Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Recovering the meaning the white pines, and other trees had for past generations, and—like Mayer’s project with Charles Johnson’s oak—finding imaginative ways to add new meaning and propagate it forward can play a significant role in helping us to reorient the trajectory of the history we make going forward in a more respectful and sustainable direction for all.
Fressoz’s book deals primarily with the creation of myths about energy futures; Becker’s with the creation of myths about futures in space. They overlap in their consideration of why such myths are created. Who pays for them to be created; who benefits from their creation?
And so, as I dig into my bowl of cereal every morning, I’m thinking about a whole lot more than just the fiber in my diet. I’m thinking about how it’s time to bring Gaia back into focus, at the center of our thoughts and conversations and practices, every day.
In this episode, Nate is joined by Nora Bateson and Zak Stein to explore the multifaceted ways that AI is designed to exploit our deepest social vulnerabilities, and the risks this poses to human relationships, cognition, and society.
Once we recognise the principles of commoning, we start to see them everywhere: neighbours sharing childcare or tending a community garden. Local repair cafés and tool libraries. Digital communities building and maintaining open-source projects on the Internet.
Relationality is ultimately not a work of social science or politics, but a biologically and spiritually informed vision of life.
The question, then, is: when will we collectively become comparably dismissive of proposals for humans in space?
Community-scale and bioregional-scale responses to the Great Unraveling invite personal action and lead both to convivial social arrangements and to the discovery of ways to live more in cooperation with, less in domination of, the web of life.
Frog and Toad Are Friends, at least according to a venerable children’s book. And so are Jason (Crazy Town’s resident biology nerd) and conservationist brothers, Kyle and Trevor Ritland, authors of The Golden Toad: An Ecological Mystery and the Search for a Lost Species.
Across Sudan, women are resurrecting nafeer, an ancient practice of communal solidarity, adapting it into a decentralized network of survival that functions where the state has collapsed.
If successful, this work will lead to improved accessibility of home renewable energy systems for people all over the United States. This would help counteract some Trump administration efforts to remove renewable energy incentives, while laying the groundwork for rapid growth of renewables when the national political environment shifts again.
The food garden revolution that is stirring in South Africa is quiet, but it is rooted in dignity, agency, and transformation. In their gardens, these women are sowing more than seeds; they are sowing peace, power and the foundations for a better future.
