Freedom

In this post I'm going to show how many accusations of environmentalists being anti-human would tar the accusers more. I'll build up to the point by describing the accusers first. Let me start by saying I love reading Steven Pinker's books and wrote about him and them in my upcoming book, especially Better Angels of Our Nature (2011), which Bill Gates described as “the most inspiring book I've ever read,” and Enlightenment Now (2018), which Gates described as “not only the best book Pinker’s ever written. It’s my new favorite book of all time.” Quoting from my book, Sustainability Simplified, In these books, he claimed that while wars and violence still happen, we live in the most peaceful time in history and that today’s peace…

Several responders my Ars Technica article from January 2023, I disconnected from the electric grid for 8 months—in Manhattan, commented things like "You mostly shifted a fair portion of your energy needs onto the surrounding city. Not all, but your electrical bill or lack thereof doesn't reflect your true energy usage. The city could not function at all if half the people did what you did." That is, they said I was using as much power but from other places. Somehow they missed the things I wasn't using any more, like a fridge and microwave, whose power and energy use eclipse what my phone and computer use, which is all I plugged in at NYU. Ars Technica Josh Spodek Disconnected In Manhattan At first I…

Germany and Japan seem wonderful cultures today. Not so much in 1944, when they were committing among the most grievous atrocities ever. Everyone else wanted to stop them. Nobody considered stopping them by making them more efficient, advancing their technologies, or promoting legislation within them passed by their people. No allied general or politician promoted changing them by offering new technologies or helping them innovate. Making them more efficient would have accelerated them, as would technology and home-grown legislation. First the culture had to change. Then---when pursuing something constructive like democracy, not destructive---then make them more efficient. Technology isn't good or bad. Like sharp knives and fire, technology augments the values of the people and culture using them. No, I'm not creating false equivalences. I'm…

Regular readers know I haven't filled a load of garbage since 2019. The most common reactions are surprise, asking me what's in my garbage, and calling it "extreme." Being five years into a habit, it doesn't feel the least bit extreme any more. On the contrary, since what motivates me is alleviating suffering in the people in whom I would increase it for my lifestyle, not acting to pollute much less seems extreme to me. The name for the emotion behind that motivation is love. I once read a book that suggested loving one's neighbor as oneself. I think it more than suggested it. I think it commanded it, but I guess people decided to let it slide or considered it unimportant. Or maybe they…

There's no two ways about it: Flying = Funding Lobbyists Not just lobbyists, fossil fuel lobbyists. Flying lines their pockets, along with the pockets of executives and shareholders of the fossil fuel-extracting companies that own them. It's 93F (34C) in Manhattan and not yet 11am. Congratulations to those who fly, buy plastic, and buy things needlessly shipped across oceans in container ships, like cars, fast fashion, and food that isn't local. Since I'm near NYU and its community often says we have to fix racism first, anyone who does those things promotes unsustainability and therefore imperialism, colonialism, and slavery. We know from history that slavery caused racism, as historian Eric Williams wrote in his book Capitalism and Slavery: Slavery was not born of racism: rather,…

I attended an event last week in which the organizers began with a land acknowledgment. I'd guess most of you have witnessed one, though maybe not all. According to Wikipedia: A land acknowledgement or territorial acknowledgement is a formal statement that acknowledges the original Indigenous Peoples of the land, spoken at the beginning of public events. The custom of land acknowledgement is a traditional practice that dates back centuries in many Indigenous cultures. As I understand, they are controversial. Again quoting Wikipedia: Land acknowledgements have been criticized by both conservatives, who have described them as excesses of political correctness, and by those on the political left, who have expressed concerns that land acknowledgements amount to empty gestures that avoid addressing the issues of Indigenous communities…