Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Bart Hawkins Kreps Political economists of the eighteenth and nineteenth century employed a curious phrase to denote the source of wealth at the base of the economy: the “free gifts of nature.” Alyssa Battistoni, a political science professor at Barnard College, believes that careful attention to the meanings of this phrase illuminates many aspects of the world we inhabit today.
In truth, I’m not massively optimistic that the new dark age will turn out too well for many people, but I think once one has appraised the reality of the surrounding darkness it’s always worth looking for the light as best one can and seeking least worst responses to our predicaments. Whether we find it or not is another matter.
COP30 is underway. It’s being called the ‘Adaptation COP’—the moment when the world finally faces the need to live within a changed climate. But let’s be honest: humanity isn’t preparing for crisis anymore. We’re already living through it.
In the last five years, my journey has produced significantly new perspectives (for me) which only serve to make the space delusion more strikingly fascinating and revealing. At this point, it’s hard to identify a phenomenon that so completely captures the religion of the day and its unhinged basis.
The stunning Democratic victories in the 2025 off-year elections in Virginia, New Jersey, California, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, and elsewhere, are only going to motivate Trump to become more aggressive in his unilateral actions in favor of fossil and nuclear fuels and in his continued condemnation of anything environmental or clean energy-related.
On Gilliard Farms, history isn’t buried. It grows through story, through healing, through heritage. On its 50 acres of Georgia soil, the past is not something to look back on but something still alive beneath every footprint, carrying forward the memory of all who refused to be forgotten.
Given the gravity of the present situation, we should be very careful about what we think we know about growth. if I’m wrong about degrowth, then you can kick-start the economy back again to continue growing business-as-usual. If Daniel Susskind is wrong, on the other hand, it will cost us the biosphere.
Who needs to read this book? Mostly, anyone who sees the dark age coming and is worried about it but interested in discussion about how we might have a hand in guiding the trajectory, in our own locales so that the future is, as Nate Hagens likes to say, “better than the default.”
The book invites us to imagine ways we can strengthen all our community partnerships and offers skills to create a new world through the art of Radical Listening.
Bill Gates made news last week by challenging climate advocates to accept the ‘hard truth’ that temperature rises will not cause enough deaths to justify the priority placed on them. Perhaps the real story is Gates’ use of a very old tactic to dismiss new targets – Gates implied that the grave concerns of even global institutions and science are doomsday fantasies.
But what phytomining could do is produce some metal while also remediating degraded land, sequestering carbon, and serving as the fuel for energy production or the raw material for biochar fertilizer, syngas, and other chemical creations.
Hopes are high. Expectations are low. Change is happening, it is just painfully slow. We need this to be the ‘delivery COP’. One thing is for sure, COP30 will be make or break for people, our precious flora and fauna, and our planet as a whole.
