Episodes

June 2, 2022

587: Josh Martin, part 1: How to Reach the Ivy League and the NFL When You Start Late and Unprepared

Regular 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 eff...
May 31, 2022

586: My Kitty Hawk moment, on the way to a Moon Shot

More 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...
May 28, 2022

585: Douglas McMaster, part2: If a restaurant can run with no trash, we can too

When 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 do...
May 25, 2022

584: Freedom, continual improvement, fun, and curiosity: day three only solar in Manhattan

I 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: free...
May 22, 2022

583: Growthbusters called me extreme, so I responded

The 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...
May 21, 2022

582: Gaya Herrington, part 2: How to change systems

Gaya 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 w...
May 18, 2022

581: Dr. Ambrose Carroll, senior, part 2: cultural differences on how we view the individual

Ambrose 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...
May 12, 2022

580: How wrong your beliefs making you fear living sustainably

Aren'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 beli...
May 10, 2022

579: Derek Marshall, part 2: Running for Congress, sharing honest personal experiences

You'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 (conve...
May 3, 2022

578: Warren Farrell, part 2: Sex, race, and intimacy: How to listen and communicate

This 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 o...
May 1, 2022

577: Michael Carlino, part 6: Discussing the moral case for fossil fuels (and more)

If 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. Yo...
April 28, 2022

576: Nakisa Glover, part 2: The need to feel heard and act

Nakisa 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, advan...
April 26, 2022

575: Chef Douglas McMaster, part 1: A restaurant with no trash cans because it produces no trash

Doug 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 ...
April 23, 2022

574: Frances Moore Lappé: Food, Democracy, and Taking Back Control of Our Choices

We 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 ...
April 19, 2022

573: Scott White, part 2: An energy CEO considers leading on sustainability

Scott 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 h...
April 16, 2022

572: Geoff Colvin, part 2: Are we losing humanity when we lose touch with nature?

Geoff'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 m...
April 13, 2022

571: Chef Dan Barber, part 1: Supporting the whole ecosystem and farmers at every turn

Dan 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...
April 11, 2022

570: Bill Benenson, part 1: Documenting and learning from the fascinating Hadza

If 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. ...
April 10, 2022

569: Stop funding Russia invading Ukraine

People 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, ...
April 8, 2022

568: Etienne Stott, part 2: When you threaten the power of the establishment, it starts to kick back

Etienne 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 reactio...
April 4, 2022

567: Nakisa "Sista Sol" Glover, part 1: Environmental Justice, Social Justice, Organizing, and Action

Nakisa 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, seein...
April 3, 2022

566: The CEO of Ford and Boeing, Alan Mulally: Leadership environmentalism should learn from

"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 ten...
March 31, 2022

565: Sam Quinones, part 2: Fentanyl feels worse but addicts more (like Facebook, McDonald's, flying, etc)

In 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 mak...
March 30, 2022

564: Lauren Carlisle, part 1: Dancer, psychologist, philosopher

Lauren'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...