Last week, Elizabeth Kolbert, a respected New Yorker journalist who writes admirably about issues to do with our climate catastrophe and the environment, wrote a scathing attack on my book, No Impact Man. Sadly, casualties on the battlefield of Kolbert’s wrath included not only me, but also the work of James McKinnen and Alisa Smith (authors of 100 Mile […]
Best of No Impact Man
Treating anxiety and depression could save the planet
Something a regular reader of this blog may have been able to guess about me: I suffer, at times, from anxiety and depression. I’m not talking about the worst kind of anxiety and depression. I’m talking about the kind that takes the edge off the gratitude I should be feeling for a good life. Not, […]
Health care and the environment
You’d think that the environment and the debate over universal health care weren’t connected, right? But what I’ve been thinking is that for all of us to begin to choose lifestyles that might be both better for us and better for environment, we have to be able to unplug from the Matrix. We have to […]
Are we just a green bubble that has burst?
Recently, The New Republic published an article by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute calling the trend towards lower consumption coupled with the search for meaningful life no more than a public opinion bubble that has burst. They argue that individual lifestyle change–of which I am one of the chief national proponents, […]
Why each person’s personal choices matter
Sometimes people say to me that what they do can’t affect the whole planet’s health so why should they even try? But if all us tried, well, that would make a big difference, right? So the other day, I was standing at the crosswalk with quite a crowd. The sign said don’t walk but there […]
What is true progress?
Because of my stance on consumption, I get accused sometimes of being anti-progress. This is interesting to me, because I am very pro-progress. I want so much progress. It’s just that I’m not sure that the societally accepted definition of progress is correct. Heading in the same direction we’ve been heading for the past 100 […]
The difference between hell and heaven
My dentist Gary is one of my best friends, and I visited his office today. I joked with him, “Why do you have to make your living by tearing my mouth apart?” Actually, he’s great at his job, but that’s another story (email me if you’re looking for a great New York dentist). The point […]
A little antidote to environmental overearnestness
You know, every so often I do a Google search for jokes about environmentalists, hoping to find one to post here on the blog. One thing I think people like me sorely miss is poking fun at ourselves. We should joke around more. I often say to Isabella, my three-year-old “Why were we born?” She […]