Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Many people think that technological development follows a path directed by quasi-natural laws that head into one and only one direction – called “progress” – which is: to use more technology, more complex technology, more expensive technology, more powerful technology.
For peoples’ minds and imaginations to flower, they need two conditions. They need to be able to love and to care for others and they need to be cared about. I don’t think this is said enough.
The desire to make our lives maintenance-free often creates unintended environmental and health consequences. Every decision to transfer a maintenance task to a chemical substance only complicates the goal of creating a healthy environment.
I am dreaming of the school birthed in flames. The work that I do has no place in current universities. It is too holistic, too integrative, and too practically oriented toward the real world.
Having a list of books that everyone more or less agrees that young people should read in school doesn’t just provide a common ground of ideas that fosters communication; it doesn’t just help budding readers find really good books to read; it also teaches them how to think.
In discussing climate change and all our other eco-social predicaments, how does one distinguish accurate information from statements intended to elicit either false hope or needless capitulation to immediate and utter doom? And, in cases where pessimistic outlooks do seem securely rooted in evidence, how does one psychologically come to terms with the information?
A transformative approach to the empowerment of women needs to be developed, particularly in relation to the social equality paradigm.
Rio de Janeiro is a city of extremes. Inequality is rampant, and while a small elite enjoy the “luxury” of housing, high quality education, and concentrated public funding, the majority of its citizens share the rest. The best examples of sharing are born not out of excess but from scarcity and collective problem solving.
A regenerative human culture is healthy, resilient and adaptable; it cares for the planet and it cares for life in the awareness that this is the most effective way to create a thriving future for all of humanity.
To understand the problems of our day, I realized that I needed to understand how our attention was being fragmented, pulled and pushed by technology’s forces. Attention became the lens through which I began to understand technology.
Because I am a literary writer, writing about climate justice, people often ask me, What is the importance of the arts in the climate struggle? I turn to Friedrich Nietzsche, the nineteenth century German philosopher. “We have art in order not to die of the truth,” he wrote.
In the face of ever-worsening climate change[1], constant updates from the media on how quickly the Arctic is melting[2], and an utter failure of our society to mitigate greenhouse-gas emissions (rather, we’re still increasing them[3), why do we continue to fly when few other activities in our lives create more emissions?
