LATEST BLOG POSTS

Sometimes mid-sentence something distracts me and I lose my train of thought. Often when I do, I can’t remember what I was saying before. It annoys me but I move on to something else. By contrast, if a person interrupted me to the same effect, I’d get angry, even if what I were saying were no more important. That is, if while saying the same thing, I were interrupted or[…] Keep reading →

Michael took on a challenge many people consider: biking to work for a month. He challenged himself amid product releases at work and family obligations as his wife traveled, so he couldn’t just start. He had to plan and work at it. Even so, he created cheerleaders of his riding in his coworkers. Before all that, you’ll get to hear about his spectacular blow out. Michael clearly explains his plans,[…] Keep reading →

When we pollute, we think we act for the reasons in our minds that justify that behavior, but those reasons generally come after we choose, motivated to justify behavior we consider wrong. Most environmental analysis looks at the science of what pollutes more or less. Today I look at the mental processes and emotions behind choosing polluting behavior. Almost always pollution results in separating yourself from others—you don’t want to[…] Keep reading →

Brad identified the problem of people acting or not as our emotions and behavior, which many forces contribute to. We also talk about media and scientists. This refinement of the understanding to emotions points to what to work on that I see few environmentalists unaddressing: emotions, feelings, and community, not technology, innovation. Almost the only emotions they evoke are fear, panic, and worry, which don’t motivate acting on the environment.[…] Keep reading →

I believe many people believe we live in an age of wonder and that people from any other time would envy us. I believe future generations will not look at our flying and pollution not with envy but with horror, as we look at slave holders and people who didn’t resist Hitler. The sooner we get that into our thick skulls, the sooner we’ll enjoy life with less craving, excuses[…] Keep reading →

People keep describing my environmental actions as praiseworthy. I think they do it to make it seem harder and less accessible to do themselves what they expect will be hard, deprivation, sacrifice, and not what they want to do. Making what I do sound good makes what they do normal. I prefer to see not polluting as normal and polluting as abnormal and worth changing. I feel that praising someone[…] Keep reading →

A few words on growth and how people misunderstand it, especially economists. I start by talking about my window garden cherry tomato plants and how the inability of the insects eating them to regulate their growth and up destroying the plants and thereby their own population. Can we outdo bugs? I’m not sure. An educated friend showed surprise to me that his having four or five kids is one of[…] Keep reading →