Diamond-Cut Life

The financial benefits of carpooling, featured in a front page story of the Oregonian today, are only one reason that carpooling is cool. I’d say its coolness is embodied in four C’s: cash, congestion reduction, carbon footprint and community.
The carpool I’m in makes my commute between Portland and Salem a joy instead of a grind. [...]

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I just received a nice comment from Klara on “Why Bother? Three Great Reasons“. She is moving here to Portland soon and like many Portlanders, new and old, she is passionate about sustainability.
I imagine that also like many, she wants to find green-collar work, i.e. a job in sustainability. I’m going to refer her [...]

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My job in transportation options has taken me, in a new Prius, to the high desert town of Bend, Oregon (recently named by American Cowboy magazine in its Top Ten list of wild-west towns). The Prius, mud-splattered from the Santiam Pass, is now dusted with snow as well, so it reminds me of an [...]

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Of all the good pieces in today’s Green Issue of New York Times magazine, “Why Bother?” by Michael Pollan is the one that helps us see that lower-consumption lifestyles are crucial in dealing with global warming, Inventors and legislators cannot rescue us.

1.) Pollan points out that being a role model is powerful. As various citizens like you and me consume significantly less, especially in terms of fossil fuels, other

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Today’s post is a round-up of my recent mini-discoveries on important aspects of sustainability.

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Last week I named the very best diet for weight loss as being one of low car use. That’s because our bodies were designed to get us from place to place with this cool gait called walking. My husband and I share just one car, and use public transit, our feet and our bikes for many of our trips. It’s more fun, too.

What else has been rising in the

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Last night five friends of mine, new and old, got together at Colleen and Thad’s house in NE Portland. We had wine, a delicious potluck dinner and animated-to-hilarious planning of our Carbon Action Reduction Group.

Honestly, it would have been fun and funny even without the wine. The four sled dogs milling around our legs added a lot to the happy hubbub. Bottom line: We’re going to do it! We’re

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If you’re stressing over your taxes being due today, I empathize. I have SO been there (though not any more. Here are my tips on breaking free of credit card and consumer debt.) Now I am a tax non-begrudger. I willingly pay taxes because I want to live in the civilized kind of society they make possible.

I see roads and highways as

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I’m intrigued by (Oregon) Governor Kulongoski’s speech last Friday on transportation and global warming. It’s not many politicians who are brave enough to consider peak-hour tolls, which are also known as congestion pricing.

London and Stockholm have found that these reduce rush-hour traffic by about 20%, which is huge in the transportation context. The tolls were highly unpopular at first, but became more accepted as people found themselves spending

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You have probably read by now that our country has been getting dramatically more obese for twenty years now. Most people I know seem to want to lose weight and be more lean and fit. Diets, though, are famous for non-lasting results and nasty backlash effects.

My philosophy of the diamond-cut life naturally has a different take on weight loss and dieting than the mainstream culture does. (I’m

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