You’ve probably heard a lot of hype about how electric cars are gonna save the planet, right? Our “climate savior” Elon Musk would certainly have us believe so. While they’re definitely a step in the right direction, but I would be careful not too get too carried away here – they’re not perfect. Electric Vehicles Pollute… One issue with electric […]
All The Small (ECO) Things
There’s this nice thing that comes from doing sustainable things: it almost always has positive effects in other, related areas as well. Some examples: But there are certain things that I do that have a positive impact on the planet…But only a tiny insignificant amount, and yet I continue to do not because it’s good for the planet, but purely […]
The Sustainable Baby Chronicles #1: Thoughts on sustainability after a one month of being a baby-dad.
Learning To Dad-mode My newborn baby son, Jin, just turned one-month old. He’s doing great: he’s eating a ton, he’s super healthy, he sleeps a lot, and he’s learning so much about the world. We love him more than anything! Me, on the other hand, well…I’m…surviving: I never sleep more than 2 hours at a time, I half-zombie walk through […]
This Sustainable Baby
I’m now getting prepared for one of the biggest challenges I’ve ever faced: becoming father to a newborn baby boy…And trying to be as sustainable as possible. Raising a baby is hard enough, but trying to do it in a way that is sustainable in a world where everything you need for babies is made to be “convenient” (i.e. “disposable”), […]
TSL: SFN – Upgrading Infrastructure w/ Javad Mohammadi
Javad Mohammadi is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. His research interests include multi-agent optimization and machine learning in networked cyber-physical systems, including smart grid-interactive buildings, power grid, and electrified transportation systems. In short, he’s solving problems and figuring out how to make our electric grids smarter […]
The Trash Can IS The Environment
Throwing away trash…It’s so addictively easy. Can’t figure out what to do with all that plastic packaging? How about all these food scraps? Old ripped clothes or a broken TV? Just toss it all in the trash and you never have to worry about it again. Have you ever thought about what you would do if you DIDN’T have that […]
Kombucha Journey, Start!
As far as sustainable drinks go, nothing beats water. It’s healthy, plentiful, doesn’t have to come packaged in plastic or even bottles. It just gets piped straight into our homes! But drinking nothing but water can get kind of dull, and trying to find other things to drink that don’t come in plastic can be tough. I drink soy milk […]
TSL: SFN – This Sustainable House w/ Anna DeSimone
Anna DeSimone is the author of Live In A Home That Pays You Back, Housing Finance 2020: New Mortgage Programs for the New Generation of Homebuyers, Retirement Planning and Investing, and Welcome to the Agrihood: Housing, Shopping, and Gardening for a Farm-to-Table Lifestyle. She is a nationally recognized expert in housing finance, and author of more than 40 professional guidebooks […]
My neighborhood got a farmer’s market!
Why having a farmers market makes for the start of a sustainable neighborhood This past Saturday, a brand new farmer’s market started IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD. If you’ve been following me a while, you may know that I used to go to a farmer’s market every Sunday, where I had worked it out with one of the farmers to get me […]
Climate Questions: Coming up with questions to start climate conversations
As regular readers might know, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to have more and better climate change conversations, and as I thought more and more about how to do that, the sage words of Josh Spodek, host of the This Sustainable Life podcast came back to me: Stop thinking about how you’re going to do it, and just […]