As we move into a new year, and try to square 2017 in our rear view mirrors, it’s an opportune moment to contemplate how we avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, both recent and ancient. This week on Sea Change Radio, we get philosophical with Jeremy Lent, whose new book, The Patterning Instinct seeks to explain what has made us tick as a species over the millennia. Lent and host Alex Wise talk about what the patterning instinct is, what we can learn from these human patterns, and how we can apply them to fight climate change.
Society
Jeremy Lent: Human History and the Climate
By Alex Wise, Jeremy Lent, originally published by Sea Change Radio
January 23, 2018
Alex Wise
Alex Wise is the host and executive producer of Sea Change Radio, a nationally-distributed interview-format radio show concerned with the advances being made toward a more environmentally sustainable world, economy, and future.
Tags: building resilient societies, pattern languages, social history
Related Articles
Uncomfortable Questions in Unsettled Times: Iran Effects, Local Preparedness, and End of Empire?
By Nate Hagens, The Great Simplification
This week’s Frankly marks the second installment of Nate’s recurring series, Uncomfortable Questions in Unsettled Times, where he poses questions about our shared future…Today’s episode is prompted by the Iran situation and what happens when geopolitics stops feeling distant and starts arriving as supply chain disruptions, rising prices, fear, and renewed stories about enemies and allies.
March 16, 2026
Us and Them: The Curious Case of Rights and Personhood
By Don Christoff, Resilience.org
Justice is neither owned nor taken away. It is a state of being, a condition that arises whenever life is allowed to exist in its own way. When that truth is remembered, the language of rights will fall silent, and what remains will be the only thing that ever mattered: the unbroken relationship among all that exists.
March 16, 2026
Listen to Your Dog: How My Search for Independence Led to Far More
By Hayden Dahmm, Resilience.org
At the time, I was learning engineering methods for controlling systems and optimizing outcomes, powerful techniques that I thought could alone solve society’s mounting problems. But I quickly realized my team with Fathom was a system that belied ambitions of control.
March 13, 2026




















