Think of something you do that pollutes, but you do it anyway. You’ve justified why it’s okay. You’re balancing you desire to do good or whatever on one side with something on the other. Actually, think of all the things you do that pollute, if you can. You’ve justified all of them. At least you do in the moment you do them. Maybe you fly to visit relatives, buy takeout,[…] Keep reading →

The biggest challenge to sustainability isn’t a lack of solar panels or carbon taxes. They result from our behavior, which results from our beliefs and culture. Among the biggest challenges is changing those beliefs. To change them, we have to identify them. I think we know they aren’t supposed to be true, just satisfy our consciences enough to let us sleep at night, that I can call them lies. We[…] Keep reading →

In a podcast post last week where I shared how history, anthropology, and archaeology contradict many of our views that we are living in the best times. This view leads us to think, “we may have pollution, but at least we live better than any time before,” which leads us to fear reducing our consumption, which leads nearly everyone to focus on increasing solar, wind, and nuclear first, reducing fossil[…] Keep reading →

We look up to historical figures who opposed great atrocities of the past, especially helping people who couldn’t help themselves, which we consider on a different level than just helping ourselves, or at least I do. For example: Oskar Schindler Dietrich Bonhoeffer Frederick Douglass Thomas Clarkson William Wilberforce William Lloyd Garrison History shows that most people don’t help others in difficult times. For every one Oskar Schindler, maybe millions of[…] Keep reading →

People who don’t understand systems love small efficiency gains. They say how it benefits all to make technology available to everyone. When your system produces outcomes you don’t want, improving and growing it get you more unwanted outcomes. You may then try that strategy again, accelerating creating unwanted outcomes. We’re making things available to the poor that impoverish them. Then we do it more. The diagram below is an early[…] Keep reading →

You’ve heard my conversations with award-winning authors, scholars, and other experts on slavery. With a couple I’ve talked about the connection between that system and ours. Most of the time, I’ve thought of the connection as an analogy. For a while, I’ve seen the connection as closer. Andrew Hoffman, University of Michigan professor in its business school and its School of Natural Resources and Environment, wrote of his discovering the[…] Keep reading →

I’ll start with a liberal inconsistency relevant to sustainability, not that they monopolize them or are the most egregious, but I have to start somewhere. Mention anything related to my environmental footprint or personal action to many liberals and I’d better prepare for them to lecture me on how BP publicized the concept to deflect blame from them to individuals, or some similar reason why their or my actions don’t[…] 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 →

Why bother with individual action if it alone doesn’t change systems? The ignorance behind that question astounds me. I’ll put the question in parallel, equally ignorant forms: Why bother changing your baby’s diaper if it doesn’t solve infant mortality? Why take the first step of a marathon if it doesn’t take you across the finish line? Why eat healthy or exercise if it doesn’t solve obesity, diabetes, and heart disease?[…] Keep reading →