The uncertain future of Earth’s climate depends on whether negative or positive feedback loops dominate. While we know that also complex (and partly unknown) rhythmics and negative feedback loops play a role, the evidence strongly suggests that global warming is now accelerating through multiple self-reinforcing mechanisms. For example, the melting of ice in the Polar Regions contributes to global warming because sea ice reflects much of the sun’s energy back into space, while dark water absorbs it. Hence, there is no automatic planetary homeostasis, at least not in the human scales of time. The stability of climate requires reflexive self-regulation consciously aiming at homeostasis. The planetary future does not just happen but has become increasingly something that ‘we’ make of it. But who is this ‘we’?
Continue readingElections in Finland: What will change, if anything?
Advance voting of the 2019 Finnish parliamentary elections began on 3 April, a week and a half before Election Day. Change is in the air; many hope for a shift towards a more democratic, socially and environmentally responsible direction. The main opposition progressive parties – Social Democratic Party, Green Party, and Left Alliance – are doing well in the polls. First published in English by Brave New Europe on 4 April 2019.
Continue readingWhy a new referendum on Brexit is justified
Amidst the Brexit chaos, more than five million UK citizens and residents have now signed the petition “revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU”. The chaos is of course not unexpected.
Party Time?: Author’s Response
In the future, we will see many world political parties (WPPs). The idea of a WPP is generic. While our capacity to envisage our common existence from a planetary perspective and to organize politics accordingly is valuable in itself, I am advocating a particular vision for the form such a party could take. This ambiguity has triggered a number of critical comments, so let me be clear: what I propose is that we establish a democratic socialist world party. At the same time, however, I believe that in a pluralistic and non-Eurocentric world, there will be other simultaneous and substantive ideals around which future politics revolve. [This is my contribution and response to a roundtable on A World Political Party: The Time Has Come, originally published on 14 February 2019]
