, health conditions, trends in fuel use, etc. Of more relevance to policy, of course, is how much impact could be avoided if changes were made now because there is no option to change the past. To answer this avoidable impact question, however, requires estimates of future changes in population, health, and solid fuel use that would occur without intervention and then compare to what would happen with it. This is a related but even more difficult exercise than a CRA.14In addition, the CRAs assume more or less stable conditions; e.g., the COPD attributable burden today is the result of exposures to HAP over long periods in which HAP levels did not change precipitously. Interventions, however, are, by definition, changes that perturb a system that will then not reach equilibrium among the different factors for some years. An intervention will not actually result in a change in COPD rates for some years, for example, because there is already a future committed COPD burden due to past exposures. ALRI in infants, in contrast, can be expected to change fairly quickly after intervention. The result is that the benefits of intervention will be spread out over time; reductions in chronic diseases with long lag times will take much longer to accrue than will reductions in more acute conditions.Perhaps the most striking aspect of the HAP CRA, as derived from the IERs shared with the AAP CRA, is the highly nonlinear character of the exposure-response at levels of PM 2.5 below ∼100 μg/m 3 annual mean. These exposure-response relationships derive from modeling across orders of magnitude of mean exposures with disparate temporal patterns using epidemiologic evidence from quite disparate populations. Although currently sufficiently compelling to be used in the CRAs, they need to be confirmed with more direct evidence in HAP settings for the major outcomes. The implications are clear, however: Interventions to reduce HAP exposures must lower exposures substantially in order to produce large health benefits. Such reductions will be difficult to achieve with current technologies using solid fuels, although there is much ongoing effort to do better. Beyond being more expensive, introduction of gaseous fuels and electricity also sometimes does not immediately achieve reductions as large as might be expected because households do not shift completely away from solid fuels immediately. Thus much remains to be learned about how to achieve these reductions, but avoiding millions of premature deaths annually in the world's most vulnerable populations provides a compelling a reason to do so.Millions Dead: How Do We Know and What Does It Mean? Methods Used in the Comparative Risk Assessment of Household Air PollutionCLIMATE OVERCONFIDENCE WORSENS THE PLIGHT OF IMPOVERISHED MILLIONS LIVING WITHOUT ELECTRICITY AND SPURS IMMORAL GOVERNMENT SPENDINGTHE SOCIAL INJUSTICE OF ENERGY POVERTYEnergy Poverty is devastatingEnergy poverty is devastating for more than 2 billion impoverished peoples living without electricity for light and heat. Cooking happens the way it has for centuries before – over smoky indoor fires that do no favors for lungs or life expectancies. I witnessed the tragedy first hand working in the China countryside in the winter where peasants are forced to live with their animals in a vain attempt to keep warm. Their weathered faces from the harsh life in the dark without heat is very sad.Once upon a time, social justice was synonymous with equal access to modern amenities — electric lighting so poor children could read at night, refrigerators so milk could be kept on hand, and washing machines to save the hands and backs of women. Malthus was rightly denounced by generations of socialists as a cruel aristocrat who cloaked his elitism in pseudo-science, and claimed that Nature couldn't possibly feed any more hungry months.Now, at the very moment modern energy arrives for global poor — something a prior generation of socialists would have celebrated and, indeed, demanded — today's leading left-wing leaders advocate a return to energy penury. The loudest advocates of cheap energy for the poor are on the libertarian Right, while The Nation dresses up neo-Malthusianism as revolutionary socialism.Left-wing politics was once about destabilizing power relations between the West and the Rest. Now, under the sign of climate justice, it's about sustaining them.Left-wing politicians like Al Gore, Obama and Naomi Klein crusading against cheap coal and efficient fossil fuels represents the greatest progressive reversal in history.http://***http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/voices/michael-shellenberger-and-ted-nordhaus/its-not-about-the-climate*** (http://***http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/voices/michael-shellenberger-and-ted-nordhaus/its-not-about-the-climate***)This is immoral.WHY THIS TERRIBLE DEADLY PROBLEM MATTERSHere is the way I see it :On the one hand -There are lots of science papers and evidence that cast doubt on the claim that minute amounts of CO2 plant food are so harmful that all fossil fuel energy must end. The UN IPCC working group for example said they could not detect a human force in global warming without much more research - ignored. Obviously the science is not settled and no one has observed invisible and minute amounts of CO2 controlling the climate.On the other hand the evidence of harm from so many people living off grid and cooking with solid fuels is evident including in the cemeteries as the research counts 4 million lost lives annually.Should deny more than 2 billion the advantages of coal and other cheap fossil fuel energy sources because we THINK they may be making a cooling earth become too hot 100 years from now?NO THE INTENT OF THE PARIS ACCORD TO END FOSSIL FUEL ENERGY FOR ALL IS INDEED A MORAL ISSUE.

Pollution is not relevant to the hysteria about global warming as it only causes cooling from the dimming effect of the particles like the emissions from an erupting volcano. I lived in Victoria BC during the St Helens volcano and it blocked the sun making our weather cooler for a while. NOTE: Many have been mislead by alarmist politicians to think that carbon dioxide is polluting. CO2 is a non-toxic invisible and minute gas that you breathe out at 35,000 ppm it is essential for plant life and growth through photosynthesis. Reducing pollution does not save the earth [it has no need of saving] but failing to reduce household air pollution in the mad dash to dump life giving coal and other fossil fuels will save at least 4 millions lives annually of those suffering without grid electricity. Out(more)

I read nonfiction quite broadly, from psychology to travel to entrepreneurship and autobiographies. These are a few books that, after finishing, I remember actually changing my mind on something.That change could have been something subtle like “there’s nothing wrong with doing nothing,” or a more action-oriented commitment like “hey, maybe I should open up more than one bank account to diversify.”The difference between reading a book vs. a thin magazine piece on a similar topic is, as you probably know, worlds apart.We should definitely change our minds more often, but I believe that should come from reading longer form content. There’s often a lot of backstory, context, and information you need before you can actually grasp the words of wisdom the author is trying to convey. You have to work for a it a bit, and it’s usually worth the wait.One more thing: I read mostly on Kindle and highlight a lot of passages. So I’ve also provided links to my extensive Kindle notes for free in PDF format.1. Wherever You Go, There You AreAuthor Jon Zinn was one of the key figures that helped bridge meditation from the East to West. He speaks from a Western perspective — easy to understand and no fluff. If you’re going to start somewhere on your mindfulness journey, this is a good place.“If you are truly strong, there is little need to emphasize it to yourself or to others. Best to take another tack entirely and direct your attention where you fear most to look. You can do this by allowing yourself to feel, even to cry, to not have to have opinions about everything, to not appear invincible or unfeeling to others, but instead to be in touch with and appropriately open about your feelings.”Zinn dispels a lot of the New-Age ideas about “letting go” and paints a more realistic picture of what meditation is and isn’t. Beyond meditation, Zinn encourages us not to retreat to the Himalayan mountains, but rather, use these techniques to become better at what we are already doing in our day to day lives.One question in the book struck me as very important, and is one I’ve asked myself a few times this year. I think it’s a good one to write down and stare at for a couple of hours.“What is it on this planet that needs doing that I know something about, that probably won’t happen unless I take responsibility for it?”Download My Kindle Notes2. The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the WorldThe first industrial revolution was the advent of steam engines, railroads, advances in machinery and factories. The second industrial revolution was spurred by cars, telephones, faster transportation networks and eventually the internet.The third industrial revolution goes something like this:Rather than have centralized power plants and grids (both fossil and renewable), we develop a decentralized power grid. Every house and every building would have their own solar panels/renewable energy; each building thus effectively turns into its own little power plant. Energy that isn’t used can be stored using hydrogen fuel cells and distributed/shared/sold on a decentralized grid to other people who want energy. It’s what the internet did for information, except for energy.Decentralized energy grids have already being developed in major cities across Europe, Germany leading the way. More than a million + people now participate in providing electricity — private residents and farmers own almost half of the installed capacity of renewable energy installations in Germany.Topics that are covered in the book which fascinated me:Why property rights are a recent social construct and how Enlightenment thinkers and later on were influenced/blinded by Newtonian physicsWhy productivity rates have been hovering at 14% since the 1970’s and why 85% of our economic productivity is wastedHow the laws of thermodynamics have been ignored by economists for decadesWhy globalization is declining and being replaced with a more sustainable “continentalization”“Millions of Americans want government to keep its hands out of the commercial arena, but are unwilling to mobilize sufficient public response to end the practice of private commercial interests buying elections and directing taxpayers’ money to their pet commercial projects and industry interests.”Download My Kindle Notes3. The Growth DelusionThe word “wealth” comes from the Old English word weal (well-being) and th(condition). So the word wealth literally means “the conditions of well being” or “the conditions of being happy and prosperous.” It says nothing about getting rich.Economists might well need a reminder of this as they tout the so-called necessity of yearly GDP growth. We know that endless growth means endless consumption, and endless consumption means eventual destruction. Of course, this is madness, but we’re stuck in a system that supports it and bombarded with (corporate) messages that tell us that growth is good.We often hear news of GDP growth slowing and the ensuing panic as if it’s the end of the world, but I hardly ever feel any difference in my life. Do you? For example, when China surpassed Japan’s GDP into the #2 spot after the US a few years ago, it felt like a big hit. Well, maybe for the egos of some Japanese economists and in particular their US allies who see everything as a potential threat (the US is a bit insecure like that). But there are still about 1001 reasons I’d rather live in Japan than China, and it has little to do with GDP, and more to do with healthcare, safety, corruption, and escalators that grind people up.The Growth Delusion outlines, very bluntly, what GDP misses, why we should scrap it, and what our alternatives are. The book is accesible, witty and get’s pretty deep without sounding too extreme.“The goal of disruptive technology companies, in the statistical sense, is to reduce GDP,” Page said when I found him lurking in one of the corridors. “To wipe out transaction costs, which are being measured, and to replace them with convenience, which is not being measured. So the economy is shrinking, but everyone is getting a better deal. Lots of what tech is doing is destroying what wasn’t needed. The end result is you’re going to have less of an economy, but higher welfare.”Download My Kindle Notes4. What I Learned Losing A Million DollarsJim Paul was raised in a small town in Northern Kentucky and eventually moved to become governor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. His story is full of success and failure. In the pinnacle of his trading career he actually lost $1.6 million, not just $1 million… in one trade.He paints a cautionary tale of hubris and getting caught up in our own thoughts, disregarding clear warning signs and what happens when we take things a bit too far. Originally I heard about him via the Tim Ferris podcast and read it a while back, but it’s taken on new meaning for me as I’ve delved into the world of crypto trading in the past year. While he was focusing on commodities, the lessons apply across any financial market and high stakes decision making.This is one of those books that can be either one of two things for people; an entertaining read, or a practical guide that potentially saves you from financial ruin. But hopefully it’s both.As Jim says, “When I was a kid, my father told me there are two kinds of people in the world: smart people and wise people. Smart people learn from their mistakes and wise people learn from somebody else’s mistakes.” We’d be smart to learn from his advice on this one.On why people lose money:People lose money in the markets either because of errors in their analysis or because of psychological factors that prevent the application of the analysis. Most of the losses are due to the latter. All analytical methods have some validity and make allowances for the times when they won’t work. But psychological factors can keep you in a losing position and also cause you to abandon one method for another when the first one produces a losing position.Download My Kindle Notes5. The Gift of Fear: And Other Survival Signals That Protect Us from ViolenceThe Gift of Fear was a real eye opener and I walked away feeling that it should be required reading at work and school — especially for anyone in America. The author, Gavin de Becker, is the founder of a security firm that assesses and handles violent threats to public figures, ranging from politicians, actors, and corporate execs. That said, the book is really for everyone.He asks, and answers, questions like, “What is the difference between worrying and real fear? How do we predict violence in our day to day lives? How can we keep our kids safe? For women, what are warning signs that a guy could turn violent? How do people use dark humor to voice concerns? Why do most people ignore their innate intuition of fear, often with fatal consequences?”There’s a lot of great tips on how to spot a liar and how to act before it’s too late — in situations where the consequences could be lethal. Also, some practical advice on how to avoid asshole boyfriends/crazy girlfriends. Painted with various real life stories I felt like this book was one I had to share and ended up buying it for several of my female friends after reading it.“Though leaving is the best response to violence, it is in trying to leave that most women get killed. This dispels a dangerous myth about spousal killings: that they happen in the heat of argument. In fact, the majority of husbands who kill their wives stalk them first, and far from the “crime of passion” that it’s so often called, killing a wife is usually a decision, not a loss of control. Those men who are the most violent are not at all carried away by fury. In fact, their heart rates actually drop and they become physiologically calmer as they become more violent..”Gavin’s writing is concise, eloquent, and full of counterintuitive yet practical advice to lower the likelihood that we find ourselves in violent situations. I was reading Michael J. Fox’s autobiography recently and noticed that he also use Becker’s firm as a security agency — seems like he’s been around for a while!“When people are telling the truth, they don’t feel doubted, so they don’t feel the need for additional support in the form of details. When people lie, however, even if what they say sounds credible to you, it doesn’t sound credible to them, so they keep talking.”Download My Kindle Notes6. Nomad Capitalist: How to Reclaim Your Freedom with Offshore Bank Accounts, Dual Citizenship, Foreign Companies, and Overseas InvestmentsThis was like an updated version of the 4-Hour Work Week, playing up on the ideas of geo-arbitrage, passive income, and how to remove yourself from the suffocating 9–5 job. I feel a lot of the self-help genre post-4 Hour Work Week is a re-hashing of Tim’s original, but there was certainly some new information here.While Tim focuses a lot on setting up companies and escaping your job, Andrew Henderson, the author of Nomad Capitalist, pretty much assumes you have some amount of money that you are willing to invest/spend and that you already have a relatively entrepreneurial lifestyle. The question is how to diversify your risk, protect your money and grow it outside of the current system.Andrew has several James Bond-esque stories of his own that gave me an occasional smirk, which he intertwines with best practices and ideas of what’s possible and more importantly what’s legal. That said he provides a lot information about what is achievable and tells you where to look, even if he doesn’t explicitly line it all out, which is more than enough to get started on your own journey.I’ve personally found that in order to achieve our goals often times all we need is permission and to know something is possible, even if we don’t get an instructional step-by-step guide on how to do it (nor should you trust the step by step guide of someone for financial advice as everyone’s situation is different).“How much will I pay in taxes tomorrow, this month, and this year if I keep doing what I am doing now?” “What changes would I like in my lifestyle that I will not enjoy if I do not make a change?” “How will my retirement plans be affected by continuing to do what I am doing now?” “What will happen in five years if I keep only one passport? Or, what might happen that I am not willing to risk?”“Go where you are treated best” is a point that he drives home several times. If the banking system in your country gives you ridiculous fees or if you can’t get a loan, why don’t you go to a different bank? If you feel that you’re paying too much in taxes, instead of complaining and doing nothing, why not move somewhere else? If you’re getting poor and expensive healthcare treatment in the US, why not go somewhere cheaper and better?Download My Kindle Notes7. Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of CapitalismThe big assumption that is drilled into our heads during school is that people need to work for other people. That when you exit school, you get a job. In the words of Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus,“Are people born to be working for somebody else or born to do things they want? Without knowing anything, probably you’ll say no, people are not born to work for somebody else. That’s not how it works. When human beings came to this planet, they were not sending out job applications.”The financial system (including loans and credit) is of course centered around this model, that is, wealth is concentrated. So, what’s the solution? I don’t know, but Muhammad Yunus has an idea that’s shown some real progress. He is famous for leading the microcredit movement in Bangladesh and now he’s trying to flip this whole model on his head. He says that instead of going through life expecting to get a job, rather, we should be job creators.He believes everyone is an entrepreneur. He says don’t ask for a job, make your own. This may seem like a bold statement, but it’s really not. It’s just contrarian. For most of history we’ve been entrepreneurs. As hunters and gatherer’s we had to solve problems everyday (and if you’re reading this today, you made it pretty far!). We had to figure out how to feed ourselves. We were bakers, farmers, cobblers, blacksmiths. We had street stalls and restaurants and shops and offered our services.Uganda ranks as the most entrepreneurial country in the world where 28% of people are entrepreneurs. That’s twice the number of the U.S. Surprised? Perhaps your definition of entrepreneurship needs to be expanded. If given a chance, we have the capacity for great creativity.This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work for a company. Not at all. No individual could have been able to create the microprocessor or iPhone. We need lots of peoples and lots of companies to innovate. The greater point is that people have options — job taker or job creator — but the system we have in place only fosters and really supports one path.“If Warren Buffett had asked for my advice, I would have advised him to use part of his money to create a social business whose mission would be to provide affordable, high-quality health insurance to the 47 million Americans without it. If Buffett himself — a business genius with decades of experience in the insurance industry — were involved in designing this social business, anybody can easily guess the outcome: The company would achieve a resounding success, and Buffett would be remembered in the history of American health care.”Download My Kindle Notes HereThanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, take a second to follow me on Quora for more.