I have to add to what I wrote last month on How the liberation of living more sustainably feels. In that post, I wrote I left out scope and scale I left out the scope and scale of the difference. Taking off wet socks feels liberating and surprisingly pleasant if you forgot they were on, but it’s still just physical sensations for your feet, a part of your body. Unlike[…] Keep reading →

I feel increasingly like an abolitionist or anti-slavery politician around 1800 living in Monticello. Mainstream culture looks and sounds like Thomas Jefferson: He said some of the most important words in history on liberty and freedom. He knew how wrong slavery was. He knew owning people corrupted him. He knew he was violating his own values. Likewise, we all say we don’t want to drive a system that hurts and[…] Keep reading →

I’ve read several books on racism lately. One of them, I think The Myth of Race, remarked how American soldiers after D-Day found Nazi vehicles had GM and Ford engines in them. I found it hard to believe, but possible. I looked it up and found this 1998 Washington Post article, Ford and GM Scrutinized for Alleged Nazi Collaboration: When American GIs invaded Europe in June 1944, they did so[…] Keep reading →

Want to know what living more sustainably feels like? Our culture is so dependent and addicted to things like takeout, cars, and flying that pollution and depletion enable, we forget that using them destroys life, liberty, and property. We don’t notice that our government benefits and grows in money and power from licensing and promoting one of its few core responsibilities nearly everyone agrees on. We don’t notice that they[…] Keep reading →

Regular readers know what a sidcha is and that my second daily habit that both became a sidcha and helped me conceive of the concept began with doing ten burpees a day. I think I started my burpee habit in early 2012. In time, that habit evolved into a twice-daily set of calisthenics. I agree that discipline equals freedom, so more than the sizeable gains of saving money, saving time,[…] Keep reading →

Everybody acts like sustainability is someone else’s job. Sure, they’ll avoid straws or get triple pane windows on their third home, the one in Tuscany that they fly to a couple times a year (I sat next to someone at a dinner recently who was doing so), but actually changing culture? That’s too much to ask of anyone. Everyone acts like it’s not their job. Whatever their job is, they[…] Keep reading →

For those who haven’t read Sustainability Simplified, one of the main things it builds to is something that I thought crazy when I first thought it. The idea is a constitutional amendment in the style of the thirteenth, but instead of banning slavery, two main clauses, both traditional, both Enlightendigenous. One protects life, liberty, and property when the threat to them came through the environment. The other disallowing making property[…] Keep reading →

Travel used to mean something. You had to work to go somewhere. In many places you could find a different culture. Today, you just pay money and go from one airport to another. The concept that “it’s the journey, not the destination” is over. For most people the journey is passive. Going across the world takes marginally more effort than going across town. I’ve written before that “Traveling” with roller[…] Keep reading →

I don’t know your views on guns, but I value both exploring different cultures and not polluting, which destroys life, liberty, and property. When my friend invites me to go to target practice at his shooting range outside the city, I’m happy to explore a culture as different from Greenwich Village, NYU, and Columbia as most places on earth. Unlike nearly anyone I know, I find cultures as diverse as[…] Keep reading →