The Building a Better World Podcast Shawn Klassen-Koop

The world's problems are massive and overwhelming. Fortunately, for nearly every global problem there are solutions we can implement in our backyard that, at the same time, save us money and help provide more luxuriant lives. In this introductory episode, Shawn Klassen-Koop discusses his preferred approaches to solving the world's problems from his book "Building […]

The list of global problems is huge. But a lot of them are related. This episode covers 5 problems that are holding us back from living a happy, healthy, life on a sustainable planet. And since Shawn doesn't enjoy talking about the problems, he'll also start introducing some solutions for each of them. The five […]

The most effective way to make your voice heard is not writing letters, signing petitions, or going to a protest. It's making the right choices each and every day. Angry about the impacts of fracking? Vote with your wallet. Want a food system that heals the planet instead of destroying it? Vote with your wallet. […]

Having conversations with others about environmentalism can be extremely frustrating – even with other environmentalists. It's important to remember that life is a journey, and different people are at different places on their journey. And the things they want to talk about where they are on their journey might be much different from what we […]

Most of us heat our homes by heating all of the air in the whole house and then blowing it around in the hopes that it will eventually heat some people. Why not just heat the people instead? By focusing on heating the person instead of heating the space, it is possible to save up […]

In a cold climate, heat is almost 2/3 of home energy use. Rocket mass heaters are super efficient wood-fired heaters that are pretty much smokeless and use one tenth of the wood of a conventional wood stove. They can be built for as little as a few hundred dollars and a weekend's worth of time. […]