The Green Elephant in the Room: Solutions To Restoring the Health of People and the Living Planet

Rico Verde
  • 4.9 (15)
  • NEWS COMMENTARY
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

We all know about the doom and gloom associated with environmental issues. We need to tell ourselves a new story. Instead let's talk about energy independence, green jobs, livable cities, clean water, clean air, and healthy children. This is where politics, perceptions, and life-style meet the catastrophe that is unfolding in front of our eyes. Here's a suggestion — subscribe, tune-in, and stop doom-scrolling.

  1. 2D AGO

    THE BIG STUPID: Trump’s Devastatingly Effective War on Knowledge (Part 3 of 3)

    SHOW NOTES We're witnessing civilization-scale destruction in real time. A single leader is systematically dismantling America's knowledge infrastructure—firing thousands of scientists, defunding research institutions, attacking universities, purging cultural repositories, and creating a permission structure where ignorance becomes a point of pride. This isn't chaos—it's strategy. And the damage will compound across generations, reshaping how we solve problems, govern ourselves, and address planetary crises. By the end of this episode, you'll understand how stupidity was transformed from a bug in the system into a feature of political control. You'll see how the attention economy made us vulnerable, how Trump weaponized that vulnerability, and how his assault on knowledge ensures the destruction can never be fully documented or reversed.  More importantly, you'll learn what you can do about it. Because while the forces of technological, economic, and political stupidity assume we'll scroll our way to extinction, resistance is still possible. The fight to preserve human intelligence is the defining battle of our century—and it requires knowing who's fighting and how to join them. Two "LET'S TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY AND OUR PLANET" Databases: A Call to Act: The World's Most Comprehensive Database of Eco-Solutions.               The most effective climate action happens in communities. A Call to Act helps you find local environmental groups, climate action meetups, and volunteer opportunities that create real change in your backyard and beyond. Trumping Trump: A new survival guide for maintaining focus and sanity while avoiding outrage fatigue. TT is a database of 300+ strong organizations, many with local chapters in your area, united together to fight against the insanity spewing out of 'The Whiter House' that is going to be with us for years.

    36 min

  2. JAN 28

    THE BIG STUPID: The $7 Trillion War on Human Attention (Part 2 of 3)

    SHOW NOTES What if the greatest threat to solving climate breakdown isn't denial or inaction—it's that we've been systematically engineered to be incapable of understanding it? This episode reveals how a $7 trillion industry has transformed your attention into a resource to be extracted, leaving you with a cognitive capacity optimized for scrolling instead of thinking. We're not just distracted; we're being rewired at a neurological level, and the consequences extend far beyond personal productivity into the survival of democracy, the future of scientific innovation, and our ability to address existential threats. From the mechanical lie that attention can be measured in clicks and screen time, to the research proving that mind-wandering is where breakthrough thinking happens, this episode connects dots you've sensed but couldn't quite articulate:  Why did political engagement collapse when entertainment got "too good"? Why can't we sustain focus long enough to grasp climate science? Why is your brain choosing pain over boredom? The attention economy is counting on you being too distracted to fight back. This episode gives you the framework to understand what's being stolen from you—and why reclaiming your capacity for deep thought might be the most radical act of resistance available. Two "LET'S TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY AND OUR PLANET" Guides: A Call to Act: The World's Most Comprehensive Database of Eco-Solutions.               The most effective climate action happens in communities. A Call to Act helps you find local environmental groups, climate action meetups, and volunteer opportunities that create real change in your backyard and beyond. Trumping Trump: A new survival guide for maintaining focus and sanity while avoiding outrage fatigue. TT is a database of 300+ strong organizations, many with local chapters in your area, united together to fight against the insanity spewing out of 'The Whiter House' that is going to be with us for years.

    37 min

  3. JAN 21

    THE BIG STUPID - Why We're Getting Dumber When We Need to Be Smarter (Part 1 of 3)

    SHOW-NOTES For the first time in recorded history, human intelligence is declining. IQ scores that rose steadily for a century have reversed course across the developed world. Pattern recognition, abstract reasoning, and problem-solving abilities are dropping fastest among young adults. This isn't about genetics - it's about environment. We've built a world that no longer demands we think hard, and our brains are responding accordingly. The timing couldn't be worse. Climate change requires exactly the cognitive abilities we're losing - understanding complex systems, thinking abstractly, planning long-term, and making difficult trade-offs. Meanwhile, rising temperatures, air pollution, and elevated CO2 levels are themselves damaging our brains, creating a vicious cycle. We need to be smarter to solve the climate crisis, but the crisis is making us dumber. This episode exposes the stakes and asks: do we still have enough mental capacity left to choose a different path? Two "LET'S TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY AND OUR PLANET" Guides: A Call to Act: The World's Most Comprehensive Database of Eco-Solutions.               The most effective climate action happens in communities. A Call to Act helps you find local environmental groups, climate action meetups, and volunteer opportunities that create real change in your backyard and beyond. Trumping Trump: A new survival guide for maintaining focus and sanity while avoiding outrage fatigue. TT is a database of 300+ strong organizations, many with local chapters in your area, united together to fight against the insanity spewing out of 'The Whiter House' that is going to be with us for years.

    34 min

  4. JAN 16

    Apocalypse Autopsy: Transformation Stories (Part 2 of 2)

    SHOW NOTES The word apocalypse doesn't mean ending - it means revelation, transformation. History shows that human apocalypses don't destroy everything, they fundamentally change society.  The Black Death killed half of Europe but broke the feudal system when labor scarcity gave peasants bargaining power for the first time. Mexico City earthquake survivors didn't scatter in panic - they ran toward collapsed buildings to help, forming rescue groups that still exist today. Research shows you only need 25 percent of any community committed to change to flip entire social norms, and this tipping point explains sudden shifts like smoking bans and marriage equality. We're already past several positive tipping points. Solar and wind energy are now the cheapest electricity in most places, not from subsidies but simple economics. Each success makes the next easier, creating momentum. But colonial history warns us that recovery requires agency - when Spanish colonizers destroyed Aztec water systems and imposed their own approach, they created problems Mexico City still faces 500 years later. Unlike every previous generation facing apocalypse, we can see climate change coming. We have time, knowledge, and choice. The question isn't whether systems will transform, but whether we choose adaptation while we still have agency or wait for collapse to force it on us. Two "LET'S TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY AND OUR PLANET" Guides: A Call to Act: The World's Most Comprehensive Database of Eco-Solutions.                The most effective climate action happens in communities. A Call to Act helps you find local environmental groups, climate action meetups, and volunteer opportunities that create real change in your backyard and beyond. Trumping Trump: A new survival guide for maintaining focus and sanity while avoiding outrage fatigue. TT is a database of 300+ strong organizations, many with local chapters in your area, united together to fight against the insanity spewing out of 'The Whiter House' that is going to be with us for years.

    38 min

  5. JAN 7

    Apocalypse Autopsy: Are we the Asteroid or the Dinosaurs? (Part 1 of 2)

    SHOW NOTES Earth has nearly died five times. Not from asteroids - Earth did it to itself. Over the past 445 million years, massive volcanic eruptions pumped catastrophic amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, triggering cascading disasters: superheated oceans, toxic atmospheres, and the extinction of up to 95% of all species. These weren't slow declines. Some happened faster than the span of recorded human history. Here's the uncomfortable truth: we're running the same experiment again. By burning hundreds of millions of years' worth of buried carbon in just a few centuries, we're replicating the conditions that caused Earth's worst mass extinctions. The geochemistry is simple and uncontested – rapid increases in atmospheric CO2 have never ended well.  But there's a crucial difference: ancient organisms couldn't stop volcanic eruptions. We can stop digging up and burning fossil fuels. We have something they didn't - knowledge of the pattern, and the power to change our trajectory. The question isn't whether Earth will survive. It will. The question is whether we'll use what we know to ensure humanity is part of the planet's future, or just another thin layer in the rocks. Two "LET'S TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY AND OUR PLANET" Guides: A Call to Act: The World's Most Comprehensive Database of Eco-Solutions.                Hundreds of Eco-Organizations, Eco-Activities, and Eco-Actions you can take today. Trumping Trump: A new survival guide for maintaining focus and sanity while avoiding outrage fatigue. TT is a database of 300+ strong organizations, many with local chapters in your area, united together to fight against the insanity spewing out of 'The Whiter House' that is going to be with us for years.

    29 min

  6. 12/30/2025

    Beyond Doom: Navigating the Poly-Crisis (Part 2 of 2)

    SHOW NOTES Why Everything Feels Like It's Falling Apart at Once—and What That Actually Means When wildfires, pandemics, refugee crises, and wars all seem to strike simultaneously, it's not just bad luck. This episode introduces "polycrisis"—the framework that explains why climate change creates droughts that destroy crops, driving migration that destabilizes governments, bringing climate deniers to power who worsen the original problem. These aren't separate disasters. They're interconnected feedback loops amplifying each other through the systems we've built. But here's the breakthrough: the same connections that multiply problems can multiply solutions. Scientists have identified social tipping points where small interventions trigger cascading change across entire systems. When 25% of a population shifts behavior, cultural transformation becomes inevitable. When renewable energy delivers higher returns than fossil fuels, entire power systems transform within a generation. The UK went from 90% coal to under 2% in just decades. Norway hit 50% electric vehicle sales. Europe accelerated its renewable transition because the Ukraine war exposed fossil fuel vulnerability. The polycrisis is real and overwhelming—but understanding how crises connect reveals where strategic action creates exponential impact. From deep geothermal energy to education that combats disinformation, from the 3.5% movement threshold to both/and thinking that transcends false choices, this episode maps the leverage points where your action matters most. The pens are in our hands. The story isn't written yet. Two "Let's Take Back our Country and our Planet" Guides: A Call to Act: The World's Most Comprehensive Database of Eco-Solutions.                Hundreds of Eco-Organizations, Eco-Activities, and Eco-Actions you can take today. Trumping Trump: A new survival guide for maintaining focus and sanity while avoiding outrage fatigue. TT is a database of 300+ strong organizations, many with local chapters in your area, united together to fight against the insanity spewing out of 'The Whiter House' that is going to be with us for years.

    39 min

  7. 12/20/2025

    Beyond Doom: The Data Behind Hope (Part 1 of 2)

    SHOW NOTES Think we're doomed? The data tells a different story. More than half of young people worldwide believe humanity is headed for extinction, but when researchers examine the actual numbers, they find something surprising. Death rates from natural disasters have fallen tenfold since the 1920s. Child mortality dropped from 43% to 4% globally. And in 2012, something remarkable happened that most people still don't know about—the world hit peak per capita carbon emissions, and they've been slowly falling ever since. This episode isn't about denying climate change—it's absolutely real and serious. It's about understanding why doomsday thinking paralyzes us instead of motivating action, and why the data suggests we have genuine reasons for hope. From the energy revolution that caught even experts by surprise to the "polycrisis" reshaping how we must think about solutions, we explore what the numbers actually tell us about our environmental future. If you're tired of feeling helpless about climate change, this episode offers something different: active, urgent optimism grounded in real progress and real possibilities. Because the question isn't whether solving these problems is possible—it's whether we'll choose to do it. A Call to Act: The World's Most Comprehensive Database of Eco-Solutions.                Hundreds of Eco-Organizations, Eco-Activities, and Eco-Actions you can take today. Trumping Trump: A new survival guide for maintaining focus and sanity while avoiding outrage fatigue. TT is a database of 300+ strong organizations, many with local chapters in your area, united together to fight against the insanity spewing out of 'The Whiter House' that is going to be with us for years.

    31 min

  8. 12/09/2025

    PLASTIC PLANET: How Big Oil Created our Next Addiction (Part 3 of 3)

    SHOW NOTES You've been recycling for years, diligently sorting your bins and feeling good about doing your part. But what if the whole system was designed to fail from the start? In this episode, we reveal the uncomfortable truth about recycling rates, industry deception, and why the companies making plastic never wanted recycling to work in the first place. We explore the connection most people miss: how America's fracking boom supercharged the plastics industry and reshaped the global waste crisis. With hundreds of billions invested in new plastic factories, the fossil fuel industry is betting that plastic production will grow by 40 percent over the next decade as their Plan B while oil demand declines. Beyond the waste problem, we examine plastic's massive climate footprint and why individual actions miss the point entirely. The real solutions exist—from Extended Producer Responsibility laws to single-use bans—but they threaten industry profits. This episode asks: will we demand systemic change before another trillion dollars of plastic infrastructure gets locked in, or keep washing our jars and hoping someone else figures it out? A Call to Act: The World's Most Comprehensive Database of Eco-Solutions.                Hundreds of Eco-Organizations, Eco-Activities, and Eco-Actions you can take today. Trumping Trump: A new survival guide for maintaining focus and sanity while avoiding outrage fatigue. TT is a database of 300+ strong organizations, many with local chapters in your area, united together to fight against the insanity spewing out of 'The Whiter House' that is going to be with us for years. A Collection of Dozens of Organizations United in Fighting Plastic Waste

    36 min
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We all know about the doom and gloom associated with environmental issues. We need to tell ourselves a new story. Instead let's talk about energy independence, green jobs, livable cities, clean water, clean air, and healthy children. This is where politics, perceptions, and life-style meet the catastrophe that is unfolding in front of our eyes. Here's a suggestion — subscribe, tune-in, and stop doom-scrolling.

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