This Sustainable Life

I first read about Margaret and Irene and their book Perfectly Good Food: A Totally Achievable Zero Waste Approach to Home Cooking in an article on doof in the New Yorker. Then the next week the magazine devoted an article just on them and their approach to avoiding wasting food by eating it all.You might say to me---someone who avoids packaged food, in his fifth year on one load of trash, who eats citrus peels, who almost never throws away something edible---their perfect for you. But avoiding waste alone wasn't what made me invite them here.What made me invite them here was their attitude: They're fun! They make enjoying every last bit of food fun. I invited them here because I'm working on changing culture and they belong to the culture I do, which is joy, freedom, fun, and delicious. I don't hear anything from them that's obligation, judgment, telling people what to do, our what I call CCCSC bludgeoning (convincing, cajoling, coercing, seeking compliance).They also win awards and organize community.Listen for the fun and freedom of it. Enjoy never throwing food away again.Their restaurant, cafe, community center: Mei Mei Dumplings Factory, Cafe and ClassroomThe New Yorker article on them: The Sisters Behind the Fridge-Cleanout DinnerThe New Yorker article on doof that mentioned them the week before: The Perils of Highly Processed Food Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Evelyn joined the first workshop I led in the Spodek Method: practicing it, leading others through it, and how to create a movement. She then became the teaching assistant for the next two workshops.The liberation, fun, and intimacy of sharing one's fears, anxieties, and other vulnerabilities from acting more sustainably in a corrupt culture that makes it hard, all the more so in teaching others to reveal these things and still to act, led us to get to know each other. We decided the world could benefit from hearing how people who have acted to live significantly more sustainably sound: fun, playful, but still challenging.We decided to livestream our conversations for people to join and ask questions. Setting up the technology is taking time. Do we wait to figure everything out before starting? Hell, no! We just started recording with what we could. When we get livestreaming working, we'll do it there and hope you can join us to ask questions, challenge us, and whatever you want.In the meantime, here's how we sound. We start with Evelyn sharing about a sustainable cooking workshop she led at a culinary school with a chef. He invited her as an expert even though she only started anything on sustainability about six months ago. Then I talk about my third annual cooking workshop I led in the Bronx. Many digressions and such along the way.Learn more about the workshop here. You'll love the experience.Our first recorded conversationOur second recorded conversation Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amy hosts and produces a lot of podcasts, but Drilled is the big one I've listened to a lot. I listen partly to learn what happens behind the scenes and in the past in the fossil fuel industry. She's also covered how these companies influence the public in what until about World War II was called propaganda but the advertising industry changed to public relations.As a podcaster myself, I wanted to know how she came to win all those awards, start all those podcasts, and found the company that produces them. If you think you've struggled and failed, you'll love her story since she struggled and failed on the way to success.I recommend listening to her podcasts. First listen to our conversation to learn about the person behind the microphone.Amy's home pageBy the way, I misstated about my friend's small car. It tops off at 25 miles per hour, not per gallon. It doesn't have an internal combustion engine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gautam and I had a lovely conversation about environmental things. He's become a good friend (we talk outside our recordings). Still, listen to determine for yourself, but I'd say this conversation exhibited a minor mindset shift if any. After we talked about Gautam's experience, we spoke mostly about abstract environmental issues, not personal ones.He spoke about some difference in his views and feelings brought on by his commitment, but mostly he talked about the beauty of nature flying-distance away. I want to help people find the beauty or any value they like of nature where they are, or realize that it's possible, or worth fighting to restore if we've paved too much of it over.So it's a different conversation than usual---both friendlier between us and more abstract on his connection with the environment---though you might hear differently. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I follow Doctor Greger's newsletter and watch his videos every week. I unsubscribe from nearly everything else.In this episode we get a sneak preview of his next book, How Not to Age. Since he mostly covers diet, I wanted to check how much the book covered. Since my biggest problem with aging is my torn meniscus, I looked it up first, and the book covered torn menisci.Since my diet overlaps so much with his recommendations, I shared my diet and exercise. We talked about his book, his web presence, and what I love: behind-the-scenes stuff.I also shared my doof concept with him and he started using the term too. He's on a book tour, so we kept it short, but if nutrition is important to you, listen.Nutritionfacts.org Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I've spoken to several guests about the idea of a constitutional stewardship amendment in the style of the Thirteenth Amendment, complementary to a Green Amendment. Amendments tend to pass in waves so I could see them helping build a movement together.David knows as much about the history of the need for the Thirteenth Amendment, its evolution, and its passing. In this conversation I share some of what I learned since our first conversation. I read him as supportive of something new and promising. I'm biased since I wanted to hear what will motivate me. Listen for yourself to a conversation that may be an early part of a historical movement.As I've said before, an amendment wouldn't solve our environmental problems and it can only pass with overwhelming popular support, but the idea of it can make it possible and without it many environmental problems will never end. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When I started business school at Columbia, I hadn't heard of McKinsey. The Firm recruited heavily there, so I found out about them, but little, since they were so secretive. I learned more from my classmates, that the business world held them in high regard. People wanted to work there.I interviewed and learned I got high reviews there, but I had entered business school to improve as an entrepreneur and stayed on my path. Several friends worked there and at its peers Boston Consulting Group and Bain, as well as other consulting firms like Deloitte.I heard about Michael's book while I was reading books on colonialism, especially Heart of Darkness and King Leopold's Ghost. Leopold crafted a public persona of a benevolent philanthropist helping end the Arab slave trade in the Congo while creating a huge, cruel slave state he profited from. Given what I knew about McKinsey, I read several reviews and watched videos of the authors. They showed a company crafting a benevolent philanthropic image while profiting from others' suffering---promoting tobacco, opiates, dictatorships, and, most relevant to sustainability, oil and petroleum states.Maybe I was looking for patterns that weren't there, but they made me wonder how much McKinsey and its peers had become a modern King Leopold. The book presents some devastating finds. It's well researched, as you can imagine how anything it revealed wrongly could prompt lawsuits. Beyond McKinsey's work with the world's most polluting corporations and nations, many McKinsey people transitioned to help run some of the world's most polluting companies, including previous guest and three-time Global Managing Director Dominic Barton.In our conversation, Michael reviews some of the book and shares back stories into how he and his coauthor Walt worked. We treated many areas of McKinsey's work, but focused on sustainability-related ones.Michael's column at the New York TimesHis book When McKinsey Comes to TownIts review in the Times: Book Review: “When McKinsey Comes to Town,” by Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After reading about 34th Avenue in Queens and watching the video linked below, I had to ride to see it. Over a mile of a once congested street was transformed into safer, quieter places people enjoyed, especially kids. There are three schools along the route. The kids can come out and play.I met Jim there, felt inspired to do something similar near me, and invited him to the podcast. He talks about what made it possible, what's happened since it started, resistance, celebration, and more.After we recorded, we walked around my neighborhood and he showed what streets would work best to start the program with. I'm already starting to act.Before we overbuilt streets for cars, people did fine without cars. Once built, people adjusted their lives, forgot how things worked before, and claim they have no choice to drive. They act like this privilege and addiction helps the poor it impoverishes or people who can't walk everywhere whom it traps.The answer is to change our environment so cars aren't so necessary. People can adjust back.Please listen to my episode with Jason Slaughter of the video series Not Just Bikes for more advanced city changes. The U.S. is sorely lagging.Queens’ 34th Avenue Shows What Open Streets Can Do for People34th Avenue Oral History on Jim BurkeDesigning Open Streets video Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you think government should protect people's life, liberty, and property? What if it turned out it didn't, if it said other people could destroy your life, liberty, and property, and would help them do it?That's what pollution does. A lack of a clean environment means that someone polluted it and hurt you, your children, your loved ones. You don't have a right to a clean environment if you are an American, or likely anyone. Instead, others have the right to destroy your life, liberty, and property.Three states have amendments where you can sue for it, but it's hard and the nation doesn't overall.What would you do if you lost your right to free speech? Would you not work like hell to restore it? Wouldn't you recognize that others would figure out ways to profit from limiting your speech, maybe charging you for it, as a bottled water company would charge your for water? You'd act fast to prevent them from eroding your lost rights more and holding them from you.Maya is doing that work for your potential right to a clean environment. We start with this perspective, then consider how serious it is, what you can do about it, and how important it is.In short, you would much prefer life with the right to a clean environment at the constitutional level, as much as you want all the rights in the Bill of Rights. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Regular listeners and blog readers know my developing abolitionism as a role model for a sustainability movement. I've hosted several top scholars on the history of abolitionism in England and America, as well as the relevant constitutional law.Today's guest is a top historian and I found our conversation fascinating. He knows the history like an encyclopedia and can analyze it to answer my questions immediately.We talk about anti-slavery politics, abolitionism, Frederick Douglass's interpretation of the Constitution over time and in comparison to William Lloyd Garrison's and slave owners', and more.The big question we pursue is can we use the Constitution to make our nation sustainable? If so, how?You'll hear I'm narrowing in on answers. David and I will speak again. This conversation sets the groundwork. I believe it's history in the making, in that it's leading to political solutions for our environmental problems caused by our culture.David's home pageDavid's page at Yale Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.