Chris Smaje openly admits that there are too many contingent variables to predict the future; many scenarios are plausible. That said, Finding Lights in a Dark Age offers some thoughtful, erudite speculation about what a healthy, post-capitalist world might look like and the choices we may need to make.

A true systems thinker isn’t the one who makes elaborate diagrams of nodes connected by lines in impressive form, but the one who expresses epistemic humility in the face of intractable complexity and refrains from proffering solutions. I am reminded of Taoist sages whose greatest accomplishments rest on not-doing.

This excerpt from Chuck Collins' new book Burned by Billionaires includes examples of rule changes that would lift people out of poverty, increase economic security for the precarious, and reduce inequality.

What we are lacking is an inspiring vision of our lives, collective futures, and spiritual reality in a world in which we cannot keep growing forever. As much as we need policy wonks, scientists, and campaigners, now is the time for religious thinkers, philosophers, and writers to apply themselves to social change.

Rebuilding trust in the federal government will come neither easily nor quickly. Until it’s restored, America’s constitutional democracy will remain at risk.

But while we’re all yelling at each other about how our favoured politics are the best, the more important political story might lie with constituents, including the urban poor, who are quietly innovating their own welfare, perhaps by leaving town.

As I stood there with Van Zile and looked at the land, I did not hear the sound of a big truck rumbling nearby or a tree falling. I took a big breath, because sometimes we win. Remember that the dams are gone. Remember that.

“Were you happy?” Yes, we were until you came along. We had it worked out and were living comfortably. Now the question comes a bit too late. What we had before is gone, and we can’t simply return to it. The damage is done.

Chuck Collins returns to Crazy Town to offer insights from his new book, Burned by Billionaires: How Concentrated Wealth and Power Are Ruining Our Lives and Planet.

In this special issue of the NACLA Report, we critically examine the rise of green capitalism in the region in the lead-up to COP30 in Belém, Brazil in November.

AI boosters keep postponing the advent of artificial general intelligence.

Scientists are uncovering how the hidden effort of talking affects everything from everyday conversations to spotting deception and fake news.

In this week’s Frankly, Nate returns from New York City Climate Week with fresh reflections on the disconnect between our economic narratives and biophysical realities.

You might think, as I did, that that emergence is coming out of something and leaving difficulty behind, but I discovered, as I wrote this piece, it is in fact about becoming a different kind of creature for a world turned upside down. The Labyrinth is a training ground for a re-entry.

We really believe that degrowth is a more complex, substantial and significant concept and movement than its treatment in the Hickel interview. We think that the degrowth movement has a very important role to play in the challenging political context.

As I wrote about earlier, in September another mother Orca, Alki, was spotted pushing her dead calf through the waters of the Salish Sea. Two days later, on September 15th, she was spotted without her calf and it’s assumed she’s released it, which is good news as such exertions place a significant strain on creatures already struggling to survive.

In today’s episode, Nate sits down with Dutch historian and author Rutger Bregman to discuss the concept of moral ambition, which he defines as the desire to be one of the best, measured by different standards of success: not by big payouts or fancy honorifics, but by the ability to tackle the world’s biggest problems.

The ultimate answer to the whiplash problem — whether clean energy or healthcare programs — is bipartisanship, which seems a long way off. But it starts with better messaging.

What matters above all is that people get occupancy rights that give them the long-term residential security to address their livelihood needs, and it’s entirely possible that these will sometimes be obtained in urban or suburban situations.

Anyone proposing to offer a master class on changing the world for the better, without becoming negative, cynical, angry or narrow-minded in the process, could model their advice on the life and work of pioneering animal behavior scholar Jane Goodall.

There are mass-produced ciders on the market, usually packed full of added sugar and additives, but we were only interested in the artisanal drink — made with love and care, a great deal of back-breaking work and no small amount of skill.

A lesson for me is that these people pay too much attention to their brain chatter and not enough to the actual universe full of sunsets and stars. We could all learn from this: consult the actual universe, not what you would wish to be true.

In the age of the Limits to Growth report, Illich challenged audiences to look beyond the quantitative account of limits which presses the case for technocracy, and to engage in a reflection on the desirability of chosen limits, the ways in which they serve to create the conditions of possibility for lives worth living and worlds worth living for.

Electricity demand on the island of Great Britain has been fully covered by the output of clean-energy sources for a record 87 hours in 2025 to date, new Carbon Brief analysis shows.