Visualization


Read about sustainability and me in a Korean-English magazine: 터치 매거진 4월호가 발행되어 보내드립니다.

This morning I got an email: 안녕하세요,봄비 촉촉히 내리는 4월 첫 아침입니다.터치 매거진 4월호가 발행되어 보내드립니다.아래 링크를 클릭하시면 터치 스토리랩 홈페이지와 4월호 매거진으로 이동합니다.지난 한 달 동안 저희가 열심히 준비한 다양한 컨텐츠를 읽어보시고 잠시나마 여유로운 시간이 되시면 좋겠습니다.이번 달도 저희 터치 매거진을 성원해주시고 많이 읽어주시길 부탁드리며,건강하고 행복한 4월 되시길 바랍니다.감사합니다. Which translates to Hello, It is the first morning of April when the spring rain is moist.The April issue of Touch Magazine is published and sent.Click the link below to go to the Touch Story Lab homepage and the April issue of the magazine. We hope that you will have a leisurely time while reading the various contents that we have worked hard for over the past month.We ask that you support and read our…

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My sledding hill in March
Packaging from someone who had McDonald's delivered. McDonald's delivered must be one of the most pathetic signals of loss of values.

My sledding hill in March

I visited home in Philadelphia this weekend and stopped by my sledding hill, also known as Tommy's Hill. I made a video last time. https://youtu.be/rb0_WfiFzDY This time I'll just show pictures for quick scanning with commentary in the comments. First the most jarring image as a preview, can you see the "word" McDelivery? Someone had McDonald's delivered, then littered the packaging. Packaging from someone who had McDonald's delivered. McDonald's delivered must be one of the most pathetic signals of loss of values. Consider getting McDonald's delivered. What rock bottom of self-respect has this person dropped through? . . . Or rather has our society dropped through that this concept exists? It serves only to impoverish the poor and make more sick the already sick. McDonald's…

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Efficiency and democratization backfiring

People who don't understand systems love small efficiency gains. They say how it benefits all to make technology available to everyone. When your system produces outcomes you don't want, improving and growing it get you more unwanted outcomes. You may then try that strategy again, accelerating creating unwanted outcomes. We're making things available to the poor that impoverish them. Then we do it more. The diagram below is an early version that needs work, but illustrates many examples of how our economic system making things efficient and more available got the results we should have expected but are likely the opposite of what people wanted. I offer it as a way to wake up to what we're doing, what I call "stepping on the gas,…

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Fossil fuels and slavery from a systems perspective

You've heard my conversations with award-winning authors, scholars, and other experts on slavery. With a couple I've talked about the connection between that system and ours. Most of the time, I've thought of the connection as an analogy. For a while, I've seen the connection as closer. Andrew Hoffman, University of Michigan professor in its business school and its School of Natural Resources and Environment, wrote of his discovering the historical connection between slavery and fossil fuels: The first time these two concepts were linked for me was seven years ago, when a senior oil industry executive in London asked me a rhetorical question: "If it wasn’t for oil, where would we get our energy?” His answer, to my astonishment, was “slavery” The book Industrial…

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Cities aren’t loud, cars are.

I prefer writing my own posts, but some material is so valuable but not what the internet will spread enough, and I post them. The material in question is a series called Not Just Bikes, by a guy born in Canada who moved to Holland, preferred how the Dutch designed their cities, and makes videos describing what they do that works. I love the videos. I probably refer more people to the series than any other. I think of the one below probably most, though I recommend them all. This one is that cities aren't loud, cars are. It's illuminating. In New York, I think of it every day. I hear cars all the time. I didn't realize how much we could do about it,…

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We are long past “dominion” over the Earth

Many people try to follow "have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth," interpreting 'have dominion' to mean steward nature to at least not degrade it; to keep it neutral or improve it. I don't know what people imagine, but what can a person do? Nearly not one person on Earth is living sustainably, maybe a few people in hunter-gatherer tribes. The rest of us are trashing the planet. I want to illustrate how far we are from dominion or stewardship. Or to activate you, the reader, I'll ask: can you draw the line from where crossed the line from dominion to trash? You've no doubt seen pictures…

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One percent population growth, then and now

Here's an illustration I've meant to create for a while. Population growth when most of the Earth is unpopulated is different than when we've populated nearly every place we can. I think it tells a story, and an important one: growing our population today, even a small amount, affects the world very differently than when humans comprised a small fraction of life on Earth. Illustrations that prompted it Maybe you've seen these images before that prompted it.

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Welcome to America. I found on a park picnic table: 30 syringes, a crack pipe, and prescription opiates

Sorry to get grim, but remember as you read this post that I'm talking about abandoned property in public space. I didn't ask for it. I just found it. In my daily picking up litter, I picked up a brown paper bag sitting on a picnic table in Washington Square Park, amid some garbage from finished takeout (likely doof, but I didn't look close enough to tell) left by someone who, I guess, didn't feel like carrying their garbage to a trash can. Everything comes in disposable packaging. I find all the poisonous waste disgusting, but I seem to be a minority of approximately one. The table was in the northwest corner and it was nighttime, meaning the person who left the garbage was a…

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I blew up a jar fermenting chutney, which got all over my ceiling

I was scared of fermentation when I first learned of it, and that people fermented things in their kitchens. I thought it was rare, required specialized knowledge or skills, and could go wrong. I thought breeding organisms could easily lead to breeding the wrong ones so could be dangerous. I was ignorant. The first time I made sauerkraut, which means fermenting cabbage, I learned it was easy. Each time since I learned it's safe. As far as I can tell, it's not just that there's a wide margin for error, it's safe and makes food more safe. So while I'm sharing about a small explosion I didn't expect, the experience doesn't change that I'm going to keep fermenting and ferment more. I started with lids…

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My latest six fermentations, by reader request

Readers have asked me to post more on preparing food. As you know, one of my biggest motivations is accessibility. I try to promote what anyone can do and to show how to do it. My sister asked me for pictures of my fermentations in action. I happen to have a few going, so took pictures of them. I thought making a video would help show what to expect. Before starting, I expected fermentation would be hard or risk spoiling. On the contrary, it's easy: chop vegetables or fruit, mix with salt (or water for vinegar, with sugar optional), and let sit. The result: depth and richness of flavors, healthy symbiotic bacteria, and the food doesn't spoil. The process is forgiving, so I use a…

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Annual Christmas tree dumping

You will find nobody who values ritual and tradition than a man who hasn't missed his twice-daily calisthenics in over ten years. When times change so that your rituals and traditions hurt rather than help, sticking with them will hurt you. The Christmas tree ritual and tradition may have once delighted and may still within the home, but systemically, it's hurting. It doesn't make sense either. Connecting fir trees, elves, and snow sleds with Bethlehem is as inaccurate as suggesting the baby born there would have blond hair and blue eyes. Odds are that he would have looked more like a Palestinian or Israeli than any modern representation I've seen. Could it be any clearer that the holiday as we celebrate it today is as…

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How to Create a Sustainability Movement: sneak preview of my book and workshops

On a call with Dan McPherson, podcast guest and friend, I mentioned recent advances on my book and how to lead people and create a movement. We decided to record part of the call sharing my screen. It's based on my work on This Sustainable Life leading hundreds of world-renowned guests to live joyfully sustainably based on intrinsic motivation. Nearly all return for second episodes. Many refer me to peers based on valuing the experience. Many have become friends. The video mixes story with theory. By sneak preview, I mean it's a work in progress, but I wanted to share what's coming, even if not polished to perfection yet. https://youtu.be/4pOsMT5ByOA

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How to reform taxes: A chess model

People are proposing wealth taxes People are talking about taxing wealth. Everyone relies on society so if you own more, you use more and benefited more, they say, so should pay more. Besides, they add, the wealthy can structure what anyone would call income so it doesn't look like income on taxes so avoid paying any taxes. Moreover, they further add, there's no "natural" law that makes wealth untaxable, so society can decide what to tax or not. The U.S. once taxes around ninety percent during economic boom times. Others oppose them Others criticize the idea. If money people earn can be taken away, they'll lose motivation to start businesses that help the economy and create jobs, they counter. It will motivate rich people to…

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Why everything will collapse (someone else’s video)

I rarely post other people's content as the main part of my blog, but this video put together a lot of what is predicted to happen the way a few generations ago people predicted global warming and sea level rise. People doubted it not for disagreeing with the observations and predictions but because they didn't want to believe. It made them feel bad. The global economy and human population collapse, meaning billions of people dying, will make people feel bad if it happens. We're reeling from the effects of behaviors of people generations ago so what we do will keep affecting people for decades. Millennia, really. Even with all that damage locked in, there are levels of disaster and we can avoid the worst. https://youtu.be/YsA3PK8bQd8…

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I graphed my ecological footprint, according to the Global Footprint Network

The Global Footprint Network posts an online calculator that tells you your footprint (the site defines the term. It's not vague.) It also shows footprints for every country. I've posted my results before, but didn't graph them, which makes them easier to see. If someone as addicted to modern life as I was could change that much, anyone can. The more resources someone has the harder to change, in my experience. People who are privileged believe it's harder for them, which makes sense. The heaviest users of something addictive tend to be the most addicted. I was. Imagine the people in the rest of the world hearing an average American suggesting how to lower their footprint. They must see the average American giving advice like…

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Another morning walk seeing litter in my neighborhood.

I took another early morning walk last weekend to take pictures of our world. New York City seems intent on pushing more outdoor restaurants. They aren't the only cause of this situation, but they augment it. I'm sad anyone has to see things like this. If you want commentary, watch my videos in my post Pride Destroyed the Park. If you want to help, say by lowering litter in your area, please contact me. Systemic change begins with personal transformation. My big goal in this area is for people to stop buying packaged food and doof, the source of most of this litter, so they stop manufacturing it. (By the way, I'm pretty sure the guy next to the restaurant shed wrapped under the blanket…

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Why does almost no one pick up litter?

I can't understand why I never see anyone picking up litter except people joining me. Do I sound like I focus too much on this issue? Look at this picture: Almost within living memory, plastic didn't exist. That scene may be in the third world, but we in the overdeveloped world are catching up. The issue isn't waste management, as the producers say, lying through their teeth. It's overproduction. As bad as that scene looks, we're increasing plastic production. That place used to be verdant and fertile, which is why people settled there. If you think that outcome can't happening where you are, you're lying to yourself as much as the producers. Can you not see your community is part of the way there? I…

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Why you shouldn’t live sustainably (not really): Coming clean about my shameful sponge

Every time I look at my floor sponge I think, "it's beyond the end of its life. Time to get rid of it." Below are pictures of the front and back. It's in tatters. But look at the third picture. It still cleans the floor. Why get rid of something that works? I've cleaned my floor every fifth day without fail for about five years, maybe more. I do it before my weight lifting routine to warm me up and start the process. It's more than a routine, almost a ritual. I used to mop, but my apartment isn't even five hundred square feet (less than fifty square meters). It's easier and more effective to get down on my hands and knees and sponge it…

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Even when governments pay them to have more kids, families want fewer

I came across this revealing graph in a peer-reviewed paper and had to share it. It shows that over fifty years, societies that intentionally instituted family planning (as I understand, not China's One Child policy) saw birth rates lower. But note that every society's birth rate dropped. Governments that tried to increase birth rates saw decreases nearly identical to those that did nothing. They spent money for nothing except working against their citizens' interests. I guess you could argue that they would have dropped faster otherwise. People want smaller families. Or course exceptions exist, but for nearly all of human existence, we didn't grow our population. If you think larger-than-replacement birth rates are normal, the past couple centuries are an anomaly. Here's the graph, followed…

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More recursion after last week’s recursive map post

Last week I posted The most amazing "You Are Here" map you've ever seen, which featured a map that referred to itself. In the closing paragraph I referred to a book---Godel, Escher, Bach---on recursion. I'd read and reread the book in the 1980s and it stuck with me. Not sure if anything would come of it, I wrote the author, Douglas Hofstadter, with a link. Beyond writing back that he appreciated the reference to self-reference, he noted the pattern in sending him a reference to him. Beyond that note, he included a diagram of the email noting the location of a red star in the email where the red star was. I hope he doesn't mind my quoting his email to me, in which I…

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The most amazing “You Are Here” map you’ve ever seen

I live in Greenwich Village. Here's an old map of the neighborhood: It's a tall building. From the roof, I can see across the street to a playground for a school between a couple brick buildings: You probably see marked on the ground the two basketball half-courts on the left and the blue track that curves beside them. You'll also see a colorful block pattern inside the track. Let's look a little closer: Since I started this post with a map, you might recognize the blocks are street blocks. It's a map of Greenwich Village. If you don't know the school, you wouldn't know where it fits on the map, but it's in the middle. I'll zoom in more. See the yellow shape in the…

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Know the 2 carbon cycles and don’t confuse them.

Can we grow enough forests and use enough regenerative agriculture to sequester enough carbon to undo global warming? To answer this question you have to understand the two carbon cycles. I'm simplifying, but you can think of two different cycles of carbon. One is the regular life cycle of carbon-based life forms. When something lives, it contains carbon, including trees, humans, and everything living in dirt and the oceans. When a plant or animal dies, it decomposes and its carbon returns to the rest of the environment. If you've read about the Amazon rain forest becoming a source of atmospheric carbon, that result illustrates this effect. The other is the Earth's pressure pushing life underground and turning it to oil. I'll illustrate the two cycles.…

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Doing something nonpolluting doesn’t offset something polluting

Posting yesterday that Eating something healthy doesn't offset something unhealthy suggested a parallel with polluting. People dream that if they do polluting things, they can do something nonpolluting to average it out, as if carbon offsets or recycling had negative pollution that averaged with flying's positive pollution to zero pollution. Offsets don't negative pollute. They're nice, but they don't put pollution we took from underground back underground permanently. You can't undo drilling fossil fuels from underground. Maybe one day we'll be able to sequester carbon permanently, but we have no such ability today. Potential ways of doing it are far from economical or able to work on the scale we need. I edited yesterday's graphic to illustrate and clarify. It doesn't work exactly as much…

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Eating something healthy doesn’t offset something unhealthy

People dream that if they eat unhealthy things, they can eat something healthy to average it out, as if broccoli had negative unhealthiness that averaged with ice cream's unhealthiness to zero unhealthiness. Broccoli isn't negative unhealthy. It's normal. There is no negative unhealthiness. You can't undo eating something unhealthy. If you're just worried about empty calories, you can exercise, but it won't undo all the unhealthiness of the ice cream. I made a graphic to illustrate and clarify:

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How Much Space You Take Up Is Irrelevant

"Everyone could fit in Texas with room to spare," people naively say, as if it was the relevant measure. Sadly, some who hear them don't realize that a person needs a lot more space than just their person. They need farmland to grow their food, water to process their waste, and so on. When you factor all those things in, we need more space than exists on Earth. One big need is for animals we eat. Look at how much more animals we use and therefore take up space with than before. We dominate the Earth. Factor in again that your use of animals almost certainly relied on factory farming, which, besides its cruelty, further erodes Earth's ability to sustain life. So don't listen to…

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