The Planet Blog
Photo by Bob Carmichael. Learn more about Bob and see all contributors to Planet Project here.
This blog provides explorations and reflections on the Planet Movement, and the meaning of the Planetary culture and consciousness. If you would like to contribute a post, contact us.
Hope: It’s Complicated
How do you feel about the future of humans on this planet? That things will turn out for the best? Or that it’s all downhill from here? Or maybe you don’t ponder the future all – you live in the moment. Be Here Now, right? Or maybe life is so damn hard it’s a struggle just to deal with today.
We Are The Ones
We learn in school that recorded history began with the invention of writing, when the first civilizations appeared some 5,000 years ago. People who lived before this are called “prehistoric” and thought of as animal-like cavemen with clubs or, worse yet, Neanderthals. But there was much before this.
A Time Between Worlds
The state of the world is … permacrisis. That’s a new word Collins Dictionary has chosen as the word of the year for 2022, defining it as “an extended period of instability and insecurity, esp one resulting from a series of catastrophic events”. It’s synonymous with polycrisis and a meta-crisis.
Turning Inward
In the northern hemisphere December brings short days and long nights as the path of the sun slips ever-lower in the southern sky. For nature-based people long ago, this descent into darkness was terrifying, and the return of the sun – what we now call the Winter Solstice
ALL Careers Challenge
The Planet Project fosters on-the-ground local action in addition to online actions. We featured the ALL Careers Contest in our latest blog and newsletter. Now we are issuing a challenge to our Planet Movement members who live in Boulder County: help make the ALL Careers Contest a success!
Is Education the Key to Accelerating the Shift?
Funnels and dipsticks. That is how Roger Briggs, long-time public school educator and Planet Project Co-Founder, describes our current approach to education in the United States. Our school systems are designed to pour facts into the passive minds of their students.
Democracy and Getting Out the Vote
We all love democracy, right? And we all think we know what it means, but when you actually try to define it and say what it really is, things aren’t so simple. The word democracy originates from the Greek δημοκρατία (dēmokratía), meaning “rule of the people”…
Let’s Roll Back Plastic Pollution!
Plastics, or synthetic organic polymers, did not exist on our planet until 1833 when French chemist Henri Braconnot synthesized nitrocellulose, a long chain molecule. This new substance was a curiosity at first with no apparent use, but in 1868 the Hyatt brothers…
Announcing: The Planet Community
By Steve Melville, Planet Project Staff As you probably noticed, the Planet Project is all about shifts. This month, the project itself is shifting into a new phase. Until now, our focus has been on sharing information and galvanizing interest in the root cause of our...
The Shift: A Better Future IS Possible
The war in Ukraine feels like deja vu: a strongman with a big army, bigger ambitions, and an even bigger ego invades another country, and countless innocent people are maimed and killed while he lavishes in luxury at home telling big lies to his own people. How many...
Geo sapiens – the Earth-wise Human
By Martin Ogle, Planet Community In 1985, a “Far-side” cartoon depicted a dinosaur at a podium addressing a group of fellow dinosaurs. The reptile opined: “The picture’s pretty bleak, gentlemen. . . The world’s climates are changing, the mammals are taking over, and...
Scientists Propose Planetary Intelligence. So do we.
Astrobiologists are scientists who combine biology and astrophysics to study the possibility of life – especially intelligent life – elsewhere in the universe. A new paper published February 7, 2022 in the International Journal of Astrobiology*, proposes that our...
What Does the Planet Project Have to Say About the War in Ukraine?
The launch of the Planet Project is occurring while we witness the horror and heartbreak of Russia’s unprovoked aggression in the Ukraine and the courage and resilience of the Ukrainian people. If the Planet Project is to make a difference in the world…
Fostering Cultural Change (Part 3)
The Planet Project asserts that the pervasive and deeply seated assumptions (memes) of our current cultural stage are the underlying root cause, the common thread, of our multiple existential crises. In response, we advocate cultural transformation at global scale as one pillar of our three-pronged…
Positive Culture and the Planetary Perspective (Part 2)
The Planet Project aims to spread positive culture in the world, but what do we mean by positive culture? “Culture” itself is a big package, so let’s unpack it a bit. Anthropologists, cognitive psychologists, philosophers, and other scholars have discussed and debated…
Welcome to the Planetary Era (Part 1)
Many astronauts who viewed the Earth from space reported having a transformative, life-changing experience. The most famous is Edgar Mitchell, sixth man to walk on the Moon, who said in a 1974 interview in People Magazine: “You develop an instant global consciousness,...