When I turned 17 I received the letter from the federal government that they required me, by my next birthday, to register for what it called Selective Service and and that I call the draft. I don’t remember the details, but I remember something about punishment if I didn’t. I also remember thinking I didn’t feel I had the experience or maturity to comprehend this obligation imposed on me to[…] Keep reading →

I wanted to share some thoughts on reading The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea Wulf, one of the New York Times’ 10 best books of 2017. Who is Alexander von Humboldt? The New York Times review of the book explains: Alexander von Humboldt was the pre-eminent scientist of his time. Contemporaries spoke of him as second in fame only to Napoleon. All over the Americas[…] Keep reading →

I’ve mentioned many times how I considered the approach to the environment, economy, population, etc by the book Limits to Growth the most comprehensive and valuable, though I hadn’t read much critical of it that didn’t seem politically motivated or starting from disagreement. I’ve wanted to find alternative perspectives. I found more resources and perspective, especially in two papers in American Scientist written by Brian Hayes. Both articles followed publishing[…] Keep reading →

In this country, mentioning any deviation from capitalism flips people’s thoughts to communism and socialism. This black-and-white thinking explains why Reagan and Thatcher opposed Nelson Mandela fighting Apartheid, instead supporting a blatantly racist regime. In fact, they supported a party infused by supporters of Nazis. We throw the term Nazi around today to mean figuratively, but I mean literally. The creators of Apartheid included people who actively and violently supported[…] Keep reading →

Enron Environmentalism Enron looked profitable when it compartmentalized and hid its losses. Do you compartmentalize and hide your pollution? I just had lunch with a man who described himself as fanatical about the environment–in particular, about water bottles. He illustrated by describing how fastidiously he handled them. As he started his story, I expected him to describe how he never used water bottles. Americans have such clean and drinkable water that water made unclean makes front page[…] Keep reading →

One of my top resources on the environment is the book Limits to Growth. Reading it was revelatory. They approached the environment the way I thought made sense, then created a model, researched the numbers, plugged them in, and got answers. What made sense was what they call a systemic approach—not to look at one of all the interacting parts, but to look at the whole system, including how the[…] Keep reading →

Lies We Tell Ourselves When We Pollute We all want clean air, water, and land, yet pollute more than necessary. Leaders act with responsibility, accountability, and self-awareness. Our leadership vacuum on the environment I hook my audiences easily in my workshops on my podcast, Leadership and the Environment, by saying, Raise your hand if you like pollution, rising sea levels, and more plastic in the ocean than fish. No hands ever go up. I continue, Now raise your[…] Keep reading →

A recent workshop I attended had me write my dream of a “Year of Opportunity”—that is, what I’d like to make happen if I achieved everything I could. Normally we don’t share our greatest hopes and expectations since they enable others to judge us—for dreaming too much, for being unrealistic, for thinking too much of ourselves, for not achieving our dreams, and so on. So what? I’m going to share[…] Keep reading →

For some reason, some names of companies show up in the news periodically. Reading about some disagreeable behavior of Monsanto over the summer, I thought about which I disliked the most and thought about where they belonged in my range of companies. I started making a spectrum of which companies seemed distasteful to me—companies I avoid doing business with—and food I avoid eating. In my mind they share something similar.[…] Keep reading →