Don’t Buy This: The Truth About Sustainability

Having not broken my obsession with the print version of The New York Times, I was thrilled to greet Black Friday by opening to a full-page ad from Patagonia that urged readers “Don’t Buy This Jacket.” To the best of my knowledge, Patagonia has never...

Think You’re Good? Think Again

I recently finished reading a remarkable book by Peter Singer, The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty. It makes an unusually tough-minded assertion: I am immoral. I already know that in a world where so few have so much and so many have so little,...

Greenwashing is Bad. Really.

Is Joel Makower right? No, he’s wrong. Greenwashing is bad and it’s getting worse. First, let me provide some context. In a column for GreenBiz.com, Joel, a frequent commentator on green business issues, asks, “What, exactly, is a ‘socially and...

Too Much Stuff

We simply buy too much stuff. I have more t-shirts in my closet than I could wear in several lifetimes. Yet someone always wants to give me another one. I have an iPhone, but the newest upgrade looks almost irresistible. In fact, so does the MacBook Air. Shoes, cars,...

Meeting a Remarkable Man

Recently, I spent the afternoon talking with David Suzuki, a man whose brilliance is matched only by his humility. Overlooking the St. Lawrence River in downtown old Montreal, we sat for several hours. David Suzuki is a rock star of the environmental movement in...

Celebrate the 4th of July with An Inconvenient Truth

I just saw Al Gore’s movie. I know why he named it an inconvenient truth. Because much of what we can and must do is in fact inconvenient. The movie left me deeply saddened and depressed since so much of what I can and must do I have left undone. I have been...