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.
[Aug 29, 2026] TLNP VCC opened: The "Towards Less Noice Pollution VCC" has been initialized and is open now.
[Aug 03, 2026] Alliance of World Scientists Declares Planetary Emergency: In the paper “ World scientists’ warning to humanity: a third notice” the Alliance of World Scientists includes the “Declaration of a planetary emergency.” The declaration states: “We, the undersigned, recognize that Earth is now in a state of planetary emergency. Climate change, biodiversity loss, land and freshwater degradation, pollution, and unsustainable production and consumption are destabilizing the Earth system that supports all life.” You can sign the declaration here ...
[Aug 03, 2026] Hothouse Earth: arriving sooner than you think…: Julian Cribb writes in his latest blog: “Latest measurements, carefully analysed to exclude anomalies such as El Nino, reveal a planet cooking up at a steady 0.48 degrees per decade since 2015, in what is thought to be the most rapid heating event in all its geological history.” We are experiencing the most rapid heating event in Earth's billions of years long history! We have caused this event with a few hundred years of sole focus on unlimited growth using all the ancient solar energy accumulated by Earth's biosphere over more than 250 million years - just because we could! That is something to reflect on!
