Jean Peccoud

Former biomedical engineering professor exploring how humans make responsible decisions under irreducible uncertainty—when stakes are existential, and outcomes resist prediction.

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A Deep Dark Hole

Every task completed seems to create two more. At some point, the checklist stops feeling like progress—and starts feeling like the ground giving way beneath your feet.

Letters from the Edge

Attu — Where the Frontier Withdrew

A straight line north from New Zealand leads to Attu Island—the westernmost point of the United States, located in the Eastern Hemisphere. A place where geography contradicts mythology, and where the frontier quietly turned back.

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Not Experiencing the Climate

A winter that never arrived. A snowpack collapsing below anything on record. We experience weather, not climate — until something breaks. And by then, it may already be too late.

Letters from the Dock Featured

Invitation to Alaska

Join the Ice Frontiers for parts of the 2026 Alaska expedition — not as passengers, but as contributors to the project.

Logbook

The Calm Before The Storm

Trump said it. He was talking about something else. But the words landed differently — after Artemis, before a cyclone, standing alone on a beach at the edge of the Bay of Islands.

Letters from the Dock

The Boat is Up. The Mast Down.

On March 30th, Rosemary came out of the water at the Bay of Islands Marina. The hull was dirty, the rigging had to go, and the mast ended up below the keel. The world felt upside down — but then again, we are in New Zealand.

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Seeds

Listening to people talk about climate—their fear, confusion, and lived experience—may be more than storytelling. It may be a way to rebuild legitimacy where institutions have stopped listening.

Letters from the Edge

The Postcard Experiment

I asked hundreds of climate scientists one simple question: what is your personal experience of climate change? The campaign statistics were strong. The silence was deafening.

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Kerikeri — Storm — Resonances

Between a tropical storm that derailed the refit schedule and the slow work of convincing people to speak honestly about climate, this dispatch is about what it takes to keep going when the weather is hostile and the silence is louder than expected.

Letters from the Dock

I Got a Boat. It Feels Like a Mistake

Closing day on a used sailboat isn't what you'd expect. No boardroom, no keys, no instant gratification. Just a 50-page survey report, 108 items to address, a 60-day deadline to leave New Zealand.

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Downsizing — Packing — Long Flight

The Pacific Expedition begins — not at sea, but in a storage unit. Clothes to Goodwill, a truck handed off, 170 pounds of luggage on a scale. Some departures happen before you ever leave the dock.

Letters from the Dock

How Big is The Pacific?

A 6,000-nautical-mile voyage from New Zealand barely reaches Alaska — a distance that spans Two maps reveal the true scale of the Pacific.

Letters from the Edge

Living with a Changing Climate Postcards

What climate change actually feels like. Not the data. The actual feeling.

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Aleutians - Insurance - Health

A possible detour through the Aleutians, an unexpectedly successful LinkedIn post, a tense moment with the insurance underwriter, closing the GenoFAB chapter, and a health check before departure

Letters from the Dock

An Immigrant Pursuit of Happiness

A prompt from the New York Times made me ask myself: What does the pursuit of happiness really mean?

Letters from the Edge

Le Glacier du Tour

The Glacier du Tour was the first glacier I ever set foot on in 1979. A recent photograph made me realize that the icy world that shaped that memory is rapidly disappearing from the landscape above Le Tour.

Letters from the Dock

Stay With the Boat

I went into my STCW Personal Survival Techniques course curious about the white box we call a life raft. I came out with good memories and something that felt surprisingly like wisdom.

Letters from the Edge

Uncomfortable Miles

Working on climate change has not reduced my carbon footprint — it has increased it. In the quiet hours of jet lag, I wrestle with the uncomfortable tension between engagement and purity, intention and combustion.

Letters from the Dock

Learning to Say Mayday

To register my boat under the UK flag, I had to earn the right to press the red distress button on a marine VHF radio. Learning to say “Mayday” turned into a reflection on autonomy, communication systems, and the psychological difficulty of asking for help — whether in the air or at sea.

Letters from the Edge

Life Without Certainty

Resilience and Responsibility - Part V

Logbook

Hope in the Air

Four hours. Seventeen kilometers. One song on repeat. Hope in the Air is not a song about hope, but about responsibility when illusions fall away.

Letters from the Dock

Viewing at the Dock

A quiet first encounter at the dock becomes something larger: not excitement, not certainty, but the sudden awareness that once something becomes real, responsibility follows.

Letters from the Edge

Responsibility Without Redemption

Resilience and Responsibility - Part IV

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Logbook

Waitangi Day

Standing in Paihia, next to the treaty grounds, I encountered a national day shaped by remembrance, restraint, and an unresolved shared history — one that quietly challenged the triumphalist narratives I’ve grown used to elsewhere.

Letters from the Dock

Two Days From Shore

In Europe, you are almost never more than two days from land. When distance is translated into time, insurance limits stop looking abstract and start mapping directly onto lived risk—fatigue, darkness, and exposure at sea.