I recently finished a book and a video course on sustainability leadership. Writing means editing. Any creative, expressive work means sketching ideas, composing, outlining, etc. Any creative, expressive work emerges from copious practice work—any painting, musical piece, novel, poem, etc. You’ve seen sketches by da Vinci, Michelangelo, and so on. I don’t keep a writer’s or artist’s notebook. I don’t start by writing on a computer. I start by writing[…] Keep reading →

I’ve thought of a simple way to illustrate what the Spodek Method workshop delivers. The mission is to change American and global culture to embrace sustainability by evoking our powerful, basic human emotions relevant to nature. The Spodek Method unearths joy, wonder, oneness, connection, spirituality, divinity, and related passions in people you do it with. They return gratitude. Evoking joy and returning gratitude leads to growing community acting together, achieving[…] Keep reading →

I thought of how to improve the subtitle, from The definitive guide to understanding and solving all (yes, all) our environmental problems to The definitive guide to understanding and solving all (yes, all) our environmental symptoms The problem is our behavior, which results from our culture. What we see in the environment is just the physical manifestation of our culture. I’ve shared the idea with a few friends and they[…] Keep reading →

Alan is a friend and podcast guest. Regular readers know I comment on how people degrade our environment, including public spaces like our parks. Alan is a counterexample, a breath of fresh air. Alan brings fun, life, community, and joy to the park. Between his music and my New York Times article, we’re in a friendly competition to see who can improve the park more. I often describe him thusly:[…] Keep reading →

Monday’s book reading featured questions from AJ and participants about the writing process, my experience, what to do oneself, and other personal things. AJ is both supportive and leads people to give their all. We reminisced about my taking her workshop, in which I wrote the book’s first draft. Only later did I see that that draft was just the start of writing the book. She asked me to read[…] Keep reading →

This morning on the way to charge the sign said 34 degrees (1C). The sun was so low on the horizon the usually sunny places I normally charge were in shadow most of the day. The solstice is three weeks away. It will be darker and colder for another three weeks. Then it will be another three weeks to come back to this long a day, though it will be[…] Keep reading →

I recently was invited to speak to grade school children about great physicists. The teacher asked me to speak about Newton, Einstein, and Hawking. Since I didn’t have any personal connections to Isaac Newton, I focused on Einstein and Hawking, since I knew people who knew them. I love knowing that I know someone who knew some of the most influential, famous people who lived, whose work was mind-blowing. Though[…] Keep reading →

I’m doing a reading NEXT MONDAY, December 2, on Zoom. it’s free. Registration is in the email announcement copied below. Or just click here: Register! If you didn’t know, I took a writing workshop that helped me  write my book. The workshop leader, AJ, cowrites with podcast guest Mike Michalowicz, bestsellers like Profit First. AJ’s community is wonderful, especially if you’ve ever though of writing a book. I’ll read some[…] Keep reading →

It’s natural to think of our environmental problems as issues of science, technology, or markets. We learned of them from scientists. Technologists and business people said they could solve them, but they’re social. The environment isn’t changing on its own. We’re changing it. Pollution destroys life, liberty, and property, mentioned throughout the US Constitution. We feel anxiety not from an effectively abstract “climate,” but because people can unilaterally destroy our[…] Keep reading →