Climate, fiction, and the future
Artists have a long history of channeling social change into their works, shaping our cultures, societies, and institutions. When informed by science, this becomes a powerful tool for action.
Let’s imagine we knew exactly how the pandemic started
In a March Guardian editorial that similarly treated the matter of origin as an arcane sideshow, the paper emphasized expanding disease surveillance, protecting natural habitats, reforming factory farming and ramping up lab safety — and concluded that all “this, rather than the blame game, is what politicians should prioritize.”
The Long View Vol 22
Since the Long View started as a newsletter almost 2 years ago, our aim has been to curate the highest quality polycrisis news, research, and analysis to support this growing learning community. As this polycrisis work has gone global, so has the volume of content, debate over its relevance, and evolving language. Here are this month’s top picks of polycrisis news, curated by Omega Program Director Stanley Wu. It was quite a month, worldwide. These selections were chosen to help foster thinking about these times and how we consider resilience in light of the global polycrisis.
The Great Simplification: What HS leaders need to know about the future of energy with Nate Hagens
Nate Hagens, Director of the Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future, offers a valuable, insightful, and cautionary presentation on energy consumption and the alarming challenges society will face in the not-so-distant future.
Q&A with Noam Chomsky about the future of our world for the SXSW23 Wonder House
Q&A with Noam Chomsky about the Future of our world.
We asked Noam Chomsky about the future of our world, our systems of government and power and our need to come together to address the challenges of our time. The laureate professor and public intellectual shared his thoughts with UArizona College of Social & Behavioral Sciences Dean Lori Poloni-Staudinger.
The A.I. Dilemma
The challenges of AI for human culture.
Yellen warns climate change could trigger asset value losses, harming US economy
Yellen will tell a new advisory board of academics, private sector experts and non-profits there has been a five-fold increase in the annual number of billion-dollar disasters over the past five years, compared to the 1980s, even after taking into account inflation.
Elon Musk and others call for pause on A.I., citing ‘profound risks to society’
More than 1,000 tech leaders, researchers and others signed an open letter urging a moratorium on the development of the most powerful artificial intelligence systems.
In the matter Re: Rights of Nature — A Staged Hearing
Khoj International Artists’ Association and Zuleikha Chaudhari’s recent project, In the matter Re: Rights of Nature took the form of a fictional National Green Tribunal (NGT) hearing exploring the relationship between the air pollution of Delhi / National Capital Region (NCR) and the stubble burning phenomena which occurs annually in the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana.
Alexander Skarsgård explains the answer to everything. (It involves doing some math.)
Partha Dasgupta is a Cambridge University economist who in 2021 prepared a more than 600-page report for the British government about the financial value of nature.
The age of AI has begun
Artificial intelligence is as revolutionary as mobile phones and the Internet.
The 12 paradigm shifts that are changing our world: Peter Leyden and Gerd Leonhard
Peter Leyden and Gerd Leonhard take a closer look at a dozen of the most important paradigm shifts of the 2020s that everyone should better understand.
The Amazon’s largest isolated tribe is dying
Illegal mines have fueled a humanitarian crisis for the Yanomami Indigenous group. Brazil’s new president is trying to fight back.
Nonprofits as battlegrounds for democracy
It’s not often that a body of work comes along that makes us ask big questions about the nonprofit sector. Claire Dunning’s new book, Nonprofit Neighborhoods, is one.
The man who leaked the pentagon papers is scared
Daniel Ellsberg, now 91, says “I’m leaving a world in terrible shape and terrible in all ways that I’ve tried to help make better during my years.”
Our new promethean moment
To observe an A.I. system — its software, microchips and connectivity — produce that level of originality in multiple languages in just seconds each time, well, the first thing that came to mind was the observation by the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”