2023–2026

2026 311

October 2026

1. 30 OctWhich do you consider the greater problem: psychopaths and narcissists or necessary resources that can be controlled with no alternative?
2. 29 OctThey’re not promoting sexism that hurts women. They’re promoting addiction that hurts men.
3. 29 OctThe deeper meaning of “No taxation without representation”
4. 27 OctMore Sunday donations revealing how much stuff people throw away, often brand new
5. 27 OctHear me on the Solve For Nature Podcast for its 100th episode with host Eugene Bible
6. 26 OctThis week’s selected media, October 25, 2026: Unforgiven, the latest What Is Politics, One-hour documentaries on Washington, Hamilton, John Adams, and Mandela
7. 24 OctThoughts on patrolling with an MBA
8. 23 OctDo YIMBY people want in their back yards sanitation plants, drug treatment centers, and such, or only profitable things?
9. 23 OctWhat it feels like when people ask if I still don’t fly and if I’m still off the grid
10. 21 OctMight the Squamish nation pollute and deplete the most per capita in the world?
11. 21 OctTreating pollution as an externality misses the point
12. 19 OctHear me on Christopher Ryan’s podcast
13. 19 OctThis week’s selected media, October 18, 2026: Corruptible, Rocky
14. 17 OctNational Security Exercise
15. 17 OctWhy should America act if other nations don’t?
16. 16 OctMore casual trashing of an otherwise pleasant residential neighborhood
17. 16 OctIt’s harder to lead people to change to stop violating their values
18. 14 Oct863: Robert Parkinson: Tyrants and Rogues: Understanding the Declaration of Independence
19. 14 OctHow progressives and environmentalists calling my actions extreme undermines their work
20. 13 Oct862: Andrew Levy: A role model for today: Robert Carter III freed more slaves than any other American
21. 11 OctThis week’s selected media, October 11, 2026: Blitzed, Seymour: An Introduction, Privilege, Propublica on PFAS
22. 10 OctThe end of a volunteering era for me?
23. 10 OctMore of what I’m doing when I’m working on my book
24. 8 OctHow you can tell when you dehumanize your opponents and why I work against polarization and isolation
25. 7 OctA response to people with claimed feigned ignorance that their pollution pollutes and depletion depletes
26. 7 Oct861: Cara Judea Alhadeff, part 1: Actually acting, the joys we feel, and the friction we face
27. 6 OctI counted how many breaths I take while meditating
28. 5 OctThis week’s selected media, October 4, 2026: Tonight in Jungle Land, Revolution, The Law, Taxi Driver
29. 4 OctA description of my book Initiative
30. 3 OctHow our society treats a building’s garden
31. 2 OctOn Educating Kids: Who has more resources, you or a five year old?

September 2026

1. 30 SepMost of my challenges reveal market failures, not a difficult lifestyle
2. 30 SepA few post ideas that don’t make the cut for full posts
3. 29 SepThe benefits of nearly two weeks of overcast skies: destressing
4. 28 SepThis week’s selected media, September 27, 2026: Tyrants and Rogues
5. 26 SepWhat your browser could look like with no ads or suggested videos, especially on YouTube
6. 25 Sep860: Christopher Ryan, part 1: Civilized to Death
7. 25 SepMaps illustrating properties of dominance hierarchy
8. 24 SepA new commitment: sharing highlights of my upcoming book here
9. 23 SepIf you carry your cell phone 24/7 “just in case” or “for emergencies”, why not fentanyl?
10. 21 SepSome notes from Climate Week NYC day 1
11. 21 SepThis week’s selected media, September 20, 2026: Shadowlands, Remains of the Day, Silkwood, “It’s Only a Penis”
12. 20 SepWhy saying “I’m going to meditate” is like saying “I’m going to play ball.”
13. 19 SepIf slaves didn’t have a choice in being enslaved, did owners? Then do we to do what we do that harms others?
14. 18 SepA reader’s thoughtful comment on artificial intelligence
15. 16 SepRich people eating in garbage
16. 16 SepWhy do people consider Judeo-Christian religion and culture European?
17. 15 SepVisiting the 9/11 Museum
18. 14 SepThis week’s selected media, September 13, 2026: The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, Gates of Fire, Together Together, 12 Angry Men
19. 12 SepShould we amend the Constitution?
20. 11 SepHow I have responded to September 11: Service
21. 11 SepThe top results of knowing your priorities: More free time, saving resources, especially money
22. 10 SepBetter to do nothing than to work on your third highest priority
23. 9 SepIf you don’t know your priorities, you’re mostly moving away from what you care about most
24. 8 Sep859: Jack El-Hai: The Nazi, the Psychiatrist, Nuremberg, and Why to Find Humanity in Those We Call Monsters
25. 7 SepThis week’s selected media, September 6, 2026: Play as a Foundation for Hunter-Gatherer Social Existence, Decline in Independent Activity, RIP Gloria Steinem, and some smaller articles
26. 6 SepRobert Carter III officially began freeing his slaves 235 years ago today. We can extend even more freedom today if we choose.
27. 6 SepWhat I’m doing when I’m working on my book
28. 5 SepAnother voice about environmentalism lacking vision
29. 4 SepDoes environmentalism have a vision?
30. 3 SepThe Left’s and environmentalists’ folly: “They don’t care”
31. 2 SepFiji Water or Piss?

August 2026

1. 31 AugDid you know about the US Treaty of Tripoli in 1797?
2. 31 AugThis week’s selected media, August 30, 2026: Civilized to Death, Vanishing New York
3. 30 AugThe benefits of writing first thing in the morning
4. 29 AugMight I Be Wrong About Artificial Intelligence? How Wrong Could I Be?
5. 27 AugIs peace possible when nations deplete?
6. 27 AugAnother summer without air conditioning: 5 nights I woke up sweating. Hardly torture.
7. 26 AugHave I found the core of my book?
8. 25 AugIs the only way to reduce litter and garbage anywhere to overhaul American culture, maybe global? I guess we’ll have to do it then.
9. 24 AugThis week’s selected media, August 23, 2026: The Once and Future World, The Case for a Debt Jubilee, Parents Keep Out, Thread of Liberty, American Leviathan
10. 22 AugMore of my park visit besides where they mugged me
11. 22 AugAnother spot where a bike was stolen from me when I was a kid
12. 21 AugOne of the spots where I was mugged for a bike when I was a kid
13. 20 AugThe Joy in Worthy Struggle
14. 18 AugExtreme Thoughts on Artificial Intelligence
15. 17 AugExternalities versus violations of the Constitution
16. 16 AugThis week’s selected media, August 16, 2023: The Gates of Fire, Nuremberg, the Eternal Jew
17. 15 Aug858: Beth Bailey, the great-grandmother influencer leading the cleaning of Mérida, Mexico
18. 15 AugEnvironmentalists promote education, especially of children, distracting from effectiveness, part 2
19. 14 AugEnvironmentalists promote education, especially of children, but it mostly delays action
20. 13 AugSome writing challenges
21. 12 AugVolunteer Discipline
22. 11 AugHeartbreaking: A seventh grade teacher on parents supporting students cheating with artificial intelligence
23. 10 AugThis week’s selected resources, August 9, 2026: Superabundance (again), The Nazi And The Psychiatrist, Locke and property papers, Quaker history
24. 9 AugDo we want diverse groups dominating and oppressing other diverse groups or to stop domination and oppression?
25. 8 AugHow I read books I disagree with
26. 6 AugA surprisingly effective trick to use my phone less
27. 6 AugIf we want an energy transition we don’t need more so-called “renewable”. We need less fossil fuels, which we aren’t doing.
28. 4 Aug857: Kim Stanley Robinson: Science fiction writing and leadership
29. 3 AugSyringes on a Sunday afternoon, following doof on a Sunday morning
30. 3 AugThis week’s selected media, August 2, 2026: Ultimate Resource 2, Melania
31. 1 AugSubmedia coverage from a quarter century ago

July 2026

1. 31 JulThey say “Writing is rewriting.” I sure am writing a lot.
2. 30 JulMy favorite phone app that saves the battery and connects me with people and community
3. 29 Jul856: David Jenkins, President of Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship
4. 28 JulSunday’s donations reveal how much stuff people throw away, often brand new
5. 27 Jul“There is no place that I’d rather be,” I thought, until the ATV and used diaper
6. 27 JulThis week’s selected media, July 26, 2026: Goliath’s Curse
7. 25 JulPeople call cities noisy and dirty, but suburbanites create the noise and mess
8. 24 JulWhy environmentalists lose and how they can win
9. 24 JulAmerica’s largest release of radioactive waste wasn’t Three Mile Island. It was Church Rock, mainly affecting the Navajo Nation
10. 22 JulElon Musk says “Those without children lack a stake in the future” but lives the opposite.
11. 21 JulSlippery double standards about harming people
12. 20 JulHow we view the suffering we cause others today versus 200 years ago
13. 19 JulThis week’s selected media, July 19, 2026: Washington: A Life, The Real Dawn of Everything videos, The Odyssey
14. 18 JulDoof: when you bought it you consumed it
15. 18 JulWomen-Founded Garbage
16. 17 JulEnvironmentalists: Are you proud that to get back at BP, you don’t stop buying their products?
17. 16 JulMore conservatives promoting socialism
18. 15 JulSecret video of Beth picking up litter goes viral in Mexico
19. 14 JulI found a paper I coauthored on Wikipedia
20. 13 JulThis week’s selected media, July 12, 2026: New York 2140, George Washington documentaries
21. 11 JulDocumentaries about George Washington: I am embarrassed as an American to have learned so little so far about him, but am rectifying the gaffe.
22. 11 JulCan the Constitution Save the Planet?: A professor of environmental law’s view, part 1
23. 10 Jul855: Peter DeCarlo PhD: Shocking Cancer Alley research from the scientist who did it
24. 9 JulLast week’s heat wave, air conditioning, and fragile, entitled people
25. 8 JulThe replication crisis in science and religion
26. 7 JulRecent peer-reviewed research that when people live as I do, they prefer it and don’t want to go back
27. 6 JulThis week’s selected media, July 5, 2026: Four Horsemen, Daredevil: Born Again, Young Washington, Jackass: Best and Last
28. 5 JulSome notes on 1776
29. 3 Jul854: John Perkins, part 2: New Book Preview: The Art of the Steal (and restoring American ideals)
30. 2 JulWhy I avoid polluting and depleting
31. 1 JulBeyond no electric bill: Money returned from allegedly fraudulent overbilling
32. 1 JulEnvironmentalists fund pollution and depletion

June 2026

1. 30 JunLifting: not always progress
2. 29 JunThis week’s selected media, June 28, 2026: Plastic Inc., Free to Be You and Me, Psychedelics, Friedemann
3. 28 JunDo you still believe in an “energy transition”? Learn Alice Friedemann’s research
4. 26 JunLetter to the World, version 2
5. 25 JunA curse of mastering personal leadership
6. 24 JunDo you believe Exxon and peers were wrong to sell and burn fossil fuels when they knew the results?
7. 23 JunA tragic comment the dean said about artificial intelligence at my 20 year business school reunion
8. 23 JunReflections on my business school 20 year reunion
9. 22 JunThis week’s selected media, June 14, 2026: The Machinery of Freedom, Twilo
10. 20 JunFirst we pave more land nearby and it’s no big deal…
11. 20 JunWhen did you last prepare a meal from scratch?
12. 19 JunFinally, a critic of Limits to Growth who may have actually read the book
13. 17 JunWhat do we do about past choices that ended up violating our values? Do we just give up? Wouldn’t you rather win?
14. 16 JunLetter to the World, version 1
15. 15 JunHow to Win: OG Anunoby, Game 4 Knicks
16. 15 JunThis week’s selected media, June 14, 2026: Progress, History of the World (semester 1)
17. 14 JunThe 5 greatest flaws I see in environmentalism
18. 13 JunA silly post I couldn’t help posting
19. 11 Jun853: Kate Williams: CEO, 1% for the Planet
20. 11 Jun“Are we running out of land for landfills?”: A Richard Feynman view from the 1986 Space Shuttle disaster
21. 9 JunSome of my favorite solo podcast episodes
22. 8 Jun“Could Switzerland Become the First Country to Cap Its Population?” asks the New Yorker, and I comment.
23. 8 JunThis week’s selected media, June 7, 2026: The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, Slavery–Summary on a Map,
24. 6 JunNYU’s president breaks NYU’s rules, to pollute and deplete of course
25. 6 JunMore roots: an ancestor who worked with George Washington and on the Continental Congress
26. 4 JunWhat I love about expensive gyms
27. 4 JunMore Personal Bests: floor press, single-arm row, Turkish get-up
28. 2 JunThe Timeline for Pollution and Depletion’s Effects on People
29. 1 JunThe Scale and Pollution and Depletion’s Effects on People: Here, now, not future projections
30. 1 JunThis week’s selected media, May 31, 2026: Gulag, American Citizenship and Its Decline, Live Avant Garde music

May 2026

1. 30 MayThe Hanford Nuclear Site
2. 29 May852: Steven Pressfield, conversation 2: His new book, The Arcadian (and A Man at Arms)
3. 28 MayAbout the comments to yesterday’s NY Post article about not using air conditioning
4. 28 MayRead about me in today’s NY Post: “No AC? No sweat! Meet the New Yorkers sweltering through summer — by choice”
5. 27 MayThere are many ways to meditate
6. 26 MayDid you know Stalin was Asian? As were other historic figures including Jesus, Abraham, and Muhammad.
7. 25 MayThis week’s selected media, May 24, 2026: The Gulag Archipelago volume 3, All the Vermeers in New York, Fetishized
8. 23 MayThis Sustainable Life again named one of the top environmental leadership podcasts
9. 22 MayYear 5, Day 1 with my apartment disconnected from the electric grid
10. 21 MayWhat artificial intelligence does to our minds
11. 21 MayMost people don’t realize how much stupid stuff they do every day that they consider critical
12. 19 MayShould I fear posting concerns about artificial intelligence?
13. 18 May851: J. Eric Oliver: How to Know Yourself
14. 17 MayThis week’s selected media, May 17, 2026: Thoughts on Government, Winning the Story Wars
15. 16 MayDo you want to deprive others of free speech?
16. 15 MayIf you can’t walk away, you aren’t free. Freedom requires not depleting nonrenewable resources.
17. 15 MayWhy the government not enforcing the Constitution and Declaration makes avoiding polluting and depleting hard
18. 14 MayParents just don’t understand
19. 12 MayWounded warriors, by Clint Eastwood, and us
20. 11 MayWounded Warriors, by Steven Pressfield, and Ourselves
21. 11 MayThis week’s selected media, May 10, 2026: The Arcadian
22. 9 MayRIP Edith Eger, Survivor of Auschwitz, Author of The Choice
23. 8 MayMore Julian Simon confusion, considering homelessness
24. 7 MayDo people talking about AI understand exponential growth?
25. 7 MayArtificial Intelligence isn’t improving people’s lives. It’s helping them fulfill their roles, which rarely improves their lives.
26. 6 MayJohn Adams nailed the US today
27. 5 MaySo corrupt, integrity looks extreme
28. 3 MayThis week’s selected media, May 3, 2026: Changing views of extinction in history
29. 2 MayMay Day / No Kings Garbage.
30. 2 MayArtificial Intelligence and atrophy of mental ability like intelligence, self-awareness, emotional regulation, and expression

April 2026

1. 30 AprMore Americans died in the Civil War than all other wars combined
2. 30 AprVolunteering as meditation
3. 29 AprMore of what you gain from stopping polluting and depleting
4. 27 AprClarifying what people get when they pollute and deplete less
5. 26 AprThis week’s selected media, April 26, 2026: The Great Divorce and How to Know Your Self
6. 25 AprDonated blood for the first time in a while, courtesy Sebastian Junger’s post
7. 24 Apr850: AJ Harper, part 1: Write to change lives, including yours
8. 23 AprA new insight on beliefs
9. 22 Apr849: Josh Bandoch, part 3: How to Get What You Want: Mastering the Art and Science of Persuasion
10. 21 AprEnvironmentalists rarely try to solve the problem
11. 20 AprWhy do we fund our enemies by air conditioning the outdoors?
12. 20 AprThe Constitution has no extraneous protections.
13. 19 AprThis week’s selected media, April 19, 2026: Heirs of the Founders, Led Zeppelin’s catalog
14. 18 AprThe ability to empathize with or speak for the oppressed isn’t what we think
15. 17 AprWhat we can learn from jarring images from the Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, PA
16. 16 AprNonfood things I’ve bought this year
17. 15 AprDiscipline Equals Freedom: Two years no hot showers
18. 15 AprThe futures that futurists imagine are what I envision: Yet more evidence living without polluting or depleting isn’t regression
19. 13 Apr848: Peter Simek, part 1: EarthX’s CEO
20. 12 AprThis week’s selected media, April 12, 2026: How to Get What You Want, Climate Capital, This Is Spinal Tap, Circle Game Online Course
21. 11 AprFirst plogging and barefoot run of 2026
22. 11 AprHow are government incentives for larger families not socialist, New Deal-type programs?
23. 9 AprDemocrat Garbage: When Democrats Say They Value Sustainability, They Mean When It’s Convenient For Themselves (Republicans Probably No Different)
24. 8 AprColonized doesn’t mean Indigenous. Being there when colonizers arrived doesn’t mean there first.
25. 8 AprHow I watch videos I find online: not online
26. 7 AprI Challenge You to Find an Environmentalist Who Doesn’t Argue Against Sustainability
27. 5 AprThis week’s selected media, April 5, 2026: Caste, Margaret
28. 5 AprEvery group claims Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Douglass. Every group says the other produced Calhoun and eugenics.
29. 4 AprWhat’s with toothpaste globs in sinks and pointless hot water use?
30. 3 AprRediscovering “The bigger your achievement, the more it’s a beginning” through Turkish Get-Ups
31. 2 AprUnearned Power

March 2026

1. 31 MarTwo recent videos I recommend: “Every Reasons to Hate Cars” and “What I DON’T Buy Anymore (Because of the 1940s)”
2. 31 MarReader responses from “Help restore my shaken confidence in people from Christmas Eve day”
3. 29 MarThis week’s selected media, March 29, 2026: Born Equal and The Princess Bride
4. 29 MarDid America wrongfully denigrate “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”
5. 28 MarI’m not looking for them, but hours after my last post: more trashed Christmas Pagan Trees
6. 27 MarThe last Christmas Pagan Trees of the Season?
7. 27 MarMore on Eric Williams’s “Slavery was not born of racism: rather, racism was the consequence of slavery”
8. 26 MarDid Paul Ehrlich Help or Hurt His Cause?
9. 24 MarSee me in the Washington Post’s Climate Coach again
10. 24 MarYear 11, day 1 no flying
11. 24 MarAre we pseudoscientists?
12. 23 MarThis week’s selected media, March 22, 2026: Two documentaries: Ulysses S. Grant and Eugenics
13. 22 MarWould you have acted in the gravest historical times?
14. 21 MarEnvironmentalists argue against sustainability with me
15. 20 MarSomething important missing in my life
16. 18 MarTYMCALM: Common and Advanced Legitimizing Myths around polluting and depleting
17. 17 MarThat’s Your Mind Creating A Legitimizing Myth (TYMCALM)
18. 16 MarAnother walk in the park with family Spodek Method commitment
19. 16 MarThis week’s selected media, March 15, 2026: The Gulag Archipelago volume 2, The Battle Over Citizen Kane, Totalitarian Novels (course)
20. 15 MarDenial like ours
21. 14 MarUnnecessary words that distract and detract
22. 13 MarStarted a new razor today, my first in almost a year
23. 12 MarLeslie Jones and the Daily Show getting votes for Trump
24. 10 MarThe last Christmas Pagan Tree of the season?
25. 10 MarThe first warm day of the year means overflowing doof garbage, of course
26. 10 MarThe United States situation regarding pollution and depletion
27. 9 MarThis week’s selected media, March 8, 2026: Gulag documentaries
28. 8 MarWhy consistency? Self-awareness and integrity
29. 6 MarThe last Christmas Pagan Trees of the season?
30. 6 MarMore wealth or stuff doesn’t mean freedom: Distinguishing freedom from abundance and prosperity
31. 5 Mar“All it is is pain”: Skier Jessie Diggins on discovering her potential
32. 4 MarHeritage Foundation promoting socialism, as usual. Charlie Kirk did too.
33. 3 MarThe importance of doing and talking about unimportant things
34. 2 MarThis week’s selected media, March 1, 2026: Citizen Kane
35. 1 MarWe celebrate in garbage: Chinese New Year version

February 2026

1. 28 Feb847: Tzeporah Berman: Ending Fossil Fuels by Treaty
2. 26 FebPodcasts and blogs I follow
3. 25 FebMore heartbreaking garbage
4. 24 FebAnother Spodek Method commitment: a walk in the park with family
5. 23 FebToday’s blizzard, February 2026
6. 22 FebThis week’s selected media, February 22, 2026: The Gulag Archipelago volume 1
7. 21 FebIf you wait to solve all the challenges of zero pollution and depletion before starting, we’ll never start. If we start, we’ll solve the problems.
8. 20 FebHow cute and adorable the garbage from doof dealers
9. 19 FebDoes every group think they’re the best?
10. 18 FebSilly bathroom question: Am I missing something here?
11. 17 Feb846: Gail Eisnitz: The Inside Story of a Life Investigating Factory Farms
12. 17 FebWhy don’t the left and right look at themselves the way the other does? Or do they, but I can’t find it?
13. 16 FebThis week’s selected media, February 15, 2026: Cinefiles
14. 15 FebVisiting the Jackie Robinson Museum
15. 13 Feb845: Sarah Goodyear and Doug Gordon: The War on Cars and Life After Cars
16. 13 FebCivil war results: obligation to kill old friends
17. 11 FebA rat and plastic in Washington Square Park, of the many due to garbage and litter
18. 10 FebSee me on Korean TV!
19. 9 FebVolunteering is like a holiday
20. 8 FebThis week’s selected media, February 8, 2026: The Abolition of Man, Scarface, Aristotle’s Ethics
21. 7 FebOn open email on Scott Galloway’s “Resist and Unsubscribe” initiative
22. 6 FebTwo months of Christmas pagan trees, hundreds of trees, thrown away
23. 6 FebAnother personal best: (floor/bench press)
24. 4 FebDid Thomas Jefferson start scientific racism?
25. 3 FebAristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and living more sustainably in a culture that rewards polluting and depleting
26. 2 FebThe redlined neighborhood I grew up in
27. 1 FebThis week’s selected media, February 1, 2026: 8 Billion Angels, Is Atheism Dead?, I Feel Love

January 2026

1. 31 JanMy Spodek Method commitment to make water ice from snow: A photo essay
2. 30 JanJobs don’t just mean working in a dominance hierarchy. They mean working for the whims of people with rank.
3. 30 JanCriticism of Lomborg: The Lomborg Deception and other challenges
4. 29 JanI’m endlessly amazed at how the body acclimatizes to cold
5. 27 JanAnother time garbage nearly brought me to tears
6. 26 JanMeditation thoughts: What is meditation?
7. 26 JanMy first time since starting not finding litter in Washington Square Park, because over six inches of snow covered it.
8. 26 JanThis week’s selected media, January 25, 2026: In the Mood for Love, Cool It
9. 25 JanThe Coldest Day of the Year
10. 24 JanHeating the outdoors, pure deadweight loss
11. 23 JanYear 16, day 1: posting here daily
12. 22 JanThe joy and satisfaction of a hand cart falling apart from so much use
13. 21 JanWow, some hard work volunteering in the cold yesterday and today.
14. 21 JanThere will always be something just beyond our grasp we crave. Or we can learn to stop craving.
15. 20 JanWhere the problems with social media come from and the big result, part 1
16. 18 JanThis week’s selected media, January 18, 2026: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Myth America, Blow Out
17. 18 JanAnother big, passionate writing day
18. 16 JanI searched “comprehensive list of environmental solutions.” No wonder everyone feels hopeless and gives up.
19. 16 JanMy neighbors leave their windows wide open in temperatures below freezing, presumably blasting their heaters
20. 15 JanWhat I wonder when people ask how I get by
21. 14 JanThe Atlantic Magazine ads
22. 13 Jan844: Maya Lilly, part 1: Effective Storytelling and Producing The Years Project
23. 12 JanThis week’s selected media, January 11, 2026: Common Sense (my first draft), The Female Brain, Wise Guys, Never Split the Difference
24. 11 JanFinished the first draft of my next book
25. 10 JanCan you help me understand how liberals and progressives view leadership?
26. 9 JanSome of the most thrilling words I’ve read in literature
27. 8 JanLimited government advocates and big government intrusion. What am I missing?
28. 7 Jan843: Judith Enck, part 2: The Problem with Plastic (the Book)
29. 6 JanWhat Makes Things Meaningful in Life
30. 5 JanThis week’s selected media, January 4, 2026: False Alarm, Eve’s Bayou, This America
31. 3 JanMy favorite books and movies of 2025
32. 3 JanA sidcha and self-awareness update
33. 2 JanIf you want to travel, the opposite of what you should do is to fly

2025 362

December 2025

1. 30 DecMy holiday tree this year
2. 30 DecAllowing pollution and depletion stifles innovation and creativity
3. 29 DecThis week’s selected media, December 28, 2025: On Tyranny, White House Effect, Two Lomborg articles
4. 28 DecAnd just like that, I’m almost out of power for a couple days. Batteries have a lot of problems.
5. 26 Dec842: Silvia Bellezza, part 1.5 and 2: When at first you don’t succeed
6. 26 DecHelp restore my shaken confidence in people from Christmas Eve day
7. 24 DecDo people who fear learning to lead think it means imposing hierarchy?
8. 24 DecFamily, flying, and Facebook-like visits
9. 24 DecFour more trashed Christmas Pagan Trees, two days before Christmas.
10. 23 DecFour more trashed Christmas Pagan Trees, five days before Christmas. I’m not looking for them. Why not at least keep them until Christmas?
11. 22 DecYear 15, day 1 of my burpee sidcha
12. 22 DecThis week’s selected media, December 21, 2025: I Am Not Your Negro, Mulholland Drive, Wisdom Takes Work
13. 21 DecAnother winter solstice successfully handled. Tomorrow will have more sun.
14. 20 DecThe second trashed Christmas Pagan Tree of the season, six days before Christmas
15. 20 DecBeethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn, and my friend who met Albert Einstein in person
16. 19 DecThe first trashed Christmas Pagan Tree of the season, a week before Christmas
17. 17 DecDr. Larry Arnn on Churchill on technology and modern life
18. 16 DecTurkish Get-Up Achievement and Freedom
19. 15 DecThey chopped down the only two apple trees in a local park
20. 14 DecThis week’s selected media, December 14, 2025: Notes of a Native Son, Planet of the Humans, White Privilege and Male Privilege, Winston Churchill and Statemanship
21. 13 DecNew resting pulse: 38 bpm
22. 12 DecThe number of levels of failures in society that litter reveals. Abysmal.
23. 11 DecBook update: progress found and lost, but in sight
24. 10 DecHave you thought about sanitation systems? They violate ideals of the left and right. They are socialist *and* imperialist.
25. 10 DecSpecious, deceptive, irrelevant claims on climate
26. 9 DecHaving the number of kids you want is freedom. People, especially government, telling you otherwise is usually coercion.
27. 8 DecThis week’s selected media, December 7, 2025: The Fire Next Time, Your Music and People, What Is a Woman?, Constitution 201, Children’s Rights to a Life-Sustaining Climate
28. 7 DecListening is sharpening your axe
29. 6 DecDemocracy, wedge issues, and calm
30. 4 DecOne of the most important statements of environmentalism: giving up on changing culture (and what to do instead)
31. 4 DecThe New York Times on population
32. 2 DecLast night I dreamed people actually *wanted* to change to live more sustainably
33. 1 DecHow do we know the people living here when Europeans arrived were indigenous?
34. 1 DecThis week’s selected media, November 30, 2025: Led Zeppelin, Greenwashed, Fugazi: Instrument, Hamilton

November 2025

1. 29 NovSome thoughts and responses to Julian Simon
2. 28 NovSketch for my next book’s opening
3. 28 NovBook idea: How Not to Fly
4. 26 NovTop 2025 Christmas Gifts … or landfill within a week?
5. 26 NovAn important perspective to understand the Israel-Gaza conflict
6. 24 NovSimple math humor
7. 24 NovThis week’s selected media, November 23, 2025: Lesson Plan, Useful Not True, How to Live, La Grande Illusion
8. 22 NovMy first time doing a NY Times crossword puzzle
9. 22 NovOne month to the winter solstice
10. 20 NovMy short conversation with a guy injecting heroin into his neck in broad daylight, steps from my front door
11. 20 NovToday’s business models: Why we fight to keep what makes us miserable
12. 18 NovWhen did yoga become so plastic?
13. 17 NovMore garbage insanity: collecting leaves and sending them to landfill
14. 16 NovThis week’s selected media, November 16, 2025: Here Comes the Sun, Green Tyranny, Fossil Fuel Abolition, Democracy in a Hotter Time, Judgment at Nuremberg, The Idea of America
15. 15 NovLibrary strollers and nannies. Why are nannies almost only female? Where is the call for equal employment for male nannies?
16. 15 NovAm I the only one who sees these problems with America’s liberals, conservatives, and libertarians?
17. 13 NovMy wonderful dream last night, playing with a dog.
18. 12 NovThe average American spends 5 hours per day on social media but claims not to have time to cook. Yeah, right.
19. 12 NovDifferences between environmentalists’ strategies and mine
20. 11 NovWhy I work on sustainability leadership here and now despite other things I could do instead
21. 9 NovThis week’s selected media, November 9, 2025: “Some People Can’t See Mental Images. The Consequences Are Profound”, Tora! Tora! Tora!, At the Heart of the White Rose
22. 8 NovGarbage people throw in my building’s garden every day
23. 8 NovMore gratuitous destruction of life, liberty, and property in my neighborhood
24. 6 NovConservative, libertarian, and Christian posts in my blog and podcast episodes
25. 5 NovSeeing the world’s fastest runners up close, volunteering at the New York City Marathon
26. 5 NovA new personal best (bench/floor press) and a failed attempt (Turkish Getup)
27. 3 Nov841: Sandra Goldmark, part 1: Fixation: How to Have Stuff without Breaking the Planet
28. 3 NovThis week’s selected media, November 2, 2025: Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, Repair Revolution
29. 2 Nov840: Dr. Leonardo Trasande, part 1: Sicker, Fatter, Poorer: The Urgent Threat of Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals to Our Health and Future … and What We Can Do About It
30. 1 NovLincoln didn’t heal slaves’ wounds. He led their “owners” to stop owning them. I’m following Lincoln, and then some.

October 2025

1. 30 OctMore drugs: a woman pooping in the park in broad daylight and more junkies shooting up in my neighborhood
2. 29 OctClimate Week NYC: Slimy and Duplicitous, causing the problems they complain about.
3. 29 OctWhen I mess up doing a sidcha: I get to practice integrity
4. 27 OctA video tour of Drew Gardens, fall 2025
5. 27 OctMy fifth annual cooking workshop at Drew Gardens: pictures and video
6. 27 OctThis week’s selected media, October 26, 2025: The SCUM Manifesto, The Eye of the Storm, A Class Divided, Dirtbag Billionaire, The White Rose movement
7. 25 OctHow “helping” people with disposable goods, especially plastic, isn’t helping compared to reusable. It’s not hard to switch back.
8. 25 OctWhy form is important in lifting weights, especially Turkish Get-Ups
9. 24 OctMovies so great that they spoil me for other movies
10. 23 OctThe joy of learning from people I diametrically disagree with (I recommend the practice)
11. 22 OctHear my second time on the Heritage Foundation podcast The Power Hour with Jack Spencer
12. 21 OctAttend my fifth annual Cooking Sustainably workshop in the Bronx THIS SATURDAY
13. 19 OctThis week’s selected media, October 19, 2025: The Radicalism of the American Revolution, The Wave (1981), Die Welle (2008), Lithium Extraction and “Green Capitalism,” Anything You Want, Hell Yeah or No
14. 18 OctAbolitionists didn’t free slaves by teaching children that slavery was wrong. Yes, they taught children, but they freed slaves by freeing slaves.
15. 18 OctEveryone says that raising kids means you can’t avoid polluting and depleting. That’s colonialism.
16. 17 OctI missed a sidcha yesterday: picking up litter in Washington Square Park
17. 16 OctWe respond differently when society conflicts with men versus with women
18. 15 OctHow environmentalists are like smokers who tell others not to smoke … while smoking
19. 13 OctIf rivers and animals are people, then are no human people indigenous, only colonizers?
20. 12 OctThis week’s selected media, October 12, 2025: Tokyo Story, Talkin’ Greenwich Village
21. 12 OctTik Tok and Instagram or hands-on practical experience?
22. 11 OctPassing fancies and shiny objects sap life of meaning, if you don’t know your values and how to live them
23. 10 OctArtificial Intelligence pollutes and depletes. Using it won’t help sustainability.
24. 9 OctTheir motivation to make doof: to drive your emotional system to buy more
25. 7 Oct839: Saabira Chaudhuri: Consumed: Throwaway Plastic Has Corrupted Us
26. 6 OctWhat I’ve bought this year besides food
27. 5 OctThis week’s selected media, October 5, 2025: Power and Liberty, two addiction articles, Blood Brothers, and Behind the Curve
28. 5 OctA new podcast I recommend: “Bulk Beans & Bicycles”
29. 3 OctBirds like playing on my solar panels (cute picture and video)
30. 3 OctYear five, day 2 no refrigerator. Did you know power companies promoted them to use more energy (not for health, safety, or flavor)?
31. 1 OctMore delicious free heirloom tomatoes that volunteers and poor people rejected but I turned into gazpacho

September 2025

1. 30 SepI apologized after over twenty years and it turns out he didn’t notice what I did.
2. 29 SepIf you build a home where it’s unlivable, on what grounds to you complain when you can’t live there?
3. 29 SepThis week’s selected media, September 28, 2025: The Devil’s Climb
4. 27 Sep838: Zach Rabinor, part 2: What if your business and values clash?
5. 26 SepTwo more times I cried, from laughing
6. 25 SepMy top thought about Climate Week
7. 24 Sep836 Dr. Robert Fullilove, part 5: Unsustainability is upstream of imperialism, colonialism, slavery, and racism
8. 23 SepTimes I cried
9. 22 SepThis week’s selected media, September 21, 2025: The Constitution Today, Groundhog Day, podcasts with Christopher Ryan and Arthur Brooks
10. 21 SepThe easy and hard parts of exercise and another value of sidchas
11. 20 SepWhen not to worry about stranded assets, even to prefer them
12. 19 SepThe paradox of homelessness and dependence nobody seems to see
13. 18 Sep“Do the reps, you get the results. Don’t do the reps, you don’t get the results.”
14. 17 SepA paradoxical consequence of considering animals, plants, and rivers people
15. 16 SepStop saying the playbook for doubt and deception comes from “big tobacco.” What to say instead.
16. 15 SepThis week’s selected media, September 14, 2025: Common Sense and A Brighter Summer Day
17. 14 SepMy annual bike ride upstate and lunch at the farm providing my CSA, then riding back by the Little Red Lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge
18. 13 SepA fun quote/pun I stumbled into making
19. 12 Sep835: At last! I can access my roof to charge solar for the first time in 18 months.
20. 11 SepI reduced my social media use even more.
21. 9 SepIf you claim to consent for someone else, you’re a tyrant
22. 9 SepWhat does it mean “to own” something?
23. 7 SepThis week’s selected media, September 7, 2025: Parasite
24. 7 SepWhat is a right?
25. 6 SepData on the two carbon cycles: Not even close
26. 5 SepAnother summer without air conditioning. What’s the problem?
27. 4 SepArtificial Intelligence: The Biggest Result People Miss
28. 3 SepDon’t only “teach children sustainability”. Here’s why and what to do instead.
29. 2 SepAnother 70-pound Turkish Get-Up, also more lifting personal bests

August 2025

1. 31 AugThis week’s selected media, August 31, 2025: Getting to Yes, Getting to Yes With Yourself, The Mindful Body
2. 30 AugWhy not compare trains to planes
3. 30 AugHeirloom tomatoes, a local pear tree, and a local fig tree
4. 29 AugThe Metropolitan Museum of Art without crowds: glorious
5. 28 AugSome ups, downs, ins, and outs of writing a book
6. 26 AugHow much pet food comes from factory farms that brutalize animals?
7. 25 Aug834: Do Americans Know How to Prepare Food From Scratch?
8. 25 AugThis week’s selected media, August 24, 2025: The Problem of Social Cost; Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution
9. 24 AugThe problem with sleeping in summer weather in cities
10. 23 AugWhen did you last prepare a full meal from scratch, not one packaged product?
11. 21 AugDoes anything tear family and communities apart more than flying?
12. 20 AugWhat you pay for when you buy gas, plane tickets, and plastic: lobbyists (also more extraction)
13. 19 AugRead my plucky quote in today’s Washington Post
14. 19 AugImagine the density of litter was birds and mammals. That’s what our world was like.
15. 18 AugThis week’s selected media, August 17, 2025: Black Hole Blues, If You Can Keep It, several essays by Woodrow Wilson, The White Man’s Task
16. 17 AugLibertarians confused on pollution, sacrificing their core values. At the root: lack of hands-on practical experience.
17. 15 Aug833: Aaron Blaise: A Master Disney Director and Animator on Self Expression, Leadership, and Nature
18. 14 AugSolving environmental problems today by teaching kids is like fighting fascism in 1941 by teaching kids
19. 13 AugMy CPR training certificate
20. 13 AugJames Madison on slavery (in contrast with Abraham Lincoln)
21. 12 AugMore fresh juicy local peaches and heirloom tomatoes than I can handle, saved from waste by rich and poor alike
22. 11 AugThis week’s selected media, August 10, 2025: The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs, Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley
23. 10 AugMy first online delivery in a long time: disgusting, sickening waste
24. 9 AugA comment on refrigeration and freezing to a zero-waste blog
25. 8 AugProfessions and people NOT to ask how to solve our environmental situation
26. 6 AugDo you think BP tricked us? Here’s a way to respond.
27. 5 Aug831: Glenn Hubbard: Dean of Columbia Business School on Adam Smith and Leadership
28. 3 AugThis week’s selected media, August 3, 2025: Propaganda, Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment, Fixed
29. 2 AugConsent of the Governed and NIABY: Not In Anyone’s Back Yard
30. 1 AugTwo personal bests in a week: Freedom.
31. 1 AugI love where I live but it’s being destroyed, part 3b: More drugs
32. 1 AugAnother Green Revolution?

July 2025

1. 30 JulThe social cost of gratuitous plunder and destruction of life, liberty, and property.
2. 30 Jul830: Jo Nemeth, part 2: Nature improves time with loved ones
3. 29 JulI love recognition for my work and friendships that others pay for, like going on the field for batting practice
4. 27 JulThis week’s selected media, July 27, 2025: Cool Food
5. 27 JulI love a good leadership or entrepreneurial challenge, but few others seem to
6. 25 JulI love learning about the Enlightendigenous origins of liberty, freedom, equality, and democracy in America
7. 25 JulI love where I live but it’s being destroyed, part 3a: More drugs
8. 23 Jul829: Adam Galinsky, part 1: Do you love being inspired? He wrote the book on it.
9. 23 JulI love learning about nature from hands-on practical experience in helping people
10. 22 JulI love simple things, like this Gandhi statue
11. 21 JulThis week’s selected media, July 20, 2025: Manufactured Landscapes, Benjamin Franklin (of the city of brotherly love, where I was born)
12. 21 JulThis week’s selected media, July 20, 2025: Mein Kampf, Volume 1, because I love learning, even (especially!) from those I disagree with
13. 19 Jul828: Richard Reeves: For Boys and Men: More support and love, less misunderstanding
14. 19 JulWhich person has more love in their life?
15. 17 Jul827: Chris Berdik: Scientific American loved his book Clamor (so did I)
16. 16 JulTo conservatives and libertarians annoyed at trash strikes: Sanitation systems are socialist. Most of your garbage promotes socialism.
17. 15 JulI love developing resilience and strength: AI version, part 1
18. 15 JulI love where I live. A perk of volunteering: July 4th fireworks up close (also Thanksgiving)
19. 14 JulThis week’s selected media, July 13, 2025: Eichmann in Jerusalem, Madison, Akhil Reed Amar
20. 12 JulI love where I live. How it’s being destroyed, part 3: Drugs
21. 12 JulI love where I live but it’s being destroyed, part 2: Online delivery
22. 10 JulA broad outline of my vision and mission for the workshop and alumni community I love
23. 10 JulI love where I live but it’s being destroyed, part 1: Takeout instead of food
24. 8 JulI love finding yet more ways to reduce how much I pollute (that is, hurt people)
25. 6 JulThis week’s selected media, July 6, 2025: The Lucifer Effect, A Brighter Summer Day (two works I love)
26. 6 Jul825: Ryan Mandelbaum, part 2: Rising to the challenge of random acts of love and friendliness
27. 4 JulI love how hurting others less (ie living more sustainably) teaches me more about the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
28. 3 JulI don’t love needless, gluttonous waste
29. 2 JulWhich way of living embodies more love: Picking up litter or walking past it?
30. 2 Jul824: Dr. Rob Reed, part 2: Learning to love leading effectively

June 2025

1. 30 JunLove Is Love, Garbage Is Garbage, and Pollution Hurts People: Pride 2025
2. 29 JunThis week’s selected media, June 29, 2025: two about Corrie ten Boom, Mathematics of Love, Pomodoro Technique
3. 29 JunI love when a team hits on all cylinders: when everyone acts with their specialty and we collectively achieve more
4. 27 JunMore love for the recent heat wave now that it’s passed
5. 27 JunCan you love your neighbor as yourself in challenging times?
6. 26 JunWhy I love volunteering
7. 24 JunWhy I love the heat, even when it’s 95F (35C) on the way to 102F (39C).
8. 24 JunToday, 1988: Global Warming on front page of NY Times. Today, 2025: Americans pollute and deplete more than ever. Where’s the love?
9. 24 JunI love how much leading in sustainably leads to learning the history of liberty and freedom
10. 22 JunNot hurting innocent people a “purity test”? I think your ignorance or internal conflict is showing.
11. 21 JunMore junkies shooting up in broad daylight in the park
12. 21 JunHow can anyone imaging this self-indulgence a better life?
13. 21 JunCan I save this apple tree a neighbor threw away?
14. 20 JunThe joy of understanding people we disagree with
15. 19 JunJuneberries, the law, and discovering local fruit
16. 18 Jun823: Mark Mills, part 5: We’ll Never Have an Energy Transition
17. 17 JunHow we act when at the top of a dominance hierarchy: Learning from Thomas Jefferson
18. 15 JunThis week’s selected media, June 2025: Thomas Jefferson and The Choice
19. 15 JunMy first Hillsdale College online certificate and why I took the course
20. 14 JunI wrote a poem: The Poem of the High-Fiber Diet (trigger warning: juvenile humor)
21. 13 JunMore on “How the liberation of living more sustainably feels”
22. 12 JunAre there people who eat absolutely zero unpackaged food? I think so.
23. 9 JunI increasingly feel like I’m in Monticello listening to Thomas Jefferson
24. 9 JunThis week’s selected media, June 8, 2025: The Choice and The Wrestler
25. 8 JunWhen they say “transition fuel,” they mean “more polluting and depleting,” not less pollution or depletion
26. 6 JunAnother sad reminder of our culture as it is: dumping garbage on memorials of our loved ones
27. 6 JunYou’re lying to yourself if you believe we can ramp up wind and solar to replace fossil fuels and stop using them
28. 5 JunPolluting and depleting are not examples of the Tragedy of the Commons
29. 4 JunNature’s discipline missing in today’s world
30. 3 JunIs Artificial Intelligence More a Weapon Than a Tool?
31. 2 JunThis week’s selected media, June 1, 2025: Inspire, Of Men and Boys, Barbie
32. 1 JunHow easily industry can be corrupted, often willingly and enthusiastically

May 2025

1. 30 MayIf you pollute and deplete, make your peace with the consequences of your actions instead of accusing others of making you feel guilty
2. 30 MayAre we the 1%? Are you?
3. 28 MayAyahuasca and psychedelics: I propose an alternative if you want to learn about ego, life, the universe, and everything
4. 27 MayHow the liberation of living more sustainably feels
5. 26 MayThis week’s selected media, May 25, 2025: The Way Home; Right Thing Right Now
6. 25 MayA quarter million burpees
7. 24 MayYear 4, Day 1 with my apartment disconnected from the electric grid
8. 24 MayIt’s not your job to end pollution and depletion. It was nobody’s job to end slavery or fight the Nazis either until it was too late. (Or maybe it’s everyone’s job)
9. 23 May820: Andy Samuel CBE: From worry before the workshop to Fun and Community during and after
10. 22 MayThe necessity of the APPLE PIE Amendment
11. 20 MayNearly everyone missed the biggest problem with nuclear and fusion, but it’s huge.
12. 19 MayInteresting trivial meditation story and book pictures
13. 18 MayThis week’s selected media, May 18, 2025: The Male Brain
14. 18 MayDo I miss anything from when I polluted and depleted like the average American?
15. 16 MayThis Sustainable Life ranked #1 Environmental Leadership podcast
16. 16 MayAnother problem people miss about artificial intelligence
17. 15 MaySigns you’re not traveling even if you go far
18. 14 MayWould you ask a plantation owner in 1855 for advice how to abolish slavery? Why ask polluters today how to stop pollution?
19. 12 May819: A Course in Sustainability Leadership: 6: Our Brighter Future
20. 11 MayThis week’s selected media, May 11, 2025: Racism, The Case for Reparations, Clamor
21. 11 MayThe left denies science as much as anyone, just different science, but it denies enough to avoid facing that it promotes unsustainability.
22. 8 MayWatch me cooking my famous no-packaging vegan solar-powered stew at a workshop at Drew Gardens, Bronx NY
23. 7 MayWhy do liberals and progressives so strongly oppose actually acting on sustainability?
24. 4 MayThis week’s selected media, May 4, 2025: Pattern Breakers, The Shock Doctrine, What If We Get It Right
25. 2 MayRead about me in Gothamist: “Meet the NYC environmentalists going off the grid and eating discarded food”
26. 2 MayHear me on WNYC: “Meet the NYC environmentalists going off the grid and eating discarded food”

April 2025

1. 30 AprMy comment on the media pooh-poohing “bros”
2. 29 AprSome insensitivity I perceive from parents
3. 27 AprThis week’s selected media, April 27, 2025: The Myth of Race
4. 27 AprA definition of sustainability I’m testing
5. 26 AprAre humans more rationalizing than rational?
6. 25 AprA simple way to view the choice to live sustainably: Think of others more than yourself
7. 24 AprDo conservatives oppose the practices of seeking diversity, equity, and inclusion or just those practices being mandated?
8. 23 AprMore cultural exchange because of not flying: plinking and target practice
9. 21 AprAmerica has acclimatized to overwhelming garbage. It will increase until we change culture to restore the values we’ve jettisoned.
10. 21 AprThis Week’s Selected Media, April 20, 2025: Discipline Is Destiny, Hope Dies Last, I’m Glad My Mom Died
11. 20 AprAddiction by chance versus Addiction by Design with Intent
12. 18 AprTelling people problems with tobacco and alcohol is perfect message for the industries selling them
13. 17 AprFirst they say it’s impossible, then easy, then easy for me but hard for them. Anything but acting or responsibility.
14. 16 AprShould oil, coal, and gas have rights like animals and rivers to stay in the ground and not get burned?
15. 15 Apr811: Tina Tombstone: A friend I volunteer delivering food to the needy with
16. 15 AprTina Tombstone, a friend I volunteer delivering food with, on Fifth Avenue with vegetables
17. 14 AprThis week’s selected media, April 13, 2025: Matewan, This Changes Everything
18. 13 AprSome of my creative writing and editing process
19. 12 AprWhy treat doof as second hand smoke
20. 11 AprWe launched our minimum viable course: SpodekMethod.com. Check it out.
21. 10 AprDemocrats and Republicans are dancing together on sustainability for their mutual benefit, avoiding action, rallying their bases
22. 9 AprWindy and still cold, but starting to feel advantages of spring charging
23. 8 AprWhat happened to produce stands in America?
24. 6 AprThis week’s selected media, April 6, 2025: Troubled, The Message
25. 5 AprA Short Course in Sustainability Leadership
26. 5 AprIn 2025, can you become obese without doof, whose packaging hurts people as surely second-hand smoke, but remotely?
27. 4 AprWe think appliances are to save labor, but General Electric created them to grow demand for electricity, hence General “Electric”
28. 2 AprYou are as much an expert in sustainability leadership as anyone, or can be
29. 2 AprThe last dead Christmas Pagan Tree of the season, at the end of March?
30. 2 AprOctopuses are so smart we cook them and then throw them away without even eating them.
31. 1 AprVolunteering warmed my heart on a cold spring day

March 2025

1. 31 Mar810: Giora Netzer, part 2: Leadership coaching leads to far more than “just” the C-Suite
2. 30 MarAbraham Lincoln never went overseas yet accomplished a fair amount. Maybe flying isn’t that necessary.
3. 28 Mar809: Alexander Clapp: Waste Wars, how we profit off polluting the world claiming to help them
4. 28 MarPeople thinking sustainability is easier if single are insensitive, lacking empathy and compassion
5. 27 MarSriracha sauce: yuck! Enjoying food over doof.
6. 26 MarTheir conflict is with Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, and the Founding Fathers, not with me
7. 24 MarYear 10, day 1 without hurting people and funding lobbyists by flying
8. 24 MarHear me on the 12 Minute Conversations podcast with Engel Jones
9. 24 MarThis week’s selected media, March 23, 2025: Courage Is Calling, Robert Clary’s Holocaust remembrances
10. 23 MarFilter bubbles, algorithms, polarization, and living in different worlds? What you can do about it.
11. 22 MarMy biggest downside to aging so far
12. 20 MarOne Year Without Access to My Own Roof. Nothing Replaces Hands-On Practical Experience.
13. 20 Mar“These are the times that try men’s souls”
14. 19 MarOur Deepest Values: “Do, Leave, Live, Love”
15. 18 MarReplacing “comfort and convenience” with “the perks of being at the top of a dominance hierarchy” or “the perks of being a tyrant”
16. 17 MarThis week’s selected media, March 16, 2025: Judgment at Nuremberg, Venomous Lumpsucker
17. 16 MarSocial media executives don’t let their children use social media. This time it’s personal.
18. 15 MarHonoring fallen auxiliary police officers
19. 14 MarFreedom or pollution. I would be nice to have both, but you can’t.
20. 13 MarOne fridge may keep a meal fresh. Dependence on a refrigerated supply chain results in less fresh food and more waste.
21. 12 MarHave you noticed that sanitation departments have become socialist, imperialist, and flagrant violators of the US Constitution’s original intent?
22. 11 MarSee me with Rob and Andrew on After Dark: “When Sustainability Meets MAHA And Making English The Official Language”
23. 10 MarThis week’s selected media, March 9, 2025: Platoon, the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Human Nature Odyssey podcast
24. 8 MarA real-world example of what I meant in “Racist jokes, polluting, depleting, and integrity”
25. 8 Mar“In the next 30 years, we’ll make four times more plastic waste than we ever have”
26. 6 MarRacist jokes, polluting, depleting, and integrity
27. 6 Mar“Ecotourism”: What a scam. Why not “solve” other problems by calling them “ecolittering,” “ecopolluting,” and “ecoextinction”?
28. 4 MarPeople blame me for leeching my neighbors’ heat. They have it backward.
29. 3 MarThis week’s selected media, March 2, 2025: Waste Wars and Ishmael
30. 2 MarCorollaries to my recent post: Replacing “sustainability” with “not hurting people” and “polluting” with “hurting people”
31. 1 MarJosh and Evelyn Go Live! … see our first live stream of a series on living joyfully sustainably

February 2025

1. 28 Feb“I can’t do sustainability because my [spouse or kids] won’t go for it.”
2. 27 FebWhat do you think: will the world be more healthy, safe, and secure next year? Next decade? Next century?
3. 26 FebThe one thing in the universe that turns chaos into value and what it means for humanity
4. 25 FebMy favorite solar panel
5. 24 FebWhat the Spodek Method workshop delivers
6. 22 FebReplacing “sustainability” with “not hurting people” and “polluting” with “hurting people”
7. 22 FebHundreds of trashed dead Christmas pagan trees, 2025
8. 20 FebPlastic: “between 400,000 and 1 million people die each year in low- and middle-income countries because of diseases related to mismanaged waste”
9. 19 Feb805: Osprey Orielle Lake: Founder and Executive Director of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN)
10. 18 FebMore humble pie for Josh, and the value of Hands-On Practical Experience (HOPE)
11. 17 FebBigger distractions than BP’s
12. 16 FebWhy Are So Many Young Adults Getting Cancer? Doof, not food.
13. 15 FebHear me on A Climate Change with Matt Matern
14. 14 FebHelping the poor whom unsustainability hurts is nice and essential but by definition isn’t solving the problem
15. 12 FebYet more cases where efficiency doesn’t help sustainability
16. 11 FebSee me on Japanese TV!
17. 9 FebWhy complaining about “private profit and public cost” misses the boat.
18. 8 FebInspiring words of resolution from great historical figures to fight coercion and tyranny
19. 8 FebWhy do people like hearing me share my vulnerabilities?
20. 7 FebPlaying on a tilted field isn’t fair. How to fix it and how not to fix it.
21. 6 FebThe Spodek Method is like quitting smoking.
22. 4 FebPlastic appears more poisonous than you think, especially to your brain. You’d rather know these findings than not.
23. 3 FebA polluting cafe illustrates our how our culture values and promotes polluting and depleting
24. 3 FebThis week’s selected media, February 2, 2025: The First Emancipator, Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, Will & Harper
25. 2 FebFinding a used syringe at my building for the first time. Also, people injecting on the subway platform.
26. 1 FebWhat people mean when they say “We have to have a conversation about…” (hint: it’s not about having a conversation)

January 2025

1. 31 JanNearly everyone misses the danger of artificial intelligence we’re sleepwalking into
2. 29 JanThe audio book for Sustainability Simplified is on sale!
3. 28 JanFifteen minutes of a Spodek Method workshop
4. 28 Jan803: Nick Loris, part 3: Liberty, freedom, sustainability, and Rock Creek Park
5. 27 JanWhy environmentalists fail and what environmentalism lacks: integrity, credibility, and experience
6. 26 JanThe value of family support when living by your values when society opposes them: Janae Marie Kroczaleski, part 2
7. 25 JanThe emotional struggles of living by your values when society opposes them: Janae Marie Kroczaleski, part 1
8. 24 JanYear 15, day 1, posting daily to this blog, my first sidcha (what led me to the concept)
9. 22 JanOn the Jasper Blueprint podcast: “The Spodek Method: How Radical Personal Change Can Change the World”
10. 22 JanWe all descend from indigenous people and we’ve all been assimilated
11. 21 JanIs space travel possible for Abrahamic religions?
12. 20 JanThis week’s selected media, January 19, 2025: Transformer: Transitioning as a World-Record Powerlifter and The Heat Will Kill You First
13. 19 JanDo you turn on the light when you wake up at night to go to the bathroom? Why it matters.
14. 18 JanDarn: My building’s 5-month project denying roof access has extended to 13 months.
15. 17 JanAsymptotically approaching a finite number isn’t approaching zero, so we can increase efficiency forever and still increase pollution forever too.
16. 16 JanHear me on the Power Hour from the Heritage Foundation
17. 15 JanWe need the words of Thomas Jefferson and work of Robert Carter III. Instead we have the words of Carter and acts of Jefferson.
18. 14 Jan802: Lorraine Smith, part 2: The hidden, dirty secrets of corporate “sustainability” work
19. 12 JanThis week’s selected media, January 12, 2025: Nuclear Revolution, Powering America
20. 12 JanMeasuring greenhouse emissions looks like a distraction. Extraction and introduction into the biosphere seems more relevant.
21. 11 Jan“I never had a more optimistic outlook than when things were going to shit,” said my friend about suffering a debilitating disease
22. 10 JanIs most of the economy transaction costs?
23. 9 Jan801: Travis Fisher, part 3: Restoring time with family
24. 8 JanWhy we feel so busy
25. 6 JanResources on Robert Carter III
26. 6 JanThis week’s selected media, January 5, 2025: The Anti-Jefferson: Why Robert Carter III Freed His Slaves (And Why We Couldn’t Care Less) and The Individualists
27. 5 Jan“I solve problems. I’m not putting band-aids on symptoms”
28. 4 JanThe average of zero and a negative number is still negative so we all have to live sustainably, not just some of us.
29. 2 JanA video of my twice-daily burpee-based calisthenics routine at the start of 2025
30. 1 JanThe books and movies I liked most and least in 2024

2024 361

December 2024

1. 31 Dec800: Lorna Davis, part 4: After the Sustainability Leadership Workshop
2. 30 DecDisposable means imperialist. So does polluting.
3. 30 DecThis week’s selected media, December 29, 2024: This Land, Yi Yi
4. 29 Dec“They blame me for their guilt”
5. 27 DecOur environmental symptoms aren’t like a mosquito. They’re like a flat tire while riding a bike: you have to stop and face them to solve them.
6. 26 DecOn delivering food to a soup kitchen on Christmas
7. 25 Dec798: Nick Romeo: The Alternative: How to Build a Just Economy
8. 23 DecHear me on the New Books Network podcast on Sustainability Simplified
9. 22 DecThis week’s selected media, December 22, 2024: Land Power
10. 22 DecYear 14!, day 1, daily burpees
11. 22 DecHappy winter solstice. I’m learning more practical astronomy through sustainability than through my PhD in astrophysics
12. 20 Dec797: Alden Wicker, part 2: Try and Try Again: E-biking in Vermont
13. 20 DecHow I wish I could retitle my book. Oh well.
14. 18 Dec796: Jack Spencer, part 3: Authenticity on Acting on Sustainability (also Project 2025)
15. 18 DecUnexpected quotes in my book, plus a few I missed
16. 17 DecTen days before Christmas people are already throwing away their Christmas pagan trees.
17. 17 DecGo Alan Go rocking Washington Square Park, teaching kids music
18. 15 DecThis week’s selected media, December 15, 2024: Meditation for Mortals and Liar’s Poker
19. 15 DecWhy should Exxon become more sustainable but not you?
20. 13 DecExtreme like Thomas Jefferson or like Robert Carter III?
21. 11 DecGandhi’s Salt March wasn’t about salt or marching, nor is my work about solar or living off-grid.
22. 8 DecThis week’s selected media, December 8, 2024: The Big Short
23. 8 DecHelp a Historic Cause
24. 6 DecSee the video from Monday’s book reading
25. 5 DecPollution, depletion, and overcoming addiction
26. 4 DecMore reasonable thoughts on population
27. 2 DecThe challenge of the winter solstice and misunderstanding leadership
28. 2 DecSome early thoughts of a new way to quantify population and overpopulation

November 2024

1. 30 NovSee me on the Radical World podcast: “The Power of Personal Transformation for Systemic Impact”
2. 29 NovAn astronaut I agree with in principle, but who is hurting sustainability, I fear
3. 29 NovThe Thanksgiving Day Parade from inside the barricades
4. 27 NovHear my presentations to grade school kids on Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Nelson Mandela, and spacetime.
5. 26 NovCome to my online book reading, THIS MONDAY 7pm eastern
6. 25 NovOzempic: A drug that achieves what sustainability does, but sustainability doesn’t trade one dependence for another
7. 24 NovThis week’s selected media, November 24, 2024: A People’s History of the United States
8. 24 NovSustainability connecting me to nature: wonderful overall but challenging in the winter
9. 23 NovThe first Christmas pagan dead trees of the season
10. 22 NovHow long does it take to charge my battery?
11. 22 NovAnother annoying knee-jerk response to acting more sustainably
12. 21 NovHow to pull out all your hair: Try to get an addict in denial to seriously acknowledge their addiction
13. 20 NovSee me interviewed by Don Lemon in Washington Square Park on the election
14. 18 NovThis week’s selected media, November 17, 2024: Commentary on Wealth of Nations
15. 16 NovOne of the most challenging parts of living more sustainably: other people bragging and showing off nonsense they think is “green”
16. 14 Nov789: Solomon Schmidt: Author of Legal Gladiator, on Alan Dershowitz
17. 14 NovLand acknowledgments and sustainability
18. 13 Nov788: Susan Liebell: John Locke, Stewardship, and the US Constitution
19. 11 NovAdam Smith and pollution
20. 9 Nov“Have you learned to love not flying?”
21. 9 NovThe Times featured my story on the front page of its Metro section
22. 8 Nov786: Jan Mulder, part 2: The joy of finding and leading community
23. 7 NovA response to a common self-serving response to the NY Times profile of me
24. 7 NovFriends tell friends they’re full of s#!t. Who else will?
25. 5 NovThe Story Behind the Story of the New York Times: “Who Says You Can’t Live Off the Grid in Manhattan?”
26. 5 NovI don’t mean to be melodramatic, but if I succeed at changing culture, what are the odds of me being shot?
27. 4 NovThis week’s selected media, November 3, 2024: Be Useful, the Power of Negative Thinking, How to Be an Antiracist
28. 3 NovThe reviews for Sustainability Simplified are coming in and look great.
29. 2 NovSustainability Simplified became available in paperback this morning!
30. 1 NovWant quality? Start with the corners nobody notices.

October 2024

1. 30 OctIf you believe living more sustainably makes your life worse but you want sustainability, you’ll help your cause by shutting up (until you practice).
2. 29 OctI have been to the mountaintop and I have seen the promised land.
3. 27 OctThis week’s selected media, October 27, 2024: The Cost of Discipleship
4. 27 OctWhat’s in your garbage?
5. 25 OctWould you propose changing Nazi culture by making it more efficient?
6. 25 OctElon Musk is Eli Whitney on steroids
7. 24 Oct“What about ambulances, fire trucks, and hospitals?”
8. 23 OctThe opposite of individual action is not what you think.
9. 22 OctWhat is the opposite of pollution? Loving your neighbor as yourself.
10. 21 OctHear me on America Out Loud: “How sustainability led to protecting and serving the community” and “From sustainability to law enforcement”
11. 21 OctThis week’s selected media, October 20, 2024: Serpico, The Road
12. 20 OctHow to pave a state
13. 19 OctEveryone looks for holes in sustainability, expecting it to unravel, but it’s self-consistent. Unsustainability has holes and doesn’t work.
14. 17 OctI get the joke, but to accept the humor means giving up. I’m not giving up because I know solutions that work.
15. 17 OctTwo updates to my sidchas and standard operation procedures
16. 16 OctServing in Uniform Podcasts and Pictures
17. 14 OctEnvironmentalism, Coercion, and Authoritarianism
18. 13 OctThis week’s selected media, October 13, 2024: Sustainability Simplified and Lifegasm
19. 12 OctEcomodernists and Fascism
20. 11 Oct“We’re Running Out of Time—Can Sustainability Save Us? with Joshua Spodek” Hear me on the Compassiviste Dialogues
21. 9 OctDietrich Bonhoeffer, Sustainability, Difficult Choices, and Right Choices
22. 8 OctClimate Week 2024 Was Monticello 1776
23. 7 OctThis week’s selected media, October 6, 2024: A Short History of Reconstruction, On the Waterfront, The Plow That Broke the Plains
24. 6 OctMark 12:31: “The second command is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”
25. 5 OctWhy do liberals consider political views they disagree with “wrong” but different skin colors and sexual preferences “diverse”?
26. 4 OctWhat about ambulances, fire trucks, and hospitals? Don’t they help us and require polluting?
27. 3 OctAdvanced discoveries in sustainability
28. 1 OctFridgeless Means Fresher Food; Day 1 Year 4 without a fridge (like all humans before about 100 years ago)
29. 1 OctNew resting heart rate: 46 bpm
30. 1 OctOne Year Without Plugging Anything In, Even Not At Home

September 2024

1. 30 SepThis week’s selected media, September 29, 2024: Teaching White Supremacy, Woke Inc
2. 29 SepThe odd, capricious gratitude and anger of Crack Row addicts to picking up litter
3. 27 SepWhy changing culture to sustainable must come first, only then pursue efficiency, technology, and laws.
4. 27 SepI can’t wait for when I can go into a store and buy any food for sale without packaging or being shipped far or otherwise hurting people.
5. 26 SepWhat I learned about my diet and fiber from a colonoscopy
6. 25 SepHow and why to fix the standard greenhouse effect diagram
7. 24 SepPreview of SpodekMethod.com
8. 23 SepThis Week’s Selected Media, September 22, 2024: The Worst Hard Time, Leading Marines, Warfighting
9. 22 SepPredictions about Artificial Intelligence that everyone misses
10. 21 Sep“Pollution makes me sick”
11. 20 SepMy functional new word: Enlightendigenous
12. 19 SepAn anonymous reader: Your “immense privilege that seems to be lurking behind this wall of intellectual masturbation”
13. 17 Sep782: Jane Muncke PhD MSc: Toxins in your food from plastic packaging. You’d rather know.
14. 17 SepI spoke to a New York City public high school class on astrophysics and sustainability. Here’s the recording.
15. 16 SepThis week’s selected media, September 15, 2024: The Alternative
16. 15 SepI attended my first natural building workshop today and recommend it.
17. 14 SepHow do people have so much more time for social media than cooking?
18. 12 SepWhat AI does for you it will do more and better for people richer than you
19. 11 SepYour spouse and kids can be your greatest excuses for giving up or your greatest support and motivation.
20. 10 SepImages illustrating our culture today
21. 9 SepThis Week’s Selected Media, September 8, 2024: An Iron Wind
22. 8 SepNew Yorkers: Join Workshop Graduate Emily Wang’s Own Workshop on Sustainable Building 9/14 or 9/15!
23. 8 SepAre Plastic and Pollution Imperialism? If not, why not?
24. 7 SepThings I Don’t Know
25. 4 SepAddiction in Greenwich Village, Late Summer 2024
26. 3 SepI recycled a bicycle at Recycle A Bicycle
27. 2 SepThis week’s selected media, September 1, 2024: White Fragility and House Gods
28. 1 Sep778: The Entrepreneurial Strategy to Restore Sustainability Globally Without Waiting for Governments and Corporations

August 2024

1. 31 Aug776: Chuck Marohn, part 1: Strong Towns and Sustainability Leadership
2. 30 AugCharacterizing my sustainability journey in the language of presidents
3. 29 Aug775: Bruce Alexander, part 4: The Spodek Method clicks at last
4. 28 AugWhy to act sustainably first, then read to learn more
5. 26 AugThis week’s selected media, August 25, 2024: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
6. 24 AugOther thoughts after knee surgery
7. 23 AugResting heart rate: 44 beats per minute*
8. 23 AugRobin DiAngelo: Not Even Wrong
9. 22 Aug“You take care of things you found in the trash more than others take care of things they bought.”
10. 21 Aug“I want to be more sustainable, but I’m not ready to start yet.” … You never will be until after you start.
11. 20 AugA father littering in front of his kids. Should I say something?
12. 19 AugThis week’s selected media, August 18, 2024: Educated, 1619 Project responses
13. 18 Aug773: Frederic Laloux, part 1: His program, “The Week,” creates space for conversations on the environment
14. 17 AugDo you value consent?
15. 16 AugIt’s not climate anxiety. *People* are causing that anxiety, destroying life, liberty, and property with impunity.
16. 14 Aug“There’s no food here, just vegetables.”
17. 14 AugScum of the Earth
18. 13 AugThe end of plastics
19. 12 AugThis Week’s Selected Media, August 11, 2024: The Counterrevolution of Slavery, The 1619 Project
20. 10 AugAre more people always better?
21. 9 AugWho are we in the Star Wars universe?
22. 8 AugWe living sustainably today, helping others live more sustainably are like Americas founders in 1774 and more.
23. 7 AugWe study Lincoln to see who we could be, but should also study Calhoun to see who we are
24. 6 AugThe Sustainability Simplified Entrepreneurship Strategy
25. 6 AugIf your solution to our environmental problems is your solution to problems before them, you’re probably tribal, not thoughtful, and exacerbating them.
26. 5 AugWhen you know someone will (mis)interpret everything you say their way, do you talk to them?
27. 4 AugOn considering when to decrease my daily exercises started over a decade ago, now in my 50s
28. 1 AugQuirky nature question: If an alligator can live 3 years without eating, when precisely does it die of hunger?

July 2024

1. 31 JulMichael Lombardi on Bill Walsh on Tom Peters on living In Search of Excellence; on mastery and freedom
2. 30 JulWhy I doubt I’ll watch the Olympics (I love sport, athleticism, and competition) and what I’ll do instead
3. 28 JulThis Week’s Selected Media: The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920
4. 28 JulCalling the other side “a new religion” demeans yourself
5. 27 JulA rare 360 degree rainbow in the middle of a sunny day yesterday
6. 25 JulDoes the U.S. medical system improve more lives than it hurts, including lives outside the system?
7. 25 Jul769: Kevin Fucillo, part 1: An inside view of our community fridge and its volunteers
8. 23 JulEmotions that emerge from the Spodek Method about nature that work
9. 22 JulExamples of sustainability tactics based on extrinsic motivation that fail sustainability and drive unsustainability
10. 22 JulThis Week’s Selected Media: July 21, 2024: Planet of the Humans and American Fiction
11. 20 JulI started in sustainability trying to restore nature. Now I see we have to restore humanity.
12. 20 JulA neighbor’s thank-you letter from Donald Trump (sadly disrespecting the office of the presidency)
13. 18 JulMisunderstanding Hate and Humanity
14. 17 Jul768: Trish and Evelyn, part 2: The birth of sustainability awards
15. 16 JulIf you build or buy a home in Phoenix, AZ, your claims that you “need air conditioning” lose credibility, as do your claims to others’ resources.
16. 16 Jul767: Andrew Bennett, part 2: Behind the scenes with a New York City chef
17. 14 JulThis Week’s Selected Media, July 14, 2024: Make Your Bed, A course in packaging toxicity, The Dred Scott of Our Time, No god But God
18. 14 JulAre environmentalists nearly all science deniers?
19. 13 Jul766: Chip Conley, part 1: Learning to Love Midlife
20. 12 JulFor every technology you think will help you, remember people who make you miserable will use it too
21. 10 JulThe Village Sun profiled me and the Spodek Method
22. 9 JulFlying = Funding Lobbyists
23. 8 JulAddiction in Greenwich Village, Early Summer 2024
24. 8 JulThis Week’s Selected Media, July 7, 2024: Not Just Bikes and Strong Towns course, Stolen Focus
25. 6 JulA Visual Representation of the Spodek Method in Venn Diagrams
26. 6 Jul764: Erica Frank, part 2: “No Hairshirt At All.” Instead: Abundance
27. 4 JulOur culture: spring trash. Homeless don’t cause it as much as executives, elected officials, shareholders, and rich people
28. 4 JulHappy Independence Day, America. Let’s return to protecting life, liberty, and property and stop being imperialist
29. 4 JulInvited on the field at Yankee Stadium with my family (thank you Brent Suter!)
30. 3 JulVolunteering: I just helped deliver a mammoth summer load of vegetables to the community fridge
31. 2 JulGiving up on sustainability is a permanent solution to what could be a temporary problem
32. 1 JulThis Week’s Selected Media, June 30, 2024: Albatrosses

June 2024

1. 29 JunMcKinsey, Rightsizing, and Population: Businesspeople have the tools to get sustainability
2. 29 JunHow I don’t need willpower by learning to feel disgust for what once tempted me. You can too.
3. 28 Jun763: Guy Spier, part 2: Limited government, free market, low tax sustainability solutions
4. 27 JunToday’s greatest privilege: denying one’s personal contribution to pollution, depletion, plunder, and imperialism
5. 26 JunWhat did they do that ice cream doesn’t melt in baking hot sun?
6. 24 JunToday in 1988: Global Warming on the front page of the New York Times. Today in 2024: Americans pollute more than ever.
7. 24 JunHow what I’m doing feels, subway version
8. 24 JunThis Week’s Selected Media, June 23, 2024: Strong Towns
9. 22 JunWhat I think of when I think of Taylor Swift and her jet
10. 22 JunLimiting government and limiting pollution and depletion can overlap. Here’s how.
11. 21 JunAnother way we let technology make us dependent and unhealthy: Jellies, jams, and preserves
12. 20 JunSimple Pleasures
13. 19 Jun761: Dave Kerpen, part 2: Joyfully Skipping Donuts
14. 17 JunAre liberals trying to prove conservatives right?
15. 17 JunThis week’s selected media, June 16, 2024: In My Time of Dying and The Law
16. 16 JunMagnitude of suffering and death then and now
17. 15 JunWhy many litterers are entitled and one way the most entitled justify littering
18. 14 JunFollowed up: watched recommended historical videos from the Leadership Institute’s course “Conservatism 101”
19. 13 JunClimate Reality Leadership Training garbage
20. 12 JunHear me on the Inspire Someone Today podcast
21. 11 Jun760: Adam Alter, part 1: Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked
22. 10 JunThis Week’s Selected Media, Jun 9, 2024: When Breath Becomes Air and Scientific Advertising
23. 9 JunFirst sail of 2024
24. 7 JunAnother lie we tell ourselves: “Human life requires polluting and depleting”
25. 6 Jun758: Peter Singer, part 2: A philosopher approaches sustainability
26. 5 JunA Triply Awesome Weekend
27. 4 JunThe ongoing challenges of sustainability in a culture that talks sustainability but opposes it in practice.
28. 2 JunThis Week’s Selected Media, June 2, 2024: Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, History of the Constitution
29. 1 JunWhen changing fast is easier than slow
30. 1 JunThe challenges of trying to act sustainably in a culture that doesn’t value sustainability never end

May 2024

1. 31 MayWe’re going to need truth and reconciliation committees when we acknowledge the consequences of our actions
2. 30 MayNotes for future essay ideas
3. 28 MayWhy fossil fuel companies love that we chase efficiency, “renewables,” and “clean,” “green,” energy sources (and what to do instead)
4. 28 MayHow Profit First is helping my friend run his business
5. 27 MayThis Week’s Selected Media, May 26, 2024: Animal Liberation Now and Turning Pages
6. 25 MayMilton Friedman: Free Markets Don’t Have to Mean Growth and Governments Ought to Regulate Pollution
7. 25 May757: Dr. Anna Lembke, part 1: Dopamine Nation
8. 24 MayYear 2, day 365 of my apartment disconnected from the electric grid
9. 23 May756: Kimberly Nicholas: How to Fly Less? Fly less.
10. 22 MayHe who lives by pollution dies by pollution.
11. 21 MayMy new book title and subtitle
12. 20 MayThis week’s selected media, May 19, 2024: The Power of Habit, Conservatism
13. 19 MayA question for those who believe “more people solve more problems”
14. 18 May755: Stefan Gössling: Busting self-serving myths about flying
15. 17 MayAnother reason we’re failing at sustainability: relying on the wrong people
16. 16 MayLikely Myth: Food Was Scarce for Our Ancestors Before Agriculture
17. 15 MayThe problem is closer than a future collapse or distant pollution. It’s us, here, now.
18. 14 MayRestaurants and caterers hate vegetables
19. 12 MayThis Week’s Selected Media, May 12, 2024: Cadillac Desert: The American West And Its Disappearing Water, Building a Storybrand
20. 12 MayAnother Disposed of Christmas Pagan Tree… in May!
21. 12 MayMore isn’t less, but people keep making more, trying to make less.
22. 11 MayWhat made sustainability politically polarized: my hypothesis
23. 10 MayColumbia canceling its commencement reminds me of when I protested Apartheid at commencement
24. 9 MaySaying you care versus acting.
25. 8 MayLegumes that don’t need cooking
26. 6 MayThis Week’s Selected Media: May 5, 2024: Man’s Search for Meaning
27. 4 MayProps to EcoFlow for improved solar panels
28. 3 MayRain and clouds as far as the forecast goes. More challenges to solve.
29. 3 MayHow to fail at transitioning from fossil fuels
30. 1 MayMore Life-Changing, Inner-You-Revealing, Passion-Unleashing Magic of Initiative
31. 1 MayCute dogs and delaying waste by reusing old tennis balls

April 2024

1. 30 AprWhat’s the opposite of a land acknowledgment?
2. 29 AprThis Week’s Selected Media, April 28, 2024: Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Marketing Made Simple
3. 28 AprVegetables taste delicious. Why cover them in oil?
4. 27 AprNow I’m a Real Cook
5. 26 AprWhat do you call a market where people can profit from depriving others of life, liberty, and property with impunity?
6. 25 AprSeeing pointless medical waste giving blood
7. 24 AprThe problems of sustainability as more social than scientific
8. 23 AprIf you’ve wondered what a fentanyl testing and overdose treatment kit looks like, we live in a culture where you can find them in the park
9. 22 AprThis Week’s Selected Readings: Apocalypse Never, Dare to Lead
10. 21 AprReminiscing on college sports on the occasion of a reunion
11. 20 AprIf you don’t like measuring your carbon footprint, report how much you fund extraction and lobbying
12. 19 AprVisualizations of Empires growing and competing
13. 18 Apr753: Martin Doblmeier, part 2: Sabbath and Sustainability
14. 17 AprSpring means it’s about to get noisy
15. 15 AprThis week’s selected media: April 14, 2024: The Denial of Death, Braving the Wilderness, Future Shock documentary, Al Gore’s Climate Leadership Training
16. 13 AprA year only plugging in once at NYU
17. 12 AprRecognized as artist for the first time in a while
18. 11 AprAnother reader inspired to commit to acting on his own, inspiring me back (and I hope you too).
19. 10 AprEnvironmental problems and solutions
20. 8 AprHave You Hit Rock Bottom on the Environment?
21. 7 AprThis week’s selected media: April 7, 2024: Irresistible and The Story of More
22. 6 AprFirst media coverage of me charging in Washington Square Park (that I know of)
23. 5 AprPerpetual Motion Machines, Patents, and Leading Polluting, Depleting Industries
24. 5 AprI don’t know how people can eat at restaurants and not get fat. I couldn’t.
25. 4 AprHear me on America Out Loud’s After Dark: How Pollution Destroys Life, Liberty, and Property
26. 3 AprA billion-dollar idea: Moonshot solar: modest solar for a larger market
27. 2 AprWhy I suspect non-European cultures influenced the U.S. Constitution more than most people think

March 2024

1. 31 MarThis week’s selected media: March 31, 2024: Repo Man, Learning to Love Midlife
2. 31 MarEveryone should change except me.
3. 30 MarMy favorite part of Bruce Springsteen’s memoir
4. 29 MarSee my solar panels from space
5. 28 MarOne of my rock bottoms, learning beyond just showing up.
6. 27 MarDo people binge on food or only doof?
7. 25 MarMore fun overcoming solar challenges, this time in Washington Square Park
8. 25 MarThis week’s selected media: March 24, 2024: The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Elliot
9. 23 MarYear 9, day 1 not flying
10. 22 MarNot giving up, day 2 without roof access. Others can give up; not yet me.
11. 22 MarMore solar challenges. Not giving up.
12. 22 MarFrederick Douglass promoted imperialism, was anti-catholic, promoted hunting whales
13. 19 MarDARVO: how many people feeling guilt and shame protect themselves (including polluters/depleters)
14. 18 MarThe Sustainable Speakers Club hosted me. Here’s the video of my talk.
15. 17 MarThis week’s selected media: March 17, 2024: You Are a Badass; Into a Strange Land: Women Captives among the Indians; Conservatism 101
16. 17 MarPeople living contrary to their values say bizarre things
17. 15 MarWhy sell vegetables when you can sell vegetables in plastic?
18. 15 MarThe Life-Changing, Inner-You-Revealing, Passion-Unleashing Magic of Initiative
19. 15 Mar749: Sven Gierlinger, part 1: Transforming the Culture of a New York Hospital Chain as a Chief Experience Officer
20. 14 MarPeople ask what’s in my garbage. Here’s what they could ask instead.
21. 13 Mar748: Stephen Broyles, part 2: A Calming, Life Change From One Small Commitment
22. 12 MarResearch that avocado seeds are healthy
23. 12 MarAnother book milestone: Finished substantive edits.
24. 11 MarThis week’s selected media: March 10, 2024: The Wise Men Know What Wicked Things Are Written on the Sky; Rat Park and more by and about Bruce K. Alexander
25. 10 MarRead about and Watch Bruce K. Alexander and Rat Park
26. 9 MarFeeling Helpless at NYU and in NYC
27. 8 MarHow to help Putin
28. 7 MarDave Gardner for President of the United States
29. 6 MarRock star drummer and podcast guest Go Alan Go made my day Sunday
30. 5 MarThe Joy of Discovering Saving More Energy (and using Q = m c ΔT)
31. 3 MarThis week’s selected media: March 3, 2024: The Road to Serfdom, Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, the Social Dilemma
32. 3 MarNYU’s sustainability deception (work-in-progress post)
33. 2 MarI’ve learned to enjoy just thinking
34. 1 MarA workshop graduate and leader living sustainability leadership, biking in the snow and rain

February 2024

1. 29 FebJust finished a 4-plus days water only fast
2. 28 FebWhy I stretch
3. 27 FebMy latest life-changing rule for visiting web sites
4. 25 FebThis week’s selected media: February 25, 2024: Carmaggeddon, The Lover, Happy Fat, and Climate, Human Population and Human Survival: What the Deep Past Tells Us about the Future
5. 24 FebWhat a way to honor Gandhi
6. 24 FebBig milestone: I turned in my latest manuscript yesterday, the last substantive edits.
7. 23 FebAttend Flight Free USA’s workshop with me! (March 13 and 20)
8. 22 FebBeautiful, scary red sunrise, then a snow day
9. 21 FebGreat time to join a CSA (farm share)
10. 20 FebMy Cell Phone Battery and Time Use
11. 18 FebThis week’s selected media: February 18, 2024: Keith Richards’ Life, Killers of the Flower Moon
12. 17 Feb747: Go Alan Go!, part 1: The drummer rocking Washington Square Park
13. 17 FebVolunteering recognition from 1993
14. 16 FebWhy do people apologize to me about their polluting?
15. 14 FebWhat’s “extreme” when everyone around you is acting crazy?
16. 12 FebI bought a product almost certainly produced in part with slavery.
17. 11 FebThis Week’s Selected Media, February 11, 2024: Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
18. 11 FebFollowing up yesterday’s post: “Whom would you call a minority in this picture?”
19. 10 FebWhom would you call a minority in this picture?
20. 9 FebTalking to people about the environment is like talking to addicts about people they hurt.
21. 8 FebOne reason why talking to addicts about their addiction goes nowhere
22. 7 FebReaders’ Pledges to Avoid Flying
23. 6 FebProbably my last post this season on people paying to chop down trees so they can throw them away
24. 6 Feb“Traveling” with roller suitcases isn’t what traveling used to be
25. 4 FebThis week’s selected media: February 4, 2024: The Color of Law, The Parable of the Sower, and Slavery and Freedom
26. 4 Feb745: Mattan Griffel, part 2: Is our dependence on polluting behavior “addiction”?
27. 2 FebOne more rainy day before sunshine. It brought glory.
28. 2 FebFebruary started with more clouds. Will rain again tomorrow.

January 2024

1. 31 JanTough January: About three weeks with almost no sun. Learning in uncharted territory.
2. 30 JanStill cloudy, fast post to conserve energy
3. 29 JanA week with no sunny days. Should be only partly cloudy tomorrow.
4. 28 JanThis week’s selected media: January 28, 2024: Superabundance, The Population Bomb, War Is a Racket, Finding the Mother Tree, Gandhi. Wow, a lot in a week!
5. 27 JanTrying to lead an addict to admit their addiction or that they are hurting others (or themselves) is like trying to catch a fish with your bare hand.
6. 26 Jan*Sigh* More Christmas Pagan Trees being thrown away. Wasn’t a month of trashing them enough?
7. 26 JanMilestones from a culture of freedom and equality to one almost entirely subjugated by dominance hierarchy
8. 25 JanA month after Christmas and still dumping Christmas Pagan trees. Who needs trees? Why not chop them down and send them to landfills?
9. 24 JanYear 14, day 2 posting here daily
10. 24 JanBeing Dick Fosbury and Debbie Brill
11. 22 Jan743: Benjamin Hett: The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic
12. 21 JanThis week’s selected media: The Social Life of Forests, Oppenheimer
13. 20 JanMore Christmas Pagan Trees in the gutter and garbage.
14. 20 Jan742: John Brooke, part 2: American slavery transformed to today’s industry and anti-stewardship of our environment
15. 19 JanAmericans are so addicted, they can’t see our unbalanced their “balance” is
16. 19 JanMore depth on Robert Carter III
17. 17 JanCharging on the roof in the snow
18. 17 JanHow sweet vegetables have become. They used to taste bland.
19. 15 JanSaturday morning syringes in the park
20. 14 JanThis week’s selected media: January 14, 2024: Take the Lead
21. 13 JanSome of my trash from the 1970s and 1980s
22. 13 JanMore undignified trashed Christmas pagan trees. January 13, almost done?
23. 12 JanI’m pointing to a brighter future. They keep looking at my hand.
24. 12 JanA provocative but open-ended question about slavery and pollution
25. 10 JanMore shameful-looking trashed Christmas pagan trees. It’s only January 10, so likely more to come.
26. 10 JanAmerican adults over 90 percent overfat: Peer reviewed research (children 69 percent overfat)
27. 10 Jan741: Tony Hansen, part 2: Volunteering hard labor creating meaning and generosity
28. 9 JanSystemic change begins with personal change, in race terms
29. 7 JanThis week’s selected media: January 7, 2024: Overstory, Melancholia, Superabundance videos
30. 6 Jan740: Christopher Ketcham, part 3: Inside the mind of an “ecoterrorist”
31. 6 JanVideos on Superabundance by Tupy and Pooley and False Alarm by Lomborg
32. 5 JanSee videos of my low-waste cooking workshop at Drew Gardens
33. 4 JanWhat fraction of oil becomes pollution versus benign?
34. 2 JanChristmas trees being thrown away after a few days’ use, part 1. Lovely pagan tradition, people.
35. 1 JanWhat I bought last year (besides food)

2023 362

December 2023

1. 31 DecThis week’s selected media: December 31, 2023: Drug Dealer, MD; Supernova in the East; Flags of our Fathers; Letters From Iwo Jima; Video Sales Letter Training; Urban Cycling
2. 30 DecA reader message on doof and food
3. 30 DecWhy my evening calisthenics were harder than usual today: an extra 36 flights of stairs
4. 29 DecNelson Mandela’s daughter and granddaughter don’t get sustainability
5. 28 DecEarly Christmas pagan trees being sent to landfill. What represents our culture better?
6. 27 DecShort post to save energy
7. 25 DecYear 5, day 1 on one load of trash
8. 25 DecBonhoeffer’s last Christmas Letter
9. 25 DecThis week’s selected media: December 24, 2023: Dopamine Nation and Zone of Interest
10. 23 DecYear 13, day 1 of daily burpees
11. 21 DecMy Second Winter Solstice: Over 1.5 Years Unplugged From the Electric Grid (and counting). More freedom than ever.
12. 21 DecWhat we can learn from Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “these difficult years have forged an even closer bond between us than ever before.”
13. 20 Dec738: Jacqueline Bicanic, part 2: Sustainability doesn’t cost time and energy, it gives it
14. 19 DecPleasantly surprised by my own success: People choosing to avoid flying for their own reasons
15. 17 DecThis week’s selected media: December 17, 2023: Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
16. 17 DecImage ideas for my book cover
17. 16 DecA person injecting right there on the sidewalk
18. 15 Dec737: Michael Gerrard: Considering a stewardship amendment with a foremost environmental lawyer
19. 13 DecThoughts watching Bonhoeffer (2003)
20. 12 DecWhy We Step on the Gas, Thinking It’s the Brake, Wanting Congratulations
21. 11 DecPutting Values Before Technology, Markets, and Efficiency
22. 10 DecThis week’s selected media: December 10, 2023: Bonhoeffer documentary and Men Who Hate Women
23. 9 Dec“But Won’t Fusion Create the Energy We Need, Cleanly?”
24. 8 DecBut Aren’t We Solving Things? How can efficiency increase pollution?
25. 8 DecJane O’Sullivan videos on population and overpopulation
26. 7 DecWe can’t turn off our emotional systems and we all share the same emotions.
27. 5 DecCultural Exchange Without Flying: My dinner at the Trump International Golf Club at Bedminster
28. 3 DecThis week’s selected media: December 3, 2023: Elinor Ostrom and The People of New York State versus Pepsico, Frito-Lay, and Frito-Lay North America
29. 3 Dec735: Casey Mahoney, part 1: A Jazz Musician Lowering His Impact to 3 Tons CO2/Year in L.A.
30. 2 DecMore pictures from volunteering, delivering farm fresh vegetables.
31. 2 DecSetting up solar panels on my roof in about a minute
32. 1 DecFreezing on the roof, gathering energy from the sun

November 2023

1. 29 NovSee the Daily Show’s segment on me: “Is it Possible to Live “Off the Grid” in Manhattan?”
2. 29 NovThe Daily Show showed my living disconnected from the electric grid in Manhattan.
3. 29 NovFirst flurries of the season while charging on the roof today
4. 29 Nov734: Alon Tal, part 1: Israel, Hamas, and overpopulation from a former Knesset member
5. 28 NovI will stake my floor as clean as anyone’s, but the sponge I clean it with is nearing the end of its life
6. 27 NovThis week’s selected media: November 27, 2023: The Fiery Trial, by Eric Foner, My Life on the Road, by Gloria Steinem, and more
7. 24 NovThe Opposite of Travel and Destruction of Culture: Under 800 Steps from NY to LA.
8. 23 NovThanksgiving, Wine, Moderation, and More Appreciation
9. 22 NovWants versus Needs: How we pay for our own misery
10. 22 Nov732: Siddharth Kara, part 1: Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives
11. 20 NovYou Don’t Need a “Christmas” Tree—a pagan tradition. A reminder of the waste you can avoid.
12. 20 NovThis week’s selected media: November 19, 2023: Poverty, By America, by Matthew Desmond; My Octopus Teacher; First Reform
13. 18 NovMore precedent for expecting we can each live sustainably soon
14. 16 NovCheck out this review of my workshop on sustainability leadership
15. 16 NovDiving into Eric Foner Talks
16. 15 NovI hear young people seethe with rage at old people, especially boomers
17. 14 NovImages that changed how we see the world and ourselves. Images that will change us more.
18. 12 NovThis week’s selected media: November 12, 2023: Pimpernel Smith, (1941)
19. 11 NovProslavery Thought in the Old South (1935) quotes, by William Sumner Jenkins
20. 11 Nov“But if it doesn’t change the world it’s not worth doing” Hogwash.
21. 10 NovWhen people mean when they say “you have to make sustainability easy for people.”
22. 9 NovWhat do you think of this person’s flying habits? (part 3)
23. 9 NovWhat do you think of this person’s flying habits? (part 2)
24. 9 NovWhat do you think of this person’s flying habits? (part 1)
25. 7 NovToday’s Environmentalists in a Nutshell and Why They Fail
26. 6 NovThis week’s selected media: November 5, 2023: “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom” and “Climate Change and the Course of Global History”
27. 4 NovWhy are we so myopic about politics?
28. 3 NovInspirational environmental F-bomb
29. 2 NovHow Environmentalists Fail (Where We Could Use Innovation)

October 2023

1. 31 Oct728: Chefs Irene and Margaret Li, part1: Winning Awards Saving Perfectly Good Food
2. 30 OctThe Marlboro Man versus Kool and Newport Menthol and Virginia Slims
3. 30 OctEcomodernists, techno-optimists, and closed-loop advocates: why don’t you believe your own hype?
4. 29 OctWhy do people apologize to me when they mention their polluting?
5. 27 OctSome People Value the Invisible Hand and Devalue a Helping Hand
6. 26 OctMore of: I eat food homeless people throw away
7. 25 OctThe coaching side-effect that may be my favorite part of coaching
8. 24 Oct726: Amy Westervelt, part 1: Showing What’s Actually Happening Behind the Scenes
9. 23 OctDo you feel enraged at people flying private jets to climate conferences?
10. 22 OctWhy do people say history books are filled with people like me when they aren’t?
11. 21 OctIf something is labeled “Compostable” it means it’s not compostable. If something is labeled “recyclable” or “recycled” it means it’s polluting garbage.
12. 20 Oct725: Gautam Mukunda, part 3: The Spodek Method Doesn’t Always Create a Huge Mindset Shift
13. 19 OctOverpopulation in Israel and Gaza
14. 18 OctAre you a colonialist?
15. 17 OctFocusing only on climate change or carbon today is like Kodak only focusing on film when digital started. Let’s not be Kodak.
16. 16 OctThis week’s selected media: October 15, 2023: The Scorpion’s Sting by James Oakes
17. 15 OctAbraham Lincoln, trash-talking wrestler
18. 14 OctI support population and technology, if they support human flourishing, which is why I use less than ever
19. 13 OctMore on integrity and sustainability leadership versus management
20. 12 OctExploring versus leading
21. 11 Oct724: Dr. Michael Greger, part 2: How Not to Age
22. 10 OctAttend my third annual Cooking Sustainably workshop in the Bronx THIS SATURDAY, with special guest: My Mom!
23. 10 OctWatch me moderate a panel on Developing a Sustainability Leadership Culture, October 25
24. 8 OctThis week’s selected media: October 8, 2023: The Story of B, Vaclav Smil on Energy, Neocolonialism by Ketcham
25. 8 OctI’m not leading by example by trying to live more sustainably
26. 7 OctThree months: I haven’t received an electric bill since July 6
27. 6 OctEfficiency means the last hauls of fish could be the most full and the last oil extracted could be cheapest
28. 5 OctForaging urban food waste
29. 4 OctFree markets? Meat subsidies are insane, as is consumption in the U.S. and a few other places
30. 3 OctNew Vitals: 99/63 / 47 bpm / 20.2 BMI
31. 3 OctYear 3, day 3 with my fridge unplugged
32. 3 Oct723: David Blight, part 2: A Constitutional Amendment on Stewardship Based on the Thirteenth and John Locke
33. 2 OctWatch me (in the kitchen) and Evelyn, episode 2: Cooking and living joyfully sustainably
34. 1 OctUpdate: Is the greatest obstacle to sustainability people with resources, especially time and money?

September 2023

1. 30 Sep722: Michael Forsythe: When McKinsey Comes to Town
2. 29 SepIs the greatest impediment to someone living more sustainably their resources, especially time and money?
3. 28 SepMy deep-sea sailing trip, part 3: the cliffs of Newport, Rhode Island
4. 27 SepReflections on my first deep-sea sailing trip, seeing many stars and almost no fish
5. 25 SepMy first deep-sea sailing lesson
6. 25 SepThis week’s selected media: September 24, 2023: Cobalt Red
7. 24 SepWatch my first livecast on sustainability leadership with Evelyn Wallace
8. 22 SepWhat Are Your Carbon Cash Footprint and Pollution Cash Footprint?
9. 22 SepThere Are No Adults in the Room. You Can Be the Adult. Your Skills Are Needed.
10. 21 SepDo you think like a nineteenth century anthropologist?
11. 20 SepMore syringes in our shared world and addicted culture: Philadelphia, August 2023
12. 19 SepMy Sledding Hill, August 2023
13. 18 SepThis Week’s Selected Media: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, More Raoul Wallenberg videos, plus my book
14. 16 SepPopulation, Energy Consumption, and how to Limit Pollution
15. 15 SepThe Food Coop I Grew Up With: Weaver’s Way in Mount Airy, Philadelphia
16. 14 Sep721: Jim Burke, part 1: The Most Beautiful Street in New York City?
17. 13 SepPictures of recent volunteer deliveries
18. 12 Sep720: Maya Van Rossum, part 2: You Don’t Have a Right to a Clean Environment. You Have to Work for It.
19. 11 Sep“Josh, You Can Grieve Your Loss Too”
20. 11 SepThis Week’s Selected Media: Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman and Wallenberg: A Hero´s Story
21. 9 SepWhy so many cars with no mufflers?
22. 8 Sep718: Albert Garcia-Romeu, part 2: Psychedelics and Appreciating Nature Where You Are
23. 7 SepSolutions to Food Waste
24. 6 SepIf you associate managing population with racism, sexism, Nazis, eugenics, forced abortion, or government coercion, you’re part of the problem
25. 5 SepYoga pants and athliesure are popular. Are they 100 percent plastic?
26. 4 SepSelected New Experiences, September 3, 2023
27. 2 SepColonialism disguised as travel
28. 2 Sep717: Pamela Paul: Writing on Controversial Subjects With Confidence
29. 1 SepCarbon offsets increase CO2 levels in the atmosphere. They do not decrease or offset them. They increase them.

August 2023

1. 31 AugSee me on the Compassiviste videocast
2. 29 AugGraffiti with my name: Who is King Joshua?
3. 29 Aug716: Arnold Leitner, part 2: How much energy and power do you need to be happy?
4. 28 AugThis Week’s Selected Media: Tiny Habits
5. 27 AugPetty Authority
6. 26 AugWhat I ate in the last 24 hours, August 2023
7. 24 Aug715: My mom, Marie Spodek, part 3: Starting a food coop and making ends meet as a single mom in a food desert with three kids
8. 24 AugWhy I’m stronger and more tired than ever
9. 23 Aug714: Adam Hochschild, part 3: King Leopold’s Ghost
10. 22 AugWhich is worse, blowing smoke in a someone’s face (say, a baby) or burning tons of jet fuel?
11. 20 AugThis Week’s Selected Media: 13th, directed by Ava Duvernay; The Leader to Leader Journal’s special issue commemorating Frances Hesselbein
12. 20 Aug713: Matthew Matern, part 3: A trial lawyer’s view
13. 19 AugBlood pressure normal, pulse: 51 bpm. Old man still got it.
14. 19 AugShould there be more birds or planes and helicopters, even in cities?
15. 18 AugSustainability and Making My Bed Every Morning
16. 15 AugThe selfishness and self-centeredness of flying
17. 15 AugWhat will plugging my apartment back in feel like?
18. 14 AugThis Week’s Selected Media: Common Sense, by Thomas Paine; Atlas Hugged, by David Sloane Wilson; and the latest What Is Politics? video
19. 12 AugIf you think food coops cost more or complain that some people don’t have access to them, you don’t know what you’re talking about and are exacerbating the problem.
20. 12 Aug711: Kate Siber: “Should I Stop Flying? It’s a Difficult Decision to Make.”
21. 11 AugInsouciance, colonialism, and sustainability
22. 10 AugHawaii: Microcosm of Earth
23. 8 Aug710: Madeline Ostrander, part 2: Finding Refuge on a Changed Earth
24. 6 AugThis week’s selected media: The Conservative as Environmentalist: From Goldwater and the Early Reagan to the 21st Century; The Text and Context of “Enough and as Good”: John Locke as the Foundation of an Environmental Liberalism; Ayn Rand videos
25. 6 AugWhy we’ll prefer sustainability
26. 4 AugIs this image our culture in a nutshell?
27. 3 AugThe UN’s three-pronged attack on sustainability
28. 2 AugOnly specify fixing climate and carbon if you want to wreck everything else (forests, biodiversity, rivers, etc) because that happens when you do.

July 2023

1. 31 JulThis week’s selected media: The Great Dance, Atlas Shrugged, and Natural Population Decline
2. 28 JulThe electric company is texting me to use less electricity, but I’m using none. Stop wasting so much, people.
3. 28 JulThe Sacklers must be looking at social media and doof companies with envy.
4. 27 Jul705: Greg Bertelsen: A bipartisan climate roadmap including a carbon tax
5. 26 JulWe’re replacing flowers and grass with plastic. It’s unhealthy and disgusting, not pretty, but apparently I’m the extreme one for having a problem with it.
6. 25 Jul704: Gernot Wagner, part 1: Guiding Misguided Economic Forces in the Right Direction
7. 24 JulThis week’s selected media: July 23, 2023: Pro-slavery thought in the old South; When McKinsey Comes to Town; The Year of Less; John Locke
8. 23 JulThe stages of environmentalism leading to counterproductive work or capitulation (and how to avoid them)
9. 22 Jul703: David Gessner, part 1: A Traveler’s Guide to the End of the World
10. 21 JulMy last electric bill?
11. 20 JulHow much of history I’ve lived through
12. 19 JulWhy we need a constitutional amendment on environmental sustainability
13. 19 JulWhere Artificial Intelligence will go and why (it’s not where everyone is saying)
14. 17 JulThis week’s selected media: July 16, 2023: The Sorrow and the Pity, by Marcel Ophuls, The Comfort Crisis, by Michael Easter, and The Perfect Storm (the movie), based on the book by Sebastian Junger
15. 16 Jul701: Robert Litterman, part 2: “We need legislation, we need a price on carbon.”
16. 15 JulAt last, I dropped my electrical utility account
17. 14 JulLooking to Silicon Valley, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Washington DC, or Academia for sustainability solutions is like looking to the Sacklers for opiate addiction solutions
18. 13 JulMe singing, mortified, but how else do we improve? What else are we here for?
19. 13 JulLiberate scientists to do science, not to try to lead.
20. 10 JulA new record for plastic water bottles: Disgusting and totally unnecessary. Pure pollution, no benefit.
21. 9 JulThis week’s selected media: July 9, 2023: The Death of Ivan Ilyich, by Leo Tolstoy, Homo Deus, by Yuval Noah Harari, and Her, by Spike Jonze
22. 8 JulNature surviving: the blue jay that visits my rooftop
23. 8 JulAnother month, zero kilowatt-hours: June 2023
24. 7 JulMy six-point plan if I ran for President
25. 6 JulEconomists don’t know what they’re talking about needing growth but they won’t admit it.
26. 6 Jul698: Chris Bystroff, part 1: Population Growth and Overpopulation
27. 4 JulThe reason you feel judged isn’t because environmentalists are judging you. It’s because you have a conscience.
28. 4 Jul697: Dan Walsh, part 2: He sold his motorcycle and Playstation to gain freedom
29. 2 JulThis week’s selected media: July 2, 2023: The Fate Of Empires And Search For Survival, by Sir John Glubb and All The Wild That Remains Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West, by David Gessner
30. 2 JulA Role Model for Our Times: Aristides de Sousa Mendes, fired for saving thousands of refugees from Nazis
31. 1 JulSpeed reading bedtime stories to your kids: Some things don’t benefit from making more efficient

June 2023

1. 30 JunWhat it means to want to say to your kids “I did my best”
2. 29 Jun696: Anonymous executive from a fossil fuel corporation: A view from the inside
3. 27 JunAnother case where people see the problem as a solution, so keep stepping on the gas: Population Growth
4. 26 JunLGBTQ+ People’s Garbage and Leaving It Worse Than You Found It: The Pride and Queer Liberation Marches 2023
5. 26 JunThis week’s selected media: June 25, 2023
6. 24 Jun35 Years Ago Today: Global Warming was front page news on the New York Times. Maybe Exxon knew. From then on, YOU DID TOO.
7. 24 JunWhat’s special about 436?
8. 24 JunMore syringes in our shared world and addicted culture, June 2023
9. 22 JunNonstop Rain Forecast. Avoiding Plugging In. Will I Make It a Week?
10. 21 JunTragic News About Flying
11. 19 JunReading Limits to Growth and learning to sail
12. 18 JunThis week’s selected media: June 18, 2023
13. 17 JunTwo ways to keep going when you want to give up or fail
14. 16 JunThe simple, obvious solution
15. 15 JunI want to give up every day. That’s the value of acting in service of innocent people suffering. What motivates more?
16. 13 JunThe disaster that is Elon Musk
17. 13 Jun692: Daniel, host of the “What Is Politics?” videocast, part 2: Is Changing CEOs Possible
18. 12 JunThis week’s selected media: June 11, 2023
19. 11 JunTeach THIS generation, not the next one
20. 9 JunImagine a team where each teammate believed they would choke when it counted. That’s us with sustainability.
21. 8 JunAnother zero kilowatt-hour month: May 2023
22. 7 JunIf your pollution causes extreme weather, you’re extreme, not me.
23. 7 Jun691: Oliver Burkeman, part 1.5: Embracing Our Inevitable Limitations on Time and Energy
24. 5 JunStudent reviews from teaching Leadership at NYU, spring 2023
25. 5 JunThis week’s selected media: June 4, 2023
26. 3 JunOn living your values with kids and a job
27. 3 JunA North Korea compilation of video from my second trip
28. 1 Jun690: Leah Rothstein: Just Action, a blueprint for concerned citizens and community leaders

May 2023

1. 31 MaySustainability lacks a human enemy, unlike most social movements. Does that difference explain why people don’t engage on it?
2. 30 MayResearch: Most people care about climate but think they’re doing more than others. *sigh*
3. 28 MayThis week’s selected media: May 28, 2023
4. 28 May687: Should We Amend the Constitution for the Environment?: A constitutional scholar (Michael Herz) and American abolition historian (James Oakes)
5. 27 MayBought two new non-food material things this year (cumulative: three things this year, I think)
6. 26 MayAnalects of Sustainability Leadership (words to live by)
7. 25 MayYear Two With the Circuit Open Between My Apartment and the Electric Grid
8. 24 MayEight billion people behaving unsustainably will never become sustainable.
9. 23 MayLove and marriage don’t cause pollution. Stop using them as excuses.
10. 21 MayThis week’s selected media: May 21, 2023
11. 21 MayDay 365* unplugged
12. 21 MaySpring 2023 pictures of my sledding hill
13. 20 MayHow can you oppose imperialism and live unsustainably?
14. 18 MayHow sustainability couldn’t be simpler
15. 17 MayWhy doesn’t anyone, even environmentalists, propose actually living sustainably?
16. 16 May685: Chris Bailey, part 3: Dropping the latest iPhone for a flip phone
17. 14 MayThis week’s selected media: May 14, 2023
18. 13 MayFinished the first draft of my next book, on sustainability leadership, this afternoon
19. 13 MayMore Than a Moonshot or World War II-Level Mobilization: A “Nixon Goes to China” Moment
20. 12 May684, Simon Michaux: Do Governments Understand Energy? How Unprepared Are We?
21. 11 MayOne of my core messages in one minute
22. 10 MayHear me on Success Through Failure with Jim Harshaw
23. 9 MayApril 2023: Another month of zero kwh. Next month makes one year.
24. 9 May683: Alan Ereira, part 3: More about Kogi life and culture, contrasting with ours
25. 7 MayThis week’s selected media: May 7, 2023
26. 7 MayMy sidchas, standard procedures, and preferences
27. 6 MayA response to “more people means more problem-solvers so we should grow the population.”
28. 5 MayOur World: The first I learned of addiction affecting friends of the family, Cocaine, 1985
29. 3 MayOfficial heart rate: 47 bpm. Old man still got it.
30. 3 MayWhich is worse: litter, air, water, noise, or light pollution?
31. 2 MaySustainability is skills you practice a lifetime, not a checklist of “ten little things” like journalists promote.
32. 1 MayPlug in again or work less?

April 2023

1. 29 AprThis week’s selected media: April 29, 2023
2. 29 AprA 360 degree rainbow this morning
3. 28 AprMy ChatGPT predictions
4. 27 AprClean, green, renewable imperialism
5. 26 AprWhy I focus on helping CEOs, elected officials, and other renowned, influential people
6. 24 AprSustainability: Too many Thomas Jeffersons and not enough Muhammad Alis
7. 24 AprIf modern technologies (flying, social media, etc) promote culture, why do they homogenize everything?
8. 23 AprOverwhelming research: “Green Growth” is a scam that accelerates lowering Earth’s ability to sustain life. Following or propagating it hurts us.
9. 22 AprSee Reuters Video on Me. The headline: “New Yorker lives sustainable life off electric grid”
10. 21 AprProfiled for Earth Day by my school: Columbia College Today
11. 21 AprFirst outdoor holiday of the year, filling Washington Square Park, my back yard, with garbage
12. 20 AprIf transported to 1850, would you rather be an abolitionist with little hope of success or a slave owner with comfort and convenience?
13. 19 AprThe alternative to what we call progress isn’t what you think
14. 18 AprSustainability simplified
15. 17 AprPeople who pollute are judgmental and defensive
16. 16 AprSee Me for Earth Day at Union Square, Manhattan tomorrow (April 16, 2023)
17. 14 AprHow I answer “What’s one thing everyone can do to start acting more sustainably?”
18. 13 AprHear me on the Walk Talk Listen Podcast
19. 13 AprOne month without even my “cheat” of plugging in at work. Then both batteries died.
20. 12 AprImpossible Burger Insanity Packaging
21. 12 AprAnother month, another zero kilowatt-hour electric bill: March 2023
22. 12 AprRadio: Hear Me On A Climate Change with Matt Matern
23. 11 AprWhat Addiction to Polluting and Depleting Behavior Means
24. 10 AprIs this your view of sustainability versus progress?
25. 9 AprEmbracing and celebrating our limits makes life constructive. Otherwise you crave what you can’t get.
26. 8 AprUs from their perspective
27. 7 AprCorruption: when maintaining integrity and character is too hard for someone
28. 6 AprIf many of your trips are “of a lifetime” you’ve reached where you need your fix just to feel normal
29. 5 AprHear Me Again on America Out Loud: Living the Simple Life Off the Grid With Josh Spodek
30. 4 AprThe Montgomery Bus Boycott versus flying
31. 2 AprWhy sustainability is so hard for you and polluting so easy, from the movie Requiem For a Dream
32. 2 AprWhy sustainability is so hard and polluting so easy, from the moving Trainspotting
33. 1 Apr680: Wolfgang Lutz: A Primer in Demographics and Global Population Projections

March 2023

1. 31 MarTop Sustainability Leadership Principles
2. 30 MarWhat I’m doing when I act to help others
3. 28 MarMy silly names for fruits and vegetable when I chop them
4. 28 MarThe environment: everyone always says it’s important, but never enough to act themselves
5. 27 MarThe Source of Our Polluting Culture
6. 26 MarApplying lessons from sports to sustainability
7. 24 MarI last flew today in 2016. Starting year 7 free from most people’s greatest way of hurting innocent people.
8. 23 MarI couldn’t make most people feel shame or guilt about sustainability. They’re already feeling so much, I couldn’t add more.
9. 22 MarUnsustainable things that we can either face must end or keep lying to ourselves and causing suffering.
10. 21 Mar678: My talk to the International Society of Sustainability Professionals
11. 20 MarWhy it’s hard to help an addict stop
12. 19 MarProposals for freedom and sustainability
13. 18 MarContainer Ship Considerations: How Much of a Container Ship’s Cargo Will Be in a Landfill Within Six Months?
14. 17 MarMartin Scorcese on our relationship with pollution
15. 16 MarAnother way we’re losing against garbage–that is, against ourselves
16. 15 Mar677: Roz Savage, part 1: It’s Doable and You Can Do It. One Oar Stroke at a Time
17. 13 MarAmazon.com doesn’t save money. It addicts people to buying things they don’t need.
18. 12 MarMarch: Another month, another zero kWh electric bill
19. 12 Mar676: Paulina Porizkova, part 1: No Filter
20. 11 MarHow can a libertarian condone pollution?
21. 9 MarSee me on German Public TV describing life with my apartment disconnected from the electric grid
22. 8 Mar675: Derek Sivers, part 1: Leading versus Exploring Frontiers
23. 8 MarMy strategies in terms of my orchestra model
24. 7 MarThis barren field of stumps was a verdant forest before we changed the climate. How do we not make reversing it our top priority?
25. 5 MarI’ve waited nearly half a century to deliver this pun.
26. 4 MarAudio of leaving social media and finding freedom that applies to all doof.
27. 2 MarCharging on the roof with snow
28. 2 MarBeyond the Spodek Method mindset shift: I discovered a second shift!
29. 1 MarMy response to “If you had a child you’d know living sustainably with them is impossible.”
30. 1 Mar673: Jim Oakes, part 2: Can We Go From Abolition to Anti-Pollution?

February 2023

1. 28 FebJust finished another three-day water-only fast.
2. 27 FebIf you would have done what Thomas Jefferson didn’t, do you act now?
3. 25 FebFreedom exists in structure; it’s not chaos, randomness, or luck. Here’s my structure and freedom.
4. 24 FebImperialism and Us
5. 24 FebMore Freedom From Their Greedy Mitts Getting Into All Our Business
6. 22 FebEnding polluting may seem hard, but the only thing worse than ending pollution is not ending it.
7. 21 FebGDP Growth versus Hawaii
8. 19 FebMy orchestra model of sustainability leadership
9. 18 FebDo I get bored of my diet? What I ate in the last 24 hours.
10. 16 FebDisgusting and totally unnecessary. Pure pollution, no benefit.
11. 16 FebI can charge on my roof in February in shorts and a tank top. Stop polluting!
12. 15 Feb670: Jeffrey Shaw: Self-employment and Sustainability
13. 14 FebI don’t eat with screens on
14. 12 FebDoof : local fresh produce :: masturbation : making love
15. 11 FebOn Writing: Hear me on Writers Series by Sasha Talks
16. 11 Feb669: David Loy: Ecodharma: Zen Buddhism and Sustainability
17. 10 FebAnother month, another electric bill with 0.0 kWh, January 2023
18. 10 FebDisconnecting from the Electric Grid in Manhattan: Ars Technica Reader Questions Answered
19. 8 FebFixing Peter Singer’s drowning child analogy for sustainability
20. 7 FebWhy Do Hard Things: Glory and Peace
21. 5 FebLiving in the U.S. or rich country won’t protect you, nor will prepping and bugging out. Prevention can.
22. 3 Feb666: Mark Plotkin: Learning From Indigenous Cultures, the People Not Just Our Projections
23. 2 FebWhat you’ll get more of when you stop polluting: what you love most
24. 2 Feb665: Tony Hiss: Rescuing the Planet: Protecting Half the Land to Heal the Earth
25. 1 FebHow I define pollution

January 2023

1. 31 Jan664: Rodrigo Cámara-Leret: Learning how the Kogi heal the land
2. 29 JanEnvironment, racism, hierarchy, and dominance
3. 29 JanAbraham Lincoln, sustainability, and the “King’s Solution”: the Thirteenth Amendment
4. 28 Jan663: Nadeem Akhtar, part 2: Breaking a Doof Addiction Can Be Harder Than Expected
5. 27 JanHear me on Vancouver’s Jill Bennett Show: “How a NYC man managed to quit using his fridge!”
6. 26 JanRead the photo-story on me: “A fridge too far? Living sustainably in NYC by unplugging” from the Associated Press
7. 26 JanThe opposite of flying is not less family or business opportunity. It’s more of each and nature too.
8. 26 JanDo you value family over sustainability?
9. 23 JanNYU in 2019: We will stop buying bottled water. NYU in 2023: Here’s some bottled water from us.
10. 23 JanTwo unbroken streaks: 8 months off-grid and 12 years daily blogging. Which is more challenging?
11. 22 JanBetter in every way
12. 21 JanDo you want to leave the world better than you found it, really?
13. 21 JanIn the wild: the Spodek Method practiced by someone else to heartwarming success
14. 18 JanVideo of me volunteering, delivering the food they were going to throw out to a community center
15. 17 Jan660: Martha Nussbaum: Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility
16. 17 JanThe Ruling Race: Quotes on those who improve their lives on the suffering of others, corrupting them
17. 16 JanThe Psychology at the Root of Pollution
18. 14 Jan659: My video series, episode 01, introduction, part 2: Spodek Method results
19. 13 JanRead my piece in Ars Technica: “I disconnected from the electric grid for 8 months—in Manhattan”
20. 13 Jan658: Rebecca and Josh Tickell, part 1: On Sacred Ground and the Dakota Pipeline
21. 11 JanAnother month, another zero kilowatt-hour electric bill
22. 10 JanRefusing to be the change you want to see in the world.
23. 10 JanRefusing the journey in favor of the destination, while wrecking both.
24. 9 JanThe New Yorker profiled my living off the grid
25. 8 JanSustainability actions that end up the opposite you expect. Systems don’t work linearly.
26. 6 JanWaking before the alarm, writing in the dark
27. 6 JanGetting back at BP by buying their products? Way to teach them a lesson.
28. 4 Jan656: Kate MacKenzie, part 1: Executive Director of New York City’s Mayor’s Office of Food Policy
29. 3 JanImagine a drug where you get the pleasure and others suffer the harmful side effects: that’s polluting activities.
30. 2 JanThe Root of Our Environmental Problems: Individuals Refusing to Change Themselves
31. 1 JanThe 160th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation Is Today