The Substance of Sustainability Podcast

We are so often presented with predictions for our future, that it's easy to forget that the future hasn't happened yet. By definition, all stories about the future are fiction. Yet we do need expectations about the future, if only to plan ahead and coordinate with others.

In this episode, I argue that the future is still undetermined and mostly unknown. Contrary to what many stories suggest, progress isn't assured and decline isn't inevitable. We should avoid prophecies and instead build a capacity for active hope. Hope is not passive wishful thinking or blind optimism. It requires agency, engagement and a willingness to confront obstacles. In the face of uncertainty, hope offers a constructive way forward, one that counters both resigned pessimism and uncritical faith in progress.

This is a narrated version of the article "The Future is Fiction", which was published on https://lvzon.substack.com and on https://sustainsubstance.org/articles

For notes and Further Reading, check out the full article: https://sustainsubstance.org/future-fictions.html

In this episode we address the ways in which we think. We humans often behave in ways that are “irrational”, and this underlies many of our collective problems. Using some of the underlying neuroscience, I will show that this is not because we are badly informed or incapable of thinking about long-term consequences. Rather, what we consider “rational” thinking isn’t our default mode (and also it is hard, and it isn’t all that rational). Instead, most of our “thinking” is unconscious, and our conscious thinking is driven more by stories and feelings than by facts.

You can read the accompanying article on https://lvzon.substack.com and on https://sustainsubstance.org/thoughts-feelings-stories.html

This is the narrated version of the article "Hairballs & Loops - Why understanding the real world is important (but not easy)". It is the third article in a series, in which I look for better stories on sustainability. Here we continue on the subject of complexity. We look at how we understand the world in terms of cause-and-effect-stories. Causal loops or "feedbacks" can make complex systems harder to understand, but also more robust and more effective. The problem is that we easily get lost in the details of complex systems, while not all details matter.

You can read the accompanying article on https://lvzon.substack.com and on https://sustainsubstance.org/hairballs-and-loops.html

This is the narrated version of the article "Entwined: Matters of Complexity". It is the second article in a series, in which I look for better stories on sustainability. Here we examine the subject of complex systems, and what complexity means for scientific understanding, predictability and the possibilities of control. Since the 17th century, our thinking has been increasingly influenced by the concept of "the machine". Machines are built to be optimised and controlled. But it turns out that most of our world is very unlike a machine.

You can read the accompanying article on https://lvzon.substack.com and on https://sustainsubstance.org/entwined.html

This is a narrated version of the article "Beyond Optimists and Pessimists", which was published on https://lvzon.substack.com and on https://sustainsubstance.org

This is the first article in a series, in which I look for better stories on sustainability. In this introduction, I talk about stories as models of the world. The current stories we tell ourselves and each other about sustainability are usually oversimplified. Most tend to revolve around either technical solutions, or around a kind of modern romanticism. Yet others focus on a fatalistic or urgent sense of impeding doom. I think that we can do better than having to choose between technological optimism or environmental pessimism.

You can read the accompanying article on Substack and on https://sustainsubstance.org/beyond-optimists-and-pessimists.html