Pollution and Depletion

What’s with toothpaste globs in sinks and pointless hot water use?

Habits / Hands on Practical Experience / Nonjudgment / Pollution and Depletion

What’s with toothpaste globs in sinks and pointless hot water use?

Living in New York City means eventually many people will pass through my neighborhood so I host people for visits in my home a fair amount. Though I spend most of my time here and visitors average maybe a few hours a week, I think they cause more pollution and depletion in my apartment than I do. One big reason is that they use hot water for everything and heating water uses more energy than many things. How do I know? My faucet knobs are always to the right because I use only unheated water to cook, drink, brush my teeth with, and so on, but whenever someone visits, I find the knobs in the middle or hot end. Why does everyone---everyone---use warm or hot…

April 3, 2026

Unearned Power

Nature / Pollution and Depletion

Unearned Power

After chopping down half a continent's forests, coal must have seemed like manna from heaven, and later oil, gas, and uranium. Bounty of nature. But you could see why they'd love it. It rewarded people for being smart, for being clever, and most of all for helping others. It enabled people to cross distances faster than ever, to build taller and stronger, to warm the cold, to cool the hot, and so on. I suspect that even as early as the beginning, say soon after Watt's steam engine around 1776, some may have already started suspecting that it might have been too good to be true. At first I doubt anyone couldn't see any meaningful problems. Sure, there was smoke in the air that was…

April 1, 2026

Did Paul Ehrlich Help or Hurt His Cause?

Awareness / Choosing/Decision-Making / Leadership / Nonjudgment / Pollution and Depletion

Did Paul Ehrlich Help or Hurt His Cause?

Paul Ehrlich died two weeks ago. I read The Population Bomb a while ago and heard him speak in many interviews. I recently listened again to a few recordings of his and read a few articles of him. In each he was speaking to people who liked him and agreed with him so he spoke freely. In each he called people who disagreed with him "idiots" or something like "people who can't count to twenty without taking their shoes off." He wasn't perfect. Nobody is, but though he acknowledged he was wrong on some points, he didn't take responsibility for mistakes. He just said that he would be right in the long run. He didn't acknowledge that he didn't take huge factors that would affect…

March 25, 2026

Year 11, day 1 no flying

Addiction / Hands on Practical Experience / Nature / Pollution and Depletion

Year 11, day 1 no flying

I attended an event in midtown by Trump Plaza in midtown over the weekend. A friend who is very liberal said how uncomfortable the space made her feel. She also mentioned how she just got back from Mexico and planned to return there, as well as New Orleans, in the next few months. I didn't point out to her how much of the cost of her plane tickets is funding the lobbyists and industries that are driving the US government she is so uncomfortable with. I did start to speculate if there were places that made me uncomfortable. I thought about airports. It hit me that I've only been inside an airport once in the past ten years. A few years ago I met a…

March 24, 2026

Would you have acted in the gravest historical times?

Choosing/Decision-Making / Pollution and Depletion

Would you have acted in the gravest historical times?

People consistently say they don't do what they believe is right regarding pollution and depletion because it won't change the system. I point out that independent of what anyone else does, their personal pollution and depletion will hurt people who have not consented. They rarely even minimally decrease their pollution and depletion. I'm curious what people think they would have done under slavery, the Holocaust, Stalinism, or other dominance hierarchy. If you found yourself magically transported to being in the group that owned slaves in a slave culture---say to become a plantation owner in the US South---would you have freed your slaves even if you knew that nobody else would and your actions wouldn't change the system, but you would reduce the suffering of the…

March 21, 2026

Environmentalists argue against sustainability with me

Pollution and Depletion

Environmentalists argue against sustainability with me

I recently met with an environmentalist. The name isn't important, but this person founded an organization devoted to justice around climate. The person and organization are highly regarded in their fields. Our conversation followed a common pattern. This person is pursuing standard practices of legislation, market incentives, and innovation to promote things like more scientific research, innovating efficiency and new legislation, but most of all, a transition to "renewable" energy. When I talked about ending pollution and depletion, this person balked at what seemed to them impractical and undesirable: "how would we feed eight billion people without electricity?" and "But I have relatives on the opposite coast. How will I see them?" I suggested that we would all enjoy more freedom. The response: "I want…

March 20, 2026

TYMCALM: Common and Advanced Legitimizing Myths around polluting and depleting

Addiction / Awareness / Choosing/Decision-Making / Pollution and Depletion

TYMCALM: Common and Advanced Legitimizing Myths around polluting and depleting

This post shares a long series of legitimizing myths. Why cover these beliefs so comprehensively? Recall the response of a wise person who was asked, “If you had one hour to save the world, how would you spend it?” The reply: "I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and 5 minutes solving it.” Another wise person said, “If I had 4 hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first 3 hours sharpening the ax.” This post is about understanding the problem and sharpening the ax. If you've thought any of the following, the thoughts may have felt personal, but they likely resulted from your having been induced to act against your values—that is, from being corrupted. You don't have to create legitimizing…

March 18, 2026

That’s Your Mind Creating A Legitimizing Myth (TYMCALM)

Addiction / Awareness / Choosing/Decision-Making / Pollution and Depletion

That’s Your Mind Creating A Legitimizing Myth (TYMCALM)

I may update the acronym, but I've created one for my upcoming book that I've found relevant to many people's views on pollution, depletion, and the prospect of life and culture without either. I've found useful the acronym TYMCALM (pronounced: Tim-calm, for “That's Your Mind Creating A Legitimizing Myth”) useful for when people respond reflexively to rationalize or justify a behavior that violates their values. For example, when I say that I haven't flown since 2016, people often respond that I must not have family flying-distance away, or (outrageously) that I must not love them, or that must not have had to fly for my income. Now I think, “TYMCALM.” I don't begrudge them for their minds working the way human minds work. That the…

March 17, 2026

Denial like ours

Awareness / Pollution and Depletion

Denial like ours

When I talk about pollution and depletion, people keep telling me about their reductions. They are invariably among the greatest polluters and depleters in humanity's existence, but they compost their food scraps, avoid meat, or some feel-good minor act. When they talk, it sounds like they're making a big difference. When you ask about it making a difference, if they see a path to making a difference, or if they are actually trying to avoid hurting people without their consent, they get defensive. They act like they're clutching their pearls: "Oh my goodness! Do you mean to tell me that my plastic cup actually ends up in the ocean? That can't be. My pollution doesn't actually pollute." They act as if ignorant of their complicity…

March 14, 2026

The last Christmas Pagan Tree of the season?

Nature / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

The last Christmas Pagan Tree of the season?

I just posted The first warm day of the year means overflowing doof garbage, of course, which showed how Americans celebrate spring: polluting and depleting, funding the production of garbage, and driving themselves to obesity. We also celebrate winter by killing trees. I hope the picture below is the last Christmas Pagan tree of the season. It goes to show you how many trees we kill in our pagan rituals that we now practice, merged with Christian ones. Then it was wrapped in plastic, gratuitously, as if pine trees were toxic or dangerous, but the car behind it or garbage below it are safe. It's sickening, literally and figuratively. It's also American in 2026.

March 10, 2026

The first warm day of the year means overflowing doof garbage, of course

Doof / Fitness / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

The first warm day of the year means overflowing doof garbage, of course

Sunday was the first warm day of the year. It was shorts weather. Do we celebrate the abundance of nature? No, that's not today's American values. What are today's American values? You can tell by our behavior. We buy doof, not food. We don't prepare it. We buy it pre-prepared, which means overloaded with salt, sugar, and fat, then packaged. We don't even eat fresh fruit on its own. We eat non-fresh fruit pre-chopped and assembled into plastic containers. Want proof? When I went to Washington Square Park for my sidcha to pick up at least three pieces of litter from the northwest corner, every trash can was beyond full. People weren't satisfied to fill the cans. They dumped doof packaging trash all around the…

March 10, 2026

The United States situation regarding pollution and depletion

Freedom / Nonjudgment / Pollution and Depletion

The United States situation regarding pollution and depletion

We are living in the wake of the corruption of otherwise great people, in particular George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, as well as their peers. They risked their lives to promote liberty, freedom, equality, democracy, and national security. They claimed those values were universal but defended them for themselves and their peers only. Their corruption was not to extend them to their slaves. The legacy of their corruption follows a direct line to John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis, then to Margaret Sanger, Henry Ford, and Ford's dear friend Adolph Hitler, through to today's persistent, enduring racism and greatest risks to national and global security. Still, I don't blame them. They didn't ask to be born into a slave culture. They couldn't help…

March 9, 2026

The last Christmas Pagan Trees of the season?

Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

The last Christmas Pagan Trees of the season?

It's March and people pay to chop down so many trees, I've seen them thrown out this month. I think I've seen the last for the season so I'll post the last images of them. I'll copy text from previous posts so people see I'm defending, not attacking, tradition. It's sad how garbage-y they look. This long after Christmas, I think people have lost interest in connecting the trees with life. Anyway, the text for context: Every year, I take pictures of how people trash their trees. I find the waste and death tragic and the images of something that was supposed to celebrate life become garbage. This season, I started seeing trees trashed before Christmas: Ten days before Christmas people are already throwing away…

March 6, 2026

We celebrate in garbage: Chinese New Year version

Pollution and Depletion

We celebrate in garbage: Chinese New Year version

I was in Chinatown for the Chinese New Year celebrations scheduled today. Some traditions may go back hundreds or even thousands of years, but plastic pollution doesn't. Vendors sold these factory-produced tubes that launched plastic confetti into the air. That is, that polluted. The confetti lingered in the air for a few seconds. The plastic will pollute the environment for millennia. Parents buy these polluting tubes for kids, who learn to pay to pollute and associate it with fun or some cultural traditions that plastic pollution has nothing to do with. We have become a society where we celebrate in garbage. It's tempting to think, "Oh but it's fun! Josh, don't be such a spoil sport." People were having no more fun with these polluting…

February 28, 2026

More heartbreaking garbage

Addiction / Doof / Habits / Nature / Pollution and Depletion / SIDCHAs

More heartbreaking garbage

In Monday's post, Today's blizzard, February 2026, I wrote how the blizzard led to another day when I could find no litter in Washington Square Park. As usual, even with over a foot of snow, I found plenty of litter and garbage elsewhere, but at least not in the park, which is like my back yard. That post shows several beautiful pictures of my neighborhood covered in virginal snow. In that post, I also wrote something that breaks my heart that a lifetime of experience prompts me to express, and with confidence: I didn't see any litter in the park this morning so I'm one day into a potential release, but tomorrow is forecast to be sunny and Tuesday is forecast to be warm, so…

February 25, 2026

If you wait to solve all the challenges of zero pollution and depletion before starting, we’ll never start. If we start, we’ll solve the problems.

Hands on Practical Experience / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

If you wait to solve all the challenges of zero pollution and depletion before starting, we’ll never start. If we start, we’ll solve the problems.

People dream that we'll figure out how to keep our world as it is, just without pollution and depletion. We'll just create new technology that does what existing technology does, but it will be "clean," "green," and "renewable." Well, shoot, why didn't people think of making technology that didn't hurt people in the first place? What jerks, not making things "clean," "green," and "renewable." Oh wait, maybe it's not possible to replicate the results of technology that violates the Constitution (by depriving people of life, liberty, and property without due process of law) with technology that doesn't. Maybe we're dreaming of an impossible fantasy. Even if it is possible to fly, drive, and ship thousands of shipping containers per load across oceans without violating the…

February 21, 2026

A rat and plastic in Washington Square Park, of the many due to garbage and litter

Nature / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

A rat and plastic in Washington Square Park, of the many due to garbage and litter

I don't have anything against rats, but they represent a loss of biodiversity and a failure of our society. They thrive on our waste. This island used to be covered with countless species of mammals, birds, and probably reptiles and amphibians, on top of plants and fungi. Now we have mostly rats. No beavers, coyotes, bears, egrets, swans, butterflies, and what used to live here, plus fish, mollusks, dolphins, and everything in the water and air. Walk through Washington Square Park on any night now and you'll see countless rats running around. Also mice, pigeons, and roaches. In the recent snow, you can see the holes they dig in the snow. I took the pictures and video below before the big recent snowfall. This rat…

February 11, 2026

On open email on Scott Galloway’s “Resist and Unsubscribe” initiative

Addiction / Choosing/Decision-Making / Pollution and Depletion

On open email on Scott Galloway’s “Resist and Unsubscribe” initiative

A friend of mine who is also friends with Scott Galloway emailed me about Galloway's initiative to influence politics by changing consumer behavior. The initiative aims to lead people to stop doing business with companies that influence politics he and his followers disagree with. Context Galloway calls it "Resist and Unsubscribe." Our mutual friend's email included screen shots of his cancelling his accounts with Amazon, X, and ChatGPT. He included his strongly-worded statements for why: their support for actions he despised. Years ago, I spoke to this mutual friend about reducing support for pollution and depletion. He flies a lot. He responded that flying only contributes a few percent to global carbon emissions. I left it there, since I felt like I was in Monticello…

February 7, 2026

Two months of Christmas pagan trees, hundreds of trees, thrown away

Nature / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

Two months of Christmas pagan trees, hundreds of trees, thrown away

Here is a video showing a bunch of trees people bought to celebrate the birth of their lord and savior, in a tradition unrelated to that birth, borrowed from paganism. Instead of celebrating birth, they are actual death. Apparently people believe we have too many trees and forests. I love tradition. We don't keep alive every tradition ever. People used to practice infanticide. Should we keep practicing it for tradition? We can create new traditions or, for that matter, restore ones from before Christians borrowed pagan ones. They mulched all those trees before a second load formed. Here's what it looked like between. Here's a second load: Those trees were just the ones people took the time and effort to be mulched. Here are about…

February 6, 2026

Criticism of Lomborg: The Lomborg Deception and other challenges

Nature / Pollution and Depletion

Criticism of Lomborg: The Lomborg Deception and other challenges

I finished a few papers, books, and videos by Bjorn Lomborg lately, as well as books that refer to or rely on his work, like Superabundance and The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. I follow up most books and movies I finish and find meaningful by reading and watching reviews, commentaries, criticisms (positive, negative, and other), and more. My criticism of Lomborg's work stands independent of the accuracy of his claims. That is, even if everything he writes is accurate, I think it misunderstands the problem. My upcoming book presents my view. Sorry to make you wait for it (initial responses from readers are positive, but they're friends and colleagues so may be biased, though since I'm asking for what I should fix, they know…

January 29, 2026

Another time garbage nearly brought me to tears

Addiction / Doof / Habits / Pollution and Depletion / SIDCHAs

Another time garbage nearly brought me to tears

Two days ago I posted My first time since starting not finding litter in Washington Square Park, because over six inches of snow covered it. Since I committed to picking up at least three pieces per day until three days pass when I can't find three pieces to pick up, I wondered if the snow would make it possible. I also offered to take any bets that people would litter. Nearly everyone is addicted to doof. Few Americans can eat breakfast without depriving others of life, liberty, and property based on plastic, shipping, etc that pollute and deplete. Then yesterday I happened to go early in the morning. It was still snowing and I saw no litter again. Two days. Maybe I shouldn't have offered…

January 27, 2026

My first time since starting not finding litter in Washington Square Park, because over six inches of snow covered it.

Addiction / Doof / Habits / Pollution and Depletion / SIDCHAs

My first time since starting not finding litter in Washington Square Park, because over six inches of snow covered it.

I've committed to picking up at least three pieces of litter from the northwest corner of Washington Square Park since it became overrun with fentanyl, meth, and all that results from it during the pandemic. I decided I'd keep up the sidcha until three days passed in which I couldn't trivially find three pieces of litter, as I wrote three years ago in On when I should stop picking up litter in Washington Square Park. I wish I could believe that outcome should be easy. No litter is necessary. Yet in about five years, I've never been unable to find three pieces trivially. We should collectively cry. Today, over six inches of snow have fallen, covering the ground and making the benches not places anyone…

January 25, 2026

The Coldest Day of the Year

Hands on Practical Experience / Nature / Pollution and Depletion

The Coldest Day of the Year

The choice to avoid depriving others of life, liberty, and property without due process of law, even though our government is not enforcing our Constitution, means choosing to pollute and deplete less, which means being more connected to nature and its rhythms. Winter is colder and darker than the rest of the year. The earth's tilt makes it straightforward to know the darkest day of the year: the solstice, December 21. The coldest day of the year comes later. I found a couple reports that it's around now. The map on this page from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Interactive map: Coldest day of the year across the United States, shows that for Central Park, the coldest day of the year was yesterday,…

January 25, 2026

Heating the outdoors, pure deadweight loss

Pollution and Depletion

Heating the outdoors, pure deadweight loss

I learned the concept of deadweight loss in economics class in business school. From Wikipedia: In economics, deadweight loss is the loss of societal economic welfare due to production/consumption of a good at a quantity where marginal benefit (to society) does not equal marginal cost (to society). Here is a picture of the outside of a bar like probably hundreds of bars and restaurants in New York City and likely thousands across the country. Note what look like glowing red lights. They aren't lights. They're heat lamps. Now note the empty tables beneath them. These lamps are heating the outdoors where nobody is. They are simply burning fossil fuels, polluting and depleting, for no benefit to anyone. As far as I can tell, nobody seems…

January 24, 2026

Sustainability basics almost everyone gets backward, twisting them up inside.

Awareness / Hands on Practical Experience / My Favorite Posts / Nature / Perception / Pollution and Depletion

Sustainability basics almost everyone gets backward, twisting them up inside.

Things I've learned from experience: Apples taste sweeter than Ben and Jerry's, though not at first. Broccoli tastes better than Doritos, though not at first. Exercise feels better than heroin, though not at first. Not flying connects you with family more than flying, though not at first. Eating only local foods in season gives you more variety and connects you to more cuisines than foods flown in from anywhere, though not at first. Not flying teaches you more about other cultures and connects you with them than flying, though not at first. More electric cars pollute more than fewer cars, though not at first. More solar, wind, nuclear, and fusion doesn't mean less fossil fuels burned. Making a polluting system more efficient makes it pollute…

January 18, 2022

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