Disconnecting from the grid put me in touch with a few people preparing themselves and their families for an apocalypse, as does just living in America. It seems that population includes many people who buy portable solar panels like the ones I bought. I can’t criticize them. On the contrary, it occurred to me that their believing that people can live sustainably can make them great role models, in contrast[…] Keep reading →

Podcast guest James Oakes’s book The Ruling Race describes the demographics, beliefs, and views of slaveholders in the U.S. south. They are no more or less human than you. The book reveals how being on the dominant side of a dominance hierarchy corrupts one’s values. Following the What is Politics? podcast by podcast guest Daniel, I’ve learned that dominance hierarchies emerge when two conditions apply: one person or group can[…] Keep reading →

My letter to the New Yorker’s editor in September led to a reporter, Zach Helfand, visiting and writing a story on me. They published it today (including spotlighting it, see below): Off the Grid in the Big City: It begins, “Josh Spodek disconnected the circuit breaker in his apartment, and now—thanks to solar-powered vegan stew—his carbon footprint is about that of three house cats.“ Along with the New Yorker piece,[…] Keep reading →

Saying Malthus was wrong about population because global human population hasn’t collapsed yet is like saying Columbus was wrong about Earth being round because he never reached China or India. First, everyone knows Columbus did brutal things you could call wrong. I’m talking about his belief you could sail to Asia by going west from Europe. He missed by two continents and the Pacific Ocean—big oversights about half the surface[…] Keep reading →

Let’s get one thing out of the way. Everyone claims to want to help poor people, poor countries, the sick, children, old people, and other vulnerable populations. Everyone claims to want to help everyone live longer, healthier lives. Nobody claims to want to hurt the vulnerable. After you hear enough heavy polluters say it, you recognize it as empty rhetoric to make themselves feel better and disarm opponents. The question[…] Keep reading →

I’ve written about how every single item in every cart I saw in a trip to a supermarket was packaged, mostly in plastic. I suspect the cardboard was plastic coated. People drink a lot of bottled water too. Most of that stuff takes five hundred, maybe a thousand years to break down. Consider when the absolute basics of life require polluting. Either we change our culture and stop accepting it[…] Keep reading →

Today began month 5 disconnected from the grid, one of my life’s most educational and rewarding experiences. I didn’t know how I’d make more than two days. My goal was one month. I had no idea I’d make it this far, nor how much it would connect me with traditional cultures and reveal our culture’s entitlement, addiction, resignation, abdication, capitulation, and ignorance of how much of life we’ve numbed ourselves[…] Keep reading →