This Sustainable Life

No, it's not just a piece of cloth • Context ◦ Mark Meadows and Ben Carson tested positive ◦ US is spreading virus maybe most in world. White House more infections than Vietnam ◦ In fact there are more people in Ben Carson with covid than in Vietnam. ◦ Masks halt spread. ◦ People say tragic that it's become political, but even so, it's just a piece of cloth. Just wear it. ◦ "A mask is not a politi...

Michael Moss had already risked his life as a reporter in Baghdad, where he interviewed Islamic militants and exposing that US marines lacked body armor. He had also already won a Pulitzer prize for reporting on food. Then he wrote Salt Sugar Fat , which has become one of the core books on the field of the food and doof industries. For me, the title has become one word, SaltSugarFat, to which I of...

From a leadership standpoint, acting on sustainability and the pandemic overlap. You probably see Ashish's name everywhere too. He's in the thick of it at the highest national level. He shares an inside view of the political happenings on responding to the pandemic. He also shares the emotional experience---the frustration at seeing people dying unnecessarily. I think you can tell that despite the...

Why do I act on sustainability when everyone around me says there's no point? Faith. This episode shares a few words about faith. If you lack it, I think you'll prefer living with it, especially about things you care about. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We've seen suggestions to defund the police. Many on the left consider it an obvious step. Many on the right think it's loony and will lead to society falling apart. I propose a way forward, building on my civilian service academy idea from a past episode, putting responsibility to act first on those proposing the idea. It would be hard, but if people seriously believe other agencies can do some t...

Following up my conversations on sex, drugs, and rock & roll with Dov, previous podcast guest Dan McPherson of Leaders Must Lead and I talk about race. We start be reviewing our relationship and why we chose to record a conversation on race. We then talk about risks for white people talking publicly about race, even innocent topics everybody would value being covered. Frankly, I feel vulnerabl...

Mark Tercek stands tall in environmental action. He was president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy for 11 years. From Wikipedia: "Founded in 1951, The Nature Conservancy has over one million members, and has protected more than 119,000,000 acres of land and thousands of miles of rivers worldwide. The largest environmental nonprofit by assets and revenue in the Americas, The Nature Conservancy ran...

Rip committed to avoid waste through coffee, which he describes as harder than he thought. Wait a minute. A three-star Marine Corps general is describing not using coffee cartridges as hard? In the Millennium Challenge we talked about in our first conversation he led a team taking on the best of the entire US war machine and won. How hard can coffee be? That's the point of this podcast. Personal c...

Eric Orts is a tenured professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is also exploring a potential race for the U.S. Senate: the seat from which two-term Senator Patrick Toomey has announced he will retire in 2022. On this broadcast he promises, as an expression of his values, not to fly for the next year. He pledges further, if he decides to run for office, not to fly duri...

My goal in this podcast is to bring leaders from many fields and share what made them effective. I believe sustainability and stewardship would benefit from learning more effective leadership. A goal with each guest is to feature them. Everyone is unique. Everyone brings something we can learn from. Sometimes I don't achieve my goal. Sometimes a guest and I end up talking at cross purposes, which...

The rest of my story riding 100 miles a week and a half ago, where I gave up on myself, having lost faith in myself, but then getting lucky to force myself to finish. Only finishing strong showed I could do it. I've since fallen into the easy path of sharing my pride in finishing, but not the shame, guilt, and disappointment in myself at giving up. Finishing strong only reinforced my giving into t...

You're in for a treat. Joe and I start talking business so you'll hear things happening while we're talking. We start by talking about his exercising while we talk, then my plans to swim across the Hudson about 48 hours from the recording (and the guy I swam with holding out on the video footage I describe in another episode ). We talk about his picking up beach trash, but really about doing thing...

Jaime and my second conversation is enjoyable and challenging. It was different than usual because for whatever reason we're talking about views on environment, personal action, education, and so on, but I didn't get to the personal challenge I like to. It was enjoyable because we're both into it for exchange, education, and understanding. Challenging because we have to figure out where the other...

People criticize environmentalists as doomsayers while celebrating futurists. This episode shares key examples where the doomsayers were the ones saying acting sustainably would ruin us. On the contrary, in these cases and many others, doomsayers said changing our polluting behavior would undermine our way of life. Yet acting on sustainability improved our situation in these cases. I also share, b...

Bob and I begin lightheartedly, covering mulberry trees, gingkos, and how our views of nature change when we act in stewardship of it. Then I ask him about the decision as a conservative to endorse Biden. Question to you, the listener: will Bob describe that decision as hard or easy? Did he face serious repercussions, wide support, or something else? What would you do in his situation? I coul...

George's challenge involved people congregating outside, which California banned, increasing his challenge. Personally for him, Badwater got canceled for 2020, the race that starts in Death Valley and ends up, over 100 miles later on a mountaintop. Widely regarded as the hardest race in the world, he was looking forward to it. Can you imagine the training, then you feel like what was it for? So li...

I speculate why environmentalists can be so annoying sometimes and why you'd still like to become like them, just not the annoying part. This episode will help you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nir and my second conversation covered how I inspired him and how he inspired me. If I'm not too presumptuous to say I inspired him, the first part is about his choosing to avoid flying. Several months into the pandemic, we're all used to not flying, but when he committed, before the pandemic, most people I talked to called not flying impossible. By contrast, Nir emailed me about 24 hours after ou...

The not-flying-by-choice community is fairly small. About 80 percent of humans can't fly because they can't, but among people who can but choose not to, we're limited. Still, I can't believe I only found out about Maja recently. A few minutes into her TEDx talk , I knew I had to bring her on. She's avoided flying about double how long I have. I could hear from her every sentence that she's had to...

Everyone can lead when everyone around them agrees. How about when your conscience tells you what's right differs from everyone around you? Bob Inglis is a former Congressman from South Carolina---the reddest district in the reddist state, as he puts it. The short story is that he stated he believed the science behind climate change. That was ten years ago. They voted him out. You'll hear in this...

I first crossed paths with Coleman at a conference that previous guest Jonathan Haidt organized on promoting viewpoint diversity in academia. I hosted a breakfast panel discussion. Coleman spoke on a panel later that day. He shared views that sounded reasonable and well-expressed, but I also knew social media mobs attacked him, though not often engaged. You hear about situations like that. I wante...

Here are my notes that I read from for this episode: Play Thomas N. Todd recording Repeat it, explaining from ad campaign Context was civil rights---that is equal rights for blacks as for whites in the US. I don't know context but I think pointing out that blacks who could fight best---educated, could speak to whites best---instead of helping other blacks would rather be white and not fight for eq...

Are you fatigued from pandemic defenses like wearing masks and washing your hands? Is your community, like New York City, doing well? Do you feel since we're doing well, we can let up at last? Do you know what happens when competing against an opponent you can beat, but instead of playing to your potential, you play to theirs? You tie them or even lose . The fatigue we feel is mental and emotional...

Kelly is experienced in theory, practice, and community of W. Edwards Deming. If you don't know Deming, you'll hear from this conversation, but for context, growing up my top role models were Gandhi, King, and Mandela. As I practiced sustainability, I realized acting in harmony with nature and motivating others to connect with deeper values isn't exactly what they did. New role models emerged: Pat...

Kevin Cahill's grandfather, W. Edwards Deming, changed nations. An emperor awarded him a medal. If you don't know either, listen to the first few minutes when I describe him. Deming has become one of my top role models. He transformed nations in a few years---the time scale that climate scientists say we have, not that climate is our only problem. He shows what one person can do---the opposite of...