John Daniels introduces a podcast and a set of resources:
Though my spell-checker doesn’t yet recognise it, the word ‘polycrisis’ has become increasingly hard to avoid recently. You could define it as the simultaneous occurrence of several (potential) catastrophes, each building on the others to create a perfect storm. Getting your bearings in such heavy weather can be pretty challenging, to say the least.
That’s why I’ve found Nate Hagens’ site The Great Simplification such a useful resource. A one-time Wall Street trader, Nate gave it all up twenty years ago to do a PhD in ecological economics. These days he’s Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future, and lives on a farm in Minnesota. He’s also a pretty much full-time podcaster.
The site’s made up of three sections. The ‘Animated series’ is a bunch of cartoons, which outline Nate’s diagnosis of our predicament. Here he combines insights from energy science, economics, biology/ecology and evolutionary psychology in an accessible yet profound way.
The second section, ‘Frankly’, is a set of short, occasional podcasts on particular themes which are currently exercising him. For example, he recently offered a four-part response to the ‘Just Stop Oil’ protests, offering a sympathetic and ultimately constructive critique.
Last, and most valuable I think, is the ‘Episodes’ section, which contains over 80 long-form interviews with a variety of knowledgable guests, each examining one particular aspect of the polycrisis. Don’t miss Robert Lustig on food, Jason Bradford on farming, Paul Martin on hydrogen, Jonathan Haidt on social fragmentation, Art Berman on oil and Simon Michaux on minerals.
Nate’s basic message is that we’re on the verge of a Great Simplification: essential resources are depleting, pollution of various kinds is accumulating and maintaining social complexity is getting harder. A big reset is heading our way, and he wants to help as many people as possible understand why this is happening, and how best to respond. Nate keeps his faith commitments private, and certainly he hasn’t yet sought to engage with any religious commentators. But as a Christian I find his approach makes much sense. Unlike some other pundits, he totally gets human finitude. If he’s right – and I think he is – that the Maximum Power Principle underlies our predicament, I’d love to explore with him what the story of Jesus tells us about power, and how it suggests a different way of thriving together.
- If you’d like to get stuck into the Great Simplification back-catalog, here are some episodes on the themes of the Plenty! course sessions to get you started.
Joy in Enough 