Negative Feedback
In all our grand models, we seem to have externalized one of the basic mechanisms of change in the universe — negative feedback.
Eliza Daley
Learning to Love — and Protect — Burned Trees
Getting the public, legislators and agency staff to see the benefit of a burned forest isn’t easy, because wildfires — pardon the pun — are a heated issue.
A Responsible and Upstanding Washing Machine
There are many possibilities for reining in corporations. But perhaps simply banning corporations beyond a certain size would be best.
What the World Can Learn from Brazil’s Shifting Stance on Science
Whether Brazil, the U.S. or any other country defunds, attacks, or ignores science, devaluing research and innovation is detrimental to the long-term well-being of any modern society, as well as for the interconnected global community.
Community Land Trusts Build Climate-Resilient Affordable Housing
As climate change makes disasters like hurricanes, floods, and wildfires become more frequent, severe, and expensive, residents and policymakers are increasingly turning toward community land trusts (CLTs)—nonprofits that buy land to ensure community control, stave off displacement, and ensure long-term affordability.
Portland’s circular economy is primed for success. Can it offer a blueprint for the rest of us?
In the United States, the city of Portland, Oregon offers some leadership in terms of what this might look like in action. The city boasts a lively network of partnerships between nonprofits, businesses, civilians, and different bureaus and layers of government.
COP27’s loss and damage deal isn’t a win. It committed us to devastation
COP27 may have committed to a loss and damage fund to compensate countries most harmed by a climate emergency they did not create, but it has also committed to a pathway of devastation.
“Spirituality is deeply anti-systemic”: An interview with Indigenous Thinker Antonio Gonzalez from the Aj Mayon Collective in Guatemala
Many people are now realizing that they cannot move forward without us. And indigenous peoples are saying: “you are not going to talk on our behalf, nor about us, anymore”.
Joe Brewer’s Bold Quest to Help Restore a Bioregion
Brewer instead puts forward a plan to create a planetary network of local living economies, organized as bioregions. This idea builds on the pioneering work of Dana Meadows and “The Limits to Growth” study published in the early 1980s.
Why Vision? Why Strategy?
It’s impossible to talk about Vision without also talking about Strategy for they are two sides of the same coin and they are both necessary. Without Strategy, we can never reach our Vision. Without Vision, our Strategy will meander aimlessly.
Why movements need to start singing again
Social movements are stronger when they sing. That’s a lesson that has been amply demonstrated throughout history, and it’s one that I have learned personally in working to develop trainings for activists over the past decade and a half.
Seeds of a better future
One of the tough parts of futures work is helping people step out of the present. The sheer weight of how we do things and think about things right here, right now, gets in the way of people imagining how things can change for the better.
