Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
If humanity is going to survive, and play a healthy role in the Gaian system, all of us will have to learn to accept limits – that certain areas of the world are not for us humans to exploit but belong to Gaia and the untold species that inhabit them.
The meeting between Trump and Putin to discuss the end of the war in Ukraine (without the participation of Ukraine, let alone the EU) has made it clear that we are entering a new phase in the decline of our civilization, that we are already in the first stages of the final game of the energy descent.
Moving from cultures of greed to cultures of gratitude requires institutional change, but it also requires that we look inwards, gently put our infantile wishes to bed, and wake up to this rich earth, with its soils made healthy by shit and decay.
Africa’s history is not just one of suffering—it is also one of resilience, ingenuity, and renewal. Across the continent, ordinary people are accomplishing the extraordinary. They are fighting back against desertification, reclaiming barren lands, and bringing life back to the soil.
Indeed, we speak of our planet, our environment, and even our wildlife. That’s what mythology looks like: not facts, but an interpretive wrapping.
Incomes are failing to keep pace with rising energy prices and existing schemes to help those on low incomes fall well short. This will push more people into hardship. The UK government must put the needs of the most vulnerable first.
Today Nate is joined by conservationist Kristine Tompkins, to discuss her decades of work on conservation initiatives in South America, the value of personal responsibility, and how she has cultivated a way of living without fear in taking on unprecedented environmental challenges.
For growing numbers of media companies, employee ownership offers journalistic freedom and job stability.
A lot of people have a peculiar horror for the idea of a lower energy and more local world, necessarily involving more people working the land – whereas the idea of living in a suburb and working in an office tends to get a free pass. I think there will be more of the former and less of the latter in the future whether we like it or not, but it’s a bit odd that our culture is so resistant to the possibility that the former might have its plus points.
The mythology of “Mother Culture” [modernity] will become ever-present. It will be harder to interact with and tolerate the people around you who drink in this tale without awareness. In their eyes, you’ll be an unrelatable weirdo: isolated and alone.
Tribal governance takes a long view based in Native peoples’ deep history with these lands. And their legal and political status as sovereign nations – backed by the U.S. Constitution, treaties, more than 120 Supreme Court rulings and the plain text of federal laws – puts Native nations in a strong position to continue their efforts, no matter which ways the federal winds blow.
Is there a contradiction between the Trump administration’s America First policy and its actions? Maybe not.
