By Ugo Bardi, Cassandra's legacy
The Ancient Romans never understood what hit them. Nor did later historians: there exist literally hundreds of theories on what caused the fall of the Roman Empire.
By Nate Hagens, Resilience.org
Around 11,000 years ago, as the last ice age ended, our ancestors - in no fewer than 5 locations around the world - took advantage of the new conditions and tried an agricultural way of life. Fast forward through two momentous phase shifts in human history (agricultural and industrial revolutions), and here we are: approaching 8 billion, seeking freedom, experiences, and material wealth all derived from physical surplus.
By Christopher Ketcham, Local Futures
There is, of course, a caution for our species in Pig #6707. When an organism grows beyond its design, nature will determine it to fail — a fact of life, in the strictest sense. Nowhere in evolutionary theory is hypertrophic growth posited as the key to success. What is key is optimum size, what we’d more accurately call right size.
By Daniel Christian Wahl, Insurge Intelligence
We are living in extraordinary times and transformation is already happening and accelerating all around us. Many technological, social, and environmental changes are racing up the steep end of the exponential curve. I
By Erik Lindberg, Resilience.org
If we truly want to increase equality, then, it will have to be created at a sustainable level, and thus ones much lower than that enjoyed by the rich, middle-classes, and even workers of advanced industrial nations alike. We may choose to fight inequality by way of strikes, wage increases, and taxation, but that will not return us to a golden age; it will hasten our rendezvous with economics in the age of resource exhaustion and mounting clean-up costs.
By Richard Heinberg, Resilience.org
The end of growth has been postponed as long as is humanly possible. It’s far past time to come to terms with ecological reality and make a deliberate transition to a post-growth regime.
By Aaron Vansintjan, Red Pepper
Ecomodernism is the idea that we can harness technology to decouple society from the natural world. For these techno-optimists, to reject the promise of GMOs, nuclear, and geo-engineering is to be hopelessly romantic, anti-modern, and even misanthropic. An ecological future, for them, is about cranking up the gears of modernity and rejecting a politics of limits.
By Mark H. Burton, Steady-State Manchester
Because Positive Money are so selective in both their characterisation of the springs of capitalist accumulation and in their analysis of the impact of economic activity on the ecosystem, they end up proposing a scheme that at best will have little positive impact and could actually make matters worse.
By Bart Hawkins Kreps, An Outside Chance
Mann’s story-telling skills shine when he’s narrating the life and times of Borlaug, Vogt and the colourful characters they worked with. When The Wizard and the Prophet embarks on a 200-page tour of today’s many global ecology challenges, Mann’s discursions are fascinating but the quality is uneven.
By Dan O'Neill, The Conversation
Imagine a country that met the basic needs of its citizens – one where everyone could expect to live a long, healthy, happy and prosperous life. Now imagine that same country was able to do this while using natural resources at a level that would be sustainable even if every other country in the world did the same. Such a country does not exist.