Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
This is a timely, informative, often unsettling documentary, one whose power comes from juxtaposition rather than argument. It refuses easy villains or fixes and challenges viewers to think less about individual consumption and more about systems of responsibility.
What I want to do in this post, just for fun (well, more than that), is use the rules of this game to show how hard it is to make a strong and clear case for a point that would still be tough to make if I could use all words. I think/hope we can learn from it.
What might happen to innovation when we shift our goals towards making societies happier and more equitable, within planetary boundaries?
Among other things, the Oxford Real Farming Conference shows that there’s more to the movement than mere conventionalisation. The movement is doubling down—it’s attempting to deepen its understanding of the world. And there’s no time like the present for that.
Each of us individually can help reduce single-use plastic waste. For example, we can advocate for adoption of reusable services in the places we work and play and take advantage of services like To Go Green where available.
This week’s Frankly is another edition of Nate’s Wide Boundary News series, where he invites listeners to view the constant churn of headlines through a wider-boundary lens. Today’s edition features reflections on a new peak in crude oil production, the growth of non-dispatchable electricity, and a report recently released by the World Economic Forum assessing global risks.
We’re in a period where relational patterns are shaping how people cope and also how they relate to power. Naming these patterns matters because they are often carried privately, interpreted as personal failure rather than understood as responses to shared conditions.
I’m not suggesting that nothing has changed, nor that religion has faded into the background. Religious themes remain highly pronounced today, especially in American culture. At the same time, these theological structures have been secularized in ways that now shape experience far beyond formal belief.
This week’s Frankly unpacks humans’ current identification with the label “consumer.” Consumption is something much deeper and more nuanced than shopping or spending. Nate highlights the ways that it shows up across our whole lives – from basic needs and stability to status and mental escape.
The stakes are only getting higher for those of us coming of age at a moment when this country is changing from something like a democracy to Donald Trump’s chilling autocratic version of America. Yet if we know anything from decades of antipoverty organizing, it’s that the unfettered imaginations, moral clarity, and capacity for decisive action of young Americans can always triumph over the misguided political liaisons of their elders.
Transmission lines are not benign structures. They have their own environmental impacts, both on-site and off, that are not trivial.
I can only imagine how wonderfully restorative it would be if I could always get home before dark… and be asleep through all the long hours of darkness. Then, by Imbolg, I would truly be ready for spring!
