Climate Change and the Military/Industrial/Consumerist Complex I received this invitation from a friend who helps lead the local Sierra Club chapter who didn’t know J. B. was a guest on This Sustainable Life and that I loved his work. I registered and hope to see you there. Scroll to the bottom of this post to see the video essays I did about his book The Once and Future World. I[…] Keep reading →

You probably learned that the Earth wasn’t flat, nor at the center of the universe, and figured you knew the right answers for why everything seemed to rotate around it: the stars, sun, and moon. If Earth was at the center and the stars, sun, and moon rotated around it, it would like like it does. That model explains what we see simply. So why do they look that way?[…] Keep reading →

The point of democracy is not to win, but to recognize we all disagree on some things, so to figure out how to live together despite the differences. Is this view obvious to everyone and too obvious to say? I don’t think it’s deep, but I don’t remember hearing it said, not that I’d look for it. I can also imagine not many people not having thought this thought. I[…] Keep reading →

A father in one of my online communities asked people for what advice they’d give to a twelve-year-old. I’m not a father and haven’t been twelve since the 1980s, so I don’t know how appropriate for that age, but here was my answer: Not knowing the kid (barely knowing myself), I can only guess at his interests and situation, but here’s what I would want someone to tell me if[…] Keep reading →

Sunday I went to the Bronx to lead another workshop in making my famous no-packaging vegan stews. I can’t stand food deserts and believe sharing how to cook delicious healthy food cheap and fast will help create demand for farmers markets. My last Bronx workshop was my last public performance before the pandemic. I ended up discovering what I now consider one of New York City’s most beautiful spots: Drew[…] Keep reading →

Press release: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2021: 5 October 2021 The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2021 “for groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of complex physical systems” with one half jointly to Syukuro ManabePrinceton University, USA Klaus HasselmannMax Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany “for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming” and the[…] Keep reading →

I saw a science/technology video, Risking My Life To Settle A Physics Debate, by Derek Muller, that prompted a science communication contest for people to make videos: We are looking for videos that clearly and creatively explain complex or counterintuitive concepts in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.  There are cash prizes for this competition—with first place receiving $5,000, second place receiving $3,000, and third place receiving $2,000.[…] Keep reading →

When I talk about living sustainably, one of people’s main objections is that we need to keep developing and pushing the envelope on research on nature and science. Without pushing science and technology: How will we cure disease? Won’t children and mothers die in childbirth? What about getting off this planet if an asteroid comes? Don’t you value computers, airplanes, and other discoveries that came from science? What about learning[…] Keep reading →

I came across this revealing graph in a peer-reviewed paper and had to share it. It shows that over fifty years, societies that intentionally instituted family planning (as I understand, not China’s One Child policy) saw birth rates lower. But note that every society’s birth rate dropped. Governments that tried to increase birth rates saw decreases nearly identical to those that did nothing. They spent money for nothing except working[…] Keep reading →