Nature

I had to comment on two remarkable sights from the deep-sea sailing lesson I posted pictures from yesterday. The first was when I came back on deck after the sun had set all the way. I saw countless stars for the first time in years. From Manhattan, on a good night I can see a dozen stars through the chemical pollution lit from below by light pollution. Don't get me started on sound pollution in New York. I had forgotten what I had missed: unspeakable beauty that was once the birthright of everyone who could see. Today half of humanity lives in cities. I don't know how many are polluted more than New York, but I think it's safe to say that billions of people…

People measure their carbon footprints in tons of CO2 equivalents and their ecological footprints in similar ways. Those measures make sense because the suffering and early deaths we will cause other humans (and wildlife) occurs in proportion to the amount of greenhouse gases we emit. But I see another important measure. How much money do we contribute to extracting, polluting, and emitting. When we fill our gas tanks, pay for plastic things, and buy airplane tickets, we fund: Future extraction, pollution, and depletion Corrupting our government Advancing a culture of dependence and isolation through advertising, lobbying, and such Hurting people (and wildlife) and all the harmful results you know. How much do you fund polluting and depleting? Most people I ask say they spend a…

Since my TEDx talk in which I begin by talking about growing up near the best sledding hill in the world, each time I visit Philadelphia, I make a point of visiting it and taking pictures of it during different seasons. Maybe it just looks like any other park to everyone else, but it's incredibly beautiful to me. Near my mom's house in the "ghetto," as a neighbor described it, there was a hill we could sled on, but it ended in a brick wall and we got robbed there, so I valued this hill all the more. Here it is last month, at the height of the summer, lush and green.

When people who understand our environmental problems talk about population, they have to pussyfoot around the issue since other people will almost inevitably respond with some Twitter-like attempt to checkmate them by accusing them of racism, sexism, Nazism, or promoting eugenics, forced abortion, or government coercion. That knee-jerk association shows that person's ignorance more than anything useful. Nazis promoted economic growth and built autobahns (highways). Should we associate economic growth and highways with fascism? It's time we stop backpedaling and not feel compelled to take their ignorance seriously. More humans are alive today than Earth can sustain. Humans have managed our populations since before recorded history. We can do so today with compassion and without pain or unfairness. That's all there is to it. No…

People keep misunderstanding carbon offsets. It's simple when you see that there are two carbon cycles. Fuel we burn for jets comes from outside the biosphere. On any human timescale, it's new carbon. It adds to CO2, methane, and other greenhouse gases as well as ocean acidification and other environmental problems. Planting trees or anything short of putting carbon out of the biosphere for all human time scales just shuffles it around the biosphere. It will eventually make it into the atmosphere and oceans. We have no viable technology that can put carbon on any level relevant to solving the environmental problems it causes out of the biosphere for all human time scales. Maybe one day we will but today we don't. Therefore, an offset…

Today is a regular day working on the my building's roof, charging my battery. At this moment in the sky I count 5 helicopters, 4 planes, and zero birds. There are almost always more planes and helicopters in view than birds here. Should there be more birds or planes and helicopters? As for sound, I hear, as I always do, my building's heater/chiller for its heating and air conditioning making its loud motor noise. No matter how beautiful the weather, it's on 24/7/365. My fees help pay for it though I barely use. I also hear what I think is the elevator motor, which I also don't use. I hear from blocks away in multiple directions several sirens of police, ambulance, and fire trucks. I…

Is this image our culture in a nutshell: Sitting on a beach scrolling through social media of images of beaches, wishing we were there instead? IOW, not appreciating what we have, being led to consider it inadequate, being led to crave what we don't have, fear of missing out, missing nature around us, distracted by technology.