Michael Moss had already risked his life as a reporter in Baghdad, where he interviewed Islamic militants and exposing that US marines lacked body armor. He had also already won a Pulitzer prize for reporting on food. Then he wrote Salt Sugar Fat, which has become one of the core books on the field of the food and doof industries. For me, the title has become one word, SaltSugarFat, to which I often add convenience, SaltSugarFatConvenience. The book shows how the system evolved its incentives and motivations. They lead all players to create products and behavior that take advantage of our reward systems to induce craving, temporarily satisfy that craving while re-creating it, and continuing that loop. The book pulls you along with detailed stories,…

From a leadership standpoint, acting on sustainability and the pandemic overlap. You probably see Ashish's name everywhere too. He's in the thick of it at the highest national level. He shares an inside view of the political happenings on responding to the pandemic. He also shares the emotional experience---the frustration at seeing people dying unnecessarily. I think you can tell that despite the numbers, he cares. You may hear me realized I spoke too glibly in stating the number of American depths. Most of our conversation covered the leadership vacuum responding to the pandemic as well as the environment in general. I believe you'll hear we're moving toward talking leadership strategy, the emotional challenge of leadership, and finding what works besides management. We cover Avoiding…

Why do I act on sustainability when everyone around me says there's no point? Faith. This episode shares a few words about faith. If you lack it, I think you'll prefer living with it, especially about things you care about.

I posted about the start of our UK offshoot to the growing podcast family by Alison May, This Sustainable Life: Untethered a few weeks ago in the post ANNOUNCING: A new offshoot of the Leadership and the Environment podcast!. (Recall we're changing the podcast name from Leadership and the Environment to This Sustainable Life. Since Alison is just starting, she's using the new name before we switch. Sorry for any confusion on the name.) I don't know how often I'll share others' episodes here, but I found her next two posts touching. You might remember her first two episodes were of me. Episode 3: Alison's partner of 11 years One recorded her conversation with her partner of 11 years, Neil. Since I haven't been with…

We've seen suggestions to defund the police. Many on the left consider it an obvious step. Many on the right think it's loony and will lead to society falling apart. I propose a way forward, building on my civilian service academy idea from a past episode, putting responsibility to act first on those proposing the idea. It would be hard, but if people seriously believe other agencies can do some things better than police, they can show it.

Following up my conversations on sex, drugs, and rock & roll with Dov, Dan McPherson and I talk about race. We start be reviewing our relationship and why we chose to record a conversation on race. We then talk about risks for white people talking publicly about race, even innocent topics everybody would value being covered. Frankly, I feel vulnerable and scared talking about my personal experience in our current climate. Then how when I hear whites describe their experiences regarding race, they sound foreign. Often the stories of people of color sound like mine. Once in my life did I hear a white person's situation sound familiar to mine, a couple months ago. We talk about why the term fragility doesn't seem to apply.…

Mark Tercek stands tall in environmental action. He was president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy for 11 years. From Wikipedia: "Founded in 1951, The Nature Conservancy has over one million members, and has protected more than 119,000,000 acres of land and thousands of miles of rivers worldwide. The largest environmental nonprofit by assets and revenue in the Americas, The Nature Conservancy ranks as one of the most trusted national organizations in Harris Interactive polls every year since 2005. Forbes magazine rated The Nature Conservancy's fundraising efficiency at 88 percent in its 2005 survey of the largest U.S. charities. The Conservancy received a three-star rating from Charity Navigator in 2016 (three-star in 2015)." Before then he was a partner at Goldman Sachs. Curious how someone…

Rip committed to avoid waste through coffee, which he describes as harder than he thought. Wait a minute. A three-star Marine Corps general is describing not using coffee cartridges as hard? In the Millennium Challenge we talked about in our first conversation he led a team taking on the best of the entire US war machine and won. How hard can coffee be? That's the point of this podcast. Personal change doesn't depend on calories burned, monetary costs, and so on. It depends on our hearts and minds, which depend on our stories, beliefs, images, and so on. It's as easy or hard as we believe. Another main point of this podcast is to empower you to change our beliefs, stories, and images. While a…

Eric Orts is a tenured professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is also exploring a potential race for the U.S. Senate: the seat from which two-term Senator Patrick Toomey has announced he will retire in 2022. On this broadcast he promises, as an expression of his values, not to fly for the next year. He pledges further, if he decides to run for office, not to fly during his campaign. To join or contribute to Orts for Pennsylvania: friendsofericorts.com.

My goal in this podcast is to bring leaders from many fields and share what made them effective. I believe sustainability and stewardship would benefit from learning more effective leadership. A goal with each guest is to feature them. Everyone is unique. Everyone brings something we can learn from. Sometimes I don't achieve my goal. Sometimes a guest and I end up talking at cross purposes, which I think happened this time, meaning I didn't do justice to the guest. This time I started off exploring Margaret's views and experiences but part way through misunderstanding arose and I don't think I gave Margaret the chance to shine that she deserved. I apologize to her. I hope I didn't distract from her work. You'll hear at…

Announcing This Sustainable Life: Untethered, a new podcast in the growing family from Leadership and the Environment, hot on the heels of Leadership and the Environment: Sweden. The new one is hosted by Alison May, based in London. A quick explanation of the name: I'm about to change the name Leadership and the Environment to This Sustainable Life: Josh's Adventures in Stewardship. Rather than switch Alison's title shortly after starting, she's debuting the new brand and logo. Why a family of podcasts? This Sustainable Life: Untethered is part of a growing family that started with Leadership and the Environment. We want to act sustainably, just rarely first---that is, we crave leadership. With nearly 8 billion people, one podcast can't reach everyone. I train people who…