Earlier this year I posted The Ruling Race: Quotes on those who improve their lives on the suffering of others, corrupting them, with quotes from podcast guest James Oakes’s book The Ruling Race, which describes the demographics, beliefs, and views of slaveholders in the U.S. south. They are no more or less human than you. That book reveals how being on the dominant side of a dominance hierarchy corrupts one’s[…] Keep reading →

Tell most Americans that an airline is investing in “sustainable airplane fuel” and their ability to think critically flies out the window. They’ll believe anything you say that will let them tell themselves they can fly sustainably. Likewise with offsets, anything labeled recyclable, recycled, or compostable: people will presume anything is possible if it lets them avoid stopping polluting and depleting. Yet a few things they consider impossible. However much[…] Keep reading →

The Ecomodernist Manifesto talks about “decoupling,” meaning growing the economy and population without growing environmental impact. Techno-optimists talk about “green growth” and “closed loops.” Just giving an idea a name doesn’t make it possible. These concepts have been debunked like cold fusion and perpetual motion machines, yet people like to use them to rationalize and justify business as usual. But the people promoting decoupling, green growth, and closed loops don’t[…] Keep reading →

I’ve written that Only specify fixing climate and carbon if you want to wreck everything else (forests, biodiversity, rivers, etc) because that happens when you do. Our environmental problems transcend “just” climate change. I thought of a useful comparison: Kodak only focusing on film in the 1990s. Kodak dominated its market. Then than market collapsed. Kodak understood about digital and could have moved there. It didn’t. It looked elsewhere. You[…] Keep reading →

People keep suggesting that markets will adjust to scarcity. Sometimes, but not always, especially when innovation and technology develop faster than they can react. For example, with fishing, we develop tools to find fish with sonar and satellites, other tools to haul them in better, improved boats, tools to unload and ship them, and so on. The short-term result: we increase the fish hauls even as fish populations drop. The[…] Keep reading →

I forgot to post that I just started my third year with my fridge unplugged, the last year and a half with the whole apartment unplugged. Why did I forget? Because it’s a non-event. Last summer was challenging as I had never made it through a summer without a fridge and I was worried things would go bad faster. I knew then that all humans who ever lived didn’t use[…] Keep reading →

The main places we learn about our environmental problems: scientists, educators, journalists, politicians, and activists. As a result, we look to them for solutions, along with engineers and entrepreneurs. I may be missing a field or two, but hope I got all. All play important roles, but none of those fields develop skills and experience to change behavior and culture. Culture is key because if we could magically transform all[…] Keep reading →