Interviewers often ask “If you were a benevolent dictator, what would you do to solve our environmental problems?” They all frame sustainability as something you have to convince people to do or use coercive, authoritarian tools like passing laws that don’t yet have popular support. I identified a big fork in the path of people promoting sustainability. It comes if you’ve found, as I have, that the more you live[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: Sustainability Simplified: The Definitive Guide to Understanding and Solving All (Yes, All) Our Environmental Problems, by (me) Josh Spodek: The copies below are called “advanced reader copies” or ARCs in publishing. They’re proofs that may still be edited, printed early for people in the industry, like journalists, bookstores, and podcasters. Still a milestone to hold a printed copy in my hand. Several rounds of proofreading has[…] Keep reading →

This week’s first two works were masterpieces whose relevance to our world taught me about us and our times: A Short History of Reconstruction [Updated Edition], by Eric Foner: I remember classmates talking about Professor Foner’s class as being one of the great classes when I was in college and he taught at Columbia. I watched and posted a bunch of his videos in Diving into Eric Foner Talks. I[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: Teaching White Supremacy: America’s Democratic Ordeal and the Forging of Our National Identity, by Donald Yacovone: I was curious about this book. I watched a few of the author’s talks. He reviewed American history textbooks and found they promoted white supremacy. I’m glad I read it since I learned yet more about this country’s inequality. He covered a lot of history, but like the 1619 Project[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, by Timothy Egan: This book follows up Cadillac Desert. Both recount Americans believing themselves independent, especially of government, settling/colonizing new territory. They believed they could dominate nature. They believed their science and technology would enable them to do new things. They believed more people solved more problems. Then nature didn’t[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: The Alternative: How to Build a Just Economy, by Nick Romeo: I had heard about Mondragon, the cooperative in Spain, a while ago. I told a friend who recently moved to Barcelona about it. She found Nick Romeo’s New Yorker article on it, which led me to look at his other articles, which led me to his book. The book compiles a lot of those articles.[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler, by Peter Fritzsche: This book recounted life during 1939-45, mostly in Paris, Warsaw, and Switzerland. I got it because I’m interested in learning how people and cultures rationalize and justify acting against their values. The book delivered, though people’s internal psychology wasn’t its main point. Still, it talked about how citizens of occupied countries knew what the Nazis were doing[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, by Robin DiAngelo: After watching the video I mentioned of DiAngelo speaking, I had to finish the book, not just skim it. She doesn’t understand what causes racism so she can’t attribute it to its causes. Instead she grasps at what she can, no matter how inaccurate or how much she exacerbates the[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, by Katherine Boo: Engaging, intimate, researched, poignant. It’s hard to imagine it was written by an American, not someone who lived there. This book recounts a period in a Mumbai slum from the perspectives of a few of its residents. Their lives interact. The global economy affects them. Some things they can control, others[…] Keep reading →