Common Sense for the New Times
Common Sense for the New Times
Tag sustainability
Universal Income may increase environmental damage.
I recently had a social media conversation about Universal Basic Income, and I would like to expand on it here. I think a UBI may greatly increase our environmental impact—and produce only a more equitable arrangement of deck chairs on…
Tips for making (firm) yogourt.
The Life and Death of Bun-bun.
At the end of the world, there is plenty to do.
“Well, should we just give up then?” If only I had a dollar for every time I have heard this, always from well-meaning people.⊕Well, if I had a dollar for each time, I would be drinking Laphroaig right now, with…
Do street trees increase the environmental impact of cities?
Trees are green, right? And green is good, right? So trees must be good, right? How could trees be bad for the environment? Many of us have a sense that we are not on the right path; in our bones…
Vertical farms: A bad solution to the wrong problem.
Sustainable means able to be sustained, and the alternative, then, is things that are unable to be sustained.⊕Bill Rees, the co-developer of Ecological Footprinting, says sustainability is like pregnancy. You either are or you aren’t, no sorta. You can read my…
We have enough Ideas (or, No pie for you.)
Why are we not winning the fight against climate chaos? Why was Trump just elected? Why has there been a slaughter of drug addicts this year? Because we think about change wrong,⊕You can read all my past writings on this…
Vertical farms: the greatest hope for cities, or a band-aid on a sucking chest wound?
I sometimes find myself making negative comments about vertical farming. This happened again today, and the facebook friend to whom I responded replied very openly with, “Well, what then? Green belts?” So rather than continue my terse and impatient crypticism…
Skill, joy, and shaving.
I wrote this about five years ago, but had no place to publish it. After the topic of his most recent post veered to razors, John Michael Greer suggested I post it. Joy is a thread that runs through our Small and…
Is our localism too artisanal?
I recently reviewed Jean-Martin Fortier’s book The Market Gardener (summary: Excellent. Buy it) and was reminded of a philosophical and yet very practical farming question I asked him over beer. “Since the economy is contracting, and for many reasons we believe…
Why Green is not Sustainable.
“An Environmentalist on the Lie of Locavorism” crossed my desk the other day. It’s a pretty eye-catching title, pitting “An Environmentalist” against local eating and urban farming, darlings of greens and urban planners everywhere – and calling them liars, to…
Three Cheers for the Idaho Stop!! (or, The Insanity of Over-regulating Parakeets.)
I just want you to close your eyes, and imagine a parakeet, sitting on its branch and eating seeds—wearing a tiny little collar with the cutest little tag hanging from it… The Atlantic Cities is producing a lot of thinking points…
Piece of the Puzzle:
Joseph Tainter on Complexity
I developed my understanding of sustainability essentially by hyperlinking books. I would read a book, then go through the citations and find another interesting book. This led me through design and ecology and economics and psychology and business and so many other…
Peat or Coir? The correct answer is…?
As I say in my blogroll, TreeHugger is where I go to get enraged. In what should be an innocuous Top Nine Products for Healthy Soil post, I managed to flip my lid twice. Peat is bad and Coir is…