This Sustainable Life

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 event, even if yet another once a once-in-a-century event now common, but what does it look like on the ground. We know there have been record-breaking fires, floods, and storms. What are they like?

David travels the United States to record what he sees and reports it in Traveler's Guide to the End of the World. He comes from a literary background, so he puts it in the context of past nature writers. He also has a daughter so asks scientists what the world will be like when she is his age. The book is not always easy to read, but always engaging and fascinating.

He represents nature. He declines to lead about it, which, if you know me, I see as the most important course we can take, but there's no denying the value of seeing the world as it has become.

In our conversation, he shares his background, motivations, and the process of researching and writing.

We talk about ultimate Frisbee too, beyond since we both loved it when we played. It also informed our views of our roles in the world.

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With Peter Singer, I could have picked several topics relevant to sustainability leadership: veganism, vegetarianism, and charity come to mind, as does my post about him six months ago, Fixing Peter Singer’s drowning child analogy for sustainability. The day before recording, I saw him speak live and asked during the question-and-answer period at the end about not flying.

He answered thoughtfully and reflectively, not with the usual reactivity and emotional intensity most people do, protecting their feelings of guilt and shame, as I see them (I wrote The reason you feel judged isn’t because environmentalists are judging you. It’s because you have a conscience.) Several audience members told me they appreciated my asking the question. So when we spoke after he finished his stage performance, I asked if he'd mind following up the question in our podcast conversation.

So we spoke in more depth about flying versus not flying. I think I can safely say we both learned from each other, though I think he hasn't spoken with many people who have stopped flying to gain from their experience.

Coincidentally, his talk on stage was fireside chat-style with podcast guest AJ Jacobs. Small world. If you like intelligent, thoughtful conversation, check out Think Inc., the company that organized the talk. They host events with many speakers who are peers.

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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 tax, integrity, permanence, standards, measurement, and many different angles. He talks about responsibility and holding the companies creating the problems responsible. It just takes courage.

Regular listeners know I find that when anyone focuses only on carbon, greenhouse emissions, and climate, they almost always miss our other environmental problems, like plastic, pollution, deforestation, and you know the rest, Bob agrees the tax incentive should apply to these other areas, though I'm not sure he acts on them. It's easy not to change the system, but to make it more efficient and accelerate it overall, even if you lower problems in one part of the system.

But mostly I wanted to hear his views and strategies, not press, so I hope I listened more than challenge.

He also shared his inside views of people in finance approaching a tipping point of realizing we have to protect our environment -- everything, not just climate.

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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 a tree. He ended up with a new tree, plus he planted other plants. Listen to hear the story. More than what he did, I recommend listening to his emotional experience. Did he have to do all the things he did? Could he do other things that are more mainstream but might pollute more if he wanted?

We talked first about the problems with what most people mean when they talk about teaching children, helping poor people experience nature, and a few other tactics people promote without thinking them through, as I believe. They sound great. What are they missing?

Matt has thought through such issues more than most and was patient enough to let me share some of my views.

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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 episode I'll post soon, and was a peer with past guest Mark Tercek. I didn't work in finance, but I understand Bob and Mark were like dieties there.

Bob brings two huge new things to climate (he talks about climate almost exclusively among our environmental problems, though we touch on others briefly in the conversation). First, he knows risk management. Most of his career, he didn't think much about the environment, but when he learned about it, he identified that we have to manage risk, so he dove into the issue.

Second, he connected with a group of conservative politicians promoting what he sees as the most effective solution: a carbon tax. That he's working with groups normally seen as resisting climate action could bring people together.

Also, just after we recorded, the New York Times published a big piece on Bob: A Renowned Economist’s New Idea for Stopping Climate Change.

A personal note: I don't challenge his views because I'm learning them and meeting him. I agree our economic system doesn't account for pollution and depletion. Without proper accounting, no business can stay in business that long, nor can any government. So I consider proper accounting essential, but it's only extrinsic. It doesn't change our culture or the values driving it. Since our culture has abandoned, at least regarding how we treat each other when mediated through the environment, Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You, Live and Let Live, and Leave It Better Than You Found It, a tax won't fix a values problem.

I didn't challenge Bob in it in our conversation, but I find when people focus on climate and greenhouse emissions they nearly always "solve" them with "whack-a-mole" ideas that increase biodiversity loss, deforestation, and other problems. They claim they're solving one thing at a time, but I see them not addressing the culture causing everything.

I look forward to more conversations with him.

• A New York Times piece on Bob: A Renowned Economist’s New Idea for Stopping Climate Change

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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 hear talk about population without hearing things like eugenics and racism even when they aren't there.

But population is one of the most important factors in sustainability. Everything becomes easier when population isn't near or above what Earth can sustain and harder when it's above.

I came to Chris from reading his paper on modeling population growth, Footprints to singularity, which showed a couple things. It clarified that UN and peer projections lacked feedback mechanisms so couldn't show population decline. If your model can't show a population decline, it will blind you to the possibility and therefore keep you from preventing or preparing for it. It also leads you to ask, "how do we feed ten billion people" instead of seeing that we can't without causing a steep drop in population soon after, a pattern called overshoot and collapse.

Second, it showed a good chance that population would likely decline significantly soon. It and he also reinforced my confidence in Limits to Growth's dynamical systems approach.

Chris's paper prompted my contacting Wolfgang Lutz, and I recommend listening to his episode too. I hope to bring them together on one episode to see if they can reconcile their differences.

Oh yeah, I also enjoyed and learned from the class slides for his undergraduate course in human population.

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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 his mind for meditation, he ended up selling his motorcycle and Playstation.

Then we spoke about coaching and leading people to reach their potentials, which he experienced on the receiving end in reaching the Olympics twice and does now with others, and he appreciates me doing in corporations and on sustainability. You'll hear we both admire each other and are learning from each other.

A curious note: you'll hear me puzzled at his tone, which I couldn't place. It didn't convey the sense of accomplishment and freedom his words did. We're still getting to know each other.

I also think he expects acting more sustainably to take more time and money, when I find it frees both.

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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 and justify that your money supports lobbyists, advertising, extraction, pollution, depletion, making refugees, dictators, and so on.

Want to stop people working there? I suggest it helps to understand them. We can start by understanding ourselves. Stopping ourselves from supporting that industry is easier than stopping them, so I recommend starting with ourselves.

Note: we recorded this episode a few years ago, before I fully developed the Spodek Method.

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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 a family beset with poverty and addiction before reaching Olympic level competition isn't enough, and if learning what it's like after four more years to win an Olympic medal isn't enough, I'd say the best part of our conversation comes after all that. Then we talk about bringing out the best in others as a coach.

How do you find out how to coach each person, athlete, executive, or otherwise?

How to you lead a team to give to their potential?

How do you keep everyone motivated?

How do you keep yourself motivated?

We both deeply appreciate each other's experience. You'll hear us trying to learn from each other. I want to learn how to shift sustainability, which everyone gives lip service to, from trying to avoid losing to winning by having fun, giving everything we've got, learning our deepest values, and acting on them. Dan does those things.

• Dan's home page

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Matt invited me to his podcast, A Climate Change. We stayed in touch after recording. He shared that he ran for President, including supporting sustainability. A goal of this podcast is to bring elected officials of all stripes. While he didn't get that many votes, he ran for several reasons, including to run as a Republican opposing Donald Trump. Listen to our conversation to learn more of his motivation.

I wanted to bring him here not for the campaign alone but for his acting with integrity and character, even if not a huge campaign. How many pro-sustainability, anti-Trump Republicans do you know of? I saw determination arising from personal action.

I also learned he's trying some things, like buying a hydrogen-powered car. My research shows the science and engineering showing hydrogen cars won't work for most of what we use cars for, nor trucks, planes, or container ships, but he's acting on his values, not just pointing fingers. He will learn from the experience.

•  Matthew Matern for President 2020
• The Satyagraha Alliance

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