Research shows people who speak another language are more utilitarian and flexible, less risk-averse and egotistical, and better able to cope with traumatic memories
Treading Thin Air
by Geoff Mann in Uncertainty and Climate Change….What we need is a much more honest assessment of what we do not or cannot know, which is, among other important things, where the edge is. We might, in fact, be past it already, treading thin air like Wile E. Coyote before the fall. Today’s politicians don’t like uncertainty: it introduces doubt. Yet we are in desperate need of a politics that looks catastrophic uncertainty square in the face.
Prefixing the world
by Jonathan Rowson in Perspectiva…The metacrisis is the historically specific threat to truth, beauty, and goodness caused by our persistent misunderstanding, misvaluing, and misappropriating of reality. The metacrisis is the crisis within and between all the world’s major crises, a root cause that is at once singular and plural, a multi-faceted delusion arising from the spiritual and material exhaustion of modernity that permeates the world’s interrelated challenges and manifests institutionally and culturally to the detriment of life on earth.
I want a better catastrophe
by Andrew Boyd in bettercatastrophe.com…The apocolypse is already happening.
Keep humanity’s future in sight and integrate the polycrisis lens
from transformphilanthropy.wingsweb.org….The climate crisis is one of the most pressing global challenges of our time. However, only a tiny fraction of global philanthropic funding is dedicated to combating climate change effects, with some estimates as low as 2%. Most philanthropic funders already dedicated to other social issues do not feel they can divert resources at this stage.
Heat is not a metaphor
by Alexis Pauline Gumbs in Harpers Bazaar….Let me be clear: “Living on a menopausal planet” does not mean the extreme heat we are experiencing is just a natural part of Earth’s life cycle, as climate-change deniers claim. The volatile temperatures we are experiencing are a result of toxic human actions—just like the hot flashes experienced by menopausal people (many women, many gender-expansive people, anyone who has ever had a uterus or ovaries or stewarded the hormone estrogen) may be impacted by the prevalence of hormone-injected animals and processed food in our diets.
Where dangerous heat is surging
by Niko Kommenda, et al in the Washington Post….The danger of climate change is often associated with huge disasters: floods, fires, hurricanes. Heat, on the other hand, is a creeping, quieter risk — but one that is already transforming lives around the world.
The fear of a nuclear fire that would consume Earth
by Thomas Moynihan at BBC.com…..Perhaps the lesson for AI is that the dramatic risks should command our attention, but so too should the more tangible, less attention-grabbing, ones. Neither should cancel the other out, especially when – once again – our world is possibly at stake.
America is using up its groundwater like there’s no tomorrow
By Mira Rojanasakul et al, in The New York Times…..“From an objective standpoint, this is a crisis,” said Warigia Bowman, a law professor and water expert at the University of Tulsa. “There will be parts of the U.S. that run out of drinking water.”
What the fossil fuel industry doesn’t want you to know
In TedX with Al Gore……In a blistering talk, Nobel Laureate Al Gore looks at the two main obstacles to climate solutions and gives his view of how we might actually solve the environmental crisis in time. You won’t want to miss his searing indictment of fossil fuel companies for walking back their climate commitments — and his call for a global rethink of the roles of polluting industries in politics and finance.
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...
Mar
20
2025
The turbulent world of resilience: 2 Interpretations and themes for transdisciplinary dialogue
by Susanne Moser, et al. in Climatic Change…In this paper we have tried to delineate – from a workshop and a literature review – fundamental differences in...
Mar
19
2025
Zero-problem philanthropy
by Christian Seelos in SSIR…Moving away from endless problem-solving and toward creating healthy context.
Mar
18
2025
Octavia Butler on creativity, the power of our obsessions, and how we become who we are
by Maria Popova in The Pocket…“Love quiets fear. And a sweet and powerful positive obsession blunts pain, diverts rage, and engages each of us in the greatest,...
Mar
17
2025
Strategy 2030 mid-term review and forecast
From IFRC Solferino Academy…As we reach the midpoint of Strategy 2030, we are entering a new humanitarian era. A complex mass of emerging trends is changing the...
Mar
17
2025
Looking Forward
by Steven Ascher in his film Looking Forward…“W.H. Auden called the postwar era, ‘The Age of Anxiety.’ It seems we’re in another one now.”
Mar
14
2025
Empowering residents to drive the redevelopment of a trailer park
from Habitat for Humanity Cost of Home report…Rosensweig adds that Southwood has the potential to be a model for sustainable and equitable redevelopment of both...
Mar
13
2025
The Strategic Foresight Book
from The Strategic Foresight Book by IFRC Solferino Academy…Effective strategic foresight is an ongoing process. Developing the ability to monitor trends,...
Mar
12
2025
The impossible math of philanthropy
by Hans Taparia and Bruce Buchanan in The New York Times…With one hand they generate supernormal profits by plundering society, and with the other they dole out a...
Mar
11
2025
Resilience revisited 011: Resilience as ‘capacity to embrace uncertainty’
by Tamzin Ractliffe on LinkedIn…Perhaps true resilience emerges when we stop asking “How certain are we?” and start asking “How adaptively can...
Mar
10
2025
What should philanthropy do about the US freeze on aid?
by Benjamin Bellegy in Alliance Magazine…We can worry that some philanthropies might reorientate their giving to align with the new zeitgeist, for instance...