Episodes

Feb. 18, 2023

671: How Pulling Off a Challenging Day Off Grid Feels

Last night I had trouble falling asleep because before getting in bed, I noticed I had to record two podcast episodes first thing in the morning but I wanted to cook some stew, the forecast was for rain all day, and didn't t…
Feb. 15, 2023

670: Jeffrey Shaw: Self-employment and Sustainability

Do you want a job working in sustainability? If you want to wait for a job in the field, you're going to wait for a long time. Most businesses' models depend on growth, extraction, and exploiting resources. Many of the bigge…
Feb. 11, 2023

669: David Loy: Ecodharma: Zen Buddhism and Sustainability

What can we learn from Buddhism to understand and respond to our ecological crisis? This question is the heart of David's focus, as I understand it. We started by describing his journey from a more mainstream American childh…
Feb. 9, 2023

668: Christopher Ketcham: Growthism Versus Sustainability

Reading Christopher's story in the Pacific Standard, The Fallacy of Endless Economic Growth What economists around the world get wrong about the future , made me contact him. It was one of the only reviews of criticism of ou…
Feb. 6, 2023

667: James Oakes, part 1: Sustainability and Abolition in the United States

The only was I can see how we can avoid environmental disaster leading to human population collapse is by changing our culture---every unsustainable culture but America most, as the most polluting per capita large nation. Ca…
Feb. 3, 2023

666: Mark Plotkin: Learning From Indigenous Cultures, the People Not Just Our Projections

Every step I take toward sustainability leads me to learn how much humans have figured out how to live sustainably. I'm far from living sustainably, though I've come a long way. We are wiping out the cultures living sustaina…
Feb. 2, 2023

665: Tony Hiss: Rescuing the Planet: Protecting Half the Land to Heal the Earth

Tony turns out to live a few blocks from me. I met him at his home, where we recorded. He shared his experience knowing E. O. Wilson, who, as Tony described, conceived of the plan to protect half the Earth's land to protect …
Jan. 31, 2023

664: Rodrigo Cámara-Leret: Learning how the Kogi heal the land

Ethno-botonist Rodrigo Cámara-Leret first describes how podcast guest Alan Ereira chose him to live and work with the Kogi, who want to share, in my language, how to stop wrecking the biosphere. He has visited them and seen …
Jan. 28, 2023

663: Nadeem Akhtar, part 2: Breaking a Doof Addiction Can Be Harder Than Expected

Nadeem committed to reducing his doof. He bravely shares the challenge. Even in Norway, he's surrounded by messages to keep consuming it. Imagine any other unhealthy addictive substance---cocaine, heroin, etc---was advertise…
Jan. 25, 2023

662: Mark Mills, part 4: What to Do Next

I've said before and I'll say again that conversations like mine with Mark Mills are what I value and wish we had more of. We do our research, we have strong opinions, we agree on many things, we disagree on some things we c…
Jan. 19, 2023

661: Daniel, host of What is Politics?, part 1: Dominance, subjugation, hierarchy, and solutions

I can't tell you how valuable (and entertaining) I found Daniel's video series. Regular listeners and readers may know how important I find anthropology to solving our environmental problems. If we want to change our culture…
Jan. 17, 2023

660: Martha Nussbaum: Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility

Martha Nussbaum's new book, Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility , looks like it's about animals, but the more I read it, I found it about us, our values, and our behavior. Regular readers and listeners will se…
Jan. 14, 2023

659: My video series, episode 01, introduction, part 2: Spodek Method results

Part 2 of the introduction shares a few stories that illustrate the Spodek Method, a leadership technique to create mindset shifts and continual improvement on the environment. The optimism girds us for a more challenging ne…
Jan. 13, 2023

658: Rebecca and Josh Tickell, part 1: On Sacred Ground and the Dakota Pipeline

Watching environmental documentaries means having seen the Tickells' work, especially Fuel and Kiss the Ground , which they did with podcast guest Bill Benenson. Bill introduced us, though we scheduled this conversation to r…
Jan. 9, 2023

657: My video series, episode 01, introduction, part 1

Part 1 of the introduction shares a few stories to frame how I approach sustainability, then describes the outcomes I designed it to bring about, mainly to enable you to lead yourself to a more sustainable future that you'll…
Jan. 4, 2023

656: Kate MacKenzie, part 1: Executive Director of New York City's Mayor’s Office of Food Policy

Food touches nearly all environmental issues, as well as health, social, economic, political, and cultural. Cities like New York and their governance do too. Regular listeners know I talk about food waste, doof , packaging, …
Dec. 30, 2022

655: Donald Robertson, part 2: Seeking a Wolf

Donald committed to seeking out seeing a wolf. He shares about his experience on this commitment. He shares his deep connection and commitment to nature and how the project affected it. Donald thinks and acts in systems. We …
Dec. 28, 2022

654: Mark Mills, part 3: The Cloud Revolution

After I've read his recent book The Cloud Revolution, Mark and I continue our conversation on sustainability and what to do based on qualitative and quantitative understanding. I've also been listening to his podcast. I came…
Dec. 24, 2022

653: Mark Z. Jacobson: Roadmaps for 100% clean renewable energy

After I shared episodes on the hazards of solar and wind, as well as my experiment disconnecting my apartment from the electric grid in Manhattan (in month 8 as I type these words), a listener pointed me to Mark Jacobs. I ca…
Dec. 21, 2022

652: Carl Erik Fisher: The Urge: Our History of Addiction

I almost couldn't believe someone could write a book like Carl Erik Fisher's The Urge: Our History of Addiction . It tells the histories of addiction in human society since antiquity and of him, addicted, including in medica…
Dec. 18, 2022

651: Noah Gallagher Shannon, part 2: Uruguay is an environmental role model

The second part of my conversation with Noah, going into more detail about Uruguay and sustainability. The first part was episode 646 . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dec. 13, 2022

650: Brian Merchant: your phone's hidden environmental impact

The more I learn about electronic waste, the more disgusted I feel at how huge the problem is that we are exacerbating, often in the name of increasing efficiency or reducing waste. I've watched many documentaries, but here'…
Dec. 11, 2022

649: Listener Questions 04: What Started Me Acting Sustainably, Kids, and What to Do If You Don't Have Time

In this episode, I answer a question a listener emailed: Can you share more details on what exactly prompted you to make the switch to acting more sustainably and if it was abrupt or gradual. And perhaps more practical ideas…
Dec. 11, 2022

648: Michael Herz, part 1: The United States Constitution, Sustainability, and Pollution

Regular listeners know I'm thinking about applying Abraham's Lincoln solution: a constitutional amendment banning pollution. Here's an earlier episode on it: 613: Our Next Constitutional Amendment . It sounds crazy, but we'd…