A brief political history of sustainability [If you’ve watched my Short Course on Sustainability Leadership, you’ll recognize the following from my session on the political opportunities. I’m putting only the main points here. I’ll develop it more in a future post. I wanted to start writing. If you haven’t watched the course, I think you’ll find it one of the most important resources on our culture, the environment, sustainability, and[…] Keep reading →

I’ve been holding back on posting this post’s idea for months, maybe years. It’s a simple concept, though bold. More importantly, some may find it offensive, but, if so, no more offensive than people are with me. Over and over people tell me it’s easier to practice sustainability for someone who is single. They suggest I can decide things unilaterally. Lacking hands-on practical experience, they think the hard part of[…] Keep reading →

I want to clarify some consequences of realizing that polluting means hurting people, as I wrote in my post Replacing “sustainability” with “not hurting people” and “polluting” with “hurting people”. People often say that some people can’t worry about sustainability because they’re working three jobs to take care of three kids and having to worry about the next meal means they don’t have the luxury of worrying about the environment.[…] Keep reading →

People like hearing me share my vulnerabilities. I’m not special. People like hearing anyone share their vulnerabilities too, but I noticed it this week about myself. At the beginning of this week, I thought about blind spots. We all have things we do or don’t do, or know or don’t know, and we aren’t aware of the consequences differing from what we expect. Learning about them can help us improve[…] Keep reading →

I hear people say “we have to have a conversation about…” some controversial topic like racism, abortion, and the usual topics. Yet the controversy shows we’re talking about them. So what do they mean if the conversation is already happening? What they don’t mean While I can’t read anyone’s mind, I know they aren’t saying they want to learn new views. They can learn by reading and watching. If they[…] Keep reading →

Living true to our deepest values is its own reward. Fewer rewards are greater, all the more so when it requires struggle. All the more so when it deepens our closest relationships. Living by the values of sustainability—community, health, reciprocity, liberty, freedom, and stewardship, for example—is challenging today. No matter what I do in trying to live more sustainably and leading systemic change toward sustainability, people say others can’t do[…] Keep reading →

Almost ten years ago in this blog I wrote about an experience of art expressing something I didn’t know could be expressed. Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander captured an emotion I felt with my father and no one else. That emotion hit me hard. It was powerful. It influenced big decisions in my life, especially to learn and teach the social and emotional skills of leadership. I just experienced a[…] Keep reading →

In Sustainability Simplified, I clarify that a culture being indigenous doesn’t mean it’s sustainable. An indigenous Indian group that puts up a casino is pushing addiction. An African politician who finds oil and gets cozy with the global oil industry is too. Any culture that doesn’t live sustainably will find itself running out of something, leading it to conflict with others or collapse. But indigenous cultures that endure tend to[…] Keep reading →

I recently was invited to speak to grade school children about great physicists. The teacher asked me to speak about Newton, Einstein, and Hawking. Since I didn’t have any personal connections to Isaac Newton, I focused on Einstein and Hawking, since I knew people who knew them. I love knowing that I know someone who knew some of the most influential, famous people who lived, whose work was mind-blowing. Though[…] Keep reading →