What do we mean when we talk about the planetary? Why not just use familiar terms like global or international?

For the first episode of our new season on planetary diplomacy, we sat down with Jonathan Blake, Associate Director of Programs at the Berggruen Institute, to define our terms. Jonathan is the co-author, with Nils Gilman, of Children of a Modest Star: Planetary Thinking for an Age of Crises, a provocative re-imagining of our institutions in the face of supranational challenges like climate change, pollution, global pandemics and more.

In this conversation, we explore how planetary thinking can offer a useful perspective on the intertwined natural, social, and technological systems that shape life on earth, and how it can inform governance from the local to the global scale.