Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Rachel Donald Environmental journalist Rachel Donald hosts a conversation with Jason Hickel, internationally known degrowth researcher and advocate, and Nia Evans and Cierra Peters of the Boston Ujima Project, which focuses on creating a community-controlled economy.
Gather around the campfire for a ghost story about the most destructive monster in history: civilization. Through the book “Against His-Story, Against Leviathan,” we’ll explore how authoritarianism first took root in the world’s earliest cities—and how those ancient systems still shape modernity.
Political polarization, particularly in the United States, is being inflamed by structural forces, including the dominance of two parties and winner-take-all representation. Lee Drutman, senior fellow in the Political Reform program at New America, speaks on reforms like proportional representation and multi-member districts, and why we should view democracy more like a living, evolving ecosystem than a problem to fix.
In the spring of 1992, twenty-four-year-old Christopher McCandless left society behind, hitchhiking 3,000 miles into the Alaskan wilderness. We’ll explore McCandless’s legacy, the conflict between self and society, community and solitude, and the concept of “wilderness.”
Post Carbon Institute Senior Fellow and author Richard Heinberg interviews David Stasavage, author of The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today. David summarizes polarization and capacity to deal with crises in democracies and autocracies, discusses the challenge of scale in modern democracies, and shares how past democracies like Athens and the Iroquois Confederacy dealt with polarization.
Bringing up the Earth’s growing human population (and its associated impacts) is not something you typically do in polite circles. If you do introduce the topic of overpopulation, even among staunch environmentalists, you risk being called all sorts of undignified names.
Jennifer McCoy, professor of political science at Georgia State University and nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, discusses the influence of “political entrepreneurs” and the implications of a world facing increasing resource constraints, which can exacerbate polarization and conflict within and between nations. Professor McCoy offers examples of nations that overcame pernicious polarization and points to “win-win” strategies for navigating the 21st century’s challenges.
This live online event features Lilliana Mason, Associate Professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University and author of Radical American Partisanship, and Cecilie Surasky, Director of Communications & Narrative at the Othering & Belonging Institute. Post Carbon Institute’s Asher Miller will join Lilliana and Cecilie for an expansive conversation on the drivers of polarization and othering, and methods for fostering belonging and mutuality.
Jacqui Patterson, Time Magazine’s Woman of the Year, on “just transitions,” the lived experience of black communities in the US and throughout the African Diaspora, and her evolving views of the polycrisis.
In this live, online event, Dr. Elizabeth Sawin (Multisolving Institute) shares how she learned to stop bumming people out about climate change and communicate effectively.
I am so thankful to share with resilience.org readers a new podcast called “We Are the Great Turning,” a wonderful, intimate, and much needed conversation between the climate coach Jess Serrante and Joanna Macy.
Cliff Scholz –advocate for healthy food and farming and the originator of the Green Hand Reskilling concept– chats with Post Carbon Institute’s Rob Dietz about what it takes to turn knowledge into action to make your community more resilient.
