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 in finance, but I understand Bob and Mark were like dieties there. Bob brings two huge new things to climate (he talks about climate almost exclusively among our environmental problems, though we touch on others briefly in the conversation). First, he knows risk management. Most of his career, he didn't think much about the environment, but when he learned about it, he identified that we have to manage risk, so he dove into the issue. Second, he connected with a group of conservative…

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 one of the most important factors in sustainability. Everything becomes easier when population isn't near or above what Earth can sustain and harder when it's above. I came to Chris from reading his paper on modeling population growth, Footprints to singularity, which showed a couple things. It clarified that UN and peer projections lacked feedback mechanisms so couldn't show population decline. If your model can't show a population decline, it will blind you to the possibility and therefore keep you from preventing or…

In what looks to me like one of the biggest overcommitments of guests on this podcast and participants in the Spodek Method, Dan shares that to free his mind for meditation, he ended up selling his motorcycle and Playstation. Then we spoke about coaching and leading people to reach their potentials, which he experienced on the receiving end in reaching the Olympics twice and does now with others, and he appreciates me doing in corporations and on sustainability. You'll hear we both admire each other and are learning from each other. A curious note: you'll hear me puzzled at his tone, which I couldn't place. It didn't convey the sense of accomplishment and freedom his words did. We're still getting to know each other. I…

People who work at fossil fuel companies are people just like you and me. When you buy what the industry sells, you support it too. You rationalize and justify that your money supports lobbyists, advertising, extraction, pollution, depletion, making refugees, dictators, and so on. Want to stop people working there? I suggest it helps to understand them. We can start by understanding ourselves. Stopping ourselves from supporting that industry is easier than stopping them, so I recommend starting with ourselves. Note: we recorded this episode a few years ago, before I fully developed the Spodek Method.

If learning what it's like to watch your team win an Olympic gold medal from the sidelines isn't enough, and if learning what it's like to grow up in a family beset with poverty and addiction before reaching Olympic level competition isn't enough, and if learning what it's like after four more years to win an Olympic medal isn't enough, I'd say the best part of our conversation comes after all that. Then we talk about bringing out the best in others as a coach. How do you find out how to coach each person, athlete, executive, or otherwise? How to you lead a team to give to their potential? How do you keep everyone motivated? How do you keep yourself motivated? We both deeply…

Matt invited me to his podcast, A Climate Change. We stayed in touch after recording. He shared that he ran for President, including supporting sustainability. A goal of this podcast is to bring elected officials of all stripes. While he didn't get that many votes, he ran for several reasons, including to run as a Republican opposing Donald Trump. Listen to our conversation to learn more of his motivation. I wanted to bring him here not for the campaign alone but for his acting with integrity and character, even if not a huge campaign. How many pro-sustainability, anti-Trump Republicans do you know of? I saw determination arising from personal action. I also learned he's trying some things, like buying a hydrogen-powered car. My research shows…