Society

As storms intensify in our warming world, recovery no longer feels permanent in places at risk of disasters. Instead, it’s too often a temporary reprieve before the next disaster hits. Recognizing community disaster fatigue is an important step toward building resilient recovery systems.

Industrial landscapes are living reminders of how centuries of fossil-fuel development reshaped Earth’s systems. As the Anthropocene unfolds, that legacy continues to shape our future. Historian Sabine Höhler argues that bridging the divide between human and Earth history is essential to understanding where we are and at what cost.

From vaccine hesitancy to conflict-zone rumors, false information is making it harder for humanitarian organizations to build trust, protect civilians, and save lives.

Vulnerable communities face growing threats: the climate crisis is outpacing scientists’ worst predictions and authoritarianism is no longer a distant possibility. So what can we do? We build. We shift away from reform and instead direct our energy toward creating entirely new systems.

Slower growth — and ultimately zero growth — is good for people and the planet, but not for those in power, who for millennia relied on women’s reproductive labor to produce more workers, consumers, and taxpayers. Today’s Trump-era and even progressive pronatalist policies try to reverse the trend, but there’s a reason why they won’t work.

As America marks its 250th birthday, Nate takes a moment to step outside of the celebrations to seek out a wider boundary perspective on this milestone holiday. He poses the question of whether the United States has truly matured as a nation over two and a half centuries, particularly through the lenses of energy, ecology, history, and culture.