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An Energy Diet for a Healthy Planet--Part II
How do we get to 100 kwh/person/day, and where are we now?Global energy losses in electricity generation (twh, yr 2000)I’ve written before about how efficiency is not the enemy of resiliency and the...
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Monster Day for Renewables in California
Yesterday, May 14th, was a windy, sunny, fairly cool day in California. As a result, records were set for the proportion of California electricity produced by renewables. For the day: 34%! From 3 - 4...
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Building Community, One Bench at a Time
Cora FloraMy grandfather was a barber. He grew up in West Texas, his family tenant farmers that got kicked off the land after his father died during an emergency gall bladder operation. His eight older...
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Reclaiming Public Space--A Peak Experience
Above it all If you’ve ever been to San Francisco, you’ve no doubt seen the two dramatic hills that punctuate the city’s center known as Twin Peaks. Tourists flock to the vista offered by Christmas...
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The Renewable Energy Future Is Here--It's Just Unevenly Distributed
Renewable MonstersElectricity production data is out from the US Energy Information Agency for the first half of 2016. Nation-wide, renewables (including distributed solar but not hydro) accounted for...
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The Population Problem: Not as Bad as You Might Think
The EssentialsFirst the good news: great progress has already been made! It turns out women around the world are on board with zero population growth! It turns out zero population growth is not all...
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Make Your Life Less Oily in 2017: Part I, Taking Stock
The United States is the oiliest country on the planet. We Americans consume more oil by far than any other country. Next is China, but even with 1.4 billion people they’re a distant second. Americans,...
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Squeezing Oil Out of Your Travel (Make Your Life Less Oily in 2017, Part 2)
Make Your Life Less Oily in 2017 Part 1:Taking Stock Part 2: Squeezing Oil Out of Your Travel Part 3: Wringing Oil from Your Food, Stuff, Heat, and Everything ElsePart 2: Squeezing Oil Out...
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Wringing Oil From Your Beverages, Food, Stuff and Heat (How to Make Your Life...
What war are you fighting?Part I: Taking StockPart II: Squeezing Oil Out of Your TravelPart III: Wringing Oil from Your Beverages, Food, Stuff, and HeatPart IV: Helping Others Eschew OilThe American...
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Renewables Make Middling Headway in 2016
The EIA Electric Power Monthly report came out Friday. Being an energy nut, I read this report each month the day it appears, but the report in February is special because it has December year-to-date...
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Helping Others Eschew Oil (How to Make Your Life Less Oily in 2017, Part IV)
Part I: Taking StockPart II: Squeezing Oil Out of Your TravelPart III: Wringing Oil from Your Beverages, Food, Stuff, andHeatPart IV: Helping Others Eschew Oil“You never change things by fighting the...
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The Importance of Not Being Miserable (About the Fate of the Planet or...
Antidote? Vaccine?If you’re reading this article it’s likely there’s much going on in the world to make you feel anxious, depressed, angry, frustrated, even downright miserable. Climate change is...
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Get Rid of Your Belly! (There's No Resilience Without Good Health)
How do you envision yourself at age eighty? Do you want to be active, mobile, and of sound mind and body? Or do you think you'll be lucky just to be alive?Good health is not luck. Yes, luck plays a...
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Gasoline--Such a Big Bang for the Buck
Are you a fan of beheadings? Are you fond of autocratic regimes? Do you want to help those kooky, lovable Koch brothers purchase another member of Congress? Do you yearn to support Saudi Arabia, Iran,...
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10-Minute Neighborhoods: The Low-Tech Solution to Almost* Everything
Health. Energy. Climate. Crime. Education. Happiness. Water. Housing. What if it were possible to make headway on all these issues with simple changes to our neighborhoods?10-minute magic....
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Come Plog With Me. (Yes, Litter Matters. A Lot.)
Results of island ploggingPlogging, or picking up litter while jogging, is a new fad created by the Swedes. One might think the Swedes are a tidy enough lot that litter wouldn’t be a concern, but after...
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The Lessons of the Great Beaufort Skedaddle
View of Beaufort, SC, Dec 1861The American Civil War can be viewed through many lenses, but a perspective rarely employed is that of the South's refusal to make what was essentially an energy...
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A Good Problem to Have
California Electricity Production March 23, 2019Saturday, March 23, 2019, was a windy, sunny day in California. It was so windy and sunny that at 3pm renewables supplied 68% of the electrical load. As...
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Why Don't You Have an Electric Bike Already?
Top of the World!If you’re already making most of your daily trips by bike or on foot, you don’t need to read further. An electric bike is unlikely to improve your life. For everyone else, read...
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The Habits of Unhappy People (and What You Can Do About Them)
Some habits make us unhappy. Others reveal unhappiness. Some do both. A healthy society strives to nurture the well-being of its members, because secure, stable people who find satisfaction in life can...
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Fourteen Low-Tech Ways to Stay Healthy (Besides Handwashing)
Health is not just an absence of illness. At the very least health includes a well-functioning immune system, our bodies’ first defense against pathogens that cause disease. This includes COVID-19,...
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Social Cohesion and Public Health
Mask: a device worn to disguise, amuse, or terrifySocial cohesion makes societies work, and once squandered, it’s difficult to rebuild. It requires trust, goodwill, and shared values, but also fairness...
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Put Down Those Rocks You're Carrying
Imagine that as a child you were issued a large backpack to wear at all times. At first you didn’t know what it was for, but then the adults around you started putting rocks in it that you then...
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What We Encourage
After forty-one years of drinking alcohol, I stopped six months ago. I’d done a couple dry Januaries and found that during the other eleven months of the year I had trouble limiting myself to...
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In the Land of Porcelain is out! It can be purchased in paperbook or ebook on-line, or it can ordered at any bookstore. Audiobook version coming soon!When Sara's husband, Mark, goes to law school on...
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