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, rationalizing, justifying, or giving up.We also cover the behind-the-scenes of writing his book, developing his views, and living them.We also continue the parallel between his views on time and mine on energy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 Satyagraha Alliance Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 desperation. Our energy-ravenous culture cannot continue producing carbon without destroying the systems that are the basis of any advanced civilization, not to mention life itself. Something must be done, and quickly, to moderate the pressure on the atmospheric sink while powering the economic machine.The consensus on the need for scaling up renewable energy is rarely disturbed by a disquieting possibility: What if techno-industrial society as currently conceived — based on ever-increasing GDP, global trade and travel, and complex global production and distribution chains designed to satisfy the rich world’s unquenchable appetite for bigger, faster, more of everything — what if that simply cannot function without energy-dense fossil fuels? What if, despite the promises of Green New Deal boosters, it is impossible to make sustainable the current system that provides billions of people sustenance, shelter, goods?Christopher's article this conversation is based on: The Green Growth DelusionDonate to Chris's nonprofit, Denatured (I did)Less Is More by Jason HickelSmall Is Beautiful Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 trying? I will be the first to say I lack experience explaining myself in this area. I just haven't had the chances, which is part of why I valued this conversation so much.The Do the Math blogMichael Albert's Wikipedia page and videosJane O'Sullivan's World Population Day Presentation that debunks population mythsMy sustainability leadership workshopRobert Carter III, who freed 100 slaves starting in 1791The largest B corporation to date was led by Lorna Davis, a guest on this podcast. Here are her episodes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 leaders to sustainability because they have learned not to hide vulnerabilities, at least not all of them. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 racism, that system can continue and perpetuate the racism. At a certain level, I knew it already, but it hit me more viscerally when Leah explained it. You'll hear.The Just Action web pageJust Action on Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

[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 third state with a green amendment.She describes the value of an amendment over statutory law, how current legislation doesn't prohibit pollution it legalizes it, the state of the movement, and goals.If you, as I did, considered environmental amendments interesting but far-fetched, you'll love this episode. Maya is achieving the seemingly impossible and showing it's beyond possible. It's happening.She is the Delaware Riverkeeper, leading the watershed based advocacy organization, the Delaware Riverkeeper NetworkGreen Amendments for the GenerationsHer book: The Green Amendment: the People’s Fight for a Clean, Safe, and Healthy Environment Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.