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 […]
Environment
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 […]
What it’s like being me
Fun. Tiring. Exhilarating. Depressing. Interesting. Worrying. Way back when I started this whole No Impact thing, I felt so frustrated with the political process and so voiceless that the only thing I felt I could do about what I considered to be an international emergency was change the way I lived. I wanted to shout […]
Persuading the presidential candidates
Obama, Clinton and even McCain have decent proposals on climate change. The question is, what will it take to make climate change one of the defining issues of the next presidency? How can we convince both the presidential candidates and our congressional representatives to make this the most important item of the coming term? From […]
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, […]
Commenting guidelines
Dear commenting community– You guys are the lifeblood of this blog. You help me so much that I want you, as a group, to stick around and keep me honest. For that reason, there are guidelines for discussion (see towards the top on the left hand side of the main page). In the interests of […]
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 […]