iPhone apps for those in iDenial

When you’re in denial, there’s nothing like a little iPhone escapism. After all, the economy is still collapsing. As a result, even the most progressive Western states are punting serious action on climate change.

So a little denial is a key part of any sincere sustainable businessperson’s survival instinct. If you faced the hard facts all the time, it would just be too depressing to face work each day.

Thank goodness there’s the iPhone. Sure, a spa visit or a massage would help, but that just seems too indulgent for these lean times. Besides, you know it’s true: You spend more time with your smart phone than anything else. It’s one of the last things you look at before you go to sleep, and it’s the first thing you look at when you wake up. I know, because I’m looking at mine and seeing your tweets, e-mails and Facebook status updates at all hours of the day.

You’ve likely been working at an unsustainable pace over the past several years. You’ve developed whole new businesses, institutions and policies to create a more sustainable society, which was hard work. And you likely used your smart phone to accomplish this and more.

You helped President Barack Obama get elected, after all. And several months into his tenure, you know that if you haven’t yet gotten the call from the White House to come work there (and keep your Blackberry, too) that call isn’t coming. And you’re okay with that, because you really need a break, not an even bigger challenge.

Maybe you’ve been so busy checking your email on the subway and e-mailing your Linked In group that you haven’t found time to weigh the pros and cons of switching to the iPhone. This life-changing device is of course only incidentally a phone. It’s a mini computer, which is not tethered to any outlet or stationary spot. And it fits in the palm of your hand. And the apps, oh the apps: so many useful things, from a dictionary to your state’s revised statutes to a level for hanging the towel rack correctly. Music, pictures, videos and games—all necessary distractions if you are to survive this recession and emerge even stronger.