006 – Mats Larsson – The Blind Guardians of Ignorance: Covid-19, Sustainability, and Our Vulnerable

Oct 28, 2020

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Interview with Mats Larsson author of: The Blind Guardians of Ignorance: Covid-19, Sustainability, and Our Vulnerable. A handbook for change leaders, young and old.

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blind-Guardians-Ignorance-Sustainability-Vulnerable/dp/1788360486

MATS'S WEB LINKS:

Podcast Page:

https://www.joshuasutherland.com/podcast-006/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro – Music
00:10 Intro – Mats Larsson
00:53 Explain the book title
01:37 What are the challenges for the future?
03:41 Sustainability is not about the environment? Peak oil?
06:12 Book structure. 1. Age of Ignorance. 2. Driving the Change. 3. Starting the Transformation.
08:34 The Age of Ignorance. Covid-19 exposes production challenges? Economic growth challenges? How to maintain growth?
16:20 What is the end state? Where do we want society to go?
18:46 Who is working on the economic research for stable state economies?
20:04 Why not follow Elon Musk to Mars?
22:59 Taking for granted luxuries of the modern world? Production systems are fragile?
25:46 How does Covid-19 change your thinking on these topics?
30:08 Efficiency removes buffers, but we need buffers for resilience?
32:31 Economic measures of resilience?
36:46 Growth model is in the human spirit? In our DNA?
40:16 "A handbook" for change leaders. What is a handbook and who is a change leader?
45:10 Change management. How slow change can be in large companies. Can we make such big changes in a quick time? Like WW2? Examples of these large endeavours.
54:13 Does IT technology not make things easier now to meet the challenges?
57:48 People are now experts. No one is looking at the big picture and addressing the big picture problems?
1:01:11 People are more interested in sustainability now, but are Greta's environmental protests useful? What should people do?
1:05:45 Large companies often have people with the skills needed. Business managers.
1:06:38 How did Mats get into this area?
1:10:06 Change in public awareness of the ideas over the last 30 years
1:14:07 How are these projects financed?
1:17:05 Electric vehicles. What is your advice for auto executives and governments?
1:24:24 Governments need to finance breakthrough technologies?
1:27:40 Do we need competition to tackle the challenges of the future? USA vs. China vs. EU ?
1:37:30 Tesla created their own infrastructure for electric vehicle charging. Good idea?1:41:36 We need people to run experiments of business models for sustainability?
1:48:35 What are the key points you would like a reader to take away from reading your book?
1:53:36 Rate to convert conventional vehicles to electric vehicles
2:00:25 How to get the book. When it is out? What is the cover like?
2:02:26 Final thoughts
2:04:03 Contact details