This Sustainable Life

747: Go Alan Go!, part 1: The drummer rocking Washington Square Park

17 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Regular listeners and blog readers know I talk about litter and how much we wreck nature, especially my neighborhood's back yard, Washington Square Pa...

746: Martin Doblmeier, part 1: What We Can Learn from Dietrich Bonhoeffer

15 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

I'm searching for role models including people who changed cultures and undid dominance hierarchies, particularly people who came from status. I can t...

745: Mattan Griffel, part 2: Is our dependence on polluting behavior "addiction"?

04 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

I have spoken and written at length how I see our relationship with polluting behavior as qualifying as addiction, a view that I think helps frame the...

744: Stephen Broyles, part 1: What Is Social Work and How Does It Relate to Leadership and Action?

25 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Regular listeners and readers of my blog will know my sustainability leadership workshops and one of the participants of the first, Evelyn (she's in t...

743: Benjamin Hett: The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic

22 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Regular listeners know how I look for role models in similar situations to ours regarding the environment. We know our polluting and depleting are bri...

742: John Brooke, part 2: American slavery transformed to today's industry and anti-stewardship of our environment

20 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If John's specialty in deep history weren't valuable enough to understand how our culture's dominance hierarchy formed from the material conditions of...

741: Tony Hansen, part 2: Volunteering hard labor creating meaning and generosity

10 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

You'll hear Tony's story of rolling up his sleeves and doing some hard labor. You'll also hear the labor being just the start of the reward. He shares...

740: Christopher Ketcham, part 3: Inside the mind of an “ecoterrorist”

06 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

I was reading Harper's magazine and Christopher's story was on the cover: Inside the mind of an “ecoterrorist”! It beginsIn the summer of 2016, a ...

739: John Brooke, part 1: Deep history and how our culture formed

24 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Greenhouse gas and ocean plastic levels don't rise on their own. The cause of our environmental problems is our behavior, which results from our cultu...

738: Jacqueline Bicanic, part 2: Sustainability doesn't cost time and energy, it gives it

20 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

People complain they don't have time, money, or energy to live more sustainably, I think because marketers see the demand so come up with things to se...

737: Michael Gerrard: Considering a stewardship amendment with a foremost environmental lawyer

15 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

I follow podcast guest Maya Van Rossum on her work on constitutional amendments protecting a clean environment. You may have heard of the legal victor...

736: Mattan Griffel, part 1: Online opioid addiction treatment that (actually) works

06 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Regular listeners know I focus on understanding addiction. I see people in my neighborhood and in headlines nearly daily addicted to heroin, fentanyl,...

735: Casey Mahoney, part 1: A Jazz Musician Lowering His Impact to 3 Tons CO2/Year in L.A.

03 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Casey is a longtime friend. One day a few months ago he mentioned in a call he was choosing to lower his carbon footprint to a few tons of CO2 per yea...

734: Alon Tal, part 1: Israel, Hamas, and overpopulation from a former Knesset member

29 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Last month I read Hamas-Israel story from an angle few will touch, but is critical: overpopulation, which I wrote about in my post Overpopulation in I...

733: Jacqueline Bicanic, part 1: Listener as Guest: Australian University Student, Very Active in Sustainability

25 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Jacquie emailed me that this podcast is inspiring her. She wrote that she'd "always had a spark of interest in sustainability, but I mostly followed t...

732: Siddharth Kara, part 1: Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

21 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Living unsustainably means you need resources beyond your immediate environment. It requires you take from others. When done on a cultural level, it's...

731: Debate and Understanding on Population Projections with Wolfgang Lutz and Chris Bystroff

18 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

I hosted two professionals who model population growth with different views, some complementary, some conflicting: Wolfgang Lutz and Chris Bystroff. I...

730: Tony Hansen, part 1 : McKinsey's Director of Natural Capital and Nature

08 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Most of the partners I know at the top tier consulting firms have worked there since business school. Tony has a different background, as he describes...

729: How to Develop a Sustainability Leadership Culture in Your Organization: a Panel I moderated

04 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

If no one is changing culture in your world, it's your opportunity to fill the leadership vacuum, no matter where you are in your organization or comm...

728: Chefs Irene and Margaret Li, part1: Winning Awards Saving Perfectly Good Food

31 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

I first read about Margaret and Irene and their book Perfectly Good Food: A Totally Achievable Zero Waste Approach to Home Cooking in an article ...

727: Fun, liberation, freedom: How people talk after seriously acting on sustainability

26 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Evelyn joined the first workshop I led in the Spodek Method: practicing it, leading others through it, and how to create a movement. She then became t...

726: Amy Westervelt, part 1: Showing What's Actually Happening Behind the Scenes

24 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Amy hosts and produces a lot of podcasts, but Drilled is the big one I've listened to a lot. I listen partly to learn what happens behind the scenes a...

725: Gautam Mukunda, part 3: The Spodek Method Doesn't Always Create a Huge Mindset Shift

19 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Gautam and I had a lovely conversation about environmental things. He's become a good friend (we talk outside our recordings). Still, listen to determ...

724: Dr. Michael Greger, part 2: How Not to Age

11 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

I follow Doctor Greger's newsletter and watch his videos every week. I unsubscribe from nearly everything else.In this episode we get a sneak preview ...

723: David Blight, part 2: A Constitutional Amendment on Stewardship Based on the Thirteenth and John Locke

03 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

I've spoken to several guests about the idea of a constitutional stewardship amendment in the style of the Thirteenth Amendment, complementary to a Gr...

722: Michael Forsythe: When McKinsey Comes to Town

30 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When I started business school at Columbia, I hadn't heard of McKinsey. The Firm recruited heavily there, so I found out about them, but little, since...

721: Jim Burke, part 1: The Most Beautiful Street in New York City?

14 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

After reading about 34th Avenue in Queens and watching the video linked below, I had to ride to see it. Over a mile of a once congested street was tra...

720: Maya Van Rossum, part 2: You Don't Have a Right to a Clean Environment. You Have to Work for It.

11 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Do you think government should protect people's life, liberty, and property? What if it turned out it didn't, if it said other people could destroy yo...

719: David Blight, part 1: From Abolitionism to Sustainability

10 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Regular listeners and blog readers know my developing abolitionism as a role model for a sustainability movement. I've hosted several top scholars on ...

718: Albert Garcia-Romeu, part 2: Psychedelics and Appreciating Nature Where You Are

08 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

I couldn't help asking question about the field of psychedelics research beyond our last conversation. He's a professional at the top of the field and...

717: Pamela Paul: Writing on Controversial Subjects With Confidence

02 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

I met Pamela Paul after she mentioned previous guest John Sargent in a piece, There's More Than One Way to Ban a Book. I found her column covered issu...

716: Arnold Leitner, part 2: How much energy and power do you need to be happy?

29 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 th...

715: My mom, Marie Spodek, part 3: Starting a food coop and making ends meet as a single mom in a food desert with three kids

24 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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...

714: Adam Hochschild, part 3: King Leopold's Ghost

23 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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...

713: Matthew Matern, part 3: A trial lawyer's view

20 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

712: Guy Spier, part 1: The Education of a Value Investor

17 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 do...

711: Kate Siber: "Should I Stop Flying? It’s a Difficult Decision to Make."

12 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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, writt...

710: Madeline Ostrander, part 2: Finding Refuge on a Changed Earth

08 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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, com...

709: Madeline Ostrander, part 1: At Home on an Unruly Planet

08 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What's actually happening with our environmental problems? Scientists predict. Journalists in periodicals tend to write what gets attention and clicks...

708: Chris Bystroff, part 2: Understanding the United Nation's Projections

04 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 h...

707: Arnold Leitner, part 1: The founder of YouSolar, more than off-grid living

01 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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...

706: What I sound like talking sustainability when I forgot I was being recorded

29 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

You've heard me talk sustainability leadership on this podcast and probably others. Have you wondered what I sound like talking to friends unrecorded?...

705: Greg Bertelsen: A bipartisan climate roadmap including a carbon tax

27 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Recent guest Bob Litterman spoke highly of Greg and his work at the Climate Leadership Council, a rare bipartisan effort on climate. He put us in touc...

704: Gernot Wagner, part 1: Guiding Misguided Economic Forces in the Right Direction

25 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Gernot and I go back a few years from meeting online over sustainability issues, finding out that we lived about a mile from each other, then meeting ...

703: David Gessner, part 1: A Traveler's Guide to the End of the World

22 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What does the world look like today with regard to our environmental situation? Not the latest news about a disaster we can write off as a one-time ev...

702: Peter Singer, part 1: Calm, reflective talk considering not flying

18 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

With Peter Singer, I could have picked several topics relevant to sustainability leadership: veganism, vegetarianism, and charity come to mind, as doe...

701: Robert Litterman, part 2: "We need legislation, we need a price on carbon."

16 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

You won't hear many finance people promoting more taxes, though it's increasing. Bob talks beyond our conversation a few weeks before about a carbon t...

700: Matt Matern, part 2: Plant a Tree

13 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Matt shared last time about the redwoods I keep hearing about in California that I've never seen but find they transform people.His goal was to plant ...

699: Robert Litterman, part 1: A Carbon Tax and Managing Risk

12 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

I met Bob at a conference on climate at my old school, Columbia Business School. He knew another participant, Gernot Wagner, with whom I recorded an e...

698: Chris Bystroff, part 1: Population Growth and Overpopulation

06 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Population modeling can be hard, as is figuring out a prediction's accuracy, therefore how much confidence to give your conclusions. Many people can't...

697: Dan Walsh, part 2: He sold his motorcycle and Playstation to gain freedom

04 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In what looks to me like one of the biggest overcommitments of guests on this podcast and participants in the Spodek Method, Dan shares that to free h...

696: Anonymous executive from a fossil fuel corporation: A view from the inside

29 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

People who work at fossil fuel companies are people just like you and me. When you buy what the industry sells, you support it too. You rationalize an...

695: Dan Walsh, part 1: Two-time Olympian and Bronze medalist in rowing

23 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

694: Matthew Matern, part 1: Running for President on Sustainability

21 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Matt invited me to his podcast, A Climate Change. We stayed in touch after recording. He shared that he ran for President, including supporting sustai...

693: Christopher Ketcham, part 2: The Green Growth Delusion

16 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Christopher may be the most direct, accurate reporter on sustainability. Our last conversation treated his helpful and accurate reporting on the book ...

692: Daniel, host of the "What Is Politics?" videocast, part 2: Is Changing CEOs Possible

13 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 bo...

691: Oliver Burkeman, part 1.5: Embracing Our Inevitable Limitations on Time and Energy

07 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 w...

690: Leah Rothstein: Just Action, a blueprint for concerned citizens and community leaders

01 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

689: Workshop results: Can Learning to Lead Sustainability be fun, inspiring, and effective? Yes!

31 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

[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 work...

688: Maya K. van Rossum, part 1: Green Amendments for the Environment (State and Federal)

28 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

687: Should We Amend the Constitution for the Environment?: A constitutional scholar (Michael Herz) and American abolition historian (James Oakes)

28 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 Sustaina...

686: Gautam Mukunda, part 1.5: Is Technology Necessarily Good?

19 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 mayb...

685: Chris Bailey, part 3: How to Calm Your Mind: Dropping the latest iPhone for a flip phone and loving it

16 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

684, Simon Michaux: Do Governments Understand Energy? How Unprepared Are We?

12 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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...

683: Alan Ereira, part 3: More about Kogi life and culture, contrasting with ours

09 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The more I move toward living sustainably, the more I learn about cultures that haven't become as polluting, depleting, addicted, and imperialist as o...

682: Gautam Mukunda, part 1: Teaching Passion for Leadership at Harvard

21 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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...

681: Albert Garcia-Romeu, part 1: Psychedelics and Time in Nature

16 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 answ...

680: Wolfgang Lutz: A Primer in Demographics and Global Population Projections

01 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Wolfgang Lutz is one of the world's experts in projecting global population levels and demography. I contacted him to help understand the differences ...

679: Alan Ereira, part 2: The world through Kogis' eyes

25 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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...

678: My talk to the International Society of Sustainability Professionals

21 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The International Society of Sustainability Professionals invited me to speak to their New York Chapter. Here is that recording. We "whooshed" out the...

677: Roz Savage, part 1: It's Doable and You Can Do It. One Oar Stroke at a Time

15 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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:...

676: Paulina Porizkova, part 1: No Filter

12 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

One of the most famous supermodels, Paulina needs no introduction.She's here because mutual friends introduced us and her recent book, No Filter, that...

675: Derek Sivers, part 1: Leading versus Exploring Frontiers

08 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

I bring leaders from all areas to sustainability. The challenges to changing culture to sustainability aren't in technology, science, journalism, acti...

674: Oliver Burkeman, part 1: Time Management and Sustainability for Mortals

04 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Oliver's book Four Thousand Weeks deserves the incredible praise it gets. I've recommended it to many friends and can't for the life of me put into wo...

673: Jim Oakes, part 2: Can We Go From Abolition to Anti-Pollution?

01 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

My passion for the possibility of doing for pollution what abolitionists did to slavery: transform it from something normal, as if part of nature, to ...

672: Chris Bailey, part 2: How to Calm Your Mind

23 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Bringing back Chris for first time since five years ago. Since then, his last book got big, as we briefly discussed.We started talking about meditatio...

671: How Pulling Off a Challenging Day Off Grid Feels

18 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Last night I had trouble falling asleep because before getting in bed, I noticed I had to record two podcast episodes first thing in the morning but I...

670: Jeffrey Shaw: Self-employment and Sustainability

15 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Do you want a job working in sustainability? If you want to wait for a job in the field, you're going to wait for a long time. Most businesses' models...

669: David Loy: Ecodharma: Zen Buddhism and Sustainability

11 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What can we learn from Buddhism to understand and respond to our ecological crisis? This question is the heart of David's focus, as I understand it.We...

668: Christopher Ketcham: Growthism Versus Sustainability

09 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Reading Christopher's story in the Pacific Standard, The Fallacy of Endless Economic Growth What economists around the world get wrong about the futur...

667: James Oakes, part 1: Sustainability and Abolition in the United States

06 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The only was I can see how we can avoid environmental disaster leading to human population collapse is by changing our culture---every unsustainable c...

666: Mark Plotkin: Learning From Indigenous Cultures, the People Not Just Our Projections

03 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Every step I take toward sustainability leads me to learn how much humans have figured out how to live sustainably. I'm far from living sustainably, t...

665: Tony Hiss: Rescuing the Planet: Protecting Half the Land to Heal the Earth

02 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Tony turns out to live a few blocks from me. I met him at his home, where we recorded. He shared his experience knowing E. O. Wilson, who, as Tony des...

664: Rodrigo Cámara-Leret: Learning how the Kogi heal the land

31 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ethno-botonist Rodrigo Cámara-Leret first describes how podcast guest Alan Ereira chose him to live and work with the Kogi, who want to share, in my ...

663: Nadeem Akhtar, part 2: Breaking a Doof Addiction Can Be Harder Than Expected

28 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Nadeem committed to reducing his doof. He bravely shares the challenge.Even in Norway, he's surrounded by messages to keep consuming it. Imagine any o...

662: Mark Mills, part 4: What to Do Next

25 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

I've said before and I'll say again that conversations like mine with Mark Mills are what I value and wish we had more of. We do our research, we have...

661: Daniel, host of What is Politics?, part 1: Dominance, subjugation, hierarchy, and solutions

19 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

I can't tell you how valuable (and entertaining) I found Daniel's video series.Regular listeners and readers may know how important I find anthropolog...

660: Martha Nussbaum: Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility

17 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Martha Nussbaum's new book, Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility, looks like it's about animals, but the more I read it, I found it abou...

659: My video series, episode 01, introduction, part 2: Spodek Method results

14 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Part 2 of the introduction shares a few stories that illustrate the Spodek Method, a leadership technique to create mindset shifts and continual impro...

658: Rebecca and Josh Tickell, part 1: On Sacred Ground and the Dakota Pipeline

13 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Watching environmental documentaries means having seen the Tickells' work, especially Fuel and Kiss the Ground, which they did with podcast guest Bill...

657: My video series, episode 01, introduction, part 1

09 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Part 1 of the introduction shares a few stories to frame how I approach sustainability, then describes the outcomes I designed it to bring about, main...

656: Kate MacKenzie, part 1: Executive Director of New York City's Mayor’s Office of Food Policy

04 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Food touches nearly all environmental issues, as well as health, social, economic, political, and cultural. Cities like New York and their governance ...

655: Donald Robertson, part 2: Seeking a Wolf

30 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Donald committed to seeking out seeing a wolf. He shares about his experience on this commitment. He shares his deep connection and commitment to natu...

654: Mark Mills, part 3: The Cloud Revolution

28 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

After I've read his recent book The Cloud Revolution, Mark and I continue our conversation on sustainability and what to do based on qualitative and q...

653: Mark Z. Jacobson: Roadmaps for 100% clean renewable energy

24 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

After I shared episodes on the hazards of solar and wind, as well as my experiment disconnecting my apartment from the electric grid in Manhattan (in ...

652: Carl Erik Fisher: The Urge: Our History of Addiction

21 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

I almost couldn't believe someone could write a book like Carl Erik Fisher's The Urge: Our History of Addiction. It tells the histories of addiction i...

651: Noah Gallagher Shannon, part 2: Uruguay is an environmental role model

18 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The second part of my conversation with Noah, going into more detail about Uruguay and sustainability. The first part was episode 646. Hosted on Acast...

650: Brian Merchant: your phone's hidden environmental impact

13 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The more I learn about electronic waste, the more disgusted I feel at how huge the problem is that we are exacerbating, often in the name of increasin...

649: Listener Questions 04: What Started Me Acting Sustainably, Kids, and What to Do If You Don't Have Time

11 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I answer a question a listener emailed:Can you share more details on what exactly prompted you to make the switch to acting more sust...

648: Michael Herz, part 1: The United States Constitution, Sustainability, and Pollution

11 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Regular listeners know I'm thinking about applying Abraham's Lincoln solution: a constitutional amendment banning pollution. Here's an earlier episode...