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This Sustainable Life
293: Alan Weisman: My Greatest Source of Environmental Hope
Alan Weisman's book Countdown changed my strategy to the environment. It ranks among the top most influential works I've read, watched, or come across, up there with Limits to Growth.
Why? Because when you look at environmental issues enough, and it shouldn't take too long these days, population always rises to the top as one of the top issues. Many people today hear about projections that the population will level off around 10 billion. Actually, the ones I see project that the population will keep growing exponentially then, just slower than now.
If you only look at one issue---only climate, only deforestation, or only extinctions---they seem possibly solvable, but they're all linked. Solving several at once---say meeting power needs while the economy falls apart and food becomes scarce---looks impossible.
Also, since nothing deliberate limits population growth, we're lucky if it levels off. We aren't choosing where to level it off and 10 billion looks three to five times what the Earth can sustain. Cultural changes could promote more growth. Many populations are promoting maximum growth today---very powerful religions and autocratic rulers for example.
I don't want to rely on luck for our species' survival. Besides, my research into what Earth can sustain says that we're over the limit. If we're heading toward a cliff, simply maintaining our speed and not accelerating doesn't stop us. We have to decelerate.
Despite the convergence of all these issues, for years I held back from talking about population. People don't like others meddling in their personal lives. I don't want the government in my bedroom. People overwhelmingly associate population talk with China's one child policy, eugenics, and Nazis. I did too. I didn't see how I could improve a situation by suggesting to avoid misery later through misery now.
Still, I knew some cultures---island nations that lived centuries or longer, for example, or the bushmen in southern Africa whose archeological record went back hundreds of thousands of years---kept their populations level, so they must have developed some mechanism.
In some past episode of this podcast, with Jared Angaza, for example, I pondered aloud how to find out how they did it, though it may have come up when I was a guest on his podcast. I could only wonder what worked but couldn't promote what I didn't know.
Countdown changed all that. Alan found and reported on numerous examples in today's world of cultures lowering their birth rates without coercion, without top-down government authority, voluntarily, desired by all participants, leading to abundance, prosperity, peace, and stability, the opposite of where overpopulation takes us.
Countdown tells stories of 21 places, some promoting growth and results aren't pretty and some where they've lowered birth rates and they're remarkably pleasant, even prosperous and stable. He talks about the top ones in this episode.
We have tough times ahead of us. One change simplifies everything---a smaller population achieved voluntarily, peacefully, joyfully. Alan has researched firsthand more than almost anyone. He has more than enough reason to despair if he wanted to. If he's not, I conclude that everything he's found nets out to say we can do this.
Family planning, education, and contraception seem technologies and practices that can work more than carbon sequestration, solar planes, and everything else. They're cheap, they're available, they make sex more fun, they've overcome cultural resistance outside the gates of the Vatican!
Read his books and Limits to Growth.
I'll do my best to bring him back.
Past episodes I based on Alan's books
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858. 858: Beth Bailey, the great-grandmother influencer leading the cleaning of Mérida, Mexico
01:00:57||Ep. 858As a great-grandmother, Beth probably wouldn't describe herself as an influencer, but what else do you call it when videos of her go viral and prompt people to follow her?Longtime podcast listeners may remember episode 754: (Aunt) Trish Ellis and (Niece) Evelyn Wallace, part 1: Not Even Cancer Holds Her Back. We mentioned Beth, Evelyn’s mom and Trish’s sister. All three of them took the workshop. Beth and Evelyn also took my leadership and initiative courses that I offered to workshop alumni.Beth's initiative project was to pick up litter daily, but not just pick it up. She was inspired by an initiative she'd seen to restore pride in a community. For example, I pick up litter, but I just do it to clean where I walk. Her goal was bigger: to restore and inspire pride in where she lives, Mérida, Mexico. She planned things like a sign to invite favorable attention, what to wear, when to go out, how to talk to people.She's been picking up litter since. Then last month, at an alumni online lunch, she shared that someone secretly recorded her, posted the video, and by then the video had been seen over 1 million times. Plus, attention was leading to people joining her movement, opportunity to work with government, and more. I posted about it on my blog: Secret video of Beth picking up litter goes viral in Mexico.I invited her to share here. Listen for what happens when you persist.Beth's community page: Yo ❤ Mérida limpia. ¿Y tú?My post on her, linking to her videos and some media coverage: Secret video of Beth picking up litter goes viral in Mexico
857. 857: Kim Stanley Robinson: Science fiction writing and leadership
51:23||Ep. 857I met Stan in person at an event in Brooklyn. I had read Ministry for the Future a few years ago. He pointed out something I hadn't noticed since most people identify him as a science fiction writer. Ministry for the Future isn't exactly science fiction. He projects into the future, but he only includes plausible things---no flying cars or time travel.This practice invigorated my interest in his work. I also asked him how he handled water in New York 2140, since I knew it would have to be heavily polluted from sea level rise would flood landfills and cause their contents to disperse throughout the oceans. I enjoyed talking to him and invited him here.He has another identify besides as an author. He knows a lot about our environmental situation and attempts to address it. He's not an activist but more than an educator.I couldn't wait to engage with him on both identities. For him as an author, I found more to learn from him than I expected relevant to leadership, which I consider a performance art. As a writer, he has to create visions that readers accept and embrace. He has to express himself candidly but in a language the reader likes and feels engaged to continue. These points are relevant to leadership I asked him a bunch about the art and craft of writing from the perspective of someone wanting to improve his leadership.Naturally, we also talked about creativity regarding solutions.
856. 856: David Jenkins, President of Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship
01:03:05||Ep. 856Most environmentalists that I know of consider themselves progressive or liberal. They propose solutions that increase regulation and grow government, often in the style of the New Deal. Their role models are generally also progressive and liberal. They present conservatives as opponents, even enemies, sometimes evil. They consider them interested in themselves and profit, not caring who suffers for it.Over and over, they say about conservatives, "They don't care." Meanwhile, they pollute as much as anyone. They fund future extraction, companies that extract and pollute, their politicians, and lobbyists promoting more.I don't think they actually talk to conservatives. They project their preconceptions onto them and treat them as straw men.David Jenkins helps lead a conservative group that promotes stewardship. I suspect many environmentalists would consider the combination impossible, wondering if it's a front group.What do you expect? Could conservative values promote decreasing pollution, depletion, plunder, and misappropriating nature?Listen and find out.Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship's web page
855. 855: Peter DeCarlo PhD: Shocking Cancer Alley research from the scientist who did it
01:05:37||Ep. 855That this country has a region called Cancer Alley is beyond tragic. We know we're causing it, not just the companies operating the polluting refineries and other industrial plants. All of us who buy their products are funding them.I wondered if it was fair to call the region Cancer Alley. Is the evidence clear enough, even if not for a court to award damages?Peter DeCarlo is a researcher at Johns Hopkins who did original research and answered definitively: Yes. In our conversation, he described what motivated him to this research, the research, interacting with residents of Cancer Alley, how it affects him, physically and emotionally, and why he keeps going. It turns out his motivation started long before the research.The conversation returns at the end to some parts of his life at the beginning. I hope it motivates some to act out of the potential for life fulfillment.Peter's faculty page at Johns HopkinsThe video of Peter produced by podcast guest Maya Lilly: Justice for Saint James
854. 854: John Perkins, part 2: New Book Preview: The Art of the Steal (and restoring American ideals)
44:06||Ep. 854John returns to describe his upcoming book The Art of the Steal: Trump and the Economic Hit Man Presidency, described as his best book of the Economic Hit Man series. I'm honored that he came to this podcast first.Longtime listeners and readers know how much of an impression Confessions of an Economic Hit Man made on me. Regular blog readers know from my descriptions of my upcoming book how much imperialism factors into it. John's book couldn't have come at a better time.Listen to this whole conversation. He starts by describing the new book, then puts it in context of how what he wrote about decades ago is happening more than ever, and by the US government on its own citizens. I think you'll feel as I do that I'd rather it weren't happening but since it is, I'd rather know than not know.I say to listen to the whole episode, especially if you're listening around the date I publish (July 3, 2026) because none of what he says or writes is complaining. He shares how everything he says and writes is to restore American ideals like liberty, freedom, equality, democracy, and national security. He states it better than I can.John's home pageHis page on his new book The Art of the Steal: Trump and the Economic Hit Man PresidencyHis blog
853. 853: Kate Williams: CEO, 1% for the Planet
01:20:54||Ep. 853I'd seen the "1% for the Planet" logo many times and figured it was an organization that helped, but I didn't think of how. The businessman in me wondered, shouldn't companies just lower prices 1% and let people donate what they want? Does one percent make much difference?Kate was passing through New York so we got to meet in person. In this recording, she answers these questions and more. She describes the organization more comprehensively, but briefly, 1% for the Planet organizes other organizations, some to donate, others to receive, and vets them.What interested me most was their long-term goal, which is cultural change, which fits with mine.Kate didn't found the organization, but as CEO has scaled the network to 110 countries and 65 industries, driving close to $1 billion in certified giving. She also shares her personal background that motivates her, which also interested me, since from the start of the conversation, her leadership experience and style emerge. Anyone who knows me knows I consider effective leadership one of the most important needs in reducing pollution and depletion.Kate's home page1% for the Planet
852. 852: Steven Pressfield, conversation 2: His new book, The Arcadian (and A Man at Arms)
58:17||Ep. 852It turns out Steven's readers split into two camps with little overlap. I figure most listeners belong to the War of Art camp. If you haven't read the book and want to live a better life, I recommend it, in the top few percent of recommendations. It's powerful, engaging, memorable, and short.The other camp reads his fiction books. His latest is The Arcadian, which stands alone but connects with his last book A Man at Arms. I read both and now belong to both camps, proudly. One goal of this conversation is to entice listeners to join both Pressfield camps too.This podcast is about leadership applied to sustainability, not just personal leadership and art. Just because I like his books doesn't mean his fiction is relevant to this podcast. I found one part delivered a powerful gut punch that I found relevant to our lives.Blog readers will have seen my post about that part after reading The Arcadian Wounded Warriors, by Steven Pressfield, and Ourselves. That part describes what happens to people when we are induced to violate our values. Steven and I talked about that section. He described it as the core of the book.The situation warriors face and must deal with is more concentrated than we do, but their ways of handling it are similar to how we do, despite our violations being more diffuse. We would help ourselves handle our lives by facing that we are violating our values, even if, like the warriors, society rewards us for it. Only by facing it can we resolve it. In our case, we can change our culture to stop corrupting us.We can learn a lot from Steven. Not many people sell millions of books. Many followers is a top sign of leadership.Steven's home pageHis booksHis weekly blogMy recent blog post about The Arcadian, about the section of the book we talked about it: Wounded Warriors, by Steven Pressfield, and Ourselves
851. 851: J. Eric Oliver: How to Know Yourself
01:09:02||Ep. 851This podcast is about leadership first and foremost, applied to sustainability. Most of the time when people hear or read "sustainability," that concept overrides everything else. They forget or don't notice else, but here, in this podcast it comes second. If you haven't developed the social and emotional skills to lead based on intrinsic motivation, if you try to convince, cajole, coerce, or seek compliance, you'll probably influence people to resist and oppose you and what you're promoting.I see Eric's book, How to Know Your Self (note the two words: "your" and "self") is a book on self awareness based on an interactive course on self awareness. I've never heard an experience leader suggest that lower self awareness helps and I've heard plenty say it does.Since we all pollute and deplete, which hurts people, we know we're violating our values, which tends to evoke emotions we don't like. We hide them from ourselves. We lower our self awareness. We could use tools to increase our self awareness.Eric's book delivers. We talk about how the book came to be, his course, how it differs from regular classes, and what people get out of it. I hope you listen, read the book, use it to increase your self awareness, and use that increase to lead yourself and others more effectively.Eric's home pageEric's page for How to Know Your SelfEric's faculty page at the University of ChicagoEric's podcast: Knowing
850. 850: AJ Harper, part 1: Write to change lives, including yours
01:12:00||Ep. 850Two core elements of leadership are effective communication and creating community. AJ has done both. I can attest from taking her writing workshop and participating in her author community since. I wrote the first draft of Sustainability Simplified in her workshop.I also valued the book she co-wrote with her writing partner and podcast guest Mike Michalowicz. As you'll hear in our conversation, their podcast is one of the only ones I've listened to every episode of.I've wanted to bring her on the podcast for a long time since I learned so much from her and value participating in her community so much. If you're here to build community to change culture, I believe you can learn from AJ's journey and building her community. I see them based on honesty, integrity, doing the reps, self-awareness, and the things that many people talk about but not all do. If I'm not too direct and blunt to say so, environmentalists in particular not only lack these leadership properties, many of them shun them.AJ's homepageHer writing workshop that I took and recommend