In 1974, an Austrian philosopher named Ivan Illich sat down and did the math on the American car. He added up everything — the driving, the parking, the hours spent earning money to pay for the thing, the gas, the insurance, the registration, the repairs. All of it. He came up
Meera Subramanian is an award-winning environmental journalist with over two decades of experience writing about the natural world and climate crisis. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Nature, and Orion, where she's a contributing editor. Her first book, A River Runs
There's an elephant in the room when it comes to sustainable living that we all feel but rarely say out loud: shame. Not just guilt about flying, or recycling wrong, or buying something you didn't need. Deeper than that. The quiet, nagging feeling that it doesn&
Scott Weidensaul is a writer and researcher specializing in birds and bird migration, and the author of nearly thirty books, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist Living on the Wind and the New York Times bestseller A World on the Wing. He joins us today to talk about his latest, The
Life Is Mostly Ordinary Recent mainstream culture has taught us one thing: you gotta optimize your time for maximum productivity. I was on that train for a long time: as an Engineer who loves systems, the idea of a “perfectly performed day” where you wake up, blast through your optimized
Hillary Rosner is an award-winning science journalist whose work has appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times, and The Atlantic. Her new book, ROAM: Wild Animals and the Race to Repair Our Fractured World, explores how roads, fences, and cities have fragmented the planet—and how reconnecting habitats
Planting Deeper Roots Verdant Growth started as a small experiment. A place for me to ruminate on sustainability, and it led me to thinking a lot about the gap between how we've normalized harming others, and how better living actually feels. I didn't know if anyone
Jack Ratliff — retired Navy SEAL, lawyer, and law professor — and the author of Riding the White Bull: The Making of a Navy SEAL. Rather than focusing on the battlefield, Jack's memoir traces the formative years that shaped his character long before elite service began — from a West Texas
Last week I was in Waikiki and I saw something that I see all the time: A girl taking a selfie in front of the iconic, beautiful scenery of Waikiki beach. She pulled out her phone, flashed a huge smile with every one of her pearly white teeth showing, and
Holly Latteman is an environmental scientist and conservation leader serving as Director of Science and Research at The Dawes Arboretum, where she oversees native seed collection, living collections, and the Advanced Training Program for emerging conservationists. With a background spanning zoology, anthropology, and environmental studies — and research ranging from black
Plastic pollution
[4/9/2026 - This post is about my recent podcast episode interviewing Chris DeArmitt. If you're interested in hearing the interview, you can find it here: https://verdantgrowth.blog/tslsfn-the-plastics-paradox-w-chris-dearmitt/] There's a specific feeling you get when someone tells you
Plastic
The sustainability world has a pretty clear verdict on plastic. Chris DeArmitt disagrees. A PhD polymer scientist, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and author of The Plastics Paradox, DeArmitt has read thousands of peer-reviewed studies without funding and made it his mission to translate complex science into