You know the usual schematic diagram of the greenhouse effect. Here are a couple for reference: and What’s missing? Humans creating power for ourselves creates heat. It happens if we create it through burning fossil fuels, using nuclear power, and even fusion. Using solar panels absorbs extra heat. I hope you respond that whatever heat we produce is negligible. Today it is, but since industry and our current lifestyles require[…] Keep reading →

When my new book Sustainability Simplified: The Definitive Guide to Understanding and Solving All (Yes, All) Our Environmental Problems comes out, I’ll start a new web page for sustainability leadership: SpodekMethod.com. It will contain free downloads like the book introduction, the how-to workbook, and videos of people sharing what works. It will grow to contain courses, online community, and more. A team is developing that page. We’ll launch it soon.[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, by Timothy Egan: This book follows up Cadillac Desert. Both recount Americans believing themselves independent, especially of government, settling/colonizing new territory. They believed they could dominate nature. They believed their science and technology would enable them to do new things. They believed more people solved more problems. Then nature didn’t[…] Keep reading →

People think about how they could use it and think optimistically, but neglect to think that the people they disagree with and oppose will too. Like fire and sharp knives, technology isn’t good or bad. Technology augments the values of the people and culture using it. Technology accelerates the system—that is, it leads to achieving similar outcomes faster. Regarding our political differences, it won’t lead one or another position to[…] Keep reading →

I don’t think I’ve seen a sign with this phrase: “Pollution makes me sick,” but I think it would work. The most popular one seems to be “There Is No Planet B.” I just thought the words and realized they carried more meaning than just their immediate meaning. Then I started thinking of alternative phrasings. I think they all work to some degree: Pollution makes me sick Pollution is sickening[…] Keep reading →

In my book I talk about something that people respond with knee-jerk sayings that show they don’t know what they’re talking about because they hurt their own cause. Still, they can’t stop themselves from being know-it-alls and saying it. I found a way to fix the problem with a new word. The problem response comes when I mention Enlightenment values of (according to Steven Pinker) “reason, science, humanism, and progress”[…] Keep reading →

I’ve meant to post about this response from a reader to my post fro March 2022: Year 7, day 1 without flying, seeing our cultural and individual addictions. I’m not sure how to respond, but I know this site has a bug that doesn’t always show comments and didn’t want people to miss it. One big point I’ve realized since that post is that I have to clarify I don’t[…] Keep reading →

Toxic chemicals leach from food packaging into your food. Some of these chemicals disrupt your hormones. Some cause cancer. Some affect your children more. Some disperse into the environment and harm wildlife. For 300,000 years, humans lived without plastic. We created this system, maybe thinking only of the effects we wanted, imagining these toxic effects wouldn’t happen. Maybe we didn’t imagine they could happen. We don’t have to create these[…] Keep reading →

I was invited to speak to a New York City public high school class on astrophysics. About fifteen minutes in, I mentioned how I answer a common question people ask of me: “Do you still use your physics degree?” I consider my sustainability leadership work an application of science so, yes, I still use the science I learn, but not in a white lab coat in a lab. I thought[…] Keep reading →