I don’t talk much about history here, but my father was a history professor and I grew up with history being a big part of family life and how we viewed the world. My dad knew a lot of history. It was one of his major lenses through which to view the world. Growing up I didn’t like that view. Everything seemed to warrant lectures, from art museums to tourist[…] Keep reading →

I served in my first Thanksgiving Day parade this morning. The role of an auxiliary police officer at a parade for families and kids isn’t to keep the peace. I saw it as more for structure. A little to keep order, but more fulfilling a civic role for kids to see government in a peaceful role. I enjoy fulfilling civic duty, so despite the cold rain, I enjoyed playing that[…] Keep reading →

I recently was invited to speak to grade school children about great physicists. The teacher asked me to speak about Newton, Einstein, and Hawking. Since I didn’t have any personal connections to Isaac Newton, I focused on Einstein and Hawking, since I knew people who knew them. I love knowing that I know someone who knew some of the most influential, famous people who lived, whose work was mind-blowing. Though[…] 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 →

In my book I talk about something that people respond with knee-jerk sayings that show they don’t know what they’re talking about because they hurt their own cause. Still, they can’t stop themselves from being know-it-alls and saying it. I found a way to fix the problem with a new word. The problem response comes when I mention Enlightenment values of (according to Steven Pinker) “reason, science, humanism, and progress”[…] Keep reading →

I was invited to speak to a New York City public high school class on astrophysics. About fifteen minutes in, I mentioned how I answer a common question people ask of me: “Do you still use your physics degree?” I consider my sustainability leadership work an application of science so, yes, I still use the science I learn, but not in a white lab coat in a lab. I thought[…] Keep reading →

Last week I announced Emily Wang’s Own Workshop on Sustainable Building 9/14. Today I attended it and learned more than I expected to, which happens when you get your hands dirty from digging into clay. Here’s Emily in the structure we helped build, a chicken coop at none other than Drew Gardens, where I hold my twice-annual cooking workshops in the Bronx. If you read Emily’s blog, which I recommend,[…] Keep reading →

UPDATE: Emily posted about the workshop. Check out A Smashing Week Building with Cob in NYC. Lots of pictures, descriptions of cob building, and matching my appreciation for Drew Gardens. I attended, though don’t appear in the pictures since I rode my bike there and knew I would ride back, about 90 minutes each way. The post referred to me, but not by name. See if you catch the reference.[…] Keep reading →

I’ve written before that to fix our environmental problems we have to change culture. Say you wanted to learn a culture to where you were fluent in its language and culture. Which would work better? Say you wanted to learn Nigerian language and culture Read books by people who haven’t lived in the culture or spoken that language, with the intent that only after you learned them fluently you would[…] Keep reading →