LATEST BLOG POSTS

When I grew up, people considered orange juice healthy. Now I think people who looked it up generally agree that orange juice makers removed the oranges’ nutrition, leaving what nutritionally resembles soda more. OJ may have some vitamin C, but when did you last hear of someone you know getting scurvy? Removing the fiber from a food usually removes most of its nutrition, which is why I’ll still eat orange’s[…] Keep reading →

I’m posting this conversation today because Seth just launched his book, This is Marketing, already a #1 bestseller. As he points out, his marketing is close to what I call leadership: how to influence people, to discover your passion, and such. Helping people change is what this podcast is about. We recorded this conversation months ago, so you get to hear previews of his book. We talked a lot about[…] Keep reading →

I’ve spoken to a lot of people about environmental action and inaction. While I haven’t done double-blind randomized controlled experiments, I have seen one broad trend: People who act on their environmental values do so for others. People who don’t act on their environmental values do so for themselves. Action Typical reasons people give for acting include: “I want to leave the world better than I found it,” “Other people[…] Keep reading →

When I was growing up in the 70s, when someone said something sexist others would say that person was living in the past. “It’s not the 50s anymore. Get with the times, chauvinist pig.” It took people time to catch up with how times had changed. I’ll come back to chauvinism and living in the past in a moment. Privilege in academia in the past Today people talk about how[…] Keep reading →

Hypocrisy is a challenging, accusatory, powerful word. Let’s get out of the way that I’m not perfect, I don’t claim perfection, and I often don’t act. Here are examples of things I hear from people who claim to care about the environment and probably believe they pollute below average, but pollute comparably to average Americans, meaning more than nearly any in history. “It’s the journey, not the destination,” yet they[…] Keep reading →

My series answering the New York Times’ Ethicist column with an active, leadership approach instead of an analytical, philosophical perspective continues with “Can We Disinherit Our Addicted Son?”. Our son has been a heroin addict for 10 years. He has drifted in and out of homelessness and prison. We have spent a fortune on rehab, counseling, legal fees and more, which changed nothing. We love our son, but we have[…] Keep reading →

Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad I took Amtrak to California instead of flying. But I’m concluding that one of the worst tortures humans could inflict on each other might be to force a Japanese train engineer or conductor to work for Amtrak. I can only imagine his or her suffering. Late Today, Amtrak canceled two trains without warning. On the way west from New York, we arrived in Chicago[…] Keep reading →