Leadership And The Environment

What does the world look like today with regard to our environmental situation? Not the latest news about a disaster we can write off as a one-time event, even if yet another once a once-in-a-century event now common, but what does it look like on the ground. We know there have been record-breaking fires, floods, and storms. What are they like?David travels the United States to record what he sees and reports it in Traveler's Guide to the End of the World. He comes from a literary background, so he puts it in the context of past nature writers. He also has a daughter so asks scientists what the world will be like when she is his age. The book is not always easy to read, but always engaging and fascinating.He represents nature. He declines to lead about it, which, if you know me, I see as the most important course we can take, but there's no denying the value of seeing the world as it has become.In our conversation, he shares his background, motivations, and the process of researching and writing.We talk about

With Peter Singer, I could have picked several topics relevant to sustainability leadership: veganism, vegetarianism, and charity come to mind, as does my post about him six months ago, Fixing Peter Singer’s drowning child analogy for sustainability. The day before recording, I saw him speak live and asked during the question-and-answer period at the end about not flying.He answered thoughtfully and reflectively, not with the usual reactivity and emotional intensity most people do, protecting their feelings of guilt and shame, as I see them (I wrote The reason you feel judged isn’t because environmentalists are judging you. It’s because you have a conscience.) Several audience members told me they appreciated my asking the question. So when we spoke after he finished his stage performance, I asked if he'd mind following up the question in our podcast conversation.So we spoke in more depth about flying versus not flying. I think I can safely say we both learned from each other, though I think he hasn't spoken

You won't hear many finance people promoting more taxes, though it's increasing. Bob talks beyond our conversation a few weeks before about a carbon tax, integrity, permanence, standards, measurement, and many different angles. He talks about responsibility and holding the companies creating the problems responsible. It just takes courage.Regular listeners know I find that when anyone focuses only on carbon, greenhouse emissions, and climate, they almost always miss our other environmental problems, like plastic, pollution, deforestation, and you know the rest, Bob agrees the tax incentive should apply to these other areas, though I'm not sure he acts on them. It's easy not to change the system, but to make it more efficient and accelerate it overall, even if you lower problems in one part of the system.But mostly I wanted to hear his views and strategies, not press, so I hope I listened more than challenge.He also shared his inside views of people in finance approaching a tipping point of realizing we have t

Matt shared last time about the redwoods I keep hearing about in California that I've never seen but find they transform people.His goal was to plant a tree. He ended up with a new tree, plus he planted other plants. Listen to hear the story. More than what he did, I recommend listening to his emotional experience. Did he have to do all the things he did? Could he do other things that are more mainstream but might pollute more if he wanted?We talked first about the problems with what most people mean when they talk about teaching children, helping poor people experience nature, and a few other tactics people promote without thinking them through, as I believe. They sound great. What are they missing?Matt has thought through such issues more than most and was patient enough to let me share some of my views. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I met Bob at a conference on climate at my old school, Columbia Business School. He knew another participant, Gernot Wagner, with whom I recorded an episode I'll post soon, and was a peer with past guest Mark Tercek. I didn't work in finance, but I understand Bob and Mark were like dieties there.Bob brings two huge new things to climate (he talks about climate almost exclusively among our environmental problems, though we touch on others briefly in the conversation). First, he knows risk management. Most of his career, he didn't think much about the environment, but when he learned about it, he identified that we have to manage risk, so he dove into the issue.Second, he connected with a group of conservative politicians promoting what he sees as the most effective solution: a carbon tax. That he's working with groups normally seen as resisting climate action could bring people together.Also, just after we recorded, the New York Times published a big piece on Bob: A Renowned Economist’s New Idea for Stopping C

Population modeling can be hard, as is figuring out a prediction's accuracy, therefore how much confidence to give your conclusions. Many people can't hear talk about population without hearing things like eugenics and racism even when they aren't there.But population is one of the most important factors in sustainability. Everything becomes easier when population isn't near or above what Earth can sustain and harder when it's above.I came to Chris from reading his paper on modeling population growth, Footprints to singularity, which showed a couple things. It clarified that UN and peer projections lacked feedback mechanisms so couldn't show population decline. If your model can't show a population decline, it will blind you to the possibility and therefore keep you from preventing or preparing for it. It also leads you to ask, "how do we feed ten billion people" instead of seeing that we can't without causing a steep drop in population soon after, a pattern called overshoot and collapse.Second, it showed a g

In what looks to me like one of the biggest overcommitments of guests on this podcast and participants in the Spodek Method, Dan shares that to free his mind for meditation, he ended up selling his motorcycle and Playstation.Then we spoke about coaching and leading people to reach their potentials, which he experienced on the receiving end in reaching the Olympics twice and does now with others, and he appreciates me doing in corporations and on sustainability. You'll hear we both admire each other and are learning from each other.A curious note: you'll hear me puzzled at his tone, which I couldn't place. It didn't convey the sense of accomplishment and freedom his words did. We're still getting to know each other.I also think he expects acting more sustainably to take more time and money, when I find it frees both. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How do you feel when you mean to do something but don't do it. Do you tell people about it? Do you hide it?Nearly no one is acting as much on sustainability as we need to to avoid disaster. Beyond not acting, we aren't facing our inaction.How do you think a globally recognized productivity guy would feel and if he didn't yet do what he said he would? I've talked to people who have loved Oliver's book and columns. I think many would both be surprised if he didn't do something he said he would and would feel bad if they didn't do something they said they would.I love his writing. I consider his views on time and values new and valuable. Others share my views. But he's human, like all of us.I think the sustainability movement would benefit from more up front acknowledging our fallibility but not give up or rationalize and justify inaction. We benefit from learning from out mistakes and keeping going.In this episode, we'll hear how Oliver handles not doing a commitment but not hiding it, complaining, rationalizin

If learning what it's like to watch your team win an Olympic gold medal from the sidelines isn't enough, and if learning what it's like to grow up in a family beset with poverty and addiction before reaching Olympic level competition isn't enough, and if learning what it's like after four more years to win an Olympic medal isn't enough, I'd say the best part of our conversation comes after all that. Then we talk about bringing out the best in others as a coach.How do you find out how to coach each person, athlete, executive, or otherwise?How to you lead a team to give to their potential?How do you keep everyone motivated?How do you keep yourself motivated?We both deeply appreciate each other's experience. You'll hear us trying to learn from each other. I want to learn how to shift sustainability, which everyone gives lip service to, from trying to avoid losing to winning by having fun, giving everything we've got, learning our deepest values, and acting on them. Dan does those things.Dan's home page Hosted o

Matt invited me to his podcast, A Climate Change. We stayed in touch after recording. He shared that he ran for President, including supporting sustainability. A goal of this podcast is to bring elected officials of all stripes. While he didn't get that many votes, he ran for several reasons, including to run as a Republican opposing Donald Trump. Listen to our conversation to learn more of his motivation.I wanted to bring him here not for the campaign alone but for his acting with integrity and character, even if not a huge campaign. How many pro-sustainability, anti-Trump Republicans do you know of? I saw determination arising from personal action.I also learned he's trying some things, like buying a hydrogen-powered car. My research shows the science and engineering showing hydrogen cars won't work for most of what we use cars for, nor trucks, planes, or container ships, but he's acting on his values, not just pointing fingers. He will learn from the experience. Matthew Matern for President 2020The S

Christopher may be the most direct, accurate reporter on sustainability. Our last conversation treated his helpful and accurate reporting on the book Limits to Growth. Today we start from his (in my opinion) excellent article The Green Growth Delusion, in which he reports on the futility and false promise of chasing growth. It's tempting, alluring, and seductive to believe technology, growth, or economic trickery will save us, but wanting to believe something doesn't make it true, even if you really want to believe it.As before, Christopher doesn't hold back, nor does he speak inaccurately. I recommend reading the article first, though you won't go wrong listening right now. Here's how it starts:In the annals of industrial civilization, the Green New Deal counts as one of the more ambitious projects. Its scale is vast, promising to reform every aspect of how we power our machines, light our homes and fuel our cars. At this late hour of ecological and climate crisis, the Green New Deal is also an act of desper

The spiciest parts of this conversation come at the end. It's possible listeners may think we were annoying each other, but I think I can speak for both of us that we enjoyed the repartee.Anyone who has talked to me about my work since I started watching and listening to Daniel's What Is Politics? videocast knows it's shaped how I view politics, meaning how groups make decisions. If we want to change culture, he covers much of the core. If we want to undo some people dominating others, it helps to know how dominance hierarchies form. The core is in anthropology, which shows how humans have related to each other going back hundreds of thousands to millions of years, and current material conditions.We talk about creating videos versus writing books. Daniel shares a lot of backstory to his creating What Is Politics?, including his goals and greatest hurdles.At the end things heat up as I share what I want to do, which he sees as impossible and a waste of time. Do you think he's right? . . . or that I should keep

I've been recommending Oliver's book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals a lot. When people ask about it, I have a hard time explaining what it says, only that it's valuable. He has a way of communicating important things about values, time, intent, decision, and related concepts that are hard to express otherwise. In this conversation he shares more.One thing I can express that I value: what he says about time parallels what I say about energy, specifically energy as physicists describe it, not emotional energy. We don't have infinite amounts of time or energy. If we see life as missing out on what we lack time or energy for, we'll crave what we lack. We'll be insecure. If instead, we recognize we don't have time or energy to do everything we'd enjoy, we can construct the lives we want, which will be abundant.Being an episode 1.5 means he only started doing the commitment from last time, but is gracious enough and a leader enough to share, regroup, and if we can find another way forward. I bring

This podcast and my mission are about changing culture. The Color of Law compiled our culture's practices that I can only see as cruel and unfair. As long as they're hidden, we can't do much about them. Listen to my episode with Richard and read that book if you aren't on top of America's history of cruel and unfair housing policy.Once you're outraged, then what? In this episode, Leah answers that question. She shares at a high level what people can do in their communities.You'll hear a couple extra notes of interest from me. One is to see what techniques in the culture she's changing can apply in changing our culture in sustainability. The other is that my episodes with my mom talking about the racially integrated neighborhood she and my father chose to raise us in, as well as the neighborhood itself, Mount Airy, Philadelphia, factored into her research.You'll also hear me recognizing a new element in how a cultural practice could start for one reason, say racism, then even after people in that system oppose

[Click to watch the video of this post.]Can Learning to Lead Sustainability be fun, inspiring, and effective?Yes!I just finished leading my first workshop in leading oneself and others effectively to act more sustainably: enduring systemic change and immediate personal change.Best of all: it was FUN! . . . both the workshop and the action it led to.Don’t take my word for it. Listen to the participants results.Today's post is the audio from a conversation with them on their experiences.Better yet, watch the video.You can learn to help change culture and restore a safe, clean, healthy world.We're organizing two summer 2023 cohorts. If you want to help fix our world, sign up at https://spodekleadership.com/workshop Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Some context leading to my conversation with Maya:When I first thought of a constitutional amendment to protect us from pollution, I thought the idea was crazy, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. The more I did, the more it made sense.Since learning about the Thirteenth Amendment prompted me to think of it, I first spoke to previous guest James Oakes about it. Since it involved constitutional law, I spoke to previous guest (and Nobel Prize holder) Seth Shelden, who put me in touch with his constitutional law professor and previous guest Michael Herz. Besides my conversations with them one-on-one, I also spoke with Michael and Jim together. I recommend listening and watching those conversations for context.My conversation with Maya:Then I learned of Maya's work with "green amendments," as she calls them, at the state level as a foundation for the federal level. She has been working on it for years. She shares that history, including a major win in Pennsylvania and New York State's recently becoming the thi

See the video for this episode here.I speak about the concept of a constitutional amendment on the environment with former guests on the This Sustainable Life podcast:Michael Herz: Constitutional scholar and former lawyer for the Environmental Defense Fund (Michael's podcast episodes)James Oakes: US historian, focusing on the Revolutionary War to Reconstruction (James's podcast episodes)We approach the concept from many perspectives, especially comparing it with the Thirteenth Amendment.This is my first conversation with two experts on a topic I'm just starting to learn about based on very detailed fields, including law, history, abolitionism, and politics. I have to start somewhere. We recorded this conversation months ago and I've learned tremendously since. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the first part of our conversation, we start by reviewing Gautam's commitment to sailing, which seemed and still seems a good idea to him. but maybe too much for now. We revisit what motivated him and come up with a new commitment.The second part gets more exciting. Gautam expresses that we need to develop technology to help people who aren't living as well as us so we can help them. (I may not have summarized accurately; listen to his recorded words for his precise meaning.) This view is like waving a red flag to me since I used to think things like that but now see otherwise.We engage in different views on technology, progress, how humans used to live versus how we live today, values, and such.In other words, we openly talk about the underlying beliefs driving our culture and individual behavior we don't question or talk about, but that guide our decisions and behavior. If we can only imagine a world working a certain way, we can't change course. If that course leads to billions of people dying, being st

Chris returns to share his experience with the Spodek Method. He did something different than he committed to: he stopped using his smart phone---the latest Apple iPhone---in favor of a simple flip phone hearkening almost back to the nineties.What happens? Does his life fall apart? Does he find more calmness?Should you simplify your life by avoiding the call for the latest and greatest?He shares his experience and you can find out (I'm not sure he did it for this podcast, in that I think he was planning to do it anyway. Still, he shares his experience). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Simon is a mining engineer who both researches the minerals and mining necessary if we were to try powering our culture with various sources. His work has brought him to work with government teams, especially economists and politicians around the world.He shares in our conversation that we will transition to a low-energy future, what it will take, and how little we have tried to figure out if we can do it. It's worrying to hear how poorly we understand the problem, how unprepared we are now, and how poorly we are preparing ourselves.What he shares is challenging to process considering the risk for catastrophe coming up. Situations like he describes is why I act so much. If you think scientists, engineers, politicians, or anyone understands the situation better than you and you can have faith people smarter than you will solve it, don't hold your breath.I don't understand how people don't take responsibility, prioritize solving these problems, and act.Simon's home pageLink to GTK videos: There Are Bottlenecks