Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
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.
As references to rivers, trees, and wildlife fade from books, songs, and everyday speech, our connection to the natural world also diminishes. Reclaiming these words can help us recognize, appreciate, and ultimately, preserve the environment.
In this episode, Nate speaks with primatologist and author Dr. Christine Webb about human exceptionalism – the deeply embedded belief that humans are separate from and superior to the rest of nature. Webb argues this worldview is not a universal human trait but rather a product of a few dominant cultures, and that it lies at the root of many of our most pressing global challenges.
Let us humbly receive the minimal (experimentally validated) foundation that can plausibly account for everything we experience, even if we can’t ourselves connect all the dots. Trust the universe, not our brains.
Humanity and the earth is suffering from a worldview disease leading to a voracious self-destruction. It is a set of values or qualities, held with religious conviction that transforms all novelty into itself: economic growth, control over circumstances, progress, individualism, exploitation of nature, domination of strong over weak, and freedom-as-entitlement.
We humans will always seek reductive explanations for “why” things happen in the world around us and try to use those explanations to gain advantage for ourselves and our fellow humans in the fight for survival within our biosphere. But if we see the limits of such explanations and therefore their dangers, we might move more humbly among the vast array of creatures and Earth systems with whom we live and upon whom we depend for our very survival.
I’ve tried to imagine what the shape of an ecologically sound religion/worldview might be. My friend wisely offered the following humble beginning: “Be kind. It’s all connected.”
Our global civilization is facing the threat of its own Big One in the form of climate change, resource depletion, and species extinction. If our worldview is built on shaky foundations, we need to know about it: we need to find the cracks and repair them before it’s too late.
“Know your enemy” has always been central to winning any struggle.
Why is it that human civilization has been unable to take the steps required to forestall the devastating consequences of climate change, which may even include societal collapse, when faced with a scientific consensus that it is a very real phenomenon and requires urgent action?
