Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
For all its bleakness, The Burning World offers a more hopeful outlook on humanity’s future than does The Drowned World. While the latter leaves no room for hope that human extinction can be averted, the former hints at the possibility of recovery and renewal for humanity.
Living machines are essentially intensive, indoor artificial wetlands. Technical names for living machines include “advanced ecologically engineered systems” and “fixed-film ecology wastewater treatment systems.” What they entail is mimicking natural processes of biological decomposition in a constructed aquatic environment.
The discovery of oxygen production in the deep ocean without light (and therefore without photosynthesis) is upending ideas about the evolution of life and origins of oxygen in the atmosphere.
Rural land cover surrounding a city has the potential to reduce the “urban heat island” (UHI) effect and cool the city centre by more than 0.5C, new research shows.
In the escalating drama of climate breakdown — especially as we navigate the apparent crossing of the 1.5C warming threshold — a binary is emerging that wastes a huge amount of time, energy and passion, needlessly limiting our vision to confront and adapt to our situation at all levels of society: Are we (optimist) solutionists or (realist) doomers?
In this episode, Nate is joined by Janine Benyus, who has spent decades advocating for biomimicry – a design principle that seeks to emulate nature’s models, systems, and elements to solve complex human problems in ways that are sustainable and holistic.
Regardless of its origin, the notion of a ‘soundscape ‘opens up a welcomed alternative to speak positively about sounds. They counteract the negative reality we know as ‘noise pollution’.
Understanding the environmental conditions that triggered the ice sheet’s last disappearance, and how life on Greenland responded, will be crucial for gauging the future risks facing the ice sheet and coastal communities around the world.
Just as loving particular people or all people moves us to act for their benefit, Kimmerer verifies that loving the earth impels us to act in service to it. Our source of motivation is in and all around us, and our direction is now clear: vigorously support and vote for democracy and climate action.
How do we try to compensate for our destruction of so much of Earth’s life? By curbing ourselves? By deep societal change? By bending heaven and Earth to protect what is left, before it is too late?
Climate-change-induced temperature rises are already testing the limits of outdoor workers. Will governments continue to ignore their protection?
In this episode, Nate speaks with environmental scientist Johan Rockström to unpack his team’s work on Planetary Boundaries and the pressure that humanity is putting on them.
