In today’s New York Times, Roger Cohen has written a lament about technology and modernity, couched in a sentimental comparison between Paris and Havana. It’s a wonderful piece. Having spent several years saying the same things in my fundamentally analytic way, I marvel at the way a real writer can tell a story that jumps out of the page. . . .
Continue ReadingPot Pourri 12/6/2008
I missed a week while I was away celebrating Thanksgiving with my family. With Christmas getting nearer, the drumbeat of offers for greener gadgets has gotten louder. As I have said many times, it is almost always better to buy a greener alternative whenever you have decided to buy something. Almost always because it is still very difficult to determine what green or environmentally friendly really means. Any of these and other related labels invariably involves trade-offs between green gas emissions, toxics, recyclability and so on. But remember, the only real choice for sustainability is to leave the item on the shelf. . . .
Continue ReadingBe Careful! Happiness Is Contagious, Transmitted by Contact
Happiness is a clue that someone is flourishing. It’s not everything that constitutes flourishing, but it seems to be a necessary condition. Happiness is not restricted to the economic well-being of anyone. Money, as it is said, cannot buy happiness. But it also appears that computer display screens with others’ faces and news about them do not bring it either. A study of happiness reported in today’s New York Times points to the positive effect caused by the presence of other happy people.
Continue ReadingHow happy you are may depend on how happy your friends’ friends’ friends are, even if you don’t know them at all. . . And a cheery next-door neighbor has more effect on your happiness than your spouse’s mood. . . . So says a new study that followed a large group of people for 20 years — happiness is more contagious than previously thought. . . .
Finding Sustainability on an Auto Assembly Line
One of the keys to attaining sustainability is learning to attack problems at their roots. To continue to address only the symptoms fails to produce the desired results and often leads to serious unintended consequences. In the case of modern cultures, the result is the arrival of unsustainability. In complex systems, the unintended consequences can be very large and threatening. . . .
Continue ReadingElectronic “Boggle” Boggles the Mind
Not satisfied with adding totally new gadgets to the enormous varieties of electronic things already available, companies are placing electronic versions of “old-fashioned” human powered games and tools on the already over-crowded shelves in your favorite merchant’s store. Kate Galbraith writes about Gadget Proliferation in her New York Times “Green Inc.” column.
Continue Reading…these [human-powered items] are far outnumbered by gadgets that have traditionally been hand-powered, but now have given in to the electronic age. These are great fun, but in terms of energy use, they are not particularly green.
I was reflecting on this last night while playing (and losing) several rounds of post-Thanksgiving electronic Boggle (sold only in Britain for about $23). . . .
Is There No Place on Earth Without Ads?
In my book, I discuss ads showing up on people’s foreheads. Advertising on televisions in schools has raised controversies for some time, but now we have even more intrusive advertising. USA Today reports that a teacher in San Diego is selling ads to be placed on student’s exam booklets to make up for cuts in his copying budget. . . .
Continue ReadingMeals Are More Than Eating
Thanksgiving is one of the few holidays that celebrates the family and looks inward instead of honoring a public event or individual. As is now our custom for the last few years, we traveled to DC to be with my daughter and family, and enjoyed a sumptuous holiday dinner with friends. Our two families shared the preparations as we have done for the lat few years. A high point was to her everyone’s thoughts about the occasion. One theme ran through everyone’s comments: thankfulness for being together again.
Continue ReadingThe End of Consumerism?? Not Yet
News from the New York Times reporting on the “biggest” shopping day of the year.
Continue ReadingA Wal-Mart employee in suburban New York died after he was trampled by a crush of shoppers who tore down the front doors and thronged into the store early Friday morning, turning the annual rite of post-Thanksgiving bargain hunting into a Hobbesian frenzy. . . .
The End of Consumerism??
The media abounds with prognostications that the rampant consumerism that has fueled the US and other economies has gone South and will not return for quite a while. Some economists celebrate this turn of events as an opportunity to bring more sense to the market. A senior manager at Morgan Stanley, ironically one of the many firms that have been implicated in ramping up levels of spending by inflating assets and reinforcing the belief that the bubble would never break,. . .
Continue ReadingMissing the Point
Excitement over a finding that more people will buy “greener” presents this holiday season misses the important point. It’s consumption, itself, that is the problem. I found several articles recently that point to more enlightened shopping this year. Here’s an example:
Continue ReadingA study of Americans done by the retailer Plow & Hearth, however, shows that some consumers – green consumers – are willing to spend a little more to buy a product that is environmentally friendly. . .