Resources mentioned in Fritjof's talk Stefano Mancuso,
The Revolutionary Genius of Plants, Atria Books, 2017.
The author, a botanist at the University of Florence, discusses his amazing research on what he calls the "neurobiology" of plants. It reveals a surprisingly sophisticated ability of plants to innovate, to remember, and to learn, which is fully consistent with the Santiago theory of cognition.
Merlin Sheldrake,
Entangled Life, The Bodley Head, 2020.
This is the most detailed and most fascinating popular science book about fungi. The author discusses the subject from a systemic perspective, documenting, again and again, the fundamental interconnectedness of the community of life. taking the reader into a magical world, as you would expect from an author called "Merlin."
Deep Carbon Observatory, "Life in Deep Earth Totals 15 to 23 Billion Tonnes of Carbon — Hundreds of Times More than Humans" (2018)
https://deepcarbon.net/life-deep-earth-totals-15-23-billion-tonnes-carbon The technical report of the sensational discovery of a vast subterranean biosphere by a multidisciplinary team of 1,200 scientists from 52 countries.
Webb's First Images (2022)
(
https://webbtelescope.org/news/first-images/gallery)
A gallery of the first brilliant images transmitted by the James Webb Space telescope, including captions for each image.
David Korten, "Ecological Civilization:
From Emergency to Emergence" (2021)
(
https://davidkorten.org/ecological-civilization-from-emergency-to-emergence/)
In this article, David Korten, political activist and leading critic of economic globalization, presents a summary of his life's work, including a deep and eloquent critique of economists' obsession with unlimited economic growth and with the making of money as the defining goal of society, the historical context of this obsession, a concise summary of the rise of imperialism, and an outline of the essential features of an alternative ecological civilization.
Jean-Francois Bastin, Yelena Finegold, Claude Garcia, Danilo Mollicone, Marcelo Rezende, Devin Routh, Constantin M. Zohner, Thomas W. Crowther, "
The global tree restoration potential," Science, 2019; 365 (6448): 76 DOI:
10.1126/science.aax0848 The scientific report of the first authoritative study on global tree restoration, published by the Crowther Lab in 2019, which shows conclusively that planting billions of trees across the world is by far the most effective and cheapest way to tackle the climate crisis.
TreeSisters (
https://treesisters.org)
Website of the NGO TreeSisters, founded by Clare Dubois and Bernadette Ryder, which has so far planted over 27 million trees (at an average cost of 40¢ per tree) across 12 tropical locations.
Additional Resources Andreas Weber,
Matter & Desire, Chelsea Green, 2014
The author, a former student of Francisco Varela, is thoroughly familiar with the systems' view of life. In this beautifully written book, he identifies the biological roots of love as a longing for attachment and as an experience of intense aliveness. Interestingly, this feeling of intense aliveness has also been associated with spiritual experience.
Jeremy Lent,
The Patterning Instinct, Prometheus, 2017.
The author of this fascinating interdisciplinary historical narrative introduces a new perspective, which he calls "cognitive history." Instead of the traditional approach of associating the direction of history, ultimately, with material causes — geography, economy, technology, and the like — he argues that different cultures construct core metaphors to make meaning out of their world and that these metaphors forge the values that drive people's actions.
Ibram Kendi,
How to Be an Antiracist, One World, 2019.
The award-winning author, professor of history and international relations, and antiracist activist provides a brilliant analysis of the nature and origin of racist ideas, and of the powerful alternative of antiracism.
Felix Flicker,
The Magick of Matter, Profile Books, 2022
The physical phenomena discussed in this delightful book are not those involving subatomic particles or black holes, but those of the material world of our everyday experience — the phenomena explored in condensed matter physics, which can be just as magical. Throughout the book, the author playfully (and skillfully!) uses traditional terms of magic from the popular fantasy and science fiction literature which serves as a rich source of metaphors.
Floyd Byars, Bernt Capra, Fritjof Capra,
Mindwalk: The Screenplay,
Brass Tacks Press, 2021
The complete Screenplay of Mindwalk, the cult classic created and directed by Fritjof's brother, Bernt Capra; includes Fritjof's scene-by-scene scientific commentary.
Fritjof Capra,
Patterns of Connection, High Road Books,
University of New Mexico Press, 2021
A collection of Fritjof's essays, many of them appearing in print for the first time, reflecting the evolution of his thinking during five decades, as well as the history of several movements for social change — from the counterculture of the 1960s to the New Age movement of the 1970s, the emergence of Green politics in the 1980s, and the rise of the global civil society from the 1990s to the present.
