What we tend to mean when we talk of freedom is the freedom from want. And we tend to think that freedom from want comes from getting what we desire. So one path I sometimes stumble along in my life is to try to get all that I want. But I’ve found that achieving the […]
Environment
To participate in the real economy
This is a guest post by my friend Sean Sakamoto who writes the blog I’d Rather Be In Japan. You can read his previous post on No Impact Man here. “Thrift can take lasting hold of a consumer society, to disastrous effect.” —The New York Times I keep reading about how saving is the worst […]
What makes me happiest doesn’t cost the planet
My little girl Isabella and I just spent the weekend at a gathering at the Providence Zen Center, the head temple of the Kwan Um School of Zen, where I meditate. There were five or six other kids there and from the moment we arrived Isabella ran around having fun and paying almost no attention […]
No Impact Man is hiring!
I’ll go into more details about this when we officially launch, but I’m excited to say that some colleagues and I are soon planning to launch a non-profit–to be known as the No Impact Project–with the goal of engaging citizens in our cultural response to the crises in our environment and our way of life. […]
Open Discusson: Saving money while saving the planet
It’s time for a recession special blog post–how can we help our wallets while saving the planet while making ourselves happier and healthier? During the No Impact project, we saved–and continue to save–a lot of money on everything from transportation to food. The combination of riding our bikes everywhere and only eating fresh local produce […]
Green 2.0: Designing not for less bad but for more good
From a New York Times science section article by Henry Fountain: Concrete may seem an unlikely material for scientific advances. At its most basic, a block of concrete is something like a fruitcake, but even more leaden and often just as unloved. The fruit in the mix is coarse aggregate, usually crushed rock. Fine aggregate, […]
An invitation from 350.org to help wake up our world leaders
Dear World, This is an invitation to help build a movement–to take one day day and use it to stop the climate crisis. On October 24, we will stand together as one planet and call for a fair global climate treaty. United by a common call to action, we’ll make it clear: the world needs an international plan […]
A primer on what it would take to fix climate
We’ve all been seeing what Obama believes is necessary for the economic bailout, but what is needed for the climate bailout? Here are the five policies that, according to New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, the new CEO of ClimateWorks, Hal Harvey, says we need: First, building codes: “California’s energy-efficient building and appliance codes now […]