Category Archives: Choosing/Decision-Making

Imagine a drug where you get the pleasure and others suffer the harmful side effects: that’s polluting activities.

on January 3, 2023 in Addiction, Choosing/Decision-Making, Doof

The title says it all, but let’s look in more detail. Take heroin and you get euphoria, but you also suffer the addiction and ruination of your life. You cause others to suffer too, but not directly from the drug. They suffer from your degradation, running out of money, isolation, and so on. In principle, you could use heroin and not cause others to suffer. Gamble and you occasionally win,[…] Keep reading →

The Root of Our Environmental Problems: Individuals Refusing to Change Themselves

on January 2, 2023 in Choosing/Decision-Making, Leadership, Nature

We were all born into a culture with certain values. When I was a child, flying was an unalloyed good. It meant spreading culture, learning new cultures and cuisine, and so on. In principle we knew something about jet exhaust and that extraction caused people to be displaced from the lands and occasionally spilled. Cars meant freedom. The solution to pollution is dilution. But the world changed and our understanding[…] Keep reading →

Who should decide if public transit should be free? What the answer means for sustainability.

on December 18, 2022 in Choosing/Decision-Making, Leadership

A friend commented that public transportation should be free. I texted back “I concur.” I’ve considered the issue from many angles before. There are many pros and cons and I’ve concluded the benefits outweigh the costs. Many agree. “Around 100 cities in the world offer free public transit, the vast majority of them in Europe, especially France and Poland,” according to the New York Times’ piece Should Public Transit Be[…] Keep reading →

Your money or your vote

on October 29, 2022 in Choosing/Decision-Making, Leadership

Elections are coming up. They happen about once a year. People fly all the time. We buy takeout and bottled water all the time. We buy cars all year round and fill up our gas tanks daily. Which of your actions impacts the world more: voting once a year or two or spending thousands of dollars every year on polluting industries that grow from our purchases, infiltrate government, control legislation,[…] Keep reading →

People who tell me I’m wasting my time versus those who encourage me

on September 18, 2022 in Choosing/Decision-Making, Leadership

People who tell me I’m wasting my time trying to lead culture toward sustainability: My mom, my dad, the lady at the coop checkout today, nearly everyone. People who tell me to stick with it: Nelson Mandela (“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”), Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, Jesus, Winston Churchill (“Never, never, never give up.”). Also Harriet Tubman’s quote I posted a couple days ago: If you[…] Keep reading →

My pride and shame in giving blood for the first time since college

on July 30, 2022 in Choosing/Decision-Making, Fitness, Habits

I’m proud to have given blood Tuesday. If you haven’t listened to yesterday’s podcast episode with Sebastian Junger, listen to hear his story of receiving ten emergency transmissions leading to his giving blood regularly. Why ashamed too? Because when the nurse checked me in, filling in my address from my driver’s license, she asked if I’d changed my address. The address in the system showed my freshman year dorm address.[…] Keep reading →

We won’t run out of fossil fuels, why that’s a problem, and long history

on July 28, 2022 in Choosing/Decision-Making, Doof, Freedom, Nature

People once wondered if we would run out of fossil fuels. People who liked fossil fuels delight in showing how we keep finding more. “Ha!”, they imply, “we’ll never run out. It’s not a problem. Anyone who thinks we’ll run out is a fool.” We could talk about the finite number of molecules of oil, coal, and gas under the Earth’s surface, but when an economist like Julian Simon says[…] Keep reading →

Sign up for my weekly newsletter