By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 4 Jun 24
This is an essay written on June 4, 2018 when I was the director for the Center for Applied Cultural Evolution I am reposting it as part of the original 3-part series from that time. Find Part 1 here and Part 3 here.Last week I published a 10-page essay arguing that my own life’s work cannot possibly succeed — in the hope that it would be taken up as a “grand challenge” for others to prove wrong. Astute readers will note the hidden pathway that resolves this seeming paradox. For the only way to prove me wrong is to actually build a rigorous
This is an essay written on June 4, 2018 when I was the director for the Center for Applied Cultural Evolution I am reposting it as part of the original 3-part series from that time. Find Part 1 here and Part 3 here.Last week I published a 10-page essay arguing that my own life’s work cannot possibly succeed — in the hope that
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 15 May 24
Our friends at r3.0 are hosting a conference on “Collapse Resilience” this year. As part of the build-up to their event, they are holding dialogues about important topics that prepare the field for what is going to happen in September.I was asked if I could give a talk about Tipping Points of the Earth System to frame what it means to be in planetary collapse right now. You will really enjoy watching the video — especially for the discussion that took place afterwards between Bill Baue, Ralph Thurm, and myself.This was followed by a second session on Positive Tipping Points of the Earth
Our friends at r3.0 are hosting a conference on “Collapse Resilience” this year. As part of the build-up to their event, they are holding dialogues about important topics that prepare the field for what is going to happen in September.I was asked if I could give a talk about Tipping Points of the Earth System to frame what it means
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 23 Apr 23
I’m not going to sugarcoat this. We are in ecological overshoot. All unsustainable human cultures on Earth are in the process of becoming compost for future generations.This statement is empirically supported in two ways. Firstly, there are zero examples of sustainable empires or civilizations from the past. All of them have collapsed and the current one will be no different.Secondly, the convergence of observations about every health indicator imaginable for the Earth reveals that the explosion of human population in the last century was at the expense of degradation for landscapes all over the planet. We have converted Earth’s biodiversity
I’m not going to sugarcoat this. We are in ecological overshoot. All unsustainable human cultures on Earth are in the process of becoming compost for future generations.This statement is empirically supported in two ways. Firstly, there are zero examples of sustainable empires or civilizations from the past. All of them have collapsed and the current one will be no different.Secondly,
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 26 Jul 22
Mock up of future development of Sri Lanka’s port city of Colombo (Source: YouTube) Sri Lanka is deeply embroiled in a crisis. Fuel shortages have led to protests. Food protests have led to riots. The President fled the country and then resigned by email. A new President was just elected on Wednesday, July 20, but he is no outsider – he has been Prime Minister six times already.
Mock up of future development of Sri Lanka’s port city of Colombo (Source: YouTube) Sri Lanka is deeply embroiled in a crisis. Fuel shortages have led to protests. Food protests have led to riots. The President fled the country and then resigned by email. A new President was just elected on Wednesday, July 20, but he is no outsider –
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 14 Mar 22
Industry in Russia Conventional analysts are looking at the Russian invasion of Ukraine through the lens of military strategy and geopolitical rivalry. But the invasion and its geopolitical consequences can only be properly understood in the context of wider transformations in the global economy, driven by disruptions unfolding across every major sector, namely, energy, transportation, food, information and materials. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is, in other words, symptomatic of a much wider process: the economic and military unwinding of the age of extraction as an entirely new system emerges. Six years ago, RethinkX’s co-founders Tony Seba and James Arbib
Industry in Russia Conventional analysts are looking at the Russian invasion of Ukraine through the lens of military strategy and geopolitical rivalry. But the invasion and its geopolitical consequences can only be properly understood in the context of wider transformations in the global economy, driven by disruptions unfolding across every major sector, namely, energy, transportation, food, information and materials. The
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 10 Nov 21
During COP 26, as he was on route to the G20 summit, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had an extraordinary message. Civilization could collapse “like the Roman empire”, he warned, “unless we get this right in tackling climate change.” “Humanity, civilization and society can go backwards as well as forwards and when they start to go wrong, they can go wrong at extraordinary speed,” he said. The UK Prime Minister’s recognition that civilizations can experience a life cycle of growth and collapse is a milestone. But understanding what’s really driving the risk of going “backwards” is crucial to navigating our
During COP 26, as he was on route to the G20 summit, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had an extraordinary message. Civilization could collapse “like the Roman empire”, he warned, “unless we get this right in tackling climate change.” “Humanity, civilization and society can go backwards as well as forwards and when they start to go wrong, they can go
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 1 Jul 20
Turning Toward Our Blind Spot: Seeing the Shadow as a Source for TransformationRead the article in Spanish — in JapaneseWe are living in a moment of tectonic shift in society. Something changed when we all watched the same images — 8 minutes and 46 seconds — the killing of George Floyd. During that unbearable experience, something broke down and broke open in our hearts, in how we relate to one another, and in how we want to live together.From the Collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989…When the Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989, we witnessed the end of the 20th-century Cold War era. A wall collapsed between two
Turning Toward Our Blind Spot: Seeing the Shadow as a Source for TransformationRead the article in Spanish — in JapaneseWe are living in a moment of tectonic shift in society. Something changed when we all watched the same images — 8 minutes and 46 seconds — the killing of George Floyd. During that unbearable experience, something broke down and broke open in our hearts, in how we