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The Political Cataclysm: Causes, Implications, and a Way Forward

The re-election of Donald Trump to the US Presidency will have global implications for decades to come. This article identifies key underlying drivers that led to this event, explores the potential landscape of the next few years, and sheds light on a positive way forward. Out of the approaching turbulence, there remains a possibility of life-affirming potentialities that can be nurtured and…

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Honoring Multiple Truths: An Integrative Pathway to Peace in Israel/Palestine

Published by The Club of Rome, Enduring Peace in the Anthropocene, May 2024 A just resolution to the Israel/Palestine conflict requires acknowledging and honoring truths that are seemingly contradictory. Examples from other domains show how this can be accomplished and offer a potential pathway to an enduring, long-term peace. Let us consider some facts of historical significance generally…

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To Counter AI Risk, We Must Develop an Integrated Intelligence

The explosive rise in the power of AI presents humanity with an existential risk. To counter that risk, and potentially redirect our civilization’s trajectory, we need a more integrated understanding of the nature of human intelligence and the fundamental requirements for human flourishing. The recent explosion in the stunning power of artificial intelligence is likely to transform virtually…

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How Corporate Dominance Is Driving Civilization to a Precipice

How Corporate Dominance Is Driving Civilization to a Precipice

The neoliberal ideology of unrestrained markets has led to a global crisis. Humanity now faces an existential threat as the result of global dominance by corporations, whose ultimate goal is at odds with human flourishing. Originally published March 14, 2022 in Inside Over as “The world on the brink of the abyss. Looking at the real danger.” Back in 1947, as the world was rebuilding from the…

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Solving the Climate Crisis Requires the End of Capitalism

Solving the Climate Crisis Requires the End of Capitalism

Originally published October 9, 2021 in Salon It’s time to face the fact that resolving the climate crisis will require a fundamental shift away from our growth-based, corporate-dominated global system. The global conversation regarding climate change has, for the most part, ignored the elephant in the room. That’s strange, because this particular elephant is so large, obvious, and…

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Join Me in Weaving a New Story of Meaning

Join Me in Weaving a New Story of Meaning

Upcoming courses on Ecological Civilization and The Web of Meaning Wildfires. Floods. Political polarization. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the onslaught of these harbingers of society’s unraveling. Sometimes, it might seem like there’s nothing we can do to help steer our civilization away from the precipice.Yes—society needs to undergo deep transformation, much deeper than most people…

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Review of The Web of Meaning by Phyllis Creme

Review of The Web of Meaning by Phyllis Creme

Reposted from Share International website The following book review is included in the July/August issue of Share International. We feature this early because of its relevance to our present world situation and as an early heads-up that Jeremy Lent will be a guest interviewee in a Share International webinar on 24 October. The Web of Meaning feels like a book our time has been waiting for.…

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Nature Is Not a Machine—We Treat It So at Our Peril

Nature Is Not a Machine—We Treat It So at Our Peril

First published as “Nature Is a Jazz Band, Not a Machine” by Institute of Art and Ideas | News on July 30, 2021. From genetic engineering to geoengineering, we treat nature as though it’s a machine. This view of nature is deeply embedded in Western thought, but it’s a fundamental misconception with potentially disastrous consequences. Climate change, avers Rex Tillerson, ex-CEO of ExxonMobil…

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The Future Is Not a Spectator Sport

The Future Is Not a Spectator Sport

Like all self-organized, adaptive systems, society moves in nonlinear ways. Even as our civilization unravels, a new ecological worldview is spreading globally. Will it become powerful enough to avert a cataclysm? None of us knows. Perhaps the Great Transition to an ecological civilization is already under way, but we can’t see it because we’re in the middle of it. We are all co-creating the…

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The Ideology of Human Supremacy

The Ideology of Human Supremacy

The somber truth is that the vast bulk of nature’s staggering abundance has already disappeared. We live in a world characterized primarily by the relative silence and emptiness of its natural spaces. Underlying this devastation is the ideology of human supremacy—claiming intrinsic superiority over nonhuman forms of life. But is human supremacy innate to humanity, or rather something specific…

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Complexity, Cooperation, and Civilization

Complexity, Cooperation, and Civilization

Many people claim that evolution has a direction toward increased complexity—and that humans represent its apex. Our destiny, they declare, is to break out of our earthly limitations and explore the galaxy. Although an intoxicating vision for some, the rise of human civilization has been a double-edged story. Until humans learn to enhance life on Earth rather than destroy it, we’re not ready…

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Introduction to The Web of Meaning

Introduction to The Web of Meaning

As our civilization careens toward a precipice of climate breakdown, ecological destruction, and gaping inequality, people are losing their existential moorings. Our dominant worldview has passed its expiration date: it’s based on a series of flawed assumptions that have been superseded by modern scientific findings. The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our…

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Credit Suisse: Be Part of the Solution, Not the Problem

Credit Suisse: Be Part of the Solution, Not the Problem

Every Fall, the Credit Suisse Research Institute invites selected experts to present to the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Urs Rohner, & other senior executives on current events. Last November, they asked me to participate. I gave them this presentation on the climate and ecological emergency, urging Urs Rohner to immediately divest from all fossil fuel financing, and introduced the…

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Universal Basic Income: The Moral Birthright of Every Human Being

Universal Basic Income: The Moral Birthright of Every Human Being

I recently contributed my view on the moral underpinnings of a Universal Basic Income to a wide-ranging conversation on the topic facilitated by the Great Transition Initiative: “Universal Basic Income: Has the Time Come?” Here’s the question they posed:

“Should society provide every citizen with a basic income, no strings attached? Some proponents of a “universal basic income” view it as a…

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The Alchemy of Heartbreak and Hope: A Spiritual Practice for Our Time

The Alchemy of Heartbreak and Hope: A Spiritual Practice for Our Time

Keynote talk given by Jeremy Lent to The Whidbey Institute annual gala, October 2020.

“When we truly open our hearts to each other, there is no burden too heavy for us to carry together, there is no pain too deep for us to hold in each other’s arms. And it’s in that place—of feeling the Earth’s injuries, and feeling it with each other—that the alchemy emerges. It’s in the cauldron of sharing…

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The Five Real Conspiracies You Need to Know About

The Five Real Conspiracies You Need to Know About

While millions of people are spellbound by false conspiracy theories, the real conspiracies that are wrecking our world go about their business unheeded. Here are five genuine threats that everyone should know about—and take action on.

The world is awash in a deluge of dangerous conspiracy theories. Most notoriously, the bizarre QAnon fantasypostulates that a global child sex-trafficking ring…

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The Coronavirus as a Crucible

The Coronavirus as a Crucible

I recently participated in a conversation with thought leaders at the Great Transition Initiative on a critical question poised by Paul Raskin:

“The coronavirus outbreak has disrupted our lives, equanimity, and assumptions. . . The pandemic is a rupture in historic time that shakes the continuity of institutions and consciousness. . . How can we seize the moment to steer toward the Great…