Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
In this installment of an ongoing series, Tom and Dave Murphy explore what “sustainable” truly means and whether any disruption to natural ecosystems or energy flows by humanity is inherently unsustainable.
Can modern civilization survive for the long term within planetary limits? This dialogue pits optimism about renewable energy and human adaptability against a more fundamental critique: that modernity itself may be incompatible with ecological sustainability.
As low-lying island states face the loss of their territory, new legal and political strategies are emerging to sustain nations in exile. Whether they can preserve sovereignty, identity and cohesion without land remains an open question.
If modernity cannot endure within planetary limits, what comes next? Dave Murphy and Tom Murphy debate the likelihood of collapse, the possibility of adaptation and what we owe each other in a time of ecological overshoot.
Those coming into power now on a worldwide wave of discontent appear to understand little about the ultimate underlying causes of that discontent.
Human and earthly limits, properly understood, wrote the conservationist Wendell Berry, are not confinements, but rather inducements to fullness of relationship and meaning.
On this episode, Nate is joined by the creator of Doughnut Economics, Kate Raworth, to discuss alternative economies that measure more than just the material wealth created by a society.
Only by defying the persistently narrow choice between ‘growth’ or ‘degrowth’ in forms that are categorically given, can the twin faces of colonial modernity in technocratic consumerism and environmental authoritarianism finally be confronted and transformed.
The degrowth movement exists to advance these difficult arguments – to take the large body of evidence as to why the current economic process is failing, and propose a range of alternatives which might avert the catastrophic failure of this system.
Citizens in the US and Canada use over 300GJ per capita, so there is lots of room to simplify. We can reduce our energy demands without significantly reducing the general well-being of humanity.
We are going to have to dramatically downsize the dream of a future in which we replace 150-year-old fossil fuel infrastructure with “clean energy” by 2050.
On this episode, physicist Antonio Turiel joins me for a wide-ranging discussion from oceans and climate to energy and culture.
