Actually, just too tired and it’s late. All the same, if you read this blog at all, I hope you’ll agree that I’m not taken to bragging, but geez, when a guy gets a chance, he ought to glory a bit in his accomplishments, don’t you think? So I’m giving myself a night off in […]
No Impact Man
Is it in your nature to try?
Can the way I live really make a difference? That’s one of the things we worry about, right? When it comes to figuring out whether to get involved in the political process or to make our lifestyles more sustainable, we all wonder if, in fact, we will make the slightest bit of difference. Is it […]
We need more than good “energy policy”
Michael Pollan, in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine’s green issue, had an excellent article called “Why Bother?“–about whether individual lifestyle change is worthwhile (there is also, by the way, a little snippet in the issue about yours truly). Pollan writes (with my emphasis): “It’s hard to argue with Michael Specter, in a recent New Yorker […]
Why Isabella still doesn’t watch TV
I’m still at the New Economics Foundation Conference that I mentioned yesterday and having the time of my life. We’ve been talking today a lot about how television and advertising promotes a set of values that–by definition–promote resource consumption and undermine sustainability. After a day of that, I can’t tell you how glad we haven’t […]
A reason to be optimistic
So the coolest thing in the world is happening to me, this week which is that I get to attend this conference of about 30 international thinkers on the questions of sustainability and consumption and cultural happiness (who let me in?). The title of the conference is “Do good lives have to cost the earth.” […]
LV GRN: Making summer vacation choices
In the two summers before the No Impact experiment, we went to France and Italy for three weeks each. We rented cars and had the time of our lives. This year, though the No Impact year is over, we’re continuing to make what, for me, is the difficult decision of keeping it closer to home. […]
How to solve climate change and end poverty
When I posted yesterday about my disappointment in the public infighting by the climate change policy wonks I turn to for guidance, Greenpa left behind a comment saying, “What you have here, I think, is THE argument in favor of individual action, instead of ‘policy.’” The problem is, of course, that in 2050 there are […]
We can save the world or we can fight
The good news about global warming in the United States, I think, is that the “deniers,” as they’re called, have now been relegated to the fringe. The candidates from both parties have mitigation strategies (which isn’t to say they are equally good–see this chart). The debate about whether or not there is such a thing […]