Sometimes people say to me that what they do can’t affect the whole planet’s health so why should they even try? But if all us tried, well, that would make a big difference, right? So the other day, I was standing at the crosswalk with quite a crowd. The sign said don’t walk but there […]
environmental living
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 […]
On buying more than status
What follows is a passage from the draft of the book about my No Impact project. I thought you might enjoy a glimpse into my progress. The draft, by the way, is turned in and I await comments from my editor at Farrar, Straus & Giroux. This passage is about some experiences we had in […]
40 steps on the personal path to green
A few weeks ago, I asked readers, “If a friend decided they wanted to do something about the environment, how would you tell him or her to start?” So just in case you or a friend wants to start, here are 39 of the answers, in no particular order and boiled down to their essence. Don’t […]
How Christmas turned out for Isabella
(You can read previous writings to do with the effects of consumption on the planet and human security, health and happiness here, here and here.) Anyway, we worried that the daughter of the enviro-freaks–i.e. our nearly 3-year-old Isabella–would suffer for our principles while our adored Gordie and Ellie got to open gifts. We agonized. We […]
It pays to be charitable
Around the time I started the project, I became friends with a professor at Syracuse University named Arthur Brooks. Arthur had just come out with the book Who Really Cares, his study of charitable giving that showed, among other things, that people who give to charity end up wealthier. In other words, to generalize, it is in our best […]