Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Douglas and I discuss how human behavior interacts with technology and how we have arrived at a place with enormous wealth and income inequality just as society is rapidly approaching biophysical limits.
Our Achilles Heel as a species may have come at a fork along our evolutionary biology pathway many millions of years ago. Relatively few others of our fellow creatures decided to follow our lead, and for good reason. We decided to sweat.
But let’s not win that way. Let’s operate on the assumption that human beings are not grossly defective. That we’re capable of acting together to do remarkable things.
While there seem to be credible, even noble, reasons for adopting this designation, however, there is some cause for alarm, namely that the enthusiasm behind the campaign to adopt this marker smacks of an obvious, species-centric narcissism. Human beings naming a whole geological epoch for themselves? How marvelous! How fabulously egotistical! Indeed, how exquisitely Anthropocentric!
Are we wrong to believe that competitiveness must and always will be the central animating principle of human action? Media studies scholar Michael Karlberg thinks so. In fact, he believes that another animating principle, mutualism, is both central to human interaction and necessary to aid human society in meeting the myriad challenges it faces regarding climate change, inequality, governance, education and many other issues.
We can’t prevent the suffering and dying of wild life, and the Earth herself, when confronted by the unleashed forces of fire and water, but we can include them in our assessment of the cost. We might even grieve for them. Their losses are indeed ours, and if we do not see them or their importance to our lives, if we continue to either ignore and/or dominate all other life on this planet, it won’t be long till we join them.
In history, we see the widespread attempt to place a single human being – that is, a single brain – in charge of the activity of the state. That sometimes leads to attempts of planning for the future of the whole colony, but it often backfires creating disasters. A single human brain cannot manage the immense complexity of a human state.
A new book argues that death threats and abuse illustrate how climate change messengers are being demonised in a way that is without parallel in the history of science.
If rational arguments were primary catalysts for social change, perhaps a steady state economy would already be a reality.
In this talk, Nate Hagens synthesizes the current landscape of global energy, environment and financial risks while offering suggestions on what to do as a hominid living on a full planet.
Nowadays media feeds are everywhere — on building facades, billboards, hotel lobbies, restaurants, elevators and even gas pumps.
