Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Beth DaPonte The short, natural experiment we all witnessed reinforces that SNAP is the nation’s first line of defense against hunger and food insecurity and food pantries can only be a secondary and supplemental source of food. Food pantries and food banks cannot substitute for a robust, reliable, government-funded food safety net.
The proposal for Degrowth calls for an intentional downscaling of the global economy to achieve both ecological sustainability and social justice. A degrowth transition would help ensure that ecological practices actually displace destructive ones, and that the savings from efficiency measures are truly saved.
So, what have we got? A global economy staggering amongst geopolitical tension, a bubble to beat all bubbles, and the twin shocks of a (potentially permanent) oil price crash and the EV subsidies ending — and all with the backdrop of worsening climate change driving up inflation and inflicting constant disasters.
It is important to start this process recognizing that all these marvelous attributes of the universe as we find it are still awe-inspiring even from a different starting point. In fact, my own experience is that it all becomes rather more incalculably stupendous as a result of shifting away from a dualist perspective.
Electricity is our energy future, but the details of that future are still sketchy. Right now, the picture is being drawn by billionaire investors, but it looks dark and dystopian. Surely more imaginative artists could do better.
A transformation of climate politics will come when the majority on the margins becomes a self-aware political force. The approach sketched here—combining adaptation, emotionally literate education, and campaigns that awaken collective efficacy—offers practical, hopeful steps toward that outcome.
In this week’s episode, Nate invites listeners into an exploration of what it means to navigate a growing predicament shaped by ecological limits, rapid technological changes, and shifting expectations of reality.
The debate continues, but one certainty is that we must make the production and consumption of meat and dairy more sustainable and realign our agricultural systems with planetary boundaries and dietary guidelines.
Solar panels will continue to work for decades. But soon enough societies will have to reproduce its energy resources, if you can’t do that, they are hardly renewable in the first place.
No matter how little we have or how crazy our lives, we all are enveloped in an impressionist painting if we just look up. We all share the brilliant sunlight, the ever-changing sky, the magical phases of the moon.
The frustration is reaching critical mass, and it will drive change. The question is what type, and direction, of change?
Post-partisan does not mean passive; it means discerning. It means recognizing that real change depends on an ecology of responses including resistance, building, healing, and culture work. Each is necessary, but none is sufficient alone.
