Extinct & Endangered

Insects in Peril

Levon Biss and American Museum of Natural History | 2022, Harry Abrams

Pay attention to insects. Many pollinate plants. Some recycle plant and animal matter into the soil. They are food for countless other living things—and for one another, often keeping pest populations in check. Whether beetles, bees or butterflies, insects help natural ecosystems stay healthy.

But the evidence is clear: many insect species are in decline. The ones featured here are vulnerable, imperilled—or have already disappeared—and human changes to the land and climate are primary reasons.

Extraordinary images are at once our most familiar and our most mysterious fellow creatures. They seem indestructible, but on a global scale, insect species are quietly disappearing in today’s sixth mass extinction of life.

This joint project by photographer Levon Biss and the American Museum of Natural History contains indelible images of 40 extinct or endangered species in the museum’s collection, selected from its vast holdings by a team of scientists. Photographer Levon Biss invites us to look closely at these insects and reflect on their importance to our shared planet.

They range from endangered old friends such as the monarch butterfly and the nine-spotted ladybug to the distant Lord Howe Island phasma of Australia, thought to be extinct for most of the 20th century until a small population was discovered and bred in captivity in 2001.

All were sent to Biss’s studio, where he created imposing portraits that can be enlarged 300 times life-size to reveal vivid detail on a full page of form and colour – a world invisible to our naked eyes. The result is a book that insists on the momentous significance of these small, mostly unknown creatures.

Please Visit extinctandendangered.com and microsculpture.net.

Bibliography

Biss, L. and American Museum of Natural History  (2022) Extinct & Endangered: Insects in Peril. New York: Harry Abrams

The Currency of Politics

The Political Theory of Money from Aristotle to Keynes

Stefan Eich | 2023, Princeton University Press

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, critical attention has shifted from the economy to the most fundamental feature of all market economies—money. Yet despite the centrality of political struggles over money, it remains difficult to articulate its democratic possibilities and limits. The Currency of Politics takes readers from ancient Greece to today to provide an intellectual history of money, drawing on the insights of key political philosophers to show how money is not just a medium of exchange but also a central institution of political rule.

Money appears to be beyond the reach of democratic politics, but this appearance—like so much about money—is deceptive. Even when the politics of money is impossible to ignore, its proper democratic role can be difficult to discern. Stefan Eich examines six crucial episodes of monetary crisis, recovering the neglected political theories of money in the thought of such figures as Aristotle, John Locke, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes. He shows how these layers of crisis have come to define the way we look at money, and argues that informed public debate about money requires a better appreciation of the diverse political struggles over its meaning.

“By reconstructing debates about the politics of money, I not only hope to recover money as a neglected site of political thought and a potential institution of democratic self-rule but also offer an account of how the politics of money came to be eclipsed in the first place. The book thus traces two parallel movements: the periodic reassertion of a political awareness of money especially at times of crisis; and a historical reconstruction of the thinkers and debates that contributed to the eclipse of the politics of money. As a study of how things become invisible, this book constitutes an attempt to understand how and why the political dimension of money
became obscured -without ever fully disappearing.” – Stefan Eich

Recovering foundational ideas at the intersection of monetary rule and democratic politics, The Currency of Politics explains why only through greater awareness of the historical limits of monetary politics can we begin to articulate more democratic conceptions of money.

“While I work broadly from a credit conception of money, in the course of the book, I introduce a normative conceptual distinction of my own: what I call money as political currency. Political currency, as I define it, does not refer to cash or legal tender. Instead, I use “currency” in a metaphorical sense to refer to money as a tool of democratic self-government, an idea whose genealogy I trace throughout the book. As a political theorist, I am concerned with the legitimacy of institutions. One account for understanding legitimacy – for example, the legitimacy of a particular law – is to stress the way in which an institution is not externally imposed from above but authored by those affected by it. This is the basic democratic idea of government of the people, by the people, for the people.” – Stefan Eich

Bibliography

Eich, S. (2023) The Currency of Politics: The Political Theory of Money from Aristotle to Keynes. Princeton, US: Princeton University Press.

The Era of Global Risk

An Introduction to Existential Risk Studies

Edited by SJ Beard, Martin Rees, Catherine Richards, Clarissa Rios Rojas | 2023, Open Book Publishers

This innovative and comprehensive collection of essays explores the most significant threats facing humanity in the 21st century: threats that cannot be contained or controlled and can potentially bring about human extinction and civilization collapse. Bringing together experts from many disciplines, it provides an accessible survey of what we know about these threats, how we can understand them better, and most importantly, what can be done to manage them effectively.

These essays pair insights from decades of research and activism around global risk with the latest academic findings from the emerging field of Existential Risk Studies. Voicing the work of world-leading experts and tackling various vital issues, they weigh up the demands of natural systems with political pressures and technological advances to build an empowering vision of how we can safeguard humanity’s long-term future.

The book covers a comprehensive survey of how to study and manage global risks with an in-depth discussion of core risk drivers, including environmental breakdown, novel technologies, global-scale natural disasters, and nuclear threats. The Era of Global Risk thoroughly analyses the most severe dangers to humanity.

One of the most prominent advocates for the importance of global risk has been the World Economic Forum, who defines a global risk as “the possibility of the occurrence of an event or condition that, if it occurs, could cause significant negative impact for several countries or industries”. – quote from Introduction, xi

Inspiring, accessible, and essential reading for students of global risk and those committed to its mitigation, this book poses one critical question: How can we make sense of this era of global risk and move beyond it to a period of global safety?

Bibliography

Beard, S., Rees, M., Richards, C. and Rios Rojas, C. (eds) (2023) The Era of Global Risk: An Introduction to Existential Risk Studies. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0336

 

Tijd voor Transitie

25 Inzichten voor Business & Society

Wouter Scheepens, Woody van Olffen, Margot Schumacher, Eelco van Hout en Mirjam Minderman| 2022, Mediawerf Uitgevers

Onze maatschappij en economie zijn hard toe aan nieuwe oplossingen om niet alleen de wereld van morgen vorm te geven, maar zeker ook die van vandaag beter te maken. Daarvoor is het nodig dat we buiten de gebaande paden in management en organisaties leren werken en denken. Dit geldt zowel voor publieke als private organisaties, dus voor overheden en het bedrijfsleven.

De bijdragen in deze bundel gaan daarop in. De auteurs zijn verbonden aan TIAS, school for business and society. Vanuit hun verscheidenheid aan kennisgebieden worden nieuwe perspectieven geschetst en oplossingen gesuggereerd. Dit wordt gedaan aan de hand van een raamwerk voor ‘transformatieve impact’, dat is opgebouwd uit vier domeinen: verantwoord leiderschap, samenwerking, business modelling en duurzame innovatie.

De auteurs dagen de lezer uit door het stellen van reflectievragen. Want ‘Never stop asking!’ is een leitmotiv voor TIAS. Het (blijven) stellen van vragen leidt tot nieuwe inzichten, tot verdieping en begrip, tot mogelijkheden van koersbepaling in complexe tijden en uiteindelijk tot het weten hoe er positieve impact kan worden gemaakt.

Ook de praktijk komt aan bod. Niet in de laatste plaats in een viertal dubbelinterviews, met ondermeer de CEO van Heineken, een voormalig commandant van de Nederlandse strijdkrachten, sociaal ondernemers, en de voorzitter van VNO-NCW.

Deze bundel beoogt tot nieuwe inzichten, gesprekken en betere vragen te leiden. Bovenal is de wens dat de lezer wordt geïnspireerd en gefaciliteerd om zélf transformatieve impact te realiseren. Dit is een belangrijke stap naar aan een gezonde economie en maatschappij, waar welzijn en sociale rechtvaardigheid alsook het respecteren van ecologische grenzen vanzelfsprekend zijn.

Voor wie is deze bundel bedoeld?

De missie van TIAS is gestoeld op de overtuiging dat het dienen van de samenleving een opdracht is voor organisaties, inclusief het bedrijfsleven. Daarvoor is het essentieel dat leiders in organisaties niet alleen hun eigen context doorgronden, maar middels interactie juist ook andere domeinen en sectoren leren begrijpen. Daarbij worden de grenzen tussen het publieke en private domein overstegen. Die interactie tussen verschillende domeinen komt in deze bundel aan bod en dat maakt het boek geschikt voor een brede groep van lezers.

Website TIAS

Bibliografie

Scheepens, W.,  Olffen, W. van, Schumacher, M.,  Hout, E. van and Minderman, M. (2022) Tijd voor Transitie: 25 Inzichten voor Business & Society. Haarlem: Mediawerf Uitgevers

 

 

Nederland Droogteland

Van waterschaarste en bodemdaling tot regentuinen en hoogwaterboerderijen

René Didde | 2021, Uitgeverij Lias

Eeuwenlang ontworstelde Nederland zich met succes aan het overvloedige water. Er werden dijken gebouwd, waterkeringen aangelegd en land op het water veroverd. Nu kampt Nederland met langdurige droogteperioden. De bodem verzilt en verdroogt, ondanks dat er ook perioden van extreme neerslag zijn. Hoe kan dat? En vooral: hoe lossen we het op? 

In Nederland Droogteland reist milieujournalist René Didde langs droge beken en dorre landschappen, verdiept zich in vele onderzoeken en spreekt met bezorgde én vooruitziende experts. Wat zijn de oorzaken van verdroging en verzilting? Wat zijn de effecten op de natuur? Wat merkt de douchende burger? Hoe worstelen de landbouw, de scheepvaart en de industrie met de extreem lage waterstanden? Wat te doen met botsende belangen? En: hoe ziet het waterbeheer van de toekomst eruit in het veranderende klimaat?

René Didde laat de kansen en mooie initiatieven in de strijd tegen de droogte zien en is optimistisch: Nederland vindt een nieuwe balans tussen nat en droog.

Website Nederland Droogteland

Bibliografie

Didde, R. (2021) Nederland Droogteland: Van waterschaarste en bodemdaling tot regentuinen en hoogwaterboerderijen. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Lias.

Over organisatienetwerken

Marco Derksen | 2023, Koneksa Mondo

Organisatienetwerken zijn een opkomend fenomeen in de (semi-)publieke sector en vormen een – en volgens sommigen zelfs hét – ‘organiseer-antwoord’ op de complexe, maatschappelijke vraagstukken waar maatschappelijke organisaties mee worstelen.

Patrick Kenis definieert een organisatienetwerk (zie boek Organisatienetwerken) als een verband van soevereine en unieke organisaties die informatie, middelen, activiteiten en competenties van soevereine en unieke organisaties verbinden en delen om samen een outcome te bewerkstelligen die geen van de organisaties afzonderlijk tot stand kan brengen.

When McKinsey Comes to Town

The Hidden Influence of the World’s Most Powerful Consulting Firm

Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe | 2022, Penguin Books

An explosive expose of the world’s most prestigious and successful management consultancy. ‘Panoramic, meticulously reported and ultimately devastating’ Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain McKinsey, earns billions advising almost every major corporation and countless governments, including Britain’s, the USA’s and China’s.

It boasts of maximising efficiency while making the world a better place. Its millionaire partners and alumni network go on to top jobs in the world’s most powerful organisations. And yet, shielded by non-disclosure agreements, its work remains largely secret – until now. In this propulsive investigation, two prize-winning journalists reveal the reality. McKinsey’s work includes ruthless cost-cutting in the NHS, incentivising the prescription of opioids and executing Trump’s immigration policies (the ones that put children in cages).

Meanwhile, its vast profits derive from a client roster including the coal and tobacco industries and some of the world’s most unsavoury despots. McKinsey proudly insists it is a values-led organisation.

When McKinsey Comes to Town is a parable of values betrayed: a devastating portrait of a firm whose work has often made the world more unequal, corrupt, and dangerous.

*A The Times Best Book of 2022. ‘A story of secrecy, delusion and untold harm’ Observer ‘Astonishing … makes you so angry you want to chuck rocks at its offices’ Sunday Times ‘Every page made my blood boil’ Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel laureate.

Nørby Committee’s Report

Copenhagen Stock Exchange | 2001

Following the release of the Cadbury report in 1992, Denmark formulated their recommendations for good corporate governance. In 2001 The Nørby Committee’s Report on Corporate Governance in Denmark was published.

“Over the past 15-20 years, the international arena has witnessed a significant public debate about which major principles should be employed to govern companies. The general term for these principles is corporate governance, a concept that is difficult to translate into Danish. In our opinion the concept can be defined as:

“The goals, according to which a company is managed, and the major principles and frameworks which regulate the interaction between the company’s managerial bodies, the owners as well as other parties, who are directly influenced by the company’s dispositions and business (in this context jointly referred to as the company’s stakeholders). Stakeholders include employees, creditors, suppliers, customers and the local community.””

The report formulates the recommendation (p. 15, part 2 of the report) to build risk management as an integral part of good governance.

“Efficient risk management is a prerequisite for the board being able to perform the tasks for which it is responsible in the best possible way. Thus it is important that the board ensures that there are appropriate systems for risk management in place and, moreover, ensures that such systems meet the requirements of the company at any time. The purpose of risk management is: 

  • To develop and maintain an understanding within the organisation of the company’s strategic and operational goals, including identification of the critical success factors. 
  • To analyse these possibilities and challenges, which are connected with the realisation of the above goals and to analyse the risk of these goals not being met. 
  • To analyse the most important activities of the company in order to identify the risks attached hereto.

Risk management also focuses on procedures for damage control, the formation of contracts, safety at work, environmental issues and safeguarding physical values. It is recommended that the board ensures that the management establishes efficient risk management systems and that the board continuously follows up on these in order to ensure that they always work efficiently in the light of the company’s requirements. As required, but at least once a year, the board should evaluate the company’s risk management and by establishing the risk policy, decide on the company’s risk-taking including insurance, currency and investment policies. 

The risk management system must define the risk and describe how this risk is eliminated, controlled or hedged on a continuous basis. In that connection the board should consider how any collaboration with the company’s external audit could contribute to the risk management and to what extent the internal audit could be part of the risk management.”

Bibliography

Nørby Committee (2001) Corporate Governance in Denmark: recommendations for good corporate governance in Denmark. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Stock Exchange.

This publication is part of Ecosystem City: Lessons from the Forest