My Life in a Paragraph

Grew up in Silverton,

Oregon, and graduated from the University of Puget Sound with majors in Asian studies and computer science. In my 20s, I worked on my father's nursery, did some computer consulting, traveled extensively around Asia (living in India for a year and working in a rural development community), worked for Student Pugwash USA in Washington D.C. (a non-profit concerned with creating conversations about the social and ethical implications of science), then went back to school at the University of Washington and Willamette University to become a high school science teacher.  Taught Physics, Chemistry, and a variety of other science and math courses since, always focusing on developing thinking skills.  Married in 2003, kids in 2004, dedicated to my two daughters ever since.  Before kids, I had hobbies that included hang gliding, backpacking, guitar, harmonica, video games, and reading.

Why I made the videos and wrote the book

Imagine that you're in the front cargo hold of the Titanic.  You feel the engines switch to reverse and churn full speed, feel a huge lurch to the side, and hear screeching metal followed by the overwhelming sound of water gushing.  You run to tell the captain, who asks "Are you absolutely positive an iceberg punctured the hull?  Did you see it?"  You can't say yes, because your view was obscured.

He tells you that closing the watertight doors--which would safeguard the ship from sinking in such an event--would require evacuating the dining room, where the passengers are having the flagship meal of a cruise that they paid a lot of money for.  He says it's not worth disrupting the passengers "just in case" your unproven conjecture is correct, and he'll send someone to go look into it when he can spare them. He thanks you for your concern, and firmly dismisses you. Your wife and kids are on board.

What would you do?

Since a single chemistry lecture at the University of Washington years ago when all the pieces fell together, not a day has gone by when I haven't thought about climate change.  It hasn't been a fun topic, and I sure as hell hope I'm wrong about the threat.  I dearly hope that twenty years down the road I'll feel foolish for having gotten so worked up over something that turned out to be not such a big deal.

But I'm not willing to bet my family's security on that hope.  So I'm running around the dining room trying to get people to at least look into the issue, so that if it's real, we have time to fix it before the point of no return.  "Don't panic yet," I say, "but do pay attention, because the threat may be uncertain, but it is also potentially catastrophic.  And it looks like there's no time to waste.  If I'm wrong, I'll apologize for ruining your meal.  But what if I'm right?  Would not disrupting your meal be worth it then?"

The past two years (since posting "The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See") have been very difficult with all that obsessive "running around."  I haven't quit because--with the viral success of that single online video of me at a whiteboard--I realized that I had struck a nerve, that perhaps my silly little grid, spread through the viral networks of online communications, might actually be able to make a difference in the debate.

That one video led to 70 videos, which led to a book, which led to this website.  All the while continuing to teach half time, all the while trying to let go of it and leave it to the world to safeguard itself so I could go back to my family.  All the while unable to do so.  (Ironically, I went to half time teaching to spend more time with my two young daughters, ages 5 and 3.5 now.)  I've slept little, consumed unhealthy amounts of energy drinks, nicotine, kambucha and any other legal stimulant I could get my hands on to stay functional, and have not been pleasant for anyone to be around.  It's been hell to consciously deprive my daughters of their father, my wife (who's been a freaking saint through all this) of her husband, and my students of their teacher.

But I couldn't not do this.

Because as a teacher who focuses so much on the nature of knowledge and how we can't predict anything about the future with certainty, I finally stumbled across a prediction that I'm willing to say I can make for certain:  If we do end up the lower right corner of my grid--with a destabilized climate unraveling our modern civilization--I won't be wracked by regret that I could have done more to prevent it.  I will at least be able to look at my two beautiful daughters and say "I am so sorry sweethearts.  But I did all that I could." That thought gives me some comfort.

I finally discovered a short, visual way to fully convey what the last two years have felt like, and what result for me has been.  Note:  I'm the car.