Could we restore limits?

In my teens, an old man told me, “If you follow just one of the Ten Commandments, the rest will take care of themselves.”

I went over the commandments that I remembered, and shrugged.

“Honor the Sabbath,” this elder said. “In Hebrew, that means ‘not to interfere with Nature.’ Don’t light a fire, touch money or build anything. On the other six days of the week, you collaborate with nature.”

And so, my collection of instructions for survival began.

Hippocrates advised physicians to “First, do no harm”—but we can take the advice personally, regarding food, for example. Don’t stuff yourself. Avoid heated oil, which leads to inflammation. Avoid sugar, which creates a surge of energy, then depression. Vegan diets or meat-heavy diets also create extremes. Go for balance.

When a radio show host asked the Cheyenne-Muscogee writer Suzan Harjo, “What’s the most important thing that’s happened in Native American history?” Harjo didn’t hesitate to say: “We learned which herbs heal wounds and diseases.”

United Plant Savers advises, “Don’t harvest all the herbs. Leave enough plants so that they go to seed, you can harvest again in a year, and they won’t go extinct.”

For a lasting marriage, several Indigenous cultures and Judaism advise couples to avoid sexual relations while the woman menstruates and for several days after bleeding. This guarantees the woman solitude every month—and keeps a relationship juicy.

Taoists clarify that nature is our teacher. We’re not here to conquer it. We don’t know the Big picture. Avoid extremes and aim for humility.

In 1969, the U.S. established the Environmental Protection Agency, a government regulator, to protect ecosystems and public health. The EPA imposed limits on use of some chemicals and electromagnetic radiation frequencies. They imposed fines when industries violated these regulations.

Whenever we’re agitated, Byron Katie suggests we write down what we consider the agitation a gift, write down our thoughts—and investigate them with four questions to make peace with our minds.

Ecological economist Herman Daly wrote: Don’t take from the Earth faster than it can replenish. Don’t waste faster than the Earth can absorb the waste.

Bioregionalists suggest keeping local: limit your consumption to the water, food and fuel offered by your watershed. Study plant-soil-water relationships.

Uniformly, these instructions clarify that survival requires limits.

With modernity—electricity, motorized vehicles, paved roads, radios, TVs, plastics, air conditioners, PFAs, computers, Internet access and smartphones—we left restrictions behind. We let technology rip.

Alas, our survival still depends on respecting nature and preserving biodiversity.

Given the size of our species, the extent of our damage to ecosystems, and overshoot (taking from the Earth faster than it can replenish) to meet our daily digital, electrical and transportation needs, could we limit our use of water, land, ores and fuel? What limits would help—personally or collectively? What limits are possible?

KINDLY PAUSE THIS TECH

New York City Public Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels has told principals to hold off on new technology purchases until an AI policy due last month is ready. When the first draft glossed over students’ AI use, parents flooded school board meetings and protested outside City Hall. An online petition calling for a two-year moratorium on AI in schools received close to 4,700 signatures. City Council demanded an “immediate pause.” The revised policy is expected to offer more guidance about AI use based on student ages and grade levels. Leonie Haimson, a member of the Coalition for an AI Moratorium, hopes the pause means the Mamdani administration is “seriously considering the pleas of thousands of parents and teachers to call a halt to the destructive impact of AI on their children’s minds and education—before it is too late to repair the damage.”

LUDDITES’ OFFERINGS

Dan Fox announced his run for president in New York’s Washington Square Park. “This revolution will not be televised,” he said. It won’t be streamed, emailed, Substacked, tweeted or BeRealed. Fox asked his audience to turn off their phones and introduce themselves to a neighbor. His announcement was part of the Summer of Ludd, a weeklong festival in New York built around the goal of opting out of Big Tech. The growing anti-tech movement goes with what economists call a boomcession, an economy that looks strong on paper, with AI-driven productivity and stock prices both climbing, while many people feel worse off and watch layoffs and credit card debt climb. The Economist also reported on the Summer of Ludd and Gen Z’s increasingly common ambivalence about technology.

NYC’s Luddites now offer literature and support groups for parents and creatives who want to get off smartphones and big tech. The School of Radical Attention’s “Attention Labs” start July 15 and continue ‘til August 27: participants will create and test tools to rebuild the sustained attention that persuasive technologies attack. Sign up for labs here. They’ve also got contact improv dance jams, a sewing repair café, a life drawing day, a free laptop giveaway, meetings for Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous (every Saturday at 2pm, 208 W. 13^th St., Manhattan). Subscribe here to NYC Off Tech’s newsletter.

The School of Radical Attention (SoRA) is also building a national network of physical spaces that serve as “Sanctuaries” or places for “attention activism.” This could be a library, a garden, a museum, a classroom, or a venue hosting events. If you run this kind of space or want to know more about this project, please write.

WHAT DOES An OFF-RAMP LOOK LIKE?

If the United States controls much of worldwide technology, what does an off-ramp actually look like? Europe is now trying to find out. Eight NATO members (from which the UK is notably absent) launched a bid to replace part of the defence tech ecosystem: satellites. The network, involving Denmark, Canada, Finland, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and Turkey, plans to link military satellites into a “mega-constellation”…to “overcome the cost, time, and coverage limitations of single-nation satellite fleets.”

Meanwhile, a new documentary from Abby Martin and Mike Prysner, “Earth’s Greatest Enemy” shows the military’s impacts on ecosystems. I’ve heard that the U.S.’s largest concentration of data centers is in Northern Virginia—close to the Pentagon; and that our military initiated most of our tech developments. Here’ a review of the film.

REDUCING SCHOOLS’ ELECTRICITY USE

404 Media reports that on June 26, Henrico County, Virginia’s County Manager John Vithoulkas asked schools and thousands of county employees to conserve electricity by closing shades and turning off computers. “Beginning July 1^st,” he emailed, “the rate we pay for electricity…will increase dramatically—by 25%, increasing costs by an estimated $5 million next fiscal year”…with more electricity rate increases anticipated in the years ahead. Henrico County’s 37 data centers have affected the cost of electricity.

TOXINS & DEREGULATIONS THRIVING

From Alistair Alexander: Nvidia’s carbon emissions grew by 53% in 2025 alone. Anger is rising worldwide at the prodigious energy and water demands of gargantuan AI data centers. But there is a hidden cost: the toxic supply chain that manufactures advanced semiconductors that fill those data centers. Over the past three years, Nvidia’s supply chain emissions have more than tripled, and the trend is likely to continue as the company’s GPU shipments are forecast to grow at 26% per year. Nvidia outsources all its manufacturing to Taiwanese semiconductor maker TSMC. As every new generation of microchips uses more energy, water, and toxic chemicals than the last, and as the AI frenzy is driving unprecedented demands for more GPU semiconductors, the island has been left to deal with ballooning energy demands and emissions. TSMC’s most advanced fabs require 1GW of electricity and 100,000 tonnes of water a day, about five times more than a 1GW data centre.

The Trump administration has moved to allow farming, drilling and mining in the habitats of endangered animals. Environmentalists called it the most severe cut to wildlife protections in 50 years.

The E.P.A. fired an official who wrote a memo requiring a fish farm to track microplastics, accusing him of trying to embarrass the agency.

The U.S. approved plans to test a giant satellite mirror, whose purpose is to reflect sunlight toward Earth and illuminate areas during the night.

SPEAK YOUR PIECE

As part of the Canadian federal government’s Red Tape Review, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) is proposing sweeping changes to the process used to approve cell tower proposals across Canada. These proposed changes would give telecommunications companies almost free rein as to when and where cell towers are installed, with severely limited local say. To voice your opposition, sign the petition created by Canadians for Safe Technologies.

Santa Feans concerned about City Council’s decision to permit a Marriott Hotel project at the intersection of Cerrillos Rd. and St. Francis: By council rules, a councilmember who voted in the majority—including Councilor Castro, who abstained—can ask to rehear the appeal. Call and/or write to the following five city councilmembers and ask them to rehear the Old Santa Fe Association’s appeal to the Planning Commission’s (very narrow) approval of the Marriott Hotel project. They need to hear from a large number of voters—ASAP! This will take you five minutes and will make a BIG difference.

Alma Castro District 1: 505-531-7612 agcastro@santafenm.gov

Patricia Feghali District 1: 505-955-6813 (email preferred) pcfeghali@santafenm.gov

Elizabeth Barrett District 2: 505-469-4693 eabarrett@santafenm.gov

Lee Garcia District 3: 505-955-6814 lagarcia@santafenm.gov

Jamie Cassutt District 4: 505-955-6817 jcassutt@santafenm.gov

CLAIM YOUR LANDLINE

While AT&T claims that copper legacy landlines are “obsolete” and attempts to pull the plug on this reliable network, which millions of people depend on, the state of California is defending landlines: they can continue to function for days during power outages. In 2024, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) recognized that during AT&T’s 2024 nationwide cellular outage, 25,000 calls to 911 failed to complete; and it denied AT&T’s request to be relieved of its “Carrier of Last Resort” (COLR) obligations in California. Now, AT&T has sued the CPUC and California’s Attorney General, and asked the Federal Communications Commission to preempt California’s rules and allow them to disconnect customers. AT&T is also pushing for a state constitutional amendment that would eliminate the CPUC’s jurisdiction over telecom. While The LA Times has picked up this issue, focusing on landline connectivity’s irreplaceability, AT&T is grandfathering landline service for affected customers on July 19th. This means no more new landlines in California. If you want or need a new landline, order it NOW (don’t wait until July 19 because this may take multiple days). See attached guide (AT&T PSA) on how to do this. Call AT&T at 1-800-288-2020. If they refuse, escalate to the AT&T Presidents Office at 1-800-355-9542 and file a complaint with the CPUC Consumer Affairs Branch at 1-800-649-7570.

Thursday, July 16, 11am PST, the CPUC will welcome public comment (of up to one minute) by phone or in-person (at CPUC’s Auditorium, 505 Van Ness, San Francisco) at the start of its regular business meeting. Call in 10 minutes or more before 11 am to get a place in line and become one of the first callers to speak after 11:00. N. B. that people present in the auditorium are taken first.

• English Phone: 1-800-857-1917, passcode: 9899501#

• Spanish Phone: 1-800-857-1917, passcode: 3799627#

Use your minute to thank the Commission for standing strong against AT&T and to remind them that no safe, reliable replacement for wired landlines exists. Explain how landline loss or degradation would affect (or already has affected) your life or that of family, neighbors, friends, community. For more info, visit Savelandlines.org and Save Your AT&T Landline Before July 19, 2026.

Would you help keep this substack going and buy me a cup of tea each month?