How Octavia Butler told the future
by Tiya Miles in The Atlantic…We need her conception of “histofuturism” now more than ever.
Why the world needs its own immune system
by Atul Gawande in The New York Times…A global immune system must be built for speed. Speed in detecting that a pattern of illness might be unusual and dangerous. Speed in diagnosis. Speed in alerting public health officials and tracing the path of exposure. Speed in getting treatment to the sick and preventive measures to the well.
An ancient Chinese text that’s surprisingly relevant today
by Richard Heinberg in Resilience.org….I’ll leave the last words to the Old Master, this time from the Bahm translation:
Whenever someone sets out to remold the world, experience teaches that he is bound to fail.
For Nature is already as good as it can be.
It cannot be improved upon.
He who tries to redesign it, spoils it.
He who tries to redirect it, misleads it.
Visualizing the top global risks in 2024
from the World Economic Forum….From a broader perspective, key structural forces are influencing global risks looking ahead. They include technological acceleration, climate change, shifts in geopolitical power, and a widening demographic divide.
A year in crises
by Tim Sahay in Phenomenal World…https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/a-year-in-crises.
The terrible twenties? The assholocene? What to call our chaotic era
by Kyle Chayka in The New Yorker…There is something paradoxical about pinning a name on an age characterized by extreme uncertainty. But that hasn’t stopped people from trying.
Food shortages ‘alarmingly likely’ in the UK next year
by Madeleine Ross in The Telegraph….Warning that global conflicts and climate change will lead to empty shelves
WEP2018 TV: Energy, money and technology – From the lens of the superorganism
During Nate Hagens’ #WEP2018 keynote, he will discuss how all of our lives will be influenced by how we react to the coming era of harder to extract and more costly fossil fuels that will be combined with cleaner but more stochastic energy types.
Nate Hagen’s end of year look at 2024
by Eric Lee in Medicum.com….So I’m not going to apologize that the following short reflection is is on the dark side. I’m trying to describe what ’24 may look like. And there’s a lot of things that are converging.
The ORA Community is Growing: A Second year of resilience fellowships announced
The Omega Resilience Awards’ global partners have begun their search for applicants for the second year of the ORA Fellowship. ORA anchor parters in India, Africa, and Latin America are currently seeking applications for the 2024 fellowship year.
‘Nanoplastics’ could be worse than ,microplastics and we know almost nothing about them
by Mirjam Guesgen in Vice….”From the public point of view, this could be the next asbestos.”
500+ pages, 200+ researchers: Global Tipping Points Report delivers comprehensive assessment of tipping point risks and societal opportunities
by T.M. Lenton, et al in Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research…Tipping points pose some of the biggest risks to our planet’s life-support systems and the stability of our societies. In an unprecedented effort by the scientific community, researchers have now published a comprehensive report on Earth system tipping points and their potential impacts and opportunities for societal change. More than 200 scientists from around the world contributed to the ‘Global Tipping Points Report’. The report with more than 500 pages provides an authoritative guide to the state of knowledge on tipping points, explores opportunities for accelerating much needed transformations, and outlines options for a new governance of tipping point risks and opportunities.
Is it too late to keep global warming below 1.5 °C? The challenge in 7 charts
by Jeff Tollefson in Nature…Chances are rapidly disappearing to limit Earth’s temperature rise to the globally agreed mark, but researchers say there are some positive signs of progress.
As water becomes a weapon of war, we must focus on cooperation and peace
by Peter Gleick in The Guardian…Record increase in water-related violence shows how urgently we need to reduce these tensions between countries
Russia and Israel lead global surge in attacks on civilian water supplies
by Nina Lakhani in The Guardian…Water-related violence surged to an all-time high in 2022 – driven in large part by Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israeli attacks against Palestinian water resources in the West Bank.
Donella Meadows recommendations for how to dance with and intervene in systems
Wahl writes……Donella makes the crucially important point that the most transformative and effective leverage points are addressed by acting at the level of paradigm-change, by addressing the culture change that would shift the dominant believes about the system. Even more effective, according to Meadows, is the ability to transcend paradigms and acknowledge the wisdom that diverse, possibly even conflicting perspectives can bring to a situation in full recognition that each paradigm also brings with it, its own limitations and blind spots.