The other week, I got in a goodhearted little email tiff with Michael Shellenberger, who as you know if you read this blog, is a co-author of Break Through: The Death of Environmentalism and the Politics of Possibility. Our email dialog turned out to be really interesting. In the first part exchange (which you can […]
environment
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 […]
Apropos, first, of nothing and, then, of something
Apropos of nothing: The other night I was lying in bed, being held hostage by my daughter Isabella who insisted she would only go to sleep if I stayed there with her. She was mad that I had made her go to bed at all. She said, “I don’t like you anymore, Daddy.” So we’re […]
The world’s simplest, best, most effective environmental living tip
I was talking to a friend who said that the problem for the general public with environmental living is that it is so complicated. How do you know what stores to go to? How do you know what products are okay for the environment? How do cut through the green spin machine that is roaring […]
Greening the planet by making green profits and creating green jobs
One of the arguments against capping our greenhouse gas emissions is the effect it will have on the economy. Renewable resources cost more, hit the bottom line, mean less profit, and lower standards of living, the wrongheaded argument goes. Then there are the businesspeople who see the incredible opportunities in our crisis. It’s simply a […]
The garbage game
Here’s a little fun: “What did you throw in a trash can today? You probably did not give it much thought. But this week New Yorkers threw away 64,000 tons of garbage. That comes out to almost 7 billion pounds of garbage every year. Whisking off the detritus of our daily lives costs the city more than […]
NYT ethicist Randy Cohen on the ethics of transportation
Thanks to Clarence Ekerson of StreetFilms for emailing me Open Planning Project Executive Director Mark Gorton’s interview with New York Times ethicist Randy Cohen. It’s about the ethics of transportation in New York City in particular and in big cities in general. During the interview, Cohen says (slightly paraphrased): Ethics is about the effects of […]