This Sustainable Life

This talk gets to the root of what I see destroying Earth's ability to sustain life and our health and happiness in the process.Here is the audio a recent talk I gave on doof, building up to what we can do to get rid of it, and improving our world in the process. I compare its effects with those of heroin, crack, and other addictions. I examine what makes something doof, like if it's advertised, packaged, fiber-removed, or the big one: if the manufacturer engineered it to create craving.I consider this audio a great talk. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Katie is the sort of role model I do this podcast to bring to the world. Her challenges are huge, but her passion and determination greater.I can find a million people who say they care about the environment. They probably do. I can find some who act on this caring. I can find a few who do things that sound great like starting companies to do well by doing good. Of them, many are helping restore Earth's ability to sustain life.Then there's Katie. She's devoting everything she's got beyond just cleaning some area. She's going to what I consider as near the root of our problems, and the most effective solution: keeping fossil fuels in the ground. Most "solutions" like renewables, recycling, offsets, and what makes the news, in my view mostly just shuffle pollution around after we already brought fossil fuels out from underground where they were benign.When we recorded, she was in the middle of helping stop a pipeline, working with the local community. We talked about her current work and her past groundbreaking work with Doe v. Unocal and cases that followed its precedent.But I want most to comment on our conversation's tone. I loved talking with her as someone else who saw our problems and dove in to solve them, not dip around the edges, and she's succeeding. I love talking with someone not justifying or making excuses, but enthusiastic.How we feel depends on what we give relative to our potential. I've learned not to judge myself for things outside my control. I loved talking with her because I felt a bond over devoting ourselves to a great cause and giving all we have.https://earthrights.orghttps://earthrights.org/case/doe-v-unocalhttps://youtu.be/FUzG8xfjsWo on Bill MoyersPipeline through the heart: A Black neighborhood’s uphill battle against oil developers shows mapActivists Have Shut Down a Memphis-Area Pipeline — But Their Fight Isn’t OverKatie and Ka Hsaw Wa’s Speech at BioneersKatie’s TedX Talk: What Makes Us HumanTotal Denial Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James Rebanks' first massively bestselling book, The Shepherd's Life, and the images of that life he posts online, at first make you think he hails from another time. It describes a life both almost unimaginable to most city dwellers like myself and more than half the Earth and traditional, going back centuries or even millennia. He illustrates his relationships with his father and grandfather, the land, the sheep, and history.But he also shows that he is from now, not another time. I sensed myself out of touch with humanity and nature with plastic and not knowing what trees and birds live near me. In his second book, Pastoral Song, also a massive bestsellr, he describes more his conflict and struggle with the invasion of modernity into his life, his foray into acceptance, and ultimate his joyful rejection of it.Many of us dream of rejecting the parts of modernity that stultify us but decline to act out of fear. James rejected it, not easy. You'll love his openness and experiences likely different from anyone you know. When British people talk about the Lake District, they get wistful. I've never been there. James is of that territory.James's views contrast and complement previous guest James Suzman's, who wrote about the San bushmen in the Kalahari Desert. Both speak of living in harmony and balance with nature, struggling at the first world expanding into their territory.In our conversation, James Rebanks shares his views and experience on nature, family, and his life. I mostly bring people from organizations---businesses, political office, sports teams, etc. James comes from family, farms, and England's Lake District. He shares a life unlike anyone I met but probably like thousands of my ancestors.Here is the quote I read:For weeks afterward, as we passed Henry’s farm, Dad would tell me that we were bloody fools. This news confirmed something Dad had always felt in his gut. Deep down he had never really believed in many of the changes, and with every passing year he was becoming more skeptical. We were doing these new things because we had ​to—getting more cattle and sheep, acquiring bigger machines, making these changes and meanwhile losing good people—and yet where was it all heading? If modern farming made the soil worse, and reduced it to a junkie requiring more and more hits of ​shop-​bought chemicals, then how sustainable was it? Dad couldn’t step out of it entirely, but he saw right through it. Rather than admire our friends and relatives who were creating huge new farming businesses, with enormous buildings and loads of machinery and staff, he worried for them. He thought their world was ugly, built on debt, and increasingly risky and volatile; it would all come crashing down around them someday. And when it began to, and some of the biggest farms went bankrupt, he defended them and said we had all been fools once. There was no pleasure in seeing farmers losing their farms.My father knew the truth lay in Henry’s soil. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If I measure a book's quality by how much it changes my perspective and enables me to improve my life, Dr. Farrell's The Myth of Male Power (1993) is one of the best books I've read. He's written valuable book after valuable books since, up to and including The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It (2018).I grew up believing in equality between the sexes and believe so now more than ever. Dr. Farrell's insight helped illuminate and clarify ways I and society don't empathize with men or realize how men are trapped and suffer. I've written about the chip on my shoulder about how people respond to my sharing my suffering to say my suffering isn't suffering and that I'm actually causing others to suffer or that the best I can do is to shut up and listen. I knew something was missing. His work helped make things fall into place.If I measure someone's leadership by how much that person influences others through inspiration, not coercion or authoritarian means, Dr. Farrell is a great leader. My mentor, Frances Hesselbein, also says the role of a leader is to see what others don't, which he does too.Bringing things back our environment, his leadership in seeing and clearly describing what others don't resembles what I find mission in sustainability. I'll always welcome more science and reporting, but we lack leadership. We lack people who inspire by connecting with their intrinsic motivations. I believe we can learn from him and apply what he's achieved in sustainability.Warren Farrell's home page Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A reader followed up on my conversations with religious figures and authorities from branches of Christianity and Judaism. He wroteYou have presented religious people with «the book». That’s good, and I hope you will find space for a muslim person/scholar and relate it to your concern about the sustainability and climate. I can recommend one person. He is, I believe the leader of Cambridge Muslim College, UK. Abdal Hakim Murad (actually British who converted to islam). He is highly and well respected and also provide guidance on the contemporary society to the community of muslims in UK and also in Europe.While I know about Islam, I don't know many Muslims, so loved the suggestion and connected with Abdal Hakim.Beyond his leadership role in Cambridge, England, his personal story and accomplishments intrigued me. The conversation was for me enlightening, especially his insider view of communities that, to the extent I've learned of them, I got a one-sided, American view. He shared of erudite sophistication. We spoke about cultures intersecting and intermingling.He also share of Islam's long history in Europe, patiently given my knowing little, so if you'd like to learn more and don't know much, I think you'll appreciate our conversation.Religion and the environmentOur conversation also reinforced my impression that religious people connect with sustainability and stewardship with emotions mine are closer to: beauty and joy, for example, more than obligation and chore, which I hear from environmentalists. He recounts examples of Islam and sustainability, practiced naturally, not just following a recent trend.The Cambridge Central MosqueThe University of Cambridge Faculty of Divinity: Dr Timothy WinterThe Independent UK: Timothy Winter: Britain's most influential Muslim - and it was all Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I loved Blake and my conversation so much, I'm releasing our first two conversations back to back. Also, our first one didn't reach to The Spodek Method, so he hadn't taken on a commitment based on his environmental values, so we recorded a week later instead of having to wait for him to finish the commitment. He takes on a commitment in this episode, so he'll come back a third time at least.We talked about how life brings us challenges. In his case a disease led to losing both legs. For everyone, generations of a polluting culture led to the risk of human population collapse. We won't be able to live as before, and possibly billions won't be able to live at all.Blake is coming to grips with the extent of the situation and what anyone can do about it. We talk about value, teamwork, training, and how his experience and lessons could help everyone. By the end, you'll hear how he starts considering potential roles he could take on sustainability. As you can hear in the last episode and this one, I see his experiences, beliefs, and lessons could help everyone, especially Americans, who treat changing our behavior and the culture driving it as deprivation, respond with enthusiasm instead of the usual "what I do doesn't matter" or "only governments and corporations can act on the scale we need."He's thoughtful and shares thoughts he's had before our conversation. You can hear him developing and reconsidering his perspectives during the conversation.I envision Blake taking a leadership role in sustainability leadership. No one has to act on it. Nearly everyone has chosen not to, to hope someone else will take care of things. Only people who want to make sustainability leadership their calling are doing so---nearly no one. But I see him seeing his potential for reaching people in ways no one else can. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I learned of Blake through the mailing list of the maker of my rowing machine, Concept2. Their piece on him described him as a Paralympic bound athlete. I was impressed, but only thought of him as a potential guest on watching his TEDx talk.I think my message to his agent describes what I saw in him and when we talked about in this episode:In Blake's case, I heard a message I've never heard with such clarity and experience I wonder if he realizes how much it applies to stewardship and the environment. It's almost the exact message nearly everyone needs. I can't put it as well as he can, but what he shared starting around minute 3 of his TEDx talk of a system breaking down, where most people would be ready to give up, technology being important, but relationships, faith, support, and laughter being the core of what worked.I see roughly 350 million Americans and 7.9 billion humans ready to give in and accept a system breaking down. Then I see Blake living the opposite of their resignation leading to a better life, and there's been almost a decade since leading to what I read as yet more improvement.In my book coming out next year, I quote Churchill's speeches during the blitz -- that it's bad, it will get worse, but we will fight on the beaches, we will never surrender, it will be our finest hour. I heard in Blake's message from a decade ago what America and the world would benefit most from hearing today. I expect it's stronger today.Since he also just won a silver medal, I also ask him about the training and competing.Blake's TEDx talk, The Advantage of Adversity Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Should you prepare for a future of clean air travel, curb your flying, or other?I saw Terik speak on a panel on electric flight. As Chief Engineer at a company winning awards for battery-powered planes, he knew what he was talking about. He has to know about the cutting edge of various fields, including batteries, aeronautics, and materials.When the Wright Brothers first flew a heavier-than-air craft in 1903, nobody could have predicted a 747. Are electric planes today at the Wright Brothers stage of development, with electric 747s around the corner, are they at the closing end of that line of development with few advances left, or something else?The news covers the drone market taking off, advances in batteries, and small planes going short distances. I'm curious about the prospect of planes flying people across oceans. Can it happen? If so, when? If not, why not and what does that mean for a culture that values air travel, or may be addicted to it.What does someone at the frontier of the field anticipate, professionally for electric flying and personally for spending time with his distant family?Terik and I cover all these questions and more.Elroy Air Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Don't outdoor restaurants sound nice? During the pandemic, New York City allowed restaurants that couldn't host people indoors to serve them outdoors. Many restaurant owners credit the rule for keeping them in business. We neighbors happily supported businesses in need.The landlords saw the huge profit in keeping this public space for their private property, started raising rents---profiting from a deadly pandemic---and tried to get politicians to give them that public land permanently.I might not mind if that space were coming from just car spaces, or if restaurants weren't polluting the area so much with plastic, burning fossil fuels to heat the outdoors while California is on fire, other packaging, and noise.There is a better alternative that no one thought of because we didn't know the city was willing to convert space from parking spaces and open sidewalk. We could turn it to living green spaces: community gardens, playgrounds, farmers markets, bike lanes, public pedestrian spaces, and such. There was already huge demand for such spaces. People wait years for plots in the tiny spaces we have. But search the web for "Manhattan community gardens" and you'll find almost nothing, especially around Greenwich Village.This program is already raising rents, making new restaurants harder to start. It helps a few individuals while hurting the industry it purports to help.Those who know New York City's history will see this land grab from the public on par with the failed Lower Manhattan Expressway. People organized to protect what became global destinations: Soho, Nolita, Tribeca, the Lower East Side.If you have influence with New York City politics, end this program of pollution and destruction.See images and videos I made of what Open Restaurants contributes to:https://joshuaspodek.com/another-morning-walk-seeing-litter-in-my-neighborhoodhttps://joshuaspodek.com/pride-destroyed-the-park-washington-square-park-after-a-parade (video and pictures)https://joshuaspodek.com/video-whats-wrong-with-new-york-city (video and pictures) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nearly everyone I talk to who works on conservation or would call themselves an environmentalist or something like it treats American conservatives and evangelicals as adversaries, lost causes, hurdles, or even the enemy. They love Katharine Hayhoe for being on their side while also practicing a Texas-friendly version of Christianity. They figure she'll fix them for them. (We're scheduling her appearing on this podcast, if you're wondering).What do conservatives and evangelicals believe? If you're so right, why don't they agree? Do you believe they're stupid, ignorant, gullible, greedy, or what?I don't think I've heard anyone talking about them from a place of understanding. I only hear them treated as caricatures with beliefs and motivations they only see as wrong, backward, or ignorant. I never hear them describe their beliefs as reasonable or grounded in something understandable.Frankly, I'm only starting to learn, but I don't believe they're stupid, ignorant, gullible, or greedy. Michael is only speaking for himself, but he's getting an advanced degree at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, training to become a Pastor. He worked and studied hard to reach that level and has devoted his life to it. He's knowledgeable, connected, passionate, and studied.In this conversation we continue learning about each other. Well I can only speak for myself, that I'm learning from him. I think he's learning from me. My views and goals tend to be subtly different than nearly anyone expects than mainstream environmental views. In this regard he may understand me better since I see values, beliefs, and behavior as the problem. Most environmental people focus on laws, technology, markets, and extrinsic things. I look at intrinsic. They look to study and recount. I look to act and inspire.Michael and I talk about faith, hope, belief, and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.