This Sustainable Life artwork

This Sustainable Life

760 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★★ - 98 ratings

Do you care about the environment but feel "I want to act but if no one else does it won't make a difference" and "But if you don't solve everything it isn't worth doing anything"?

We are the antidote! You're not alone. Hearing role models overcome the same feelings to enjoy acting on their values creates meaning, purpose, community, and emotional reward.

Want to improve as a leader? Bestselling author, 3-time TEDx speaker, leadership speaker, coach, and professor Joshua Spodek, PhD MBA, brings joy and inspiration to acting on the environment. You'll learn to lead without relying on authority.

We bring you leaders from many areas -- business, politics, sports, arts, education, and more -- to share their expertise for you to learn from. We then ask them to share and act on their environmental values. That's leadership without authority -- so they act for their reasons, not out of guilt, blame, doom, gloom, or someone telling them what to do.

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Guests include

Dan Pink, 40+ million Ted talk viewsMarshall Goldsmith, #1 ranked leadership guru and authorFrances Hesselbein, Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree, former CEO of the Girl ScoutsElizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize winning authorDavid Allen, author of Getting Things DoneKen Blanchard, author, The One Minute ManagerVincent Stanley, Director of PatagoniaDorie Clark, bestselling authorBryan Braman, Super Bowl champion Philadelphia EagleJohn Lee Dumas, top entrepreneurial podcasterAlisa Cohn, top 100 speaker and coachDavid Biello, Science curator for TED

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Episodes

747: Go Alan Go!, part 1: The drummer rocking Washington Square Park

February 17, 2024 22:12 - 1 hour - 94 MB

Regular listeners and blog readers know I talk about litter and how much we wreck nature, especially my neighborhood's back yard, Washington Square Park. Click the links below to see some of the worst litter you've seen, in a supposedly nice part of town. Today the opposite: someone who brings joy, fun, creativity, music, and dancing to the park. Alan began playing drums in the park three years ago and he rocks the place. Click to watch this video of him in action, though when he plays diff...

746: Martin Doblmeier, part 1: What We Can Learn from Dietrich Bonhoeffer

February 15, 2024 03:45 - 1 hour - 85.5 MB

I'm searching for role models including people who changed cultures and undid dominance hierarchies, particularly people who came from status. I can think of many who came from subjugated classes, but not many who could have declined to engage, but did instead. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one. I could share more about him, but my guest today, Martin Doblmeier, made a wonderful documentary about him available online free. It's worth it to watch the documentary before listening to this episode if ...

745: Mattan Griffel, part 2: Is our dependence on polluting behavior "addiction"?

February 04, 2024 03:15 - 54 minutes - 75 MB

I have spoken and written at length how I see our relationship with polluting behavior as qualifying as addiction, a view that I think helps frame the challenge of sustainability. Overcoming addiction is harder than creating new technologies or taxing things. It takes powerful internal social and emotional skills. Just acknowledging one is addicted and harming others is a big hurdle, let alone acting on it. Not seeing the huge challenges of taking on one's addiction and trying to overcome i...

744: Stephen Broyles, part 1: What Is Social Work and How Does It Relate to Leadership and Action?

January 25, 2024 02:51 - 1 hour - 108 MB

Regular listeners and readers of my blog will know my sustainability leadership workshops and one of the participants of the first, Evelyn (she's in the video on that link). After being the teaching assistant for a couple cohorts, she is leading this winter's session. Often when I talked to her about leadership, she would comment, "We do that in social work too, but we call it" . . . and she'd mention a practice she was learning while getting her Masters in Social Work at Howard University....

743: Benjamin Hett: The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic

January 22, 2024 22:39 - 1 hour - 108 MB

Regular listeners know how I look for role models in similar situations to ours regarding the environment. We know our polluting and depleting are bringing us toward collapse, but instead of acting, we procrastinate on acting. We rationalize and justify our inaction. We abdicate our responsibility, capitulate, and resign to complacency and complicity. Humans behaved this way in the face of slavery, especially during and after the Atlantic Slave Trade, which led me to bring several guests wh...

742: John Brooke, part 2: American slavery transformed to today's industry and anti-stewardship of our environment

January 20, 2024 22:02 - 1 hour - 60 MB

If John's specialty in deep history weren't valuable enough to understand how our culture's dominance hierarchy formed from the material conditions of the dawn of agriculture, he also specializes in American history, including slavery from before the Revolutionary War through to the Thirteenth Amendment. We start with his sharing what drew him to the two fields. Then I introduce what led me to want to learn from him. I share a main thesis of my book, starting with the journey that led me to...

741: Tony Hansen, part 2: Volunteering hard labor creating meaning and generosity

January 10, 2024 00:13 - 38 minutes - 27.4 MB

You'll hear Tony's story of rolling up his sleeves and doing some hard labor. You'll also hear the labor being just the start of the reward. He shares about the less tangible but not lesser results in community, emotional reward, enthusiasm to do more. Given his leadership role and experience, we talk about the Spodek Method. I took the liberty of pulling some what he said and formatting it. Listen to the conversation for context for the full meaning, but here's some: You opened some doors...

740: Christopher Ketcham, part 3: Inside the mind of an “ecoterrorist”

January 06, 2024 23:51 - 1 hour - 43 MB

I was reading Harper's magazine and Christopher's story was on the cover: Inside the mind of an “ecoterrorist”! It begins In the summer of 2016, a fifty-seven-year-old Texan named Stephen McRae drove east out of the rainforests of Oregon and into the vast expanse of the Great Basin. His plan was to commit sabotage. First up was a coal-burning power plant near Carlin, Nevada, a 242-megawatt facility owned by the Newmont Corporation that existed to service two nearby gold mines, also owned by...

739: John Brooke, part 1: Deep history and how our culture formed

December 24, 2023 02:16 - 1 hour - 59.9 MB

Greenhouse gas and ocean plastic levels don't rise on their own. The cause of our environmental problems is our behavior, which results from our culture. The world's dominant culture pollutes, depletes, addicts, and imperially takes over other cultures. Yet each person wants clean air, land, water, and food. How did humans create a culture that manifests the opposite of many of their values? Why do most people defend that culture, resist changing it, and promote it, even when faced with evi...

738: Jacqueline Bicanic, part 2: Sustainability doesn't cost time and energy, it gives it

December 20, 2023 03:33 - 1 hour - 52.1 MB

People complain they don't have time, money, or energy to live more sustainably, I think because marketers see the demand so come up with things to sell people to address the demand. Since neither buyer nor seller understand how nature or systems work, the offerings don't help sustainability. Meanwhile, high demand and low supply means high prices, so people associate costing time, money, and energy with sustainability when they should associate it with their gullibility and ignorance. Jacq...

737: Michael Gerrard: Considering a stewardship amendment with a foremost environmental lawyer

December 15, 2023 03:30 - 57 minutes - 41.8 MB

I follow podcast guest Maya Van Rossum on her work on constitutional amendments protecting a clean environment. You may have heard of the legal victory in Montana, Held versus Montana, earlier this year (yay!), Montana being one of the three states with such an amendment. Maya appeared on a panel, Securing Climate Justice Through Green Amendments: The Held v. Montana Victory, that discussed that case. The more I learn, the more I realize that however impossible it may sound, we can't solve ...

736: Mattan Griffel, part 1: Online opioid addiction treatment that (actually) works

December 06, 2023 01:11 - 1 hour - 50.2 MB

Regular listeners know I focus on understanding addiction. I see people in my neighborhood and in headlines nearly daily addicted to heroin, fentanyl, meth, and crack. Since our culture promotes craving and dependence as what many would call "good business," I see people on those drugs not as outliers or anomalies from culture. I see them as slightly more acute versions of mainstream America. I see addiction to doof as serious as addiction to illegal drugs. Increasingly medical professional...

735: Casey Mahoney, part 1: A Jazz Musician Lowering His Impact to 3 Tons CO2/Year in L.A.

December 03, 2023 03:26 - 1 hour - 45.9 MB

Casey is a longtime friend. One day a few months ago he mentioned in a call he was choosing to lower his carbon footprint to a few tons of CO2 per year. I hadn't been trying to lead or persuade him, so I started asking him why, what prompted him, was it hard in Los Angeles where people drive everywhere and some people say they need air conditioning, and so on. Knowing me and my actions prompted him, but there was more to it. He faced challenges from his family and profession, but found part...

734: Alon Tal, part 1: Israel, Hamas, and overpopulation from a former Knesset member

November 29, 2023 00:04 - 1 hour - 44.7 MB

Last month I read Hamas-Israel story from an angle few will touch, but is critical: overpopulation, which I wrote about in my post Overpopulation in Israel and Gaza. The population in Israel and Palestine have both more than quintupled since 1950. There are plenty of sources of problems there, but not many places can handle that kind of growth, especially when mostly desert. The article led me to read Alon's book The Land Is Full: Addressing Overpopulation in Israel. You can't understand th...

733: Jacqueline Bicanic, part 1: Listener as Guest: Australian University Student, Very Active in Sustainability

November 25, 2023 23:58 - 1 hour - 52.5 MB

Jacquie emailed me that this podcast is inspiring her. She wrote that she'd "always had a spark of interest in sustainability, but I mostly followed the herd mentality and went about my life not really making a conscious effort & just thinking about ways I could reduce my impacts. In the last couple of years, it’s like jet fuel has been added to that spark and it’s changed the trajectory of my career aspirations, and had a significant impact on my life as a whole. . . It’s comforting to know...

732: Siddharth Kara, part 1: Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

November 21, 2023 22:46 - 57 minutes - 38.9 MB

Living unsustainably means you need resources beyond your immediate environment. It requires you take from others. When done on a cultural level, it's known as imperialism. When we take their land too, it's colonialism. When we take their labor, it's slavery. All of these things are happening in the Congo. If you think solar and wind are sustainable or avoid human suffering, read Siddharth's book Cobalt Red. If you listened to my last conversation with Adam Hochschild on his book King Leopo...

731: Debate and Understanding on Population Projections with Wolfgang Lutz and Chris Bystroff

November 18, 2023 22:53 - 46 minutes - 29 MB

I hosted two professionals who model population growth with different views, some complementary, some conflicting: Wolfgang Lutz and Chris Bystroff. I learned from both and recommend listening to their episodes first. I've also recorded episodes with many guests and solo episodes on population: 475: We Can Dance Around Environmental Problems All We Want. We Eventually Reach Overpopulation and Overconsumption 294: Population: How Much Is Too Much? 251: Let's make overpopulation only a fina...

730: Tony Hansen, part 1 : McKinsey's Director of Natural Capital and Nature

November 08, 2023 02:44 - 53 minutes - 39.4 MB

Most of the partners I know at the top tier consulting firms have worked there since business school. Tony has a different background, as he describes at the beginning. Because the Firm influences people at high levels of business and government, therefore potentially able to help change culture, I'm very interested in working with them. They are as prone to inertia as any other group, so I'm curious how much they can change others. After all, it's hard to help someone stop a habit while yo...

729: How to Develop a Sustainability Leadership Culture in Your Organization: a Panel I moderated

November 04, 2023 21:26 - 1 hour - 61.1 MB

If no one is changing culture in your world, it's your opportunity to fill the leadership vacuum, no matter where you are in your organization or communities. Many companies are making strides toward goals for greening their businesses but need to find ways to maintain the momentum now that they have tackled the easiest challenges. Others are about to embark on their sustainability journeys and seek a roadmap and best practices. Increasing regulations, particularly in Europe and the U.S., a...

728: Chefs Irene and Margaret Li, part1: Winning Awards Saving Perfectly Good Food

October 31, 2023 18:47 - 55 minutes - 36.4 MB

I first read about Margaret and Irene and their book Perfectly Good Food: A Totally Achievable Zero Waste Approach to Home Cooking in an article on doof in the New Yorker. Then the next week the magazine devoted an article just on them and their approach to avoiding wasting food by eating it all. You might say to me---someone who avoids packaged food, in his fifth year on one load of trash, who eats citrus peels, who almost never throws away something edible---their perfect for you. But avo...

727: Fun, liberation, freedom: How people talk after seriously acting on sustainability

October 26, 2023 23:49 - 1 hour - 68.7 MB

Evelyn joined the first workshop I led in the Spodek Method: practicing it, leading others through it, and how to create a movement. She then became the teaching assistant for the next two workshops. The liberation, fun, and intimacy of sharing one's fears, anxieties, and other vulnerabilities from acting more sustainably in a corrupt culture that makes it hard, all the more so in teaching others to reveal these things and still to act, led us to get to know each other. We decided the world...

726: Amy Westervelt, part 1: Showing What's Actually Happening Behind the Scenes

October 24, 2023 01:17 - 44 minutes - 29.7 MB

Amy hosts and produces a lot of podcasts, but Drilled is the big one I've listened to a lot. I listen partly to learn what happens behind the scenes and in the past in the fossil fuel industry. She's also covered how these companies influence the public in what until about World War II was called propaganda but the advertising industry changed to public relations. As a podcaster myself, I wanted to know how she came to win all those awards, start all those podcasts, and found the company th...

725: Gautam Mukunda, part 3: The Spodek Method Doesn't Always Create a Huge Mindset Shift

October 19, 2023 23:58 - 46 minutes - 29.3 MB

Gautam and I had a lovely conversation about environmental things. He's become a good friend (we talk outside our recordings). Still, listen to determine for yourself, but I'd say this conversation exhibited a minor mindset shift if any. After we talked about Gautam's experience, we spoke mostly about abstract environmental issues, not personal ones. He spoke about some difference in his views and feelings brought on by his commitment, but mostly he talked about the beauty of nature flying-...

724: Dr. Michael Greger, part 2: How Not to Age

October 11, 2023 02:42 - 28 minutes - 18.8 MB

I follow Doctor Greger's newsletter and watch his videos every week. I unsubscribe from nearly everything else. In this episode we get a sneak preview of his next book, How Not to Age. Since he mostly covers diet, I wanted to check how much the book covered. Since my biggest problem with aging is my torn meniscus, I looked it up first, and the book covered torn menisci. Since my diet overlaps so much with his recommendations, I shared my diet and exercise. We talked about his book, his web...

723: David Blight, part 2: A Constitutional Amendment on Stewardship Based on the Thirteenth and John Locke

October 03, 2023 01:11 - 1 hour - 37.3 MB

I've spoken to several guests about the idea of a constitutional stewardship amendment in the style of the Thirteenth Amendment, complementary to a Green Amendment. Amendments tend to pass in waves so I could see them helping build a movement together. David knows as much about the history of the need for the Thirteenth Amendment, its evolution, and its passing. In this conversation I share some of what I learned since our first conversation. I read him as supportive of something new and pr...

722: Michael Forsythe: When McKinsey Comes to Town

September 30, 2023 01:52 - 57 minutes - 35.3 MB

When I started business school at Columbia, I hadn't heard of McKinsey. The Firm recruited heavily there, so I found out about them, but little, since they were so secretive. I learned more from my classmates, that the business world held them in high regard. People wanted to work there. I interviewed and learned I got high reviews there, but I had entered business school to improve as an entrepreneur and stayed on my path. Several friends worked there and at its peers Boston Consulting Gro...

721: Jim Burke, part 1: The Most Beautiful Street in New York City?

September 14, 2023 08:38 - 1 hour - 48.6 MB

After reading about 34th Avenue in Queens and watching the video linked below, I had to ride to see it. Over a mile of a once congested street was transformed into safer, quieter places people enjoyed, especially kids. There are three schools along the route. The kids can come out and play. I met Jim there, felt inspired to do something similar near me, and invited him to the podcast. He talks about what made it possible, what's happened since it started, resistance, celebration, and more. ...

720: Maya Van Rossum, part 2: You Don't Have a Right to a Clean Environment. You Have to Work for It.

September 11, 2023 19:14 - 1 hour - 44.8 MB

Do you think government should protect people's life, liberty, and property? What if it turned out it didn't, if it said other people could destroy your life, liberty, and property, and would help them do it? That's what pollution does. A lack of a clean environment means that someone polluted it and hurt you, your children, your loved ones. You don't have a right to a clean environment if you are an American, or likely anyone. Instead, others have the right to destroy your life, liberty, a...

719: David Blight, part 1: From Abolitionism to Sustainability

September 10, 2023 01:03 - 51 minutes - 28.4 MB

Regular listeners and blog readers know my developing abolitionism as a role model for a sustainability movement. I've hosted several top scholars on the history of abolitionism in England and America, as well as the relevant constitutional law. Today's guest is a top historian and I found our conversation fascinating. He knows the history like an encyclopedia and can analyze it to answer my questions immediately. We talk about anti-slavery politics, abolitionism, Frederick Douglass's inte...

718: Albert Garcia-Romeu, part 2: Psychedelics and Appreciating Nature Where You Are

September 08, 2023 01:57 - 1 hour - 37.9 MB

I couldn't help asking question about the field of psychedelics research beyond our last conversation. He's a professional at the top of the field and well-connected. I started by asking him about comedy and psychedelics, after reading a funny piece in The Onion about it. He responded seriously, after all, there's a lot of humor in psychedelics. Then he shared about the growing communities of professionals and non-professionals. We both talked about trends in tourism, psychedelics, and sust...

717: Pamela Paul: Writing on Controversial Subjects With Confidence

September 02, 2023 01:12 - 47 minutes - 30.9 MB

I met Pamela Paul after she mentioned previous guest John Sargent in a piece, There's More Than One Way to Ban a Book. I found her column covered issues others shy away from. I was curious what motivated her. We talked about what motivates her to write, how she chooses her columns, and how she writes. I was looking for encouragement to take on difficult topics with confidence, since I'm doing it in my book. I'm concerned my book could be maybe not banned but attacked for taking on topics pe...

716: Arnold Leitner, part 2: How much energy and power do you need to be happy?

August 29, 2023 02:22 - 1 hour - 37.9 MB

How do we affect others and how does it relate to what brings meaning to life? I'm surprised it took this long for one of my conversations to cover the meaning of life, but I'm not surprised it came with a fellow physicist. Being able to talk quantitatively about nature comfortably, from lots of practice, lets us understand patterns of what's happening. Arnold can also talk with integrity for living by the values he talks about. We see the challenges similarly, though I focus on changing cu...

715: My mom, Marie Spodek, part 3: Starting a food coop and making ends meet as a single mom in a food desert with three kids

August 24, 2023 21:34 - 1 hour - 44.3 MB

I've written about how people act like food coops don't work for people without resources like time and money or who have kids. It took me a long time to realize they didn't see food coops being started because the people starting them didn't have time or money and had kids. When my parents couldn't make ends meet, then after they divorced and struggled more to make ends meet, forming cooperative groups was their way out of poverty. Luckily nobody told them they couldn't do it! Likewise wit...

714: Adam Hochschild, part 3: King Leopold's Ghost

August 23, 2023 02:40 - 1 hour - 36.5 MB

Adam's book Bury the Chains inspired me to see British abolitionism as a role model movement for sustainability. The writing was simple and clear. The subject inspirational and relevant. We talked about it in our first episodes, which I recommend. At last I read his most renowned book, King Leopold's Ghost, which we talk about in this episode. I came to it after reading Heart of Darkness, which it complements. Regular readers know how much I've found imperialism, colonialism, and slavery. K...

713: Matthew Matern, part 3: A trial lawyer's view

August 20, 2023 00:08 - 57 minutes - 38.3 MB

Matt and I talk about his commitment and how it affected him. I talk about the Spodek Method in general and other leadership tools like creating role models. Matt talked about his hopes and expectations about technology. When I asked him if he could imagine a world where no one polluted, he shared that he hadn't thought about it, but find the idea almost beyond conception. Think about it: if someone can't imagine an outcome, how likely do you think that person can achieve it? How likely do ...

712: Guy Spier, part 1: The Education of a Value Investor

August 17, 2023 02:58 - 1 hour - 49.5 MB

Guy is a successful, well-known hedge fund founder. He's famous for paying a lot of money for one meal with Warren Buffet (hundreds of thousands of dollars), which he found worth it. He and I know each other partly through a guest also in finance I did several episodes with, Whitney Tilson, though we emailed before we found Whitney in common. Regular listeners know a strategy of this podcast is to bring leaders from all areas to sustainability, which lacks leadership. I also look for peopl...

711: Kate Siber: "Should I Stop Flying? It’s a Difficult Decision to Make."

August 12, 2023 02:11 - 1 hour - 41.6 MB

I was led to Kate's article Should I Stop Flying? It’s a Difficult Decision to Make. from a newsletter from Flight Free USA. I've read, heard, written, and said a lot about not flying. I found her article the most sensitive, comprehensive, and thoughtful on the internal, personal challenge and gut check of deciding to stop flying. I'll let you read the article to find where she lands on not flying. I expect you'll find she covers your angle and others. It's challenging. We know it pollutes...

710: Madeline Ostrander, part 2: Finding Refuge on a Changed Earth

August 08, 2023 14:15 - 58 minutes - 37.3 MB

Since our last conversation, check out the reviews that have come in about Home on an Unruly Planet from past guests of this podcast: “With deep, compassionate reporting and elegant prose … Ostrander finds creativity, vital hope, and a sense of home that outlasts any address.”—Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction “As each new climate calamity obliterates, incinerates, or engulfs entire communities, we shudder to think our own could be next. ...

709: Madeline Ostrander, part 1: At Home on an Unruly Planet

August 08, 2023 02:57 - 1 hour - 44.3 MB

What's actually happening with our environmental problems? Scientists predict. Journalists in periodicals tend to write what gets attention and clicks, so we don't know how accurately they represent versus sensationalize. There's plenty to sensationalize after all. Madeline spent time with several communities to find out what problems they faced, how seriously, and what they were doing about it. The result is she sensitively portrayed them in her book At Home on an Unruly Planet: Finding Re...

708: Chris Bystroff, part 2: Understanding the United Nation's Projections

August 04, 2023 23:12 - 1 hour - 47.5 MB

Talking with Chris has made me more concerned about population projections that only show the possibility of collapse as error bars. I hope to bring him and past guest Wolfgang Lutz on the podcast together to help resolve their disparate views. I see some of humanity's effects on the environment that could affect our population beyond what the UN projections show not as low-probability high-impact events, but already happening. I mean things like depleting aquifers or fisheries that hundred...

707: Arnold Leitner, part 1: The founder of YouSolar, more than off-grid living

August 01, 2023 01:09 - 1 hour - 36.1 MB

Do you like my work because of my nearly unique background of a PhD in physics, having cofounded a couple companies, and having an MBA? You're in luck with Arnold, who has done the same. We got our MBAs together at Columbia so inevitably met. He was working on his solar startup then, Skyfuel, which was making news, though I wasn't working on sustainability yet the, still feeling like individual action wouldn't matter yet. We ran into each other and talked about his new company, YouSolar, co...

706: What I sound like talking sustainability when I forgot I was being recorded

July 29, 2023 23:57 - 38 minutes - 14.4 MB

You've heard me talk sustainability leadership on this podcast and probably others. Have you wondered what I sound like talking to friends unrecorded? A friend who also teaches leadership at NYU knew my background and had talked about climate with her students. She scheduled a call to talk sustainability leadership with me to help prepare. She told me she would record it, but since we were talking on the phone and I wasn't using my recording microphone, I forgot. I felt like I was just talk...

705: Greg Bertelsen: A bipartisan climate roadmap including a carbon tax

July 27, 2023 13:32 - 1 hour - 33.9 MB

Recent guest Bob Litterman spoke highly of Greg and his work at the Climate Leadership Council, a rare bipartisan effort on climate. He put us in touch. In the meantime, I was curious about a climate group started by Secretaries of State James A. Baker and George P. Shultz along with Ted Halstead. But they and other prominent Republicans published The Conservative Case for Carbon Dividends. Greg is CLC's CEO, leading that project on the ground working with politicians. If you're curious how...

704: Gernot Wagner, part 1: Guiding Misguided Economic Forces in the Right Direction

July 25, 2023 00:58 - 1 hour - 50.8 MB

Gernot and I go back a few years from meeting online over sustainability issues, finding out that we lived about a mile from each other, then meeting in person. Our first meeting, we got annoyed at each other, but our second we found we agreed on more controversial topics and had a grand old time. We also ran into each other at the conference where I met his longtime collaborator Bob Litterman, who was a recent podcast guest. Gernot combined economics with sustainability before others did a...

703: David Gessner, part 1: A Traveler's Guide to the End of the World

July 22, 2023 02:06 - 1 hour - 43.6 MB

What does the world look like today with regard to our environmental situation? Not the latest news about a disaster we can write off as a one-time event, even if yet another once a once-in-a-century event now common, but what does it look like on the ground. We know there have been record-breaking fires, floods, and storms. What are they like? David travels the United States to record what he sees and reports it in Traveler's Guide to the End of the World. He comes from a literary backgrou...

702: Peter Singer, part 1: Calm, reflective talk considering not flying

July 18, 2023 01:53 - 1 hour - 47.2 MB

With Peter Singer, I could have picked several topics relevant to sustainability leadership: veganism, vegetarianism, and charity come to mind, as does my post about him six months ago, Fixing Peter Singer’s drowning child analogy for sustainability. The day before recording, I saw him speak live and asked during the question-and-answer period at the end about not flying. He answered thoughtfully and reflectively, not with the usual reactivity and emotional intensity most people do, protect...

701: Robert Litterman, part 2: "We need legislation, we need a price on carbon."

July 16, 2023 00:44 - 1 hour - 37.3 MB

You won't hear many finance people promoting more taxes, though it's increasing. Bob talks beyond our conversation a few weeks before about a carbon tax, integrity, permanence, standards, measurement, and many different angles. He talks about responsibility and holding the companies creating the problems responsible. It just takes courage. Regular listeners know I find that when anyone focuses only on carbon, greenhouse emissions, and climate, they almost always miss our other environmental...

700: Matt Matern, part 2: Plant a Tree

July 13, 2023 16:30 - 48 minutes - 33 MB

Matt shared last time about the redwoods I keep hearing about in California that I've never seen but find they transform people. His goal was to plant a tree. He ended up with a new tree, plus he planted other plants. Listen to hear the story. More than what he did, I recommend listening to his emotional experience. Did he have to do all the things he did? Could he do other things that are more mainstream but might pollute more if he wanted? We talked first about the problems with what mos...

699: Robert Litterman, part 1: A Carbon Tax and Managing Risk

July 12, 2023 02:34 - 59 minutes - 38 MB

I met Bob at a conference on climate at my old school, Columbia Business School. He knew another participant, Gernot Wagner, with whom I recorded an episode I'll post soon, and was a peer with past guest Mark Tercek. I didn't work in finance, but I understand Bob and Mark were like dieties there. Bob brings two huge new things to climate (he talks about climate almost exclusively among our environmental problems, though we touch on others briefly in the conversation). First, he knows risk m...

698: Chris Bystroff, part 1: Population Growth and Overpopulation

July 06, 2023 02:05 - 1 hour - 40.8 MB

Population modeling can be hard, as is figuring out a prediction's accuracy, therefore how much confidence to give your conclusions. Many people can't hear talk about population without hearing things like eugenics and racism even when they aren't there. But population is one of the most important factors in sustainability. Everything becomes easier when population isn't near or above what Earth can sustain and harder when it's above. I came to Chris from reading his paper on modeling popu...

Guests

Seth Godin
2 Episodes

Twitter Mentions

@robjh1 1 Episode
@zerowastehome 1 Episode