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Podcast Episode

6. Bart Elmore: "Be Bold Enough to Cut The Rope"

Forks in the Road··22 September 2026·1h 1m

About this episode

Bart Elmore is a Professor of Environmental History at Ohio State University and the author of three books, including Citizen Coke, which grew out of his dissertation on Coca-Cola's environmental footprint. Before that, he left a corporate law job after nine months, failed to kayak from Atlanta to the Gulf Coast, and taught ninth-grade English while obtaining his teaching license.In this conversation, we talk about the graduate seminar that reoriented his entire path, recognizing when a prestigious job is doing you harm, and the childhood pull toward science that resurfaced decades later in the book he's writing now.