Summary: A Conversation with Steve Olszewski on Quaker Values, Climate Action, and Sustainability Host: Burt (Radnor Meeting) Guest: Steve Olszewski (Bethlehem, PA)
Overview
This podcast features a wide-ranging conversation between Burt and Steve Olszewski, a longtime Quaker and environmental advocate. Steve retired from a 40-year career in information technology management and relocated to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he now chairs the city’s Environmental Advisory Council. The discussion explores how Steve’s Quaker values — mindfulness, empathy, ecological integrity, right action, resilience, growth, and endurance — have shaped his environmental activism at both the organizational and local levels.
Key Topics
1. From IT Systems to Systems Thinking
Steve explains how his career managing large-scale information technology projects gave him a systems-thinking mindset. Understanding how infrastructure, people, and data centers interconnect translated naturally into understanding how the planet’s systems work — causes, effects, and the far-reaching impacts of small actions across the globe.
2. Mindfulness and Empathy as Quaker Values
The conversation centers on how Quaker values drive environmental concern. Steve describes mindfulness as both a thought process and a spiritual practice — being aware of how everything fits together and questioning long-held assumptions about what is “safe” or “normal.” Empathy extends beyond local communities to people on the other side of the world who may be unfairly impacted by our actions, creating a moral call to action.
3. Quaker Earth Care Witness
Steve joined Quaker Earth Care Witness out of curiosity, to learn what Quakers in other parts of the country were doing on environmental issues. He describes it as a wealth of accumulated knowledge and a great starting point for his own education and connections.
4. Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL)
Steve served as treasurer for FCNL, the oldest faith-based lobbying organization in Washington. While not directly on the “ramparts” of climate activism, FCNL plays a critical supporting role by advocating for environmental sustainability and peace with political leaders. The conversation notes that even the U.S. military has identified climate change as a major security threat, causing resource scarcity, migration, and potential destabilization.
5. Endurance: The Challenge of Driving Change
Steve reflects on how people resist change because the world is built for convenience. Educating and enrolling people in new ways of doing things requires significant endurance — a quality he identifies as essential for anyone working in sustainability.
6. Local Action: Banning Styrofoam in Bethlehem
As chair of Bethlehem’s Environmental Advisory Council, Steve is working on a municipal ordinance to ban styrofoam in the food industry. He describes the painstaking process of committee review, legal vetting, and public education. He shares an anecdote about discovering a local restaurant still using styrofoam clamshells and engaging the assistant manager in a conversation about its environmental and health impacts — the manager had simply assumed the cheapest option from his wholesaler was safe.
7. Radnor Meeting’s Heat Pump Conversion
The conversation covers Radnor Meeting’s effort to convert from gas heating to heat pumps. While the meeting house was ultimately converted, the electrical supply couldn’t support full electric heating on the coldest days, so a hybrid system with gas backup was installed. The story illustrates how convenience — the expectation of 72-degree warmth in January — can be a barrier to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
8. Personal Choices and Electric Vehicles
Steve candidly shares that he bought a plug-in hybrid rather than a fully electric car because charging infrastructure in Bethlehem was limited at the time, making a full EV inconvenient for his weekly trips to pick up his grandson. He acknowledges feeling guilty but notes he is reducing emissions in other ways.
9. Al Gore and the Power of “Inconvenient Truth”
Burt brings up a New York Times article about Al Gore revamping his An Inconvenient Truth presentation. Steve reflects that the title was a “genius move” — the real issue isn’t just about big oil or big coal, but about our personal convenience.
10. The Commons and Capitalism
Steve shares an analogy about a neighbor who starts a recycling business but dumps the glass he can’t sell onto his neighbor’s property to maintain his profit. This parallels how some corporations treat “the commons” — air, water, and land shared by all — by profiting from production while dumping waste into shared resources without paying for the damage. Steve argues that the environmental movement is working to put a price on that exploitation, ensuring those who damage the commons bear the cost of cleanup and prevention. He frames this as a matter of justice and equity.