Mother Pelican
A Journal of Solidarity and Sustainability

Vol. 21, No. 4, April 2025 Luis T. Gutiérrez, Editor

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Paying Attention to the Signs of the Times The term "signs of the times" refers to things that are happening now and are indicative of things to come. Discerning these signs is not unlike "reading the handwriting on the wall" but requires separating facts from fictions and wishful thinking. Pope Francis has offered some guidelines for discerning the signs of the times: "time is greater than space, unity prevails over conflict, realities are more important than ideas, the whole is greater than the part" Evangelii Gaudium #222-237. Climate change is a sign. Overpopulation is a sign. So are geopolitical machinations pursuant to controlling land, energy, minerals, and other natural resources on a global scale. Our planet is getting smaller. Colonizing other planets is fiction. Welcome to the post-growth era. CONTENTS Research Issues and Forthcoming Events The End of Climate-Change Idealism: Facing Geopolitical and Economic Reality Art Berman The Great Game Reborn—Energy, Geopolitics, and the Reversal of the Liberal Order Art Berman Ecological Collapse Supersedes Financial Collapse Erik Michaels Revolutionary Times ~ Why Money and Technology Will Fail Tim Morgan What Does Sustainability Mean? Clifton Ware Two Contrasting Paradigms: Pro-Growth vs. Post-Growth Clifton Ware Introducing the Sustainable Budgets Act (Steady-State Style) Brian Czech The 7 Fundamental Drivers of Overshoot Nate Hagens Can Geothermal Power Replace Declining Fossil Fuels? Alice Friedmann Turmoil in the USA: Great Inequalities, Corruption, Over-Indebtedness, Speculation, Division, and Imperialism Rodrigue Tremblay Trump's Second Act: Power, Resistance, and the Limits of Governance Richard Heinberg Trump's Reign of Cruelty Henry Giroux Trump's Quest for 'Energy Dominance' Is All About the Vibes Kate Yoder The Wind and the Walls Nikki Woods How Mesopotamia's Urban and Industrial Revolution Created the Politics of Our Time Michael Hudson The Courage of Care Coalition Helps Deconstruct Patterns of Domination and Oppression Damon Orion The Evolution of Modernity Richard Heinberg How Can the Study of Hierarchy/Heterarchy Influence the Future? Carole Crumley What Earth Supplies and What We Need: Carrying Capacity as a Guide for Regional and Planetary Governance and Sustainability James Quilligan While Plastic Dominates Human Consumption, the Global Economy Will Remain Hooked on Fossil Fuels Adam Hanieh The Woman Who Changed Jesus' Mind About Dehumanizing Immigrants Drew Strait The Practice of Nonviolence and Catholic Social Teaching: Exploring the Intrinsic Link Elias Opongo Some Resources from the Margins to Center Nonviolence in Catholic Social Teaching Edgar Antonio López Research Issues and Forthcoming Events Visualization of the Modern Techno-Industrial System ~ But How to Visualize the Transition from Growth to Post-growth? This is a visualization of "Business As Usual" (BAU) in the current global system. Click on any NODE to start, RESET to stop, REMIX to modify (click on "how to"). Move slider knob to the left for slower BAU, to the right for faster BAU. The slowest pace (tortoise) is lazy BAU. The fastest pace (rabbit) is chaotic BAU. The + signs mean that increase in one node induces increase in another node. The - signs mean that increase in one node induces decrease in another node. Created with Loopy, a tool for thinking in systems. Courtesy of Nicky Case. For time domain scenarios, see Simulation of Transition Dynamics. Source: Our World in Data, last updated 5 March 2025. World 4.5 Simulation Model Dynamics of the Humansphere and the Ecosphere, 1900-2100 Christopher Bystroff, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 2024 LINK (for info on the 4.5 version, click on the 🛈 symbol) Theology & Integral Ecology: New Approaches to our Planetary Crisis Laudato Si' Research Institute Oxford University, UK, 24-25 April 2025 Conference Website 18th Conference of the International Society for Ecological Economics and 11th International Degrowth Conference University of Oslo, Norway ~ 24-27 June 2025 Conference Website Leveraging Ecological Economics to Advance the Sustainability Transition University of Pisa, Italy ~ 7-12 July 2025 Conference Website The 11th World Sustainability Forum ~ Sustainable and Resilient Cities World Sustainability Forum 2–3 October 2025, Barcelona, Spain Conference Website Cohabitability ~ Ecologies and Technologies of Living on Earth Czech Academy of Sciences 8–10 October 2025, Prague, Czech Republic Conference Website |Back to Outline| LINK TO THE CURRENT ISSUE          LINK TO THE HOME PAGE

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