The title says it all: Looking to Silicon Valley, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Washington DC, or Academia for sustainability solutions is like looking to the Sacklers for opiate addiction solutions. The Sacklers know how to increase opiate use. They profit from it. They know how to increase sales. They know how to rationalize and justify addicting and hurting people so they can feel good hurting people. They have convinced themselves[…] Keep reading →

Syringes discarded in the park mean out-of-control addiction. By out of control, I don’t mean in the addict. I mean in our culture. People shooting heroin, fentanyl, and meth in broad daylight are only one of the more blatant examples of our culture of addiction. Facebook, McDonald’s, doof in general, social media in general, TV engineered to binge-watch, bucket lists, and so on par. At least heroin harms the user[…] Keep reading →

Three recent headlines on flying, all tragic: You don’t need to read the articles. The headlines tell you all you need to know, especially when you know that when a headline asks a question, the answer is no. In this case, the third article recounts research clarifying that flying will never be carbon neutral. My comments, responding to that question: Not only is there no sign it will be carbon[…] Keep reading →

The longer and more I reduce my polluting, depleting activities, the simpler sustainability becomes. I guess that clarity comes with overcoming most addictions: If you do something that kills people and you don’t want to kill people, you have to stop doing it, even if you like it, even if everyone around you is doing it. How much simpler can it get? When you stop, you gain the credibility, character,[…] Keep reading →

I’ve long remembered from my childhood in Philadelphia a story appearing in the paper about a family where the son was doing cocaine and the parents in denial. I remember it because my mom knew the family. Also because it was a big story about cocaine, which was less common in the news, let alone about a well-to-do family. I’ve thought about it recently because of the parallels with people’s[…] Keep reading →

People keep asking me my predictions on ChatGPT. Here are some so far. Top level: Lower level: Of course:

When a culture doesn’t live within its means, looks beyond its borders to fill the gap, and starts figuring out how to take others’ resources, it’s likely to become imperialist. Our so-called clean, green, renewable energy sources like wind and solar (that aren’t renewable) require materials most countries lack. They have to obtain them elsewhere. Before a few decades ago, no place with cobalt was mining cobalt in large amounts[…] Keep reading →

Every interviewer asks like a robot: “What’s one thing everyone can start with?” For context, people don’t pollute and deplete because they want to pollute. We do things we value and enjoy that our culture has made polluting and depleting necessary to do. Our culture has also engineered those activities to trigger the mechanisms of addiction. We are addicted to doof, social media, flying, etc. We don’t think of flying[…] Keep reading →

If I claim that we’re addicted to comfort, convenience, flying, and disposable diapers, what’s the problem if we don’t realize it? If addiction isn’t that bad and ending it seems to make life worse, why not keep flying? Addiction leads to short-term thinking. We don’t think past the next hit when we expect one or past withdrawal if we don’t. We have trouble imagining a better life without those hits.[…] Keep reading →