Chris Hardie's Blog

Discouraged
I installed compact fluorescent bulbs throughout my house, and the big box stores lit up their parking lots day and night.
I decided to drive my car less, and the oil companies spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
I installed a rain barrel to water my organic garden, and the big agriculture [...]

Let's see, how am I doing on my target of blogging three times per week in 2010?  FAIL.  Actually, January and February were pretty good, but March has been sorely lacking.  I will for now use the excuse of "I was busy" and throw in some specifics like "I was planning an open house" and [...]

For over a year now, I've lived less than a mile away from my company's office in downtown Richmond, Indiana.  And for the first time in my life, on most days I get to and from the office by walking instead of driving.  It's been a really enjoyable shift, and one that I hope I [...]

I recently met with a local organization involved in environmental education efforts to talk about the status of sustainability education in Richmond and Wayne County.  In preparing for that conversation, I put together a list of what I see as some of the challenges our community faces when it comes to becoming more sustainable and [...]

If you're new to Facebook, Twitter or some of the other social networking spaces out there, you're probably asking yourself, "what should I expect to see when it comes to the status updates that people post in these places?" Or if you're a social networking veteran, you might still be thinking, "what's my niche online?  [...]

A few random thoughts on the Superbowl, quite belated in Internet Time:
After the initial total failure of my cable-less schemes for watching the Superbowl online, and the subsequent grumbling trip to an alternate viewing venue, I enjoyed watching the game. I say "enjoy" as in, "it roused the part of me that enjoys the [...]

Is working hard to make personal changes in our lives, especially when it comes to living sustainably, a futile effort in the face of all the other kinds of unsustainable things going on in the world?  Is personal lifestyle change effective?
I've asked a version of this question before: Must we become the change we wish [...]

Are you trying to sabotage your organization by reducing productivity? Are you trying to frustrate and dis-empower your co-workers? Do you have a laser-like focus on poor communication? If so, then you'll appreciate these six tips for how to run a meeting poorly:

A few weeks ago I was asked to talk with some folks at the Wayne County Area Chamber of Commerce about Summersault's past, present and future, and I enjoyed the conversation and questions very much.  One really good question that came out of the meeting was "how can Richmond better encourage, nurture, cater to technology [...]

Lierre Keith's The Vegetarian Myth is one of the most important books ever written about food and the sustainability of the human species. It is at once deeply personal, overwhelmingly provocative, and academically sound as it calls into question all of the stories we have ever been told about where food comes from, what kind [...]