Nature

They chopped down the only two apple trees in a local park

They chopped down the only two apple trees in a local park

The building with the clock tower in the picture below is my local public library. The iron fence behind the guy in the white hat encloses a park behind the library. It had two crab apple trees in it. As far as I could tell, nobody else knew it produced crab apples. The branches were higher than you could reach or even see the crab apples since they were the size of grapes. Still, the fruit would drop to the ground in the fall. Little yellow crab apples would cover the ground. I would collect them and eat them. I suspect most Americans wouldn't like them because of their tang, but I found them plenty sweet. A few months ago I noticed one of the…

December 15, 2025

The number of levels of failures in society that litter reveals. Abysmal.

The number of levels of failures in society that litter reveals. Abysmal.

This photograph shows a guy employed by a local "business improvement district" to pick up litter, the "BID" on the gray trash bag and his coat/uniform show. How do we reach this level of failure? In principle we shouldn't litter. For that matter, with all the talk about circular economies and reaching "net zero," shouldn't we not produce goods that could become litter? Doesn't New York City have a sanitation department? Let's look at the number of failures of people violating their values, policy, and so on that we reach a private organization picking up litter. People aren't using trash cans The sanitation department isn't cleaning litter. On the contrary, it motivates people creating waste since we paid for it to be cleaned The Business…

December 12, 2025

Specious, deceptive, irrelevant claims on climate

Specious, deceptive, irrelevant claims on climate

I see these plots a fair amount from people on the right. They come from Bjorn Lomborg. They're a straw man and a distraction. Global warming is a problem, but it's one of many. As I've written, I recommend Only specify fixing climate and carbon if you want to wreck everything else (forests, biodiversity, rivers, etc) because that happens when you do. There are other places where our behavior mediated through the environment is killing people by the tens of millions. For example, as I wrote in Why I work on sustainability leadership here and now despite other things I could do instead: The Lancet, one of the most respected medical journals, reports that nine million people have died per year from breathing polluted air…

December 9, 2025

The New York Times on population

Nature / Visualization

The New York Times on population

I just found this opinion piece in the New York Times from 2023: The World’s Population May Peak in Your Lifetime. What Happens Next? It starts: The global human population has been climbing for the past two centuries. But what is normal for all of us alive today — growing up while the world is growing rapidly — may be a blip in human history. Children born today will very likely live to see the end of global population growth. A baby born this year will be 60 in the 2080s, when demographers at the U.N. expect the size of humanity to peak. The Wittgenstein Center for Demography and Global Human Capital in Vienna places the peak in the 2070s. The Institute for Health Metrics…

December 3, 2025

One month to the winter solstice

Hands on Practical Experience / Nature

One month to the winter solstice

The winter solstice is in one month. During the summer if I need to charge, I can go to the roof any time from around 8am to 8pm, weather permitting. This time of year, the sun only rises high enough to charge from about 9am to maybe 3pm. It's cold. It's windier so I can't leave the panels alone because if the wind catches them, they blow like a sail. As usual, what I'm writing about here is love, not solar panels, the environment, the earth, or global warming, except that helping them comes as a side effect. I'm not climbing to the roof and standing in the cold for my health, for some abstract "environment," or to "save the planet." I may be solving…

November 21, 2025

When did yoga become so plastic?

Fitness / Nature

When did yoga become so plastic?

When did a 5,000-year-old practice to attain liberation and promote physical and emotional well-being come to hurt people for centuries, even millennia? Here's a definition of yoga I found online: Yoga : a Hindu theistic philosophy teaching the suppression of all activity of body, mind, and will in order that the self may realize its distinction from them and attain liberation : a system of physical postures, breathing techniques, and sometimes meditation derived from Yoga but often practiced independently especially in Western cultures to promote physical and emotional well-being Wikipedia says that traditional yoga focuses on meditation and release from worldly attachments. The practice dates back 5,000 years. Below is a picture of yoga pants. Nearly all yoga clothes are made of plastic---that is, petroleum…

November 18, 2025

More garbage insanity: collecting leaves and sending them to landfill

More garbage insanity: collecting leaves and sending them to landfill

In a decade of picking up litter daily I've seen about five other people picking up litter. I've seen many litter. Since buying packaged food supports what becomes litter, nearly everyone who buys packaged food or takeout, or shops online causes litter. In the park, I see tons of people bring packaged food then act as if it wasn't their fault when the wind blows their napkins away, they forget a cup or bottle when they leave, or some other way the cause litter. Despite nearly no one picking up litter, someone in my neighborhood took it upon themselves to collect leaves, which are healthy for the environment and life in general, from the sidewalk, wrap them in plastic bags that otherwise wouldn't have been…

November 17, 2025

Differences between environmentalists’ strategies and mine

Hands on Practical Experience / Leadership / Nature / Nonjudgment

Differences between environmentalists’ strategies and mine

I've been increasingly realizing and pointing out that I am not an environmentalist. I surprised myself to discover it. I had long felt misunderstood when people asked, “If you like nature so much, why don't you go to the woods live in nature?” It had long been obvious to me that we needed to change culture, not escape it, and New York is an influential cultural center. Then I checked and in 2014, shortly before my first experiment in acting sustainably of avoiding packaged food for a week, in a post in this blog entitled The Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the world we live in, I wrote, "The issue is not how other people think about us or trends. Polluting means hurting people. Dirty…

November 11, 2025

More gratuitous destruction of life, liberty, and property in my neighborhood

Freedom / Nature

More gratuitous destruction of life, liberty, and property in my neighborhood

Following up July's post on The social cost of gratuitous plunder and destruction of life, liberty, and property, here are more examples of people flouting the US Constitution's claim to protect citizens from being deprived of life, liberty, and property. Pollution and depletion aren't victimless crimes. They hurt everyone. Let's start with the venue I did the last post American Bar, again blasting the outdoors with air conditioning nobody benefits from but everyone pays for: Apollo Garbage Next, a bagel store that saves money for rent by not having places for people to sit indoors, sending them outside with too much packaging. Their bags and containers litter (literally) my whole neighborhood. They also save money by not collecting the waste they send out with people.…

November 7, 2025

Lincoln didn’t heal slaves’ wounds. He led their “owners” to stop owning them. I’m following Lincoln, and then some.

The United States Constitution

Freedom / Leadership / Nature

Lincoln didn’t heal slaves’ wounds. He led their “owners” to stop owning them. I’m following Lincoln, and then some.

Our environmental problems are symptoms. I won't fight people trying to protect and conserve nature, but the degradation of nature isn't the problem. Restoring an old growth forest doesn't change that billions of people are acting in ways to cut down whatever is restored. Many times I've described how the suffering and death we and our culture is causing is orders of magnitude times greater than slavery, so I won't hesitate describing what I'm doing in terms of slavery. Also, while I value nature, we have laws to protect people, not as much to protect nature. Many environmentalists point out that since we're all connected, protecting wildlife is protecting humans. It works the other way too: protecting humans means protecting wildlife, since protecting humans means…

October 31, 2025

A video tour of Drew Gardens, fall 2025

Nature / Visualization

A video tour of Drew Gardens, fall 2025

Today I posted about My fifth annual cooking workshop at Drew Gardens: pictures and video. I also made these two videos to show off Drew Gardens. I don't think I posted a walk-through before. Anyone wondering how much they can change a neighborhood will love these videos. For context, here is what Drew Gardens looked like before, barren and strewn with garbage. After looking at it, watch the videos. The first video is about three and a half minutes of me giving a more full tour. I start at the southern end, which abuts the Cross Bronx Expressway. You'd think that proximity would ruin a garden, and it probably did when all the land you'll see was bare of foliage and scattered with used tires…

October 27, 2025

My fifth annual cooking workshop at Drew Gardens: pictures and video

Doof / Education / Nature

My fifth annual cooking workshop at Drew Gardens: pictures and video

I love Drew Gardens' space and community. Every year I lead a workshop on cooking, though less now about low-cost, low-waste cooking. Now I focus on helping them create a food coop there. The city has some programs I consider "push," where they try to supply fresh, local produce to the community. Having grown up with parents who, because they struggled to make ends meet, started a family food buying club to save time and money while increasing quality, which folded into a coop, which helped even more, I see the potential for a "pull" effort. Starting a coop Starting a coop takes work, but it's a labor of love, and the Drew Gardens crew loves the work they do. Check out my other post…

October 27, 2025

How “helping” people with disposable goods, especially plastic, isn’t helping compared to reusable. It’s not hard to switch back.

Nature / Nonjudgment / Tips

How “helping” people with disposable goods, especially plastic, isn’t helping compared to reusable. It’s not hard to switch back.

Regular readers know I volunteer to deliver food that stores were going to throw away to groups that make it available for free to anyone who wants it, and sometimes to people directly, always for free. The context: free food distributed with disposable plastic One of the groups, Food Not Bombs, distributes food that many volunteers bring. They also distribute for free hot food that they cook. I believe all the food they cook is made from food that would have been thrown away, though maybe small ingredients like spices, salt, and oil might be bought. People who want the hot food get in line. When served, they are given the food in disposable containers in their choice of plastic or paper (lined with coating)…

October 25, 2025

If rivers and animals are people, then are no human people indigenous, only colonizers?

Nature / Nonjudgment

If rivers and animals are people, then are no human people indigenous, only colonizers?

I posted this question before in A paradoxical consequence of considering animals, plants, and rivers people, but wanted to pose the question more directly: If rivers and animals are people, then are no human people indigenous, only colonizers? That is, if we consider animals people, doesn't that they are indigenous and that humans who came into their territories are invading colonizers? I was reading about how humans crossed the Bering Strait, or at the time the Bering land bridge, then populated all of the Americas. To clarify, I'm not trying to prove anything in this post, nor to say "I'm just asking questions," then make a point with loaded questions, in the style of many media personalities. When I first heard the concept of making…

October 13, 2025

Artificial Intelligence pollutes and depletes. Using it won’t help sustainability.

Addiction / Doof / Nature

Artificial Intelligence pollutes and depletes. Using it won’t help sustainability.

I read an article, The Costs of the Cloud, by Ashley Dawson in the New York Review of Books and wanted to note for future reference how much artificial intelligence pollutes and depletes. When asked how they think AI will affect the environment, most people seem to respond to a different question: "Can you think of ways AI can help with the environment?" They're doing what I wrote about in my post Nearly everyone misses the danger of artificial intelligence we’re sleepwalking into. They don't ask if people extracting fossil fuels are using AI to further their goals, or their advertisers, lobbyists, scientists, engineers, and politicians. Or people who sell things that lead to more pollution and depletion, like fast fashion, travel, doof, and online…

October 9, 2025

Birds like playing on my solar panels (cute picture and video)

Nature / Visualization

Birds like playing on my solar panels (cute picture and video)

One day charging with solar in Washington Square Park, I saw a bunch of birds flapping around on the panels. I'm not sure if you can see them playing around in this picture. The video below partly captures their playfulness, but not as much as seeing them. They'd flap up onto the panel, then flap around up and down, solo, in pairs, and in groups. It was a warm day, otherwise I'd presume they were trying to use the warmth of the dark surface to heat themselves up. Adding to the mystery, I've brought the panels out probably hundreds of times and I'd never seen them doing it before or since. If any readers are birders and can tell what they were doing, I'd love…

October 3, 2025

Year five, day 2 no refrigerator. Did you know power companies promoted them to use more energy (not for health, safety, or flavor)?

Doof / Fitness / Freedom / Hands on Practical Experience / Nature

Year five, day 2 no refrigerator. Did you know power companies promoted them to use more energy (not for health, safety, or flavor)?

The first time I unplugged my fridge was December 2019. A few months later Covid hit and I lived outside the city a couple months. My fridge remained unplugged, but I don't count that time since I wasn't home. The next time I unplugged earlier in the year: November 2020, and made it six months or so before spring warm weather made keeping things fresh harder. The next year I started yet earlier: September 30, 2021. My goal was to make May, I think, but that May I unplugged the whole apartment so made it a year with the fridge unplugged and didn't see a reason to plug back in. Along the way, I learned from the book The Grid that fridges became widespread not…

October 2, 2025

If you build a home where it’s unlivable, on what grounds to you complain when you can’t live there?

Hands on Practical Experience / Nature

If you build a home where it’s unlivable, on what grounds to you complain when you can’t live there?

First and foremost: any preventable death is tragic. The goal of this post is to prevent deaths while making people's lives more safe, secure, and healthy. Any reading to the contrary misunderstands me. You've seen tragic headlines of people not surviving difficult environmental conditions. A couple recent ones from Phoenix include 'This should be a necessity': Hundreds in Phoenix area die at home without air conditioning and Lack of air conditioning in metro Phoenix can kill. These are the recent victims. Some quotes from the articles: On July 1, 2021, Louis Hernandez Jr. woke in a house already sweltering from the blazing summer heat. His air conditioner had failed the day before, and inside their Peoria home, he waited for the repairman to arrive. Outside,…

September 29, 2025

A paradoxical consequence of considering animals, plants, and rivers people

A paradoxical consequence of considering animals, plants, and rivers people

I've been reading an anti-colonialist pro-indigenous book. The author is very critical of colonists and those who do not honor the lands of indigenous people. The book doesn't mention the recent movement to consider animals, plants, and rivers people. I first considered it crazy, but we treat corporations as legal persons. If we do, does their being people mean the first people in an area are colonists, not indigenous? I think the answer seems clear, so I wonder how the author would treat the consideration. It would seem to mean the people the book treats as innocent are less innocent than presented. In this view, where could humans consider themselves non-invasive, if anywhere?

September 16, 2025

My annual bike ride upstate and lunch at the farm providing my CSA, then riding back by the Little Red Lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge

Fitness / Nature / Stories

My annual bike ride upstate and lunch at the farm providing my CSA, then riding back by the Little Red Lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge

I've written about Where to buy the best food around New York City and praised the system of CSAs and the incredible flavor, value, and convenience of the one I participate in from Stoneledge Farm. Every year they host a lunch and invite all subscribers. I think I've gone every year since I started, though they may have skipped a couple years during the pandemic. I forget. I don't take many pictures since I don't post to Instagram or social media. Here are a couple pictures from the farm: I have to post a picture of their cherry tomatoes: You can't tell from the picture, but their cherry tomatoes are the best I've tasted. They picked most of them to deliver in past weeks and…

September 13, 2025

835: At last! I can access my roof to charge solar for the first time in 18 months.

Hands on Practical Experience / Nature / Podcast

835: At last! I can access my roof to charge solar for the first time in 18 months.

This week, I charged my solar panel and battery on my roof for the first time for over 18 months. My building had to do maintenance during which no residents could access the roof. They told us the job would take 5 months, but it took over 18. They also didn't say exactly when it would start until one day I got an email that said I couldn't access the roof until they finished the job. What a relief! This episode shares some of my experiences. Some I liked, like that it helped me develop resilience, it saved me more money, it led to my food being fresher, and it led me to connect with people ranging from local residents to indigenous people around the…

September 11, 2025

Data on the two carbon cycles: Not even close

Nature / Visualization

Data on the two carbon cycles: Not even close

Emissions of greenhouse gases are measured and reported as major indications of environmental problems. Emissions aren't the relevant measure. They distract us from what is relevant to human well-being. They lead people to say, "I exhale and poop. Life requires pollution," and conclude action won't work. To be more precise, they feel like they conclude, they actually just rationalize and justify the preconception they wanted. They miss that fossil fuels' effects are locked in from the moment they enter the biosphere, well before they are burned and emit greenhouse gases. The relevant measure for fossil fuels is extraction. There are two types of pollution and depletion. I've written about the difference between emissions from the two processes in Know the 2 carbon cycles and don’t…

September 5, 2025

Another summer without air conditioning. What’s the problem?

Hands on Practical Experience / Nature / Perception

Another summer without air conditioning. What’s the problem?

I thought we'd have another day or two hitting 90 F (32 C), but the forecast for the next ten days shows the highest temperature will be 86 F, so I figure it won't hit 90 again this year. I didn't use air conditioning in my apartment for another summer. A few nights I woke up sweating in the middle of the night. I didn't write the number down, but I think it happened six times, maybe five, maybe seven. Whatever the number and however annoying in the moment, I didn't feel I suffered. I think many Americans consider sleeping in heat and humidity a fate worse than death, or nearly so, when the option to use an air conditioner exists. They know Oscar Schindler…

September 4, 2025

Why not compare trains to planes

Addiction / Nature

Why not compare trains to planes

I joined a group trying to find ways to fly less. One of the themes of the group was to show that "taking the train is just as good as flying." I found this approach counterproductive. It set flying as the norm and other ways of traveling as alternatives. I think some people saw flying as the best and other ways of traveling as trying to measure up as best they could though they could never measure up. Does anything tear family and communities apart more than flying? What meaning and value we think flying gives us, it takes away. Sure, it tends to take us farther distance, but does distance traveled deliver meaning and value? Many five-year-olds today have traveled more distance than Marco…

August 30, 2025

Heirloom tomatoes, a local pear tree, and a local fig tree

Nature / Visualization

Heirloom tomatoes, a local pear tree, and a local fig tree

I've written and recorded a bunch lately on the peaches and heirloom tomatoes I've been eating tons of lately because people don't take them. Here are those posts: Podcast episode: 834: Do Americans Know How to Prepare Food From Scratch? Blog post: When did you last prepare a full meal from scratch, not one packaged product? Blog post: More fresh juicy local peaches and heirloom tomatoes than I can handle, saved from waste by rich and poor alike I took a picture of the tomatoes so people could see how some are bruised and the skin broken. Maybe many people would find them unacceptable. In the picture below, the one in the upper left is pretty bruised, but didn't lose any flavor. The purple one…

August 29, 2025

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