Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
From “natural resources” to “natural disaster” and “sustainability,” the language used in environmental and development discourse doesn’t just describe the world, it shapes what is seen and prioritized.
From Indigenous-led governance to worker-owned cooperatives, scattered experiments may offer a blueprint for a pathway out of our global predicament.
In this excerpt from the Seeds Series Volume 2, interviewees argue that deeper shifts in consciousness, economics and governance are needed to confront the polycrisis.
Nate builds a framework for understanding the pathways that connect today’s choices to tomorrow’s realities. Drawing from biology, ecology, history, and systems thinking, he introduces a civilizational terrain of ridges and valleys that is constantly shifting as we are moving through it.
“Nature” is often cast as a word that separates humans from non-humans. But it can also mean something much larger: the universe, the course of things, the great event we live within. It’s a word worth defending.
Why do people with access to the same facts arrive at radically different conclusions about the future? Physicist Tom Murphy reflects on an impasse with Dave Murphy over modernity, ecological limits and humanity’s place in the living world.
As civilizational systems buckle under ecological and social strain, this chapter of Seeds Volume 2 argues we must stop chasing solutions and instead dismantle the toxic logics of hierarchy and supremacism to rebuild regenerative, collapse-resilient cultures.
A new volume in the r3.0 “Seeds Series” brings together thinkers, activists and systems scholars exploring how societies might move through ecological and institutional breakdown toward more regenerative, place-based and cooperative forms of life.
Wetlands, rivers and ecosystems do not stop functioning when legal definitions change. The long-term stability of environmental protection may depend less on enforcement than on cultural attitudes toward nature itself.
From ecosystem destruction to climate instability, today’s environmental crises are rooted in a deeper assumption: that humans stand apart from nature. This essay argues that addressing that divide requires a broader cultural and economic shift toward ecological responsibility.
In the first instalment of a new series on thinking about the future, Nate Hagens argues that most debates about what lies ahead are shaped by a single competing narrative. He introduces “scenario thinking” as a way to hold multiple possible futures at once, and explores why this is psychologically and culturally difficult in practice.
Studies show a steep decline in nature-related language, from books to music. Now, projects like children’s books, citizen science platforms and everyday practices like gardening and birdwatching are helping rebuild our ecological vocabulary.
