You Matter More Than You Think: Quantum Social Change for a Thriving World


Book Description

You Matter More Than You Think introduces a new way of thinking about climate change and social change. It focuses on how the small changes we make can have a big impact, and why each of us matters when it comes to sustainability.




Quantum Mind and Social Science


Book Description

A unique contribution to the understanding of social science, showing the implications of quantum physics for the nature of human society.




Carbon Strategies


Book Description

A clear, practical guide to sustainable climate policy for business leaders and corporate change-makers




Fixation


Book Description

Our massive, global system of consumption is broken. Our individual relationship with our stuff is broken. In each of our homes, some stuff is broken. And the strain of rampant consumerism and manufacturing is breaking our planet. We need big, systemic changes, from public policy to global economic systems. But we don’t need to wait for them. Since founding Fixup, a pop-up repair shop that brought her coverage in The New York Times, Salon, New York Public Radio, and more, Sandra Goldmark has become a leader in the movement to demand better “stuff.” She doesn’t just want to help us clear clutter—she aims to move us away from throwaway culture, to teach us to reuse and repurpose more thoughtfully, and to urge companies to produce better stuff. Although her goal is ambitious, the solution to getting there is surprisingly simple and involves all of us: have good stuff, not too much, mostly reclaimed, care for it, and pass it on. Fixation charts the path to the next frontier in the health, wellness, and environmental movements—learning how to value stewardship over waste. We can choose quality items designed for a long lifecycle, commit to repairing them when they break, and shift our perspective on reuse and “preowned” goods. Together, we can demand that companies get on board. Goldmark shares examples of forward-thinking companies that are thriving by conducting their businesses sustainably and responsibly. Passionate, wise, and practical, Fixation offers us a new understanding of stuff by building a value chain where good design, reuse, and repair are the status quo.




The Possibility Principle


Book Description

How would you like to experience your life? It’s an intriguing question, and yet we’ve been conditioned to believe our life visions and goals are often unattainable—until now. With The Possibility Principle, psychotherapist Mel Schwartz offers a revolutionary approach to living the life we choose. Though science has vastly expanded our knowledge, it has also led us to adopt a worldview where we see ourselves as insignificant specks living in a mechanical universe. Now, insights from quantum physics reveal that our universe is, in fact, a vibrantly intelligent reality and that each of us plays a vital role in shaping it. In this groundbreaking book, Schwartz shows us how to integrate this new quantum worldview into our everyday lives, allowing us to transcend our limitations and open to infinite possibilities. The Possibility Principle reveals how we can apply the three core tenets of quantum physics—inseparability, uncertainty, and potentiality—to live the life we choose, free from the wounds of our past and the constraints of our old beliefs. You can learn to: Develop a mastery of your thinking as you free yourself from the replication of old thought patterns • Utilize the concept of wave collapse to realize that you are not imprisoned by your genes, brain chemistry, or past traumas • Overcome anxiety and depression through a shift of mind • Thrive in resilient relationships and develop powerful communication skills that foster empowerment and intimate connection • Embrace uncertainty to ride the waves of personal change




Oneness vs. the 1%


Book Description

With a new epilogue about Bill Gates’s global agenda and how we can resist the billionaires’ war on life “This is what globalization looks like: Opportunism. Exploitation. Further centralization of power. Further disempowerment of ordinary people. . . . Vandana Shiva is an expert whose analysis has helped us understand this situation much more deeply.”—Russell Brand Widespread poverty, social unrest, and economic polarization have become our lived reality as the top 1% of the world’s seven-billion-plus population pushes the planet―and all its people―to the social and ecological brink. In Oneness vs. the 1%, Vandana Shiva takes on the billionaire dictators of Gates, Buffet, and Mark Zuckerberg, as well as other modern empires like Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag, whose blindness to the rights of people, and to the destructive impact of their construct of linear progress, have wrought havoc across the world. Their single-minded pursuit of profit has undemocratically enforced uniformity and monocultures, division and separation, monopolies and external control―over finance, food, energy, information, healthcare, and even relationships. Basing her analysis on explosive facts, Shiva exposes the 1%’s model of philanthrocapitalism, which is about deploying unaccountable money to bypass democratic structures, derail diversity, and impose totalitarian ideas based on One Science, One Agriculture, and One History. Instead, Shiva calls for the resurgence of: Real knowledge Real intelligence Real wealth Real work Real well-being With these core goals, people can reclaim their right to: Live Free. Think Free. Breathe Free. Eat Free.




Energy and Civilization


Book Description

A comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society throughout history, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. "I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next 'Star Wars' movie. In his latest book, Energy and Civilization: A History, he goes deep and broad to explain how innovations in humans' ability to turn energy into heat, light, and motion have been a driving force behind our cultural and economic progress over the past 10,000 years. —Bill Gates, Gates Notes, Best Books of the Year Energy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done. The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops. Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass. Humans have come to rely on many more energy flows—ranging from fossil fuels to photovoltaic generation of electricity—for their civilized existence. In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. Humans are the only species that can systematically harness energies outside their bodies, using the power of their intellect and an enormous variety of artifacts—from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors. The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, industry, transportation, weapons, communication, economics, urbanization, quality of life, politics, and the environment. Smil describes humanity's energy eras in panoramic and interdisciplinary fashion, offering readers a magisterial overview. This book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's Energy in World History (1994). Smil has incorporated an enormous amount of new material, reflecting the dramatic developments in energy studies over the last two decades and his own research over that time.




Things That Matter


Book Description

From America’s preeminent columnist, named by the Financial Times the most influential commentator in the nation, a must-have collection of Charles Krauthammer’s essential, timeless writings. A brilliant stylist known for an uncompromising honesty that challenged conventional wisdom at every turn, Krauthammer dazzled readers for decades with his keen insight into politics and government. His weekly column was a must-read in Washington and across the country. Don’t miss the best of Krauthammer’s intelligence, erudition and wit collected in one volume. Readers will find here not only the country’s leading conservative thinker offering a pas­sionate defense of limited government, but also a highly independent mind whose views—on feminism, evolution and the death penalty, for example—defy ideological convention. Things That Matter also features several of Krautham­mer’s major path-breaking essays—on bioeth­ics, on Jewish destiny and on America’s role as the world’s superpower—that have pro­foundly influenced the nation’s thoughts and policies. And finally, the collection presents a trove of always penetrating, often bemused re­flections on everything from border collies to Halley’s Comet, from Woody Allen to Win­ston Churchill, from the punishing pleasures of speed chess to the elegance of the perfectly thrown outfield assist. With a special, highly autobiographical in­troduction in which Krauthammer reflects on the events that shaped his career and political philosophy, this indispensible chronicle takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the fashions and follies, the tragedies and triumphs, of the last three decades of American life.




Radical Transformational Leadership


Book Description

Monica Sharma describes how we can source our inner capacities and wisdom to manifest change that embodies universal values such as dignity, compassion, fairness, and courage. Drawing on more than twenty years of work for the United Nations and elsewhere, she presents a radical new approach to transformational leadership, one that creates systems of change where everyone can engage—not just analysts and policy-makers. Demonstrating that we all can be architects of a new humanity, Monica demystifies policy-making, planning, and implementation so that everyone can play an informed and strategic part in eradicating the world’s most intractable problems. Using real-life examples from around the world, she shows how our innate characteristics of universal compassion, equity impulse, and human capability can create new patterns that effectively address major challenges such as gross inequality, unbridled hate, conflicts based on social identity, and the never-enough mindset of greed. Written in a straightforward, accessible style, Radical Transformational Leadership outlines a path-breaking paradigm shift that is already generating equitable and sustainable results across the globe. Winner of the Nautilus Gold Award for Business and Leadership




Our Entangled Future


Book Description

We live our lives through stories. They shape how we see the world, how we relate to it, and not the least, how we engage with it. Now more than ever, we need compelling stories that inspire both individual and collective action. The nine short stories presented in Our Entangled Future are rooted in the complex reality of the climate crisis. Rather than painting a dystopic future, they present agency-driven characters whose insights will inspire readers to contemplate and realize the potential for quantum social change. Our Entangled Future: Stories to Empower Quantum Social Change is part of the AdaptationCONNECTS research project, which is funded by the University of Oslo and the Research Council of Norway. AdaptationCONNECTS focuses on the relationship between adaptation and transformations to sustainability and explores the contributions of creativity, collaboration, empowerment, and new narratives. It also investigates the potential for new paradigms or thought patterns to shape the future, including those based on ideas drawn from quantum social science. The research engages with a growing recognition that to adapt successfully to climate change, we need to adapt to the very idea that we are creating the future right now. Adaptation is about transformation at the deepest levels, and there is no better way to transform than by telling new stories about ourselves and our significance in an entangled future. Could the use of new metaphors and images really contribute to a different narrative about climate change? We announced a call for short stories related to the notion of "quantum social change," fully recognizing the ambiguity of the term. We wanted stories to explore a quantum paradigm and were curious about the different ways that this would be interpreted. We deliberately pitched the call to both writers and researchers, in recognition that many of those who work daily with climate change are engaging with wider and deeper solution spaces. We sought stories that engage with creative agility to reimagine the world from the perspective of a new paradigm. Each story is paired with an original image of visual art, that relates to entanglement and the natural environment. The nine short stories featured in Our Entangled Future present a revitalizing view of our world and the context in which we find ourselves. Together, these stories help to convey our deepest values as humans and our greatest potential to respond collectively to climate change.