Some reasons for a fountain on every corner instead of a hundred bottles in every trashcan: City collection of empty bottles is expensive Free water is cheaper than bottled water If water is free, then the price differential encourages kids to avoid sugary drinks Fewer delivery trucks in the streets mean a lower carbon footprint […]
Consumerism and Materialism
One way to demonstrate your company’s marketing department doesn’t care much about sustainability
If you want to give people a hint that you don’t much care about whether your company harms the habitat that we depend upon for our health, happiness and security: Take a sample of your product that you’d like to give away for free, say a single piece of gum. Wrap it in packaging made […]
Eliminate 40% of manufacturing-associated greenhouse gas by getting rid of packaging
I used part of my last day of my car-less vacation going to the dump to throw away three 60-gallon bags of trash. I try. I try really hard not to make trash. But when you go to a new place, you have to start figuring out all over again how to do it. And […]
Top UN climate scientist says eat less meat, I’m teaching a course at NYU, and Park(ing) Day is coming
I want to tell you about a course I’m helping to teach at NYU and about my plan to turn a NYC parking space into a park, but first, according to the BBC: “People should consider eating less meat as a way of combating global warming, says the UN’s top climate scientist. “Rajendra Pachauri, who […]
Does high resource use make a great life?
This photo (sorry for the poor quality) shows one half of an empty basketball court that I’ve ridden past many times during my car-less vacation in Greenport. It’s in someone’s back yard. Never once have I ever seen anyone playing basketball on it. And I thought: some dad or mom might have worked so hard […]
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 […]
40 steps on the personal path to green
A few weeks ago, I asked readers, “If a friend decided they wanted to do something about the environment, how would you tell him or her to start?” So just in case you or a friend wants to start, here are 39 of the answers, in no particular order and boiled down to their essence. Don’t […]
Redefining the good life while saving the planet
I’ve said this before: it wouldn’t be so bad if, while wrecking the planet, we could at least say we were having one hell of a party. But I’m not sure we are. So many of us are working way more than we should, spending less time with those that we love than we want […]