Joshua, Author at Joshua Spodek - Page 8 of 248

We celebrate in garbage: Chinese New Year version

Pollution and Depletion

We celebrate in garbage: Chinese New Year version

I was in Chinatown for the Chinese New Year celebrations scheduled today. Some traditions may go back hundreds or even thousands of years, but plastic pollution doesn't. Vendors sold these factory-produced tubes that launched plastic confetti into the air. That is, that polluted. The confetti lingered in the air for a few seconds. The plastic will pollute the environment for millennia. Parents buy these polluting tubes for kids, who learn to pay to pollute and associate it with fun or some cultural traditions that plastic pollution has nothing to do with. We have become a society where we celebrate in garbage. It's tempting to think, "Oh but it's fun! Josh, don't be such a spoil sport." People were having no more fun with these polluting…

February 28, 2026

847: Tzeporah Berman: Ending Fossil Fuels by Treaty

I met Tzeporah at an event called Climate Week NYC last fall. She was nearly the only person there who spoke about decreasing and stopping extracting fossil fuels. I had to bring her here. Our conversation grew more compelling and interesting as we spoke. The early parts about energy sources besides fossil fuels you may have heard before, but give context. After she shares the realizations that prompted her to lead are what I valued. In particular, she exposes and clarifies how people have simply ignored fossil fuel production or extraction in favor of accounting methods and seeing if they can offset things but not decreasing extraction. She also talked about her strategy, which differs from Paris Agreement approaches and is based on how treaties on…

February 27, 2026

Podcasts and blogs I follow

Audio / Habits / Podcast

Podcasts and blogs I follow

I've written lately about podcasts I follow. It seems like I should share what I follow. I may be biased, but I recommend mine most: This Sustainable Life: Podcasts and blogs I subscribe to: This Sustainable Life: Solve for Nature, by Eugene Bible: Eugene contacted me about my podcast and work. We got to know each other. He started a sibling podcast to mine, practicing the Spodek Method with his guests. Since he is an engineer, he started by focusing on an engineering solutions-based approach but has expanded. Making Sense, by Sam Harris: I like his honesty and willingness to speak to guests he disagrees with, with respect and openness. (Video) What Is Politics?: I find Daniel, the host, a knowledgeable and thoughtful source on…

February 26, 2026

More heartbreaking garbage

Addiction / Doof / Habits / Nature / Pollution and Depletion / SIDCHAs

More heartbreaking garbage

In Monday's post, Today's blizzard, February 2026, I wrote how the blizzard led to another day when I could find no litter in Washington Square Park. As usual, even with over a foot of snow, I found plenty of litter and garbage elsewhere, but at least not in the park, which is like my back yard. That post shows several beautiful pictures of my neighborhood covered in virginal snow. In that post, I also wrote something that breaks my heart that a lifetime of experience prompts me to express, and with confidence: I didn't see any litter in the park this morning so I'm one day into a potential release, but tomorrow is forecast to be sunny and Tuesday is forecast to be warm, so…

February 25, 2026

Another Spodek Method commitment: a walk in the park with family

Hands on Practical Experience / Nature / Stories

Another Spodek Method commitment: a walk in the park with family

I've done a lot of Spodek Method commitments. I've loved them all, at least I don't remember disliking any, but haven't recorded many of them here, but liked posting My Spodek Method commitment to make water ice from snow: A photo essay last month. I did another one over the weekend and took a few pictures to share. The memories of nature stemmed from Wissahickon Creek and the park around it near where I grew up. Here are pictures of part of that park though also a story of being mugged there (incident #2) and a bike stolen. I remembered a conversation with my dad walking along the creek. Most of my conversations with him didn't go well, at least since high school in the…

February 24, 2026

Today’s blizzard, February 2026

SIDCHAs / Stories / Visualization

Today’s blizzard, February 2026

Everyone has a camera, so anyone can find wonderful pictures of anything online, but I couldn't help take some pictures of today's blizzard. It started yesterday and is forecast to run until this evening. Many places see more snow all the time, so I'm not saying we're experiencing a lot of snow. It also isn't that cold, slightly below freezing. I tried to take pictures that show the city before the beautiful snow turns to slush and reveals the larger accumulations of litter and garbage when the city pauses picking up the mess people leave. Recall that sanitation systems are socialist. Whether you like socialism or not, sanitation systems motivate more pollution and depletion. I'll start with the park across the street with my local…

February 23, 2026

This week’s selected media, February 22, 2026: The Gulag Archipelago volume 1

Tips

This week’s selected media, February 22, 2026: The Gulag Archipelago volume 1

This week I finished: The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, volume 1, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: If I weren't reading these books I wouldn't believe they could exist. I understand why people consider them among the greatest and most important books of the twentieth century. First, about the book itself: Solzhenitsyn's writing is simple, clear, and often funny from being sardonic and mocking. He survived the gulag's so he knows what he's writing about. I'm listening to the recording online here and the narrator has prepared himself well. The technical quality of the audio isn't great, but I find the reading very listenable. About the content: I knew something of Stalin's gulag prison system. I knew something about slavery in the US and the…

February 22, 2026

If you wait to solve all the challenges of zero pollution and depletion before starting, we’ll never start. If we start, we’ll solve the problems.

Hands on Practical Experience / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

If you wait to solve all the challenges of zero pollution and depletion before starting, we’ll never start. If we start, we’ll solve the problems.

People dream that we'll figure out how to keep our world as it is, just without pollution and depletion. We'll just create new technology that does what existing technology does, but it will be "clean," "green," and "renewable." Well, shoot, why didn't people think of making technology that didn't hurt people in the first place? What jerks, not making things "clean," "green," and "renewable." Oh wait, maybe it's not possible to replicate the results of technology that violates the Constitution (by depriving people of life, liberty, and property without due process of law) with technology that doesn't. Maybe we're dreaming of an impossible fantasy. Even if it is possible to fly, drive, and ship thousands of shipping containers per load across oceans without violating the…

February 21, 2026

How cute and adorable the garbage from doof dealers

Addiction / Doof

How cute and adorable the garbage from doof dealers

I used to be unable to resist craving for sweets and savory treats. Now I'm free from the doof industry's deliberate strategy to addict people, or at least mostly so. Walking along Seventh Avenue, I saw this revolting sight: a trash can overflowing with pink boxes designed to look adorable and appealing. They say the name of the store creating this garbage: "Crumbl". I see the store around. They make doof: sweet, sugary doof. To clarify, I don't look for this revolting stuff. It's everywhere. I just can't help taking pictures when I feel vomit forming, to show how twisted we've made our world. As much as I couldn't resist such products before, today, I would pick apples over any sweet doof. They grow locally…

February 20, 2026

Does every group think they’re the best?

Models / Nonjudgment

Does every group think they’re the best?

I've meant to start compiling this list for a while. People often equate racism with white supremacy. Even if they say they aren't the same, many people consider all white people as privileged, whether they want to be or not, and all people of color as being oppressed, at least to some degree. They consider that white people may face challenges, but not because of their skin color, whereas people with skin that isn't white face headwinds and start behind the starting line. My book explores how these beliefs and the practices that prompted them, as well as the conditions that prompted the practices in more depth. In particular, I explore beyond what historians and anthropologists who just look at the past few centuries or…

February 19, 2026

Silly bathroom question: Am I missing something here?

Awareness / Choosing/Decision-Making / Habits

Silly bathroom question: Am I missing something here?

I think I usually write about important topics, but I like to share silly things my mind ponders. I think it builds self-awareness. I don't know how the following situation will seem to a reader, but I hope it reads as it feels to me playing with ideas: being curious. I brush my teeth after dinner, before going to bed. Sometimes after dinner I also need to poop. I figure this situation is common to all. When I have to do both, I brush my teeth first and poop second. I figure the order makes sense to all, but basically, brushing teeth seems cleaner so should happen first. When I think about it, though, after pooping, I wash my hands, so they are cleanest then.…

February 18, 2026

846: Gail Eisnitz: The Inside Story of a Life Investigating Factory Farms

Gail shares her investigations into meat industry practices, exploring how exorbitant slaughterhouse production line speeds in a consolidated slaughter industry affect animals as they are being handled and killed, and how the proliferation of massive factory farms impacts animals being raised in intensive confinement. She spent decades in the field documenting violations against farm animals and in the office preparing cases and writing about her investigations in articles and books. Her efforts to expose and prosecute animal abusers were often thwarted by network television producers and by law enforcement authorities. Producers considered her findings too disturbing. The law refused to prosecute abusers. Instead they provided cover for the meat industry---a billion-dollar industry. She gives an inside view behind the closed doors of U.S. slaughterhouses and…

February 17, 2026

Why don’t the left and right look at themselves the way the other does? Or do they, but I can’t find it?

Awareness / Nonjudgment

Why don’t the left and right look at themselves the way the other does? Or do they, but I can’t find it?

We've all heard how since the left and right get their news from different sources and those sources present different facts, it's as if two parts of the nation live in different realities. If so, how can they agree on points based on different facts? A related issue I don't think I've seen treated stems from each group evaluating themselves and the others based on different criteria. The left judges the right based on its criteria, not the right's, so it sees the right as failing, wrong, or bad. It also judges itself by its criteria and finds itself as succeeding as best it can, right, and good. Meanwhile, the right does it the other way. It judges the right based on its criteria, not…

February 16, 2026

This week’s selected media, February 15, 2026: Cinefiles

Tips

This week’s selected media, February 15, 2026: Cinefiles

This week I finished: Many Cine-Files podcast episodes, hosted by Steve Morris and John Rocha: I've been appreciating movies more lately. After each movie I like, I follow up with reviews. Following up Remains of the Day, I found this podcast of two guys in the movie industry talking about it with more depth and thoughtfulness than most reviews. It turns out they did a four-part survey of Scarface too, for about 7 or 8 hours. Normally I don't report on podcast episodes here, but I listened to so much and anticipate listening to more. They've been reviewing movies on this podcast about ten years and I found many I liked. Episodes I listened to or downloaded: Remains of the Day Scarface Spirited Away Chasing…

February 15, 2026

Visiting the Jackie Robinson Museum

Visiting the Jackie Robinson Museum

The Jackie Robinson Museum offered free admission this weekend. I didn't know about it and don't remember how I learned of the offer, but it turns out it's a 20-minute walk from my front door so I took them up on the offer. I recommend the museum to anyone. I presume most Americans know Jackie Robinson as the guy who "broke the color barrier" in baseball. Scroll to the bottom of this page for the overview of his life from Wikipedia, which is fascinating. This museum shows his life from childhood, born in Cairo, Georgia, his father disappeared, his mother brought his family to relatives in Pasadena, California as part of the Great Migration, becoming a star athlete (along with his brother). He was UCLA's…

February 14, 2026

845: Sarah Goodyear and Doug Gordon: The War on Cars and Life After Cars

845: Sarah Goodyear and Doug Gordon: The War on Cars and Life After Cars

Doug and Sarah's podcast The War on Cars is a podcast that delivers news and commentary on the latest developments in the worldwide fight to undo a century’s worth of damage wrought by the automobile, approaching the topic from all angles, from politics to pop culture. They release two regular episodes and one Patreon bonus episode per month. Doug and Sarah's Book Cars ruin everything. That’s why we need Life After Cars. When the very first cars rolled off production lines, they were a technological marvel, predicted to make life easier and better for everyone; yet a hundred years later, that dream is running on empty. Instead of unbounded freedom, the never-ending proliferation of automobiles has delivered a host of costs, among them the demolition…

February 13, 2026

Civil war results: obligation to kill old friends

Freedom / Stories

Civil war results: obligation to kill old friends

People read prediction of environmental problems like climate change or biodiversity loss and think the problems we face will be from things like crop failure or heat exhaustion from a warmer globe or lack of plants from honeybees dying. Those results won't cause the most suffering. They will provoke what causes the suffering, but fighting between people and societies will cause the most suffering. I'll illustrate. Say crops start producing smaller yields globally. Before people start starving, people will realize a resource is dwindling. While we live in mostly democratic societies, every nation also has systems that give different people different levels of access to resources when they become scarce. In other words, we live in dominance hierarchies, at least to some extent. Some people…

February 12, 2026

A rat and plastic in Washington Square Park, of the many due to garbage and litter

Nature / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

A rat and plastic in Washington Square Park, of the many due to garbage and litter

I don't have anything against rats, but they represent a loss of biodiversity and a failure of our society. They thrive on our waste. This island used to be covered with countless species of mammals, birds, and probably reptiles and amphibians, on top of plants and fungi. Now we have mostly rats. No beavers, coyotes, bears, egrets, swans, butterflies, and what used to live here, plus fish, mollusks, dolphins, and everything in the water and air. Walk through Washington Square Park on any night now and you'll see countless rats running around. Also mice, pigeons, and roaches. In the recent snow, you can see the holes they dig in the snow. I took the pictures and video below before the big recent snowfall. This rat…

February 11, 2026

See me on Korean TV!

Hands on Practical Experience / Visualization

See me on Korean TV!

Last fall a Korean production company asked to cover my off-grid living. As usual, I tried to clarify I work on leadership applied to sustainability and that covering my solar panels would be like covering Martin Luther King's shoe's during the bus boycott. Media is media the world over, so they covered my staircase and dark apartment as opposed to changing global culture. Still, without understanding what they say, I found parts funny. The guy who interviewed me, Ha Seok-jin, seems to be renowned in Korea. I had a good time with him and the crew. The title of the segment is 활기 넘치는 뉴욕에서 지속가능한 에너지 쓰는 이들의 이야기(feat.천국의계단) which seems to translate to Stories of Those Using Sustainable Energy in Vibrant New York…

February 10, 2026

Volunteering is like a holiday

Habits / Volunteering

Volunteering is like a holiday

I described my volunteering to some friends. One remarked how over the holidays she wanted to volunteer so went to some pages that catalogued volunteer opportunities but they were all filled. People volunteering around holidays is like people going to gyms after new years resolutions: after the holiday, it empties again. People return to social media and watching TV over the gym and volunteering. This time I looked at it differently. We love being generous and helping people. Somehow we do so during holidays more, but our hearts, minds, and souls benefit from helping others all the time, certainly more than from scrolling and getting outraged from social media. Even though I volunteer fewer hours per week than many Americans spend on screens per day,…

February 9, 2026

This week’s selected media, February 8, 2026: The Abolition of Man, Scarface, Aristotle’s Ethics

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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This week’s selected media, February 8, 2026: The Abolition of Man, Scarface, Aristotle’s Ethics

This week I finished: The Abolition of Man: Reflections on education with special reference to the teaching of English in the upper forms of schools, by CS Lewis: I read the Chronicles of Narnia as a kid but don't remember much of them. Then between Hillsdale College courses and other conservative speakers, I hear about CS Lewis all the time. I thought I'd start with a short book I heard mentioned a few times. Well, it's short, but not quick or easy. It started off easy enough to follow, but it didn't take long before I felt like I would have to write here something like: I must not be that smart because this book's writing was too hard for me to understand. I felt…

February 8, 2026

On open email on Scott Galloway’s “Resist and Unsubscribe” initiative

Addiction / Choosing/Decision-Making / Pollution and Depletion

On open email on Scott Galloway’s “Resist and Unsubscribe” initiative

A friend of mine who is also friends with Scott Galloway emailed me about Galloway's initiative to influence politics by changing consumer behavior. The initiative aims to lead people to stop doing business with companies that influence politics he and his followers disagree with. Context Galloway calls it "Resist and Unsubscribe." Our mutual friend's email included screen shots of his cancelling his accounts with Amazon, X, and ChatGPT. He included his strongly-worded statements for why: their support for actions he despised. Years ago, I spoke to this mutual friend about reducing support for pollution and depletion. He flies a lot. He responded that flying only contributes a few percent to global carbon emissions. I left it there, since I felt like I was in Monticello…

February 7, 2026

Two months of Christmas pagan trees, hundreds of trees, thrown away

Nature / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

Two months of Christmas pagan trees, hundreds of trees, thrown away

Here is a video showing a bunch of trees people bought to celebrate the birth of their lord and savior, in a tradition unrelated to that birth, borrowed from paganism. Instead of celebrating birth, they are actual death. Apparently people believe we have too many trees and forests. I love tradition. We don't keep alive every tradition ever. People used to practice infanticide. Should we keep practicing it for tradition? We can create new traditions or, for that matter, restore ones from before Christians borrowed pagan ones. They mulched all those trees before a second load formed. Here's what it looked like between. Here's a second load: Those trees were just the ones people took the time and effort to be mulched. Here are about…

February 6, 2026

Another personal best: (floor/bench press)

Exercises / Fitness / Habits / SIDCHAs

Another personal best: (floor/bench press)

A few of my sidchas involve lifting weights. I don't lift to get big or strong, though I like that those results happen. I might like attaining those results more for their being side-effects rather than specific goals. My two main reasons are 1) because our ancestors for hundreds of thousands of years didn't eat by just walking to the fridge, they had to climb trees, dig up roots, and hunt animals, along with many other activities, so I do various exercises to keep mentally and physically healthy and 2) for the self-awareness and discipline that comes from a regular ritual that is challenging and beautiful. Despite getting strong not being a primary goal, I like when I find I can do more than I…

February 5, 2026

Did Thomas Jefferson start scientific racism?

Thomas Jefferson

Freedom / Nonjudgment

Did Thomas Jefferson start scientific racism?

I was watching a dialog on Slavery and the Constitutional Convention hosted by the US National Archives (see the video below). Thomas Jefferson My upcoming book focuses on many relevant things, especially how culture induces people to act against their values, then to create beliefs to rationalize and justify the behavior violating their own values. Thomas Jefferson represents one of the most prominent cases of someone who promoted liberty, freedom, equality, and democracy to the point of risking his life for these values for himself and his peers. He didn't extend them to his slaves. A renowned and accomplished historian and lawyer, Paul Finkelman (bio below) said the following, which I found interesting and relevant. Most of us have been induced to violate our values…

February 4, 2026

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