by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Feb 20, 2026 | animals, Biomimicry, Biophilia, Biosemiotics, deep ecology, Interspecies Communication, philosophy of science
I was recently asked by a colleague the question: Why is fun, fun? As David Graeber suggests in ‘What’s the point if we can’t have fun?’ what Jared Diamond gets wrong in his book Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality is that there doesn’t...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Feb 16, 2026 | agroecology, Biomimicry, Biophilia, collapsology, Decolonization, deep ecology, Ecovillages, Naturverlassenheit, permaculture, SolarPunk
An open-access book, Eco-Social Contracts for Sustainable and Just Futures edited by Patrick Huntjens, Najma Mohamed, Katja Hujo, Manisha Desai was just published, including a chapter Varieties of Eco-Social Contracts in Japanese Ecovillages and Coliving-Coworking...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Feb 12, 2026 | Decolonization, Environmental Justice, Environmental Political Theory, Indigenous Peoples, Industrial Epidemics, philosophy of science, Plants, Public Health, Publications, Tobacco Industry
New article out in Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science exploring the most controversial plant on Earth. The paradox: Tobacco kills 8+ million people yearly through cigarettes. Yet for Indigenous peoples, it’s sacred — a messenger plant, vehicle of prayer,...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Feb 10, 2026 | agroecology, beyond idealism, Biomimicry, Biophilia, permaculture, Publications, SolarPunk, Systems thinking, Uncategorized
I’m thrilled to share that my latest essay just published in Aeon explores solarpunk—a vision of the future where technology and nature aren’t opposing forces, but collaborative partners. This biosemiotic futurism explores what would a biophilic technology...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Jan 27, 2026 | Climate Change, collapsology, Industrial Epidemics, Perverse Incentives, pollution, Systems thinking
Why the “energy transition” so often means business as usual In More and More and More, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz offers one of the most devastating empirical critiques of the idea that modern societies are undergoing a genuine energy transition. His example is not...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Jan 19, 2026 | CDoH, chemicals, Climate Change, collapsology, Communication, Discursive Gap, e-waste, Energy, Environmental Justice, Extended Producer Responsibility, Industrial Epidemics, philosophy of science, Priorities, Systems thinking
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has released the Global Environment Outlook, Seventh Edition (GEO-7) — the most comprehensive scientific assessment of the global environment to date. This landmark report synthesizes the latest environmental...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Jan 14, 2026 | Uncategorized
Meditations on ChatGHB Back in my BurningMan days, I had a lot of friends who used the drug GHB, gamma-hydroxybutyrate, a central nervous system depressant with limited medical uses, which as a party drug can lead to loss of inhibition, impaired judgment, memory gaps,...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Jan 7, 2026 | agnotology, beyond liberalism, collapsology, Environmental Justice, Environmental Political Theory, fake loops, folly, Normal is Over, Oil Barons, parasitism, Verschlimmbessern
Democracy is not “under threat.” It is being abandoned. The U.S. is sliding toward dictatorship.Europe is following closely behind.Much of the “liberal West” is choosing appeasement over resistance. This is not a sudden crisis. It is the predictable outcome of a...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Jan 5, 2026 | CDoH, Industrial Epidemics
Planetary health is not being undermined by abstract “human activity” but by specific, organized commercial strategies that systematically convert profit-seeking into ecological breakdown. The commercial determinants of health name this upstream layer of causation:...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Nov 26, 2025 | Biomimicry, Biophilia, Climate Change, collapsology, Decolonization, deep ecology, Discursive Gap, Environmental Justice, Environmental Political Theory, Greenwashing, permaculture, philosophy of science, Systems thinking
The images of these November 2025 floods in South East Asia show so starkly the total waste of whatever reasoning allows us to continue global warming. The economy isn’t getting better. People aren’t getting healthier or happier. We are trashing our planet...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Nov 24, 2025 | animals, Biophilia, Biosemiotics, Climate Change, conservation, Decolonization, deep ecology, Environmental Political Theory, Naturverlassenheit, parasitism, philosophy of science, Semiocide
Introduction: The Paradox of Fear and Death in Contemporary Japan In 2023, Japan witnessed an unprecedented 219 bear attacks, resulting in six human fatalities. The media response was immediate and visceral—front-page stories, emergency government meetings, and calls...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Nov 19, 2025 | beyond liberalism, Climate Change, collapsology, duh, Energy, Environmental Justice, folly, pollution, Priorities, Public Health, Semiocide, Systems thinking
Picture this: You run a business that makes you €64.7 billion over sixty years. Your operations cause over 1,600 earthquakes that damage almost 100,000 homes and traumatize an entire region. When the government finally shuts you down to protect citizens and the...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Nov 7, 2025 | Uncategorized
The Inner Development Goals emerge from a peculiarly Nordic scandal: Tomas Björkman, who edited Lene Rachel Andersen’s book The Nordic Secret, has spent years traveling the world promoting her work as if it were his own, leveraging her scholarship on...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Oct 17, 2025 | Artificial Everything, Bad Advertising, beyond idealism, Climate Change, collapsology, deus ex machina, Fake Freedoms, fake loops, folly, Greenwashing, Industrial Epidemics, Verschlimmbessern
Predatory ambitions: “the tactical setting of ambitious-looking but unattainable climate targets” — Ketan Joshi The Greenwashing Habitability Zone, as described by Ketan Joshi (in the first figure below), shows the usual suspects of discourses of...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Oct 5, 2025 | Climate Change, Environmental Political Theory, Harm Reduction, Industrial Epidemics, Industry Documents, philosophy of science, pollution, Priorities, Public Health, Side-effects, Syndemics, Systems thinking, Tobacco Industry
At the Smith School Sustainable Leadership Programme, Oxford What Climate Litigation can learn from the US Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement Widely seen as a possible model for pending and future climate litigation, the 1998 United States Tobacco Master Settlement...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Sep 17, 2025 | Uncategorized
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Sep 10, 2025 | Uncategorized
October (1-3) I’ll be presenting as part of Utrecht University’s CONCEPTUALIZING ECOCIDE conference on the relations between ecocide and semiocide, as part of the “Rethinking Harm in the Anthropocene” panel. This builds on my previous talks at...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Jun 22, 2025 | Uncategorized
Okay, so I’ve been doing a lot of podcasts lately. On completely different topics (a not-so-secret joy of mine is inter/trans/multidisciplinarity). But this one explicitly calls me out — It’s both very ‘business friendly’, and happens to...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Jun 22, 2025 | Biophilia, Biosemiotics, Plants
I would argue that, although I am a so-called plant philosopher, that actually this domain is the easiest starting point for understanding from a generalist’s perspective what constitutes a beautiful, intact, harmonious ecology. For example, entomology is much...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | May 27, 2025 | Bureaucratic quixotic, chemicals, Climate Change, Conflicts of Interest, Environmental Justice, Environmental Political Theory, Extended Producer Responsibility, fake loops, folly, Fragmentation, Greenwashing, Indigenous Peoples, Industrial Epidemics, Perverse Incentives, pollution, Public Health, Side-effects, Systems thinking, Uncategorized
Why is Norway investing in the Amazon Fund when it has gigantic state-owned mining operations destroying the Amazon? This paradox, or contradiction could be dismissed as merely a really expensive greenwashing campaign. Maybe Norway never cared about the Amazon in the...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | May 24, 2025 | Uncategorized
Having worked on biosemiotics for 10 years since earning my PhD in environmental philosophy on interspecies communication and ethics, I’ve found increasingly fascinating the various traps of thinking and premature conclusions awaiting the intrepid...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | May 9, 2025 | Artificial Everything, eating animals, meat, Naturverlassenheit, normalization, pollution, Semiocide, Side-effects
Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave its blessing to something that sounds like it was lifted from a dystopian novel: genetically modified pigs, designed with CRISPR technology to resist a devastating viral disease, are one step closer to your dinner...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Apr 3, 2025 | Uncategorized
De Salon Ruigoord is one of my favorite spaces in the Netherlands. If you haven’t been there yet, then you haven’t yet experienced that elegant Old World charm reminding you of the places where the Romantics became romantic enough to have their visions...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Mar 27, 2025 | Industrial Epidemics, Industry Documents, Perverse Incentives, Priorities, Public Health, Publications, Side-effects, Tobacco Industry
This follows up on my article published last year: Hendlin YH, Han EL, Ling PM. Pharmaceuticalisation as the tobacco industry’s endgame. BMJ Global Health. 2024;9(2):e013866. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2023-013866 discussing how “To revamp their image, Big Tobacco relies...
by Yogi Hale Hendlin | Mar 22, 2025 | agroecology, beyond liberalism, chemicals, Climate Change, Communication, Decolonization, deep ecology, Environmental Justice, exploitation, Fragmentation, Greenwashing, Indigenous Peoples, Industrial Epidemics, philosophy of science, Plants, Public Health, Semiocide, Side-effects, Syndemics, Talks
Everyone loves flowers. They brighten our day. They remind us of the beauty of life, and they are ephemeral, a memento mori of sorts to reflect upon our own mortality. But in the past half-century, the presence of flowers has moved from local to global markets, from...
