I met Pamela Paul after she mentioned previous guest John Sargent in a piece, There’s More Than One Way to Ban a Book. I found her column covered issues others shy away from. I was curious what motivated her. We talked about…
How do we affect others and how does it relate to what brings meaning to life? I’m surprised it took this long for one of my conversations to cover the meaning of life, but I’m not surprised it came with a fellow…
I’ve written about how people act like food coops don’t work for people without resources like time and money or who have kids. It took me a long time to realize they didn’t see food coops being started because the people starting…
Adam‘s book Bury the Chains inspired me to see British abolitionism as a role model movement for sustainability. The writing was simple and clear. The subject inspirational and relevant. We talked about it in our first episodes, which I recommend. At last…
Matt and I talk about his commitment and how it affected him. I talk about the Spodek Method in general and other leadership tools like creating role models. Matt talked about his hopes and expectations about technology. When I asked him if…
Guy is a successful, well-known hedge fund founder. He’s famous for paying a lot of money for one meal with Warren Buffet (hundreds of thousands of dollars), which he found worth it. He and I know each other partly through a guest…
I was led to Kate’s article Should I Stop Flying? It’s a Difficult Decision to Make. from a newsletter from Flight Free USA. I’ve read, heard, written, and said a lot about not flying. I found her article the most sensitive, comprehensive,…
Since our last conversation, check out the reviews that have come in about Home on an Unruly Planet from past guests of this podcast: “With deep, compassionate reporting and elegant prose … Ostrander finds creativity, vital hope, and a sense of home…
What’s actually happening with our environmental problems? Scientists predict. Journalists in periodicals tend to write what gets attention and clicks, so we don’t know how accurately they represent versus sensationalize. There’s plenty to sensationalize after all. Madeline spent time with several communities…
Talking with Chris has made me more concerned about population projections that only show the possibility of collapse as error bars. I hope to bring him and past guest Wolfgang Lutz on the podcast together to help resolve their disparate views. I…
Do you like my work because of my nearly unique background of a PhD in physics, having cofounded a couple companies, and having an MBA? You’re in luck with Arnold, who has done the same. We got our MBAs together at Columbia…
You’ve heard me talk sustainability leadership on this podcast and probably others. Have you wondered what I sound like talking to friends unrecorded? A friend who also teaches leadership at NYU knew my background and had talked about climate with her students.…
Recent guest Bob Litterman spoke highly of Greg and his work at the Climate Leadership Council, a rare bipartisan effort on climate. He put us in touch. In the meantime, I was curious about a climate group started by Secretaries of State…
Gernot and I go back a few years from meeting online over sustainability issues, finding out that we lived about a mile from each other, then meeting in person. Our first meeting, we got annoyed at each other, but our second we…
What does the world look like today with regard to our environmental situation? Not the latest news about a disaster we can write off as a one-time event, even if yet another once a once-in-a-century event now common, but what does it…
With Peter Singer, I could have picked several topics relevant to sustainability leadership: veganism, vegetarianism, and charity come to mind, as does my post about him six months ago, Fixing Peter Singer’s drowning child analogy for sustainability. The day before recording, I…
You won’t hear many finance people promoting more taxes, though it’s increasing. Bob talks beyond our conversation a few weeks before about a carbon tax, integrity, permanence, standards, measurement, and many different angles. He talks about responsibility and holding the companies creating…
Matt shared last time about the redwoods I keep hearing about in California that I’ve never seen but find they transform people. His goal was to plant a tree. He ended up with a new tree, plus he planted other plants. Listen…
I met Bob at a conference on climate at my old school, Columbia Business School. He knew another participant, Gernot Wagner, with whom I recorded an episode I’ll post soon, and was a peer with past guest Mark Tercek. I didn’t work…
Population modeling can be hard, as is figuring out a prediction’s accuracy, therefore how much confidence to give your conclusions. Many people can’t hear talk about population without hearing things like eugenics and racism even when they aren’t there. But population is…