We’ve all heard talk of the efficiency of the free market. You know, as the idea goes, companies will only do what customer-citizens want them to do, because if they don’t, customers will sanction the companies by not buying from them. There are all sorts of reasons why this doesn’t work, of course, including the […]
Career and Work Life
If you’d like to ditch the car but worry about emergencies
Suppose you’d like to commit to leaving your car in the driveway or getting rid of it altogether and instead making your commute by foot, bike, carpool or public transit. You want to save the money, skip the traffic jams, get the exercise, cause fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and have less stress. It’s just that […]
From work and spend to work and, well, more work
This little essay is a work in progress. It may is a little rough, but I’m letting you have it all the same. I guess, when it comes down to it, what I’m trying to say is that the cost of living and leisure time rewards of environmental living are harder to reap if you […]
Steering the difficult course of running an ethical business (namely mine)
Recently a friend of mine, who writes a popular blog of an environmental bent, told me he had decided to close his blog down. The reason is that he is actually a journalist and author and he found that the blog was taking a fair amount of his work day but contributed nothing to his […]
Earning a living helping people keep it green
We found a great clothing store in Minneapolis, land of the 10,000 lakes, where I am for the holidays (more about the travel in a later post). The store is called Birch, and its owners are committed to carrying only fair wage and sustainable products. Co-owner Marti Markus explained to me a system of standards […]
Save the planet–a job creation scheme
People talk about how increased retail consumption will lead to the trickling down of wealth to the underprivileged. This old, scrap-off-our-table approach to economics not only doesn’t work but it’s wrecking the planet by wasting its resources. But one of the priorities adopted by Saturday’s Step It Up 2007 national action on climate change–together with […]