Author: Matt Payne

Gaia Vince (@wanderinggaia) is an award-winning science writer and author. She is particularly interested in the interaction between human systems and Earth’s planetary systems. Her research has taken her around the world. Gaia’s latest book is Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World. We are already at 1.6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures,…

Read More “Gaia Vince identifies the four horsemen of the Anthropocene” »

Maureen Bulbrook and Christina Ninham are Indigenous lawyers who know from direct experience that Canada has never stopped discriminating against its First Nations people, from the Doctrine of Discovery at the time of contact to current day (with Prime Minister Harper arguing that residential school records should be destroyed even as he apologized for Canada’s…

Read More “Canada has not reconciled with its Indigenous peoples, say Maureen Bulbrook and Christina Ninham” »

Paco’s thesis is a provocative one: plants are, in a meaningful sense, intelligent. Paco discusses what intelligence is, and how we might recognize it in other beings. People used to believe that only humans are intelligent. Over time, other mammals were deemed to also think and feel. Today, most people grant that many animals, such…

Read More “Paco Calvo considers the possibility of plant intelligence” »

Why do scholars now refer to early Christianities instead of early Christianity? How has the meaning of the word “Heresy” changed from its original definition to taking on its current connotations? Why did Christianity grow from a fringe cult with few followers and disdained by the intelligentsia and people in power to becoming the largest…

Read More “Heresy: Jesus Christ and the Other Sons of God, with Catherine Nixey” »

All life on earth ultimately depends on energy and how it flows between biological and geochemical systems on the planet. Katherine Richardson and her team identified nine boundaries which need to be respected if our planet is to remain conducive to human thriving. Climate change is just one of them. We are exceeding six boundaries,…

Read More “Saving civilization is about more than climate change, says Professor Katherine Richardson” »