[First off, let me say sorry about yesterday’s post of a revamped version of the national anthem. Like so many people commented, I couldn’t hear the lyrics. I thought that only the melody had been adapted. I would never have posted it if I had realized that the lyrics had been changed. But onwards…] One […]
Consumerism and Materialism
Is making a better car like making a better cancer?
The thing is, we’re looking for the better automobile, but couldn’t we do much better for ourselves by finding ways not to have to spend so much time in them in the first place? Here’s a list of thoughts. Some of them are my own. Some of them are sparked by WorldChanging’s Alex Steffan’s recent […]
Biofuels far from a silver bullet
You may know that biofuels produced from plant matter such as corn and soybeans have been touted as the great hope for replacing petroleum to fuel cars and heat buildings. But though policy makers have rushed to the technology, it’s turning out that the costs may far outweigh the benefits when it comes to global […]
Sustainable development vs reducing consumption
Michael Shellenberger of The Breakthrough Institute sent me a post from his blog that is written by Siddhartha Shome and starts like this: Car A gets a fuel efficiency of 46 miles per gallon. Car B gets about 50 miles per gallon. Car A is called the Toyota Prius and is hailed by environmentalists as a step […]
My most amazing No Impact experience yet
As the story goes, I never really convinced my wife, the “Prada wearing, Four Seasons loving” Michelle, to embark on the year-long no environmental impact lifestyle experiment with me. Instead, one day when she came home from work, she lay on the couch exhausted, wanting nothing more than for me to keep quiet so she […]
A word on sustainable design
I visited the Greener Gadgets conference on Friday and attended the panel on new forms of mobile renewable energy. Among the presenters, one talked about a mini-windmill you could strap on your arm to charge your cellphone and another spoke of longer-life laptop battery. To get the windmill to charge your cellphone for a whopping, […]
More on community versus consumption–smart growth
There is an ad I saw at the movies. A man wakes up, presses the snooze button, gets up late and arrives at a work meeting disheveled and disorganized. All his colleagues frown. Cut to the scene replayed. The alarm goes off. The man scoffs down a Pepsi. He jumps out of bed, puts on […]
Too many Big Macs?
As you know, the eating part of the No Impact project required my family to switch to eating only local, seasonal, vegetarian food. We are lucky in that local food is not difficult to get in New York City and swearing off meat has not been too hard on our palates. If you’re wondering what […]