Everyone who knows me knows every morning I make my bed, cross the room, and turn off the alarm before it turns off, meaning within sixty seconds. I have other sidchas, like picking up litter daily, which I’ve done without fail since 2017. People ask why, which seems obvious. Doing something with a measure of quality and a time limit gives a sense of purpose. For a cash cost of[…] Keep reading →

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[…] Keep reading →

If you choose to act on sustainability, you will face darkness. You will want to give up. You will feel alone, misunderstood. I don’t say so to dissuade, but to prepare to face a part of all of us. Nobody is polluting because they are monsters. We’re all human. What is the alternative to confronting this part of us? To give up? To try to ignore and forget and try[…] Keep reading →

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[…] Keep reading →

This headline, Goodwill Doesn’t Want Your Broken Toaster, reminding me of my recent post that lines to dump worthless junk on Goodwill are often longer than the lines to buy it prompted me to post an idea I’ve had for a long time but for some reason haven’t posted. Pollution on the Earth is obesity on our bodies, manifesting our values and behaviors in different places. This: is this: The[…] Keep reading →

People ask how to use only $1.70 for a month of electrical use and take two years to fill a load of trash. I tell them I’ll give them two answers. The first is the one they think they want, but they always respond with something like, “Oh, yeah, well I can see that would work for you, but I’m different. It wouldn’t work for me.” That answer is to[…] Keep reading →

Today marks the first day of my sixth month with my fridge unplugged. My past two months’ electrical charges from Con Ed were $1.70. I used about two percent the average American’s power use. I’m still avoiding packaging, so no cans or other sealed stuff. On the contrary, I’m finding fresh vegetables and fruit stay a long time without refrigeration. Here’s my podcast episode describing my motivation. It’s not about[…] Keep reading →