Publications / Interviews
Dollars to Doughnuts: The Shape of a New Economy
The author of Doughnut Economics describes what mainstream economics gets wrong and how another economics can nurture both people and planet.
Another Europe Is Possible
The former Greek Minister of Finance describes his vision for a democratized European Union, the political challenge, and the new transnational movement working for another Europe.
The Truth-Teller: From the Pentagon Papers to the Doomsday Machine
Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg looks back on the Vietnam era, and discusses why the warfare state remains an existential peril.
The Cosmopolitan Impulse in an Entangled World
Moral philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah discusses the importance of cultivating a “rooted cosmopolitanism.”
For Love of Place: Reflections of an Agrarian Sage
Loving the planet begins with loving community and nature at home. Farmer, activist, and prolific author Wendell Berry reflects on his life cultivating deep cultural and political roots of resistance.
Living on the Frontlines of Resistance
Activist Medea Benjamin talks about her life at the forefront of the fight for peace and justice, and the need now more than ever to organize beyond borders.
Serving the Earth, Serving One Another
Empire and Multitude: Shaping Our Century
In a world of diminished nation-states and global capital, social movements need to think and act differently. Michael Hardt explores how.
On the Cosmopolitan Path
Democracy has spread far and wide, but has not yet reached the global level, a dangerous failure in an interdependent world. How do we achieve just and democratic global governance? Political theorist Daniele Archibugi points the way.
Farewell to Development
The alter-globalization mantra of “a world where many worlds fit” has inspired new organizing and thinking across Latin America. Leading “post-development” theorist Arturo Escobar surveys this fight for pluralism and justice.
The Fight for a New Economy
It becomes clearer every day that our economy is failing to serve people and planet. Stewart Wallis, former executive director of the New Economics Foundation, describes a new economy and new efforts to galvanize it.
Can The Third World Lead the World?
In a multipolar world, developing nations like Brazil are playing a larger role in international diplomacy. Former Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim offers insights from the front line.
Let a Thousand Currencies Bloom
Monoculture can be risky, whether in agriculture or in money. Complementary currencies can help undergird an economy oriented toward people rather than profit.
Development for Whom?
The conventional development model is failing the poor and the environment. An alternative model, rooted in a more holistic understanding of society, can deliver both shared prosperity and sustainability.
How to Kick the Growth Addiction
The author of Prosperity Without Growth discusses why we need to get past the obsession with economic growth—and the capitalist system that spawns it.
The Caring Economy: Well-Being and the Invisible Heart
Although fundamental to human well-being, the provision of care has been unrecognized and unremunerated by society. Increasing acknowledgement and respect for caring work will signal progress toward a Great Transition.
Liberation Ecology
What role can theology play in changing how we see nature and each other? A founder of liberation theology discusses the movement’s origins and the vital connections between ecology and social justice.
Democratizing Science in an Age of Uncertainty
A founder of science and society studies recounts his intellectual journey and explains how the doctrine of predictive science has limited applicability to today’s vexing challenges. We need a “post-normal science” that acknowledges inherent risk, indeterminism, and the relevance of human values and interests.
Nature’s Way: A Path to an Ecological Agriculture
Where are the seeds of a new agricultural paradigm? Lessons gleaned from prairie ecology can help us overcome the dualism between nature and agriculture.
Global Compact: Corporate Engagement at the UN
Can corporations become socially responsible actors in a globalizing world? The recently retired Founding Executive Director of the UN Global Compact discusses the prospects for moving beyond incremental change. He finds reasons for hope in increased transparency and collaboration.
The Earth Charter at 15: A Spiritual Lens on Sustainability
The leader in the development of the Earth Charter discusses its legacy and prospects, as well as his own influences and evolution as an educator, advocate, and scholar in the nexus of ethics, spirituality, and the environment.
Worker Cooperatives in a Globalizing World
The former president of Mondragon International discusses how Mondragon, a renowned worker-owned cooperative, puts democracy and solidarity into practice, and shares his insights on the future of global cooperative enterprise.
Change Agent: Evolution of a Systems Champion
Gus Speth reflects on his distinguished career in environmental advocacy, public service, and higher education, discusses his new memoir Angels by the River, and reflects on the prospects for systemic change in the twenty-first century.
Global Scenarios: Explorations in the Scientific Imagination
Global futures pioneer Gilberto Gallopín discusses the origins of contemporary global scenario analysis, the ways worldviews can influence our sense of the future, and how the scenario approach offers a powerful way to envision unconventional tomorrows and guide actions today.
Growing, Growing, Gone: Reaching the Limits
The Limits to Growth, released in 1972, has profoundly influenced environmental research and discourse over the past four decades. Allen White of the Tellus Institute talks with Dennis Meadows, one of its co-authors, about the genesis of the report and its lessons for understanding and managing our uncertain and perilous global future.
Uniting Nations: The UN at a Crossroads
The Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme comments on pivotal forthcoming international developments—the launch of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris climate negotiations—and the UN’s role in fostering a sustainable future.
Climate: The Crisis and the Movement
Naomi Klein indicts the capitalist economic system for bringing us to the brink of climate crisis and calls for building a movement for a more equitable and sustainable alternative.
Dreaming of a Sustainable China
Peggy Liu, the co-founder of the Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy, discusses efforts to steer China’s rapid development in a sustainable direction and to reimagine prosperity while doing so.
Nature’s Solutions: The IUCN Perspective
Julia Marton-Lefèvre, Director General of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, discusses IUCN’s evolving mission toward a holistic approach to restoring species and ecosystems while enhancing the prospects for human well-being.
Systems Thinking and System Change
An interview with Fritjof Capra, the founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy, about the emergence of systems thinking, the root causes of today’s social and environmental problems, and how to change the system itself.
The Future International Civil Society Organization
An interview with Burkhard Gnärig, the Executive Director of the International Civil Society Centre, about the current landscape of international civil society organizations (ICSOs) and what they must do to adapt to a world filled with new challenges and opportunities.
Boiling Point: Multiple Crises and the Democratic Deficit
An interview with Kumi Naidoo, International Executive Director of Greenpeace International, about how to fix the current democratic deficit and strengthen the role of civil society in pushing for fundamental change.
Human Rights in the Age of Climate Change
An interview with the former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights about how to build the political will to address the climate crisis and why a rights-based approach must lie at the core of twenty-first-century development.
From Business Entrepreneur to Social Entrepreneur
World Social Forum co-founder Oded Grajew discusses his career transformation, the history of the WSF, and what lies ahead.