Greetings from Alison Wiley here in Portland, Oregon. I'm a writer/doer/thinker who lives happily by putting people, nature and God ahead of accumulating more stuff. Read more →
My blogging pal Lou Grinzo from The Cost Of Energy emailed me as he was leaving for his family’s Christmas gathering. He wished me happy holidays and voiced some really nice appreciation for Diamond-Cut Life’s “conspicuously human take” on climate change issues. Lou’s phrase that particularly leapt out at me, though, was in reference to [...]
Tags: Cassandra·coal·collapse·economy·Jared Diamond·Lou Grinzo·mythology·oil·sacrifice
The first part of this piece I posted last year, on the 2008 winter solstice. The rest of it I added for 2009. Today is winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. In the days long before fossil fuels routinely lit our nights, winter solstice was celebrated as the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun. [...]
Tags: Christianity·Christmas·divine feminine·Goddess·Jared Diamond·Our Father·solstice·winter solstice
One of my readers, Bryce Beattie of Real Self-Reliance, has written a thoughtful response to my criticism of legislators opposing the Waxman-Markey bill. This bill is known as the carbon cap and trade bill; it narrowly passed the House last week by getting some bipartisan support, and will be facing much opposition in the Senate. [...]
Tags: bipartisan politics·Bryce Beattie·carbon footprint·climate change·global warming·government control·Jared Diamond·self-reliance·Waxman-Markey bill
My experience is that great books are like life-blood to the Diamond-Cut Life (a life rich in joy and low in consumption). I have often been dollar-poor, and though I’m not any longer, good books give me — I think us — an exciting inner life whatever our external status in the world. Reading an [...]
Tags: Anne Lamott·Barbara Kingsolver·books·Eric Brende·happiness·Jared Diamond·technology·thrift
While I’m generally a gentle person, I admit I’m a fast, aggressive reader. The Reading Police would arrest me if they could catch me. I think of my recommendations here as my community service. Last updated August 2, 2013, to the Inspiring category directly below. While I don’t have a Children’s Books section, I enthusiastically refer folks to Patterson’s Picks, [...]
Tags: Amy Minota·Ann Patchett·Anne Lamott·Annie Dillard·Barbara Kingsolver·Bill Bryson·Bill McKibben·books·Chip Heath·Clarissa Pinkola Estes·Dan Heath·Elizabeth Gilbert·Elizabeth Marshall Thomas·Eric Brende·Geneen Roth·Heath brothers·Jan Karon·Jared Diamond·Julia Cameron·Lynne Twist·Malcolm Gladwell·Natalie Angier·Nicholas Evans·Orson Scott Card·Philip Connors·Robert James Waller·Robert Leo Heilman·Sue MOnk Kidd·Tawniw O'Dell·Ted Kerasote
Bad news here for the advertising industry, but good news for human beings and all other species. Research from many countries shows that after people’s survival needs and some reasonable pleasure needs are met, consumption piled-higher-and-deeper does NOT create more happiness. Rich is not great. Greed is not cool. Working harder might be moving you backward.
Inconvenient, at least for 20th century notions of economic growth and GDP, but
Tags: carbon footprint·culture·economics·economy·environment·GDP·global warming·happiness·Jared Diamond·life·time management
I’m back after a break! Pulitzer prize winner Jared Diamond points out in the New York Times today that we in the U.S. are consuming 32 times more than the citizens of developing countries, and that that has to change because the earth’s resources are running out.
A little more surprisingly, he also says something I have been maintaining for years: our quality of life is not directly tied to our
Tags: carbon footprint·conservation·culture·economics·economy·environment·global warming·happiness·Jared Diamond·Juliet Schor·quality of life·social justice
Read via RSS reader of your choice (for example, Google Reader).
Subscribe