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.
[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.
Platform News
[Feb. 12, 2026] Are we already at or close to a Point of no Return?: Damian Carrington raises this question in his article in the Guardian titled “Point of no return: a hellish ‘hothouse Earth’ getting closer, scientists say.” The most recent paper by Ripple et al. assesses “The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory,” and the author's conclusions are pointing to an increasing probability of Earth moving into a hothouse state. The assessment should be an alarm bell for all of us. Continuing on the current path of our economy and society comes with the high risk of mass extinction, and the current uncertainty could soon turn into certainty.
[Feb. 09, 2026] TROL VCC opened: The "Toward Responsible Outdoor Lighting VCC" has been initialized and is open now.
[Feb. 02, 2026] A World of Inequality: "The data presented here are striking. The richest 10% of the global population own close to three-quarters of all wealth, while the poorest half hold barely 2%. Fewer than 60,000 multi-millionaires now control three times more wealth than half of humanity combined." From the World Inequality Report 2026. In this world of growing inequality, the global population appears to be dominate and exploited by the few super wealthy.
[Jan. 28, 2026] It may not be too late to fix the Web: The article titled “ ‘It’s not too late to fix it’: internet inventor Tim Berners-Lee says he is in a ‘battle for the soul of the web’” by Daisy Dumas published in The Guardian states that the founder of the world wide web says the commercialisation of the Web has been ‘optimised for nastiness’. But Breners-Lee believes that collaboration and compassion can prevail. This is what Place4Us is all about.
