Podcast

The notes I read from for this episode: I asked many questions on the last episode. The core ones were "why aren't we switching to renewables and not polluting faster?" I know we can't switch overnight, but what sets the pace? Do we know if the limits will go away, like we just need to build more factories, or maybe they won't, like what led us to retract from supersonic flight? It worked in some ways, but not enough. A mix of social, business, engineering, and physics issues pulled us back. How much farther can advances go? Can we expect as great advances as the 747 compared to the Wright brothers' first plane? How much of the solar power hitting the Earth can we effectively…

My notes I read from: Why do we still pollute, part 1: the questions Does the following sound familiar? We use a lot of energy, but we'll electrify everything and power them with wind and solar.Yes, we need to build a lot, but prices are cheaper than ever for renewable power and batteries. They fell faster than anyone expected and will keep falling. More solar energy hits the Earth daily than we need in a year.There are some problems, like that the sun doesn't always shine, the wind doesn't always blow, and we haven't electrified some things, like heavy loaded trucks, airplanes, and container ships, but they're just engineering issues that we'll resolve.Nobody at the time of the Wright brothers could have predicted the 747.…

Gernot Wagner posted a story in New York Magazine about personally acting in a big way on his living situation. People criticized his sharing something vulnerable. Sadly, people acting in stewardship, in everyone's interest, still today have to suffer criticism. I describe in this episode his article, the criticism he faced (as did I), and the systemic effect of this criticism. Quoting from my book, I'll show how strongly blind criticism exacerbates inaction and accelerates polluting. Beyond annoying, it augments the problems. Gernot's article: How I Greened My Prewar Apartment (It Wasn't Easy): A climate economist overhauls his leaky, 200-year-old co-op.His home pageThe video of Dennis Meadows' hula hoop demonstration

I met Ambrose through recent guest Scott Hardin-Nieri. Regular listeners likely noticed how I've been hosting more guests leading religious communities. I'm drawn by a few things. One of the main reasons is that I find many who want to speak and act more on sustainability. Another is that I find that when they act, they do so out of motivations and emotions that feel closer to mine than mainstream environmentalists. I admit my perception may be biased, but from religious actors, I feel joy, glory, duty, and passion. From environmentalists, I feel less rewarding emotions. I find Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce more inspiring than hugging trees. Ambrose is taking on leading the intersection of two demographic groups many wrote off or consider uninterested,…

For my first time in years of picking up litter, I saw a woman picking some up methodically, like she does it regularly. I told her I did too and we had a great conversation. Someone who does something enough knows the ins and outs. We talk differently than people who don't do it. We had a wonderful conversation that day, shortly after parade-goers wrecked Washington Square Park. We lamented the state of human culture that we pollute so much. We also appreciated each other's passion for picking up litter methodically, consistently, and finding reward in it. She turned out to be Martha Stewart's daughter, which seems like American royalty, but we just riffed on our common passion. Whether her humor, our common passion, or…

Here are the notes I introduced this episode with: You'll hear me talking about my local park, one of the most drug-ridden in New York CityBecause it's my back yard and I refuse to retreat from the degradation, you'll hear my passion. This was all extemporaneous, so you can tell the time I spend in my neighborhood, talking to neighbors and politicians to help.But please translate in your mind the addicts giving up and trashing common land to all of us as addicts to a/c, flying, twenty-minute showers, SUVs, meat, big families, and so on. At 80 percent overweight and obese, we're addicted to refined sugar and fat.I mention in the recording how the crack and heroin's pollution is small compared to rich people's, but…

Strolling, not scrolling! Sarah acts sustainably and loves it. She shares that love. I loved this conversation, a relief from everyone making stewardship a burden and chore. She knows the science but leads with emotion based on experience. The conversation was half love-fest of common experience, half sharing our frustration at people not acting for reasons we don't get anymore since they don't realize how fun living in harmony with nature and people is. We shared about being called extreme, which feels crazy to two people who are just having fun. Who ever heard of someone enjoying life, nature, and people too much? We lamented feeling misunderstood of not having fun. We shared our confusion about people not acting since for us it's fun. We…

Here are the notes I read from: Comments on Better Angels of Our Nature I finally finished Steven Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature. I started it more than skeptical of its main thesis. The book is 800 pages long, so I'm sure I'll oversimplify and not do it justice, but I recommend it so you can get his full message. He says that we are living in the least violent time in history and it was due to enlightenment values of classical liberalism. I was sure he'd missed some important issue or discounted the risk of nuclear war or pandemic. I'd find some flaw in his analysis. On the contrary, the more I read, or listened to to be precise, the more compelling I…

Myanmar's military coup beginning February 1, 2021 made front-page news around the globe and remains there six months later. In Yangon, As Chief Investment Officer of one of the nation's largest conglomerates, Nevcan witnessed firsthand and lived through the events. She shares what happened, how citizens and foreigners responded, the issues from an insider view, and the scant hope of near-term resolution. Hearing how hours before the coup began, nobody outside the military knew it would happen, combined with the resulting deadlock and violence, one can't help but wonder how close any society is to slipping into chaos without a way out. I've known Nevcan since meeting her in business school a decade ago, so we speak openly. We also talk about her starting her…

Don't you feel gypped that some of the most amazing potential parts of our lives were stripped away by people overindulging in polluting behavior? Or by automation that removed working the land from consideration as noble action? Karen and I talk about overpopulation---talk that will soon return to mainstream and the values of wholesomeness of activities connected to the cycles of life. Besides sharing observations from a life of conservation, she shares her success growing tomatoes as her podcast commitment, spending quality time with her family. Here are some early results of her planting tomatoes, which she's since reported have grown beyond her expectations, leading her to see things she had been mission, connecting with family, and otherwise engaging with the world. Stewardship isn't deprivation…

Martin and I continued our conversation about America, its problems, and what we can do about it. I misread him that he had a specific plan, but that didn't stop him from clarifying and continuing more of what we spoke about last time. We talked about education, arts, voting, government, the future, the past, competition, and more. Listen for reflections from a master communicator who has worked with people at the forefront of American business for decades. I mentioned before that I was prompted to reconnect with Martin after almost two decades while seeing him give a webinar online. I took the liberty of capturing the screen when he showed this slide. I hope you can tell why it made me connect. Creativity is up…

Maxine's book, Unraveled: The Life and Death of a Garment, traces how a pair of jeans comes into existence from it's raw beginnings and where it ends up at the end of its life. The book has been covered in the top levels of fashion media, for example Elle: Maxine Bédat Unravels The Lies of GreenwashingVogue: Maxine Bédat Urges the Fashion Industry to Make a Change Now, Not in 2030Financial Times: Unraveled by Maxine Bédat—cutting the cloth In our conversation, she shares the story behind the book: her history and motivation to write it, the story of her visiting people and places actually doing the work, the shocking sights the industry doesn't want us to know about. As she puts it, "the chemical industry is…

We can dance around our environmental problems all we want. Understand them enough and we eventually reach overconsumption and overpopulation. These overshoots contribute to everything. We at least talk about overconsumption, even if few are acting. Decades ago, the public talked about population, but didn't act. Today we don't talk about it. All the numbers I see suggest the Earth can sustain two or three billion people with roughly western European consumption levels. I'd love to live in a world with two billion people, like what produced Mozart and Einstein. Karen has been working on helping society face our problem of too many people being alive at once longer than I have. I've only been able to talk about it since learning from (TSL guest)…

A retired General doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to. What he does, he's going to do for his reasons, not for trends or as a dilettante. Kip committed to a challenge many consider unreasonable and impossible (I know because they tell me): avoiding flying. As a General, he's held the fates of a nation and hundreds of thousands of troops in his hands. When he speaks about his experience, I hear him speaking at a life level. He spoke about his many opportunities to fly for business and pleasure, but not taking them. He could have. Besides his choice based on his motivation, he could have flown. He didn't. Yet he shares the opposite of complaints or feeling left out. How is…

Jonathan and I continue practicing how to lead oneself and others to love acting in stewardship. Everyone thinks sustainability means deprivation and sacrifice. We started this conversation for him to review how his first time doing The Spodek Method with his kids. You'll hear that he did it slightly differently and didn't get the results. Very educational! Few people master challenging things the first time. We switched to restarting The Spodek Method with him and the value of practicing by the book before improvising. This episode will teach you how to lead someone to love and enjoy acting in stewardship.

Everyone treat changing corporate culture like a horror show, but John did it. How? Through making it fun. The way most people talk about it, only dictators can change cultures, I'll trust his experience over their speculation. This episode begins with his reviewing some of how he implemented that change. My biggest takeaway was his focus on people before technology, what they want, and what makes them tick. The result is their engaged participation. He also shares the result of his commitment. As usual with experienced leaders, if things don't go perfectly, they don't pretend. They share what didn't work too, I believe from experience finding that exposing vulnerabilities doesn't make them weak. It connects people. If you want to change yourself and your organization,…

What happens when populations age? Can you envision a world with a sustainable population, well below Earth's capacity, therefore living resiliently in abundance per person? I can. Governments and media are petrified at populations shrinking and aging. It turns out they are motivated by reasons that sound plausible. Jane looked at the numbers and found the fears unfounded. She also found industries seeding and promoting the fears, making them scams. Allowing the scams to affect us exacerbates the risk of a collapse in Earth's ability to sustain life and society. She treats more unfounded fears about population size that lead people to baselessly fear what seems to me one of the top elements of retaining Earth's ability to sustain life---lowering our birth rate through the…

Here is the article prompting this episode: Majority of Florida condo board quit in 2019 as squabbling residents dragged out plans for repairs Here are the notes I read from: Read article about collapse and will read some parts.Everyone has long viewed Titanic as metaphor for man's hubris over nature. But long enough ago we dismiss. Scale is off. We believe we're passed those problems from another age.Listen to these quotes.Opening: "The president of the board of the Florida condominium that collapsed last week resigned in 2019, partly in frustration over what she saw as the sluggish response to an engineer's report that identified major structural damage the previous year.""Despite increasingly dire warnings from the board, many condo owners balked at paying for the extensive…

I met Joe when we spoke together on an online panel hosted by Magamedia.org. I knew he was running for office and anticipated conservative politics, but on the panel, I couldn't tell, despite the conservative context. I was curious so looked him up more and found an intriguing background and passion. Joe emerged from youth involving gangs to join the Navy, now running for office. He considers the incumbent insensitive to his district's needs, but he grew up there. He knows its problems. You'll hear in our conversation a passion as great as his frustration with the situation he wants to change. Environment factors in some to his campaign and platform, but not its top priority. Still, he shares his caring with us and takes…

I contacted Scott after reading a profile of his work in The Guardian, 'Within minutes I was weeping': the US pastor using scripture to mobilize climate action. The story spoke of someone leading by creating meaning and purpose: He's not alone: across the US, there is a growing movement of religious leaders who are trying to deploy faith as a vehicle for climate action. And Hardin-Nieri's own journey toward climate activism began when he lived in Monteverde, Costa Rica, and witnessed how different faith communities — from Catholics to Quakers — came together to fight climate change."It wasn't a Republican or Democrat issue," he says. "It was a life issue." Longtime readers know I'm increasingly working with evangelicals, conservatives, and Trump supporters. Go far enough…

Martin is a legend. How many people craft phrases that become part of everyday language like "The Ultimate Driving Machine," "The Antidote For Civilization," and "The Tightest Ship In The Shipping Business"? He comes from a different time in advertising and communication, as he describes in our conversation. I met him nearly twenty years ago. He was considering investing in the company I cofounded, Submedia, based on the medium I invented. He didn't invest, but he came to my first solo gallery show in Manhattan. We lost touch. Then I saw him speak recently. I confess a slight disposition to expect corporate writers not to engage in depth, which I recognize as a flaw in myself. He spoke about creativity, what it can be, how…

Most of you probably know Forrest for his television shows. He combines the most intriguing parts of being a biologist, an adventurer, and a television star. His passion for each is infectious. Most of all, he loves wildlife. I learned from him first through his new book, Still Alive: A Wild Life of Rediscovery, which gives depth and origins to that passion and love. I can imagine seeing him on TV without knowing that background, you'd wonder where it all came from. You know me. Even with the background, I'm curious about the story behind the story behind the story, which Forrest shares in our conversation. He also shared a meaningful moment of new reflection when I asked what the environment meant to him. Despite…

I consider Mechai Viravaidya my top role model for sustainability leadership. As I described in a recent episode, We Can Dance Around Environmental Problems All We Want. We Eventually Reach Overpopulation and Overconsumption. Before learning of Mechai Viravaidya, I knew only of China's One Child Policy and eugenics. I couldn't talk about population when I thought the cure was worse than the disease. Learning of Mechai changed everything. As his biography's back cover, states. In Thailand, a condom is called a "Mechai". Mechai Viravaidya, Thailand's condom King, has used this most anatomically suggestive contraceptive device to turn the conventional family planning establishment on its head. First came condom-blowing contests, then T-shirts with condom shrouded anthropomorphic penises. Then condom key rings followed by a Cabbages and…

When I read Tom's book on sustainability, Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet, I couldn't believe the book didn't exist already. I consider it the science book of the decade so invited him back. He shares about his motivation and goals in writing it. You might read my review of the book first, but you can jump into this conversation too. Here is an excerpt from my review: He taught a course to non-science undergraduates on the subject, called Energy and the Environment. He used the course to compile his posts, polish them, and make a self-contained comprehensive book. As far as I know, the only one like it, possibly because mathematics is the language of nature, so equations abound, but he explains…