Show Notes
A couple of weeks ago, I found myself crying in my car after listening to a podcast about a change to how the Trump administration interprets harm under the Endangered Species Act. It got me thinking about responsibility, unintended consequences, and what it means to cause harm without meaning to. That question led me somewhere unexpected: to a conversation about the things that stop us from making the changes we know are necessary in our lives. I think a lot of it comes down to three things: capacity, capability, and confidence. Do we have the time and emotional space to care? Do we have the skills and knowledge to do something about it? And do we believe that our actions can make a difference? In this solo episode, I explore how those three things connect, why a history of small successes can help us build momentum, and how our attempts to solve problems can sometimes make them worse when we're too afraid to admit we've got something wrong. I also tell a story from my time working with a community in Ahmedabad, India, and a young woman who found somewhere to belong when she had nowhere else to go. It changed the way I think about security, and what it means to have enough to share with someone else. We can't all solve the biggest problems in the world. But we can start by scaling them down to something we can understand, learn from, and act on.
Support the podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/HarrisonGardner
CONNECT WITH ME Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_harrisongardnerWebsite: https://www.harrisongardner.net/ Bookstore: https://www.harrisongardner.net/bookstore-1
00:00 What Stops Us From Taking Action? 01:38 Trump's Endangered Species Rule and Responsibility 05:43 From Anger to Islands of Sanity 10:03 The Three Cs: Capacity, Capability and Confidence 10:51 Capacity: Time, Mental Space and Emotional Bandwidth 19:10 Capability: Learning Practical Skills 21:40 Confidence, Mistakes and Shame 26:27 The Flywheel: From Small Wins to Agency 28:59 How to Scale Big Problems Down 32:45 Community, Security and Belonging 39:56 Climate Carnival and What Comes Next 40:41 A Challenge: Find One Small Thing You Can Do 42:21 Support the Show Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from The Tools at Hand with Harrison Gardner
What if the way we build our homes and cities is part of the problem and the solution is already around us? Architect Robert Bourke joins me to explore how we can rethink the way we build, from the materials we use to the relationship between buildings, nature and the communities around them. With construction contributing significantly to global carbon emissions, Robert questions why concrete, steel and glass have become the default and why we should look at existing buildings before building new ones. But sustainable architecture isn't just about materials. It's about seeing buildings as part of a much bigger system: how water moves through our cities, how our streets affect rivers, and how we can design places that work with nature rather than against it. From a tiny three-square-metre extension that won two national awards to a community rain garden designed to help absorb rainfall and reduce flooding, Robert shows how small, thoughtful interventions can make a difference. What would our towns and cities look like if we stopped treating buildings as isolated objects and started designing for the systems we all depend on?
In 1935, dancing became illegal in Ireland unless you had a licence.
What does the future of farming in Ireland look like?
What can music do when the world feels divided?
What happens when you decide to travel to all seven continents without spending any money? That was the challenge Shantanu Starick set himself after stepping away from a career in architecture. Trading nothing but his photography skills for food, shelter and transport, he created The Pixel Trade — a three-and-a-half-year journey built entirely around exchange, trust and the people he met along the way. But living without money comes with its own challenges. What does it actually cost to rely on other people? And what happens when the journey ends and you have to reintegrate into a world that still runs on money, responsibility and bills? In this conversation, we explore the value of trade, the relationships that grow from it, and why the best exchanges are the ones where both people feel they’ve come away with the better end of the deal.