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 stuck in beliefs is a problem.I greatly appreciate a civil, productive conversation on topic that many find inflammatory.The paper on human lifetimes: Longevity Among Hunter- Gatherers: A Cross-Cultural Examination, by Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan. Michael Guvern was a guest on this podcast. Quoting from the paper:The average modal age of adult death for hunter-gatherers is 72 with a range of 68–78 years. This range appears to be the closest functional equivalent of an “adaptive” human life span. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 in Raw Materials Supply Chain – A Glimpse of the Systemic Overview Is Here, Discussion and the Development of the Solutions Have StartedSummary of report: Assessment of the Extra Capacity Required of Alternative Energy Electrical Power Systems to Completely Replace Fossil Fuels, which also links to videos Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The more I move toward living sustainably, the more I learn about cultures that haven't become as polluting, depleting, addicted, and imperialist as ours. I grew up thinking they were stuck in the Stone Age, but they aren't.Conversations with Alan help me learn about the Kogi, with whom he's lived in the mountains of Colombia and made two documentaries with the BBC. The relevant differences is that compared to us, they live sustainably, free, and in abundance.Alan shares more in our third conversation about what he's learned from them, including how they see us, which is sobering. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I've made it no secret that sustainability lacks leadership and leaders. If you want to help on sustainability, I suggest that the most valuable thing you can do is learn to lead. If you know how to lead, improve it. Nothing can change as much as leading cultural change.Gautam's passion is to learn how leadership works, how to teach it, learning more about it, writing about it, the military, most relevant to our conversation: conveying what he knows and that passion.The upshot: someone who knows as much as anyone about leadership, what works, what doesn't, learning more about it, how to teach it, and passionate to convey what he's learned. He also knows and has befriended some of today's most effective leaders, whom he mentions in our conversation. He calls General Stanley McChrystal "Stan."Let's see if we can bring Gautam's knowledge, experience, and connections to sustainability.Gautam's home pageGautam's page at Harvard Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Regular listeners know I've been asking people what the environment means to them as part of the Spodek Method. Many people respond with touching answers that I would call something close to life-altering. Maybe more like life-guiding, life-enhancing, or giving meaning and purpose.I've heard of increasing research into psychedelics recently. Reading reports of people who took psylocibin in clinical settings with guides for the experience, I was struck by how similar their effects to those of quintessential moments in the environment. Both talked about oneness, awe, humility, understanding, feeling understood, connectedness, and similar things, though, of course, each experience was unique. Many said that the effects of their experiences lasted sometimes years, potentially permanently. Many could stop addictions overnight without relapsing. Some improved relationships with loved ones.I hypothesized that some of the experience of psychedelics might have been a regular part of the lives of our ancestors who lived in the 250,000 years or so before civilization, as well as those who live outside it today. Might the drugs just be achieving something remedial that had long been part of our lives?Might we who live in human-built environments be missing deeply meaningful parts of our lives that were regular for nearly all our ancestors? Might that lack be contributing to our not knowing what we're missing when we capitulate, abdicate, and resign to choose comfort and convenience over alleviating suffering and caring for our neighbors?I emailed with Roland Griffiths, the head of the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic Research, which I understand to be the premier research center in the field. He put me in touch with Albert. I couldn't wait to compare the effects and potential of psychedelics with the effects and potential of simply spending time in nature.Albert Garcia-Romeu's page at the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wolfgang Lutz is one of the world's experts in projecting global population levels and demography. I contacted him to help understand the differences between projections based on demography like his and the United Nations' versus systemic ones like in Limits to Growth.He gave a comprehensive overview of who projects and how, at least as much as can be covered in under an hour. Some highlights:Who projects based on demography: the UN, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), and the Wittgenstein Center, among others.He described what and how demographers project: Assumptions, methods, variables of age, sex, education, migration, fertility rate, mortality rate. He consistently repeated the importance of education.On Limits to Growth, he pointed out that systems analyses include feedback mechanisms, but their demographics tend to be less sophisticated, for example lacking age structure or effects of education. Demographers don't take them seriously because of their oversimplification.I asked how demographers include feedback. He described a few ways, including asking experts and translate their responses into different scenarios. What about big events like fish or aquifers depleting? He pointed out extreme events are hard to predict, though humanity's historical resilience suggests we'll figure out ways to level their effects. Demographers also include probabilistic models for tipping points, disease, and such, and report levels of variance.The results of his research and projections: Human population peaking somewhere around 2080 at around 10 billion then declining. It may reach about 3 to 4 billion by 2200, which could be long-term sustainable, though the transition is uncertain. Humanity could reach a healthy, wealthy, more equal, more resilient, and well educated future, but not given.Potential problems: heat waves, drought, floods, sea level rise. Humans can solve to some degree, but we have to prepare.What to focus on: since population changes slowly, behavior, technology, and migration first, then education especially of women in the long term since its effects happen more slowly. Also family planning, women's health, contraception, and sexual equality.We covered a lot, though scratched the surface, gives understandable overview of demographics and global population projections.I put greater weight on difficult-to-predict extreme uncertain events. At least I'd make the uncertainty go down more than the symmetry I see, but our conversation was about learning and understanding, not debate. I've learned a lot each time I've listened to this episode. It's dense with information, but on an important subject.Wolfgang's page at the International Institute for Applied Systems AnalysisTwo of his major papers explaining how he models global population growthThe end of world population growth, Nature, 2001Dimensions of global population projections: what do we know about future population trends and structures?, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2010Executive summary of his book World Population and Human Capital in the Twenty-First Century Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I was very curious to learn more about the Kogi and Alan's interactions with them.Alan is deeply involved with their joint project to learn to restore nature as they have shown they can. "Restoring nature" doesn't do justice for what they are doing. They are also sharing different ways of seeing and interacting with the world, which, as I understand from Alan, is not how they see the world.Alan starts with a couple descriptions of how the Kogis view things differently than Europeans, including in ways we wouldn't have suspected were different. How does a medieval castle look to someone who has never seen a stone building? If they see something a typical European sees daily, how much else are we misunderstanding? What are we missing?Their process for planting includes steps before planting of contemplation. What are they doing? What are we missing? Can we learn from them? Can we learn from them before we wreck them and ourselves?What else about nature are we missing? How common are their views to other cultures that our polluting culture hasn't wrecked yet?The Tairona Heritage Trust, where you can learn about and donate to help the Kogi help usAlan's first documentary on the Kogi (1990): From the Heart of the World - The Elder Brother's WarningHis second (2012): Aluna - An Ecological Warning by the Kogi PeopleAlan's home page Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The International Society of Sustainability Professionals invited me to speak to their New York Chapter. Here is that recording. We "whooshed" out the participants' words, so it's just my speaking. Their mission is "ISSP empowers professionals to advance sustainability in organizations and communities around the globe."I described my work, my path to get here, intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, how you can't lead others to live by values you live the opposite, and concepts relevant to sustainability leadership.I didn't take them to task as much as I could have for living unsustainably, undermining their credibility and trust. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Roz could have stopped at rowing solo across oceans to world records, awards, and national honors.She didn't. She had done those things for a purpose: helping make our world more livable, less polluted. They gave her greater skills to appreciate her purpose and implement it better.As with most people, the challenges looked insurmountable to her. But unlike most people, she had once made a list to row across an ocean and, finding no impossible steps, she did it. Over and over. It's easy to look at her today and figure, "of course she could do it. She's an ocean rower. She was born that way," or something like that. But before she did it, she was a disgruntled employee and spouse looking for meaning and a way to improve her world, not a record-holding athletic champion.So also unlike most people, she looked at what sustainability would take, saw no impossible steps, and knew she could help achieve it. That's my read.I would have been happy to host her for the athletic achievements alone, but they were all stepping stones for greater service to humanity.She describes her latest book, The Ocean in a Drop and her life experience and goals.Roz's web page, which links to her other books, videos, and more. You'll love it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.