As a podcast host, I get pitched a lot of authors, books, and more. Most aren’t relevant or are counterproductive to sustainability. I received an email promoting the author of Legal Gladiator, a biography of Alan Dershowitz. I knew the name from the news, but didn’t know more than the name, maybe a whiff of his being controversial. I looked up the book and author and found both fascinating. I[…] Keep reading →

I quote Susan in my book, Sustainability Simplified. In it you’ll see how much John Locke influenced my long-term vision for the US to understand and solve our environmental problems. Learning about the Thirteenth Amendment, which (mostly) banned slavery, and its improbable path to passage and ratification led me to think about solving our environmental problems similarly. I learned that many people working to abolish slavery worked hard when drafting[…] Keep reading →

I’ve been curious in what ways libertarian views on the environment and sustainability differ from conservative views. Travis worked at the Heritage Foundation, which is more conservative, and now works at the Cato Institute, which is more libertarian. Since I haven’t spoken to many libertarians directly, I’m interested in this conversation to learn, so it’s a conversation, not a debate. Early in our conversation, he describes some of their differences[…] Keep reading →

Usually when someone does their commitment with the Spodek Method, they enjoy it. Nearly always they do more than they commit to. Sometimes someone really enjoys it. Jan went to town on his commitment. You might wonder if there’s any appeal to picking up litter. Is it worth the effort? Who cares, anyway? After all, more people litter than pick it up, as anyone can tell by how much litter[…] Keep reading →

I participated in an online workshop in influence and persuasion that Josh led. We got in touch afterward and found our approaches to the practices and how to learn them overlap. We start this episode talking about his background and what led him to learning and training others in the practices. Then we talk about what we like about learning and practicing them, what works, what doesn’t, misconceptions, and other[…] Keep reading →

If you haven’t listened to episode 781: My New Major Life Volunteering Community Project, four years in the making, listen to it first for context. That episode describes my journey to start volunteering as an auxiliary police officer and the background to it. Depending on how well you know me or not, you may find the activity as surprising as I do, though I seem to be a minority in[…] Keep reading →

Jan is a listener of this podcast who contacted me about how it changed his life. He is listening to each episode, starting from the beginning. I invited him to be a guest and he accepted. We’ve also crossed paths through working with podcast guest Dave Gardner, and his work in Growthbusters and running for President of the United States. Jan is Dutch, living in Germany, so can’t vote in[…] Keep reading →

Toxic chemicals leach from food packaging into your food. Some of these chemicals disrupt your hormones. Some cause cancer. Some affect your children more. Some disperse into the environment and harm wildlife. For 300,000 years, humans lived without plastic. We created this system, maybe thinking only of the effects we wanted, imagining these toxic effects wouldn’t happen. Maybe we didn’t imagine they could happen. We don’t have to create these[…] Keep reading →

When I say I spend less time cooking than I used to now that I eat mostly from fresh fruits and vegetables, and legumes and grains from bulk, people generally say they don’t have time to cook. It’s as if they didn’t hear that I’m spending less time than I used to, therefore likely less time than they do. They just hear what they expected to. The average American spends[…] Keep reading →