Major cultural touchstones and motivators for many people to growing material production, sales, and population are the words “be fruitful and multiply” and “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.” People nearly universally misunderstand both parts. You can be fruitful by living a sweet life and you can multiply by multiplying happiness.[…] Keep reading →

Regular readers know I work to communicate effectively with groups that don’t know or act much on sustainability. My goal is to lead them to where they want to act for their own reasons, expecting success. I’ve succeeded with conservatives and evangelicals. Other groups are more challenging. Geeky communities like Slashdot and Hacker News tend to like nuclear, escaping to Mars, and other tech-based solutions. They seem to miss unintended[…] Keep reading →

You’ve probably heard of vertical farms—growing crops indoors stacked as high as the entrepreneur builds. Indoors allows year-round growing, growing near where people live, saving transportation costs and pollution. It allows hydroponics and related techniques, reducing resource use. They light plants with LEDs with frequencies optimized for each plant. Despite these advantages, they face several limitations. So far, only high water, low calorie plants like lettuce, tomatoes, and herbs have[…] Keep reading →

Here are the notes I read from for this episode How to fix Texas Just got off conference call a Texas attendee couldn’t attend because her power was out. There are helpless people suffering. I empathize with them and feel compassion. I support helping them. If we want to prevent future suffering, we have to look at systems. That’s not ignoring present pain or loss. It’s preventing future pain and[…] Keep reading →

Here are the notes I read from for this episode How to fix Texas Just got off conference call a Texas attendee couldn’t attend because her power was out. There are helpless people suffering. I empathize with them and feel compassion. I support helping them. If we want to prevent future suffering, we have to look at systems. That’s not ignoring present pain or loss. It’s preventing future pain and[…] Keep reading →

What does it mean to master a field? It comes from practicing, performing, reflecting, and practicing more. The result is liberation and freedom. Self-expression. Seeing mastery happen before your eyes Everyone who masters anything goes through a similar process that includes inexperience, looking less than amateurish, practicing, reflection, self-doubt, despair, progress, regress, anxiety, improvement, moving backward, mentoring, and so on. Years ago I found a site that showed the sketches[…] Keep reading →

George Chmiel is an entrepreneur, speaker, endurance athlete and charity fundraiser. George’s greatest passions in life involve bringing people together for a higher purpose and tackling seemingly impossible challenges that stretch the limits of mind, body and soul. He has completed 42 marathons, Ironman Lake Placid, 100-mile ultramarathons on all seven continents, and is one of 200 people to complete the 4Deserts series (6-day, 155-mile self-supported stage races across the[…] Keep reading →