We rarely talk honestly about power. We use words like “government,” “market,” or “infrastructure” as if they’re neutral features of the world. But behind these polite labels lies a harder truth: a small cluster of corporations, militaries, billionaire networks, and media platforms quietly steer the systems that shape our everyday reality.
This concentrated formation is what I call the Monoculture of Power.
It operates across wealth, war, pharmaceuticals, energy, finance, food systems—everything that can be extracted, commodified, or controlled. It functions through a web of self-reinforcing interests, all driven by the same basic logic:
Extract more. Centralise more. Control more.
And nowhere is this logic more visible—or more dangerous—than in the climate crisis.
The Monoculture of Power has built an economy that burns the future to maximise present profit. Fossil fuels, deforestation, industrial agriculture, land grabs, water extraction—these are not accidents; they are the infrastructure of dominance supporting klepto capitalism.
Psychologically, this system is driven by what might be called pathological masculinity: an expansionist mindset that treats human beings and the Earth itself as something to conquer. Some within this system genuinely imagine ruling the planet, ignoring and destabilising the climate that sustains it.
Will they ultimately succeed? Perhaps—if they didn’t constantly undermine one another.
Power blocs fracture. Deals collapse. Rival states fight for resource control. Wars erupt—often over land, energy, and scarcity made worse by climate breakdown.
And millions of people are displaced, exploited, or sacrificed to these competing factions of the same extractive logic.
This is the central contradiction: the Monoculture of Power is immensely strong, yet climate instability is exposing its fragility.
The Pluriversal Commons: A Different Map of the World
Sitting within this centralising force is something far more plural, relational, and adaptable: the Pluriversal Commons.
This is not a single movement. It is a constellation of many different worlds:
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Indigenous stewardship practices
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Feminist and ecological frameworks
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Regenerative agriculture and food sovereignty
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Mutual aid and community resilience networks
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Local knowledge systems
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Renewable, decentralised energy initiatives
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Climate justice movements
The Pluriversal Commons sees the planet not as a resource to dominate but as a network of relationships to honour.
It values regeneration over extraction, complexity over efficiency, interdependence over control.
And crucially: the Commons holds many of the answers the climate crisis demands, because it never accepted the Monoculture’s fantasy of infinite growth on a finite planet.
But even the Commons is not immune.
It forms organisations that can be co-opted. It negotiates with states that undermine it. It navigates the same climate shocks as everyone else.
This is not good vs. evil.
It is a spectrum—between extraction and reciprocity, domination and regeneration, collapse and renewal.
Climate Change Makes This Tension Impossible to Ignore
For centuries, the Monoculture of Power and the Pluriversal Commons have been locked in a slow civilisational tug-of-war.
Climate breakdown accelerates the timeline.
Suddenly, these aren’t just philosophical differences—they are survival strategies.
One worldview treats the Earth as expendable.
The other recognises the Earth as kin, partner, and teacher.
The climate crisis lays bare the costs of the Monoculture’s logic.
It also highlights the strength and necessity of pluriversal ways of living.
The stakes have never been higher.
Culture: Where the Climate Future Is Actually Decided
Culture is the operating system of human meaning.
It shapes what we think, what we fear, and what we hope for.
Culture decides:
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whether a forest is a sacred being or a commodity
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whether water is a relative or a resource
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whether care is a duty or a burden
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whether the future is something to protect or something to exploit
The Monoculture of Power uses culture to rewrite the climate crisis as a technical glitch, a market opportunity, or a distant inconvenience.
The Pluriversal Commons uses culture to remember that the Earth is alive—and that humans are part of something bigger than themselves.
Culture is where climate denial is crafted.
Culture is also where climate courage begins.
So Where Do We Go From Here?
Most of us live in the space between these two worlds.
We rely on systems we distrust.
We participate in economies we hope to transform.
We feel connected to relationships the system can’t comprehend.
And we live with a climate future that feels both terrifying and still salvageable.
But once we understand that culture is imagination made real, everything changes.
If cultural stories built a world of extraction, they can build a world of regeneration.
If the Monoculture created climate collapse, the Commons can shape climate renewal.
If one worldview is ending, another can emerge.
The future is not predetermined.
It is still open, still contested, still unfolding.
The climate crisis doesn’t just demand action.
It demands a different imagination.
It demands a different culture.
It demands different worlds.
And those worlds are already here—if we choose them
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