Leadership And The Environment

Regular listeners know I started an experiment disconnecting from the electric grid. I began May 22. Then on July 22, I posted an episode that the solar panel or battery broke, or both. I didn't see how I could continue so said that after I finished recording, I'd declare victory, reconnect to the grid, cook lunch, and move on.Regular listeners and readers of my blog know that I posted about keeping going. What gives? Did I stop or not?I'd meant to record an episode explaining that I kept going without even solar power, though still using my "cheat" of allowing plugging my computer and phone at NYU. Recording my second episode with Michelle Nijhuis, I got to share that story, so I'm posting it here. She lived off the grid for fifteen years, so had plenty of relevant experience.Past posts on the off-the-grid-in-Manhattan experiment:586: My Kitty Hawk moment, on the way to a Moon Shot584: Freedom, continual improvement, fun, and curiosity: day three only solar in Manhattan593: How I disconnected from the electr

Where was Michelle Nijhuis all my life?She lived off the electric grid for fifteen years and I was about two months in, so we shared stories of the experiences. She did it much longer and her fiance had to assemble everything from scratch. I'm only two months in and can use off-the-shelf parts, but I'm in Manhattan, so can't set up a permanent system. Some similarities: connecting with nature, learning to respect power, living with less resulting in living more. Michelle shares her challenges of connecting with the human world when disconnected to a power grid, but I don't think you'll hear regret.I have to correct myself: I said kilowatt-hour when I meant watt-hour. My battery isn't 1,000 times bigger than I said.It's hard to put into words the benefits of living without electrical power at the touch of a button. I recommend turning off your power every now and then. I wish I had earlier.Michelle's home page, which connects to her book Beloved Beasts, other writings, connecting to her, and more See acast.com

My proposal and rationale for the next amendment for the United States Constitution.It will sound crazy, impossible, and too hard at first, as it did with me. But the more you consider it, the more the objections will fade. It is the right tool for the right job. Nothing else is.I'll write more about it later. For now, just the audio. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When I wrote up my experiment to live with my apartment off the grid in Manhattan for a month, I looked up what I did the morning I started. My library records show I borrowed and listened to Sebastian's book Tribe, then my browser history shows I watched a ton of videos featuring him. Soon after I read Freedom, watched Restrepo and The Last Patrol.His work makes you question your values, the values of our culture, and what you do about it. In my case, his exploration to why in a culture of material plenty, that according to, say, Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now or The Better Angels of Our Nature, which say life is the best its ever been, in head-to-head competition, people who know civilization choose to live in other places. His books and our conversation clarify and refine the conditions, but the main appeal of not-civilization is feelings of mutual dependence and feeling needed. Our culture isolates. With affluence has come anxiety, depression, and suicide.His research and writing helped me understand w

In this sixth conversation between an Extinction Rebellion Rebel and a home-grown sustainability leadership (I hope) leader, we explore more of the life of someone who has devoted himself to solving our environmental problems.We continue comparing and contrasting the approaches, learning from each other, developing friendship, sharing the challenges, and sharing why we do it.If you, listener, haven't yet decided to make sustainability your priority, I think you'll find everyone needs your help. I hope this conversation helps influence you. Whatever else you're working on, clean air, land, food, and water will help.I hope Etienne and my conversations help reveal it's a deeply rewarding life.And hearing from an Olympic gold medalist who sees this work as the most valuable he can do is pretty engaging. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Here are the notes I read from:40% of pregnancies are unplanned. Overpopulation is a major problem for environment so it's a topic for this podcast.Girlfriend who pressured me into unprotected sex and got pregnantNot only women's issue. Men have as much value to add as anyone who hasn't been robbed or murdered to speak on robbery and murder.Her power, reversing her word, pressuring, irresponsibility, tearFinancial abortion. If you support abortion, it's consistent and will help you win your caseStories of pro-lifers getting abortionsMany men who support abortion and many women who oppose itWhat if someone believes unique human life begins at conceptionTo me, fertilized cell is not a human being. Like an ant, not an anthill, nor are a dozen ants or even thousands. Yet at some point an anthill forms. Or a cloud. Water vapor everywhere, yet where cloud begins in space or time not clear.Somewhere clump of cells becomes human capable of suffering, before nine months.If you believe the cells don't become human unti

Having just started month three of living off the electric grid in Manhattan, technical issues led me to stop the experiment. I'm not sure the problem, but connecting the solar panels to the power station, it doesn't charge. I don't know how to diagnose it without another power station or solar panel I know works to find the problem.Here are the notes I read from:Last use of electronics off-grid before cooking lunch with pressure cooker, which will mean reconnecting the apartment's master circuit that I disconnected in May.I knew I'd feel dirty because I would cause pollution.Up and down stairs, sleeping in heat, knee injuredThe hard part wasn't living traditionally. My food was more fresh. I lived with more meaning and purpose.The hard part was living in a different culture, even if just me, than America.I lived by Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You and Leave It Better Than You Found It.As for America, by its fruit shall ye know a tree. What are America's fruits? Not Do Unto Others or Lea

The notes I read from:Yesterday my mom suggested I move away from the city if it makes me feel so bad. Last week my dad reaffirmed that he wouldn't appear on the podcast without some vague conditions he was using my invitation to cajole me into.To move away from the problem is exactly the opposite of my mission. Nearly everyone else identifies my work as helping the world, even if they don't see the underlying beauty, harmony, etc I do, but my parents get annoyed.Why the discrepancy?They love and support their son, or something pretty close to me. How is it that my sharing my mission with them results in misunderstanding?Pivotal life moment: manager suggested sharing problemsGrowing up we didn't expose problems. If conflict, talking about it was the problem.People just are that way. Each person is just that way. You just have to work around them. But above all, don't mention any conflict.When I did, I have memories of my dad bellowing with anger. My mom would more play the martyr and imply the person bringing

Mike committed to a year-long task. Few guests go for so long. Since we're in a writing group together, I've seen him in between, but since I want you, the listeners, to hear guests' results first, I didn't ask him if he stayed on track. To be candid, I suspected he didn't because of the year length. Regular listeners know I bring some guests on for episode 1.5s, where I help bring them back on track. Usually it happens because I didn't connect them enough to their intrinsic motivation.I can't stand about our culture, including environmentalists: everyone uses extrinsic motivation, coercing, cajoling, convincing, and seeking compliance. All these techniques promote resistance. Even if the person complies on the action you bludgeon them into, you reinforce that they don't want to do it.So some guests, even when I do my best to make sure they're acting for their intrinsic reasons, not something abstract like to save the world or think of the children, choose something extrinsic.Not Mike! As you'll hear, he went

Nakisa shared about the intersection of nature and its disappearance growing up, as well as her growing awareness of it, family, community, and a polluting cement factory appearing in her neighborhood. We recorded shortly after the Buffalo shooting of May 2022, and talking about access to fresh produce disappearing from her neighborhood touched on it.Everything led to her sharing about her plans to garden and the role of gardening in her life growing up. She hasn't made the headway she wanted to, but isn't letting up. We'll have to wait for another episode to hear about more visible results, but she shares plenty about gardening and how we could use more in all neighborhoods.I think you'll hear her talking about nature, through gardening, bringing inspiration and freedom. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In Etienne and my continued exploration of each other's work, we look at my leadership work from his perspective.What are the differences between leadership and protest?What's the difference between a purity test and living by your values?How do my goals, strategies, and tactics differ from theirs?How do our efforts complement each other?Our time was tighter, so it was a shorter episode. I think it may lead to collaborating some time with Extinction Rebellion. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We start by my reading the emails where I invited Whitney to this podcast by cursing with a few f-bombs, showing how we started our interactions. Before recording our first episode we met in Washington Square Park and picked up litter together.Read my emails cursing at Whitney Tilson that brought him to my podcastWhitney shares how he created and maintains his following, speaking his mind, deliberately sharing provocative opinions. He shares how and why he engaged so much on the pandemic. I see that passion raising the potential for him to engage on sustainability, but we'll see. He became as knowledgeable as anyone I know and led a large number of people on it.Then we talked about carbon offsets. I shared my Two Carbon Cycle Explanation, though I've since simplified it in The simple explanation why offsets don’t work.We talked about flying. I since found some peer-reviewed numbers, which I posted in Some flying pollution numbers. In the week before recording, he flew round trip to Seattle, Miami, Bahamas, an

You've heard of The Chicken Soup for the Soul book and series. I had to start this conversation by apologizing that I did the opposite of the advice everyone knows: "don't judge a book by its cover." Something about the title and cover didn't resonate with me. They seemed syrupy and palliative. To my credit, 144 publishers also passed on the book before one published it. The book evolved into a series of hundreds of titles selling hundreds of millions of copies. Still, I only read the book after a mutual friend introduced us.I can't describe how valuable I found the book. The stories resonated with me, coming at the right time for me, though I wish I'd read it earlier. The stories tell of people facing obstacles and keeping true to themselves, learning about themselves and their values, succeeding by those values. Well, it shares other stories with other themes, but those resonated with me.Leading on sustainability, I face resistance from every person I work with on something they know is for their own benefi

Listen to the difference between Ash's tone, her level of engagement, and her type of engagement between what she talks about in the first few minutes and about fifteen minutes later. In both cases she shows a high magnitude of emotion. At the beginning she's outraged at stuff outside her life. Later she's passionate about things in her life.Nearly everyone trying to motivate on the environment focuses on problems elsewhere, trying desperately to convince, cajole, or coerce people to act because they have to or disasters will happen. That extrinsic motivation comes off as bludgeoning, all the more because it always comes from someone who isn't living sustainably.If you want to motivate someone, connect with intrinsic motivation. What do you care about? What do they care about? I recommend interrupting the pattern in you of getting into cycles of outrage, blame, helplessness, hopelessness, and so on leading to pointing fingers and inaction or pointless action. I recommend interrupting it in others too, though

Since Bill visited the Hadza in modern-day Tanzania, and I've been learning about cultures that have lived for tens to hundreds of thousands of years, I asked him about how they lived. We talked about their religion, rituals, dancing, singing, fashion, textiles, and culture in general.Neither of us studies people or cultures, so we're just two people talking about our observations, but it's pretty clear when little boys learn to use bows and arrows around when they learn walking and talking that there are cultural differences we can learn from. As for our culture, the summer after high school, a friend and I rode bikes and camped from Philadelphia to Maine and back, about 1,500 miles over a month. Everyone jokes at least, but many say seriously, that parents would be arrested for letting their kids do that trip today.So we talk about how to raise kids and what we may be missing. Are young children taught today to handle sharp knives in the kitchen? Bill talked about a Hadza kid carrying around a machete.In su

Following up last conversation with Etienne, on Extinction Rebellion's mission, strategy, and tactics, this time we talk about his path from disengagement to becoming a Rebel---that is, playing a significant role in Extinction Rebellion and committing a major part of his life to it.I don't know many others who have committed and dedicated so much personally, with such dedication and passion, to making sustainability one of their priorities or the priority. Most people seem content to talk about it and get outraged but not act.Etienne shares about peaceful civil disobedience, pressuring the state, his personal risk, coming to terms with engaging so fully, talking to loved ones about it, and more of the personal side of preparing to act. He knows his history and title lead many people to listen to him more, though it could also lead people who disagree to push back harder. The Olympics and patriotism mean different things to different people. He has stature, but many people may decry him for that reason.It mean

Here are the notes I read from for this post:Walking through park2017, pandemic"Thanks"Not thankworthyRestored faith / Nobody does / interrupting / construction workerOfficeContinual improvementEnjoyingFat / "Titty twister!" / salt"I can't"See meth, fentanyl, heroin users"I can"Forced $20 bill on meHad to run but kept talkingPartly wish I'd gotten contact information See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I indulge in asking Bill about his and his wife Laurie's passions, filmmaker friends, goals, and so on. He talks about passionate peers he's worked with like Michael Pollan and Paul Stamets. The names Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen come up too, as two other people who appeared in his movies. He explains the value of celebrity.He shares his storytelling techniques not to make political films or push people, despite covering fields others treat more bluntly. He and Laurie share nuance and subtlety. Also joy and appreciations.He takes an interest in the Spodek/AIM Method so I describe it to him, not just do it. I hope everyone practices it and spreads the joy, fun, freedom, and rewarding emotions and experiences that connecting with nature does. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Josh Martin started to do his commitment to shop at the farmers market, but it didn't connect. I think we didn't connect it to his experience of the environment.We decided to find a new commitment by connecting more intrinsically. We spoke on sustainability, nutrition, health, sports, and many things, him from the position of an entrepreneur former athlete, me from a troubleshooting perspective. The result was covering many topics, eventually leading to a new commitment. My read from his tone at the end is that the new one resonates more for him.One of the main discoveries of this podcast is that with rare exception, everyone cares about the environment. What's separating most people from acting isn't a lack of facts or lists of "ten little things" they could do for the environment. The lack leadership, meaning the tools leaders use, especially connecting with their intrinsic motivations. In the case of the environment, everyone has intrinsic motivation.Hitting people over the head with facts, numbers, and wh

Sandra took responsibility when she didn't have to, as the Executive Director of NYC Pride, to respond to my requests to talk to an organizer. Longtime listeners and readers of my blog know that last year, I was disgusted by the garbage covering Washington Square Park the morning after New York City's 2021 Pride March. I posted pictures and video with the quote from another person in the park I saw that morning, "Pride destroyed the park."It turns there are two Pride Marches and the other one ended in Washington Square Park, not the one Sandra organized, but she knew not everyone would know to distinguish them, the public could associate the mess with the whole community, and, in any case, both polluted too much.Beyond responding, we met in their headquarters with about a month before the March. They were very busy. We talked about what they could do this year and for the future.We also did the Spodek Method you are all used to hearing me do with leaders as guests on this podcast. We didn't record that first