What changed that? Marketing. Factory owners wanted to keep their production lines churning and factory workers wanted to keep their tummies full. Repetitive consumption seemed like the answer. Slowly but surely we convinced ourselves that new was better than old. It became ok to throw things out. It became ok to waste. In fact, out with the old […]
Blog
A day in our life
One of the questions people ask me again and again is to describe a day in the No Impact life. I always think it’s a funny question, because I’m so used to it now and it seems so routine. All the same, I thought I might as well answer it: If I get it together, I wake up […]
On not throwing the baby out with the bathwater
A few months back, I was at the farmer’s market with Michelle, and a gorgeous woman with a mane of blonde hair rode by on a tricycle with a bench for her child on the back. Michelle had noticed the woman a bunch of times before and had told me about her. “There she is!” […]
The power of one
People ask me this a lot: what is the point of one person trying to reduce their consumption to help the environment? Isn’t that a meaningless drop in the bucket? No. It’s only meaningless if we think it’s meaningless, because if we think it’s meaningless, we’ll do nothing. Optimism, as I’ve said before, is the […]
Using less
A lot of people are talking about improved energy efficiency as a means of solving the climate crisis, which is great. But I am not convinced that technology will bring us quite enough increased efficiency to make the required reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. I think, too, that the climate crisis—not to mention the planet’s numerous other environmental problems—calls […]
Real environmental heroism
For all our talk of polar bears and melting icebergs and “possible” future catastrophes, there are many, many people around the United States and the rest of the world who are already living in the midst of environmental disasters. Often, these people are poor and they lack the political power to stop our power plants, our garbage dumps, our […]
Have fun!
As I write, I’m getting ready to ride my bike out to the South Bronx to meet my local environmental hero Kate Zidar, who works, among other places, at the Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice. We’re going to paddle around the Bronx River and look at one of NYC’s ten worst combined sewer overflows (CSOs), which regularly dumps […]
Why eating less meat helps the environment
According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization’s November, 2006 report, “Livestock’s Long Shadow–Environmental Issues and Options”: 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from livestock (more than from transportation). 70 percent of previously forested land in the Amazon was cleared to pasture cattle. Two-thirds (64 percent) of anthropogenic ammonia emissions, which contribute significantly to acid rain and acidification […]