DO 298 - The Wool Empire, Faith, and Local Business

About this episode

The episode discusses building a regional wool industry in New England and the importance of local business and community spirit.

Jason is joined by Greg Cello to discuss his plan to build a regional wool industry in New England, starting with sheep on his Rhode Island homestead. This isn't just about producing sweaters; Greg sees sheep farming as a way to revive the cooperative spirit that once defined rural communities, where families worked together and traded their goods through local granges. The conversation touches on how Greg went from military officer to homesteader, why he pulled his kids out of school and daycare to raise them at home, and how his Catholic faith became central to everything he does. He talks about the difference between environmentalism and true conservationism, his daily podcast where he works through ideas in real time, and the Globalism Slayer account he created to highlight small American family businesses as a counterweight to globalism. Greg is candid about the challenges of building roots in an expensive real estate market, the tension between using modern platforms like X and Substack to promote a vision of local self-sufficiency, and what it would actually look like to create generational stability for his family and community. The episode explores subsidiarity…

People in this episode

Host: Jason

Guest: Greg Cello

Topics covered

• wool industry
• local business
• homesteading
• cooperative spirit
• faith
• environmentalism
• community

Keywords

• wool
• sheep farming
• local self-sufficiency
• cooperatives
• Catholic faith
• environmentalism
• homesteading
• globalism

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Globalism Slayer, Kinward

Places: Rhode Island

More episodes of Doomer Optimism

• DO 304 - Courtyard Urbanism with Alicia Pederson · May 27, 2026 · 1h 6m
• DO 303 - AI, Existential Risk, and the Future of the Human Soul · March 17, 2026 · 1h 31m
• DO 302 - Starting a Farm and a Farm Store on Main Street · March 10, 2026 · 1h 7m
• DO 301 - Open Source Civilization: Marcin Jakubowski of Open Source Ecology · March 4, 2026 · 1h 15m
• DO 300 - Celebrating 300 Episodes of Doomer Optimism · February 25, 2026 · 1h 18m
• DO 299 - Small Scale Production, Henry George, and the Land Value Tax · February 17, 2026 · 1h 47m