Diamond-Cut Life

Sustainable Living: More Joy And Less Consumption

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Entries Tagged as 'environment'

The Inconvenient Truth of the 168-hour Week

November 19th, 2007 · 4 Comments · Uncategorized, carbon footprint, climate change, culture, environment, global warming, life

“I do care about global warming, but I’m too busy to (fill in the blank)”. I hear this cry often in one form or another. The blank can be many things: buying local produce, changing light bulbs to compact fluorescents, using public transit, using a clothesline instead of the dryer.

Feeling too busy to do things we know in our guts are the right things to do is like

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Better Than Bigger: Getting to Enough

November 8th, 2007 · No Comments · bipartisan politics, carbon footprint, climate change, culture, development, economics, environment, global warming, politics, simplicity, sustainability

U.S. culture is finally getting that global warming is both a fact and serious trouble. Good, great, excellent.

The problem now is that most people think somebody else had better do something about it — in effect so that business can continue as usual.

I embrace the opposite of that attitude: that all of us can do something about it, and that ‘business as usual’ is at the core of the problem

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Walmart’s Green Face: Are We Happy Now?

November 4th, 2007 · No Comments · environment, global warming, sustainability

One time in my life, years ago, I went inside a WalMart store and purchased one item. It was a full-length mirror for $10. I felt grateful I could afford it because I was a self-employed artist at the time (read: poor).

I never went back to WalMart because I learned about the high cost of their low prices. For instance, many who receive relief food from the Oregon Food

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Two Birds, One Beautiful Stone

November 2nd, 2007 · 1 Comment · culture, environment, global warming, life

Maybe you’re like me in this respect: when I see problems, I want to find solutions.

No.

I don’t just want to find solutions, I want to live them out. I feel more alive that way, more connected. Lots of problems are both personal and public, both micro and macro. Ditto their solutions.

Here we have a national epidemic of obesity and a global climate problem of overusing fossil fuels. It doesn’t take

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Morning Tea and Power to the People

October 30th, 2007 · No Comments · green living, happiness, lifestyle, sustainability

This morning I submerged a jasmine tea bag into the hot water inside my lovely little blue mug that I bought from a local potter years ago. I’ve done this most mornings for years, but today I suddenly thought to put a little saucer across the top of the mug while the tea steeps.

Why? Because I’ve learned that heat is so costly to the earth. Even here in Portland Oregon

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