Tom Murphy

We’re taught that without rigid legal systems society would collapse into chaos. But for most of human history, people relied on communal norms, not codified law, while the rise of written rules, hierarchy, and possessions cleared the way for today’s sixth mass extinction.

Why do people with access to the same facts arrive at radically different conclusions about the future? Physicist Tom Murphy reflects on an impasse with Dave Murphy over modernity, ecological limits and humanity’s place in the living world.

In the concluding installment of this discussion series, Tom Murphy and Dave Murphy wrestle with whether a just energy transition can truly be sustainable, or whether modernity itself is a dead end on a finite planet.

In this installment of an ongoing series, Tom and Dave Murphy explore what “sustainable” truly means and whether any disruption to natural ecosystems or energy flows by humanity is inherently unsustainable.

Can modern civilization survive for the long term within planetary limits? This dialogue pits optimism about renewable energy and human adaptability against a more fundamental critique: that modernity itself may be incompatible with ecological sustainability.

If modernity cannot endure within planetary limits, what comes next? Dave Murphy and Tom Murphy debate the likelihood of collapse, the possibility of adaptation and what we owe each other in a time of ecological overshoot.