My friend who teaches kids sustainability, among other things, invited me to join her with some of her students and their parents sailing in New York Harbor. She had me speak to them about things like taking five years (and counting) to fill a load of garbage, not fly, and so on. They loved it. I loved it too. I enjoy being on the water, when the wind, currents, and[…] Keep reading →

I start by describing how podcast guest Carl Erik Fisher, author of bestseller The Urge, reviewed my upcoming book Sustainability Simplified as a subject matter expert on addiction. Carl mentioned how my book suffered from what Bruce describes as the demon drug myth. He pointed to Bruce’s work as seminal, so I started reading it. I’d heard of Rat Park and later remembered Johan Hari mentioning Bruce in his TED talk[…] Keep reading →

Rationalizations and justifications no matter how specious and self-serving sound legitimate and true to the person using them. I hear a lot of rationalizations and justifications on why people pollute and deplete. To the person saying them, they sound legitimate and true. Rarely are they. The other day someone repeated one I’ve heard before but didn’t realize how insidious and powerful it is. The person saying it stuck with it[…] Keep reading →

I started by sharing my experience giving after reading Peter’s book The Life You Can Save. I confess I only read it after our first conversation, but loved it. I feared reading a book by an academic philosopher arguing a point would be dry and boring. Instead it led me to donate to causes. Then, even though I didn’t donate for recognition or personal benefit, the organizations I donated to[…] Keep reading →

I don’t usually just talk about what I did, but sometimes things work out enough and I feel great about how major life choices I’ve made work out. Last Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were great times. I’ll share Monday first since it’s not visual so might get lost following the other two. Monday: Einstein and Nobel Prize winners Monday I met with a physics professor who mentored me in college[…] Keep reading →

For those readers who haven’t signed up to my mailing list, every Monday I send a newsletter of the past week’s posts. For the newsletter’s introduction, I write what amounts to another post, usually a summary, reflection, or noting the highlights. I felt last week’s introduction merited being a post of its own. Here it is: I almost forgot to post that I started my third year off the grid[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, by Neil deGrasse Tyson: I didn’t know how popular this book was when I read it. Now I see it was on the New York Times bestseller list over a year and has over 30,000 reviews on Amazon. I think of science as something you do involving nature. You can experiment, work with equations, or other active things, but I[…] Keep reading →

Here are some projections for global warming based on various assumptions. Note the slow changes, which presumes people not changing our behaviors. The great historical example of changing global culture is abolitionism. It took off first in places without slavery in the territory, like Europe. One of the most challenging places to end the institution was the United States, which profited from it so much, though Europe was happy to[…] Keep reading →

I’ve written about how the construction my building is doing means no roof access for likely over six months: I’ve been trying to find other rooftops I can use so I don’t have to carry the equipment so far, risking bumps or drops. I can’t leave the panels unwatched to go to the bathroom or work elsewhere when it gets hot. So far I’ve asked the following, politely, offering to[…] Keep reading →