We can’t afford to make mistakes

We can’t afford to make mistakes

We all want desperately to believe there is a way out of the sticky situation we’re in. To believe we can keep living basically the way we’re living now and yet not tip the world into climate and ecological catastrophe. Right? At this late stage of the game, we are...
What “civilization” is and why we should want to end it

What “civilization” is and why we should want to end it

What is “civilization”? We throw that term around as if we understand it but I’m not sure we really do. A quick internet search on “civilization” results in the following definition: “the stage of human social development and organization that is considered the most...
See me

See me

People sometimes tell me I’m a downer. That I’m angry. That I should think more optimistically, be more positive. I wish I could just post pictures of puppies and kittens and fabulous landscapes (carefully staged to show only the pretty parts). I’d...
The Great Indoors

The Great Indoors

“Nowadays most of us live in cities. That means most of us live in an insulated cell, completely cut off from any kind of sensory information or sensory experience that is not of our own manufacture. Everything we see, hear, taste, smell, touch, is a human...
Welcome to the Anthropocene

Welcome to the Anthropocene

In medias res Alas poor child, you’re born in medias res — the stage is set with swirling depictions of a globe in panic, small rainbow-colored frogs hopping into oblivion, a scene of smoggy atmospheres, vast gyres of plastic churning in the ocean, Scylla...