Pollution and Depletion

Hosting a top-ranked podcast with the word "sustainable" in the title means being sent pre-releases of books, documentaries, and other media. Most don't match with my focus, but some do. Often a book or author looks interesting and I research them. Lately I was sent a pre-release of Bad Energy: The AI Hucksters, Rogue Lithium Extractors, and Wind Industrialists Who Are Selling Off Our Future, by Joshua Frank. I didn't know the author so I looked him up and found his book Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America, about the Hanford nuclear site in Washington State. Have you heard of Hanford? I hadn't, so I looked it up. I'll quote what seems a source without a strong bias on…

People call my attempt to pollute and deplete less "extreme." Let's consider the view behind this defense that to me feels like an attack. It comes from people living in a culture that induces us to act against our values. Most of us can't eat breakfast without hurting others, for example by funding production that funds fossil fuel extraction for the plastic and transport if you eat packaged food. I feel it too, though less for having acted I felt the personal responsibility that first week over a decade ago when I avoided packaged food and saw the shelf where I normally started shopping at the local market. I couldn't see actual food, only boxes, bags, jars, and cans. For all my advanced degrees and…

I don't like buying things that pollute and deplete. Other than food and building maintenance, I try to keep track of things I buy that are material or cause polluting and depleting. I haven't kept track of subway and bus fares, but I ride them a couple times a month. April 16: Yesterday I bought an envelope to send a tax form. It cost fifty cents plus four cents tax. I gave them sixty cents and let them keep the change. I probably could have bought a box of fifty for a not much more, but I rarely use envelopes. I bought a round-trip ticket on Amtrak to Harrisburg, where I'm leading a leadership talk today. To get from Harrisburg to the conference center, I'm…

Living in Greenwich Village means receiving tons of mailings from democratic politicians. For years I've contacted people and companies that spam me with paper mail. I've gotten it to near zero, except political mail. Any time there's an election, they send me tons of their polluting, depleting mailings, unsolicited, unwanted. I don't know how to stop it because it's different people each time. Here are a few pieces of pollution from my mailbox yesterday. Similar amounts have been showing up for years, none solicited. It's tempting to say it's just a piece of paper here and there. They chose to pollute and deplete. They are in their behavior opposing sustainability. They are exposing the actual problem: they feel what they are doing is worth the…