This week I finished two great works: Serpico, by Sidney Lumet starring Al Pacino about Frank Serpico: I watched this movie again since starting volunteering as an auxiliary, not that I see anything like what this movie covers. Before commenting on the content, Pacino’s acting made watching the movie watching him. He didn’t upstage others. He just played the role masterfully. On par with Pacino’s acting is the story of[…] Keep reading →

I once read about two percent of the US is paved. Two percent of fifty is one, implying about one state worth of the US is paved. How do we reach the point of paving an entire state’s worth of land? It seems to me: First we tread over similar land to create dirt paths. Then we tread over them enough that rain makes them muddy enough to make them[…] Keep reading →

One of the more common responses to my suggesting eight billion people live sustainably, along with governments and corporations, is to suggest thing after thing the other person thinks wouldn’t work. “What about cars? How will people get around?” “What about family?” “But they won’t be able to create energy.” “What about police and ambulances?” The list of attempts to challenge sustainably goes on. They aren’t being rational. They’re just[…] Keep reading →

This cartoon from this week’s New Yorker looks like it’s riffing on our time’s situation. I get the humor it’s presenting, but for it to be funny and for me to laugh, we have to accept that things just are the way they are. To me, to laugh at it would be like to laugh if during Apartheid they said: “Heads Mandela goes to prison, tails the government cracks down[…] Keep reading →

I’m updating My sidchas, standard operating procedures, and preferences in two ways. Cardio days First, in my 6-Day Exercise/Mindfulness Cycle, I’m changing day 6, which was “Cardio, at least 300 calories rowing or meaningful effort plogging, biking, walking, or climbing stairs.” I did cardiovascular exercises for two reasons: Since around May, I’ve been experimenting fasting on day 6. That is, instead of burning more calories, taking in fewer. Doing cardio[…] Keep reading →

I was at first nervous about sharing about my new major life volunteering community project, hence made the podcast announcing it, number 781, longer than most solo episodes I put the important information at the end. Still, if covers comprehensively my process in starting volunteering as an auxiliary police officer. Partly I wanted to make it hard to learn, so only genuinely interested would listen. Instead, everyone reacted positively. I’ve[…] Keep reading →

Interviewers often ask “If you were a benevolent dictator, what would you do to solve our environmental problems?” They all frame sustainability as something you have to convince people to do or use coercive, authoritarian tools like passing laws that don’t yet have popular support. I identified a big fork in the path of people promoting sustainability. It comes if you’ve found, as I have, that the more you live[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: Sustainability Simplified: The Definitive Guide to Understanding and Solving All (Yes, All) Our Environmental Problems, by (me) Josh Spodek: The copies below are called “advanced reader copies” or ARCs in publishing. They’re proofs that may still be edited, printed early for people in the industry, like journalists, bookstores, and podcasters. Still a milestone to hold a printed copy in my hand. Several rounds of proofreading has[…] Keep reading →

In this post I’m going to show how many accusations of environmentalists being anti-human would tar the accusers more. I’ll build up to the point by describing the accusers first. Let me start by saying I love reading Steven Pinker’s books and wrote about him and them in my upcoming book, especially Better Angels of Our Nature (2011), which Bill Gates described as “the most inspiring book I’ve ever read,”[…] Keep reading →