Uncommon Sense: Shortcomings of the Human Mind for Handling Big-Picture, Long-Term Challenges

Plenty of evidence points to environmental catastrophe, economic collapse, and resultant human misery in the decades to come, yet we fail to respond in rational, meaningful ways. Uncommon Sense identifies the root cause of most of our problems: ourselves. Beyond the typical surveys of immediate threats, Uncommon Sense delves instead into the shortcomings of the human mind for dealing with such big-picture, long-term problems as climate change, biodiversity loss, and the overcrowding of Earth by people, products, and pollutants. Only by acknowledging and exploring these shortcomings do we have a chance to correct them and work our way back onto sustainable footing, before it’s too late for millions of people, thousands of species, and hundreds of cultures.

Seidel holds a B.S. in Architectural Engineering from the University of Colorado and a Masters in Architectural Planning from the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he studied under renowned architect Mies van der Rohe. Seidel has served as a faculty member at the University of Michigan and Virginia Tech, and he also taught at Central China Institute of Science and Technology. His work has been published in numerous academic journals, and he has also authored three books: Invisible Walls, Global Survival, and 2045.