What would motivate today’s self-absorbed, often individualistic upper and middle classes to agree to an 80% reduction in energy and material consumption and embark in solidarity on an unprecedented journey of voluntary simplicity?
Industrial society is living from a mental parallel universe cognitively abstracted from reality. The result is culturally paralytic and potentially catastrophic. On the one hand, overshoot in the real world is destroying the regenerative capacity of the ecosphere and threatens to take us down.
Chernobyl is likely to remain off-limits for generations — too dangerous for people, yet full of life.
“For those of us in conservation and ecology, it’s kind of a wonder.” “This land was once heavily used — agriculture, cities, infrastructure. But nature has effectively performed a factory reset.”
Needless to say, no leader is going anywhere near the unspeakable but inescapable fact the only meaningful ‘transition’ we could make now, is to a system designed to meet only our essential needs, while diverting other resources to urgent adaptation and preparation.
Our climate solutions have failed to meaningfully reduce emissions – and they never will.
The only way humanity can meaningfully reduce emissions is via drastic reductions in activity, which means reversing economic ‘growth’.
Meanwhile, the largest source of emissions in Canada, the oil and gas industry, continues to grow. Oil and gas production has been rising since 2024 in Alberta and British Columbia, helped in part by the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline and the new LNG export terminal in Kitimat, B.C.
Emissions from production in the tar sands, primarily in northern Alberta, has been growing steadily. They rose from 33 MtCO2eq in 2005 to 92 MtCO2eq in 2024.
The maps illustrate where the proposed all-season road will cut straight through the Bathurst caribou’s core migration area, passing very close to the herd’s calving grounds and effectively bisecting their current range. Three diamond mines already operate in areas known to be preferred by the herd.
Habitat loss and degradation account for the largest threat to birds. Society’s need for more agricultural land and timber, along with urbanization of former natural lands to support growing human populations principally explain why 61% of all bird species have declining populations as of 2025.
The results, published in Nature Communications, show genetic signs of isolation in several populations, where elephant herds have been cut off from each other due to a history of hunting, as well as growing human populations and their needs for agriculture and infrastructural developments.
As a species we are exceeding the planet’s regenerative capacity by about 75 percent. If we could replace all fossil fuels with alternative energy—but with the same number of people and the same aggregate consumption—we would still be in overshoot
The enemy is not “us” but rather the peculiar economic system we stumbled into 10,000 years ago. Understanding how hunter-gatherer economies functioned as social systems has direct relevance for today’s environmental and social policies.
look it’s very simple: private jets are bad (wasteful, grotesque, destroying the earth) but space colonization is good (wasteful, grotesque, destroying the earth, makes me feel warm and fuzzy in a way I refuse to examine)
March 2026 Globally,according to Copernicus,had a temperature anomaly of +0.53C above the 1991/2020 norm (+1.48C vs. pre-industrial) and was the 4th warmest March on record behind 2024 (+0.73C),2025 (+0.65C) and 2016 (+0.63C).
According to the Government of Alberta, there are an estimated 466,000 oil and gas wells in the province. More than half of those are no longer producing, some of which have been properly plugged, while others are in a state of temporary suspension
At the ecosystem scale, 54% of the world’s ecoregions are severely degraded, with an additional 25% undergoing further degradation, leaving only a quarter largely intact.
Biodiversity loss occurs at three interconnected scales—species, ecosystems, and natural processes—all of which affect Earth system stability. At the species scale, 48% of vertebrate and insect species are in decline, with only 49% remaining stable and 3% increasing.
Our findings emphasize that preventing the loss of intact biomes, ecosystems, and species assemblages is the most critical strategy while acknowledging the urgency of extinction prevention and the need for restoration.
These disruptions may impact the long-term survival of bird populations — making the future uncertain for hundreds of species across North America.
Indeed, the total North American bird population has lost a staggering 2.9 billion birds since 1970 — a 29% decline.
I don’t know how big of a role solar energy will play in the years and decades ahead, but I hope it is small because our overall energy consumption ends up declining. My personal best case scenario is no new energy infrastructure because we reduce that much that fast.
Like any technological product manufactured by industrial processes from raw materials extracted from the earth, solar panels have an ecological footprint that negatively impacts the more-than-human world.
Like any technological product manufactured by industrial processes from raw materials extracted from the earth, solar panels have an ecological footprint that negatively impacts the more-than-human world.
"The planet’s life support systems are already under strain and, without rapid shifts in how we use energy, land, and food, billions of people will face increasing instability. Our study shows these limits are unfolding right now.”
The old of civilization is always falling apart even as it newly grows. Additional decay forced by climate change need only grow by 0.1%/year to lead to civilization collapse by 2070, sooner for higher rates. We will collapse slowly then all at once.
egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/20...
Yukon Territory, Canada had the coldest March since at least 1950, easily exceeding 2007 and 1964. There is no significant long term trend in March average temps. Data from ERA5 reanalysis courtesy @copernicusecmwf.bsky.social. #ytwx #Canada #Climate @jkanadisk.bsky.social @evaholland.bsky.social
Map centered on the North Pole showing March 2026 average temperatures difference from the 1991-2020 baseline average (ºC).
March 2026 temperatures in the Arctic varied dramatically. Much of Arctic North America was very cold. Coldest March on record (since 1950) forYukon Territory, Canada. Northwest Territories 2nd coldest & Nunavut 3rd coldest. ERA5 reanalysis courtesy @copernicusecmwf.bsky.social. #Arctic #Climate 1/2
Collapse is often framed in abstract terms: GDP curves, debt ratios, sea‑level projections in 2100. Food refuses abstraction. When the system that feeds you becomes unreliable, you feel it in your stomach before you see it in a graph.
Woodland Caribou, the Finlayson herd is listed as a species of “Special Concern”. From 1990 to 2017, the herd saw its total population cut in half, going from nearly 6,000 to just over 2,700. In 2022, however, a population survey showed it had rebounded slightly to nearly 3,400 animals.
In a news release last week, the First Nation says those rights include the right to exist and thrive throughout its natural range; the right to ecological protection; the right to be free from destructive industrial activity; and the right to representation and legal protection.