Michael is becoming a regular. Would I have expected an extended conversation with a doctoral candidate at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary when I started? I don’t think so, and I don’t think many environmentalists engage with evangelicals and conservatives. I think you’ll hear genuine friendship, mutual respect, and mutual desire to learn from each other. I think you’ll hear actual learning. In this episode we took on a topic[…] Keep reading →

Have you heard the phrase “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution.”? It sounds extreme. Then it makes sense and you can’t see it otherwise. Similarly: nothing in sustainability works except if we first address and solve population. If you’re like most people, including me until I learned of Mechai Viravaidya and his peers, you reflexively think of China’s One Child policy or eugenics when anyone[…] Keep reading →

We can dance around our environmental problems all we want. Understand them enough and we eventually reach overconsumption and overpopulation. These overshoots contribute to everything. We at least talk about overconsumption, even if few are acting. Decades ago, the public talked about population, but didn’t act. Today we don’t talk about it. All the numbers I see suggest the Earth can sustain two or three billion people with roughly western[…] Keep reading →

We can dance around our environmental problems all we want. Understand them enough and we eventually reach overconsumption and overpopulation. These overshoots contribute to everything. We at least talk about overconsumption, even if few are acting. Decades ago, the public talked about population, but didn’t act. Today we don’t talk about it. All the numbers I see suggest the Earth can sustain two or three billion people with roughly western[…] Keep reading →

Alexandra Paul has risen to the top of my list of the few people who live in the intersection of experience necessary to lead effectively on the environment. She has experience leading, she knows the science, and she lives the values she suggests for others: She was a recent guest on my podcast, This Sustainable Life. She mentioned a presentation she has since given at Sand Diego State University. I[…] Keep reading →

Normally I post original writing and avoid sharing facts and figures, since I find they don’t motivate, but I found a few charts relevant to population. Now I can’t remember where I got them from—I think the Population Media Center (PMC), where podcast guest and role model Bill Ryerson works. I presume most people know numbers like the ones below, or if they don’t, they know enough to act, but[…] Keep reading →

Have you ever tasted an heirloom tomato so delicious it was almost a religious experience? I used to think people who complained about supermarket tomatoes sounded full of themselves. How different can they taste? Then I tasted heirloom tomatoes with so much flavor, I couldn’t believe my taste buds. The next time I ate a mainstream tomato it felt like eating wet cotton. Do you know what they used to[…] Keep reading →