Understanding the polycrisis

Note: there are NO affiliate links on this page. If you buy books recommended here, I do not receive any kickback. I have included purchase links for your convenience and to help you avoid using Amazon.

If you’re new to the term “polycrisis” or would like to know my take on what it is, here’s an explanation.

Three lists of recommended resources for you
  1. Well-rounded/big-picture perspectives
  2. Authors addressing some miscellaneous particular aspects of the polycrisis
  3. Credible information on extraterrestrial visitation of our planet, an unfortunately little-known aspect of the polycrisis

big-picture perspectives on the polycrisis

  1. Jem Bendell
    • If you are going to read one book on the polycrisis, read Bendell’s Breaking Together (free as an epub file or purchasable as a paperback). It’s readable, well-researched, comprehensive, and includes Bendell’s ideas about where we go from here. Bendell also has a website with plenty of freely shared information on his views.
  2. Medicine Wheel for the Planet: A Journey Toward Personal and Ecological Healing, Jennifer Grenz
    • From the publisher: “Building on sacred stories and field observations, Dr. Jennifer Grenz shares her personal journey of joining her head (Western science) and her heart (Indigenous worldview) to find a truer path toward ecological healing. Eloquent, inspiring, and disruptive, Medicine Wheel for the Planet circles around an argument that we need more than a singular worldview to protect the planet and make the significant changes we are running out of time for.”
  3. The Great Waves of Change, Marshall Vian Summers (free to read online)
    • A book on practical, emotional, and spiritual preparation for the polycrisis. Summers’ books can be pretty repetitive and some readers are very put-off by the “prophetic” presentation, so if you’re not inclined to the read the whole thing, I would suggest just studying the “Recommendations for Living in a Great Waves World” and “Great Waves of Change Practices.” Following the advice given there could keep you hard at work … well, probably the rest of your life.
  4. Wendell Berry
    • I consider Berry to be the greatest American prophet of the late 20th century. Berry writes with eloquent outrage, offering an incisive critique of contemporary society and its catastrophically f***ed up relationship with the land. His appreciation of traditional cultures—not just “Indigenous” ones, but also traditional white/Christian American culture—points a non-partisan way forward for US politics.
    • Aside from Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community (free to check out from The Internet Archive), which was formative reading for me, I also particularly recommend The Gift of Good Land (also free to check out from The Internet Archive). But Berry was a prolific writer and you can take your pick from among his books.

Authors addressing particular aspects of the polycrisis

  1. Iain McGilchrist
  2. The Design Pathway For Regenerating Earth, Joe Brewer
    • From the publisher “How can we design our way through the struggles that now lie ahead? We design by embracing the fundamental insight that all living systems self-organize around the patterns of regeneration. Applied to the scale of entire landscapes, this reveals how all truly sustainable human cultures throughout history were organized at the territorial scale as bioregional economies. A planet-wide network of learning ecosystems is needed that can hold the complexity of birthing these regenerative bioregions during and after the rest of the collapse that we were all born into.” Joe Brewer also started The Design School for Regenerating Earth (membership starts at $5/month).
  3. Our History Is the Future, Nick Estes
    • You can’t fully understand the socio-ecological crisis of the United States today without understanding the darkest parts of our history. This book describes the history of Indigenous resistance and protest movements leading up to the 2016-17 Standing Rock demonstrations.
  4. Enshittification: It’s Not Just You—the Internet Sucks Now. Here’s Why, and Here’s How We Can Disenshittify, Cory Doctorow
    • You’re probably already aware that tech giants have been making things crappier for us all. Doctorow provides details on the mechanisms by which it is happening (but less direction on how to turn things around than the subtitle implies).
  5. Defiant Earth: the Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene, Clive Hamilton
    • As we enter a geological epoch unlike any in Earth’s history, Hamilton argues that we need a mindset shift that both acknowledges humans’ power to ignite cascading ecological reactions on a planetary scale, as well as respecting the uncontrollable nature of such reactions, and that takes responsibility for use and restraint of that power. Hamilton also co-authored with Myra Hamilton The Privileged Few, which describes some of the ways that wealthy elites consolidate power, shutting out regular people from the opportunities and luxuries they enjoy.

Credible information on extraterrestrial visitation

Note: I know a lot of people are not open to learning about this and I find that completely understandable. I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything. This list is just here for folks who want to learn more.

  1. The “Five Observables” of UAP
    • A little background info for those unfamiliar
  2. The Age of Disclosure (2025 film by Dan Farah)
    • This documentary film avoids sensationalism and presents interviews with numerous military and other government officials describing witness encounters with UAP and what appear to be coverup measures.
  3. Moment of Contact: New Revelations of Alien Encounters (2025 film by James Fox)
    • Documents a well-known case in Varginha, Brazil where multiple eyewitnesses reported a crashed UFO and alien sightings.
  4. Richard Dolan
  5. Ross Coulthart
  6. David Jacobs
  7. The Alien Abduction Files, Kathleen Marden and Denise Stoner (2013) (free to borrow from The Internet Archive)
  8. “Zimbabwe’s Mass UFO Sightings,” BBC (10 minute audio report)
  9. The Allagash Abductions, Raymond Fowler (free to borrow from The Internet Archive)
  10. Bud Hopkins
    • Missing Time (1981) (free to borrow from The Internet Archive)
    • Intruders (1987) (free to borrow from The Internet Archive)
  11. The Interrupted Journey, John G. Fuller
  12. Cattle mutilations
  13. Allies of Humanity Briefings, Marshall Vian Summers
    • Four books of briefings, available to read for free online.
    • Summers believes these briefings were dictated to him by benevolent extraterrestrials. Whatever their source, they represent the most compelling interpretation of the evidence that I have seen in relation to extraterrestrial visitation.