Review: Planet of the Humans
A few days ago, Emily Atkin posted a reaction to Michael Moore’s latest film, Planet of the Humans (directed and narrated by Jeff Gibbs), in which she began by admitting that she hadn’t seen the film yet. When writers...
Fraying Food System May Be Our Next Crisis
If you’re already overwhelmed with news of the pandemic and are coping with depression, read no further. However, if you’re a crisis responder by inclination or profession, you might start thinking food. Experts who study what makes societies sustainable...
Earth Day 50, Under Lockdown
April 22 was supposed to be a day of global celebration and protest. Fifty years ago, up to ten percent of Americans participated in thousands of local events on the first Earth Day. That mass action, which would have...
How Much is a Barrel of Oil Worth?
If you were an oil futures trader wanting to unload a May 1 contract on Monday, April 20, a barrel of oil was worth $-37. That’s right, traders were, in effect, willing to pay someone—anyone—to take ownership of a...
Pandemic Response Requires Post-Growth Economic Thinking
Amid a horrific human tragedy of sickness and death, much of it taking place in hospitals staffed by brave but overworked and under-equipped doctors and nurses, we are all learning once again what it feels like when economic growth...
How Does Pandemic Change the Big Picture?
Will future generations look back on the coronavirus pandemic as a blip or a game changer? Let’s review a few of the major trends that developed during the Anthropocene and engage in a little informed speculation about how they...
Like Previous Pandemics, COVID-19 Will Shape the Fates of Nations
The ways that nations respond to the pandemic today will largely determine their fortunes and fates over the next couple of decades at least, and perhaps beyond. Nations that are more successful at controlling the disease and minimizing fatalities...
Coronavirus, economic networks, and social fabric
The COVID-19 pandemic offers intriguing insights into how networked our modern world has become, and how we’ve traded resilience for economic efficiency. Case in point: someone gets sick in China in December of 2019, and by March of 2020...
COVID-19: The Black Swan is Circling
The key is to prepare not just for disease, but for a broad-scale societal disruption. Consider how you’ll maintain access to food, water, and money during the next few months if things really start to come apart. Even if...
Power, the Acceleration of Cultural Evolution, and Our Best Hope for Survival
We humans are aggregating more power, and doing so more unequally across society, than in any previous period in history. Power is good; without it, we would be powerless. But it is possible to have too much of a...