Michel Serres is a humble and inimitable philosopher. In the clamor of promotional noise, he has started to have some recognition in the academic world but no public profile outside France.
Michel Serres thought that existing proposals for responding to the planetary crisis would not make any real difference. Concentrating on reducing carbon emissions, sustainable development projects, technological inventions, state-sponsored initiatives and ‘green new deals’ do not go far enough. He insisted that the abuse and exploitation of the earth and each other were inseparable. They both have a very long history that includes but goes well beyond corporate greed, neoliberalism, capitalism, industrialization or European colonialism.
Serres drew inspiration from what humans have in *common* with the rest of nature. We are a miniscule part of an inexplicable adventure that started some 14 billion years ago. Somehow living things have evolved on the planet through symbiotic processes. A late arrival, humans have quickly become hyperparasites. We are the problem but not the solution. Serres says we must reinvent what it means to be human not for ourselves, but to carry on the adventure of nature.
Serres’ philosophy of ecology does not simply add yet another ‘new’ perspective on the ecological crisis. He urges those who call for a new worldview, a new story, a shift in paradigm, an awakening, an eco-consciousness, a return to nature, a regenerative community, an eco-civilization, a deep transformation or a more-than-human alliance, to be humble, to go slower and *further*, to think the impossible.
Why then turn to a French philosopher who has only recently gained attention in the academic world outside France and has no popular profile? His work thoroughly challenges debates about the causes of and responses to our planetary emergency. In over seventy books published before his death in 2019 at the age of 88, Serres persistently questioned the long history of the crisis facing humankind, the uniqueness of our present era, and potential ways forward for ourselves and the rest of the earth. His books increasingly gain contemporary relevance. Serres’ writing is accessible. He distrusted the academic world and the often specialist and technical words that he claimed served only to ‘exclude people from the conversation’ (NC: 7–8). He is a truly original thinker.
For Serres, the planetary crisis, that the philosopher Edgar Morin called a ‘multi-crisis’, is not just one topic amongst many. It reached the root of his philosophy. ‘To become effective, the solution to a long-term, far-reaching problem, must *at least* match the problem in scope’ (NC: 31). He considered that we are living through a moment that is so exceptional that the *habitual rhythm of social and political change must be broken*. Serres’ thought disrupts established responses to the planetary emergency including those that claim to be offering a ‘new paradigm’ or a different ‘worldview’.
Serres was brought up by the tidal river Garonne in the southwest of France. His father was a boatman who dredged sand and Serres’ early life involved helping the family through often grueling work. In *Biogea*, he calls himself a ‘freshwater forced-labour convict’ who spent his time ‘sifting sand, breaking rocks, compacting roads’ (B: 12). As the biography by François Dosse describes in detail, Serres remained deeply proud of his humble background, which sometimes becomes tinged with nostalgia. Serres claimed that his first training came from working alongside blacksmiths, saddlers, masons, agricultural workers and sailors. He asserted that this physical work and his later life at sea as a sailor taught him more than days in the library:
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The pride in his peasant upbringing is often contrasted with city life which he views as shut off from the varied physical experiences, sights, sounds and smells of the open countryside. Going on to study in Paris in 1952 at the École Normale Supérieure, Serres found himself uncomfortable amongst a largely middle-class academic elite. His studies were paused from 1956–1958 as he conducted military service as an officer in the navy, including involvement in the Suez crisis. Returning to study in Paris, Serres went on to participate in the creation of a philosophy department at the University of Vincennes. In 1968, he published his first book on the mathematician and philosopher Leibniz, a lasting influence on his thought. He worked at the Sorbonne University in Paris and, from 1982, he was a visiting professor at Stanford University. In 1990, he was elected to the prestigious *Académie Française.* Serres continued writing up until his death in 2019.
Serres was well-known in France and over a period of 14 years on a Sunday evening he reflected on *Le sens de l’info*:
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All episodes are [**available**](https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinfo/podcasts/le-sens-de-l-info) to listen to on Radio France and reproduced in a series of books (PC).
Serres writing revisits persistent themes and opens many diverging paths. His books redirect, revise, risk, converse, cross and adventure out. The following is a very brief glimpse of some major shifts:
1968–1980 *Hermes I-V* — early deliberations covering key and enduring themes of communication, interference, translation, distribution and relational complexity.
1977 *The Birth of Physics* — a provocative reading of an ancient poem by Lucretius as a treatise on modern physics. Themes related to the alliances of all nature are picked up later in *The Natural Contract*(1990).
1980 *The Parasite* — one of his most complex books that deserves several readings, introducing the importance of interference and intrusion in the context of communication, evolutionary biology and human relations.
1983- 1993 Three *foundations*: *Rome, Statues, Geometry* — his classical historical trilogy that includes deliberations on violence, death, space and time.
1985 *The Five Senses* — an argument that philosophy has tended to concentrate on sight and language and avoided the senses of touch, sound, smell and taste.
1990 *The Natural Contract* — a legal treatise on the necessity to transform our response to the more-than-human world.
1991 *The Troubadour of Knowledge* and *The Instructed-Third* — two books that in different ways seek an inclusive knowledge, particularly undermining the divide between the humanities and science.
2001–2006 *Hominesence, The Incandescent, Branches* and *Stories of Humanism* — four of his most important later books that describe a common story of the world and an emerging era for humankind.
2008 *Malfeasance, The World War* and *Times of Crisis* — a turn toward a more combative style that recognizes the urgency of addressing the abuse of the world and each other.
2010 *Biogea* — one of his most autobiographical works, a series of short stories of encounters with people, landscapes, mountains, the sea, rivers, and wild animals.
2019 *Religion* — his final book that attempts a synthesis of his work, written shortly before his death.
Serres claimed in an interview that he was one of the first to consider the planetary crisis as a fundamental philosophical question, but such a statement needs clarification (Pan: 63). In France, there was certainly much debate in the 1970s involving scientists, geologists, botanists and agronomists. In 1974, René Dumont was the first ‘ecologist’ candidate in a presidential election, supporting his candidacy with an extensive manifesto. Dumont played an important role in combining ‘theoretical ecology and political ecology’.
Another influential intellectual was the German philosopher Hans Jonas who wrote a highly influential book in 1979, later translated as *Imperative of Responsibility* (1984). The book promoted an ethics of responsibility towards the whole of nature and future generations and has been credited with galvanizing the environmental movement in Germany in the 1980s. A French philosopher, Edgar Morin, was also thoroughly absorbed in ecological questions from the late 1970s, publishing a summary of his vision of planetary history and a collective response to the crisis in *Homeland Earth*(Morin and Kern 1999). Serres was certainly one of the first to treat the ecological emergency as a philosophical question, but not the first.
In his response to the planetary emergency, Serres focused untiringly on what humans and the rest of nature have in *common*. He employed a range of springboards for his thought involving mathematics, science, religion, history and many forms of literature, including fables and myths. Sources stretched from ancient poetry to Ovid’s tales of metamorphosis, Cervantes’ *Don Quixote*, the novels of Jules Verne and the tales of Tintin.
I like to see Serres’ thought in terms of ‘rewiggling’ which refers to allowing a river that has been straightened by human intervention to bend and spill out. The goals of ‘rewiggling’ are usually to reduce flooding, improve water quality and boost biodiversity. Serres considered that most often philosophy tries to steer a straight, logical and progressive course. Customarily, philosophy excludes the messiness of the world by thinking through general concepts or models. It takes short cuts. Serres’ work can be seen to mirror a natural river system, with varied slow and flowing water, twists and turns, falls, deep pools and shallow banks. A wiggling river has many niches for a variety of living things to thrive. A straightened river becomes clogged with single species, or the singular force of the river’s flow will cause it eventually to silt up. Biodiversity operates on multiple scales. So does Serres’ thought.
The influential American conservationist, Aldo Leopold, who Serres respected and who influenced the writing of *Biogea*, expresses a similar metaphor. For Leopold, the river displays the collective, integrated processes of living things and, like Serres, he suggests ‘a reversal of specialization; instead of learning more and more about less and less, we must learn more and more about the whole biotic landscape’ (Leopold 1993: 158). Serres thoughts are not cramped together in a strict order; they wander, journey, and take risks. A critic said one of his books seemed like several authors wrote it. This pleased him.
Influenced by his peasant upbringing, Serres questions how anyone can write about ecology and our present crisis without recognizing that we are part of a swarming entanglement of living things. He offers a philosophy of ‘nature’, but from the start it is important to clarify how he defines this term. He returns to the root of the word from the Latin *natura*, referring to ‘birth’. Nature is associated with generation and regeneration, discovery and invention. It is not something passive, out there. Nature includes humankind, but even more importantly is always being born, diverging, deviating and creating. Serres coined the term ‘Biogea’ to refer to all living things (*bio*) and the earth’s physical composition (*gea*). The human is ‘one hundred percent nature’ and ‘one hundred percent culture’ (B: 50). We are a tiny spec of nature that began many billion years ago.
I have shown some of his breath. originality and seriousness. You should read Michel Serres because you to find out why he asks us to recognise our *common identity* in the telling of a *common story* that reaches the *deep origins of our time of crisis* and evokes a radical approach to the planetary emergency and a *foundation for a new politics of hope*.
**References**
B> Serres, Michel. (2020), *Branches*, trans. R. Burks, London: Bloomsbury.
LGB> Serres, Michel. (2008), *La Guerre mondiale*. Paris: Le Pommier.
NC> Serres, Michel. (1995), *The Natural Contract*, trans. E. MacArthur and W. Paulson, Michigan: University of Michigan Press
Pan > Serres, Michel. (2014), *Pantopie: De Hermès à petite poucette. Entretiens avec Martin Legros et Sven Ortoli*. Paris: Le Pommier.
PC > Serres, Michel. (2006), *Petites Chroniques du dimanche soir: Entretiens avec Michel Polacco, avec la collaboration de Merle et Ogier*. Paris: Le Pommier.
Apps like Citizen and others are revealing something that too many families in this district do not realize. A significant number of registered sex offenders live throughout our communities many of them in close proximity to schools, parks, and places where children gather every day.
Parents deserve straightforward access to accurate information. They deserve public safety policies that genuinely reduce risk not policies designed around the comfort of offenders or the avoidance of difficult conversations. This page is about both. What the data shows, what Washington's law currently allows, how we compare to other states, and what needs to change.
Many states restrict high risk sex offenders from residing within a defined distance of schools, parks, daycare centers, playgrounds, bus stops, and other child-focused facilities. These buffer zones typically range from 500 to 2,500 feet depending on the state and the risk level of the offender.
Washington State largely lacks such statewide residency restrictions. While Washington does maintain a sex offender registry and requires offenders to register their address with law enforcement, state law does not prohibit high risk offenders from living near schools or other locations where children regularly gather. Some individual cities and counties have enacted local restrictions, but there is no uniform statewide standard meaning the level of protection a child receives depends entirely on which city or county they happen to live in.
In some neighborhoods across this district and across the state, this gap has resulted in Level 2 and Level 3 sex offenders those assessed as posing a moderate to high risk of reoffending living within blocks of elementary schools, middle schools, and public parks.
Even a single high risk offender living near a school is one too many. The question is not whether this is convenient to fix. The question is whether we are willing to protect children or not.
Washington is an outlier. The majority of U.S. states have enacted some form of residency restriction for sex offenders. Here is how several states approach this:
Florida
Prohibits certain sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school, daycare center, park, playground, or bus stop. Some counties extend this to 2,500 feet.
California
Restricts certain sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park where children regularly gather. Jessica's Law, passed by voters in 2006, established this standard for high risk offenders.
Texas
Prohibits certain sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school, daycare, or playground, and within 500 feet of a location where children commonly gather.
Georgia
Maintains a 1,000 foot buffer zone from schools, childcare facilities, churches, and other locations where children gather. Violations are a felony offense.
Washington State
No statewide residency restriction. Individual cities and counties may adopt local rules, but there is no uniform standard protecting children across the state. High risk offenders can legally reside near schools and parks.
This is not a red state versus blue state issue. States across the political spectrum Florida, California, Texas, Georgia have concluded that children deserve this protection. Washington has not followed their lead. That needs to change.
Washington uses a three tier risk classification system for registered sex offenders:
The problem is clear. Washington classifies offenders by risk level but does not restrict where Level 2 and Level 3 offenders can live. We know who poses the greatest threat to children. We simply do not stop them from living next to a school. That is a policy failure, not an oversight.
Congress has taken meaningful steps on sex offender policy, but significant gaps remain.
The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 established the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), creating a national framework for sex offender registration and requiring states to maintain registries. SORNA also created the National Sex Offender Public Website (NSOPW), which allows the public to search registries across all 50 states.
However, SORNA does not establish federal residency restrictions. It leaves that decision entirely to states and states like Washington have chosen not to act. Federal law also does not currently require states to adopt residency buffers as a condition of receiving federal funding, which means there is no financial incentive for reluctant states to reform their laws.
That is one area where Congress can and should do more.
Protecting women and children from sex offenders is not a talking point for this campaign. It is a genuine priority one that connects directly to the broader Women's Safety and Fairness Agenda that defines this campaign's approach to public safety.
Sex offender residency reform is primarily a state policy issue. Washington's legislature has the authority to act and has not done so with the urgency this issue demands. As a member of Congress, I cannot directly mandate state law but I can use the tools available at the federal level to push for change and raise the cost of inaction.
If elected to Congress, I will pursue the following:
Support legislation that ties federal public safety grant funding to the adoption of minimum residency restriction standards for Level 2 and Level 3 sex offenders particularly restrictions near schools, daycare centers, parks, and playgrounds. States that fail to act should not continue receiving full federal public safety funding without accountability.
Push for stronger enforcement of existing SORNA requirements and close loopholes that allow high risk offenders to move between jurisdictions without timely notification to local law enforcement. Currently, offenders who move across state lines can fall through the cracks between registry systems.
Use the platform of a congressional seat to bring direct public and legislative pressure on Washington State to adopt statewide residency restrictions. Elected officials who have the power to protect children and choose not to use it should be held publicly accountable for that choice.
Support improvements to the National Sex Offender Public Website to make registry information more accessible, more accurate, and easier for parents to use including better integration with local mapping tools so families can understand the real situation in their neighborhoods.
Support evidence based treatment programs and GPS monitoring for high risk offenders on supervised release. Residency restrictions alone are not sufficient they must be paired with meaningful supervision and treatment to reduce the likelihood of reoffense. Protecting children requires both keeping dangerous offenders away from them and addressing the conditions that drive recidivism.
While we work to change the law, parents in Washington's 1st District can take these steps today:
Washington State knows which sex offenders pose the greatest risk to children. It classifies them. It notifies communities about them. And then it allows them to live wherever they choose including next door to a school.
That is not a policy. That is a failure dressed up in bureaucratic language.
Protecting children from high risk sex offenders is not a politically complicated idea. It is not an ideological question. It is a basic obligation of government one that Washington State has not met, and one that far too few elected officials are willing to say plainly.
Protecting women and children will always be a top priority of this campaign. If the people of Washington's 1st District send me to Congress, I will use every tool available to do so.
UN Climate scenario, known as RCP8.5 and later SSP5-8.5, which projected severe global warming outcomes under extremely high emissions assumptions is being phased out after researchers concluded it no longer reflects the most plausible trajectory.
The man was seen getting pummelled by a local after throwing a rock at the seal on Maui.
The man who took matters into his own hands has been awarded a letter of recognition by Republican state Sen. Brenton Awa.
"Our attorney over here wants to make it clear we don’t condone violence, but we did make a letter of recognition for Mr. Ambassador of Aloha," he said.
The 37-year-old tourist is facing fines of up to $50,000 and jail time.
"Janine Benyus, the world-renowned 'Godmother of Biomimicry,' and her colleagues at Biomimicry 3.8 have been demonstrating what it takes to design human settlements—cities, village, homes, and businesses—that create the same ecological gifts as the wildland next door.
In this presentation, she helps us imagine a city that functions like a forest—storing the same amount of water, cleaning and cooling the same amount of air, cycling as many nutrients, and nurturing as much biodiversity. She also shares inspiring news about some of Biomimicry 3.8’s 'Project Positive' initiatives that reveal that this regenerative vision is indeed achievable and within our reach, if we are able to quiet our human cleverness sufficiently to be able to ask: What would Nature do here?"
(Excerpt)
>HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency moved Thursday to relax limits that require coal-fired power plants to prevent the release of toxic heavy metals into streams and rivers, saying a three-year-old rule is unduly costly for the energy industry at a time when energy demand is spiking.
Coal pollution, solar energy, fossil fuels, renewable energy
YaleClimateConnections: “Something startling is happening in the Gulf of Mexico.” Since 2012, its waters have been heating up twice as fast as the global ocean. “Trend has continued into the 2020s, with sea surface temperatures hitting record highs in both 2024 + 2025.” This has huge implications for the hurricanes that form in the Gulf—and the people who live along its shores and on the islands that dot its waters. “Hurricanes are heat engines that take heat energy out of the ocean and convert it to the kinetic energy of wind.” The maximum intensity that a hurricane can reach increases by about 5-7% per degree Celsius of sea surface temperature increase. “So the rise of about half a degree per decade in Gulf sea surface temperatures per decade since 2012 may be causing a 3% per decade increase in the winds of the strongest hurricanes.” Because stronger winds cause more destruction, this equates to about a 30% increase in hurricane damage per decade for these strongest storms.
“When a hurricane traverses a shallow area of warm ocean waters, its powerful winds churn up cold waters from the depths, cooling the surface and putting the brakes on the storm’s intensification.” But when unusually warm ocean waters extend 100 meters or more below the surface, the hurricane’s winds simply stir up more warm water, in some cases allowing dangerous rapid intensification to occur. A so-called “Loop Current” transports warm Caribbean water through the Yucatan Channel between Cuba and Mexico, northward into the Gulf of Mexico, in a “loop” southeastward just south of the Florida Keys—where it is called the Florida Current—and then just west of the westernmost Bahamas. These phenomena fueled Hurricane Helene’s furious winds as the storm bore down on Florida in 2024.
“As of May 11, 2026, sea surface temperatures and ocean heat content in the Gulf are at near-record levels, with the sea surface temperatures tied with May 11, 2024, as the warmest on record for the date—over 1 degree Celsius above the 1991-2020 average.”
One more reason this may prove to be an interesting summer for sure.
EuroClimateNews: “Meet the scientist heading to Greenland’s fjord glaciers to understand their ‘climate tipping point’” An international team of scientists is determined to understand just how quickly Greenland’s melting glaciers are pushing the Atlantic Ocean towards a “critical climate tipping point.” They will be part of a five-year project known as GIANT (Greenland Ice sheet to Atlantic Tipping Points), with 17 partners—led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS)—heading to the autonomous island this summer for a two-month expedition. “Researchers hope to grasp the level of meltwater being released from Greenland’s fjord glaciers, how it enters the North Atlantic Ocean, and how this process impacts the global climate system.”
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Centre, the Greenland ice sheet [GIS] holds enough water to raise global sea levels by 7.4 metres [~24 feet] if it were to melt completely.” The most interesting statistic broached here is that for every centimetre of sea level rise, around 6 million people on the planet are exposed to coastal flooding. “Greenland’s melting ice also discharges vast quantities of freshwater into the ocean, which scientists worry may impact a major Atlantic Ocean current system called the Subpolar Gyre,” part of the Atlantic Meridianal Overturning Circulation [AMOC].
“Researchers are travelling to Greenland this summer armed with a “sophisticated suite” of technologies including airborne drones, autonomous marine robots, satellites and instruments that can be embedded directly into glacier ice.”
“Some estimates warn that the Subpolar Gyre could change in the next four years.” So we should hope these folks hop to it.