Here are the notes I read from for this post: I posted the other day an exercise to think about going twenty-four hours without using electrical power. To clarify, that exercise was to think about it. I don’t think many people would…
Jonathan and I have a good rapport. We joke around. I love his expressiveness as an artist. I think he values stewardship more than he’s behaved so far in life, so I hear him enjoying aligning his behavior with his values. In…
I’ve taught a half-dozen people the technique I use in this podcast—the hosts of the other branches of the This Sustainable Life podcast. They started calling it The Spodek Method, so now I do too. It’s enabled me to reach amazing people,…
Jon is famous for bringing people together and creating community, see the New York Times article on him below. He invited me to a few of his events before the pandemic and they lived up to the reputation. His latest book, You’re…
This episode is really two. Remember that he started art late in life, so the first two-thirds talks about art. Also his experience with his kids and family picking up trash. You’ll enjoy hearing his and his family’s joy doing it. I…
Our world values cheap and disposable—in food and doof packaging, furniture, cars, and near the top of the list, clothes, especially fast fashion. The world is paying for it in the sense of overfilled landfills, plastic disrupting endocrine systems of animals including…
Today’s guest, Richard Rothstein, is one of the experts on how the law has clearly and explicitly kept freedom, prosperity, longevity, opportunity, and more from people based on their skin color. This is no hard-to-believe conspiracy, tenuous claim, or cancel culture labeling.…
What’s the Earth’s carrying capacity? If we’re above it and we choose to lower it, what happens to the economy? I’ve wondered these questions. I know the mainstream view gets it wrong because humans have lived sustainably. Their models say it’s impossible,…
Here are the notes I read this episode from: Started thinking of book when I worked on initiative but put in background, expecting podcast to improve That’s been the case. Started getting serious about a year ago. You may have noticed a…
I saw a TEDx talk on population where the speaker spoke thoughtfully and persuasively on overpopulation. I consider the topic among the most important on the environment, yet nearly no one talks about it, so I had to find out who she…
Though I haven’t actively practiced physics since defending my thesis in 1999, it felt great to talk science with the author of a book named one of the best non-fiction books of all time. The conversation stayed where nonscientists could understand, but…
How do you face challenges? Not little ones like a pandemic lockdown for a year. Big ones. Regular listeners hear me talk about role models like Viktor Frankl and Nelson Mandela in the context of handling life challenges. During the pandemic, for…
Your blood contains PFOA, also known as forever chemicals. They cause cancer of several types, birth defects, and more. Dupont and other companies produced this stuff after learning it caused harm and dumped it into our environment. As best we can tell,…
Kathryn Garcia, candidate for Mayor of New York City joined. No matter where you live, the mayor here matters. Many national trends in politics, business, culture, education, sports, and more start here. Our output in entertainment, culture, but also pollution and population…
I noticed a trend among podcast guests that the people who have already acted the most on sustainability find new things fastest. By contrast, people who do less say they’re already doing all they can, or at least all they can think…
We got into territory I’d wanted to talk to a religious scholar about. I would have expected being recorded would make us more tentative, but I found the opposite. I didn’t keep track, but several times I said feel free not to…
Do you know anyone whose company pollutes more than they’d like, who wants to change things, but whose company keeps not acting? I think that situation describes almost everyone. Even the most sustainably companies aren’t close to sustainable. They just pollute a…
Here are my notes I read from for this episode It hit me recently that nearly nobody knows what’s so bad about climate change. I’ve started asking people and nobody knows. Actually, of the dozens I’ve asked, one knew, though it took…
Longtime listeners and readers of my books and podcast know I draw the analogy to learning and mastering a skill to learning to play piano or a sport. You start by playing scales or practicing groundstrokes. Likewise with leadership or taking initiative,…
I learned of John’s work through his statement at Macmillan’s Sustainability page while researching Ray Anderson: In 2009, after reading Ray Anderson’s “Confessions of a Radical Industrialist,” I decided it was Macmillan’s responsibility to lessen our impact on the earth, and in…