Truth, lies, and loyalty in the age of Trumpism
Why do people cling to falsehoods, even in the face of evidence? Both truth and lies serve social purposes, but holding onto reason becomes essential as we face climate change and rising Trumpism.
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Climate cracks are spreading — and even the system knows it can’t hold
From scientists to intelligence agencies, repeated warnings about climate and ecological collapse have gone largely unanswered by governments, media and markets.
Scale Raises the Ceiling, but Fiscal Foundations Determine Whether Autocracy or Democracy Prevails
Understanding this deeper history widens our conception of political possibility. It reminds us that democracy has emerged through multiple pathways and has sustained under diverse historical conditions—and that its durability has depended not just on shared norms or formal institutions, but on the fiscal systems that underwrite them.
How to build community resilience in the face of abrupt economic decline
Benicia, California, is set to lose its largest single employer and source of tax revenue, a sprawling oil refinery. A Guardian article about this issue catalyzed this essay that describes what a thoughtful process might look like, if a community – any community – chose to pursue sustainability instead of economic growth.
There is an Alternative
The gap between the beckoning future of an ecocivilization and today’s grim reality is only too clear. But to the extent that meaningful hope does arise, it emerges from the very ruptures of our present breakdown. As the weave of our dominant system unravels, possibilities emerge to reweave our societal fabric into a new design.
Iran, U.S., and the Rest: The Unavoidable Pig in the Python
In this episode, Nate offers a personal reflection on the unfolding geopolitical tensions surrounding the Strait of Hormuz, beginning with an examination of how disruptions to fossil fuel flows propagate through the global economy, but with a time lag.
Iran to Trump: If you destroy us, you destroy yourself
So, there you have it. Trump and his team have stumbled into a war they cannot win. If the war does not end soon, it will likely destroy the world economy for lack of energy supplies and plunge it into a deep, years-long depression, one from which it will be difficult to emerge.
Inside the Off-Grid Earthship Community in New Mexico (YouTube film review)
Mainstream coverage of off-grid, self-sustaining communities like the one featured in this video tends to be glib and sensational (focusing, for example, on “trash homes”). It’s so much rarer to see in-depth coverage of the full social, technical and ecological aspects of such communities, or intimate glimpses into residents’ daily lives and motivations.
Finding Life in the Flux
Since stories serve in every culture as the workshops of meaning, the urge to craft new ones may signal our readiness at long last to face up to what’s coming. All stories have characters. The qualities we attach to the ones in leading roles and the fates that befall them as plots unfold tell us a great deal about what we fear and what we value.
Our Civilization’s Disease Has a Name: Windigo
The Windigo diagnosis reveals that the threat we face is not only ecological or political. It is civilizational. It is rooted in a system whose deepest logic is to convert the living world into fuel for its own endless expansion.
Three Visions of Green AI — And Why the Differences Matter
Green AI will likely continue to stretch as different communities bring their own priorities and imaginaries to the term. But if its dominant forms remain tethered to extractive assumptions, it risks becoming little more than an alibi for the systems driving planetary breakdown.
The Magic of Feedback
The entire Community of Life—humans included—were better off when shrouded in the mysterious magic of the living world: held in awe, humility, and respect. We came into being inside the feedback loop, and threaten to destroy much when presuming to extract ourselves from its magical protection.
