Most second conversations on this podcast come weeks or months later, after the guest does his or her Spodek Method commitment. In Michael’s case, our first conversation was so engaging, we kept talking almost two hours, so I split the conversation into two parts. The first mostly covered Michael and his research. This part covered applying his research and my leadership to sustainability. What can we learn from cultures that[…] Keep reading →

Most second conversations on this podcast come weeks or months later, after the guest does his or her Spodek Method commitment. In Michael’s case, our first conversation was so engaging, we kept talking almost two hours, so I split the conversation into two parts. The first mostly covered Michael and his research. This part covered applying his research and my leadership to sustainability. What can we learn from cultures that[…] Keep reading →

People call me extreme for not flying, taking years to fill a load of trash, and unplugging my fridge, but compared to most how people lived for almost all of human existence, I’m approaching normal. Refrigerators, for example, barely existed one hundred years ago and cost nearly double a Model T. For most of human existence, people didn’t have refrigerators. We ate more fresh food. Today people consume doof, increasingly[…] Keep reading →

Conservatives have their ways of stopping themselves from thinking too. I’ll cover them in another post. Actually, everyone stops themselves from thinking and acting. For example, people of all backgrounds parrot some version of I care about the environment and act as much as I can, but I can’t do everything. I have to balance it with other real-life concerns, like safety for my children and how much time I[…] Keep reading →

I grew up learning that American culture meant can-do. That we took on challenges as a nation and as individuals. When the going got tough, the tough got going. The bigger they come the harder they fall. Now we face a challenge: our lifestyles are lowering Earth’s ability to sustain life, already killing tens of millions a year, projected more. Anyone can tell that we as a nation and every[…] Keep reading →

If you make a polluting system more efficient, you pollute more efficiently. People don’t get that making one element of a system more efficient may lower pollution locally while increasing it overall. We like to think of prices dropping making technology more available, democratizing it, but by its fruit do you know a tree and the fruit of our culture is poisonous garbage. Technology augments our culture. I’ve written before[…] Keep reading →

The refrain: “poor people can fill their stomachs with more with a dollar at McDonald’s than with healthy food,” often implying if you can afford healthy food, you don’t know what it’s like for people who actually have to struggle. I’ll leave the ad hominem part for another post. As for the claim McDonald’s somehow saves money, it’s wrong. Citing the USDA, Forbes reports, “Despite the rumor that government subsidies[…] Keep reading →