“The continual stream of public scandals arising from corporate misconduct are not abnormalities arising from occasional bad apples, but rather the predictable outcome of a system dominated by amoral entities seeking to maximize returns for their shareholders. Far more damaging, though, are the countless routine decisions made daily by executives around the world in industries such as fossil fuels, mining, Continue Reading
“Although we typically think of government regulating private enterprise, it’s more accurate to view the relationship as reciprocal at best. In recent decades in the United States and elsewhere, in a process known as “political capture,” the balance of power has markedly shifted toward the wealthy elites, exerting their influence through powerful industry groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Continue Reading
“Anthropologists and Indigenous scholars have identified overriding, common characteristics that hold true for virtually all Indigenous communities, spanning regions as diverse as the Inuit in the Arctic, the !Kung of the Kalahari, or Aboriginal Australians. These shared attributes, known collectively as indigeneity, likely reflect the set of values and behaviors. that most naturally align with human flourishing.”* — Lent, Jeremy. Continue Reading
“…the risk that a superhuman AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) might want to achieve some goal that’s out of alignment with the conditions required for human welfare-or for that matter, the survival of life itself on Earth. The AGI might not see humans as an enemy to be eliminated, but we could simply become collateral damage to its own objective function, Continue Reading
“one third of greenhouse gas emissions is caused by agriculture: more than all emissions from transport, heating, lighting, and air conditioning combined. Cattle farming and monocrop plantations are the two largest drivers of global deforestation. In addition to fertilizers creating dead zones in the ocean, herbicides and pesticides are decimating animal and insect populations worldwide, while the Earth’s topsoil is Continue Reading
“At the end of the Second World War, Big Ag faced a dilemma: How could they obey the capitalist imperative for perpetual growth when most Americans were already eating a sufficient amount of food? Their brilliant, if diabolical, solution was to continually produce more; manipulate people into eating more; transmute simple, healthy foods into ultra-processed engineered formulations of salt, sugar, Continue Reading
“The social benefits of establishing a UBI [Universal Basic Income] would be pervasive and profound. It would support marginalized and racialized people who are disproportionately occupied in unpaid care work. It would offer a way out for women trapped in oppressive or abusive relationships for financial reasons. It would virtually put an end to the scourges of homelessness and hunger. Continue Reading
“The founder of biomimicry, Janine Benyus (see chapter challenges cities to explore how they can be “generous,” giving back as much or more to nature as they receive by designing regenerative processes across the board. “We need cities to perform like ecosystems, not just look like them,” she declares. Cities such as Amsterdam are responding to this challenge by using Continue Reading
EcoCivilization: Making a World That Works For All. By Jeremy Lent Melville House, 2026
“Most of the time, however, national governments have no interest in empowering ordinary citizens, or are openly hostile to them. Solidarity networks frequently arise when large-scale communities, weary of generations of exploitation and oppression, stop hoping that centralized authorities will alleviate their suffering and realize that the liberation they seek will only materialize from their own capacities. Emerging worldwide in Continue Reading
“Historically, state authority has been so intertwined with the power of elites that it is difficult to conceive of an alternative. However, if higher levels of government were controlled by citizens’ assemblies rather than (elected or unelected) oligarchs, there would be a structural alignment between the governance of the state and the empowerment of local communities. ("Partner States" where the Continue Reading
“In the Gettysburg Address, honoring those who had died fighting on a civil war battlefield, President Abraham Lincoln uttered the world-famous declaration: "Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." It was a stirring vision that has galvanized people’s hearts ever since, but it was sadly a long way from describing the Continue Reading
“A wide range of studies suggests that a predominant focus on competition—the requirement that one person or group must fail so that another can succeed—can be intrinsically counterproductive. In "No Contest: The Case Against Competition" , the education researcher Alfie Kohn elucidates why this is the case. As a hypersocial species, humans evolved to rely primarily on cooperation, rather than Continue Reading
“An important characteristic—one almost entirely missing from today’s educational syllabus—would be an emphasis on ecological literacy ("ecoliteracy") and systems thinking. Understanding core ecological principles can help students recognize human embeddedness within Earth systems and develop mental models embracing complex interrelationships and systems dynamics that apply to virtually all aspects of life and society.” — Lent, Jeremy. EcoCivilization: Making a World Continue Reading
“…the risk that a superhuman AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) might want to achieve some goal that’s out of alignment with the conditions required for human welfare-or for that matter, the survival of life itself on Earth. The AGI might not see humans as an enemy to be eliminated, but we could simply become collateral damage to its own objective function, Continue Reading