Success through values, meaning, purpose, importance, and passion
It’s tempting to dream that fusion will save us. It’s the most common power source in the universe, including our Sun’s. Many believe it could produce power without radioactivity or greenhouse emissions and could be made safe. Fukushima is a nuclear fission plant, not fusion, but have you ever wondered why it was built where a tsunami could hit it? The word tsunami comes from Japanese, so they knew it could happen and everyone knows Japanese engineering is world class. The nation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki knows more than any about the dangers of atomic energy. They built it by the ocean for the reason all nuclear power plants are built near water, as are nearly all power plants of any sort and many factories.…
On the roof today charging my solar kit, I saw my first flurries of the season. I'm in month 18 disconnected from the electric grid, as I reported in TIME and Ars Technica. Wow, I just noticed the TIME piece appeared over a year ago. The temperature dropped to the mid-30s F (3 C) and it was windy. I'd prefer to keep indoors, but the battery was low and this close to the solstice, I can't take sunlight for granted. I haven't been able to charge the battery to full for a couple weeks. The sun is only high enough to charge from about 10am to 2pm. Even at noon it only powers the panels to about 75 percent of their capacity, so even if…
People hear me suggest everyone living sustainably and think it's impossible. They don't want to give up their comforts and conveniences any more than slave owners wanted to give up theirs. Max Weber wrote in his essay, The Profession and Vocation of Politics (1919) “What is possible would not have been achieved, if, in this world, people had not repeatedly reached for the impossible.” Quoting Eric Foner in his book on Lincoln and slavery The Fiery Trial: "As late as 1858, the Chicago Tribune, a strong voice of antislavery radicalism, stated flatly that 'no man living' would witness the death of American slavery." It seems the impossible can become possible, then happen a few years after predicted to be more than a lifetime away. Watch…
One of the participants in one of the summer workshops emailed me the following, noting "Josh, you can use this with my name if you wish for announcements or upcoming workshops." The next workshop begins in January, so if you're interested in actively leading our culture away from collapse instead of sleepwalking into it, claiming you can't make a difference, email me and join us in January. I should mention, the growing alumni community is growing more active, supportive, and coming up with new activities. You'll love it. It beats claiming nothing you do matters. From Josh Myrvaagnes: I wish to clarify what I got from taking the sustainability leadership workshop. Before the workshop, I had managed to get my carbon footprint down to 12,000…
If you think anything anyone does has to scale to solve problems globally, you're lying to yourself. I propose a couple more effective ways to approach what you do. One way: Imagine that no matter what, nothing you do will influence anyone else. Now what should you do? A second way: How does this view make any less sense? "I had a dream I was in 1850 Alabama owning slaves. I thought to free them, but realized it wouldn't change the system, so I didn't, and didn't free them. I whipped them instead." Logically, it's the same. It's stopping harming people. In both cases, living with integrity helps you learn and lead others.
Here's what most environmentalists amount to (I'd love meaningful counterexamples): One heroin user telling another to stop using heroin while not stopping him or herself. One cigarette smoker telling another to stop smoking while not stopping him or herself. One gambler telling another to stop gambling while not stopping him or herself. You get the idea: one addict telling another to stop while not stopping him or herself. It doesn't matter how great your ideas and plans, without credibility and integrity, no one will follow.
We've been human for maybe 300,000 years. For most of that time our ancestors hunted and gathered in small groups. You might think that means they didn't practice politics since they didn't have governments with three branches and giant domed buildings on hills with highly-paid lobbyists trying to influence them. If you understand politics to mean group decision-making in general, they were likely more political in that in hunter-gatherers today, most people are involved in most group decisions. Since they have less hierarchy, people with higher status can't simply order people with lower status around. If I want to influence you, I have to listen, understand, and practice social and emotional skills people in nations don't. In the past 10,000 years, we have formed larger…
It happens with nearly every client, usually around the second or third month, but then throughout the process. I was speaking the other day with a client in the c-suite of a major health care chain. Part of what we've worked on are personal social and emotional skills. At that level of an organization of that size with a mission that includes saving lives, your co-workers are passionate and dedicated. Deep, internal motivations drive them. To work effectively, it helps to share mutually who you are, which means sharing vulnerabilities. That's how you have each other's back. How you can take risks, knowing your team will support you. How you can trust when someone does something you don't expect or understand in the moment, they're…
I wish I could express the dismay I feel at seeing how much good food people throw away. Or, for that matter, how much people claim eating like I do costs more, often from the same people. I don't see how not throwing away food costs more than throwing away food. Maybe exasperation as much as dismay. Anyway, my (partial) solutions to food waste: If you buy food, eat it. If you aren't going to eat it, don't buy it. If a restaurant gives too big portions, don't eat there. Avoid doof and don't confuse it with food. Never call doof food. You might say, "Of course, Josh, no duh." But people don't do these things and they can. They save money and are more…
I've written about how I want to give up every day. I don't give up. Here's a quick, simple post with two tactics I use to persevere and keep going with enthusiasm. I didn't make them up. They work. When you want to give up, help someone else. Spend time with people who want to succeed. They're not hard and don't cost anything.
When I teach my core sustainability leadership practice, the Spodek Method, in classes and corporate workshops, I have participants pair up and practice it with each other. When there is an odd number of participants, one usually pairs with me, leading me to new commitments on my environmental values. At first I worried I’d run out of commitments after reading many ten-little-things-you-can-do-for-the-environment articles that promote the same things. Those CCCSC bludgeoning tactics (convincing, cajoling, coercing, seeking compliance: the opposite of how I lead) lead people to think there are are small number of things they can do. Even people who want to act meaningfully will do seven and consider themselves one of the good guys. I’ve found the opposite: The more people lead me through…
I've made it no secret that sustainability lacks leadership and leaders. If you want to help on sustainability, I suggest that the most valuable thing you can do is learn to lead. If you know how to lead, improve it. Nothing can change as much as leading cultural change. Gautam's passion is to learn how leadership works, how to teach it, learning more about it, writing about it, the military, most relevant to our conversation: conveying what he knows and that passion. The upshot: someone who knows as much as anyone about leadership, what works, what doesn't, learning more about it, how to teach it, and passionate to convey what he's learned. He also knows and has befriended some of today's most effective leaders, whom…
One of the uses of fossil fuels no one has any replacements for is container ships. No batteries or hydrogen cells are on order to power container ships. Then you might read about how to make a pair of jeans, the cotton is transported to one place to be made into thread, another to be made into fabric, another to sew it, another to package it, another to sell it, another to dispose of it after its average seven times being worn, and so on. Not that jeans require more shipping than cars, computers, food, doof, or nearly any industrial output. Many things are being transported around the world many time. How Much of a Container Ship's Cargo Will Be in a Landfill Within Six…
How often is an option better in every way? Even quitting cigarettes, which seem better in every way to me in saving money, improving health, decreasing litter, and so on, to a smoker mean losing pleasure. How cereal became better in every way As a kid growing up, the cereal aisle of a supermarket seemed as much a part of nature as trees outside. It just existed, as did all the cereals with their brightly colored boxes, cartoon characters, list of vitamins and ingredients that would have seemed bizarre for not existing elsewhere, like BHT and puffed rice, but I didn't know any different. I think in graduate school I switched to oats. The naive younger me would have thought I reduced variety, but by…
Read my post When a heavy polluter says “we need to bring energy to the world’s poorest,” watch your wallet, where I describe that everyone with their misguided way to drive our polluting system faster profiting themselves in the process says some version of "we're helping the poor," they're helping themselves, likely exacerbating poverty, dumping pollution onto the poor. As I find examples in the media, I'll put them here: February 16, 2021, Bill Gates, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need: "Eventually it sank in. The world needs to provide more energy so the poorest can thrive, but we need to provide that energy without releasing any more greenhouse gases. Now the problem seemed even harder.…
There are a lot more vegan restaurants around. I've visited a few. As best I can tell, they're taking packaged fake meats and other things prepared elsewhere and putting them together. I haven't found one that serves mostly vegetables or seems to honor nature and the art and craft of preparing food. Does this veggie burger look like they made it in the store or assembled things made elsewhere? Do you think they cut the fries in the store? It looks like doof. I don't mind someone making a vegan cheese steak, but I don't think a restaurant serving this one has much raw ingredients delivered. I'm not saying all vegan food has to be healthy or meet my interests, but for me to enjoy…
I've described Tom Murphy's textbook, Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet, the science book of the decade. He just published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Physics, one of the most important parts: how basic physical constraints limit how much our economy can grow. The paper is called Limits to economic growth. Quoting Tom's blog post linking to the piece inline and in pdf, the “real” article [is] in Nature Physics. Unfortunately, Nature Physics does not allow open access for Comments, but this Share link should allow you to read the content without a subscription. If the link does not work, here is a link to the PDF. Here are my conversations with Tom on the podcast. Look folks, I know reading graphs and…
The refrain: "poor people can fill their stomachs with more with a dollar at McDonald's than with healthy food," often implying if you can afford healthy food, you don't know what it's like for people who actually have to struggle. I'll leave the ad hominem part for another post. As for the claim McDonald's somehow saves money, it's wrong. Citing the USDA, Forbes reports, “Despite the rumor that government subsidies make fast food less expensive than fruits and vegetables, several recent articles argue that indeed, veggies are far cheaper than a meal at McDonalds.” An Institute of Economic Affairs study in England study, Cheap as Chips: Is a healthy diet affordable?, found “healthier food in supermarkets tends to be cheaper than less healthy food. .…
Sandra took responsibility when she didn't have to, as the Executive Director of NYC Pride, to respond to my requests to talk to an organizer. Longtime listeners and readers of my blog know that last year, I was disgusted by the garbage covering Washington Square Park the morning after New York City's 2021 Pride March. I posted pictures and video with the quote from another person in the park I saw that morning, "Pride destroyed the park." It turns there are two Pride Marches and the other one ended in Washington Square Park, not the one Sandra organized, but she knew not everyone would know to distinguish them, the public could associate the mess with the whole community, and, in any case, both polluted too…
The notes I read from for this episode: Notes for Growthbusters comments I love the Growthbusters documentary and helped fund making it free online. I listen to every episode of the podcast. They know I love them and their message and I would only comment on them out of love and support.They quoted and commented on an email I sent them and have to comment back.They’ve hosted me on the podcast. Dave Gardner has been on mine. We’ve become friends and have many mutual friends and colleagues who agree on our environmental problems and that more solar panels and windmills won’t solve them.They’re serious but fun and funny, plus geeky, like me.Recent episode, number 69 coincidentally for the immature out there like me, read an…
I try to stick to posts where I create most of the content, but my disgust at the depravity of this video was too great to avoid. I hope I misunderstand something about it. If so, I'm happy to change my story. I don't know much about Bill Nye, but I thought he created a character appealing to kids. Here he trades in what value he had for I don't know what, but I hope he got paid a lot. Plastic being recyclable or anything less than pure pollution is like Oxycontin being not addictive. It may happen in rare cases, but overall, the whole world suffers for this industry fairy tale that a few craven individuals profit from. https://youtu.be/1HRadzzvQNY EDIT: Beyond Plastics made a…
Does anyone else see the trend? Compassionate conservativeClean coalGreen growthMoral majorityFree market Take your biggest criticism and put the reverse in front. Without changing anything about yourself, you make yourself impervious to criticism. Only one thing: coal isn't clean and growth isn't green, no matter how much anyone says they are. Liberals and other groups might use the technique. I haven't noticed. If you know of examples, let me know. I'll post so people know to guard against all trickery from all directions.
I've been saying this phrase lately. As far as I remember, I made it up. It comes in several versions. For home cooking: Even when it doesn't taste as good, it tastes better when you cook it yourself. For gardening Even when it doesn't taste as good, it tastes better when you grew it yourself. I don't own a pet today, but grew up with dogs, cats, fish, birds, lizards, snakes, and other pets: Even when it's not as cute, it's cuter when you take care of it yourself. not that cuteness is a pet's only property. I could substitute training, loyalty, etc. I'm not a parent, but some equivalent must apply to children. I welcome parents suggesting refinements: Even when they don't make you…
I've often suggested that if an ancient sage like Jesus, Buddha, Laozi, Confucius, Aristotle, or other renowned enduring figure, lived today, I doubt he or she would say, "I thought I attained happiness/enlightenment/etc, but now I realize I can do better with an iPhone." I suspect they'd say how what they figured out then worked as well today. They'd look at iPhones, social media, flying, and all that and think, "more distraction," and stick with what worked before, like spending time with family and friends and helping people less fortunate. Lately, I've wondered would Jesus buy a plane ticket and fly somewhere today, or Buddha or any of them? Presumably Jesus could fly or teleport if he's omnipotent, but let's imagine he isn't. Maybe he…
If I talk about not flying, someone is bound to tell me how their spouse lives overseas so they have to fly to visit family or their mother lives on the other coast so they have to fly to see her on holidays and if she's sick. People walking with disposable containers claim the store cashier gave them the bags and packaging. What could they do? We claim we're helpless victims of others imposition. "I don't want packaged food or to pollute with flying, but what else could I do?" These are questions of accounting. To whom and to what time do we assign responsibility for the pollution? Simply accepting people's abdication of their responsibility would be like a business believing each department claiming it…
