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 →

Check the calendar below. I count three days mostly sunny in the past 23 days. Everything else has been mostly cloudy to full on rain or snow. I’m still going up every day that isn’t raining. Many days not getting any power. I missed my first meeting today for not being able to plug in, but it worked out okay, I think for my explaining my situation. It was a[…] Keep reading →

Every time someone tells me they balance their behavior regarding the environment, guaranteed the next thing they say will concern only themselves. They want to help the environment but they want to live their life too. They want not to pollute but they can’t afford not to fly. They want to eat less meat but they want to stay healthy. For one thing, most of what they say doesn’t make[…] Keep reading →

We live in a culture that hurts innocent people by the tens of millions every year, a number that’s growing, and we claim we can’t do anything about it. We want to see our families flying-distance away. The only way to love and be with someone is not to fly when we know it displaces people from their homes, making them refugees, and poisoning their air, land, and water. Struggling[…] Keep reading →

Jane has been a guest on the podcast. I’ve been catching up on research on population and overpopulation and wanted to compile her videos for future reference. EDIT: She wrote a wonderful overview peer-reviewed paper that covers a lot of her results, with references to more literature: The social and environmental influences of population growth rate and demographic pressure deserve greater attention in ecological economics, in Ecological Economics. Here’s the[…] Keep reading →

We thoughtlessly value efficiency and chase it places it doesn’t make sense. I call it Speed reading bedtime stories to your kids. It makes sense: if you read your kids bedtime stories faster, you can move on to other things. Or rather, it obviously doesn’t. Yet we do it with takeout food, doof, packaging, social media instead of spending time with people in person, flying around the world when there’s[…] Keep reading →

A colleague wrote about how she used to act more but now feels like giving up. I responded What you wrote reminds me of how I feel nearly every day. I can’t say I feel the same as you, but I know the numbers and projections. I see the overwhelming majority of humans not acting — an even greater majority of Americans. Many revel in not trying. Many of those[…] Keep reading →

How many times have I heard about polluting and depleting less, “You can do those things because you’re single.”? I know when people rationalize and justify their inaction, say by saying it’s easier for me or particularly harder for them, they aren’t speaking rationally. They’re protecting their vulnerabilities, suppressing and denying that they are hurting others, acting against their deepest values. Still, it seems worth it to list a few[…] Keep reading →

What is imperialism? Imagine two cultures. One lives within the means of its environment—that is, sustainably. The other lives beyond its means—that is, unsustainably. The sustainable culture will live in abundance. Being sustainable means it isn’t living in scarcity. Everyone must have enough—actually, more than enough, as evidenced through sustaining through periods of drought. Eventually the unsustainable culture will run out of resources. If it keeps to itself, it can[…] Keep reading →