I’ve written about taking several courses at the Leadership Institute. Conservatism 101 recommended a lot of historical videos to augment their lectures. Though I finished the course a while ago, I took a while to finish the videos. If interested, here they are. I didn’t grow up learning these views. Adults around me during my childhood seemed to view, say, Phyllis Schlafly, as weird and devious: why would a woman[…] Keep reading →

Most Americans and residents of industrialized countries do many things daily that hurt other people through the environment. They act and talk as if they don’t know their Starbucks cup has anything to do with ocean plastic, but they know it. How do I know they know? Because they get defensive (or offensive) when someone brings it up. If I tell people I like oatmeal for breakfast, no one gets[…] Keep reading →

Researching more for my upcoming book and planning to write opinion pieces, I’m learning more limited government, free market thought and practice relevant to sustainability and the environment. It’s relevant beyond anything I expected. If only people asked questions of people they disagreed with and listened to their answers in 2024 as much as they tried to convince and defeat, we’d have solved a lot of problems where we mutually[…] Keep reading →

Over and over I meet people who say they care about the environment and people affected by human impact on the environment . . . yet they refuse to acknowledge their impact. Still they complain how somehow others don’t care, even as their own impact is as great. What does it mean to care if your actions achieve the opposite of caring. What does you saying you care matter to[…] Keep reading →

The first result on a search on bp carbon footprint was a Guardian opinion piece Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed. Keep them on the hook which linked to a piece in Mashsable The carbon footprint sham: A ‘successful, deceptive’ PR campaign. That piece begins: In a dark TV ad aired in 1971, a jerk tosses a bag of trash from a moving car. The[…] Keep reading →

It’s tempting to point out flaws of people like Thomas Jefferson, who spoke eloquently about freedom but didn’t practice it in his own life as a slaveholder and racist, to discredit them. George Washington only freed his slaves in his will, not while he lived. Gandhi did odd things regarding his chastity, like sleeping naked with young girls. Mother Teresa let helpless people suffer she could have helped and called[…] Keep reading →

I forget what led me to learn the acronym DARVO (see below for definition and more), but it sounded like how people respond to sustainability talk. I read a few articles and watched a few videos on it (also below). They mostly talk about it as something narcissists do, though Wikipedia says “perpetrators of wrongdoing” do it, so not surprising that I see it in polluters. Identifying the pattern and[…] Keep reading →

I’ve held back on posting this discovery since I think people might confuse it with boredom or having nothing better to do and I didn’t want to be judged, but as I’ve cut out more media, I’ve found it enjoyable, relaxing, and rewarding just to think . . . to ponder, consider, reflect, introspect, daydream, and such. I mean something different than meditating. I meditate too, as one of my[…] Keep reading →

Cleaning out my father’s basement, I found my junior high school yearbook. Not really a yearbook, but a book with pictures of each class. Here’s my class: Can you tell which one is me? Is it hard to tell? I can’t tell you how often people have told me I don’t know what it’s like to live as a minority. This year wasn’t my only such year. Here is the[…] Keep reading →