But Gopal is very clear: the future is not a void, it has a terrain. It’s a treacherous terrain, but it has its points of intervention where collective action can gain leverage and make a difference.

In quiet moments in my study, or outdoors, this deeper voice convinced me that the prospects are bleak unless we can once again relate to the Earth not as a thing or as a machine, but as a strange creature that improvises its own unfolding in the cosmos through the ongoing creativity of evolution and self-transformation.