Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
In this week’s Frankly, Nate looks at how aggregate human behavior changes as groups scale from small tribes to large and complex societies. He uses the framing of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde throughout the episode to illustrate how traits that once helped small groups survive can serve to destabilize complex societies when expanded globally.
Some thirty years ago, one of the organic pioneers, Carl Haest, said about sustainable agriculture, “friend in the field, foe in the market”. That seems to hold also for regenerative agriculture.
An attack on Iran appears imminent. Here’s why I think it’s unlikely that we’ll see President Trump “TACO” this time.
Shane has been busy with the next generation on and off the farm too, visiting schools with a herd of Old Irish Goats. Once a common sight in the Irish countryside, this rare native breed is helping to revive a cultural heritage that has lessons to teach us today, on biodiversity, wildfire management, and the transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next.
A climate doctrine must integrate resource mobilization, agricultural modernization, energy diversification, and territorial planning within a coherent framework—one that anticipates rather than reacts, protects rather than repairs, and organizes rather than fragments.
Building an inclusionary common sense will take an understanding of the relationship between our social history, our experience of inclusionary social policies, and the opposing psychosocial dynamic that promotes a readiness to scuttle the gains those policies produced through a belonging based on fear and threat.
As a core component of our sustainability and scale-up policy, RUWAI is establishing Climate Resilience hubs across Africa. This innovative, inclusive, and sustainability-driven initiative serves as a centralized spot to equip rural women, youth, children, and people living with disabilities with the essential tools, education, skills and resources required to transcend poverty and forge a resilient, brighter future.
What forms of ecological knowledge have we ignored because they emerged from survival rather than privilege—and what would it require to center them now?
The big tech industry’s claims about the climate benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) are largely unproven and unsubstantiated, according to a new report from a coalition of climate advocacy and accountability groups.
Ten years ago, I started teaching at Bard’s Green MBA Program, where I now teach classes in economics, economic development, community investment funds, and “sustaining mission.” And what I can report is that the several hundred students I taught have created, run, or improved an amazing assortment of mission-oriented enterprises.
One thing is clear—when politicians invoke the phrase “national security,” they are never talking about security for the people who live in this country.
In this episode, Nate is joined by biologist and farmer Jason Bradford, to discuss his ‘Farming Club,’ which offers hands-on learning for ecologically based agriculture, where members also get to take home food and build a relationship with the land.
