My Negotiation and Conflict Resolution class has been really rewarding so far, but by far the best part of it has been discovering the book Women Don’t Ask by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever. It’s been a bit of a revelation for me, making me realize that the world is far more negotiable than I […]

My niece, Mallory Bussell, is graduating from UMaine Orono this year with a degree in forestry. For her Forestry Management class last fall, she developed a management plan for my parents’ property. This is the most comprehensively anyone has looked at the land in decades (maybe ever!), and I discovered a lot from it, both about […]

I mentioned that in January, Jason and I went on vacation—on a cruise through the Panama Canal. Jason had read David McCullough’s Path Between the Seas, about the construction of the canal, and he really wanted to see it himself. But I worried about the environmental impact of the trip—cruise ships are notoriously wasteful. They’re basically […]

Did you miss me? Sorry the site was down—I went on vacation for a couple weeks, and my hosting expired. But contrary to all evidence, Pragmatic Environentalism does still exist, and I’ve got some great info coming up on cruise ships, Costa Rica, forestry management, and program evaluation. I know you’re waiting with bated breath…

Some people consider me a bit of a grinch. I’m generally not a big fan of required gift giving, considering it an inefficient use of money. You may have seen my favorite article on the subject, “The economic argument for never giving another gift.” I quote it a lot. Another good one is “The economist’s […]