Adventures in Sustainable Living

In E5 I gave an introduction to the concepts of zero waste by talking about 12 Steps to a Zero Waste Lifestyle. Proponents of zero waste admit that it is impossible to generate absolutely no waste. While we can reduce our household waste to almost nothing, we cannot control the production of the products that we use everyday.   That being said, in true form to how I like to be, I am not going to t...

Having lived and worked in several different countries what I have learned is that no country or government is perfect. Every place has its problems, its share of corruption, and quirky little things that seem to make life more difficult than it really needs to be. And this includes my home country of the United States.  As you could have easily guessed some countries are far worse than others. No...

Did you know that I can list 10 simple things that you do everyday that pollute the environment. Things that you have perhaps done thousands of times and never given it a thought. And maybe it was the same for me until I produced over 40 episodes about sustainability. But having done so, I have certainly learned a lot of things which has changed my views.   For example, the other day as I was hold...

As you can easily believe, the products  we products, the things we use everyday and  the things we choose to eat directly influences how much waste we product.  But what most people do not think about is how we manage our waste has a significant impact on our economy. In fact, that waste management produces one of three types of economies.  One of those economies is much more sustainable than the...

As you likely know by now, I like to criticize how we live and all the wasteful things that we do. And I am especially critical of my own culture in the United States.  However, there are a lot of positive things going on in the world related to sustainability. There are governments, international organizations, and some very large businesses that have recognized the importance of sustainability....

Did you know that Americans have a chemical dependency problem? And I am not referring to drugs, alcohol, marijuana, or prescription substances. Yet this chemical dependency is a very open and social thing. In fact, it is openly promoted, bragged about, and actually makes you fit in better with the neighbors.  Then we depend on those chemicals in order to make our lives function properly. We are e...

A number of years ago I had the opportunity to travel extensively through the Amazon basin. I visited remote villages and saw things that most people never see except on the pages of National Geographic.  Yet there are so many people in the world that will never have that opportunity nor are they willing to take the risk. Most people would rather view a wild animal in a cage instead of seeing that...

For multiple reasons, it is entirely possible for our power grid to go down not just for a few days, but for weeks to months. In this episode I discuss some very real scenarios of how this could happen and how it has happened. But what most people do not understand is that if there is a grid down event, whether that be from nature causes or a malicious attack, if the damage is widespread enough, i...

Among the hundreds of people waiting to visit Mahatma Gandhi was a mother and her young son. When it was their turn, the woman asked Gandhi to speak with her son about eating sugar. Gandhi asked her to come back in two weeks.  When they returned Gandhi spoke with the boy, who agreed to begin working to eliminate sweets. After thanking Gandhi for his advice, the mother asked him why he did not offe...

About 10 years ago, Annette and her son and I were sitting in a small cafe in some far corner of Costa Rica. Her son Erik was still very young at the time and this was his first trip out of the country. As we were sitting at the table looking at the menu, Erik proclaimed, “I want a glass of orange juice.” I informed him that he could not have a glass of orange juice because they just don’t have th...

We literally live in a sea of micro-plastics. These tiny particles can be found from the deepest place on the planet, the Mariana Trench, to the highest mountain, Mount Everest. By simply living, eating, breathing, and going about your normal day, you are consuming plastic particles.  This  is just another contaminant that scientists, the government, and health officials are going to tell us that...

Take a good look at your lifestyle. I think it is safe to say that most of us live under such a cloud clutter that we have long forgotten what it is like to live a simple life, much less a sustainable one. Yet there is a lot of value in having a simple life. In fact, simplicity tends to push us toward sustainability. And that is the point of this episode. First I want to prove to you how I was gui...

It is basic human nature that at a subconscious level, all humans crave normalcy, routine, and familiarity. This is especially true during a disaster or some other stressful event. Small children carry stuffed animals and security blankets for comfort. As adults we mentally carry security blankets in the form of “having our own place”, or “waking up in our own bed”. We also find security in starti...

As Americans, plain and simple, we are addicted to convenience. It is almost to the point of being ridiculous. And that convenience results in a short attention span, very little patience, and a wasteful lifestyle. But there is a different way to live, and a better way to live that is more environmentally friendly. And in the end of this episode I am going to give you 12 different ways to live dif...

In this episode, I want to focus on the topics of sustainable travel and ecotourism. Now that travel restrictions are starting to relax, we are all anxious to get out and about, which I totally understand. I know I feel that way as well. But, as we all start to think about travel again, it is important that we make responsible choices and that includes when we travel.  What I want to do in this ep...

In this episode I want to first give an overview of how nature, wildness, and wilderness was actually a key factor in defining the American experience. It actually represented limitless opportunity and freedom. It fostered the self reliance and individualism that still runs deep in our culture to this day. And yet over time we have gone from wildness and wilderness to no sense of wild at all. But...

Did you know that vampires are not a thing of the past? There is actually a vampire culture that is alive and well in our modern age. But they keep that a secret of course. However, when we all think of vampires we automatically envision the vicious creatures of folklore that rise from their graves at night and suck the vital essence out of the living.   And one more fun fact, there is actually a...

Did you know that every piece of plastic that was ever produced is still on the planet? Did you know that disposable diapers take between 250 and 500 years to decompose? What that means is that the disposable diapers that your mother used on you as a kid are STILL in the landfill.   For much of human history we have disposed of our garbage by carting it somewhere away from our living space and dum...

What if I told you that I could give you some 12 simple tips that you could implement today that would save you about $2000 per year? Would you do it?  Well, the easiest and simplest place to start is right in your own kitchen. Making you home kitchen more eco-friendly doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Just start with one simple change, which will lead to another and another. That is the point of t...

In this episode I want to discuss one of my favorite topics. And in the process I hope to give you some interesting and useful information. What I want to touch on is a very broad topic which is covered in numerous books. But to get to the point, the topic of this episode is the natural things around us that are completely overlooked yet they tremendously useful. What I am talking about are the ed...

I think by now that we are all aware of the recent high profile ransomware hacks on the Colonial Pipeline as well as the JBS meat supplier that shut down their packing plants for a couple of days resulting in meat shortages. While such things may have only affected certain parts of the country, it certainly gets the attention of everyone. Such things have a tendency to completely disrupt the flow...

In this episode I am going to first try to convince you how important it is to take a walk in the woods on a regular basis. Then I am going to discuss how important that resource really is to all of us, how that resource is being destroyed and why, and what you can do about it. I am of course talking about deforestation.   Deforestation causes climate change, global warming, soil erosion, species...

In this episode I want to cover this topic of the 2000 Watt Society, what that actually means, and why it is an extremely important topic. In episode #3 titled How Much Should One Person Be Allowed to Use, I touched on this topic. Additionally, this topic is closely related to episode #2 The Most Sustainable Countries. But I want to go much more in-depth this time around because I think this is a...

What I want to accomplish in this episode is to give my listeners an in-depth background on where I came from and how I got to be where I am today. And at the end of this episode, I want to leave you with an important message that will help you to drive some positive changes in your own life. If there is one thing I have learned in working on the blog and the podcast, is that people appreciate hea...

In this episode I am going to introduce the concept of a keystone species, the importance of a keystone species and what happens if that species is taken out of an ecosystem. And as you could guess, the keystone species that I am speaking of in this episode is coral. I am going to discuss the importance of our coral reefs, what is happening to them, and why we should truly be concerned.  This conc...