A growing body of evidence suggests that global warming and other environmental problems cannot be ignored. The consumer demand ramps up, green movements proliferate, and new standards and policies emerge. As a result, green practices are becoming a norm instead of an added bonus. (more…)
It’s the birthday of Leóš Janácek, Central European composer of the late 19th/early 20th Century. (more…)
I was amused when I was a young man and came to realize that I share my birthday (July 3rd) with Franz Kafka. It was a time when almost everything in our world (except for Kafka’s stories) made sense. Honest people prospered, hard work paid off, justice generally prevailed, science had great value in our society….children even took piano lessons. At the same time, bad people suffered, and liars were discredited and ostracized. (more…)
Front doors are often chosen to be a showpiece of the house. Vintage and ornate doors are especially popular because of their charm and the homey feeling they evoke. On the other hand, these doors are often not as well insulated as they should be. (more…)
Someone asked me to assess how the U.S. arrived here, in a day in which Donald Trump would be dominating our discussions, and, in some ways, our entire lives. I replied:
I have to think this is a transitory condition. It’s some sort of national disease, like the witch trials/hangings/burnings of 1692 in Salem, Mass. A few months later, by the spring of 1693, this bizarre phenomenon was all gone, and it left many people scratching their heads, wondering how it could have happened in the first place. (more…)
Pictured here is a popular meme one sees on Facebook. And it happens to play out in my life, where a friend comments: (more…)
What will happen to our economic fortunes in the Western Hemisphere as it warms over the coming decades? It depends on exactly where we live. (more…)
Those who may have been worried that our society was devolving into a nation of apathetic slugs can certainly lay aside those concerns at this point. Join 5.6 million of your other fellow Americans, and check out the ad below from the National Rifle Association. Does any of this sound like sitting around and passively watching the events of the day?
As you watch the commercial, I hope you’ll ask yourself a handful of questions: (more…)
My dear friend (and very first marketing consulting client, back in 1985) Terry Ribb writes that she takes heart in the progress that Sweden has made in committing to renewables. I thought I would publish the conversation that she and I are having. (Note that she, as always, has a much more positive attitude about all this than I do.)
Terry: Here’s another gem for you. (more…)
In a newsletter, Bill McKibben notes that we need to:
1) Stop new fossil fuel infrastructure. If you’re serious about Paris, that means realizing we’re already overshooting the temperature targets we set there – there’s literally no more room in the carbon budget for more pipelines, more frack fields, more coal ports. If France’s new president can put an end to exploration for oil and gas, so can our leaders. (more…)
