This Sustainable Life

We start with one of the great cases of a corporation choosing to act with integrity in the face of pressure and incentive not to. Mark was part of the team that chose for CVS drug stores in rebranding to stop selling cigarettes. The choice was superficially difficult in that cigarettes made them billions of dollars in profit and their competitors could gain market share. But it was easy in that if they wanted to identify with health, there was no question.Mark shares inside views of that story, then connects with leadership and integrity. We look at comparable cases, like New York banning cigarettes in the work place, people projecting losing business to New Jersey.Mark focuses on what changes behavior. He asked what someone can do. I suggested intrinsic versus extrinsic, which led to doing the Spodek/AIM Method. He participated and deconstructed it as we did it. You'll hear his enthusiasm for doing The Spodek/AIM Method, his commitment, and building on the technique. It seems inevitable that we'll collaborate beyond this one commitment. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 effort that made it possible. Whether you want to play professional sports or not, you can adopt from them to reach your potential, which is one of my definitions of competition.I love talking to them because they share what happened behind the scenes. Almost always, as with Josh Martin, it means hard work for a long time, but that view is too simple. What enabled working so hard? They aren't gluttons for punishment, nor automatons. What's their mindset? What's their physical attitude?Josh shares these things from behind the scenes: how he started not playing football and not doing well in school to playing at Columbia, then the NFL. It wasn't easy. He failed over and over, didn't fit in, struggled academically, and struggled athletically. Listen to hear what carried him through.Since he lives in Brooklyn, we recorded in person, one of my first since the pandemic, which makes the conversation more friendly (my apartment looks a lot smaller with an NFL linebacker in it).Today he's an entrepreneur, which we reach at the end, and you can learn more at his home page.Josh's home page Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 747? Not in one jump. Continual improvement, part of the process I have to convey more.I share observations on my week without using the electric grid: about food, climbing stairs, timing sleep to use more sunlight, and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Douglas McMaster, founder of a restaurant that uses no trash cans, discusses topics such as fermentation and mycelium furniture. They also explore the challenges of sustainable living, changing food habits, and the problem of waste and consumerism. The speakers touch on the importance of regenerative agriculture, connecting people to natural food, and the difficulties of communicating radical ideas.

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: freedom and continual improvement.Also fun and curiosity.Caption for the cartoon, which I refer to in the recording: "Look at that glassy stare, those vacuous eyes... He's been domesticated I tell you!"Link to a cspan video of Sebastian Junger, author of Tribe, which I refer to in the recording too. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 are balancing, that extreme is too much. What are you balancing with if one side is sustainability? How can the answer be anything but growth and unsustainability? People will say family, work, making money, but it doesn’t change that they are fueling growth and driving a system we are trying to change. Nobody said changing systems is easy, but systemic change begins with personal change.Our greatest challenge is not finding theoretical solutions on degrowth.If we want others to live by values like sustainability and stewardship, how can we influence them if we live by the excuses they do? If they hear us live by growth, why shouldn’t they? What’s the difference?Every person who resist degrowth agrees they prefer clean air, land, food, and water to polluted and nearly all say they have to balance, not be extreme.I would only ask this challenging a question if I had discovered that every step toward sustainability, while often hard at first, improved my life.When I hear someone say I’m extreme, it sounds like calling a parent who changes their child’s diaper extreme.If you own a pet or garden, you’ve changed your life more than I have.“It’s okay for Lloyd to set an example of living a 1.5 degree lifestyle that many many people aren’t close to.” My point isn’t the logistics of how to do it, but our values and character. No one raises their kid halfway. We do it out of love, passion, joy, fun, and all sorts of reward, no matter how much poop, vomit, injuries.My goal is to help people live by values of stewardship and freedom our culture has led us to suppress so much we think we should balance them with dishwashers and flying to vacation.If you want to experience the world, get rid of your bucket list. If you want to love your family, don’t fly to visit them rarely.I don’t want to sound like I’m pushing too hard on them. On the contrary, I believe that all of us, when we switch cultures, will wish we had earlier. I feel like I’m suggesting to a parent who abuses their child that they’ll prefer not abusing it? I don’t want to suggest nature or Earth are human children, but we sure are abusing them.When you pursue sustainability enough, you go through many transitions. One big one is from thinking of yourself first,.If I sound uncompromising, it’s because nature is uncompromising. Too many people measure their sustainability action by how much they feel like they tried. That’s why they say it’s so hard, so that every little bit counts for a lot. But two things. One, nature doesn’t respond to your feelings, it responds to your actions.Two, it’s not hard! It only looks hard until you commit and sweat the withdrawal.Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it.The Growthbusters podcastThe Growthbusters documentary Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 we need." I loved this conversation for her knowledge and experience in what will reverse humanity's pattern of lowering Earth's ability to sustain life.She shares and elaborates on major points like that technology is just a tool that serves our goals and values. While we value growth over sustainability, technology will accelerate our pattern of lowering Earth's ability to sustain life, not decrease it. We share our frustration with technology fans who misunderstand how technology affects our systems, thinking making it more efficient will lead to less pollution despite centuries of increased efficiency increasing pollution.She shares about the value of individual actions to change culture and oneself, including her picking up litter with her family. She shares how sustainability creates joy since we are social.She hints at her upcoming book, which is available now.Gaya's book (Creative Commons license, so no cost) is coming out next month. Link to come.A brief summary of her work: The Limits to Growth model: still prescient 50 years laterAn brief summary: Data check on the world model that forecast global collapseEarth4All: the project supporting her book Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

 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 of how he sees the world and my read don't seem to overlap.I suspect he felt I didn't understand him or his world. I read him as guarded, not sharing his personal views and feelings. I think it might be interesting and possibly fun to hear it as a third person. I tried to understand what he was saying and tried to clarify. He sounds like he was doing his best to speak to be understood. It just didn't reach me. He described how the black community operated, but I felt like he viewed me as unable to understand, being empowered and entitled, whereas people in that community were traumatized and not taught what they could do.His main point, as I understood, is that they "need more steps." I just couldn't get what he meant. I felt like he was trying to explain while keeping me separate and excluded, not explaining to include me.Sorry I couldn't write more clearly what to expect. Again, I suspect it might be fun, as a third person, to understand both of us better than we understand each other.Enjoy!  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 beliefs wrong. Humans weren't living on the verge of starvation or nonstop working all day long. Other cultures than the one we descended from enjoyed more health, longevity, abundance, resilience, and freedom than we do, but we keep telling ourselves stories to make ourselves feel better.This post contains the quotes I read from: Health and longevity of other culturesI read Kandiaronks' quote from the Kandiaronk Wikipedia page.The Wikipedia page on sloths. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 (conveniently missing how these "solutions" pollute). How many share their personal experiences? How many share their vulnerabilities we know they have?Derek shares his personal experience honestly facing environmental challenges himself. What does it feel like to see a plastic bag roll by in the wind like a tumbleweed in what was supposed to be in the middle of nowhere, untouched by people? How does it feel when humans' predominant effect on once-beautiful nature is poison? Do we face our feelings of helplessness, thereby enabling ourselves to do something about it, or deny and suppress them, claiming "solutions" that pollute actually clean, not because they do but because claiming they do mollifies our feelings?How do you run a campaign polluting less? What if your volunteers want pizza, but its disposable packaging pollutes? Will activating them to make preparing food part of the event engage them more? Will they enjoy local fruits and vegetables more? Can campaigning clean, boldly and honestly become a competitive advantage? If a campaigns ignores its personal impact, can you expect it will stop not caring after getting elected or will you expect it will find ways to excuse polluting after elected? Can Derek run his campaign clean to win loyalty and votes?Hear Derek face these challenges, the only way I see anyone can solve them.Derek's campaign page Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.