In an early GSP post, Sociopathy and Kindness, Part 2, I somehow got onto the topic of population growth. It’s a topic that’s worth revisiting because the key questions of how to control population growth and how to sustain future populations are both closely tied to ethical consumerism. I believe that these issues have also been distorted and exploited in the past and that some … Continue reading Ethical Consumerism, Part 6: Population Growth
Starbucks recently announced that they are making $10 million in grants available to people with proposals for coffee cups that are compostable and recyclable. So it seems timely to do a post on this dreaded topic. Throughout development, the solution will be open source so others can benefit and innovate on the path towards the development of recyclable and compostable cups around the world. First … Continue reading The Muggle and the Big Ugly Pile of Discarded Coffee Cups
Greetings! After 17 months of something pretty close to freedom, I returned to work recently and have had less time for blogging and interacting [insert appropriate emoji to convey my precise emotional response to this. Editor: there isn’t one! System Failure! LOLZ 😛 ]. Being back at work also provides another challenge: how to find time to do things the right way ? In other … Continue reading Ethical Consumerism, Part 4: Mindfulness
In part 1 of this series of posts on the topic of Ethical Consumerism I mentioned the story of how Henry Ford was blocked from doing good things because of the structure of the Ford Motor Company. Well, here it is: In 1916, Henry Ford was paying workers generous wages and had cut the price of the Model T car to less than half the … Continue reading Ethical Consumerism, Part 3: The Corporation
Hi folks! Once again, it’s that time of year where we may be lucky enough to be able to slow down and reflect on life. Here’s an interesting post that introduced to me the concept of liminal space, a pause time between what was and what’s next. Liminal space is a time when your routine is interrupted, either by a major life event (death, divorce), … Continue reading R E S O L U T I O N
In the last post I argued that ethical consumerism can exist under capitalism, and that in fact it’s essential if we want to protect the world from capitalists of the ruthless kind. In this post I’m going to take a look at palm oil in order to illustrate some of the issues that ethical consumerism tackles, and hence why it is so important. Palm oil … Continue reading Ethical Consumerism, Part 2: Why is Palm Oil Bad?
I’m going to do a few posts on the general topic of ethical consumerism and this first one will address the claim that there is no such thing. You may have seen this online at some point: There is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism If you look at the statement from one angle, you could extract an element of truth from it: … Continue reading Ethical Consumerism, Part 1: Is There Such a Thing?
A few days ago, I came across a National Geographic competition called Chasing Genius. You can submit ideas for Sustainability, Global Health, or Feeding 9 Billion. I decided to enter in the Sustainability category – it requires only a few paragraphs of descriptive text and a one-minute video. I had it on my to-do list for a few days (i.e., procrastinated) and then I wrote … Continue reading Going Public!
Last month, I wanted to travel around a bit and write Green Stars reviews of restaurants, cafés, stores, etc. In the end I decided to travel by Amtrak (the semi-private US rail system) after discovering that their California Rail Pass is a pretty good deal. So, I’m going to describe how the rail pass works (since nobody that I know has ever heard of it!) … Continue reading California by Train
For a change, this is going to be a short post, written in a few minutes. It feels so liberating not having to put a week of research into a post 🙂 Take a quick look at this ad. Here’s a transcript: *** How do you want to live? As a decent person? Not a bad guy? A good friend? Is that it? Good? Of … Continue reading Like a Boss.
The Green Stars Project 