Reading Mark's recent piece We’ll Never Have an Energy Transition in Manhattan Institute's City Journal prompted me to write my recent post, When they say “transition fuel,” they mean “more polluting and depleting,” not less pollution or depletion.

Read them both and you'll see he inspired what I wrote and he wrote a lot more, with more research and editing. I recommend reading it and listening to his podcast episode there, but I'd start with this one. In our conversation, you'll hear more details and back story.

The core idea of his piece: Every fuel we’ve ever used, we still use, and more than ever. If you think that by ramping up solar and wind that in any way that new energy availability will decrease our use of old energy, you’re dreaming. More likely you’re lying to yourself.

That idea is hard for people to swallow if they think humanity's best hope for survival is what they call "clean," "green," or "renewable" energy and learn that those sources aren't clean, green, or renewable. It matters to do the numbers. Mark does.

• Mark's home page
• His recent article in City Journal that prompted me to invite him back: We’ll Never Have an Energy Transition
• His appearance on the City Journal podcast on that piece: Green Energy Fallacies

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This recording went far beyond my usual preference for recording with guests in person when I can.

We met in Prospect Park on one of the peak birding days of the year. Tons of people were out with powerful binoculars and cameras. You'll hear lots of birds chirping in th background and even people who knew Ryan coming up to talk to him.

Nature is everywhere. We can enjoy it where we are when we want.

You'll pick up how much fun we were having, wonder we were experiencing, and community we were connecting with. Nature makes such experiences happen.

Have fun listening to us in nature watching and listening to birds and birders. Keep in mind: the point is only superficially birds and birders, as important as they are. The point is that you can access nature and create moments. It doesn't hurt to have an expert who wrote the book on local wildlife, but it's not necessary. As I mention in the recording, if you plan to visit New York City and want to explore, I'd recommend Wild NYC over nearly any guidebook.

• Ryan's home page, which links to his book Wild NYC: Experience the Amazing Nature in and around New York City

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Rob is one of my coaching clients. I asked him to be a guest here since many people perceive leadership and learning it as different than I mean. His work in medicine may not be at the center of sustainability, but I work in leadership, which I apply to sustainability. Listen to this episode to learn what changes to your life you can expect when you take my workshops. Listen to him for the full picture, but I think you'll hear profound and enduring personal growth, professional growth, improved relationships with spouse, children, and coworkers, promotion, security, connecting with your passions and realizing them, and more.

It seems an overwhelming majority of people I talk to who haven't explicitly learned leadership associate leadership with the opposite of what I mean when I talk about leadership. They think of it as imposing authority, manipulating, convincing, telling people what to do, and the like.

My definition of leadership is helping people do what they already want but haven't figured out how. Rob shares how he is learning and improving his leadership. People in sustainability can learn a lot from his fast and significant learning.

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