News & announcements from April 2009
“Green” Is a Mirage
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009An industrial engineer’s version of the deconstruction of stuff is called Life Cycle Assessment, or LCA, a method that allows us to systematically tear apart any manufactured item into its components and their subsidiary industrial processes, and measure with near- surgical precision their impacts on nature from the beginning of their production through their final…
Is What You’re Buying Safe?
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009A while back I bought a bargain-bin, shiny, toy car for my grandson, a toddler, only to learn within the next few days two disheartening facts: First, the bright colors painted on cheap toys are often spiked with lead dust to add luster. Worse, toys plucked from the shelves of the very chain where I…
Truth and Consequences
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009Now we can trace the real environmental impact of the stuff we buy. How to raise your own eco-IQ. (Originally published at Newsweek.com) A while ago I bought my grandson, a toddler, a bright yellow wooden racing car, for just 99 cents. But then I happened to read that lead in paint makes colors (particularly…
Ecological Accounting
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009By Daniel Goleman and Gregory Norris (a version of this blog appeared as a New York Times OpEd on Sunday, April 19, 2009) With spring in the air, our thoughts turn to outdoor pastimes, and increasingly these days, to ecological correctness. Consider, for example, that paragon of eco-virtue, the stainless steel water bottle that lets us…
What is ecological intelligence?
Monday, April 20th, 2009From Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything Ecologists tell us that natural systems operate at multiple scales. At the macro level there are global biogeochemical cycles, like that for the flow of carbon, where shifts in ratios of elements can be measured not just over the years,…
Welcome to the website and blog of psychologist Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., author of the New York Times bestseller Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships. Dr. Goleman is an internationally known psychologist who lectures frequently to professional groups, business audiences, and on college campuses. Working as a science journalist, Goleman reported on the brain and behavioral sciences for The New York Times for many years. His 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence (Bantam Books) was on The New York Times bestseller list for a year-and-a-half; with more than 5,000,000 copies in print worldwide in 40 languages, and has been a best seller in many countries.