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…
About six months ago the parallels started forming for me between our global economic system today that creates great suffering on the scale of hundreds of millions of people with nightmarish cruelty, but also people benefiting from it looking the other way…
Here are the notes I read from for this episode How to fix Texas Just got off conference call a Texas attendee couldn’t attend because her power was out. There are helpless people suffering. I empathize with them and feel compassion. I…
When they hear I take two years to fill a load of trash, people ask how I do it, what’s in my trash. In this episode I share a couple stories from last week of facing things entering my life that would…
No matter what you think we should do, everyone gets that there is some connection between population and sustainability. Everyone knows our population is increasing. We’re consuming more than ever. How do we talk about this issue? I think most people shy…
The notes I read from for this episode: It’s not fair! Back from picking up litter Forecast, a few inches of snow Just want coffee, not to dispose. Ancestors could Just want to travel, not pollute. Don’t want to think about others…
I met Etienne on a holiday conference call of Flight Free UK, which celebrates what life brings when we enjoy people, culture, cuisine, and so forth around us, not flying all over. The concept would have sounded crazy to me before trying,…