Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Investigating how and why complex societies or civilizations have risen and fallen in human history, anthropologist and historian Joseph Tainter uncovered a dynamic that can help us make sense of our present situation and future prospects.
Signs abound that global techno-industrial society is cracking at the seams under the accumulated weight of its own complexity, and that it might now be on the cusp of entering a period of ‘Great Simplification’.
Nate turns from describing possible futures to exploring how we can make decisions when certainty is impossible. He introduces a framework for planning under uncertainty by distinguishing between two common mistakes – failing to respond to real risks, and taking decisive action based on incomplete understanding.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to close the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, a 6,500-acre agricultural research station in Maryland that is home to the nation’s premier bee research and disease diagnosis hub. The closure comes at a critical moment for bees.
Are we doomed within the next fifty years, or will it take many centuries? The end-Permian “Great Dying” can help us put today’s extinction crisis into perspective. The unsettling parallels offer a possible roadmap if we learn to see geological history as a series of recurring patterns rather than distant, irrelevant events.
In this post, former teacher and researcher Chris Smaje reflects on the practical skills, relationships and forms of exchange he believes will be needed to navigate collapse.
From climate disasters to housing shortages, the system finds new ways to extract value from crisis. In this essay, author Craig Collins argues that modern capitalism is no longer built to expand prosperity, but to monetize collapse.
After years of turning her backyard into a haven for wildlife, the author, Cylvia Hayes, watched the songbirds suddenly disappear. What began as a personal loss became a reflection on eco-grief, ecological decline, and how to find meaning, connection, and hope in a world undergoing profound environmental change.
At a recent symposium, speakers explored the polycrisis and how we respond to unfolding collapse, urging a shift toward degrowth, bioregional living, and an earth‑centered way of relating to the world.
For 6,000 years, human societies have sought to control water through ever-larger infrastructure. As climate change brings more extreme floods, droughts and heatwaves, a growing number of cities are exploring a different path: adapting to water’s rhythms rather than trying to dominate them.
Opening with a personal reflection on his own relationship to dread, Nate describes how the chronic anticipation of collapse affects the human nervous system long before any single crisis fully arrives.
Rising energy and fertiliser prices linked to the conflict in the Middle East are increasing the risk of global food insecurity, prompting renewed questions about how to strengthen food security and reduce dependence on fragile global supply chains.
