Great simplification pulsing lines

#31 | Frankly

Reflections on ‘Beyond Growth’

Check out this podcast

Frankly

Description

On this Frankly, Nate reflects on the Beyond Growth Conference held at the European Parliament, including the stunning public acknowledgement by EU President that a growth model based on fossil fuels is now obsolete. In the context of this growing and relevant conversation, Nate unpacks what the degrowth movement is getting right, but also what is missing from the conversation. Is it possible to purposely navigate from our current system to one with lower energy and material wealth? How does a large and growing global debt overhang impact this possibility? Is a transfer of wealth between nations feasible or even desirable based on realistic outcomes? In any case, as to the inevitability of a post-growth world, the degrowth conversation needs to be expanded.  It’s the primary movement mapping out what a desirable destination might look like as we move through a Great Simplification.

In French, we have a motto that says that a simple drawing is often better than a long explanation. Jean-Marc Jancovici Carbone 4 President

That’s very understandable because with left atmosphere thinking, one of the problems is that you see everything as a series of problems that must have solutions. Iain McGilchrist Neuroscientist and Philosopher

We can’t have hundreds and hundreds of real relationships that are healthy because that requires time and effort and full attention and awareness of being in real relationship and conversation with the other human. Nate Hagens Director of ISEOF

This is the crux of the whole problem. Individual parts of nature are more valuable than the biocomplexity of nature. Thomas Crowther Founder Restor

Show Notes & Links to Learn More

Back to episodes
Frankly#118 | The Things We Take for Granted

In this week’s Frankly, Nate shares reflections on what we take for granted in life at multiple scales: from personal health to meaningful work to relative ecological stability. The things that keep our everyday lives functioning often go unnoticed until they’re needed or suddenly absent, suggesting that real wealth might come in the form of reliability rather than material gain.

Watch nowJan 9, 2026
Frankly#117 | Behavioral Thermodynamics Part 1: Beyond the 4th Law?

In this week’s Frankly, Nate takes thermodynamics out of the physics classroom, utilizing its principles to explain the invisible forces behind growth, competition, and complexity in our world. Competing life systems build organization out of chaos in order to maximize power usage today, even if it potentially undermines survival tomorrow. Within our energetic reality of finite and destabilizing fossil fuels, this tendency towards instant power accelerates us towards planetary overshoot. 

Watch nowDec 19, 2025
Frankly#116 | Sunk Cost and the Superorganism

In this week’s episode, Nate unpacks the pervasive behavioral pull of sunk cost as a force shaping our material reality, identities, and collective expectations about the future. Past investments – in careers, possessions, and cultural narratives – lock us into patterns of defending what might no longer actually serve us. This tendency becomes more and more relevant as the world shifts in ways that demand adaptability rather than stagnancy. Deep loyalty to former choices, even as we absorb new information about our lived environments, can limit our ability to make wiser, more future-oriented decisions.

Watch nowDec 12, 2025

Subscribe to our Substack

The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future (ISEOF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, founded in 2008, that conducts research and educates the public about energy issues and their impact on society.

Support our work
Get in touch
x