Tips

The TEDx people posted my fourth TEDx talk: Don't call Doof Food: systemic change begins with personal change. I think you'll like it. If you do, please go to YouTube and upvote, comment, and share it. When it resonates, you start using the term doof, and you never call food doof, let me know. I recommend using the term. It will simplify and clarify a lot in your life. https://youtu.be/L4OAaI_uXgY Thanks to Leonardo and the TEDxCowes crew for organizing. I also recommend the talks from the event's other speakers, all available here. The Script Here's the script: Context Do you remember the first picture you saw of a beach covered with garbage? How shocked you were? Adults remember it. My nieces and nephews don't, because…

I've seen this phrase more lately: "touch grass." When someone starts sounding stir-crazy---that is, sounding as if they've been cooped up too long---someone will say "touch grass." They mean, go outside and connect with nature. When did you last walk barefoot on land that humans didn't manicure, or even that they did, like a lawn? It's fall here, so maybe you walked on the beach. How about in a stream or woodland path? When did you last eat a fruit, vegetable, or fungus you picked, within minutes of picking it? Maybe touching grass would make a good sidcha. Podcast guest Dr. Michael Greger did a video on forest bathing, a therapeutic practice of visiting nature: https://youtu.be/AV4g_wMpE5g Our ancestors only ate and lived this way for…

Someone in 111F Portland wrote: "I'm hunkered down and keeping cool in my (outside Portland) apartment. I really don't know what else to do anymore. Some of us have no ability to avoid these coming times..." I responded: Generations of people said they didn't know what to do and didn't do anything. We are suffering their inaction. Imagine you could go back to tell them what they could do.Now imagine someone from decades from now coming back. What would they say? Probably similar to what we'd say: "Even though you can't feel the effects immediately, stop flying so much, buy less stuff, change your diet, have fewer kids, and so on. Most of all, lead others to change so your effect multiplies."However bad it feels…

Everyone knows we can't use fossil fuels sustainably. The future means living without them. But the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. Fusion may never work. Fission has huge problems that its proponents downplay but never go away. I recommend Caltech-trained UCSD physics professor and podcast guest Tom Murphy's assessment in his recent book that does the math on nuclear's challenges. So what do we do if we don't live near a place geothermal or hydroelectric work? The solution is obvious. I'm not saying it's easy, though I will say if you do it the way I did, you'll love the results. Change your lifestyle. Reduce your demand overall and increase your resilience. Remember, most humans lived without electricity or power…

[EDIT: I added a powerful video at the bottom of this post that came out after I wrote this post that documents the results I describe. I recommend watching it. You can make a difference. What you do matters.] If you're going to buy clothes, I recommend shopping at thrift stores, but I think most people use them for selfish, nefarious purposes. There's a Goodwill between me and Washington Square Park and another on 14th Street I pass on the way to and from Union Square. I consistently see lines for people donating to them. Sometimes trucks deliver truck-fulls of stuff to sell. That is, people drop off tons of stuff. I'm pretty sure a lot of them think they're helping people in need. I'm…