As you know if you read this blog, I’ve been involved in an email quasi-debate with Michael Shellenberger, co-author of Break Through: The Death of Environmentalism and the Politics of Possibility. Scan below to the non-italicized text, for the latest installment, Michael’s second email to me. You can read the first two installments here and […]
Consumerism and Materialism
Pitting jobs against the environment
I’ve been reading Heather Rogers’ excellent book Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage. In it, she points out that it has long been industry’s strategy to pit labor against what the industrialists say will be the negative economic consequences of reducing resource use to keep safe our planetary home. Rogers writes, “The common refrain–that […]
The problem of air travel
Yesterday, you may have read, I posted about how No Impact Man lives once the rules of the No Impact Man project cease to exist. I called myself low impact man in that post, but I’m sticking with my original moniker. The ironies are just too precious. Anyway, one thing I brought up is the […]
Now that I’m only lower impact man
Some truths about my life without the gazillion rules to follow: I don’t like making an impact but I like living in the dark less–the lights are on. All our bulbs are CFL. We buy wind power (and you can too). Nothing is plugged in when it isn’t used. The fridge is on but the […]
Buying small and local vs. supporting green in large
I buy my soap from a lady named Susannah who hand-makes it from beeswax, water and lye and nothing else. For other people, she scents it with essential oils, but when I read that essential oils are being used in such concentration that they are now entering the water and affecting marine wildlife, I asked […]
How Christmas turned out for Isabella
(You can read previous writings to do with the effects of consumption on the planet and human security, health and happiness here, here and here.) Anyway, we worried that the daughter of the enviro-freaks–i.e. our nearly 3-year-old Isabella–would suffer for our principles while our adored Gordie and Ellie got to open gifts. We agonized. We […]
An end to e-toxins just a phone call away (please make it)
First off, let me ask you please to forward this post to every New Yorker you know, and ask them to make the calls… Some say that e-waste–trashed computers, cell phones, printers and other gadgets–is becoming one of the biggest toxicity problems facing our culture. In the US, municipal incineration of e-waste is the largest source […]
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 […]