Nature

Many people point out how suffering from environmental problems like pollution and sea level rise correlate with skin color and ascribe the cause to racism. You don't have to look hard to see who lives in America's Cancer Alley and Sacrifice Zones and compare their skin colors against the largest shareholders and board members of the companies profiting from creating those areas, or the people displaced from their land to extract resources or dump garbage compared with the people who pay for the plane tickets and SUVs the resources power or buy the cell phones and disposable diapers dumped there. It seems plausible, but I agree with Eric Williams and Ibram Kendi that slavery caused racism, not that racism caused slavery. Hierarchies that allow one…

If you want to leave the world better than you found it, which will help you leave your legacy better: To inhale deeply on a cigarette and blow the smoke in a baby's face or To fly somewhere on vacation? Blowing smoke in a baby's face seems worse, doesn't it? I bet none of you would do it. But flying hurts more babies more grievously. It pollutes billions times more. It displaces people (and wildlife) from their land. Funding it will fund more extraction. Flying homogenizes once-diverse world cultures. It separates families and tears communities apart in the name of bringing people together. The list goes on. I picked flying, but I could have said buy an SUV, set the temperature above around 68F (20C)…

Have you read many of the responses to my Ars Technica article, I disconnected from the electric grid for 8 months—in Manhattan? Many push back about what I shared and I'm learning from them. Not that they differ from many online forums, but I noticed a few trends. Many of the responses object to things I didn't say, even putting in quotation marks things I didn't say. Many assign me intent I didn't imply and don't have. Some said things I did were easier for me so they couldn't do them while others said things I did were hard so they couldn't do them. Nearly no one picked up on my goal to be a role model, ideally to prompt some people to say "You…

I can't believe how many people parrot things like "It's the journey, not the destination" and then consider any travel not involving flying as beneath them. Do you believe what you say or not? Why not live it? In my experience, the journey is more important.

Talk about acting sustainably enough and some smarty-pants will tell you that individual action doesn't matter, that BP duped you by creating the personal footprint calculator to distract you from them. If you haven't heard, here are a few articles and posts for reference, but I wouldn't read them: BP popularised “carbon footprint” to greenwash and guilt-trip. Here’s how. Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed. Keep them on the hook Demystifying the concept of personal carbon footprint Those articles talk about how the companies are the problem. They should change. We're not the problem. They say we need big changes, not little ones one person at a time. People like this then avoid reducing their pollution. Way to teach BP…

The title says it all. Hit a piano with a sledgehammer and you'll get some noise. You can call it music if you want, but I prefer to play scales. I start with a mindset shift then follow with a lifelong process of continual improvement, the Spodek Method. We overestimate what we can do in a day and underestimate what we can in a year. That's how you reach Carnegie Hall and it's how we could, as a culture, reach sustainability. I was invited to another conference on sustainability. People were flying from all over the world to attend. Why should anyone listen to you suggest we pollute less if you don't listen to yourself? If you think life is that much worse living sustainably,…

I wish I could put into words how delicious this squash is. Most people seem to think of squash as something you have to cook, but they taste sweet and delicious raw. As you can see, I dice them to put on cereal like any other fruit. One thing making this one so special is that it was given to me from the crew who grew it at Drew Gardens in the Bronx. Everyone tells me people who don't live where I do or look like I do can't do exactly what they're doing. Luckily nobody told them they're powerless. It seems mostly rich, polluting people tell me that nonsense. I don't think even they believe themselves. They just want to sleep better, claiming others…

A reader wrote: You said that wind and solar " are not clean, green or sustainable". I am surprised, they seem to be better than the alternatives. What is the reason they are not sustainable? The short answer: The mining required will destroy and pollute ecosystems (and displace people from their homes, plus we can't seem to mine without sending children in them, which I consider inhumane) Solar and wind require fossil fuels to manufacture, transport, install, and decommission They need to be replaced every 20 years, so their problems persist Their end-of-life materials pollute The long answer is in articles like these: The Dark Side of Congo’s Cobalt Rush The Hard Math of Minerals by podcast guest Mark Mills. Why mining to make renewables…