Humans are amazing at adapting, it may be our most defining trait, and something that's going to be all the more important starting now. The environment around us that has been fixed and stable, is now shifting drastically.

Wildfires are becoming more common, as is flooding and drought. Things that in the summer of 2026, have become all the more apparent, and are only just the start.

When comparing the two elephants on the global stage, China and the US are taking very different courses. China is speaking, and starting to act, in ways to specifically call out how to adapt to this changing dynamic. While the US has no national adaptation plan and has stripped climate change from its major strategic documents.

Alice Hill is the David Rubinstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment at the Council on Foreign Relations, where her work focuses on catastrophic risk, including climate change. She joins this episode to talk about her article, Extreme Weather Will Upend U.S.-China Competition, and explain how the two super powers are approaching what's here, and what's to come.

For more context like this, and for how I found this article in the first place, check out bandwidth.today. No ads. No clutter. More context.

📖 Chapters 📖

(00:00) - Intro essay: adaptation as humanity's greatest feature

(02:38) - Why "surviving" isn't the goal — thriving, and introducing Alice Hill

(06:07) - Meet Alice Hill: catastrophic risk and climate at CFR

(08:10) - China's self-washing solar panels vs. wildfire soot

(11:37) - Trump exits climate policy while China runs a 15-year plan

(13:48) - $55B in Chinese losses, ~$250B combined US-China damage

(15:33) - Sponge cities and moving water south to north

(20:01) - JR's storm, passive house design, and building for changing risk

(26:53) - Climate resilience as a strategic advantage

(29:47) - Gross Ecosystem Product: putting a price on nature

(35:39) - Why humans discount catastrophic risk

(38:12) - The six-minute storm and early warning systems

(43:07) - The Arctic hit 95°F

(44:56) - Three wishes, data centers, and the next "Rachel Carson moment"

(52:19) - Prioritizing investment and managing climate migration

Can the work outlive the man enough to forgive him? Frank Lloyd Wright designed the homes that quietly shaped how millions of Americans live — and he was, by nearly every account, a genuinely difficult person to love.

David (Black Sheep Makery, Big Dudu, Dudetunes) joins me to trace Wright's life from a childhood box of wooden blocks to Fallingwater, the Guggenheim, and a tragedy at his own home that killed seven people.

We use his story to ask a bigger question: when the art is this good, does the artist's life even matter — and where do we draw that line today?

Drawings from Frank Lloyd Wright, the early period mentioned throughout the episode.

(00:00) - Intro Essay: The Artist's Canvas Is How You Feel

(05:53) - Show Open & Guest Welcome

(09:32) - Who Was Frank Lloyd Wright?

(10:50) - Born in Wisconsin, Died the Year Before Kennedy

(14:03) - Fired From Adler & Sullivan for Moonlighting

(16:32) - The German Book That Made Him Famous

(18:29) - Organic Architecture, Prairie Style, and Designing Every Doorknob

(22:53) - Japan, Zen, and the Tokyo Imperial Hotel

(29:07) - Concrete, Steel, and Fallingwater

(31:03) - The Affair, the Refused Divorce, and Taliesin

(34:04) - The 1914 Taliesin Murders

(41:45) - How Wright Invented the American Split-Level

(48:16) - Beautiful but Leaky: Art vs. Function

(53:50) - Picasso, Van Gogh, and the Myth of the Difficult Artist

(58:17) - Where Is the Paris of Today?

Andrew Michler is a Santa Fe-based architect and author of Hyperlocalization of Architecture, and one of the leading practitioners of passive house design in the United States, including the first certified passive house in Colorado, which he built himself.

Also checkout a great YouTube video ( and excellent channel ) walking through Andrew's Colorado Passive home.

Passive house isn't a style. It's a methodology rooted in physics: rather than prescribing materials or following minimum code, it models the entire building. The insulation, airtightness, window placement, how the sun effects the warmth, even body heat from occupants, and targets aggressive performance outcomes. The result is a home that stays comfortable with a fraction of the energy a conventional house requires.

In here we cover the basics of passive house from the ground up, including what separates it from traditional high efficiency build certification and passive solar design, why the "boxy German building" reputation is mostly coincidence, and how a house in Colorado stayed in the mid-60s for a week at -9°F with the heating system off. We also dig into surprising economics of passive house construction (spoiler: it's closer to conventional than you'd think), and whether you can retrofit an existing home ~ a process Andrew is actively doing on a house in Oakland.

Chapters

(00:00) - Revolutionizing Home Building with Physics

(02:44) - Understanding Passive House Design

(05:29) - The Role of Physics in Architecture

(08:04) - Passive House vs. Traditional Construction

(10:43) - The Benefits of Passive Design

(13:32) - Real-World Applications of Passive House

(16:19) - Innovative Heating Solutions in Passive Houses

(19:01) - The Importance of Ventilation and Air Quality

(21:34) - Cost Considerations for Passive Houses

(34:33) - The Cost of Building and Energy Efficiency

(36:58) - The Value of Passive Homes

(41:12) - Survivability in Extreme Weather Conditions

(48:32) - Retrofitting Existing Homes for Energy Efficiency

(53:54) - Opportunities in Passive House Design

(57:23) - Insights from Japanese Architecture

(01:02:45) - The Importance of Design in Architecture

We can't prove you're conscious either — and that's kind of the point. Istanbul-based researcher Mesut Bilgili joins to reframe the AI consciousness debate around what we can actually measure. Plus: what your dog, a forest, and ChatGPT have in common, and why curiosity might be the only thing that saves us from ourselves.

Check out Mesut's paper on Functional Awareness, and follow along for more of his work.

Chapters

(00:00) - Introduction: Philosophy and Bias in Observation

(00:49) - Applying Philosophy to AI and Technology

(01:57) - The Relevance of Consciousness in AI Use

(02:57) - Guest Introduction: Basut Bidjuli and AI Research

(04:01) - Defining Intelligence vs. Consciousness

(06:00) - The Difference Between First-Person Experience and Functionality

(09:04) - Debate on Panpsychism and Consciousness in Nature

(11:48) - The Shaky Foundations of Consciousness and Observation

(16:43) - What is Functional Awareness in AI?

(19:56) - Ecosystems as Functionally Aware Systems

(24:34) - The Primary Role of Consciousness in Reality

(30:43) - Testing and Measuring Functional Awareness in AI

(37:55) - AI Dreaming and Self-Modification Experiments

(40:49) - The Fascination with AI Prediction and Potential

(48:27) - The Impact of Technology on Society and Culture

(54:38) - Cultivating Curiosity and Human Potential

(55:34) - Final Thoughts: Humanity and AI Co-evolution

In part two of this episode, In this episode, Thom Van De Meer shares his journey from academic background to applying StrongFirst principles in training athletes, including the women’s rowing team he trained to prepare for the 2020 Olympics— Project2020. We explore the principles of strength training, the science of energy systems, and how targeted, sustainable training can enhance performance and health.

Check out Thom's breathwork tracks on Spotify and his website to check out from him.

Chapters

(00:00) - Introduction to Knowledge vs. Wisdom

(01:52) - The Impact of Mental Work on Physical Performance

(05:29) - Strength Training Methodologies and Their Applications

(06:42) - Transforming Athletes from Novices to Competitors

(11:16) - Training Protocols and Recovery Strategies

(17:53) - The Role of Energy Systems in Training

(30:36) - Integrating Strength and Rowing Training

(40:26) - Practical Strength Training Insights

(43:18) - The Role of Neurology in Strength

(44:45) - Understanding Strength Beyond Muscle Size

(49:36) - Neurological Drive and Strength Training

(57:28) - Complex Adaptive Systems in Training

(01:03:54) - The Importance of Slow Changes in Training

(01:12:14) - Vitality and Lifelong Strength Training

In this episode, In this episode, Thom Van De Meer shares his journey from academic background to applying StrongFirst principles in training athletes, including the women’s rowing team he trained to prepare for the 2020 Olympics— Project2020. We explore the principles of strength training, the science of energy systems, and how targeted, sustainable training can enhance performance and health.

Check out Thom's breathwork tracks on Spotify and his website to check out from him.

Chapters

(00:00) - Knowledge vs. Wisdom: Understanding the Difference

(02:52) - The Impact of Mental Work on Physical Performance

(05:40) - Introducing Tom van de Meer and His Background

(08:09) - The Role of Nature in Wellbeing

(10:55) - Strong First Methodology: Training for Rowing Success

(13:31) - The Journey to Becoming a Strength Coach

(16:33) - The Influence of Pavel Tsatsouline and Strong First

(19:14) - Building a Competitive Rowing Team from Scratch

(23:19) - The Influence of Titans in Training

(24:00) - Understanding Strong First Methodology

(26:23) - Glycolytic vs Anti-Glycolytic Training

(29:51) - The Science Behind Strength Training

(34:19) - The Benefits of Anti-Glycolytic Training

(38:18) - Sustainable Strength and Performance

(40:58) - Cognitive Load and Physical Training

Where you live doesn't just shape your commute — it shapes your culture, your politics, and your relationship with everything alive around you.

Paul Robbins, Dean of Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, joins to unpack how the places we inhabit are never just backdrop. They're active participants in the story of civilization.

We get into cultural geography and why culture varies so dramatically across space, the science of ecology and what a wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone can tell us about everything, and political ecology — what happens when power, money, and ecosystems collide. We also dig into why bureaucracies keep repeating the same environmental mistakes (spoiler: it goes back to colonial France), why environmental determinism is a seductive but broken idea, and why gene banking in the Great Lakes might be one of the most important and underappreciated projects happening right now.

Before Paul closing with a cautiously optimistic take on what the next century could hold — if we can figure out the right levers to pull.

📖 Chapters 📖

(00:00) - Geography: The water we swim in

(06:08) - What is cultural geography?

(08:53) - What is political ecology and how do they differ?

(10:58) - Ecology defined: The Indiana Dunes as a starting point

(13:56) - Yellowstone: Wolves, elk, beavers, and cascading effects

(19:10) - Human hunters vs. natural predators — and why it matters

(21:42) - The Columbian Exchange and ecological imperialism

(25:24) - Does geography determine culture? Environmental determinism

(31:54) - What political ecology has taught us about human nature

(39:17) - Bureaucracies and the 33% forest rule that won't die

(49:15) - The next century: degrowth, externalities, and structural change

(56:53) - Gene banking the Great Lakes — and why indigenous sovereignty comes first

The dip in global population is something that's been gaining attention as of late, but mostly in the abstract.

Something concrete in that dip is about to come due this fall, a staggering drop in the number of available 18+ year olds for the traditional college path. The first bellwether in what my guest for this episode labeled in a piece that, America is about to go over the ‘demographic cliff’.

Journalist Jon Marcus, joins for this episode to explore the intersection of demographic shifts, higher education, and the implications for the workforce. The conversation highlights the decline in birth rates, the resulting impact on college enrollment, and the broader economic consequences of college closures.

We also get into the cultural perceptions of the value of a college degree and the challenges faced by institutions in adapting to these changes. Before ending on potential strategies for colleges to navigate the impending demographic cliff and its effects on education and the economy.

📖 Chapters 📖

(00:00) -The Future We Ignore: Human Behavior and Climate Change

(03:00) - Demographic Shifts: The Decline in Birth Rates

(06:02) -Higher Education in Crisis: The Impact of Enrollment Declines

(09:07) - The Workforce Pipeline: Implications of Fewer Graduates

(12:13) - Cultural Perceptions: The Value of a College Degree

(15:05) - Economic Impacts: The Closure of Colleges and Community Effects

(18:07) - Solutions and Strategies: What Can Colleges Do?

(27:22) - The Impact of the Pandemic on Higher Education

(30:14) - Exploring Alternative Markets for Universities

(32:50) - The Economic Burden of Student Debt

(34:48) - The Changing Landscape of College Admissions

(38:19) - The Future of Higher Education: Opportunities and Challenges

(41:12) - Reconceptualizing Higher Education for the Future

An update on what's happening with expert in the region from UCLA James Gelvin. He's joining us 5 years on from his last episode to give an update on what's occurred, and what's to come.

We delve into the complexities of global conflicts, particularly focusing on the Israel-Palestine situation, by exploring the historical context of U.S.-Israel relations, the implications of arms sales, and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza following the October 7th attack.

Professor Gelvin emphasizes the challenges and uncertainties facing the region, with a sobering outlook for the future.

📖 Chapters 📖

(00:00) - Global Conflicts and Their Complexity

(05:02) - Understanding the Israel-Palestine Conflict

(10:11) - U.S.-Israel Relations: A Historical Perspective

(15:00) - The Role of Arms Sales in Middle Eastern Politics

(19:52) - The October 7th Attack: A Turning Point

(25:10) - The Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza

(29:48) - The Future of Gaza and the Role of Hamas

(36:51) - Israel's Strategy in Gaza

(40:04) - Public Sentiment and Media Control in Israel

(43:38) - US Support and International Relations

(47:48) - The Situation in Syria

(55:24) - Kurdish Democratic Experiment

(59:09) - Food Security in the Middle East

(01:02:00) - US Policy Towards Israel

(01:04:47) - Future of the Middle East

(01:09:20) - Saudi Arabia's NEOM Project

With only raw materials, could you recreate a toaster? Now could you do it considering the source of your materials, the effect extracting them has on the world, along with the use and inevitable destruction of it.

This episode's guest did just that. Starting with the extraction of the materials, including learning 15th century techniques for smelting, created a toaster.

Reflecting upon that project in today's world, is the topic of this episode. Where we dive into the philosophy of design needing a refresh in todays world in order to live in better harmony with our reality.

Thomas Thwaites, Artist and Designer, joins me for this conversation. Check out his website for all of his projects, his TED talk and the project he's currently working on, a harmless car.

📖 Chapters 📖

(00:00) - The Essence of Design: Function Meets Aesthetics

(05:50) - Sustainability and the Complexity of Modern Design

(12:04) - The Toaster Project: A Journey into Design and Dependency

(24:00) - Fragility of Modern Society: Understanding Interdependence

(36:06) - Philosophical Reflections on Self-Reliance and Community

(41:05) - Designing for Sustainability: Challenges and Considerations

(46:22) - The Complexity of Consumer Power and Market Trends

(51:44) - Regulation vs. Art: The Role of Influence in Sustainability

(57:30) - The Harmless Car: A Thought Experiment in Design

(01:03:08) - Ethics in Design: Choosing Who to Harm