Pollution hurts people. I polluted less in the past four or five months than ever before. Not polluting connects with people and cultures. Why don’t we try more? Here’s the bill: What my sustainability leadership will lead to If you think what I’m doing is pointless or won’t add up, you don’t know how leadership works. At the very least, some people will think “You can do that? I want[…] Keep reading →

I meant to post yesterday that it began my second year with the fridge unplugged, but I forgot because as unbelievable as it felt to make it more than a few days the first time, it just takes practice. All humans lived without refrigerators for 300,000 years until about a hundred years ago. Then we became entitled, dependent, and obese. It turns out what made it work most was relying[…] Keep reading →

For context, I’m talking about myself before my sustainability experiments as much as anyone. I’ve concluded that someone trying to lead people to live sustainably when they haven’t seriously tried themselves doesn’t know the joys, physical challenges, (more importantly) emotional challenges, social challenges (people create more challenges than you’d expect), hopes, discoveries, and so on. I see them like someone reading a book on music theory trying to teach piano,[…] Keep reading →

At noon Saturday, October 8th, I’ll lead my next workshop on sustainable living at one of my favorite spots in New York City: Drew Community Garden, on the Bronx River, in the middle of an underserved neighborhood. I compare Drew Garden with Central Park with how much I like the space, in some ways favorable because it’s maintained by a few people in the community and every part of it[…] Keep reading →

Today began month 5 disconnected from the grid, one of my life’s most educational and rewarding experiences. I didn’t know how I’d make more than two days. My goal was one month. I had no idea I’d make it this far, nor how much it would connect me with traditional cultures and reveal our culture’s entitlement, addiction, resignation, abdication, capitulation, and ignorance of how much of life we’ve numbed ourselves[…] Keep reading →

My second article in the prestigious Leader to Leader Journal just appeared. It’s peer-reviewed and edited, so if you’re used to reading me hear, it should be a step up in quality. The article is We Who Choose to Lead Are Humanity’s Best Hope to Save Civilization. Sustainability lacks leadership. It has plenty of people sharing information, numbers, and instructions, or what I call CCCSC, short for coercing, cajoling, convincing,[…] Keep reading →

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 →

I met Larry and Mike, who run Manopause and its podcast, through guest Mark Victor Hansen, and we hit it off. Maybe because Manopause targets people like me: men in their 50s and older, though around a third of their readers are women. I had just started my experiment disconnecting from the electric grid. They saw the leadership part, not just my personal experiment, and had to bring me on[…] Keep reading →

I got my latest Con Ed bill, for August. For many people August is their highest bill, from air conditioning. Well, mine is zero kilowatt-hours for the third month in a row. Today is day 110, about 108 days longer than I thought possible before starting. You probably think you couldn’t do it. I thought I couldn’t either, until I did. Instead, this is Freedom: not hurting people. What else[…] Keep reading →