Life in the Global Polycrisis
The Long View
"What we do: Hope & heartbreak & all points of view."
Omega
Pandemics
A ‘second tree of life’ could wreak havoc, scientists warn
by Carl Zimmer in The New York Times…Research on so-called mirror cells, which defy fundamental properties of living organisms, should be prohibited as too dangerous, biologists said.
‘Unprecedented risk’ to life on Earth: Scientists call for halt on ‘mirror life’ microbe research
by Ian Sample in The Guardian…Experts warn that mirror bacteria, constructed from mirror images of molecules found in nature, could put humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections
Malaria Is Surging in Ethiopia, Reversing a Decade of Progress Against the Disease
by Maya Misikir and Stephanie Nolen in The New York Times…Climate change, civil conflict and growing resistance to insecticides and treatments are all contributing to an alarming spread of cases.
Polycrisis
A philosophy of crisis – Miguel de Beistegui
by Alexis Papazoglou on The Philosopher and the News….How can philosophy help us understand the different types of crisis, from the arena of science to that of politics? And what kind of political crisis yields a President like Donald Trump? This conversation took place on the day of the US election.
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?
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.
Resilience
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 continues well beyond COP30 to inform policy, investments, and cross-sector-collaboration.
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 resisting change. The statement “resilience is resistance” becomes problematic when we recognise that existing power structures use their sophisticated capacity for resistance to prevent the systemic changes that would enable collective resilience that societies need wholistically.
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 political economy that serves and sustains life.
Environment
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 begins with the first agreement between people who say: “We’re ready to govern ourselves in service to life.”
Donella meadows revisited
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
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.
ECONOMY
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 choices.
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.
The business of betting on catastrophe
by Susan Erikson in MIT Press…
World Bank pandemic bonds paid out only after death tolls passed a threshold. They’re part of a booming market where investors turn calamity into capital.
Politics
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 strengthen, democratic freedoms
The impunity of the unscathed: Risk, elite security, and the rage of MAGA populism
by Nils Gilman in Small Precautions…MAGA, in its rawest form, embodies the fury of those who feel that the burden of these risks has been disproportionately offloaded onto them, while the beneficiaries of the modern system — the “elites” — remain largely untouched. Consider the climate change debate: for many in the MAGA base, the imposition of green policies is perceived as a direct attack on their livelihoods, a demand by scientific and intellectual elites that they make personal sacrifices for a problem they feel they did not create (and which may not even exist, according to many of them) and which are not a burden for those advocating for the changes.
Chartbook 380 Trump’s futurism: Elon’s rockets and fewer dolls for “baby girl” – Part I.
by Adam Tooze in Chartbook 380…They characterize Trump’s politics as “end times fascism”, a politics which rather than constructively seeking to form a liveable world, wagers against the future and instead “banks on the bunker”, either in the form of personal survival (an option for the billionaire elite), planetary exit strategies, or fortress nationalisms.
People
The bioregional vision of Donella Meadows
by Isabel Carlisle in Bioregional Learning Center… ‘Helping people and cultures all over the world develop and express their own capacity to solve their own problems, consistent with their own needs and with the ecosystems around them. And doing that through enhancing the power within all cultures and peoples to combine intellectual knowing and intuitive knowing, reasoning about the earth and living in consonance with it.’ This became the project that the Balaton Group of practitioners (mainly scientists and systems thinkers) was formed around.
The transformative power of intersectionality
by Rana Zincir Celal…..The concept of intersectionality recognizes the multidimensionality of inequality and the interconnection of different forms
of discrimination. It analyzes the role, function and impact of
power structures on discrimination and privilege. An intersectional perspective can be used to draw attention to existing
systems of oppression in society and to challenge, break
through and change them. Intersectionality thus holds the
potential for promoting social justice, solidarity and fairness.
Love in the time of the polycrisis: 21new signs of emergence
by Susan Grelock Yusem in Commonweal.org…..As we live through extremes, like social turmoil, extreme weather, pandemic, and economic instability, we also hold complex emotional experiences: hope and despondency, courage and fear, joy and grief.
Community
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 long-term thinking is still not common.
Future Signals – what we’re watching for in 2025
From Nesta…Our annual series about the trends and developments that are set to shape the coming year
Zero-problem philanthropy
by Christian Seelos in SSIR…Moving away from endless problem-solving and toward creating healthy context.
Culture
Reading Octavia Butler in a time of change
by Shady Grove Oliver in AfroLAnews.org…Through her writing, Butler models the concept of having a found family – people one chooses to surround themself with for security and companionship. She demonstrates how small acts of kindness and acceptance can have a ripple effect.
Philanthropy by the numbers
by Aaron Horvath in The Hedgehog Review…If the question is how to do more good with your giving, then the answer MyGoodness provides comes with crisply quantified moral clarity.
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, the most intense of our chosen struggles.”
Worldviews
Introducing Noema VI: Paradigm shifts
by Nathan Gardels in Noema…Profound transformations occurring simultaneously mark our new Age of Upheaval.
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.
They asked an A.I. chatbot questions. The answers sent them spiraling.
by Kashmir Hill in The New York Times…Generative A.I. chatbots are going down conspiratorial rabbit holes and endorsing wild, mystical belief systems. For some people, conversations with the technology can deeply distort reality.
Bookshelf
Grow that stack by your bedside — check out this selection of some of the most compelling work we’re reading.
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