Regular listeners know I focus on understanding addiction. I see people in my neighborhood and in headlines nearly daily addicted to heroin, fentanyl, meth, and crack. Since our culture promotes craving and dependence as what many would call “good business,” I see people on those drugs not as outliers or anomalies from culture. I see them as slightly more acute versions of mainstream America. I see addiction to doof as[…] Keep reading →

Casey is a longtime friend. One day a few months ago he mentioned in a call he was choosing to lower his carbon footprint to a few tons of CO2 per year. I hadn’t been trying to lead or persuade him, so I started asking him why, what prompted him, was it hard in Los Angeles where people drive everywhere and some people say they need air conditioning, and so[…] Keep reading →

Last month I read Hamas-Israel story from an angle few will touch, but is critical: overpopulation, which I wrote about in my post Overpopulation in Israel and Gaza. The population in Israel and Palestine have both more than quintupled since 1950. There are plenty of sources of problems there, but not many places can handle that kind of growth, especially when mostly desert. The article led me to read Alon’s[…] Keep reading →

Jacquie emailed me that this podcast is inspiring her. She wrote that she’d “always had a spark of interest in sustainability, but I mostly followed the herd mentality and went about my life not really making a conscious effort & just thinking about ways I could reduce my impacts. In the last couple of years, it’s like jet fuel has been added to that spark and it’s changed the trajectory[…] Keep reading →

Living unsustainably means you need resources beyond your immediate environment. It requires you take from others. When done on a cultural level, it’s known as imperialism. When we take their land too, it’s colonialism. When we take their labor, it’s slavery. All of these things are happening in the Congo. If you think solar and wind are sustainable or avoid human suffering, read Siddharth’s book Cobalt Red. If you listened[…] Keep reading →

I hosted two professionals who model population growth with different views, some complementary, some conflicting: Wolfgang Lutz and Chris Bystroff. I learned from both and recommend listening to their episodes first. I’ve also recorded episodes with many guests and solo episodes on population: I invited Wolfgang and Chris to talk about their different views and see if they could learn from each other and we could learn from them. That’s[…] Keep reading →

Most of the partners I know at the top tier consulting firms have worked there since business school. Tony has a different background, as he describes at the beginning. Because the Firm influences people at high levels of business and government, therefore potentially able to help change culture, I’m very interested in working with them. They are as prone to inertia as any other group, so I’m curious how much[…] Keep reading →

If no one is changing culture in your world, it’s your opportunity to fill the leadership vacuum, no matter where you are in your organization or communities. Many companies are making strides toward goals for greening their businesses but need to find ways to maintain the momentum now that they have tackled the easiest challenges. Others are about to embark on their sustainability journeys and seek a roadmap and best[…] Keep reading →

I first read about Margaret and Irene and their book Perfectly Good Food: A Totally Achievable Zero Waste Approach to Home Cooking in an article on doof in the New Yorker. Then the next week the magazine devoted an article just on them and their approach to avoiding wasting food by eating it all. You might say to me—someone who avoids packaged food, in his fifth year on one load of[…] Keep reading →