Diamond-Cut Life

I’m hiring! Rather, the state agency I work for is hiring me a full-time assistant to work on the Governor’s Commuter Challenge (I am the program manager). Full job description and link to apply is here
Perhaps I’m biased, but this is the coolest project in the greenest state in the nation (Oregon). The theme of [...]

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How do we sustain ourselves as we work on sustainability? There is so much work to do, how do we keep from being just another group of American workaholics, set apart only by a bigger vision and slightly different consumption patterns?
It’s 3:49 a.m. as I’m writing (I have insomnia). My upcoming day, my recent days, [...]

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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 am lucky enough to be in a carpool with five great people for my two-hour round-trip commute. (I found them through Carpool Match Northwest.) We save money, save emissions and have fun. So on the morning of April Fool’s day I tossed off a prank email to them.

I wrote: “It has been such a pleasure knowing you! My new inheritance means I can now afford a

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On the first day of my new job in Salem, Oregon yesterday, I left my house in Portland before 6 a.m. and got home about 6:4o p.m. I spent three hours and forty minutes total on the commute, including walking to and from the Capitol Mall to my building.

Ye gads. To think that millions of people around the world do this for decades of their lives in

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My blog The Diamond-Cut Life is about chiseling our consumption down to the core of happiness. What do we really need to consume and do in order to have both happiness and integrity in the face of global warming?

In other words, how can each of us give legs to sustainability?

I think that joy for most human beings comes from honest work, friendship, connection to nature, sharing resources and even

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Last Friday afternoon I got the best phone call of my professional life, to date. It was the friendly voice of Michael Ward at Oregon Department of Transportation, offering me the job of Transportation Options Program Manager.

Starting next week that will be my new job and Michael will be my new boss. I’ll be the voice, the advocate, the ‘concept salesperson’ at ODOT — in the state of Oregon –

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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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