Diamond-Cut Life

Sustainable Living: More Joy And Less Consumption In The Face Of Global Warming

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How To Save Five Hours A Week

September 12th, 2008 · 1 Comment

Do you suffer from time poverty, i.e. feel that you don’t have nearly enough time? I periodically do, and I’ve seen it termed an American epidemic. The irony and the good news is that many of what I call the over-activities eating up our time and stressing us are the same over-activities that are eating [...]

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Tags: 97215 · Uncategorized · carbon footprint · consumption · energy · food · global warming · green living · life · lifestyle · thrift

Prius vs. Honda Hybrid vs. Other

June 30th, 2008 · 2 Comments

My friend from Santa Cruz, concerned about global warming as I am, asked for advice yesterday about the car purchase she needs to make.
It happens my husband Thor did lots of research recently about whether to buy a Prius or a Honda Civic hybrid. We chose the Honda, for reasons given here, but we use [...]

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Tags: 97215 · carbon footprint · carpooling · cars · energy conservation · environment · global warming · green living · happiness · hybrids · life · lifestyle

The Inconvenient Truth of the Diamond-Cut Life

January 4th, 2008 · 3 Comments

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

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Tags: carbon footprint · culture · economics · environment · global warming · life · sustainability

The Inconvenient Truth of the 168-hour Week

November 19th, 2007 · 4 Comments

“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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Tags: Uncategorized · carbon footprint · climate change · culture · environment · global warming · life