Systems Thinking

Why mass compounds against itself in every transport system — and what the Mass Amplification Factor reveals about the engineering limits of the electric vehicle.

Every tonne of plastic produced carries environmental and health costs that no producer has ever paid. The Plastic Cost Coverage Ratio compares what producers actually pay to the full external cost their production imposes on the environment and on human health — consistently between 0.01 and 0.05, meaning plastic producers capture less than five cents in environmental liability for every dollar of damage their products create.

Contrasts aerospace mass budget culture — where mass is the primary design currency — with ground transport engineering, demonstrating what the discipline of mass management achieves when enforced.

Audits the EU Plastics Strategy, Extended Producer Responsibility regimes, and the UN Global Plastics Treaty INC process against the Plastic Cost Coverage Ratio, demonstrating the gap between policy ambition and industrial accountability.

Applies MAF analysis to reveal that above approximately 2,400 kg total vehicle mass, adding battery capacity reduces net range per unit of additional battery mass — placing the 10 best-selling BEVs at or near this inflection point.

Documents the discovery of microplastics in human blood (2020) and nanoplastics in human brain tissue (2023), and applies precautionary arithmetic to the incomplete and contested epidemiology of plastic particle health effects.

Documents how aircraft, ships, and ground vehicles consistently exceed design-phase weight targets because structural reinforcement requirements compound the original load-bearing specification.

Maps the source geography of ocean plastic flows — which rivers, countries, and economic conditions deliver the most plastic to the sea — and traces the geopolitical structure of the Plastic Cost Coverage Ratio's geography.

Uses Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation as a generalised statement about compounding mass cost, establishing the Mass Amplification Factor as its surface-transport formalisation.

Introduces the Plastic Cost Coverage Ratio and applies it to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation data showing that plastic producers capture less than 5 cents in liability for every dollar of environmental damage their products create.