How do we affect others and how does it relate to what brings meaning to life? I'm surprised it took this long for one of my conversations to cover the meaning of life, but I'm not surprised it came with a fellow physicist. Being able to talk quantitatively about nature comfortably, from lots of practice, lets us understand patterns of what's happening.Arnold can also talk with integrity for living by the values he talks about. We see the challenges similarly, though I focus on changing culture and he focuses more on technology.Talking about culture and meaning comes later in this conversation. First we talk in numbers about the patterns he sees in power use, then we expand to reducing battery needs overall, though mostly in houses and transportation.We also talk about most likely outcomes for humanity. He sees similar results to what I expect if humanity continues business as usual, which isn't pretty. I think we can do more than he can, though I recognize few people think hundreds of millions of Americans can reduce their overall impact something like ninety percent in a few years. I didn't think I could until I did.Listen and find out why I looked up the lyrics to 99 Red Balloons and watched the Matrix for first time in at least a decade.Arnold's company YouSolar Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I've written about how people act like food coops don't work for people without resources like time and money or who have kids. It took me a long time to realize they didn't see food coops being started because the people starting them didn't have time or money and had kids. When my parents couldn't make ends meet, then after they divorced and struggled more to make ends meet, forming cooperative groups was their way out of poverty.Luckily nobody told them they couldn't do it! Likewise with the people behind Drew Gardens in the Bronx, Harlem Grown, my credit union, or countless other results of community organizing.I wrote about it in If you think food coops cost more or complain that some people don’t have access to them, you don’t know what you’re talking about and are exacerbating the problem, but my mom was there. In this episode we talk about how they helped organize a group of families to save money and time to buy higher quality food. Later that group folded into Weavers Way coop, which is one of my favorite parts of my childhood. I didn't recognize it as such as a child, though. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Adam's book Bury the Chains inspired me to see British abolitionism as a role model movement for sustainability. The writing was simple and clear. The subject inspirational and relevant. We talked about it in our first episodes, which I recommend.At last I read his most renowned book, King Leopold's Ghost, which we talk about in this episode. I came to it after reading Heart of Darkness, which it complements. Regular readers know how much I've found imperialism, colonialism, and slavery. King Leopold's Ghost covers the case of Belgium's king pulling it off while cultivating a philanthropic reputation. It's shocking and more relevant than ever, given the continuing imperialism, colonialism, and slavery in Africa today, now for our cell phones and electric vehicles. They aren't clean, green, or renewable.Adam shares the highlights of the story. Again, the writing is simple and clear so I recommend the whole book. Start with our conversation. King Leopold's Ghost is as relevant to today as any book. If you're concerned about the environment and how corporations and government can promote themselves as green while behaving the opposite, I can't recommend it enough.Adam's page at UC Berkeley's Journalism School Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matt and I talk about his commitment and how it affected him. I talk about the Spodek Method in general and other leadership tools like creating role models. Matt talked about his hopes and expectations about technology.When I asked him if he could imagine a world where no one polluted, he shared that he hadn't thought about it, but find the idea almost beyond conception. Think about it: if someone can't imagine an outcome, how likely do you think that person can achieve it? How likely do you think they'll subconsciously sabotage attempts? Won't it seem scary?Can you imagine a world without pollution? Matt points out if we pollute, we violate Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You. That means people who can't imagine a world without pollution can't imagine a world restoring the Golden Rule.Listen for our conversation on this topic. Matt also talks about large changes he's incorporated in his life, already starting to avoid flying. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guy is a successful, well-known hedge fund founder. He's famous for paying a lot of money for one meal with Warren Buffet (hundreds of thousands of dollars), which he found worth it.He and I know each other partly through a guest also in finance I did several episodes with, Whitney Tilson, though we emailed before we found Whitney in common.Regular listeners know a strategy of this podcast is to bring leaders from all areas to sustainability, which lacks leadership. I also look for people in fields that people who call themselves environmentalists often call the enemy. They talk about finance people as just looking for profit, not caring whom they hurt. I think they're presuming someone's intent based on what they see. I think psychologists call that presumption the fundamental attribution error.I don't agree with them. I think everyone has deep, intrinsic motivations on stewardship, but you have to listen more than project onto them to learn it. When it comes out, if you enable them to act on it, they may find the action inspiring and meaningful, and want to do more. I think you'll hear that happen with Guy.I found his book, The Education of a Value Investor, an engaging read that shows the opposite of him caring only about money or profit. I can't wait for our second episode.Guy's home page Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I was led to Kate's article Should I Stop Flying? It’s a Difficult Decision to Make. from a newsletter from Flight Free USA. I've read, heard, written, and said a lot about not flying. I found her article the most sensitive, comprehensive, and thoughtful on the internal, personal challenge and gut check of deciding to stop flying.I'll let you read the article to find where she lands on not flying. I expect you'll find she covers your angle and others.It's challenging. We know it pollutes. We know it's not necessary. We want to do it, so we convince ourselves that what we believe is wrong is right, that the plane was going to fly anyway, that we're powerless to choose otherwise, and various other rationalizations and justifications (I used to. Now I find it repugnant). Though eighty percent of people alive today will never fly, we who fly feel like everyone does. So we convince ourselves that flying is inevitable, benign, and does more good than harm. Yet for people who fly, it's often their greatest contribution to pollution.Such are my views. I suspect you probably haven't heard people thoughtfully, intelligently explore the subject. In this episode, we do.Kate's home page Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since our last conversation, check out the reviews that have come in about Home on an Unruly Planet from past guests of this podcast:“With deep, compassionate reporting and elegant prose … Ostrander finds creativity, vital hope, and a sense of home that outlasts any address.”—Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction“As each new climate calamity obliterates, incinerates, or engulfs entire communities, we shudder to think our own could be next. Gently but purposefully, Ostrander guides us into places that have known this nightmare, not to shock but to show that the meaning of home is so powerful that people will make surprising, imaginative, even transcendent leaps to hold on to theirs. By her book’s end, you realize that maybe you could, too.” —Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us and Countdown“What does it mean to maintain a sense of place in an age of climate change? In At Home on an Unruly Planet, Madeline Ostrander explores this question with searching intelligence and uncommon empathy.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer-prize-winning author of Under a White Sky: The Nature of the FutureThe book comes out in paperback today (As I wrote in part 1, I don't get a commission, I just couldn't stop reading the book).In today's conversation, we talk more about what people are doing in the communities she spent time with. I may not have conveyed enough in the notes to part 1 that she spent years with these communities. She didn't just drop in on them. She created enduring relationships. She shares more from behind the scenes and her personal relationships with people who start with creating gardens and bike programs. They don't stop there. They organize to find ways to move oil refineries out of their neighborhoods.I brought up how Chevron doesn't buy its products. We all do. What they do, when we fill our gas tanks, buy airplane tickets, buy things shipped around the world, buy disposable diapers and other plastic, we fund their efforts. In my view, we have to change those patterns, not wait for them even if we say it's their responsibility. So Madeline and I talk about that view a bit too: individualism, capitalism, profit, and sustainability. Also, the way out: fun, community, gardens, persistence, and taking responsibility.Madeline's Home Page, featuring her book At Home on an Unruly PlanetAll her published articles and essaysHer stories at The Nation Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What's actually happening with our environmental problems? Scientists predict. Journalists in periodicals tend to write what gets attention and clicks, so we don't know how accurately they represent versus sensationalize. There's plenty to sensationalize after all.Madeline spent time with several communities to find out what problems they faced, how seriously, and what they were doing about it. The result is she sensitively portrayed them in her book At Home on an Unruly Planet: Finding Refuge on a Changed Earth. The book reads at time like she's projecting doom, but she isn't. She's describing things as she sees them and the people there describe them. The second half of the book talks about what people are doing. It's sobering, but if we want to do anything, we have to know where we are and how fast we're changing.In our conversation, beyond describing highlights of the book, she gives backstories of how she picked them, what motivated her, her goals, and more.GOOD NEWS: the paperback comes out tomorrow. (I don't get a commission, I just couldn't stop reading it once I started).Madeline's Home Page, featuring her book At Home on an Unruly PlanetAll her published articles and essaysHer stories at The Nation Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Talking with Chris has made me more concerned about population projections that only show the possibility of collapse as error bars. I hope to bring him and past guest Wolfgang Lutz on the podcast together to help resolve their disparate views.I see some of humanity's effects on the environment that could affect our population beyond what the UN projections show not as low-probability high-impact events, but already happening. I mean things like depleting aquifers or fisheries that hundreds of millions of people rely on or plastic building up in the ocean. Several major rivers don't reach the ocean, including the Colorado, Tigris, and Euphrates. Solving these problems could be low-probability.They’re like driving by looking only in the rear-view mirror.Our relevant question is not, as the UN projections imply, “how do we feed ten billion?” It’s, “might human population collapse?” By implying we don’t have to worry about collapse, I see the UN discouraging acting on sustainability, in my view. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you like my work because of my nearly unique background of a PhD in physics, having cofounded a couple companies, and having an MBA? You're in luck with Arnold, who has done the same. We got our MBAs together at Columbia so inevitably met. He was working on his solar startup then, Skyfuel, which was making news, though I wasn't working on sustainability yet the, still feeling like individual action wouldn't matter yet.We ran into each other and talked about his new company, YouSolar, comparing how much power, energy, and reliability he supplies his clients with my little portable battery and panels I have to carry to my roof.In today's conversation, after he shares his background, he shares YouSolar's grand goal, which is to change the grid, not just provide solutions to some clients. He's looking toward systemic change, filling in a power gap.Arnold's company, YouSolar Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.