Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
We’ll need a much deeper analysis of both elite opposition and the strategies and tactics employed by social movements, however, to effectively plan to overcome political barriers to the transition.
My goal isn’t to come up with new solutions to humanity’s converging crises—because until we have sufficient wisdom, we won’t recognize real solutions, even if they already exist. First wisdom, then action.
We can still choose our path forward, we can still sacrifice for what we value. But to do so we must recognize the power we possess, build on it in community with others, and acknowledge the ways in which we wield it.
But what if our voracious appetite is less to blame than the types of things that hunger has been directed toward? Could we direct our attention instead toward beauty, tenderness, and collective action?
Improve your energy literacy with stories about pushing motor vehicles, enduring blackouts, and growing $10 tomatoes, and take a tour of history that visits ancient China, industrializing Britain, the Great Depression, the Cold War, and the Green Revolution.
As people learned to wield fire, deploy an array of tools, and coordinate actions through increasingly descriptive language, they became more capable of concentrating power.
To understand humanity’s relationship with energy and power, and to get a handle on why we’re experiencing a polycrisis of climate change, social inequality, and loss of biodiversity, you have to go back to the beginning – all the way back to the origins of life on Earth.
If we want to address this problem and reduce the chances of a chaotic collapse of society, we will have to confront our overuse and abuse of power.
Power is essential; without it, we would be literally powerless. But one can have too much of a good thing. How much power is enough? How much is too much?
With fossil fuels and electrification, and thus greater mobility and instant communications, we have indeed become a human “hive.”
Whether in family, school, work, or politics, we’re all immersed in the pathologies of power. If we’re lucky, we learn to navigate these waters without being harmed irreparably, and without harming others. Many are not so fortunate.
The power to communicate aesthetic pleasure and thereby to feel profound affinity with other people, including individuals of other species, propel human culture forward in ways that are hard to measure, but that are impossible to ignore. These are powers that provide hope for our future.
