Sustainable Planet Kimberly Weir

Rob and Kaihan join Kimberly to talk about their new book, Proximity: How Coming Breakthroughs in Just-in-Time Transform Business, Society, and Daily Life. Highlighting the failures that laid the foundation for the success stories of how to attain P = 0, Rob and Kaihan offer ways to bring consumers and producers closer together while achieving greater sustainability in the process. Innovations as diverse as specialty lab-grown meats, 3D-printed inoculations, and virtual reality implants show how much more immersed we are in a world of on-demand, proximate goods and services than we might realize.
Rob, Kaihan, and Kimberly spend time considering:

If Covid-19 was the catalyst or just another building block toward digital adoption

Whether proximity technologies are going to put most of us out of work

Whether increased demand for minerals will be just as exploitative an industry as the fossil fuel it’s likely to replace

Whether we colonize Mars because it’s one more planet humans can (irresponsibly) exploit

How both developing and developed countries can benefit from the leapfrogging proximity technologies

The possibility that AI takes over the world, justifying the fears of Campaign to Stop Killer Robots


Ways businesses can integrate proximity into their strategies

For more on her thoughts about Proximity, check out Kimberly’s Substack post


Follow Rob Wolcott on X, LinkedIn, and his website
Follow Kaihan Krippendorff on X, LinkedIn, and his website

A country finally attempts to implement more stringent fossil fuel regulations and before the law is even passed (or not, in the case of the U.S.), the policy sends companies on a spree to mine, dig, and drill as quickly as possible. This ‘Green Paradox’ raises the question of how on Earth humans are going to meet the UN’s Climate Change COP28 goals in time to avoid planetary meltdown.
Harold Hotelling’s 1935 theory of extraction set up Hans-Werner Sinn’s ‘The Green Paradox’, which holds up under rigorous study. Faced with faster extraction, governments need to keep emissions in check, but confront obstacles at home and abroad. Michael and Kimberly consider how quickly it is possible to feasibly enact achievable policies that simultaneously protect domestic businesses and politicians’ seats, while avoiding ‘spatial carbon leakage’.
Tune in as Michael and Kimberly lay out the pros and cons of the Cap & Trade System, numerous sectors—even the clothing industry—are affected by emissions targets, and why even the most evolved IGO in the world regularly deals with groups protesting everything from farm policies to bans on combustion engines. And for more about the issues, check out Kimberly’s Substack notes.
Key Topics

Whether the UN’s ambitious ‘global stocktake’ to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions will be foiled by an army of Jolly Green Giant Paradoxes

How the capitalist market encourages Green Paradoxes, not only in the fossil fuel industry, but in other sectors affected by climate change policy

Why the international community and individual countries struggle to counter the effects of a Green Paradox


The variety of ways Big Oil has worked to stall being displaced by greener alternatives

How the EU’s ETS, the US’s Waxman-Markey Climate Bill, and China’s 14th Five-Year Plan have fallen prey to The Green Paradox


Why Michael and Kimberly remain optimistic about tackling climate change, despite evidence stacked up against global efforts to mitigate pollution


Recommended Resources

Hans-Werner Sinn’s short overview of The Green Paradox


The UN’s ‘Global Stocktake’ climate action plan


One analyst's argument that The Green Paradox extends to consumers

Kimberly’s supplemental Substack post on To Green or Not To Green: That is the Question (also linked below)

Would you rather live in London or Gothenburg? For more excitement and a lush 174 sq. ft. of green space per person (and to skip Duolingo Swedish lessons), you might choose London, but for future sustainable security, Gothenburg might be the better bet. Unless hard-pressed, you’re far less likely to Lagos, Nigeria, despite its 6.5% annual growth rate and less than 10 square feet of green space per person.
The appeal of cities puts more pressure on urban planners with increased urbanization and outdated—or in the case of developing countries—practically non-existent infrastructure. Whether it’s traffic jams or strained water supplies, cities need to devise sustainable management methods.
While governments recognize that sustainable development necessarily includes promoting human security and environmental protections, it’s a tough balancing act, defined by the economic bottom line. Facing rapid urbanization and the need for green spaces, Global South countries struggle not only to develop, but in a sustainable manner. And what’s more, perhaps the biggest hurdle they face is developing public-private partnerships to attract investments that alleviate the need for continued government subsidies.
Key Topics

What, exactly, qualifies a city as sustainable?

Why Michael argues the UN is too ambitious in Sustainable Development Goal #11, “making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”

Michael and Kimberly butt heads over the IESE Business School’s “Top 10 Smart & Sustainable Cities” ranking system

How smart can a city be when a government decides to create it from the ground up-the amazing feat of Cyberjaya and desert cities

The ambitious Net-Zero, Green Roofs, Million Trees, and 100% Climate-Proof sustainable city initiatives of London, Toronto, NYC, and Rotterdam

China’s daunting undertaking of Integrated Urban Water Management, a.k.a. Sponge City Program (should have gone with SpongeBob City Program, for certain!)


Recommended Resources

UN Sustainable Development Goal #11


IESE Business School Smart & Sustainable City rankings


What makes a city Smart & Sustainable


China's Sponge City Program


Building a city from scratch- the latest on Cyberjaya, Dubai Internet City, and the pictures promised of Tianjin


We Were Promised Smart Cities

Kimberly's supplemental Substack post on cities' sustainability challenges

In Episode 7, delving into the global clothing industry, Michael and Kimberly iron out the difference between fast fashion, ultra-fast fashion, and slow fashion—the sustainability reaction to these trends. A brief look at why we are tempted to fill our closets and drawers sets up consideration of the effects of the global clothing supply chain, what policy-makers are doing, and options for clothes-horses, the trendiest -core fans, and the average shopper.
Key Topics

Who we have to thank for the birth of ‘fast fashion’ and ‘ultra-fast fashion’

How mixed fabrics, waterproof gear, and stretchy clothes combine with a ‘race to the bottom’ for a clothing production and consumption sustainability nightmare

The complex web of the global supply chain that links clothing firms to subcontractors to our doorstep

When ‘thrifting’ became a verb and how it burdens the poor both at home and abroad

How and what governments and MNCs are doing and need to do better

Why the cost-per-wear calculation can fill your closet while saving you a pile of money

That not just reduce, but repair and repurpose are useful fashion tips

How a mall entrance was actually a portal to a different dimension for Michael and Kimberly


Recommended Resources


Good on You rates companies’ practices on the planet, people, and animals (turns out Madewell's not as good as I thought!)

What is your garment's cost-per-wear?


The latest UNEP report, a compilation of useful stats at Earth.org, a business review of fast fashion, and why the McKinsey report on The State of Fashion indicates a need for sustainable practices

For legal eagles, the NY bill, the CA bill, the US FABRIC Act, EU’s ESPR, and what Australia is considering

To prime you for a future episode, some wildly alternative fabrics and leather sources

In Episode 6, Michael and Kimberly put on their academic hats to discuss Commodity Fetishism, a concept Karl Marx used to explain what compels consumers to buy the stuff we do and, ultimately, how understanding this fetishism helps us get out of the sustainability hole we’ve dug.

Key Topics

Why we care more about the ‘perceived value’ of a Ralph Lauren Polo shirt than the ‘real value’ of a plain old polo shirt

Why we can blame the Industrial Revolution for not talking to the person next to us who’s also been called for jury duty

Why ordinary people couldn’t afford the décor and houses that came out of the Arts & Crafts Movement

That there’s more to the global supply chain than just the goods we buy

Why you should be on the lookout for the ‘hidden cost externalities’ lurking all around us

Whether buying more stuff that’s ethically produced is better than buying nothing at all

How, despite some arguments, picking low-hanging fruit can lead to a Sustainable Planet


Recommended Resources

If you're up for it, Karl Marx on Commodity Fetishism


Eric Pickersgill's Removed series, a photo commentary on the impact smartphones


The Day the World Stops Shopping, suggested by a Sustainable Planet listener after hearing Episode 2


If you're into videos, here's one about Commodity Fetishism

Michael and Kimberly trace the history of the 'Beyond Petroleum' campaign sent us all off to calculate our carbon footprint, how to cast a wider Climate Shadow, and suggest that we should probably cut Bill Gates some slack for flying in his private plane.
Key Topics

How British Petroleum's campaign to rebrand itself as ‘Beyond Petroleum’ has us wondering whether foregoing air travel or counting our produce consumption will help us to lower our impact

Why Emma Pattee decided that our shadow casts much bigger than our footprint, so we should consider not just our quantifiable consumption, but our choices and actions that impact climate change

Whether celebrities should get a free pass to jet-set around the world on their private planes while drinking bottled Fiji brand water

Why Kimberly thinks people on the future Earth we’ve destroyed will be wondering why we tossed so many useable resources into landfills, cursing us, as they scavenge to survive

How Michael lost the battle of the thermostat in the household search of the lowest hanging fruit to decrease our carbon footprint, but won the climate shadow battle at the Northern Kentucky University Board of Regents meetings to ditch bottled water

That personal impact and collective action are important to save the world not just from climate change, but all those other pesky environmental and humanitarian issues we’ve caused


Recommended Resources

Earth Overshoot Day

The BP campaign 'sham' reminded someone else of the Keep America Beautiful campaign, but for different reasons

For low-hanging fruit suggestions for every aspect of your life, check out Give a Sh*t or this interview with author Ashlee Piper

Unless it's necessary, be a trendsetter and ditch the bottled water