Episodes
Jan. 22, 2024
743: Benjamin Hett: The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic
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 actin…
Jan. 20, 2024
742: John Brooke, part 2: American slavery transformed to today's industry and anti-stewardship of our environment
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, includi…
Jan. 10, 2024
741: Tony Hansen, part 2: Volunteering hard labor creating meaning and generosity
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 re…
Jan. 6, 2024
740: Christopher Ketcham, part 3: Inside the mind of an “ecoterrorist”
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 rainfore…
Dec. 24, 2023
739: John Brooke, part 1: Deep history and how our culture formed
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 imperial…
Dec. 20, 2023
738: Jacqueline Bicanic, part 2: Sustainability doesn't cost time and energy, it gives it
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…
Dec. 15, 2023
737: Michael Gerrard: Considering a stewardship amendment with a foremost environmental lawyer
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 bein…
Dec. 6, 2023
736: Mattan Griffel, part 1: Online opioid addiction treatment that (actually) works
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 wha…
Dec. 3, 2023
735: Casey Mahoney, part 1: A Jazz Musician Lowering His Impact to 3 Tons CO2/Year in L.A.
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 w…
Nov. 29, 2023
734: Alon Tal, part 1: Israel, Hamas, and overpopulation from a former Knesset member
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 tha…
Nov. 25, 2023
733: Jacqueline Bicanic, part 1: Listener as Guest: Australian University Student, Very Active in Sustainability
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 eff…
Nov. 21, 2023
732: Siddharth Kara, part 1: Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives
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…
Nov. 18, 2023
731: Debate and Understanding on Population Projections with Wolfgang Lutz and Chris Bystroff
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 …
Nov. 8, 2023
730: Tony Hansen, part 1 : McKinsey's Director of Natural Capital and Nature
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 bu…
Nov. 4, 2023
729: How to Develop a Sustainability Leadership Culture in Your Organization: a Panel I moderated
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…
Oct. 31, 2023
728: Chefs Irene and Margaret Li, part1: Winning Awards Saving Perfectly Good Food
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 …
Oct. 27, 2023
727: Fun, liberation, freedom: How people talk after seriously acting on sustainability
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…
Oct. 24, 2023
726: Amy Westervelt, part 1: Showing What's Actually Happening Behind the Scenes
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 c…
Oct. 20, 2023
725: Gautam Mukunda, part 3: The Spodek Method Doesn't Always Create a Huge Mindset Shift
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 …
Oct. 11, 2023
724: Dr. Michael Greger, part 2: How Not to Age
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 …
Oct. 3, 2023
723: David Blight, part 2: A Constitutional Amendment on Stewardship Based on the Thirteenth and John Locke
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 helpi…
Sept. 30, 2023
722: Michael Forsythe: When McKinsey Comes to Town
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 busin…
Sept. 14, 2023
721: Jim Burke, part 1: The Most Beautiful Street in New York City?
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…
Sept. 11, 2023
720: Maya Van Rossum, part 2: You Don't Have a Right to a Clean Environment. You Have to Work for It.
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 pol…