Publications / Scenarios
Journey to Earthland: The Great Transition to Planetary Civilization
We have entered the Planetary Phase of Civilization. Strands of interdependence are weaving humanity and Earth into a single community of fate—the overarching proto-country herein christened Earthland. In the unsettled twenty-first century, the drama of social evolution will play out on a world stage with the perils many and dark premonitions all too plausible.
Still, a Great Transition to a planetary civilization of enriched lives and a healthy planet remains possible. But how? What forms of collective action and consciousness can redirect us toward such a future? Who will lead the charge? What might such a world look like?
Journey to Earthland offers answers. It clarifies the world-historical challenge; explains the critical role of a global citizens movement in advancing social transformation; and paints a picture of the kind of flourishing civilization that might lie on the other side of a Great Transition.
In this pivotal moment, the odyssey to a different world is underway, yet the ultimate destination depends on choices and struggles yet to come. Acting to prevent the futures we dread is where our work must begin. But the larger task is to foster the finer Earthland we and our descendants deserve.
Great Transition: The Promise and Lure of the Times Ahead
Toward an Ecocivilization
In his new book Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All, Jeremy Lent envisions a civilization based on life-affirming principles and points to ways of getting there. In the opening essay to this forum, Lent discusses the values, principles, and policies that would define such an alternative future and underscores its possibility and necessity.
Featuring an opening essay from Jeremy Lent and comments from Biko Agozino, Samuel Alexander, Erik Assadourian, Vicki Assevero, David Barkin, Nnimmo Bassey, John Bunzl, Pierre Calame, J. Baird Callicott, Eileen Crist, Jude Currivan, Massimo de Angelis, Wendy Ellyatt, Arturo Escobar, Martha Giraldo, Herman Greene, Gwendolyn Hallsmith, Tim Hollo, Kathleen Kesson, Steven Klees, Michael Lewis, Evelin Lindner, Michael Löwy, Brendan Mackey, Fred Magdoff, Rasigan Maharajh, Julie Matthaei, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Kate Pickett, Joe Ravetz, John Robinson, Iveta Silova, Jeremy Rappleye, Hikaru Komatsu, Vandana Singh, Anne Snick, Guy Standing, Mimi Stokes, Pella Thiel, Carlos Tornel, Sandra Waddock, Stewart Wallis, and Allen White.
Society on Strike
In 2026, we face a deepening turn toward Barbarization scenarios, the long-anticipated reaction to Conventional Worlds in crisis. As far-right authoritarian forces grow across countries and work to dismantle systems of democratic accountability, the question becomes, what tools become available to steer us away from descent and toward a Great Transition?
Labor scholar Jeremy Brecher’s new essay, “Society on Strike: A Last Defense Against Tyranny?,” explores the possibilities for resistance under worst-case conditions. Drawing on historical antecedents, he probes the possible role of the mass social strike as a way to oust authoritarian regimes at key inflection points. Just as labor strikes withdraw cooperation at the workplace, a social strike does so for society writ large.
Featuring an opening essay from Jeremy Brecher and comments from Antonio Roman-Alcalá, Gwendolyn Hallsmith, Tim Hollo, Bonn Juego, Ben Manski, Francine Mestrum, Valentine M. Moghadam, Ronaldo Munck, William Robinson, Guy Standing, Noha Tarek Hassan, and Biljana Vankovska.
Memoirs of Global Engagement
- Biko Agozino1
- Vicki Assevero7
- Asoka Bandarage13
- J. Baird Callicott15
- Robert Costanza22
- Eileen Crist27
- Zillah Eisenstein32
- Arturo Escobar36
- Richard Falk45
- Gilberto Gallopín52
- Herman Greene65
- Dorothy Guerrero72
- Tarik Günersel79
- Don Hall82
- Al Hammond84
- Wendy Harcourt85
- Aaron Karp87
- Kathleen Kesson90
- Evelin Lindner94
- Brendan Mackey99
- Rasigan Maharajh103
- Mary Mellor106
- Francine Mestrum112
- Valentine M. Moghadam116
- Ruben Nelson122
- Helena Norberg-Hodge127
- Richard Norgaard135
- David W. Orr140
- Heikki Patomäki144
- Kate Pickett148
- Joe Ravetz151
- Isabel Rimanoczy159
- Gus Speth161
- Peter Sterling168
- Mimi Stokes174
- Tobias Troll179
- Sandra Waddock181
- Stewart Wallis185
- Victor Wallis189
- Allen White194
- Lawrence Wittner199
What’s Next for the Global Movement?
The global “polycrisis” is spreading a zeitgeist of fear, despair, and reaction. But it also is sparking social energy for building a civilization centered around people, peace, and planet—a harbinger of a global citizens movement. The urgent task is to bring this critical social actor, now waiting in the wings, to the center of the global stage. But how? Our panel of strategists propose next steps toward crystallizing a movement for systemic change.
Featuring comments from Jeremy Brecher, John Bunzl, Helen Camakaris, Guy Dauncey, Riane Eisler, Peter Evans, Dorothy Guerrero, Don Hall, Joseph Fiksel, Jeffrey Halper, Tim Hollo, Michael Karlberg, Steven Klees, Jeremy Lent, Francine Mestrum, Ronaldo Munck, Heikki Patomäki, Jose Ramos, Vishwas Satgar, Gus Speth, Guy Standing, Sandra Waddock, and Stewart Wallis.
Experiments in Movement Unity
Global Discontinuity: Time for a Paradigm Shift in Global Scenario Analysis
The evolutionary paths of social-ecological systems comprise periods of structural continuity punctuated by moments of convulsive change. Various forms of systemic global shock could materialize in the coming decades, triggered by the climate crisis, social disruption, economic breakdown, financial collapse, nuclear conflict, or pandemics. The unfolding COVID-19 pandemic stands as a real-time example of an interruption of historic continuity. More hopefully, deep institutional and cultural shifts could rapidly usher in more resilient forms of global civilization. These plausible possibilities challenge scenario studies to spotlight discontinuous futures, an imperative that has not been adequately met. Several factors—for example, gradualist theories of change, scientific reticence, the lure of quantitative tractability, embeddedness in policymaking processes—have rendered mainstream scenario analysis ill-suited to the task. The emphasis on continuity fails to alert decision makers and the public to the risks and opportunities latent in our singular historical moment. A shift to a paradigm that foregrounds discontinuity is long overdue, calling for efforts to broaden the base of persons involved; devote more attention to balancing narrative storytelling and a broader range of quantitative methods; and apply and develop methods to explicitly consider discontinuities in global scenario development.
Published in Sustainability 15, no. 17 (2023): 12950, https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/17/12950.
Big History and Great Transition
Solidarity with Animals
Which Future Are We Living In?
Twenty years ago, the essay Great Transition: The Promise and Lure of the Times Ahead imagined alternative scenarios for the twenty-first century. Now, we stand partway into that unknown future, witnesses to the actual path of history (so far). Where are we? Where are we headed?
The Population Debate Revisited
Panel 2: Why It’s a Distraction, featuring Manisha Anantharaman, Guy Dauncey, Robert Fletcher, Wendy Harcourt, Betsy Hartmann, Lyla Mehta, Brian Murphy, and Peter Sterling & Michael Platt.
Panel 3: Questions and Complexities, featuring Biko Agozino, Gwendolyn Hallsmith, Giorgos Kallis, Alexander Lautensach, Gustave Massiah, Heikki Patomäki, Gus Speth, and Martha Van Der Bly.
Conservation at the Crossroads
Technology and the Future
Visions of a New Political Order
Can Human Solidarity Globalize?
Creating a decent civilization in this century depends on human identity expanding to the scale of the planet. Pervasive divisions leave many pessimistic that this can happen. Still, in the course of social evolution, the circle of identity has ballooned from clans and tribes to nations and beyond, while science has confirmed the key role of cooperation.
Now, the contemporary condition of shared destiny urges a global locus for institutions, reciprocity, and empathy. Richard Falk’s opening essay reflects on a “politics of impossibility” for realizing this imperative. Two panels weigh in, the first with a range of theoretical perspectives and the second with pragmatic ways forward.
Panel 1: Debating the Prospects, featuring David Barash, Upendra Baxi, Akeel Bilgrami, Guy Dauncey, Michael Karlberg, Alexander Lautensach, Radmila Nakarada, Micha Narberhaus, Heikki Patomäki, Shahrzad Sabet, Charlene Spretnak, and Martha Van Der Bly.
Panel 2: Making It Happen, featuring Jeremy Brecher, Luis Cabrera, Zillah Eisenstein, David Featherstone, Catherine Keller, Jing Lin, Francine Mestrum, Valentine M. Moghadam, Lester Edwin J. Ruiz, Jackie Smith, Biljana Vankovska, and Lawrence Wittner.
The Pedagogy of Transition
The times call for pedagogies that cultivate integrated knowledge and global citizenship, yet we continue to educate for a world we don’t want. We need educational systems in the long term aligned with new imperatives, while in the near term offering innovative curricula and teaching within existing systems. The forward-looking educators on this Forum’s panels—Frameworks and Practices—probe each of these fronts.
Opening essay by Stephen Sterling
Panel 1: Frameworks, featuring Stephen Sterling, Guy Dauncey, Richard Falk, Frank Fischer, Bonn Juego, Kathleen Kesson, Hikaru Komatsu, Alexander Lautensach, Johnny Lupinacci, Alan Mandell, David Orr, Blake Poland, Jeremy Rappleye, Iveta Silova, Vandana Singh, Rajesh Tandon, and Arjen Wals.
Panel 2: Practices, featuring Biko Agozino, Timothy Bedford, Gabriel Cámara, David Christian, John Foran, Kim Fortun, Mike Gismondi, Terry Irwin, Michael Karlberg, Isabel Rimanoczy, John Robinson, Doug Schuler, Anne Snick, Mary Evelyn Tucker, and A.R. Vasavi.
Interrogating the Anthropocene
Human activity has pushed Earth into a hostile new geological epoch, which scientists have christened “the Anthropocene.” This jolt to the planet also jolts the culture, sparking reconsideration of who we are, where we are going, and how we must act.
The question before this GTI Forum: If we care about building a decent future, how should we think about the Anthropocene? An opening essay offers answers, then two panels respond, underscoring the lessons and limitations of the Anthropocene narrative.
Panel 1: A Compelling Narrative, featuring Maurie Cohen, Herman Daly, Uchita de Zoysa, Olivier Hamant, Clive Hamilton, Debbie Kasper, Heikki Patomäki, Stephen Purdey, Mimi Stokes, and Pella Thiel
Panel 2: A Misconceived Narrative, featuring Greg Anderson, Jeremy Baskin, Arturo Escobar, Richard Falk, Lisi Krall, Fred Magdoff, Karl-Ludwig Schibel, Erik Swyngedouw, Martha Van Der Bly, and Tim Weiskel.
Universal Basic Income: Has the Time Come?
The Pandemic and the Future
How will today’s crisis alter the shape of tomorrow’s world? Which scenario—Conventional Worlds, Barbarization, Great Transition—has become more likely? How can we seize the moment to propel transformation?
Featuring opening reflections from Paul Raskin and comments from Franck Amalric, Asoka Bandarage, Walden Bello, Kavita Byrd, Maurie Cohen, Arthur Dahl, Frank Fischer, Herman Greene, Shalmali Guttal, Gwendolyn Hallsmith, Sahan Karatasli, Jeremy Lent, Evelin Lindner, George Liodakis, Ruben Nelson, Marcus Oxley, Kate Pickett, Mamphela Ramphele, Joe Ravetz, John Robinson, Vishwas Satgar, Mimi Stokes, Rob Swart, and Tim Weiskel.
Excluded Futures: The Continuity Bias in Scenario Assessments
Recovering a comprehensive perspective on the global possible can reinvigorate debate on the kind of transformation needed, broaden the action agenda, and stimulate innovative research for illuminating our indeterminate future.
Planetize the Movement!
In our fraught time, we need coordinated action for deep social and ecological change more than ever. How can we build a unified global movement? Who will change the world?
Featuring opening reflections from Valentine Moghadam and comments from Christopher Chase-Dunn, Donatella Della Porta, Richard Falk, Bonn Juego, Ashish Kothari, Francine Mestrum, Heikki Patomäki, William I. Robinson, Guy Standing, and Noha Tarek.
A Great Ethics Transition
A Great Transition must rise on core ethical values attuned to an interdependent world facing a common destiny. What are the elements of this foundation, and how do we build it?
Featuring opening reflections from Brendan Mackey and comments from Ian Angus, Olivia Bina, Kavita Byrd, Luis Cabrera, J. Baird Callicott, Ron Engel, Richard Falk, Roger Gottlieb, Gwendolyn Hallsmith, Joel Kassiola, Jeremy Lent, Steven Rockefeller, Roz Savage, Kathryn Sikkink, and Mary Evelyn Tucker.`
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.
Corporations in the Crosshairs
Footloose corporations, obsessed with the bottom line, are fraying the social-ecological fabric. A forum on the struggle to tame and displace these behemoths—and new directions for the struggle.
Featuring opening reflections from Allen White and comments from Duncan Austin, Álvaro de Regil Castilla, Frank Dixon, Sally Goerner, Dorothy Guerrero, Yogi Hendlin, David Korten, Steve Lydenberg, Michael Marx, Michael Peck, Jackie Smith, Sandra Waddock, Alan Willis, and Simon Zadek.
Farewell to the World Social Forum?
For nearly two decades, the WSF has served as a vital gathering space for international activists seeking “another world,” but now may be losing momentum. In this GTI Forum, a panel of WSF veterans appraise its past, critique its present, and debate its future.
Featuring opening reflections from Roberto Savio and comments from Olivier Consolo, Rita Freire, Pierre George, Candido Grzybowski, Gustave Massiah, Meena Menon, Francine Mestrum, Thomas Ponniah, Pablo Solón & Mary Louise Malig, and Gina Vargas.
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.
Think Globally, Act Locally?
What’s Next for the Climate Movement?
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.
Planetizing the Labor Movement
The Cosmopolitan Impulse in an Entangled World
Moral philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah discusses the importance of cultivating a “rooted cosmopolitanism.”
Time for a World Political Party?
In a world of shared global risks, we need transnational institutions and governance mechanisms for common action. To that end, Heikki Patomäki makes the case for building a world political party. Our panel discusses whether a political party is the best structure for aligning the myriad movements fighting for systemic change.
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.
The Case for Ecosocialism
Is a Great Transition inherently a post-capitalist future? Ecosocialists think so, putting forth a vision that transcends both market-based approaches to sustainability and growth-oriented socialism. Michael Löwy’s essay makes the case, and our panel debates the possibilities and limitations of the framework.
Featuring comments from John Bellamy Foster, Herman Daly, Kerryn Higgs, Giorgos Kallis, Alex Khasnabish, Ashish Kothari, Fred Magdoff, Simon Mair, Mary Mellor, and Vishwas Satgar.
Debating the Precariat
The globalization, automation, and financialization of the economy have created an increasingly unequal class structure. The rise of the gig economy and unstable work arrangements have created a “precariat,” a new class that Guy Standing argues has truly revolutionary potential. Our panel discusses how new this class really is and what economic reforms and actors can stop the swell of inequality.
Featuring comments from Bill Fletcher Jr., Nancy Folbre, Azfar Khan, Alexandra Köves, George Liodakis, Ronaldo Munck, William I. Robinson, Pritam Singh, Eva-Maria Swidler, and Alison Tate and Evelyn Astor.
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
How to Ban the Bomb
Nuclear weapons are irreconcilable with a Great Transition future, as they skew social priorities and exacerbate geopolitical tensions and power imbalances. David Krieger underscores the importance of the “zero option” and an emboldened disarmament movement working together with other movements fighting for systemic change. Our panel discusses the foundations of a more just paradigm for global security.
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.
Feminism and Revolution
The feminist movement has grown more inclusive and systemic, recognizing the need for an intertwined fight against patriarchy, capitalism, and other sources of oppression. Julie Matthaei traces the history of this evolution and emphasizes the necessity of a solidarity politics and economics to a Great Transition. Our panel discusses what we can learn from feminist theory and organizing.
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.
On the Frontier of Human Rights
Who Speaks for Future Generations?
At a moment of planetary crises—ecological, social, economic—long-termism is in short supply. Representing the interests of the unborn requires both a new consciousness and new institutional arrangements. In the case of a corporation, a new governance entity in the form of a Futures Council is one such arrangement. The Council would serve as a watchdog and advocate for future generations in matters pertaining to a the organization’s purpose, strategy and policies. For corporations beholden to short-term pressures, intergenerational stewardship must be ingrained at the highest levels of fiduciary and executive decision-making. Anything less will fail to align corporate activity with the vision of a just and thriving planet in the coming decades.
The Missing Third Party: Corporations and the New Social Contract
What is a business for? As discontent rises with the side effects of globalization, it’s time to reassess.
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.
Beyond Development
The indigenous concept of Vivir Bien offers a cosmovision of living in harmony with nature and one another. However, recently, the term has been coopted by governments wedded to conventional development. Pablo Solón explains the foundations and potential of this alternative to development, and our panel explores how Vivir Bien and kindred movements can shape our visions and strategy.
Featuring comments from David Barkin, Nnimmo Bassey, Adrian Beling, Ana Estefanía Carballo, Eduardo Gudynas, Holly Hanson, Aaron Karp, Helena Norberg-Hodge, and Neera Singh.
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.
The Problem of Action
How can we envision a systemic global movement, and what initiatives can hasten its coalescence? Paul Raskin poses these and other essential questions, and our panel discusses the forms and structures of collective action necessary for building a decent planetary civilization in the twenty-first century.
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.
Global Government Revisited
State sovereignty poses a continual challenge to the realization of human rights, as states have unequal capabilities and interests in protecting their citizens’ rights. Luis Cabrera makes the case for enhanced regional and global political integration—and eventually a democratic world government—as the necessary solution. Our panel discusses the limitations of the state system, the recent trajectory toward greater integration, and what the future can and should hold.
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.
Money for the People
If we want a more just and sustainable economy and economics, we will need to rethink our approach to money. Mary Mellor argues that the privatization of money has been the main driver of social and ecological exploitation, and only a democratic system of public money can help us achieve systemic changes. Our panel discusses the future of money and finance and the role of democratization, decentralization, and public control.
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.
Global Capitalism
William I. Robinson explores the emergence of a new era of transnational capital and how it has fueled rising inequality and authoritarianism. Our panel discusses whether there is anything in capitalism worth saving, what other factors are shaping global crises, and what economic structures can steer toward a better world.
What’s Luck Got to Do with It?
In Success and Luck, Robert Frank underscores the role of “dumb luck” in determining winners and losers, debunking the cherished myth of meritocracy. But how can we get the fortunate to share the spoils?
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.
Sustainability and Well-Being
Converging research shows how the goals of human well-being and ecological sustainability are complementary. Christopher Barrington-Leigh surveys the lessons from the field and outlines the policies required for a happy, ecologically resilient world. Our panelists discuss the organizing potential of such synergy as well as the limitations of such a focus.
A Moment for Business Statesmanship
The first weeks of the Trump presidency have raised profound anxieties among government leaders and citizens alike. Amidst rising uncertainty, one group that stands to lose the most is global business. Corporate leaders who fail to take a stand in the face of destabilizing actions do a disservice to their reputation, workers communities and shareholders. Will business leaders rise to this urgent occasion?
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.
Wiki Socialism?
In Postcaplitalism, Paul Mason argues that new information technology will end capitalism as we know it and pave the way to a better future. But the technology Mason celebrates won’t do this without mass mobilization on a global scale.
Work in the Great Transition
What gives work its meaning? Kent Klitgaard discusses how industrialization undercut fulfilling forms of labor and calls for social transformation to guarantee meaningful work for all. Our panelists discuss the structural changes that such a transformation would entail.
An Unnatural Disaster
Without concerted action, Hurricane Matthew will be remembered in the annals of climate change as a precursor to an era of intensifying and increasingly ruinous, unnatural storm disasters. Time is short. Neither denial nor incrementalism is acceptable. Nothing less than the well-being of our children, and their children, is in the balance.
Ending Ecocide
Toward Global Political Integration: Time for a World Parliamentary Assembly
We will need a democratic world government to adequately address shared planetary risks and opportunities in this century. A critical strategic step toward that end would be the formation of a global parliamentary assembly.
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.
The Soul of a Great Transition: Social Life Cycle Assessment and the Quest for a Humane Future
Social Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)—the analysis of social impacts spanning the complete value chain of a product or process—has never been more important than it is today for understanding and correcting widespread social injustices. In an increasingly interdependent world, we need to think and analyze systematically. Social LCA helps us expose in systemic fashion the social consequences of the dominant global development paradigm and, in so doing, has a vital role to play in redirecting global change towards a Great Transition future.
Towards a Sustainable University
Countless universities are exploring ways of incorporating sustainability into their curriculum, research, and practice. The Arizona State University experiment described in Designing the New American University has been at the cutting edge. But does it go far enough?
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.
The University of Tomorrow?
The Agroecology Revolution
Industrial agriculture leads to high pollution and waste, exacerbates climate change and the concentration of wealth, and is bad for human health. But can an agroecological farming system feed the world? Frances Moore Lappé argues it can and must, pointing to on-the-ground successes. Our panelists discuss such initiatives and the roadblocks to a sustainability transition in agriculture.
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.
A Recipe for Change?
Michael Pollan’s new book shows how cooking can contribute to personal and social transformation. But lifestyle changes are not enough to address the systemic crises we face.
Fueling Value Change
In Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels, Ian Morris argues that changes in energy capture have driven changes in human values. However, understanding this relationship as co-evolutionary, rather than merely linear, is key as we shape values and energy systems for a sustainable twenty-first century.
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.
Why We Consume
What drives the human tendency to consume far beyond what is required to meet our basic needs? Peter Sterling explains the neuroscientific roots of consumerism and how capitalism creates a pernicious incentive structure. Our panelists discuss what policy, cultural, and other shifts are necessary to move past consumerist capitalism.
Bleak Visions, Blind Spots
In A Rough Ride to the Future, contrarian Gaia theorist James Lovelock counsels abandoning all hope of preventing global environmental change, and adapting to it instead. But by assuming the fixity of human behavior and institutions, he resigns humanity to a passive present and a grim future.
Beyond Economism
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.
Decolonizing the Empire of Cotton
Sven Beckert’s Empire of Cotton offers a magisterial history of cotton’s role in the development of modern capitalism. However, it is a partial story: the bright light it shines on the “empire” and its masters occludes the array of social forces and actors working to tame or dismantle the emergent system.
Marxism and Ecology
John Bellamy Foster explores the resonances of Marxist and ecological thought and argues for an ecological critique of capitalism rooted in Marxist theory. Our panelists discuss the appropriate theoretical underpinnings of the fight for equitable and sustainable human development.
Common Wealth Trusts
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.
A Tragic Scenario, Narrowly Cast
In The Collapse of Western Civilization, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway depict a dystopian future resulting from climate inaction. But the constricted dramatis personae in their scenario stacks the deck against the social agents that could emerge to alter the narrative.
Economics for a Full World
Economics vs. The Economy
Operating from a realistic paradigm that understands the economy as embedded in the ecosphere is the key to transitioning to a sustainable civilization. Will the increasing unfitness of growth-obsessed neoliberal economics to our social and ecological realities spell its demise?
Dialogical Citizenship: Dancing Toward Solidarity
Our increasingly interdependent world demands stronger global governance rooted in a sense of global citizenship. Nurturing such an enlarged identity requires balancing universalism and pluralism through a dialogical process of reconciliation.
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.
Planetary Boundaries and Social Change
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.
Mass Extinction: Is the Enemy Us?
In The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert powerfully documents a planetary tragedy. But the book is heedless of social roots of and solutions for the crisis, indicting, instead, essential flaws in human nature and offering only fatalistic despair.
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.
The Degrowth Debate
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.
Climate Crossroads: Toward a Just Deal in Paris
Tom Athanasiou underscores the importance of a deep commitment to distributional justice on the domestic and global levels for success at the critical climate negotiations in Paris next year.
Religion and Transformation
Religious systems of meaning, and the collective practices that derive from them, will either resist or propel efforts toward a more just and sustainable social order. Michael Karlberg offers a reconceptualization of religion as a partner for such a future. Our panelists discuss the role that religion, spirituality, and systems of meaning can play in social transformation.
A Great Transition? Where We Stand
Paul Raskin revisits the scenarios developed by the Global Scenario Group and asks, which future are we living in? Despite proliferating perils, he argues, a Great Transition remains plausible—if an emerging social actor moves to center stage.
Debating the Sharing Economy
The sharing economy has attracted a lot of enthusiasm. But what is exactly new about it? Juliet Schor takes a critical look at boosters’ claims and explores how a social movement rooted in genuine sharing values could emerge. Our panelists discuss the promises and pitfalls of the sharing economy.
Featuring comments from Julian Agyeman and Duncan McLaren, Maurie Cohen, Milicent Johnson, Andrés Monroy-Hernández, and Chris Tittle.
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.
Voyage of Citizen Pilgrims
The state-centric world order is incapable of addressing today’s crises. Still, establishing efficacious transnational political institutions requires the emergence of a global community of world citizens. Richard Falk makes the case for the concept of the “citizen pilgrim” to reimagine citizenship to serve the universal human interest. Our panelists assess the potentials of and obstacles to expansive new forms of political action and solidarity.