Diamond-Cut Life

Tomorrow I’ll write about living successfully with others — skills that can enable us to save tens of thousands of dollars over our lifetimes while also slashing the emissions that drive global warming. (It will be a follow-up to my guest post appearing today at Get Rich Slowly).
Today, tips on reducing our heating bills. The [...]

[Read more →]

We’re in the full grip of winter, not just here in Portland Oregon but in much of the country. Given the impact of our heating bills on both our wallets and carbon emissions, tomorrow’s post will be “How To Slash Your Heating Bill”. And given that many roads are impassable to vehicles right now, today [...]

[Read more →]

During a startling heat wave last May I advised slowing down as the best way to respond to it, both for happiness and to contain our carbon emissions. And now that my town (Portland, Oregon) is gripped with unusual amounts of snow and ice, I advise we slow down, snuggle in, and telework, walk or [...]

[Read more →]

It’s about time that I write about Christmas, given that my blog is about happiness and consumption. I suggest we can decouple Christmas from spending, especially overspending, i.e. we can celebrate Christmas happily while living within our means, and the earth’s means.
What we all need is a rich quality of life: loving relationships; health; meaningful [...]

[Read more →]

In the Christmas and holiday season, wine flows more than ever. I love festive sociability, and I see it as integral to the diamond-cut life. In fact, we’re holding our annual holiday party this Sunday (later update: our party got snowed out twice, so we’ll hold it sometime in January).
At the same time, I’ve been [...]

[Read more →]

by Alison Wiley
Diamond-Cut Life embraces community and lots of different voices and perspectives. I am wide open to guest post on topics related to sustainability and/or living happily while treading lightly on the earth.
Diamond-Cut Life has gotten 20,000 web-hits in its first year of publication. So you’ll get read! The only thing I ask of [...]

[Read more →]

My next post will be Part II of Making The Ocean Drinkable, my short series on desalination (see here for Part I). This weekend I am in Southern California, where I grew up, visiting family and friends, but particularly my elderly parents. Today’s post is more personal and inspired by my mother, who is in [...]

[Read more →]

For Thanksgiving I’ll suggest (and practice myself) a novel idea: to not eat a great deal. Just a normal-sized meal, of food more lovingly prepared than usual, with more sociability and gratitude than usual.
“Unpatriotic!” I can imagine you criticizing me. “Killjoy!” “The economy would nosedive!” “Anti-consumption equals Anti-Christ!” (OK, pardon my drama.)
In truth, I’m very [...]

[Read more →]

by Alison Wiley
Asking Linda Quirk of Run 7 On 7 to buy carbon offsets for her extensive air travel (see last post) reminded me and my husband to buy our offsets for 2008 (we can estimate the carbon we’ll burn for the rest of the year).
Note: while I think that buying carbon offsets is necessary [...]

[Read more →]

What’s your favorite low-carbon way to celebrate your birthday? (Today is my birthday). Mine has got to be dancing with a group of people. My friend and former housemate Micki invited me and three other dancing fools to Billy Bang’s here in Portland last night to dance to The Insomniacs, a blues/rock band.
What a blast! [...]

[Read more →]