There are many so-called ‘solutions’ out there that, upon first glance, seem like great ideas - yet when we look beyond the narrow scope of the immediate benefits, we discover a slew of unintended (and often counterproductive) consequences.
Today’s Frankly offers a series of examples of modern issues using a “wide-boundary” lens - and in the process demonstrates the importance of asking “...and then what?” when thinking about our responses to future events and constraints.
Watch here: https://youtu.be/dJ745eyky6Q
If plants are considered the lungs of the Earth, cycling CO2 into oxygen for animals to breathe, then animals act as the heart and arteries, spreading nutrients across the Earth to where it’s needed most.
This is the metaphor that today’s guest, conservation biologist Joe Roman, uses when describing his work studying how animals such as whales, otters, salmon, and midges provide vital ecosystem services, and how destruction of their populations – caused by modern industrial systems – affects the livability of the entire planet.
Watch here: https://youtu.be/rIPLS4b70K8
Joe Roman is a conservation biologist, marine ecologist, and “editor ’n’ chef” of eattheinvaders.org. Winner of the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award for Listed: Dispatches from America’s Endangered Species Act, Roman has written for The New York Times, Science, Slate, and other publications. Coverage of his research has appeared in the New Yorker, Washington Post, NPR, BBC, and many other outlets. He is a fellow and writer in residence at the Gund Institute for Environment at the University of Vermont. His latest book is Eat, Poop, Die: How Animals Make Our World.
At the intersection between science and spirituality lies some of the most profound questions we can ask ourselves about the future - the answers to which could mean the difference between humanity’s mere survival or a flourishing.
This episode with Peabody-award winning broadcaster Krista Tippett is an exploration into what it means to be human in our modern world and engage as individuals in the inner work required to create outward transformation.
Watch here: https://youtu.be/fqqnJsA1BdA
Engaging with the human predicament requires new ways of understanding the world - novel perspectives that are rooted in a more holistic and interdependent mindset than those dominant in the industrialized society of the past few centuries.
Today’s conversation with philosopher and social scientist Jonathan Rowson dives into the emerging ways of being that could serve us as we move toward a post-growth world, including what he has found particularly helpful in his decades of work studying the metacrisis.
Full episode: https://youtu.be/XMZg7Nja2Pg
Jonathan Rowson is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive of Perspectiva, a publishing house and praxis collective based primarily in London. Perspectiva describes itself as an urgent one-hundred-year project to improve the relationship between systems, souls, and society in theory and practice. Jonathan is a philosopher and social scientist by academic training and has degrees from Oxford, Harvard and Bristol Universities.
Music has been an integral part of the human experience for thousands of years, and continues to embody a unique aspect of culture across the world today - yet most people hold only a preliminary understanding of the full range of benefits that sound, resonance, and harmonics can provide. Today, Nate is joined by ethnomusicologist Alexandre Tannous for a deep dive on the evolution of the human relationship with sound and how music could be used as a tool to facilitate personal resilience and healing.
How can resonance quiet our reptilian fight-or-flight system and positively impact personal and group consciousness? When grounded in ceremony, how does music enhance spirituality and well-being for communities? What could a world look like in which every human has the access and energy to focus on healing themselves through the powerful tools of sound and meditation?
Full episode: https://youtu.be/LQeV4Vcu5K4
Alexandre Tannous is an ethnomusicologist, sound therapist and sound researcher who holds four degrees in music, and years of experience performing, composing, conducting, teaching and lecturing on music. He has been investigating the therapeutic and esoteric properties of sound from three different perspectives - Western scientific, Eastern philosophical, and shamanic societal beliefs - to gain a deeper understanding of how, and to what extent, sound has been used to affect human consciousness.
What does it take to mine, refine, and transform the materials that are foundational to the world around us - which many of us now take for granted? How can we ensure the stability of global supply chains, and could we predict potential disruptions and chokepoints before they arise? If we understood the intricate web of complexity, energy, and resources that go into everything we consume, would it change our expectations for how much we need in order to live a good and fulfilling life?
In this episode, I'm joined by economics journalist Ed Conway to focus on the six essential resources that underpin our modern economies – sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium - and dive into the (often unseen) environmental and human costs of extracting them, as well as the surprisingly fragile global supply chains they fuel. In order to understand what possibilities – and dangers – may await us in the future, we need to understand the realities and constraints of the present, as well as the fail points of the past.
Full episode: https://youtu.be/4C2-tWcFKfQ
Ed Conway is a writer and broadcaster. He is the Economics and Data Editor of Sky News and has written for many newspapers and publications, including the New York Times, the Times of London and the New Statesman. His latest book, Material World, was an Economist and Sunday Times Book of the Year and was shortlisted for the 2023 FT Business Book of the Year Award. He has also written two other critically acclaimed and bestselling books and has won numerous awards for his journalism. He was educated at Oxford and Harvard. He lives in London.
As the human predicament continues to accelerate, the conversations regarding the future are still dominated by older generations - yet it is their younger successors who will face the brunt of these issues throughout their lives. Today’s Reality Roundtable with Priscilla Trịnh, James Branagan, and Natasha Linhart, focuses on Generation Z’s perspective of the metacrisis, how learning the reality of the human predicament has affected their worldview, and what they see as viable future paths for themselves and the world.
Full episode: https://youtu.be/SnpsxGQ0aZY
How might we approach intergenerational relationships to encourage the transfer of knowledge in both directions, without blame or resentment? What are the unique challenges that young people face when addressing the layers of complexity and risk in the world, and thinking about how to respond? Could fostering community, empathy, and personal responsibility act as a bridge across generational divides, steering us towards a more unified and compassionate future?
Priscilla Trinh currently serves as Director of Communications at the Post Growth Institute and co-coordinator of the Minnesota Youth Institute. She is also the creator of the hashtag#postgrowth jobs board and a founding member of The Overstory Alliance.
James Branagan is a content creator and video editor, posting content on slow living and philosophy from his channel, The New Naturalist. He's committed to the task of addressing some of the many facets of Our Human Predicament, particularly education and food production systems.
Natasha Linhart graduated from the University of Amsterdam in 2023 with a degree in BSc in Politics, Psychology, Law and Economics with a focus in Economics and Business, and electives in Degrowth and Critical Theory. For the last year, she has been working as a Research Associate with the Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future.
What are the implications when only the victors of history write the narratives of progress and define societal values? What are the value systems embedded in our institutions and policies, and how do they reinforce the need for ongoing growth at the expense of the natural world and human well-being? Finally, how do we change these dynamics to form a new, holistic definition of progress that accounts for the connectedness of our planet to the health of our minds, bodies, and communities?
In this episode, I welcome back Daniel Schmachtenberger to unpack a new paper, which he co-authored, entitled Development in Progress, an analysis on the history of progress and the consequences of ‘advancement’.
Current mainstream narratives sell the story that progress is synonymous with betterment, and that the world becomes better for everyone as GDP and economies continue to grow. Yet, this is an incomplete portrayal that leaves out the dark sides of advancement.
Full episode: https://youtu.be/tmusbHBKW84
Daniel Schmachtenberger is a founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue.
The throughline of his interests has to do with ways of improving the health and development of individuals and society, with a virtuous relationship between the two as a goal.
Towards these ends, he’s had a particular interest in catastrophic and existential risk, with focuses on civilization collapse and institutional decay. His work also includes an analysis of progress narratives, collective action problems, and social organization theories. These themes are all connected through close study of the relevant domains in philosophy and science.
What does it mean to live and work within systems that are designed to fail, embedded in an aimless culture? How do we as individuals steady ourselves and create inner strength before engaging with such harrowing work? Importantly, what could education look like if founded in the principles of intergenerational knowledge transmission and emotional regulation, that are centered on our collective entanglement with the Earth?
In this episode, I'm joined by educator and indigenous researcher Vanessa Andreotti to discuss what she calls “hospicing modernity” in order to move beyond the world we’ve come to know and the failed promises that “modernity” has made to our current culture. Whether you refer to it as the metacrisis, the polycrisis, or - in Nate’s terms - the human predicament, Vanessa brings a unique framing rooted in indigenous knowledge and relationality to aid in understanding, grieving, and building emotional resilience within this space.
Full episode: https://youtu.be/h5kQ7_IZ8YI
Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti is the Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria. She is a former Canada Research Chair in Race, Inequalities and Global Change and a former David Lam Chair in Critical Multicultural Education. Vanessa has more than 100 published articles in areas related to global and climate education. She has also worked extensively across sectors internationally in projects related to global justice, global citizenship, Indigenous knowledge systems and the climate and nature emergency. Vanessa is the author of Hospicing Modernity: Facing humanity's wrongs and the implications for social activism, one of the founders of the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures Arts/Research Collective and one of the designers of the course Facing Human Wrongs: Climate Complexity and Relational Accountability, available at UVic through Continuing Studies.
What are the possible domino effects of a slowing oceanic powerhouse at a regional and global scale? How well do we understand what drives the AMOC, its cyclical patterns, and connections with other currents? More importantly, how does the AMOC interact with other biospheric mechanisms that have shaped our stable, life-supporting planetary home?
On this episode, I'm joined by climate physicist Levke Caesar for a comprehensive overview of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and its connections to broader planetary systems. Amid a complex and heavily interconnected climate system, the AMOC is a powerful force for regulating temperature between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres along the Atlantic Ocean - yet it’s estimated to have slowed down by about 15% over the last few decades.
Full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCxBvjyQBJA&t=2254s
Levke Caesar is a climate physicist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, mainly known for her studies on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and its pivotal role in the climate system. Her research primarily focuses on the past, present, and future evolution of the AMOC and its intricate interactions within the North Atlantic region. Caesar's seminal work on the historical evolution of the AMOC has been featured in prestigious journals such as Nature and Nature Geoscience, garnering hundreds of citations. Since October 2023, she has assumed the role of scientific lead for the newly launched Planetary Boundary Science Initiative (PBScience) at PIK.
Greetings! As we look ahead to the future of our podcast and organization, we hope to continue bringing you the most relevant information, guests, and conversations surrounding The Great Simplification. To that end, we’re asking for your feedback.
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As the world converges on the systems synthesis of energy, ecology, behavior, etc., we hope to scale the reach and impact of our work to more humans, communities, and organizations. Thank you for helping us in this goal!
On this episode, Nate is joined by ER doctor, nuclear power advocate, and podcast host Chris Keefer for a broad ranging conversation including the basics of nuclear energy, how he engages with opposing opinions, and hypotheticals for a future medical system. Coming from a broad background, Chris understands what it means to have a human to human conversation and put together the pieces of our systemic puzzle in a clear and compelling way. What role could nuclear play for our future energy needs - and how are different countries making use of it today? How can we prioritize the health and safety of people under energetic and resource constraints? Most of all, how do we listen to others that we don’t agree with - regardless of the issue - to foster the diverse perspectives necessary to navigate the coming challenges of the human predicament?
Full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1R2ni9Y_04
Chris Keefer MD, CCFP-EM is a Staff Emergency Physician at St Joseph's Health Centre and a Lecturer for the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. He is also an avid advocate for expanding nuclear power as the President of Canadians for Nuclear Energy and Director of Doctors for Nuclear Energy. Additionally, he is the host of the Decouple Podcast exploring the most pressing questions in energy, climate, environment, politics, and philosophy.
On this Reality Roundtable, Nate is joined by Mohit Trivedi, Abhishek Thakore, and Kejal Savla, three NGO leaders in India active in driving social and cultural change using the perspective of the Indic Mind. As a subcontinent, the Indic people have faced crisis after crisis, yet have still held onto the optimism and compassion foundational to their culture. Submerged in this history and context, there is so much for the West to learn from those active in the metacrisis space in India. How has India’s unique history shaped the way they approach coming resource constraints, as they prepare to experience disproportionate global heating and extreme weather?
Full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQbP4UJaiCw
Mohit Trivedi is the co-found of 2069 Ecosystems. He is also a learning designer, facilitator and movement weaver, with a passion for spiritual and socio-political transformation.
Abhishek Thakore is a serial social entrepreneur and a systems change expert with over two decades of experience.
Kejal Savle is the co-founder and CEO of Wisdom Tree, an NGO whose aim is a world full of hope, where women's education and empowerment plays a central role, the lives of people in rural India are better, and all people live in dignity and security.
On this episode, Nate is joined by philosopher and educator Zak Stein to discuss the current state of education and development for children during a time of converging crises and societal transformation. As the pace of life continues to accelerate - including world-shaking technological developments - our schools struggle to keep pace with changes in cultural expectations. What qualities are we encouraging in a system centered on competition and with no emphasis on creating agency or community participation? How is unfettered technology and artificial intelligence influencing youth - and what should parents, adults, and teachers be doing in response? What could the future of education look like if guided by true teacherly authority with the aim to create well-rounded, stable young humans with a sense of belonging and purpose in their communities?
Full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFVoearUvP8
Dr. Zak Stein is a philosopher of education, as well as a Co-founder of the Center for World Philosophy and Religion. He is also the Co-founder of Civilization Research Institute, the Consilience Project, and Lectica, Inc. He is the author of dozens of published papers and two books, including Education in a Time Between Worlds.
Today, Nate is joined by climate researcher Leon Simons to unpack recent trends in global heating during 2023 and potential explanations and subsequent projections for the coming year. While the connection between human emitted greenhouse gasses and global warming is scientifically agreed upon, the other complexities and feedbacks of our climate system are still just beginning to be understood. Today, Leon theorizes on the intensity of aerosol masking from particulates such as sulfur, based on the connection between recent changes in marine fuel sulfur requirements and corresponding climate data.
Full Episode: https://youtu.be/RPAnoSt6FnY
How will the global trend towards aerosol reductions affect near and long term global heating? What does this catch-22 mean for potential future climate action and policy? How should we be thinking about creating a more simplified global system in response to the unknown unknowns of our potential future climate?
Leon Simons is a climate researcher and science communicator at the Club of Rome Netherlands and is studying the effects of reduction in sulfur emissions on regional and global radiation changes and its impact on global heating. Most recently he was a co-author of the paper Global Warming in the Pipeline with renowned climate scientist James Hansen. Leon is also the founder of Magic Ventures BV, which works to make clean cooking technologies accessible to people everywhere.
