Humanity needs a new story. Humans live by the stories they believe in. The stories modern societies enact are stories of hoarding so-called wealth, exploiting others, dominance of nature, and depleting and destroying the Earth's life-support system (ELSS) for individual benefits today. Most of these stories originate in the North Atlantic male-dominated culture of white people. We need a new ecosystem of stories that changes the way in which we are in this world and how we relate to the world and to each other. These new stories can hardly come from old white males. In this VCC, our diverse community is open to all ethnicities, genders, cultural backgrounds, sexual orientations, and generations. We aim to write and enact the new stories that can transform the virus we currently are in the ELSS into the healer of both humanity and the ELSS.
[Mar. 07, 2026] Union of Concerned Scientists Training for Activists: The UCS is offering the training webinar “Science Advocacy 101” on Thursday, March 12, 3:00-4:00 pm ET. “UCS is offering a series of virtual, skills-building webinars to provide experts in our Science Network with practical guidance on how they can engage in policy advocacy with confidence and clarity.” Registration is required to get the Zoom link.
[Feb. 23, 2026] New Story Blog on Medium: Follow Barry's New Story blog on Medium.
[Jan. 21, 2025] The Story: The Story project is a main activity on Place4Us. In the Deliberation Room "The Story", we are currently discussing the main focus and content of The Story, the process of how to get participation, and the questions we need to address in The Story. Come join us in the Deliberation Room and help us with your remarks and comments to get this project going.
[Dec. 06, 2024] Call to Participate in THE STORY Project: We are pulling together a team to work on THE STORY - Of a Thriving Humanity on a Healthy Planet. The project will create new ecosystem of stories humanity could live by and transform the virus we have become in the Earth's life-support system into the healer. There are many roles for participating: co-author, graphic designer, reviewer, commentator, audience, promoter, ... you name it. If you are interested, join us in the Deliberation Room "The Story" for a first deliberation on the contents of the book. To contribute to the deliberations, you will need to join the New Story VCC.
[Apr. 25, 2026] World Happiness Report Finds Positive Impacts of Collaborative Platforms: The World Happiness Report 2026 has a strong focus on the impacts of social media and the Web in general on human happiness. The results of most studies indicate that the use of most social media seems to have a negative impact on happiness, while those tools that generate trust and collaboration have a positive impact. The report sumarizes: “Internet activities fall into two groups. Communications, news, learning, and content creation are associated with higher life satisfaction. Social media, gaming, and browsing for fun are associated with lower life evaluations.” This supports the mission of Place4Us as a trust-focused collaborative platform for intercreativity and learning.
[Apr. 25, 2026] Neurodivergence VCC opened: The "Made by Neurodivergence VCC" has been initialized and is open now.
[Apr. 21, 2026] SlaveryToday VCC opened: The "Fighting Modern Slavery VCC" has been initialized and is open now.
[Apr. 19, 2026] Earth Energy Imbalance is Increasing Rapidly: Finally the extreme increase in the Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) is slowly starting to make headlines - far too late, though. The article “ What are zettajoules – and what do they tell us about Earth’s energy imbalance?” by Jonathan Watts published in the Guardian explains some of the basics. Importantly, the EEI double within only 13 years. In another article by Watts also in the Guardian and titled “ Earth being ‘pushed beyond its limits’ as energy imbalance reaches record high” the author points out that the World Meteorological Organization warned that Earth is struggling with a record energy imbalance, which is warming the oceans to unprecedented levels, making weather more extreme and threatening health and food supplies. Considering that Earth is more like a pool house with a very large pool than a greenhouse, the ocean is only delaying the heating of the atmosphere but not preventing it.
