Who will Guard the Guardians: Direct Democracy as Suspicion of Authority
It is only by opening up institutions and decision-making processes to the whole of the population, that we can create a more just society.
Amazon’s least-deforested areas are due to ‘vital role’ of Indigenous peoples
Only 5% of net forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon occurs in Indigenous territories and protected areas – even though these areas contain more than half of the region’s forest.
Agriculture productivity – Food and agriculture number crunching, part 4
In total some 850 million people are working in agriculture globally of which more than half in lower-middle income countries (e.g. India, Indonesia, Kenya) and just 16 million in high income countries.
Sisyphus, Science & Carbon Removal
The choice to back CDR is conditioned by a desire in society at large to meet net-zero whilst maintaining an economic paradigm and way of life.
Binna Choi of the Casco Art Institute: Curating Art through Commoning
Choi has brought the ethic and practices of commoning to the creation of art and its exhibition. She and her colleagues have embraced commoning as an organizing principle for how a diverse team of artists can make art and work together.
Food and agriculture number crunching, part 3
Almost 3,000 kcal per person per day is made available for consumers, who “need” in the range of 2,100 kcal per person per day.
David Sloan Wilson: “Chickens, Cooperation and a Pro-social World”
On this episode, evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson joins Nate to unpack how evolution can be used to explain and understand modern human behavior, particularly with respect to cooperation and pro-social behavior.
Fusion Energy: A Different Take
Indeed, one thing seems indisputable: Unleashing fusion in an unbounded, growth-driven economy would be a wholesale disaster.
Sustainability can (and must) be beautiful
To fulfill the vision that sets the practice of sustainability in motion—the vision of life coordinating with life in ways that ensure the flourishing of life—ethics and aesthetics must be reintegrated.
Is “Polycrisis” the Right Word for Our Times?
But as the American anthropologist and historian Joseph Tainter documents in his seminal book, The Collapse of Complex Societies, this is what “advanced,” hierarchical human societies do—they respond to challenges created by their complexity with ever more complexity. This may work in the short-term but usually leads to the underlying crises worsening in the long term.
Are we seeing the collapse of the dollar-dominated global economy?
The near future is one of grave uncertainty and instability as the new global monetary regime takes shape.
Why gas stoves matter to the climate – and the gas industry: Keeping them means homes will use gas for heating too
As I see it, if “cooking with gas” keeps us tethering new homes to natural gas grids for decades to come, our health, climate and wallets will pay the price.
