The Shock That Comes With Recognition
Recent interviews and ideas, and a bunch of announcements.
Today’s episode of This American Life is titled “Unprepared for What Has Already Happened.”
The show’s about “People waking up to the fact that the world has suddenly changed,” and — as long-time readers will recognize — the title quotes me.
This particular version of that quote comes from a New York Times Magazine piece Liz Weil interviewed me for a while back, one that focused on wildfires and the future of California.
I wrote a newsletter following this story, called We All Live in California, Now. That piece in turn built on themes running years back in my work, including the ideas that we’ve experienced a discontinuity in human affairs for which very few of us are ready, and that readying ourselves is a task we can no longer expect others to do for us.
(I’ve also done a dozen or so other interviews recently, including one with Omar El Akkad for his Without podcast, and others for 99% Invisible and the BBC, so I’d expect those will be coming sometime soon, as well. Stay tuned.)
This seems an auspicious occasion to offer some early announcements:
First, the TSF book! Long-patient supporters will be pleased to hear that we’re one step closer to this book being a thing. This next step is going to be a spoken run-through of the ideas, somewhere between a reading and a long talk.
The proposed date is June 8th, with a more formal announcement to follow in a coming email. Save the date.
(It will be free to supporters, obviously.)
Many people have asked for a version of my Crash Course that’s friendlier to the budgets of those still getting their feet on the ground, like new parents, early career folks, and those recovering from financial setbacks.
The Crash Course I offer is already a highly condensed tour of well-researched complex systems thinking, and it runs a total of 12 hours (plus discussions and individual calls). I can’t boil that down much more, so this two-hour “personal ruggedization 101” class will focus instead on introducing the key concepts for readying ourselves to livein discontinuity in a two-hour class.
The scheduled date is Thursday, April 25th — again, with a more formal announcement to go out via email. (If it works, I might offer it again.)
Here are some things I’ve written recently, in case you missed them:
An exploration of the coming “climate squeeze,” as more people chase a limited pool of relatively safe places.
A review of the new climate migration book, On the Move.
An essay on what it means that we now have failed to avoid a planetary crisis.
Obviously, I’m not exactly slacking. That said, writing is much slower going for me than it used to be — the consequence of a neck injury, combined with typing-related repetitive stress problems have made long sessions at the keyboard difficult.
One approach I’ve seen others take is to switch to doing shorter, more frequent podcasts with a less formal format.
I’m going to give that a shot. Stay tuned.