This week I read to and watched: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond: An incredible book that won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction among other awards. Desmond lived among poor people getting evicted left and right in Milwaukee as well as landlords evicting them. He lived with them enough for them to open up. Eviction has grown as a practice in the past few[…] Keep reading →

This week I listened to and watched: Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, by Sarah H. Bradford: This 1869 book is in the public domain, so I listened to the Librivox recording. The more I learn of Harriet Tubman, the more I find her inspirational and relevant to sustainability. We need role models of people who had incentive to lay low but acted. As a former slave, she would[…] Keep reading →

This week I read: Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything, by BJ Fogg: Regular readers know I’m more than a decade into a few big habits that started small, including posting here daily and now twice-daily calisthenics including nearly a quarter million burpees. I also haven’t flown or filled a load of garbage since before the pandemic. Fogg’s book systematized what I learned through experience. He starts with[…] Keep reading →

This week I watched: 13th, directed by Ava Duvernay: The Thirteenth Amendment and abolitionism are fundamental to my work on sustainability leadership. A future guest on the podcast recommended this movie by the director of Selma to learn more about what the amendment missed. The movie clarifies that prison is more connected to slavery than I think most people would have expected, though less about work and free labor than[…] Keep reading →

This week I read, listened to, and watched: Common Sense, by Thomas Paine: As long as I’ve been reading Locke, Common Sense made sense too. I enjoyed the digs at George III and its at times casual style. I had to remind myself he was rebelling against the most powerful nation in the world, taking personal risk. It’s easy for me to take for granted the U.S. government and democracy[…] Keep reading →

This week I read and watched: The Conservative as Environmentalist: From Goldwater and the Early Reagan to the 21st Century, by Daniel A. Farber: Farber is a professor of law and Director of the Environmental Law Program the UC Berkeley Law School. He published the document in 2017. It’s fascinating, covering support for environmental protections, ideology, and cases of bold activism from I was glad to see one podcast guest[…] Keep reading →

People talking about the environment focus on climate and carbon. Only talk about climate, carbon, and greenhouse emissions if you want to disregard all other environmental problems because doing so will augment them. The problems result from our behavior, which results from our culture. Don’t change our culture and we’ll keep lowering Earth’s ability to sustain life. Focus only on one symptom and like whack-a-mole, or a stream flowing around[…] Keep reading →

This week I read and watched: The Great Dance, directed by Craig and Damon Foster: I re-watched this documentary helped open my eyes and mind to the sophistication and complexity of people and cultures we call indigenous. I grew up to see them as stuck in the Stone Age and to fear the possibility of regressing to be like them if we don’t keep progressing. Learning some anthropology from The[…] Keep reading →

This week I read Pro-slavery thought in the old South, by William Sumner Jenkins: You and I live in an economic system that hurts and kills people near and far, now and in the future, for our wants and needs. We feel we are good people, yet we do things we believe are wrong; we buy fast fashion, fly, drive SUVs, and so on. To maintain our positive self-perceptions and[…] Keep reading →