Humanity needs a new story. Humans live by the stories they believe in. The stories modern societies enact are stories of hoarding so-called wealth, exploiting others, dominance of nature, and depleting and destroying the Earth's life-support system (ELSS) for individual benefits today. Most of these stories originate in the North Atlantic male-dominated culture of white people. We need a new ecosystem of stories that changes the way in which we are in this world and how we relate to the world and to each other. These new stories can hardly come from old white males. In this VCC, our diverse community is open to all ethnicities, genders, cultural backgrounds, sexual orientations, and generations. We aim to write and enact the new stories that can transform the virus we currently are in the ELSS into the healer of both humanity and the ELSS.
[Mar. 07, 2026] Union of Concerned Scientists Training for Activists: The UCS is offering the training webinar “Science Advocacy 101” on Thursday, March 12, 3:00-4:00 pm ET. “UCS is offering a series of virtual, skills-building webinars to provide experts in our Science Network with practical guidance on how they can engage in policy advocacy with confidence and clarity.” Registration is required to get the Zoom link.
[Feb. 23, 2026] New Story Blog on Medium: Follow Barry's New Story blog on Medium.
[Jan. 21, 2025] The Story: The Story project is a main activity on Place4Us. In the Deliberation Room "The Story", we are currently discussing the main focus and content of The Story, the process of how to get participation, and the questions we need to address in The Story. Come join us in the Deliberation Room and help us with your remarks and comments to get this project going.
[Dec. 06, 2024] Call to Participate in THE STORY Project: We are pulling together a team to work on THE STORY - Of a Thriving Humanity on a Healthy Planet. The project will create new ecosystem of stories humanity could live by and transform the virus we have become in the Earth's life-support system into the healer. There are many roles for participating: co-author, graphic designer, reviewer, commentator, audience, promoter, ... you name it. If you are interested, join us in the Deliberation Room "The Story" for a first deliberation on the contents of the book. To contribute to the deliberations, you will need to join the New Story VCC.
[Feb. 24, 2026] New Scenario for 2028 Points to an AI-related Highly Undesirable Future for Economy: Aisha Down and Dan Milmo discuss in their article “‘A feedback loop with no brake’: how an AI doomsday report shook US markets” the scenario study “THE 2028 GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE CRISIS A Thought Exercise in Financial History, from the Future” by Citrini and Alap Shah posted on February 22, 2026 on Substack. This study points out that the financial system of today was optimized over decades for a world of scarce human minds. AI changed this: “This is the first time in history the most productive asset in the economy has produced fewer, not more, jobs. Nobody’s framework fits, because none were designed for a world where the scarce input became abundant. So we have to make new frameworks. Whether we build them in time is the only question that matters.” The authors point out that the economy could find a new equilibrium, and “getting to this new equilibrium is one of the few tasks left that only humans can do. We need to do it correctly.”
