This Sustainable Life
763 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★★ - 98 ratingsDo 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 TEDHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Episodes
600: Etienne Stott MBE, part 4: What it's like rebelling with Extinction Rebellion
July 01, 2022 20:51 - 39 minutes - 19.2 MBFollowing up last conversation with Etienne, on Extinction Rebellion's mission, strategy, and tactics, this time we talk about his path from disengagement to becoming a Rebel---that is, playing a significant role in Extinction Rebellion and committing a major part of his life to it. I don't know many others who have committed and dedicated so much personally, with such dedication and passion, to making sustainability one of their priorities or the priority. Most people seem content to talk ...
599: A Guy Forced Me to Accept a Twenty Dollar Bill for Picking Up Litter
June 24, 2022 17:47 - 20 minutes - 12.6 MBHere are the notes I read from for this post: Walking through park 2017, pandemic "Thanks" Not thankworthy Restored faith / Nobody does / interrupting / construction worker Office Continual improvement Enjoying Fat / "Titty twister!" / salt "I can't" See meth, fentanyl, heroin users "I can" Forced $20 bill on me Had to run but kept talking Partly wish I'd gotten contact information Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
598: Bill Benenson, part 2: Dirt! and Kiss the Ground, behind the scenes
June 24, 2022 02:20 - 46 minutes - 27.4 MBI indulge in asking Bill about his and his wife Laurie's passions, filmmaker friends, goals, and so on. He talks about passionate peers he's worked with like Michael Pollan and Paul Stamets. The names Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen come up too, as two other people who appeared in his movies. He explains the value of celebrity. He shares his storytelling techniques not to make political films or push people, despite covering fields others treat more bluntly. He and Laurie share nuance and sub...
597: Josh Martin, part 2: If at first you don't succeed . . .
June 23, 2022 01:09 - 55 minutes - 34.7 MBJosh Martin started to do his commitment to shop at the farmers market, but it didn't connect. I think we didn't connect it to his experience of the environment. We decided to find a new commitment by connecting more intrinsically. We spoke on sustainability, nutrition, health, sports, and many things, him from the position of an entrepreneur former athlete, me from a troubleshooting perspective. The result was covering many topics, eventually leading to a new commitment. My read from his t...
596: Sandra Pérez, part 1: Keeping New York's LGBTQIA+ Pride March clean
June 20, 2022 01:55 - 32 minutes - 21.7 MBSandra took responsibility when she didn't have to, as the Executive Director of NYC Pride, to respond to my requests to talk to an organizer. Longtime listeners and readers of my blog know that last year, I was disgusted by the garbage covering Washington Square Park the morning after New York City's 2021 Pride March. I posted pictures and video with the quote from another person in the park I saw that morning, "Pride destroyed the park." It turns there are two Pride Marches and the other ...
595, Jason Slaughter, Creator of Not Just Bikes, part 1: Ending Car Dependency
June 17, 2022 01:10 - 1 hour - 48.5 MBWatch Jason's Not Just Bikes videos. I've watched them all. They're informative, engaging, funny, researched, provocative, and keep you coming back, but not like Netflix stuff designed to addict. After you watch a few, listen to our conversation. In our conversation he shares more depth than his videos of his motivations, how he makes the videos, interacts with his audience, feels frustration from some, learns from others, and more. He shares how life could be versus how it is. In this conv...
594: Etienne Stott, part 3: An insider's, activist's view of Extinction Rebellion
June 15, 2022 03:00 - 48 minutes - 23.6 MBEtienne Stott is using his Olympic gold medalist status to augment his impact acting on the environment, including working with Extinction Rebellion on peaceful civil disobedience. He's been arrested, spoken publicly, and more. When I started acting on sustainability, I looked for organizations to work with, but found none doing the leadership that I considered essential but i couldn't find anyone doing. I only learned enough about Extinction Rebellion to see it wasn't doing what I thought ...
593: How I disconnected from the electric grid in Manhattan for 2 weeks (and counting)
June 11, 2022 22:21 - 40 minutes - 21.3 MB"Your story is truly inspirational": feedback from an attendee. The government advisory Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board invited me to speak on sustainability leadership Wednesday. I spoke on what led to my experiment going off-grid in Manhattan, two-and-a-half weeks at the time. Here's the video of the presentation, which includes the slides I refer to, though here is the Venn diagram and here is the footprint chart. Here's the audio for that presentation. It starts a bit slow, but st...
592: We're thinking about and using solar and wind wrong. Here's how they could work.
June 09, 2022 15:39 - 7 minutes - 4.46 MBIncluding their greatest proponents, nearly everyone thinks of and uses solar, wind, and other so-called renewables wrong if their goal is to reach sustainability or to stop reducing Earth's ability to sustain life. They all pollute in manufacture, transportation, installation, maintenance, recycling end materials, and disposal. I'm not saying we can't or shouldn't use them. I'm saying using them as we do is exacerbating more problems than we're solving. Their shortcomings don't come from ...
591: Whitney Tilson, part 1: Acting on intrinsic motivation versus feeling you have to save the world
June 08, 2022 12:06 - 1 hour - 56.8 MBWhitney's background and accomplishments are incredible and we start with them. He shares his beliefs and mindsets that lead to his high performance in business, philanthropy, fitness, family, and more. Then we share a fun part of how I invited him to this podcast. After he, in a friendly, helpful way, cursed at some of his newsletter readers in criticizing their behavior during the pandemic, I cursed at him in the same friendly, helpful way. The email got his attention. It led to us meetin...
590: Ash Beckham, part 1: Being vulnerable, supporting others, growing yourself
June 08, 2022 03:08 - 54 minutes - 33.7 MBWe started from Ash's TEDx talks, which cover vulnerability, intimacy, and support. You can listen to our conversation on its own, but it won't hurt to watch them first. She could easily say, "As a lesbian, I have it so difficult," but she speaks more universally. Everyone has something difficult to share, hides parts of their identity, has been made fun of, has felt judged, shamed, or the like. She shares about opening up. She takes no high ground, nor victimhood. She reflects and shares i...
589: Abraham Lincoln and Sustainability, part 1: Is the US a racist nation? What should we do then?
June 05, 2022 20:49 - 13 minutes - 7.72 MBThe start of this episode's text: Regular listeners know I’ve been living with my apartment off the electric grid for two weeks, in Manhattan, not off in the woods. Most of the benefits are about connecting more with nature, being humble to it, not dominating it. I’m waking up earlier, for example, to work and read by daylight, so I don’t have to drain the solar-powered battery. Direct sunlight is free. Likewise, during a spell of three overcast days, I had to pay attention to my power use...
588: Mark DiMassimo, part 1: Leading with integrity
June 05, 2022 02:01 - 54 minutes - 35 MBWe start with one of the great cases of a corporation choosing to act with integrity in the face of pressure and incentive not to. Mark was part of the team that chose for CVS drug stores in rebranding to stop selling cigarettes. The choice was superficially difficult in that cigarettes made them billions of dollars in profit and their competitors could gain market share. But it was easy in that if they wanted to identify with health, there was no question. Mark shares inside views of that ...
587: Josh Martin, part 1: How to Reach the Ivy League and the NFL When You Start Late and Unprepared
June 02, 2022 22:04 - 1 hour - 40 MBRegular listeners know I love talking with professional athletes. They open themselves to failure every time they compete. They often make incredible feats look so simple and natural, we forget the years of dedication and effort that made it possible. Whether you want to play professional sports or not, you can adopt from them to reach your potential, which is one of my definitions of competition. I love talking to them because they share what happened behind the scenes. Almost always, as w...
586: My Kitty Hawk moment, on the way to a Moon Shot
May 31, 2022 01:10 - 13 minutes - 8.29 MBMore continual improvement: the more sustainably I live, the easier each next step. Business people know about continual improvement, also knows as kaizen, the Toyota Way. How do you go from the Wright brothers' airplane to a 747? Not in one jump. Continual improvement, part of the process I have to convey more. I share observations on my week without using the electric grid: about food, climbing stairs, timing sleep to use more sunlight, and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy ...
585: Douglas McMaster, part2: If a restaurant can run with no trash, we can too
May 28, 2022 02:53 - 1 hour - 41.4 MBWhen a man who founded a restaurant that uses no trash cans meets a guy who doesn't fly and hasn't filled a load of trash since 2019, we start by expressing mutual appreciation. Anyone can do these things. It's a matter of doing it. Doing it leads to experiencing similar challenges and overcoming them, facing similar resistance from people saying it's impossible, and enjoying similar feelings of reward at living by our values. Doug shares stories we can learn from of. One that I love is on...
584: Freedom, continual improvement, fun, and curiosity: day three only solar in Manhattan
May 25, 2022 16:00 - 34 minutes - 20.8 MBI share thoughts after two days using only solar power in Manhattan. After recording I turned off the circuit to the whole apartment. I'm on the roof now, charging the battery. The recording shares more. The main themes: freedom and continual improvement. Also fun and curiosity. Caption for the cartoon, which I refer to in the recording: "Look at that glassy stare, those vacuous eyes... He's been domesticated I tell you!" Link to a cspan video of Sebastian Junger, author of Tribe, which ...
583: Growthbusters called me extreme, so I responded
May 22, 2022 02:14 - 18 minutes - 10.9 MBThe notes I read from for this episode: “Lead by example”. I’m not leading by example. “Extreme” implies values, as does “middle ground” and “balance.” Everyone is extreme by someone else’s views. Everyone I talk to says they are balancing, that extreme is too much. What are you balancing with if one side is sustainability? How can the answer be anything but growth and unsustainability? People will say family, work, making money, but it doesn’t change that they are fueling growth and drivi...
582: Gaya Herrington, part 2: How to change systems
May 21, 2022 02:45 - 50 minutes - 27.1 MBGaya gets systems, how to change them, and not fall prey to rationalizations that sound tempting but are self-serving excuses like "individual actions don't matter" or "only governments and corporations can act on the scale we need." I loved this conversation for her knowledge and experience in what will reverse humanity's pattern of lowering Earth's ability to sustain life. She shares and elaborates on major points like that technology is just a tool that serves our goals and values. While...
581: Dr. Ambrose Carroll, senior, part 2: cultural differences on how we view the individual
May 18, 2022 02:43 - 1 hour - 33 MBAmbrose and I start by reviewing his commitment. After a bit, as best I can tell, we talked past each other. Every now and then, the Spodek Method doesn't resonate and this conversation looks like one of them. His description of how he sees the world and my read don't seem to overlap. I suspect he felt I didn't understand him or his world. I read him as guarded, not sharing his personal views and feelings. I think it might be interesting and possibly fun to hear it as a third person. I t...
580: How wrong your beliefs making you fear living sustainably
May 12, 2022 02:58 - 18 minutes - 10.6 MBAren't we living in the best time in history? Don't we have to keep pressing forward to avoid returning to medieval serfdom or the Stone Age and everyone dying young? No. History, anthropology, and archaeology show these beliefs wrong. Humans weren't living on the verge of starvation or nonstop working all day long. Other cultures than the one we descended from enjoyed more health, longevity, abundance, resilience, and freedom than we do, but we keep telling ourselves stories to make oursel...
579: Derek Marshall, part 2: Running for Congress, sharing honest personal experiences
May 10, 2022 03:08 - 30 minutes - 18.8 MBYou've heard every politician pay lip service on the environment. They talk abstractly about carbon dioxide levels, solutions to spend more money, and something about a future improved by electric cars and solar panels (conveniently missing how these "solutions" pollute). How many share their personal experiences? How many share their vulnerabilities we know they have? Derek shares his personal experience honestly facing environmental challenges himself. What does it feel like to see a plas...
578: Warren Farrell, part 2: Sex, race, and intimacy: How to listen and communicate
May 03, 2022 15:28 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBThis episode is available on video. Before our conversations, I tended to see Warren as mainly focused on issues where men and boys suffer that society doesn't see, downplays, or ignores. I still see him as a rare luminary on such issues. As he mentions, many people, up to the White House, seem unable or unwilling to consider the possibility. But I'm seeing him focusing on solutions, both systemic and individual. We start this conversation on communication, especially about listening, espe...
577: Michael Carlino, part 6: Discussing the moral case for fossil fuels (and more)
May 01, 2022 00:09 - 1 hour - 44.1 MBIf you've been following Michael and my conversations so far, you know to expect thoughtful, considerate conversation coming from different perspectives. Each time we find deeper understanding, share more, and listen more. You won't be disappointed this time. In this episode we talk about concepts from the book The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels and the philosophy behind it. Since I've started reading the Christian Bible, we talk about Romans and Philippians a bit too. Despite our different ba...
576: Nakisa Glover, part 2: The need to feel heard and act
April 28, 2022 02:37 - 49 minutes - 30.3 MBNakisa talks about her community in Charlotte, North Carolina, the environmental and social challenges it faces, the level of engagement, the biases in difficulties in engaging for people who work long or unusual hours, advantages to big businesses, and other challenges. She also talks about her work facing these challenges, organizing and enabling people to solve them. We talk about civic engagement beyond voting, acting beyond in election years, and running for office. In this episode, yo...
575: Chef Douglas McMaster, part 1: A restaurant with no trash cans because it produces no trash
April 26, 2022 03:09 - 44 minutes - 30 MBDoug is the opposite of the catastrophe we've made of the food industry. He created a restaurant with no trash cans; not for the customers, not for the staff, nor for suppliers. Talk about a role model. You can do it too. He can't do it for you. Neither can I. Only you can do it for yourself, but now you know you can. Step one: try. Step two: don't stop. Regular listeners know my disgust and disdain for how much garbage comes from food and doof industries. The streets of my once beautiful ...
574: Frances Moore Lappé: Food, Democracy, and Taking Back Control of Our Choices
April 23, 2022 17:59 - 57 minutes - 32.8 MBWe spend most of our time talking about Frances's latest book, Daring Democracy. I couldn't help sharing how, decades after reading Diet for a Small Planet, I realized it was the first source that started me on the path to embracing and loving sustainability. I started by describing that path and my gratitude. If you haven't read the book, if you wonder why I'm so impassioned and feel so much joy where others are bogged down in shame, guilt, helplessness, facts, burden, and such, I recommen...
573: Scott White, part 2: An energy CEO considers leading on sustainability
April 19, 2022 21:45 - 48 minutes - 28.7 MBScott went above and beyond acting on his sustainability commitment to run. He battled covid during training. Did the extra effort bring him down? On the contrary, since he did it for personal, intrinsic motivation based in his connection to the environment, he valued it more. I read curiosity on his part so shared my personal actions and systemic strategy different than the typical ones to switch from fossil fuels to so-called renewables. I say "so-called" because they require fossil fuels...
572: Geoff Colvin, part 2: Are we losing humanity when we lose touch with nature?
April 16, 2022 21:09 - 58 minutes - 37.3 MBGeoff's story of his commitment to act on his childhood memories of playing along the Missouri River in South Dakota starts off interesting, then turns exciting, thrilling, and ultimately life-changing. One of the things we most fear happened to him and he loved it. I think our conversation then grew more interesting. He's a storyteller and educator. He learned from the experience beyond what reading a book or reading a graph on carbon levels could reveal. We explored what nature brings to ...
571: Chef Dan Barber, part 1: Supporting the whole ecosystem and farmers at every turn
April 13, 2022 02:28 - 39 minutes - 25.4 MBDan Barber is helping revitalize our food system. We start by going over his background, how fear drove him maybe most of all. Then we get into what drives food: farms and soil combined with creativity. His goal is supporting farming from the most basic level. He doesn't oppose people shopping farmers markets. He comes alive describing discovering what farmers who know the land learned to practice: diversity, rotation, and all what it takes to grow wheat, for starters. The whole ecosystem. ...
570: Bill Benenson, part 1: Documenting and learning from the fascinating Hadza
April 11, 2022 00:07 - 1 hour - 39.5 MBIf you agree innovation and technology has its drawbacks, you may still worry: if we don't press onward, aren't we risking reverting to the stone age with thirty becoming old age and mothers and children dying in childbirth. Don't we store fat so well because our ancestors never knew when their next meal would come? I used to think that way. Learning about cultures that haven't adopted our technology-based culture relieved me of my ignorance. You've heard episodes with authors of books on H...
569: Stop funding Russia invading Ukraine
April 10, 2022 02:01 - 18 minutes - 10.6 MBPeople and nations are funding Russia's invading Ukraine, where tens of thousands have died and millions have become refugees. The laws of supply and demand dictate that any use drives up price, so any use helps fund Russia, being such a big supplier. Everyone acts like the only alternative to burning fossil fuels is burning different fossil fuels, as if humans haven't thrived for hundreds of thousands of years without them, generally showing higher signs of health, longevity, abundance, eq...
568: Etienne Stott, part 2: When you threaten the power of the establishment, it starts to kick back
April 08, 2022 00:19 - 58 minutes - 33.5 MBEtienne starts by sharing how his government in England is beginning to increase how much it threatens punishment for people protesting, including what he does as an MBE working with Extinction Rebellion. He sees that reaction as showing they are making a difference. I hear it is similar to what is happening in my nation, the U.S. In our first conversation, Etienne was already acting and protesting. Sustainability is among his highest priorities. He isn't just talking about it. He's on of t...
567: Nakisa "Sista Sol" Glover, part 1: Environmental Justice, Social Justice, Organizing, and Action
April 04, 2022 11:54 - 1 hour - 53.1 MBNakisa describes herself as naturally loving science, born into a hip hop world, combining these starting points. She starts by describing her journey growing up not learning that much about our environmental situation, seeing it as abstract and unrelated to her world, to being discovered for her ability to communicate, organize, and influence. The more she learned, the more she saw it as more than just affecting her life and community, it was critically damaging it. She saw the environment...
566: The CEO of Ford and Boeing, Alan Mulally: Leadership environmentalism should learn from
April 03, 2022 17:54 - 8 minutes - 4.93 MB"What I do doesn't matter," say many environmentalists as they order steak or buy tickets to fly some place. That's the addiction speaking. I recently heard Alan Mulally speak on how he led turning Ford around from losing tens of billions of dollars to number one in many categories creating joy, teamwork, and fun despite challenging work. Before being CEO of Ford, he led Boeing, among the two greatest promoters of pollution in the world. Nonetheless, because he leads, which I distinguish f...
565: Sam Quinones, part 2: Fentanyl feels worse but addicts more (like Facebook, McDonald's, flying, etc)
March 31, 2022 01:40 - 49 minutes - 33.3 MBIn one of the highlights (lowlights?) of our second conversation, Sam shares that fentanyl users don't like its experience as much as heroin's. On the contrary, it's worse. It pops them out faster from the euphoria, which makes them want to take more. It's a worse experience that addicts them more. Their suppliers don't care about the experience. They care that it sells more, which makes them more money. It's cheap to make, so they make huge amounts and flood the market, not caring about th...
564: Lauren Carlisle, part 1: Dancer, psychologist, philosopher
March 30, 2022 00:37 - 55 minutes - 30.1 MBLauren's unusual knack for attracting a refined mix of brilliance and emotional unavailability created a storied dating life from 2010-2019 which included actors, pick-up artists, doctors without borders (or was it boundaries?), CIA agents (who shouldn't have confessed that), astrophysicists, and Daniel J. Jones, author of the 2014 CIA Torture Report, who was portrayed by Adam Driver in The Report (2019), among others. Approaching 600 episodes and a few years into a personal podcast, I'm br...
563: Derek Marshall, part 1: Candidate for California's 23rd Congressional District
March 24, 2022 18:55 - 52 minutes - 34.4 MBDerek is looking to flip a district that has been moving more Democratic through demographic shifts and redistricting. Can he pull it off? He reached out to me partly to share and explore environmental and sustainability issues. After we cover more of his background, he shared the environmental situation of a potentially stunningly beautiful region, including Joshua Tree and Death Valley, but exurban growth threatens it. Many people claim the environment should not be political. Can politi...
562: Sam Quinones, part 1: America's addiction: opioids, meth, fentanyl (and fossil fuels)
February 24, 2022 21:22 - 53 minutes - 49.4 MBYou'll hear why Sam's books win so many awards: he deeply, personally explores fascinating, critical, current topics, then tells rich, detailed stories that get to their heart. He cares about the people he writes about and our tragic era as you the listener and reader. Meth and fentanyl, you can look in any small town, rural area, or big city---that is, everywhere---to see them sweeping and devastating the United States. Sam shares first his background and interest in learning where it come...
561: Scott Hardin-Nieri, part 2: Faith and Personal Challenge
February 16, 2022 14:53 - 43 minutes - 39.7 MBScott emailed me that he didn't explore wilderness meaninglessly listening to birds as much as he committed. From experience, I know some guests overcommit or for some reason don't complete their commitment. I asked him to share anyway, describing how I'm looking to share actual experiences. I don't want to imply it's easy for everyone. He magnanimously agreed to share. Nobody is perfect, but not everyone is strong enough to share, especially publicly. He described how he's felt spiritual g...
560: Geoff Colvin, part 1: How to Become an Expert
February 09, 2022 17:07 - 58 minutes - 53.3 MBMy first week's assignment to my leadership classes at NYU for years has been to watch Geoff's conversation with Charlie Rose. Geoff got his MBA at NYU, but somehow I took years to connect with him. He was delighted to be a guest. I assign Geoff's work because he communicates a message that you can become an expert and how to do it better than anyone. He speaks simply, eloquently, citing research, telling stories, and encouraging. In our conversation he explains and clarifies the meaning of...
559: The Silky Smooth Seduction of Addiction
February 09, 2022 03:38 - 45 minutes - 20.8 MBI decided to avoid putting screens on while I ate for a month. I expected to enjoy my food more, to find the euphoria I often feel from fresh, healthy food. I was surprised to find more the feeling of wanting to open a screen: a silky, seductive feeling that said, "It's good to turn on the screen. It's bad not to watch. You'll waste time if you don't put the screen on." The feeling came from inside. I've felt that feeling before, but I felt more conscious of it this time. I wasn't selling-f...
558: Michael Carlino, part 5: Which is the danger, lowering or raising the human population?
February 06, 2022 15:47 - 34 minutes - 31.4 MBThis conversation was one of the most fascinating I've had. I couldn't have had it when I was younger. Michael and I are learning each other's world view regarding population, our innate drives, how we create or deplete resources, and related topics. We both agree we want many humans prospering. Our world views differ in what creates the resources we need to live: more humans to create the resources or fewer humans to keep from depleting them. As a result, we each see the strategy the other...
557: Rollie Williams, part 1: Comedy and climate change
January 31, 2022 16:50 - 1 hour - 57.9 MBI hope you know Climate Town. Watch a bunch of episodes if you haven't. This Sustainable Life listeners and hosts talk about the show. It's funny and fun, yet intelligent and informative. On top of the content, I watch the backgrounds, which often take place where I live in lower Manhattan and where I went to school, at Columbia, where Rollie went to. So I contacted him and his team. We spoke. Within minutes I could tell why Climate Town is so funny. He and his team are funny. Immediately, ...
556: Judith Enck: Beyond Plastic's Founder and President
January 29, 2022 18:02 - 27 minutes - 25 MBJudith shares her work, motivation, and vision on a problem everyone sees killing people and wildlife, but shies from applying themselves to, maybe because we value our polyester clothes, bottled water, laptops, and such. Have we lost the ability to imagine the world before plastic was invented? Her perspective, vision, and plans are common sense, sadly not common, yet, but she's working to bring us there. We do not need to use as much plastic as we do. Beyond Plastic's mission, from its w...
555: EJ Perry, part 1: Brown's quarterback on clutch performance
January 25, 2022 12:46 - 41 minutes - 23.3 MBWho doesn't love knowing about something big before everyone else? EJ Perry is something big, a very talented quarterback being scouted by the NFL, coming from the Ivy League. Rarely do people reach pinnacles in multiple areas of life so young. (I'm posting early so you can know to see him play in the Shrine Bowl next week, February 3 at 8pm eastern on the NFL network.) Regular listeners know I like bringing top athletes to the podcast because they've faced challenges, victories, losses, a...
554: Sea walls won't protect us from our garbage. Stopping polluting gives us our best chance.
January 24, 2022 00:10 - 9 minutes - 5.83 MBMy notes that I read from for this episode: Sea wall for Manhattan, like Holland: expensive, huge, likely won't work Controversial already. Natural solutions might work better. Let's say they worked. On Staten Island, Fresh Kills Also everywhere, all coasts unprotected Now think of Cancer Alley Gulf coast, oil refineries and global toxic dumps All that pollution will be dispersed to seas and biosphere I'd guess hundreds of thousands of years Think of the suffering Challenge is more ...
553: Gaya Herrington, part 1: How far have we passed our limits to growth? What does that mean?
January 21, 2022 00:08 - 1 hour - 55.2 MBFive months ago, Gaya's work led to headlines like Yep, it’s bleak, says expert who tested 1970s end-of-the-world prediction. The 1970s predictions weren't exactly predictions, but the headline refers to the book Limits to Growth. If you're not familiar with it, we start by talking about it. We both consider its views and analysis among the most important. The book simulated possible outcomes for humans on Earth. Those outcomes varied from lots of happy people to billions dying. The authors...
552: Hilary Link, part 2: colleges and universities talk sustainability but rarely act. This college president does.
January 18, 2022 11:35 - 57 minutes - 53 MBHilary describes her commitments as achieving some success and some failure, but learned from both. We start with her personal experiences and memories of ice skating and cross country skiing as a child leading to her sometimes painful lessons today. More than just ice skating again, she took lessons with her child. Listen to her for the lesson and why it was painful, but I'll share that she learned to wear a helmet. She also talked about driving less, which led to what she could do with h...
551: Chad Foster, part 4: Flying to skiing, but not camping in the back yard
January 16, 2022 12:26 - 31 minutes - 28.6 MBIn this episode we talk about how to lead people, but I can't help notice on listening afterward how quick and easy it is for him to fly his whole family across the country several times a season, but impossible to pitch a tent in his back yard. Whatever effect I've had on other guests, it's not happening with Chad. What he shares about leadership, I agree with and his life transformation to adjust to circumstances he couldn't have predicted, we can all learn from, so I recommend listening ...