This planetary boundaries framework update finds that six of the nine boundaries are transgressed, suggesting that Earth is now well outside of the safe operating space for humanity. Ocean acidification is close to being breached, while aerosol loading regionally exceeds the boundary. Stratospheric ozone levels have slightly recovered. The transgression level has increased for all boundaries earlier identified as overstepped.

As primary production drives Earth system biosphere functions, human appropriation of net primary production is proposed as a control variable for functional biosphere integrity. This boundary is also transgressed. Earth system modeling of different levels of the transgression of the climate and land system change boundaries illustrates that these anthropogenic impacts on Earth system must be considered in a systemic context.

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Richardson, K. et al. (2023). Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries. Science Advances, 9(37).

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458

Since the beginning of business research and teaching, the basic assumptions of the discipline have been intensely debated. One of these basic assumptions concerns the behavioral aspects of human beings, which are traditionally represented in the construct of homo economicus. These assumptions have been increasingly challenged in light of findings from social, ethnological, psychological, and ethical research. Some publications from an integrative perspective have suggested that homo economicus embodies to a high degree dark character traits, particularly related to the construct of psychopathy, representing individuals who are extremely self-centered and ruthless, without feelings of remorse or compassion.

While a growing body of research notes such a similarity on a more or less anecdotal basis, this article aims to explore this connection from a more rigorous perspective, bridging insights from psychological, economic, and business research to better understand the potentially dark traits of homo economicus. The analysis shows that homo economicus is not simply some kind of psychopath, but specifically a so-called subclinical or Factor 1 psychopath, who is also referred to as a “corporate psychopath” in business research. Based on these insights, several implications for academic research and teaching are discussed and reflected upon in light of an ethics of virtue and care.

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Fuchs, F., & Lingnau, V. (2024). The Homo Economicus as a Prototype of a Psychopath? A Conceptual Analysis and Implications for Business Research and Teaching. Journal of Business Ethics.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-024-05638-7 

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This paper assesses the performance of the Supreme Court as democratic guardrail during five prior periods of democratic crisis in the United States. It finds that most such periods witnessed efforts by the governing regime to entrench themselves in power, and that the Court has rarely provided an effective check on such democratic abuses. Rather than serving as a reliable democratic guardrail, the Court has regularly exercised what Dixon and Landau call “weak-form abusive judicial review”; that is, it has declined to check attacks on democracy emerging from other centers of power. On one occasion, the Court has undermined democracy even more directly via “strong-form abusive judicial review”; that is, the Court itself attacked key democratic guardrails.

This historical record provides a helpful baseline for evaluating the Court’s performance during the Trump era, when it has taken actions that both protect and undermine democratic health. Conflicting signs indicate that the Court is playing a more democracy-protective role than most of its predecessors in some respects, but a more democracy-undermining role in others. As such, it is too soon to say with confidence whether the contemporary Court will be remembered, on balance, for resolving or exacerbating a system-threatening constitutional crisis.

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Finding ourselves in the midst of a plural eco-social crisis, this paper addresses roles and guiding questions for action research understanding, envisioning, practicing, and organizing eco-social action, with the aim of renewing our human entanglements with the living ecologies, in which we are embedded. Driven by the aim of democratizing eco-social transformations, climate- and biodiversity disasters are approached as symptoms of a plural eco-social crisis. From an eco-feminist position, this crisis concerns notions of mastery and extractivism eroding human and societal capabilities to sustain the inherent regenerative capacities of the living.

Grounded in critical utopian action research, the paper addresses four different dimensions in action research for eco-social transformation: (i) enabling social learning spaces to make visible the ways we are socially and ecologically related; (ii) re-imagining how we want to live and relate in wider ecologies; (iii) seeking alternatives to mastery through tangible practices; and (iv) enabling new organizational forms for societal reorganization. Building on concrete cases from urban planning to rural and regenerative practice, this paper describes how these different perspectives can mutually strengthen action research for eco-social transformation.

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Egmose, J., et al. (2022). Action research in the plural crisis of the living: understanding, envisioning, practicing, organising eco-social transformation. Educational Action Research, 30(4), 671–683.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09650792.2022.2084433

Recent studies show that many workers consider their jobs socially useless. Thus, several explanations for this phenomenon have been proposed. David Graeber’s ‘bullshit jobs theory’, for example, claims that some jobs are in fact objectively useless, and that these are found more often in certain occupations than in others. Quantitative research on Europe, however, finds little support for Graeber’s theory and claims that alienation may be better suited to explain why people consider their jobs socially useless.

This study extends previous analyses by drawing on a rich, under-utilized dataset and provides new evidence for the United States specifically. Contrary to previous studies, it thus finds robust support for Graeber’s theory on bullshit jobs. At the same time, it also confirms existing evidence on the effects of various other factors, including alienation. Work perceived as socially useless is therefore a multifaceted issue that must be addressed from different angles.

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Walo, S. (2023). ‘Bullshit’ After All? Why People Consider Their Jobs Socially Useless. Work, Employment and Society, 37(5), 1123-1146.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500170231175771

The rise of stakeholder interest globally in sustainable business practices has resulted in a rise in demands from stakeholders that companies report on the environmental and social impacts of their business activities. In certain cases, however, companies have resorted to the practice of providing inaccurate disclosures regarding sustainability as part of their corporate communications and sustainability reporting—commonly referred to as “greenwashing”. Concurrently, technological improvements in artificial intelligence have presented the means to rapidly and accurately analyze large volumes of text-based information, such as that contained in sustainability reports.

Despite the possible impacts of artificial intelligence and machine learning on the fields of greenwashing and sustainability reporting, no literature to date has comprehensively and holistically addressed the interrelationship between these three important topics. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge by using bibliometric and thematic analyses to systematically analyze the interrelationship between those fields. The analysis is also used to conjecture a conceptual and thematic framework for the use of artificial intelligence with machine learning in relation to greenwashing and company sustainability reporting. This paper finds that the use of artificial intelligence in relation to greenwashing, and greenwashing within sustainability reporting, is an underexplored research field.

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Moodaley, W., & Telukdarie, A. (2023). Greenwashing, Sustainability Reporting, and Artificial Intelligence: A Systematic Literature Review. Sustainability, 15(2):1481.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/2/1481

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This paper examines the potential of the foundational economy as an industrial policy strategy for addressing the challenges posed by the socioecological transformation. The analysis sets out to deconstruct the jobs-versus-environment dilemma, revealing that dignified employment and climate mitigation are jointly imperiled by the capitalist mode of production. Nonetheless, ambitious environmental policies will necessitate structural economic changes and hence labor reallocations. In this context, the paper seeks to establish links between the foundational economy concept—which is primarily concerned with economic development and industrial policy—and sustainability research.

I contend that the foundational economy emerges as a promising avenue for addressing potential adverse effects of the socioecological transformation for two main reasons. First, it serves as a practical guide for necessary labor reallocations, proposing the absorption of workers into low-carbon, welfare-oriented sectors. Second, it functions as a discursive strategy that directly engages with workers’ self-perception and concerns, prioritizing community health and offering socially sustainable and meaningful employment. Despite these merits, the paper underscores the need for the foundational economy to address feminist critiques of labor and unpaid social reproduction to fully unlock its transformative potential. Additionally, the role of trade unions in supporting and shaping the foundational economy warrants further investigation, urging future research to delineate the positionality and strategies of trade unions in the consolidation of this economic approach.

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Kuhls, S. (2024). Overcoming the jobs–versus–environment dilemma: a feminist analysis of the foundational economy. Working Paper, No. 226/2024. Berlin School of Economics and Law.

https://www.ipe-berlin.org/en/publications/working-papers/

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The concept of the ‘shifting baseline syndrome’ has assisted researchers in understanding how expectations for the health of the environment deteriorate, despite known, often widespread, and significant impacts from human activities. The concept has been used to demonstrate that more accurate assessment of historical ecosystem decline can be achieved by balancing contemporary perceptions with other sorts of evidence, and is now widely referred to in studies assessing environmental change.

The potential of this concept as a model for examining and addressing complex and multidimensional social-ecological interactions, however, is underexplored and current approaches have limitations. We perceive the shifting baseline syndrome as a rare working example of a ‘connective concept’ that can work across fields of science, the humanities and others and that re-envisioning the concept in this way would assist us to establish more complete, true and reflective environmental baselines.

Through our diverse author team, from a range of disciplines, geographies and cultural backgrounds, we identify gaps in current knowledge of the shifting baseline syndrome concept, its use and its effects, and describe several approaches that could be taken to improve investigations and capitalise on the connectivity that it fosters. This re-envisioning could support a more informed and just way forward in addressing global environmental change.

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Alleway, H. K., et al. (2023). The shifting baseline syndrome as a connective concept for more informed and just responses to global environmental change. People and Nature, 5, 885–896.

 
https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10473

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With the meaning of colonization transformed to refer to shifting migration patterns (wrought by nothing other than the colonial structure of the global economy), changing gender norms and a homogenizing liberal culture, the far right can present themselves as champions of popular sovereignty and the self-determination of peoples. They can also stage an imaginary struggle against the ravages of transnational capital. To decolonize, for these thinkers, is to split off one kind of capitalism from another, a procedure well established within far-right thought. A globalist, rootless, parasitic, financial capitalism (imagined now as colonial) is separated from a racial, national, industrial capitalism (imagined as self-determining, or even decolonial). It goes without saying that such a separation is illusory: global systems of capital accumulation, with their entwined processes of immaterial speculation and earthly extraction, cannot be decoupled in this way.

Today, democracy is understood in its shallow form: to many, it just means that the people can vote in elections for their government. But there is a deeper, more inspiring conception of democracy.

Deep democracy begins with a faith in the creative power of ordinary citizens — a presumption that all of us, not just a select few, can participate in the co-creation of our nation. From this faith comes the pursuit of a government and economy that are not only for all people, but of and by all people, as well. To be a deep democrat is to believe that when we open up power to more people in more ways — when people have a say in the forces that govern their lives — we flourish as a nation. It is to define freedom not as freedom from government (as libertarians define it), but rather as Martin Luther King Jr. defined it: as “participation in power.”

The escalation, diversification and broadening of the climate crisis is particularly concerning as fascism, in both its historical and contemporary forms, feeds off popular anxieties produced by crises. At the same time, it aligns itself with particular sections of capital to further its project. We can therefore expect to see the far right align itself with sections that will exacerbate the climate crisis, while also using the consequences of the crisis to stoke nationalist sentiments and further intensify border regimes.

As the crisis entrenches, some parts of the world will become increasingly inhospitable to human life, forcing people to move in large numbers. Here, climate struggles will increasingly intersect with the fight for a just transition for all – and against militarized borders, authoritarianism and an entrenchment of existing global systems of racial domination.

After the state passed a law barring government contractors from donating to politicians, fund-raising parties showed just how completely the reform effort failed.

In Hawaiʻi, legislators serve part time and can hold outside jobs, which can increase the risk that they will face conflicts of interest. Nevertheless, they are among the highest-paid part-time lawmakers in the country, earning an annual state salary of about $72,000.

An examination of their financial interests found that a dozen of them were employees, directors or co-owners of companies that had won contracts. Since 2006, those companies have gotten at least $56 million in state deals, according to Hawaiʻi’s contract database.

We seek not to destroy capitalism, nor to reform it, but to transcend it – to consciously and rapidly evolve past it. We acknowledge its current hegemony, and accept that this arose as a result of its dynamism, adaptability, and ability to offer value to those who built it (while also recognizing its inherent violence towards the people and places which it so forcibly transformed). But the law of diminishing returns has set in, and the future negatives now dangerously and imminently outweigh the historic positives.

Many justifiable and insightful critiques of capitalism have been made, but what drives us now is a single, specific and urgent analysis: that the multiple crises facing humanity – crises which carry high existential risk – cannot be resolved under capitalism, or by any reformation of capitalism. That the social relations which have developed over the past two centuries under capitalism directly produce the civilization-threatening destruction which humans now inflict upon the carrying capacity of the biosphere.

(The following letter was shared with us
by 350 Hawaiʻi)

I am Dr. Donn J. Viviani, Kailua Resident and President of the Climate Protection and Restoration Initiative. I write today as a Hawai’i taxpayer, a scientist, and most importantly, grandfather of eight keiki, two of whom live in Mānoa, concerning Navahine v. the Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation.

I was extremely proud when Hawai’i became the first state to declare a climate emergency. But I am now appalled that $2.25 million of state taxpayer money is budgeted for an outside law firm to resist the reasonable request of these keiki o ka ‘aina.

Faced with accelerating disruptions and social and environmental breakdowns, traditional forms of philanthropic giving may be less effective than they once were. Confronted with societal divisions, wars, and the climate crisis, core actors in philanthropy have begun to ask how philanthropy can respond more effectively in moments of a polycrisis. How can philanthropy deal with new forms of hypercomplexity? What is the role of philanthropy in responding to breakdown, and how can it promote regeneration and transformation?

Tens of thousands of people protested across the Canary Islands on April 20 to demand changes to the mass tourism model they say is overwhelming this Spanish archipelago.

Protesters say mass tourism perpetuates an economic model that harms local residents. They want authorities to temporarily limit tourist arrivals to curb a boom in short-term rentals and hotel construction that drives up housing costs for locals.

They are calling for restrictions on property purchases by foreigners. The protesters also want residents to have a greater say in what they see as uncontrolled development that is damaging the environment.

Last week, several members of the Canaries Sold Out collective also began an "indefinite" hunger strike against the construction of two large luxury developments in southern Tenerife.

It would be an oversimplification to believe that two observers sharing a common language as their existential domain share, by necessity, the same home in which they dwell as languaging (human) beings: for every observer the reality constructed in language depends on individual memories as complex dynamic systems of past perceptual experiences, including linguistic interactions. While being of a similar general architectural design, the “houses of being” of different observers may noticeably differ in what, how much, and in what detail they offer to the view of a particular observer.

If the difference between what two observers see from their respective homes grows out of proportion, a reality witnessed by one may not be the same reality as witnessed by the other, and there may be no “together-knowledge” and understanding as the basis for joint action. Therefore, if different observers wish to coordinate their interactional cooperative goal-directed behavior in their cognitive domain, the relational domain of language, they must be aware of the constraints imposed by language on such behavior, as well as of the affordances it offers.

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My thesis in this paper is a fairly simple one, and one, I believe, that is fairly simple to support on rational grounds—although I imagine it will prove controversial among some dedicated to a philosophy of ‘scientific objectivism.’ But the thesis can be stated simply enough: A materialist interpretation of evolutionary theory cannot account for the subjective dimension of life and, in particular, cannot account for the desire for physical survival, which it presupposes. When we analyze evolutionary theory with care we discover, somewhat astonishingly, that it is actually inconsistent with a philosophy of metaphysical materialism. A full recognition of this undermines the claims of evolutionary materialists (such as Richard Dawkins and others) who have advanced and popularized the notion that the truth of evolutionary theory implies the falsity of religious belief.

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Increased interest in systemic design approaches and their impact on climate and societal crises make revisiting the theories of the commons and their applicability to system transitions a timely endeavour. By examining a case study of a marine protected area in the South African ocean, the paper explores how a commoning practice could be applied more intentionally in system design to increase cooperation amongst system actors and apply a multispecies – as opposed to human-centred – perspective to the management of natural, social, and immaterial resources.

By tracing the historical understandings of the commons, the study explores how Ostrom’s design principles could be applied as a set of heuristics to help system actors thrive in improved cohabitation. Thus, the paper draws on a working hypothesis of how economic and complexity theory could be integrated with systems thinking to create the conditions for increased stakeholder cooperation and alternative systems by design.

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Schaeper, J., et al. (2022). Social commoning as a way to transition towards alternative systems by design, in Lockton, D., Lenzi, S., Hekkert, P., Oak, A., Sádaba, J., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2022: Bilbao, Spain.

https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.511