When I bought my copy of the Sunday New York Times today, while flipping through it to make sure all the sections were there, something caught my eye. In the top half of the Metropolitan section there’s a photo. It doesn’t look like an x-ray machine. But it also sort of does. What is it? I’ll have to check when I get home.
And now I’m home.
Oh, and by the way, this is a must-read article! That is, if you care about saving the planet, you’ll probably find it interesting. Again, it begins on the cover of the Metropolitan section, in today’s New York Times. “Living Off the Grid, in Manhattan” is the title; and this is the subheading: ‘an eco-influencer relies on solar panels and vegetables. And puts dating on hold.” John Leland wrote the piece.
Joshua Spodek seems an unlikely candidate for “living off the grid.” He’s an executive coach. A former adjunct professor of leadership and entrepreneurship a New York University. He had also been an advertising entrepreneur. Not to mention a dating coach and some other things. An astrophysicist? The Times article doesn’t mention that, but at the top of his Home page — his webiste is joshuaspodek.com — there’s a blurb, attributed to NBC, that reads: “Astrophysicist turned new media whiz …”
Spodek has a podcast (“This Sustainable Life”), has written books on a variety of topics — including one titled Understanding North Korea (you can probably guess what that’s about) — and he appears to be quite a prolific blogger.
The article states that in 2015, “he set out to avoid all food packaging to reduce the volume of garbage he was sending to landfills. He bought only loose fruits and vegetables, and bulk staples like beans and nuts.” Then, in May of 2022, he began an experiment to also see if he could live off the grid for a year. And two and a half years later, he’s still going. But that’s not easy. Because he lives in Manhattan. Where, in his case, living off the grid means that in order to supply all the electricity he uses, he must lug solar panels and a 17-pound battery up and down 11 flights of stairs, to and from his roof. On the day he was interviewed for the article, he had to lug all that to a park a few blocks away, because his roof was under construction. What does he do on days when it’s raining? He has to either make do or do without.
This is an interesting article; but I’ll have to finish it some other time. I work nights and right after work is usually when I most need to get to sleep.
However, one thing I particularly wanted to comment on is where it states that starting in 2016, he gave up flying. That’s so refreshing. Because while making my way through the Sunday New York Times, it’s usually quite the opposite. I’ll come across example after example of casual references to air travel that make me grit my teeth. It might be a book reviewer casually mentioning he finished reading the book he’s reviewing while on a flight to (wherever). Or someone answering the Book Review section interview question “Describe your ideal reading experience,” by stating simply: “on a plane.” There is also always travel-related advertising in the New York Times. And sometimes entire sections are devoted to travel. Like the “52 Places to Go” special section that appears annually — and what does that imply, that it might be a good idea to take in some world travel on a weekly basis? Whole issues of the Magazine section are sometimes devoted to travel. Like the September 29, 2024 issue, with a cover headline that reads “Food Voyages: Six Trips in Search of One Magical Bite.” Is it any wonder so many Trump supporters and Trump himself (and many others) aren’t exactly shaking in their boots at the thought of climate change? Here we have a paper like the Times featuring on the cover of its magazine section a child whose parents flew him to France specifically to taste a wide variety of gourmet egg dishes prepared in great restaurants — some world renown (according to the article). All in an effort to get their son to actually like eggs. (*Spoiler alert!*) Well, after 12 pages, we finally learn, no, little Ollie still hates eggs. The issue also includes articles that involve travel to Hong Kong, Senegal, California, Peru and Italy. And all just for food tastings. Thanks, but I think I just lost my appetite.
I have a bunch of articles, set aside, related to this topic — air travel (including why it’s bad) — and it’s growing all the time; but I’m afraid to even take a peek at this point. There are so many articles there now that any blog post I do on this topic is likely to be way too long (or a real headache to write). But air travel is a very real, serious problem, and this needs to be talked about. In fact, I heard over the radio several years ago — on an all-news station — that self-flying planes (modelled after self-driving cars) was something that was in the planning stages. Why? Because they can’t graduate pilots fast enough to keep up with demand. That’s crazy! And yet that was the explanation given.
Let me throw out a few more examples of things worth mentioning here, just off the top of my head. I remember seeing it reported years ago in The New York Post that Leonardo DiCaprio flew thousands of miles across the Atlantic to collect an environmental award. And then flew back. Yeah, I know: “That’s ironic!” But also Jane Goodall. Someone else who you’d think would know better. I’ve read a few times about how much she loves traveling the world. And New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is a big time globe-trotter. One of his columns this year was titled “My Travel Tips for Seeing the World’s Best Places.” In a book review published in the Times this past June (a review of his memoir Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life), it mentions he’s traveled to 170 countries. It doesn’t say how many times he’s been to each, or, separately, how many states he’s flown to (or how many flights that’s involved). That’s not setting a good example, in my view. Which is important, because as someone privileged enough to have a column in a prestigious paper like the Times, his opinions help shape the world we live in today. Case in point, it also mentions in that same book review that one of his articles hangs in the lobby of the Gates Foundation, because it “inspired Bill and Melinda Gates to focus their philanthropy on global health.” Imagine if they had focused their philanthropic giving instead towards something much more in line with saving the planet. Imagine how much different the world might be today — three decades later — if they had done that!
Another example. I got an email once in which someone mentioned in the first paragraph that they and their late spouse had traveled the world as avid birders. I mentioned I didn’t think that was a good idea, and why. I only mention this here because if I told you who that person was, you might fall off your chair. Why? Because again, this is someone who absolutely should have known better. But that clearly wasn’t the case. Incidentally, I almost did fall off my chair, at one point. After referencing my website, this person emailed back: “You have a website? Why didn’t you tell me?” The thing that was so peculiar about that reply is (a) that’s how the person contacted me — using the email address on my Contact page — and (b) they were responding to my ad, which gave my website as the only contact information. I never really got any kind of convincing response for how that could happen. Oh, well.
Oh, and by the way, that thing in the photo at the top of that Metropolitan section that I referenced earlier. I was right, it’s not an x-ray machine. The caption states it’s a linear zoetrope. What’s that? According to the caption, it’s “a kind of art installation he has created for transit systems.” Now I’m really flummoxed. What’s it doing in his apartment? Which of the various past and current occupations listed in the piece does that fall under? Is Spodek also an avant-garde artist? Or an inventor? And if he’s living off the grid, why on earth would he be doing that in the first place — creating art that requires electricity to function as art — and why squander any of his limited energy budget on something like that? If that’s explained in the piece, I haven’t gotten to that part yet.
Now, I sleep.