Nadeem committed to reducing his doof. He bravely shares the challenge. Even in Norway, he’s surrounded by messages to keep consuming it. Imagine any other unhealthy addictive substance—cocaine, heroin, etc—was advertised and sold everywhere. On top of extra availability, imagine it was portrayed as like food, which it isn’t. Nadeem stopped drinking alcohol long ago despite its prevalence in Norwegian culture, and compares how avoiding doof was harder. If you’re[…] Keep reading →

I’ve said before and I’ll say again that conversations like mine with Mark Mills are what I value and wish we had more of. We do our research, we have strong opinions, we agree on many things, we disagree on some things we care about. Most of all, I believe we learn from each other, respect different opinions, and try to understand the other’s view and goals. In this conversation[…] Keep reading →

I can’t tell you how valuable (and entertaining) I found Daniel’s video series. Regular listeners and readers may know how important I find anthropology to solving our environmental problems. If we want to change our culture, we have to know why it is this way, how other structures have worked, and how we can change. I started realizing this importance when I noticed that I had read podcast guest Sebastian[…] Keep reading →

Martha Nussbaum’s new book, Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility, looks like it’s about animals, but the more I read it, I found it about us, our values, and our behavior. Regular readers and listeners will see the similarity to how I approach the environment in general. Not having eaten meat since 1990 and no animal products at all about ten years, I don’t find new materials on human treatment[…] Keep reading →

Part 2 of the introduction shares a few stories that illustrate the Spodek Method, a leadership technique to create mindset shifts and continual improvement on the environment. The optimism girds us for a more challenging next episode.

Watching environmental documentaries means having seen the Tickells’ work, especially Fuel and Kiss the Ground, which they did with podcast guest Bill Benenson. Bill introduced us, though we scheduled this conversation to release the day before their new movie On Sacred Ground, on the Dakota pipeline. In this conversation, they share about the process of choosing the subject, the story and its roots in their lives at the protests, the[…] Keep reading →

Part 1 of the introduction shares a few stories to frame how I approach sustainability, then describes the outcomes I designed it to bring about, mainly to enable you to lead yourself to a more sustainable future that you’ll find preferable to any alternative.

Food touches nearly all environmental issues, as well as health, social, economic, political, and cultural. Cities like New York and their governance do too. Regular listeners know I talk about food waste, doof, packaging, and related issues. I celebrate her boss, Eric Adams‘s dramatic change in his diet, which tells me his motivations to bring healthier food to New York are authentic and genuine. As the top food official in[…] Keep reading →

Donald committed to seeking out seeing a wolf. He shares about his experience on this commitment. He shares his deep connection and commitment to nature and how the project affected it. Donald thinks and acts in systems. We know we are a part of nature, but not all of us behave as if we understand what that means. Donald shares what it means to him, given his background in systems[…] Keep reading →