Bismuth: Another critical metal gets squeezed
Find out what Pepto Bismol and Chinese trade policy have to do with one another.
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Why do we not recognize that a river is alive?
The question isn’t “is a river alive?” It is why do we not recognize that a river is alive?
Frankenstein and Kant’s beauty come from Dutch Indonesia
It took the Anthropocene to create an aesthetic of the environmental crisis and self-reflection in the cultural canon. And it sparked a long process of going back over famous works that had been taken for granted as artworks devoid of environmental violence.
Swimming in a river of change
Increasing self-provisioning by communities take chunks of our lives out of the market and will at the same time lead to less consumption and less emissions as self-provisioning reduces the time available for salaried work and thereby shrinks the economy and human demands on ecosystems.
Declaration on Autonomy, Radical Democracy and Self Determination
Across the world, grounded practices of radical democracy and autonomy demonstrate alternative models of politics, economy, and society—rooted in solidarity, reciprocity, and mutual aid among humans and the more-than-human world.
Agrihouse: The farm building agricultural resilience in central Italy
At the moment Agrihouse’s focus is on building small, cost-effective ponds to capture and store water, creating a replicable model that other small farms can adopt. In doing so, the farm aims to become a hub for sustainable development in Italy, supporting farmers ready to transition toward regenerative and agroecological practices, while providing a real-world example of what ecosystem restoration can look like.
So many moving pieces
I hope this tour through science and economics and politics has been helpful in some way—you can see why I sometimes despair, not just of the future but even of my own ability to get across what’s happening in the present. I think I’ve been at this so long that I have a better sense than most of how all those moving pieces interact, but there are so many pieces and they’re now moving so fast.
Mulberries in the Rain: Excerpt
Plants, like music and food, feed our culture. They create our community; they are our community, and this book offers a model for how to build both plant and human communities.
Human Nature Odyssey: Episode 13. The King Is Dead, Now What? The 250-Year Struggle for Democracy (Part 2)
We continue that epic struggle across centuries and continents—from the upheavals of the Russian Revolution, to the rise of fascism, the global crucible of World War II, the tense Cold War standoff, the youth protests of 1968, and the ongoing battle for power, equality, and freedom.
“Gigification”: The Future of Work?
What the social contract will look like in the future will to a large degree be determined by what happens to the gig workers who are at the forefront of technological change today.
Care Home Farm – Fibre and Clothes
Given how absolutely fun it is to make clothes that you wear, and wear clothes that you make, I expect this equation to come out better than what people might think. And I expect that to be the same for every beautiful handcrafted item we create and use at Care Home Farm. But either way, it will be real, and that’s relaxing.
Spare Capacity
Life is made of extraordinarily complex arrangements that exceed our design capacity by such a tremendous gulf as to be ridiculous—triggering many to engage in dubious “god-of-the-gaps” style speculation to paper-over the scary gulf.
