My new book, Door to Door, digs into the daily miracles and madness behind our have-it-now, same-day-delivery world, revealing just what it takes—and costs—to keep ourselves and our stuff moving.
Door to Door will be available in print, eBook and audiobook from HarperCollins on April 12, and you can pre-order here. Check back for Door to Door launch details soon. My publicist is Joanna.pinsker@harpercollins.com.
Read a brief excerpt here.
This haunting video explains the 2011 Salon Meritage massacre in Seal Beach, and the legal meltdown still haunting survivors and the justice system. For the whole story, visit the Orange County Register's new website, Inside the Snitch Tank, devoted to the case.
On his last day of freedom, Scott Dekraai spoke on the phone with his ex-wife. Let’s meet for coffee, he suggested.
Michelle Fournier was shocked. A day earlier they had squared off at yet another court hearing in their acrimonious battle over custody of their eight-year-old son. Things had not gone Dekraai’s way at the hearing, and the argument had continued on the phone, until Dekraai brought his ex-wife up short with his suggestion that they meet in person.
No way, Fournier responded. She did not want to see him. Definitely not. This would prove to be a fateful decision. If he couldn’t have a one-on-one, Dekraai decided after hanging up on Fournier, he’d just have to confront his ex-wife at her workplace instead—one last time. Then he walked out to his garage to survey his well-oiled collection of five pistols, four rifles, and a 12-gauge shotgun.
The violence that followed just a few hours later would make national headlines. It would alter the course of lives and families for years to come. It would drag the peaceful, tight-knit community of Seal Beach into an exclusive club no one wishes to join: the fraternity of towns marred by mass murder. And, finally, the official response to Scott Dekraai’s rampage would expose and shame Orange County authorities who, in their zeal to ensure a win in court, had stopped playing by the rules that ensure justice for all.
Scott Dekraai, without ever knowing it, had exposed the snitch tank.
Read more at the Orange County Register or get the eBook here via the Kindle Store—my first true crime book since Mississippi Mud and Mean Justice.
Former fashion mogul Doug Tompkins and his wife Kris have preserved (and donated) more wild rainforest than any other private individuals on the planet, more than a million acres of irreplaceable nature.
In terms of conservation philanthropy, they are the Rockefellers of their generation, true Eco Barons, whose network, influence and support for green causes has stretched throughout the United States and the world, particularly in the temperate rainforests of Patagonia in South America.
A lifelong outdoorsman, mountain climber and skier, Tompkins died this week at age 72 in a kayaking accident in the Patagonia wilds he loved and saved. Click through to read a brief excerpt from my book Eco Barons, a look at how Doug Tompkins reinvented himself from CEO of the fashion giant Esprit into one of the most influential and honored conservationists of his era.
The coolest thing I did this summer: During a family vacation in Hawaii, daughter Gaby, son Eben and I saw the spectacular sunrise from the 10,000-foot-high crater rim of the Haleakala volcano, then bicycled 23 miles downhill. Nature's roller coaster, with a stop halfway down for macadamia pancakes!
Two of coolest things I'll be doing this fall: Meeting with students and talking trash in October with the freshman of Rowan University in New Jersey, just across the river from my hometown of Philadelphia, and at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Both schools have adopted Garbology as their freshmen reads.
I've been traveling this fall to speak at colleges where Garbology is this year's campus read or part of the freshmen "First Year Experience," and is being read in English, geography, anthropology, ecology, psychology, sociology, philosophy and sustainability classes. What an inspiration to find my book used as a catalyst for discussions about waste, recycling, and the economic and environmental opportunities inside an empty trash can.
Here are five cool things schools are doing to craft successful campus reads, bringing Garbology alive for students and engaging them in conversations about waste:
1. Sponsor a trash art contest like the University of New Mexico.
2. Challenge Students to "Change One Thing" like Washington State University.
3. Have students carry all their trash for a week on their backs, then weigh in for the winner. Marymount California University made this a class project. The school also put the kibosh on disposable plastic water bottles and foam takeout containers as part of a campus-wide sustainability push.
4. Create cool lending library displays — another great UNM idea.
5. Have students do a Dumpster Dive trash audit. Portland State University students were horrified by the legion of unrecycled coffee cups behind the science building.
P.S. —
Penguin Books has published an amazing Garbology Teachers Guide and resource compendium for classroom use and campus reads.