From my journal during the time when we were first avoiding making any sort of trash: In my imagination, people used to live like this: you had most of the bare necessities but then every so often a relative managed to get hold of, say, some coffee or some salt and pepper or a guava […]
No Impact Man
Click and the lights went out
It’s Sunday evening. I’m rushing to write this post. The inverter that converts the DC power from my new solar panel is humming beside me, charging my laptop. The computer is the only thing I’ll use the solar panel to power—at least for now. No lights, no fridge, no stereo—nothing electric. The sun is setting. Soon […]
A little on political action, a little on TP
Welcome again to the Good Morning America and Nightline viewers who are still finding their way here for the first time. You’ve come by just as I finish a series of three posts on climate change and what to do about it. Yesterday I wrote about how we can all help reduce climate change by driving […]
Flying less, driving less, using less power
First of all, a warm welcome to the viewers from ABC’s Good Morning America and Nightline who are here for the first time. For those who want to know a little more about my project, please noodle around on the blog. For good background, you can start by reading this. Today’s post, though, is less about my No […]
A vision of what we can do—at last!
I don’t know about you but when I came out of the Al Gore movie what depressed me more than the state of the planet was not having a clue what I could do about it. It was like a dire doctor’s message on a voicemail that got cut off: “The bad news is you […]
How my computer will stay on when the lights go out
I don’t know if this is the most eco-correct solution (commenters feel free to weigh in), but I’m giving a borrowed solar panel a try to keep my laptop running after I snap off the circuit breaker to the apartment’s mains. To be precise, I’m using a SolarOne Harvester, an all-in-one unit that includes a panel, a battery […]
Worse than giving up toilet paper
Two words I never wanted to hear in the same sentence: books and purge. I felt panic. What was this dumb project driving me to now? Why do I have to be the sacrificial lamb? Please. Couldn’t I leave myself at least with my books, if not my loo roll? I felt like pinching myself […]
Another dead whale
It’s old news—but to me still sad news—that a baby minke whale that swam into New York City’s harbor ended up dying last month. I grew up in Massachusetts, in a seaside town, and this is going to sound weird, but I’ve had recurring dreams about whales and dolphins all my life. Dolphins and whales are supposed to be […]