Nearly everyone I talk to who works on conservation or would call themselves an environmentalist or something like it treats American conservatives and evangelicals as adversaries, lost causes, hurdles, or even the enemy. They love Katharine Hayhoe for being on their side while also practicing a Texas-friendly version of Christianity. They figure she’ll fix them for them. (We’re scheduling her appearing on this podcast, if you’re wondering). What do conservatives[…] Keep reading →

It’s nice to think of how lovely flying and plastic are, so convenient and amazing, especially if you ignore the parts you don’t like. Both are recent inventions, along with countless others. Humans lived without them for hundreds of thousands of years. Why didn’t people develop them before? Because they weren’t smart enough? No, our ancestors’ brains a few hundred thousand years ago were like ours. We wouldn’t have them[…] Keep reading →

Following up my podcast episode 516: Geoengineering: Prologue or Epilogue for Humanity?, I rewatched the documentary The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. The movie is fascinating, relevant, and poignant to our geoengineering question, particularly Robert McNamara’s approach to major decisions he played major roles in. The big ones were firebombing Japanese cities in World War II, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and escalating the[…] Keep reading →

Press release: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2021: 5 October 2021 The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2021 “for groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of complex physical systems” with one half jointly to Syukuro ManabePrinceton University, USA Klaus HasselmannMax Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany “for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming” and the[…] Keep reading →

Here are the notes I read from, responding to this op-ed piece and this review for a book I’ve talked to the author about but haven’t read. Geoengineering Prologue or Epilogue for Humanity? Introduction, context Geoengineering is becoming a more common topic as people feel more desperate. The common theme is that when things get serious, we have to put everything on the table, even things that may not work.[…] Keep reading →

If we changed all the technology from Japan’s or Europe’s rail systems with ours, in Japan and Europe, they’d have their now-crappy trains on crappy tracks to dilapidated stations running on time and the US would have its now super-advanced trains running late and missing stops. If we changed the people instead, the US would start running its trains on time and Japan’s would run late. Think of that next[…] Keep reading →

Our conversation in this episode starts by covering his commitment from last time. After a few minutes, it becomes apparent he picked a commitment based on feeling he had to fix the world—that is, extrinsic motivation disconnected from his heart. We revisited his intrinsic motivations and came up with a new commitment. Acting on intrinsic motivation is leadership. Your emotions create meaning or not. If you’ve been acting halfheartedly on[…] Keep reading →