Miljenko's Blog

Had a reason recently to once again review all "Things Emission" (carbon emissions) and because it was as uncomfortable as always, I tried to figure out why is it that we are unable to ever really feel that we "understand" the whole issue of carbon credits, cap and trade and all that. My conclusion is that the fundamental difficulty is that our mind and our sense of what is right (morality of sorts) are pulling in opposite directions. While it is not difficult to understand and accept the logic that the world collectively will reduce overall emissions the most if it reduces the emissions of the biggest polluters first, the inescapable fact is that this just feels "wrong". It feels as wrong as it would feel to pay potential robbers to not rob us or to pay potential rapists not to rape. Some of the arguments are similar such as that the potential robbers are just poor and if they were less poor they would not be motivated to rob. Indonesia, China or Russia w...

and if I can pull off that analogy, I am better than I know. Well, life is similar to a Giant Slalom (GS) in the way that GS is different than slalom or downhill as both slalom and downhill are really not "thinking man's" ski events. GS is a thinking man's ski race. In slalom, there is no time to think. There is only instinctive reaction and the rush and getting to the finish. Downhill is all about overcoming fear and then getting to the bottom of the hill in one piece. GS is different because to ski GS well, one has to think, anticipate and act. You have to know the course well, anticipate and visualize all the turns and most importantly, execute your plans for each turn timely and with precision . It is not just instinctive, it is one step more difficult than that - plan the action and then do it. It is essential in GS to start turning before reaching the turn itself. One needs to be almost done with the turn by the point one reaches the gate flag and then accelerat...