Selected Resources

See our complete resource collection in a fully searchable database.

Websites

waterfall
,

Cascade Institute

The Cascade Institute is a Canadian research centre addressing the full range of humanity’s converging environmental, economic, political, and technological crises. Its director is Thomas Homer-Dixon, an award-winning scholar and author with deep experience in using complexity science to anticipate, analyze, and respond to global threats.
woodland scene
,

Resilience

Resilience.org supports building community resilience in a world of multiple emerging challenges: the decline of cheap energy, the depletion of critical resources like water, complex environmental crises like climate change and biodiversity…
earth from space at night
,

The Foresight Analysis Nexus (FAN)

The FAN initiative describes the situation: Two hundred years of economic and complexity growth have added immensely to human welfare and security. It has shaped our world-views and expectations of the future. Yet there is widening concern that…
house in middle of yellow field
,

Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere

The MAHB mission is twofold: Foster, fuel and inspire a global dialogue on the threat of collapse and how interconnected biogeophysical and socio-economic systems contribute to, and are affected by, the existential threats facing humanity …
sunset
,

The Consciousness of Sheep

The Consciousness of Sheep website, hosted by Tim Watkins, focuses on the "three Es" (Economy, Energy, and Environment). The website is an offshoot from the book of the same title.
Global Challenges Foundation homepage
,

Global Challenges Foundation

The mission of the Global Challenges Foundation is "to prevent, or at least reduce the likelihood, of a catastrophe that would cause the death of over 10% of humanity, or cause damage on a similar scale." Their website offers analysis and research,…
wildfire with clouds
,

Collapse of Industrial Civilization ~ Finding the Truth behind the American Hologram

On this blog, Nate Hagens writes: I’m a social critic, political/cultural commentator and artist. The modern industrial world is sleepwalking towards the cliff of economic and ecological ruin. Most are oblivious to the paradigm shift that…
storm clouds over mountains
,

The Dark Mountain Project

In 2009, two English writers published a manifesto. Out of that manifesto grew a cultural movement: a rooted and branching network of creative activity, centred on the Dark Mountain journal, sustained by the work of a growing gang of collaborators…
light art in blue and purple
,

Centre for the Study of Existential Risk

New and largely unstudied risks are associated with powerful emerging technologies and the impacts of human activity, which in the worst case might pose existential risks. The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk wants to reap the enormous…

Selected Funders

rainbow
,

The Climate Resilience Fund

The Climate Resilience Fund offers grants under two programs: the "Coordination and Collaboration in the Resilience Ecosystem Program," which "features an annual grants competition that aims to rapidly scale up climate adaptation and resilience…
robotic woman with tears
,

Global Catastrophic Risks

This webpage published by the Open Philanthropy Project highlights future global catastrophic risks such as pandemics and risks from advanced artificial intelligence. The Open Philanthropy Project offers grants in relation to these issues. Image…

Books

Commanding Hope Book Cover
,

Commanding Hope

By Tad Homer Dixon Commanding Hope marshals a fascinating, accessible argument for reinvigorating our cognitive strengths and belief systems to affect urgent systemic change, strengthen our economies and cultures, and renew our hope in a positive future for everyone on Earth.
ministry of future book coverGraham Hardy
,

Ministry For The Future

By Kim Stanley Robinson. Set in the near future, the novel follows a subsidiary body, established under the Paris Agreement, whose mission is to advocate for the world's future generations of citizens as if their rights are as valid as the present generation's
Book cover of How Everything Can Collapse
,

How Everything Can Collapse: A Manual for Our Times

How Everything Can Collapse: A Manual for Our Times, co-authored by Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens, provides "a valuable guide to help everyone make sense of the new and potentially catastrophic situation in which we now find ourselves." What…
The upside of down book cover
,

The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization

The Upside of Down by Thomas Homer-Dixon takes the reader on a mind-stretching tour of societies' management, or mismanagement, of disasters over time. From the demise of ancient Rome to contemporary climate change, this book analyzes what happens…
The uninhabitable earth book cover
,

The Uninhabitable Earth

The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells brings into stark relief the climate troubles that await. Without a revolution in how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth could become close to uninhabitable, and other parts…
Falter book cover
,

Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?

Bill McKibben's Falter tells the story of converging trends—global warming, new technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics—and of the ideological fervor that keeps us from bringing them under control.

Open groups

field
,

Transition United States

Transition US is a nonprofit organization that provides inspiration, encouragement, support, networking, and training for Transition Initiatives across the United States. We are working in close partnership with the Transition Network, a UK-based…
River rapids with rocks
,

Transition Network

Transition Network is a movement of communities coming together to reimagine and rebuild our world. Here we explain what it is, why people do it, how the movement started and give you a sense of our underpinning principles and approach Image…

Articles

Dominoes

We’re Living in a Global Polycrisis: It’s Time to Build Resiliency

by David Bonbright, Giving Compass
Natura LogoNatura

Toward Symbiosis

Restorative Retreat on the Land -Facilitated by James Stark and Anna O'Malley -Friday, April 23 at 10 am through Sunday, April 25 at noon
hands climbing out of waterDaniel Jensen
,

Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future

We report three major and confronting environmental issues that have received little attention and require urgent action. We especially draw attention to the lack of appreciation of the enormous challenges to creating a sustainable future.…
Rise of Neo-Feudalism
,

The Rise of Neo-Feudalism

In this article, Robert Kuttner and Katherine V. Stone delineate how "the private capture of entire legal systems by corporate America goes far beyond neoliberalism. It evokes the private fiefdoms of the Middle Ages."
Nature scene of ocean and cliffs

Resilience: Living beyond Fear with the Coronavirus

This was first published on Michael's blog, Angle of Vision. The first thing to overcome with the coronavirus is fear. The virus is certainly dangerous. The likelihood is we will need to learn to live with it. A “new normal” will emerge…

Videos

, ,

Systemic Risks and the Four Dilemmas of our Time with Dr. Gary Kendall

Dr Gary Kendall will present and discuss some thought-provoking perspectives on why our collective reluctance to reconceptualise paradigms commits us to a future of growing systemic risk.
Nate Hagens photo
,

Nate Hagens: The State of the Species 2020

In this video, Nate Hagens, Director of EnergyandOurFuture.org, covers the state of the economy, environment and human cultural situation in the face of the recent Coronavirus. The question and answer session from this talk is available …
Photo of Greta Thunberg
,

Greta Thunberg’s full speech to world leaders at UN Climate Action Summit

In this September 23, 2019, video, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg chastised world leaders for failing younger generations by not taking sufficient steps to stop climate change. "You have stolen my childhood and my dreams with your empty…
Joanna Macy
,

Joanna Macy: The Resilience Gathering

In this talk given at The Resilience Gathering, Joanna Macy guides us how to suffer with the world and make responsible decisions that take into account our interconnectedness with all that is.
Nate Hagens photo
,

Nate Hagens: The Human Predicament

 In this keynote address given at The Resilience Gathering, Nate Hagens addresses the environmental impact of the current economical model and possible solutions. For more information check out energyandourfuture.org
David Suzuki video
,

Why it’s time to think about human extinction

In this video episode of Unstoppable, environmentalist, activist, professor of genetics and science broadcaster David Suzuki hits us with some home truths about what our future will look like if we continue to live the way we have been.

Fiction

ministry of future book coverGraham Hardy
,

Ministry For The Future

By Kim Stanley Robinson. Set in the near future, the novel follows a subsidiary body, established under the Paris Agreement, whose mission is to advocate for the world's future generations of citizens as if their rights are as valid as the present generation's
Cover Photo of The Road
,

The Road

In The Road, a father and son traverse a bleak landscape after the apocalypse. The father knows he is dying.  He knows they can't survive another winter so they head south through California toward the coast.  All of Cormac McCarthy's great…
Cover photo of the Dog Stars
,

The Dog Stars

This superb post-apocalypse novel compares well with Cormac McCarthy's The Road, but is somehow less unremittingly grim. The protagonist Hig has survived the pandemic that killed everyone he knows.  He lives in a small abandoned airport with…