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    david korten

    Earth Is Warning Us We Must Change. Will We Listen?

    Earth Is Warning Us We Must Change. Will We Listen?

    The Earth is strong, but also vulnerable. As Earth cares for us, we either care for it or bear the consequences of our recklessness.

    David Korten
    Aug 04, 2020

    Our present course puts humans on track to be among the species that expire in Earth's ongoing sixth mass extinction. In my conversations with thoughtful people, I am finding increasing acceptance of this horrific premise.

    The COVID-19 pandemic, along with climate change, drives home the lesson that we must honor and care for Earth. The increasing frequency of the appearance of deadly viruses reminds us of the consequences of disrupting the natural systems by which life on Earth organizes to create and maintain the conditions essential to both its own existence and ours.

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    Opinion
    You Can't Put Capitalism Over Sustainability--and Other Lessons From China

    You Can't Put Capitalism Over Sustainability--and Other Lessons From China

    Humanity’s existential crisis can be resolved only when we the people stand united behind a vision of the world we truly want.

    David Korten
    Aug 20, 2019

    I just returned from a conference of influential decision-makers in China, where I presented on economics for an ecological civilization in the 21st century. China and the United States are very different, but when it comes to current threats and missed opportunities, we share a great deal more than we may realize.

    The message I took to China will be familiar to readers of my column. It begins with recognizing the fundamental truth that humans are born of and nurtured by a living Earth. Forgetting that basic fact, we became captive to a deeply flawed economic theory that gained global prominence in the mid-20th century, is destroying Earth's capacity to sustain life, and puts us on a path to self-extinction.

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    Opinion
    Re-Inhabiting Planet Earth

    Re-Inhabiting Planet Earth

    What may be history’s ultimate moment of human arrogance: the belief in a sense of separateness from and superiority to nature so thorough that we have, with our monstrous intelligence, the ability and therefore the right to play Bad God and make the whole planet go poof

    Robert C. Koehler
    Mar 06, 2019

    "I believe that for a moment I thought the explosion might set fire to the atmosphere and thus finish the Earth, even though I knew that this was not possible."

    These words of Manhattan Project physicist Emilio Segre, quoted by Richard Rhodes in his book The Making of the Atomic Bomb, refer to the Trinity blast on July 16, 1945, at Alamogordo, N.M., the first atomic explosion in history and, so it appears, a turning point for all life on this planet.

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    Opinion

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