I am finally “settled” in Maine and can get back to taking care of this blog. Just a few days here and I am refreshed and renewed. The sunset tonight was as spectacular as any in memory. The bay was absolutely flat so that it reflected the setting sun as a mirror would. But the real sense came this morning when I went out fishing for the first time this season. My son-in-law, Tim, came with me. A good thing because he knows the waters on his side of the peninsula that we both live on much better than I… Read More
Continue ReadingPolitics and Arcadia
When I commented about the way Earth Day had changed over the years, I hadn’t yet read an [article](http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2013/04/15/130415crat_atlarge_lemann?currentPage=all) on the subject by Nicholas Lemann in the New Yorker (April 15, 2013). The pile of unread magazines and books grows very tall over the year and only begins to shrink dramatically when I pare it down as I am about to leave for the summer in Maine. Lemann paints a disappointing picture of the current state of environmental action in the US through his review of two books and a report. The first, *The Genius of Earth Day: How a… Read More
Continue ReadingNo Grist for the Mill
When I began blogging now almost 5 years ago, I generally picked up something from the news or another website and commented on it, using it to make my case for sustainability. All was new to me and I had no trouble finding grist for my mill. Although I still bookmark a lot of stuff to blog about, I no longer am able to stay fresh. So little has changed. Business still doesn’t get it. I have yet to see anything that remotely suggests that firms, large and small, are doing anything other than reducing sustainability. I guess I will… Read More
Continue ReadingCare, Not Need–Now
Almost everything I write is connected to sustainability, but sometimes that connection follows a winding and tenuous path. Sustainability, a word found increasingly in public conversations but poorly understood and stated, denotes the ability of a system to attain and maintain some desirable condition, but connotes a sense that the world is doing anything but that. Flourishing is the end that I assert is the best single concept for driving individual and collective behavior towards an almost universally shared vision. Flourishing creates images of full development, robustness, satisfaction, and other norms shared by humans in all cultures at all levels… Read More
Continue ReadingSummer Overload
The last few weeks have been taken up with getting ready for summer, leaving not enough time to keep up the blog. The annual move to Maine is always fraught with opening one house and vacating another. There are usually a few weeks where something is in the wrong house, but it always settles down. This summer is more complicated because I have Andy’s and my new book to tend to. It’s exciting to have actual copies to send off. The worrying starts, wondering if anyone will buy a copy, much less read the book. After three decades of opening… Read More
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