On this episode, Nate is joined by Alexa Firmenich, whose work spans biodiversity advocacy, ESG investing, wilderness excursion facilitating, and podcasting/creative writing. Together, they philosophize on the importance of developing a connection to nature and understanding the - often overlooked - but critical function of biodiversity to the climate and other natural systems. Alexa also delves into her thinking about new economic and cultural models on human systems that could work within...

Recorded December 18 2023   Description   In this Frankly, Nate follows up the recent Reality Roundtable on poverty with a wider perspective on the different types of "wealth" in our society that go beyond the material. At the same time that the power dynamic of the economic superorganism leads us to a hyperfocus on the pursuit of growth and monetary wealth, other forms of poverty increase:  relationships, skills, health, and behavioral deficits. How do our assumptions and societal...

On this episode, Nate is joined by climate researcher Leon Simons to unpack recent trends in global heating during 2023 and potential explanations and subsequent projections for the coming year. While the connection between human emitted greenhouse gasses and global warming is scientifically agreed upon, the other complexities and feedbacks of our climate system are still just beginning to be understood. Today, Leon theorizes on the intensity of aerosol masking from particulates such as...

On this episode, toxicology scientist Dr. Jane Muncke joins Nate to discuss the current state of food production and the effects of ultra processed foods and their packaging on our health. Over the last century processed food has taken over our supermarkets and our diets, and at the same time the containers they’re sold in have evolved as well - to be more eye-catching and keep food ‘good’ for longer. But what have we sacrificed in exchange for efficiency, ease, and convenience? How do the...

Recorded December 18 2023   Description   In this Frankly, Nate offers a personal reflection on his learnings about ‘awareness’ vs ‘focus’ and how this knowledge could be used as a guide toward more thoughtful behaviors. The human body’s system has evolved through time and the layers were built sequentially, each interacting and reacting to the systems below it. By becoming aware of this and attempting to balance them from the bottom up, we could move away from the reactionary tendencies...

On this episode, Nate is joined by Peter Brannen, science journalist and author specializing in Earth’s prior mass extinctions, to unpack our planet’s geologic history and what it can tell us about our current climate situation. Humans have become very good at uncovering the history of our planetary home - revealing distinct periods during billions of years of deep time that have disturbing similarities to our own present time. How is the carbon cycle the foundation of our biosphere - and how...

On this episode, environmental activist and author Bill McKibben joins Nate for a reflection on the last few decades of climate education and movements – and the possibilities and challenges that we’ll face ahead. Among a system that is dependent on growth and embedded in a biosphere full of limits (which we continue to surpass), working towards shifting our societies to be ecologically balanced is potentially the most important mission to which an individual can contribute - yet this is much...

Recorded December 17 2023   Description   In this final Frankly of 2023, Nate outlines some global themes that are worth keeping an eye on in 2024. From climate change to domestic and global politics to an unstable financial system, world events continue to converge. How will the social fabric of our society respond as changes to our current way of life continue to grow? How do these seemingly isolated events interconnect and enhance each other? How will governments, businesses, and...

On this episode, Arthur Berman returns to unpack the complexity underpinning the oil trends of the last 75 years and what new data can tell us about availability in the coming years. After decades of declining oil production in the United States, the past decade of rising oil extraction has eased many worries about peak oil. But the past few years of continued growth have been obtained by using “a larger straw”, merely delaying the inevitability of the depletion of a finite resource. Art...

On this Reality Roundtable, Nate is joined by four professionals with decades of experience working with low-income communities, Stephanie Hoopes, Peter Kilde, Marc Perry, and Dalitso Sulamoyo to discuss the state of poverty in the United States. Even in the wealthiest country in the world, poverty is a pernicious problem - and in a future that is more resource constrained it will only get worse. Do the current official measurements of poverty accurately portray the living standards of most...

In this week’s Frankly, we join Nate in a fascinating thought experiment imagining participants in this week’s COP 28 in Dubai are liberated from the usual social sorting mechanisms which constrain real, forthright, challenging conversation around solving our most dire issues.  What questions might participants ask at COP28 if there were no fear of losing social status and how might this liberation change the conversation around global heating?   As social primates, there is a stainless steel...

On this special 100th episode, Nate is interviewed by his friend and colleague in the metacrisis space, Kate Raworth. The conversation is a reflection on the past two years of podcasting – and how Nate’s worldview has evolved because of it. What fundamental concepts could help us better understand the trends happening around us and the potential futures they point to? With so many moving pieces, how can we begin to create a coherent story of the world around us and - even more difficult -...

On this episode, Nate is joined by co-founder of GMO Financial Holdings, Jeremy Grantham, to discuss how finance, human population, ecology, and pollution interact to shape current trends and what they could tell us about the future. Mr. Grantham unpacks why the expectations of perpetual growth - in the economy, standards of living, and finance - are not so likely and that when looking at the system holistically we should expect large paradigm shifts in the coming decades. What can the...

In this Frankly, a follow up to “One Ring to Rule Them All”, Nate unpacks the common misconception that AI is the answer to all our energy and ecological problems, specifically climate change. As the development of AI continues to accelerate, many propose that we are entering the ‘Exponential Age’, yet what’s ignored is that we’ve just lived through an age of exponential impact on Earth’s systems. Under this same ‘operating system’, AI can at best act as a more powerful tool for the...

On this episode, political economist Helen Thompson and Nate discuss how energy and geopolitics have interconnected over the past century, building to the entangled political relationships we see around us today. The dynamics of power on a global scale are complex - stemming from access to energy, financial control, military strength, credibility/trust, and much more - yet we can understand these a bit better by learning the history that shaped them. How have geologic provinces of energy...

Show Summary:    On this Reality Roundtable, Nate is joined by small-scale farmer Jason Bradford, permaculturist and documentarian Andrew Millison, regenerative agriculture activist Vandana Shiva, and regenerative farmer and educator Daniel Zetah to discuss the feasibility of a food system fully or mostly independent of fossil fuel inputs. While a non-industrialized agriculture system is certainly possible (it was the norm for the majority of human history), what that will look like and how...

(Conversation recorded on November 2nd, 2023)     Show Summary:    On this episode, Nate is re-joined by risk expert Chuck Watson for a candid discussion of recent news regarding the nuclear developments between Russia and the United States. As the world’s attention is focused on the events in the Middle East, US testing and development of new nuclear weapons and Russia’s decision to pull out of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty last week have been overlooked and underreported by major media....

Recorded October 31 2023   Description In this Frankly, Nate expands on our conventional definition of “taxes” to highlight nine other categories that will ‘tax’ our modern lifestyles. Traditionally, when we think of net and gross income, we only think of direct government taxes that subtract from what we take home. What are other taxes - resulting from our system's ecology - which will factor into the way society can pay for the goods and services we’ve become used to? As converging...

On this episode, Nate is joined by ‘permaculture’ author and educator David Holmgren to discuss his experience within the movement and what it might look like for more systems to be designed using permaculture in the future. While often thought to be an agricultural tool, permaculture thinking is meant for designing human systems to be embedded in nature - an important principle for a future where societies will need to re-synchronize with natural flows. What does it mean for permaculture...

Recorded October 27 2023   Description   In this forty-seventh Frankly, Nate reflects on…..Franklys. As real time global events move faster and faster, they alter the timing (and content!) of planned Frankly reflections on aspects of our global discourse. In light of this, Nate offers a raw take on events in Israel (and financial markets) and a growing list of upcoming topics relevant to the unfolding human predicament. The purpose of these Franklys is not to provide real time intel or...

On this episode, Nate is joined by climate scientist and policy ambassador Sir David King to unpack the current situation regarding Earth’s climate system and human response (or lack thereof) to the accelerating heating of the atmosphere. While there are many uncertainties this field still grapples with, the fundamentals of the rising average global temperature as a response to increasing man-made greenhouse emissions are widely recognized by the global scientific community. Yet - especially...

On this Special episode Nate speaks once again with risk expert Chuck Watson for a critical assessment of the unfolding situation around Israel which adds to the rapidly escalating dangers of our current geopolitical landscape. As tensions rise, the potential risks that geopolitical confrontation in the Middle East poses could spill over into energy, economic systems, and our social fabric - Chuck lends his deep expertise and decades of experience to shed light on these complex dynamics. How...

On this episode, Nate is joined by energy industry professional Joris van der Schot to explain the basics of oil refineries, their limitations, and other cultural narratives about energy. Oil is the lifeblood of our economies, yet most of us know so little about how it actually becomes all the different final products that we use. Just how massive is the scale of our energy consumption? How flexible and resilient are oil refineries to shifting oil demand? Can we keep an open mind to realistic...

On this Reality Roundtable, philosopher and writer Dougald Hine, social scientist and farmer Chris Smaje, and ecologist and farmer Pella Thiel join Nate to discuss the future of food and community. Our disconnected relationship to agriculture and our neighbors have been shaped by a modern industrial society fueled by surplus hydrocarbon energy. What will these relationships look like in a lower energy future, where we need to once again work with each other and the land, rather than in...

In this Frankly, Nate shares his perspective on the recent events in the Middle East and how they could lead to a shortening of the timeline to The Great Simplification. For those fortunate to live outside the direct impacts of these conflicts, many feel pressure to stay informed about this turbulent, global landscape. Is it possible to also remain grounded in the present realities of our daily lives? How do individual responses to this past week’s geopolitical events vary depending on the...