Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
In the end, something is making these trends go down beyond the model’s awareness, and that something is more likely to still be with us than to suddenly vanish. Perhaps the youth of the world are reacting in a “mature” fashion to the uncertainties of the future, and the justifiable sense that things are broken.
As mid-2024 approaches, the question remains: Can we humans stop making war on each other or preparing for yet more of the same and begin dealing with a planet heading to hell in a proverbial handbasket? Can we face the fact that the enemy is indeed us?
Capitalism is not broken, the environmental, automobile and social mayhem we experience every day are just what it does. Humans deserve better and humans are capable of better. The Primer is here to help.
In August, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador signed a decree to protect sacred indigenous sites, but for the Wixárika community, the struggle isn’t over.
In this episode, Nate welcomes back Daniel Schmachtenberger to unpack a new paper, which he co-authored, entitled Development in Progress, an analysis on the history of progress and the consequences of ‘advancement’.
So perhaps the narrative of Transition over these 18 years (yes it really has been that long…!) has moved from being about creating catalysts for local resilience to being Time Travel Agencies, who through the work they do, and how they tell stories about what they’ve already done and the potential futures it makes more credible, more within touching distance.
The recent rapid decline in population growth—even pre-COVID—suggests that a population peak prior to 2050 is not outlandish, provided that current drivers continue to apply. Recent declines in fertility rates, together with a flattening age distribution of young folks, combine to set the stage for population peak and decline.
The forces of media, technology, and even the wiring of our own brains seem aligned to draw people toward extremism. But never fear: Asher, Jason, and Rob unpack why we’re so susceptible to wackadoodle viewpoints and offer ways to tamp down extremist thinking and behavior in ourselves, our communities, and across society.
Constitutions offer no meaningful political role for ordinary people in democratic governance, and so oligarchic institutions take root that privilege the domination of the few over the many.
In the cellar of my parent’s house sit a series of tools that have served my father and grandfather and great-grandfather, for they were created before the throwaway world was conceived. … They were made for a nation of craftsmen, of people who bore in themselves the power that all humans once had, to reshape wood and hide and stone into a human landscape.
Journalist and podcaster Rachel Donald (Planet: Critical) interviews Caroline Hickman, a practicing psychotherapist and researcher who focuses on eco-anxiety, especially in young people. Caroline defines eco-anxiety, explains how it’s natural to feel distress if you care about the state of the environment, covers how to communicate with others about eco-anxiety, and suggests ways to move through feelings of anger and despair to achieve emotional resilience.
One day, when a new world rises from the ashes of this chemically-infused and churned and oil-burned wasteland, the basement of history, we may all work together to rebuild, to try again, and, most importantly, to love and to have better memories.
