Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
It is true that no high-energy society has ever halved its material throughput and existed at that level across generations. But an absent precedent for an unprecedented situation merely tells us the situation is new, not what people will do.
In a catastrophe, the most important thing is social relations. Anything that builds resilient social relations is a step towards having agency in a catastrophe.
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.
Honestly, it was very difficult to create a climate movement in Germany. We worked for five years with hardly any attention. Then the Paris summit happened, and we exploded.
If we want to fail more beautifully, to make our predicament less ugly, we need to learn what it means to face it together.
How pronatalist misinformation fuels low-fertility alarmism.
Where’s the urgency in climate discussions? Scholars Theresa Leisgang and Gerriet Schwen examined why climate warnings fail to spur change and how they might better motivate us to act in the face of collapse.
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.
