by Laurie Laybourn in Earth Systems Dynamics…How will the effects of climate change, nature loss, and other environmental change impact our ability to tackle the causes of these problems? There is already a high demand on resources to respond to worsening climate shocks, knock-on impacts for areas such as food production and health, and the many other growing consequences of changes to the Earth system.
Looking Back at the Future of Humanity Institute
by Tom Ough in Asteriskmag.com…The rise and fall of the influential, embattled Oxford research center that brought us the concept of existential risk.
Responding to platform firm power: differing national responses
by Angela Garcia Calvo in New Political Economy…In the second half of the 1990s, the commercial internet emerged as a remarkable connectivity tool that promised ever tighter integration of economies and societies. The desirability of internet use meant that it diffused globally with astonishing speed. In the US, technological leadership, enormous sums of venture capital, a large, single market, and a neoliberal, laissez-faire political economic environment, unleashed an ongoing process of entrepreneurship that resulted in the emergence of what became the global platform leaders.
Combining AI and Crispr will be transformational
by Jennifer Doudna in Wired.com…The genome-editing technology can be supercharged by artificial intelligence—and the results are already being felt.
Dancing with a permanent emergency
by Jonathan Rowson in The Joyous Struggle…In the real world, there is scope to change the opponent (whether that is fossil fuel companies, politicians, or ourselves), the goal(we can do so much better than GDP), and the rules of the game (climate litigation) and some of those transformative possibilities are where my work is now focussed.
FBI warns Americans to start using encrypted messaging apps
by Matt Novak in Gizmodo.com…It’s all about protecting against China, but there’s the added benefit of protecting against Trump.
Three-quarters of the Earth has gotten permanently drier
by Jeffrey Kluger in Time…By century’s end, up to 20% of all Earth’s land could experience abrupt ecosystem transformation, such as forests becoming grasslands, with attendant extinction and collapse of ecosystems. Farming could suffer too.
Using emergence to take social innovations to scale
by Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze on Margaretwheatley.com…Emergence is the fundamental scientific explanation for how local changes can materialize as global systems of influence. As a change theory, it offers methods and practices to accomplish the systems-wide changes that are so needed at this time. As leaders and communities of concerned people, we need to intentionally work with emergence so that our efforts will result in a truly hopeful future.
Big tech’s class war politics
by John Ganz in Unpopularfront.news…I think we are in a crisis of hegemony moment: neoliberalism is dying, but its replacement is yet to be born. And, as in pre and post-hegemonic times, the field of politics is fragmented and incoherent, there’s no hegemonic class or portion of a class that’s able to lead, so everything reverts to “the economic-corporate phase,” when different social interests seek their own short-term benefits rather than coalescing behind a vision of social development.
A ‘doom loop’ of climate change and geopolitical instability is beginning
by Laurie Laybourn in The Conversation…It is a common refrain to say that geopolitics gets in the way of climate action. From the war in Ukraine to trade tensions, each year seems to bring another immediate priority that diverts focus from the imperative to act on climate change.
More in this tag
Jul
06
2023
Global polycrisis: The causal mechanisms of crisis entanglement
by Dr. Michael Lawrence at The Cascade Institute….. In this framework, a global crisis arises when one or more fast-moving trigger events combines with...
Sep
17
2025
AI and democratic publics
by Henry Farrell & Hahrie Han in Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University…A project studying how advanced AI systems may harm, or help...
Sep
16
2025
Introducing Noema VI: Paradigm shifts
by Nathan Gardels in Noema…Profound transformations occurring simultaneously mark our new Age of Upheaval.
Sep
15
2025
Bioregional coordination: Sacred work in a time between worlds
by Benjamin Life in Omniharmonic…Start small. Start where you are. Start with what you have. But start. Because the infrastructure for life-affirming governance...
Sep
15
2025
Reframing the future
by Patrick Dowd of The Long Now Foundation…The practice of reframing how we think about time has been woven into Long Now’s DNA since our inception, and yet...
Sep
12
2025
Resilience science must-knows: A road to action for decision-makers
by the Global Resilience Partnership…This is more than a report—it’s a movement to ensure resilience and adaptation science translates into action and impact. It...
Aug
19
2025
Resilience revisited 014: Beyond the binary of “Resilience is Resistance” – Imagining resilience as oscillation
by Tamzin Ractliffe on LinkedIn…Here’s the challenge this powerful formulation reveals: existing power structures are also extraordinarily resilient at...
Aug
01
2025
The world economy is on the brink of epochal change
by Mark Blyth in The Atlantic…Capitalism’s operating system is due for a major upgrade. How that turns out depends on enormously consequential political...
Jul
31
2025
Why is ChatGPT telling people to email me?
by Kashmir Hill in The New York Times…reporter who writes about A.I. finds her work is catching on — with the Chatbot she often writes about.
Jul
30
2025
Dimensions of the Great Turning
from The Work That Reconnects Network,,,In the Work That Reconnects we uplift and celebrate the story of the Great Turning, the essential shift to a way of living and...
Jul
29
2025
Rethinking resilience
by Alene Dawson in John Templeton Foundation News…”One way to think about resilience is the ability to recover from or successfully manage obstacles,...