by Donella Meadows with Calvin Po in Future Observatory Journal… In this previously unpublished text, the renowned systems thinker sets out a vision for bioregional learning centres. Four decades on, we provide a critical annotation from today’s perspective
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Texan stoicism provides comfort, and excuses, after the flood
by J. David Goodman in The New York Times…Texans often draw on the idea of their own self-reliance during times of adversity. Gov. Greg Abbott has used it to deflect tough questions.
Disaster 101: Your guide to extreme weather preparation, relief, and recovery
by Lyndsey Gilpin in Grist…No matter where you live, extreme weather can hit your area and change your life. Whether it’s a hurricane, winter storm, flash flood, tornado, wildfire, or heat wave, disasters can damage or destroy your home and property, cause lengthy power outages, and stall civic services. Grist created a comprehensive guide to help you stay ready and informed before, during, and after these traumatic and chaotic events, as well as where to find and build support in your community.
Planetary salutogenesis: reimagining health in the age of the anthropocene
by Nils Gilman in Small Precautions…In sum, Planetary Salutogenesis argues that the future of health cannot be carved from the body alone. It must be cultivated in the soil, seeded in the air, woven into ecosystems and institutions alike. It is not merely about surviving a sickened world — it is about becoming well together, or not at all. Our final line is unequivocal: “The future of health will be planetary, or there will be no future health at all.”
We are the great turning
by Joanna Macy and Jess Serrante on Sounds True Podcast Network…We are the great turning takles Love, Courage, and Connection in the Climate Crisis.
How facing grief can help us navigate a world in crisis
Interview by Nate Hagen….How has an absence of ritual and the avoidance of grief in our culture distorted our relationship to loss – and therefore our ability to protect what we love? What practices do other cultures use to nurture ecological identity and kinship with the more-than-human world? And finally, why might grief, when honored and integrated, be a vital part of building more resilient and ecologically-grounded systems for the future?
What this climate scientist wants you to know about human nature
by Kate Marvel in Atmos…I don’t know which of these worlds is more likely. Science says that as long as human beings emit greenhouse gases by cutting down trees and burning fossil fuels, the planet will keep getting warmer. Physics says this will mean higher sea levels, heavier rainfall, worse and longer droughts. It says nothing about how we should feel about this. And it says nothing about what we’ll decide to do. The future remains uncertain. But I’m sending my children there, and they are never coming back. I think about it every day. And then, I feel.
The world economy is on the brink of epochal change
by Mark Blythe in The Atlantic…Capitalism’s operating system is due for a major upgrade. How that turns out depends on enormously consequential political choices.
Counter-hegemony and polycrisis I: how to eat and how to think
by Raj Patel in The Journal of Peasant Studies…Through examining twentieth-century counter-hegemonic movements, particularly the Italian mondine and the Black Panther Party, this paper advances a theoretical understanding of how counter-hegemony emerges through experimental renegotiations of world-ecological relations. This analysis demonstrates how movements dialectically integrate material practice with intellectual formation, producing new social relations within the interstices of hegemonic power. The mondine struggles against mosquitos and exploitative labour conditions, like the Panthers’ hidden gardens and breakfast programmes, illustrate a crucial theoretical insight: counter-hegemony operates not merely as critique but as practical experimentation with the very boundaries between social and ecological reproduction.
Experts: Which climate tipping point is the most concerning?
from Carbon Brief…I am particularly worried about tipping points that involve the biosphere and humans due to breaching thresholds for heat or drought that then ripple into food availability, livelihood and ecosystems.