People used to to ask me, essentially, why I was making such a big dig about not making trash during the No Impact project. They’d say, “I mean, it’s recyclable, right?” As Annie Leonard says in Story of Stuff, “Recycling reduces the garbage at [the landfill and incinerator] end and it reduces the pressure to […]
global warming
Lifestyle change required
What with Al Gore coming out with his $300 million plan to convince politicians to take climate change seriously, and people like the New York Times’ Andrew Revkin writing about the big problem in solving global warming being the “technology gap,” I’ve been feeling like my little lifestyle experiment No Impact Man and my message […]
Al Gore’s new campaign
It’s late and I can’t write much but I want to say something in praise of the new “We” campaign Al Gore launched today. Through the Alliance for Climate Protection, he’s kicking off a $300 million, 3-year campaign to educate the public about global warming and urge action from political leaders. ”We’re trying to get […]
Little old me
A few weeks ago, at NYU, I was asked to give a short talk in response to a talk by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus of the Breakthrough Institute (you may remember that Michael and I had an email debate here on the blog a few weeks ago). You can watch my little talk by […]
What would Jesus drive?
As I’ve worked my way through the No Impact project, I’ve forged connections with “conservatives” and orthodox religious types in whose company a “secular liberal” like me might not normally be welcome. But what has interested me is that, when we drop the labels, we find we share so many values in common. I’ve written […]
Why the debate about climate change so falsely rages
There is plenty of science saying there’s climate change. Many of the mitigating measures to do with climate change are things we ought, for a plethora of reasons from national security to child health, to do anyway (use energy way more efficiently, move to renewable power generation, consume fewer planetary resources to ameliorate the other […]
Why I’m fond of saying wisdom trumps science
When one group of scientists first said smoking was bad for you, the tobacco industry funded another group of researchers to say the science was inconclusive. When dietitians began saying saturated animal fats hurt your heart, the beef and dairy industry rolled out their own group of gurus saying “not so bad.” And now that […]
Biofuels far from a silver bullet
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 […]