the ecology of happiness
Gerald
Unconferencing Rio+20, Really Changing Things
Normally, I reserve the personal for my blog “at home in… w| Gerald Zhang-Schmidt“, but allow me… I was one of those precocious kids discussing the environment on TV and at conferences just around the time the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development – the Rio ’92 “Earth Summit” – took place. I had [...]
Quit with the Band-Aids, Change Lives and Work for Better
Or, Why I Don’t Ask for Donations… “Green” concerns have been moving further into the mainstream of business, companies proclaim their sustainability and CSR (corporate social responsibility) engagement, the rich and famous create philanthropic foundations to address poverty and (other) human rights issues … and in all the excitement over the pretty Band-Aids, radical reason [...]
Collapse and Happiness
Environmentalists, peak oil -fanatics, “preppers” – they have long run under the rubric of Cassandras and crazy people. When you actually look at the people who are expecting a collapse of the contemporary “normal,” and are doing something about it, a different picture emerges, though – a much more “ecohappy” one.
Realizing The Power In Our Own Hands
“It’s no good believing in somebody else If you can’t believe in yourself You give them the reason to take all the power and wealth” (“Turn It Up” – Alan Parsons Project) There is a very strange paradox of power about today. Never before has such a large part of humanity lived so well, and [...]
Killer Comfort, Crazy Convenience…
Life is about the pursuit of happiness, the experience of it all, the rush that makes you truly feel alive… or is it? Often enough, it looks as if we were all too happy to just settle for a bit of comfort. A cozy home, enough food, a little entertainment, a little excitement every now [...]
Sacrifice. It’s All For Economic Growth Now…
It has always been the story that the environmentalists are the crazy ones, the ones who would protect owls rather than create jobs, move back into caves rather than out into space (or the gadgetry of cyberspace, at least). The future, if one listened to “them,” would be green, perhaps, but also pretty archaic. Or [...]
Davos’ Misunderstanding of Capitalism: The Radical Entrepreneurship Needed for the Future
The World Economic Forum is in session in Davos again, and it’s a rather different story this year. Even established magnates of business and government, after arriving on their private jets and moving in with their entourages, express concern about inequality and worry how capitalism can continue. The WEF’s founder even questioned whether it’s such [...]
In Your Life, In the World, You’re The One
Our stories shape the way we feel about our role in the world, the basic ideas we come to accept as the way the world functions. Hollywood makes dreams. Bollywood, maybe even more so. Fairy tales aren’t too different. Myths explained what the world was like and why it was like that, and not different. [...]
Simple Steps, But Lifestyle Changes
Changing one’s life, caring better for one’s health… it all seems so hard, in such need of radical cuts. Selling all your stuff, moving to an exotic country and living off online enterprise, that seems just about enough to change things around – but who could do that?
