life in a rube goldberg machine.

toilet paper for thought

2009-07-09T13:01:00.001-07:00

I've wanted to do this for a while, so here I go.There is the toilet paper, sitting on a roll next to you in the bathroom, patiently waiting to do what it does best and be flushed away. Simple, serene.It's a staple of our lives, toilet paper. Where would we be without it, after all?For something as ubiquitous as toilet paper very little thought is applied, outside of finding the best deal,

pressure headaches from a climate of change

2009-07-01T13:10:00.000-07:00

Today I read a New York Times column by Thomas Friedman with the Nike-esque title Just Do It. He was referring to voting for the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill that was just passed by House of Representatives 219-212, and is headed to the Senate.This bill furthers investments in renewable energy and assigns a more realistic cost to fossil fuels to reflect additional unseen costs related to

everything in a pint of ice cream

2009-06-29T11:23:00.000-07:00

another oldie, from 23 August 2005. My affinity for Ben and Jerry's remains unchanged, but I think the "all-time high" gasoline was something like $2.30 at the time.This is the kind of thing that garnered me a "Most Likely to Start a Cult" award from my own MBA classmates.I want to write everything, but it won't fit.If I didn't have to take the time to nail down a series of words, sometimes

absolutely relative

2009-06-26T14:45:00.000-07:00

I just read Marc Gunther's Greenbiz blog entitled Wal-Mart's Big Problem: Climate Change.The good: Wal-Mart is greatly reducing its carbon emissions relative to salesThe bad: Wal-Mart continues to grow, more than offsetting its emissions reductionsWal-Mart contends that its absolute growth is probably better than alternative, because of the less-efficient sales of other vendors that it is

sustainability marketing green sustainability marketing...

2009-06-26T11:30:00.000-07:00

I chalk this one up to the Rube Goldberg machine that was built where the limits of reasonable human understanding and retention meet marketing.This morning I was perusing the news when I read the curious headline 'Sustainability is the new "Green"' in my Google search email. It was an article detailing Aberdeen Group's findings about marketing sustainability. In addition to the rather uninformed

cooling computers and heating buildings to save energy

2009-06-25T09:29:00.000-07:00

This morning I read about this CNET blog about a water-cooled IBM supercomputer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Zurich being built to use its surplus heat to heat the university's buildings.Essentially (and simply), this is reusing energy. This concept is generally known as cogeneration, or reusing energy to power something else--normally heating something from the waste heat from

the back seat is a lot less comfortable than it used to be

2009-06-24T08:51:00.000-07:00

I just read an article from Environmental Leader with the rather distressing title of "Environment Takes Back Seat To Comfort, Convenience." It summarized a survey by The Shelton Group conducted to ask 1,006 American consumers if they would give up a variety of everyday products, many of which are nearly ubiquitous in American life, if they discovered that they were damaging to the environment.

taking green job claims to task

2009-04-20T10:26:00.001-07:00

I just read a blog article by Fortune magazine contributor Marc Gunther on Greenbiz.com about green jobs. But it's not what you'd think.Instead of supporting the full expectations of the green job claims, which have been a major support point of renewable energy development and by extension global climate change action, he calls out inflated claims and makes a point to cite other projections from

get together

2009-04-16T21:37:00.000-07:00

I have an occasional blog that would have belonged here, so I'll be reposting some old ones. This was posted on August 25, 2005 as is. Well, except for fixing the hyphens.The people who understand the concept of sustainability--that buying local is smart in the long run, that cars don't have to be mandatory pollution machines that kill tens of thousands of people

the first step is realizing it's there

2009-04-16T15:09:00.000-07:00

Rube Goldbergn. a comically involved, complicated invention, laboriously contrived to perform a simple operation. - Webster's New World DictionaryHello.My name is Daniel Henderson. I think a lot, probably too much. But I try to be entertaining.Upon thinking of what to call my professional blog, which will be about sustainability, pointing out what isn't, and hopefully helping folks figure out