We are no longer living through disconnected crises. We are participants—willing or not—in a planetary phase shift.

The Planetary Intelligence Bulletin is a new weekly publication from Age of Transformation that maps the pulse of that transition. Each week, it provides a data-driven, systems-literate analysis of the most urgent signal movements shaping the future of our civilization. But this is not just a newsletter—it is a cognitive toolkit for navigating the end of one world system and the emergence of another.

This initiative draws directly on my Planetary Phase Shift framework, a science-based model of civilizational transformation rooted in complex systems thinking, Earth system science, and energy-economy dynamics. For the past two decades, my anticipatory journalism and research has consistently forecast global disruptions before they surface—from the 2008 financial crash to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, from the inflationary shocks linked to the fossil fuel decline to the meteoric rise of the far-right.

The Bulletin exists to make sense of a chaotic world by illuminating its deeper structure. We do this by tracking not just events, but the underlying patterns, feedbacks and turning points across the entire planetary system—ecological, economic, political, cultural, technological. And we do so with one purpose: to equip citizens, investors, and decision-makers with actionable insight into how to navigate the polycrisis and metacrisis – what we call the Crisis of Civilization – with foresight and integrity.

What is a Planetary Phase Shift?

The concept of a "phase shift" comes from physics: the moment when a system crosses a critical threshold and irreversibly changes state. Ice becomes water. Water becomes steam. In complex systems, such transitions are non-linear, often abrupt, and deeply transformative.

In my work, a planetary phase shift refers to the interconnected collapse of the dominant industrial operating system—based on fossil energy, extractivism, and centralised hierarchical governance—and the simultaneous emergence of a new civilizational phase. This new phase is still forming, but its contours are visible in regenerative agriculture, distributed renewable energy, digital peer-to-peer economies, polycentric governance, citizens assemblies and indigenous-led knowledge systems.

We are witnessing the breakdown of the incumbent system—what I’m calling the control room and engine room of the old paradigm—at the same time that decentralized alternatives are scaling from the periphery. The core insight is that these dynamics are not isolated; they are part of a single, coherent evolutionary transition in which Earth system feedbacks, human value systems, and technological pathways are co-evolving.

The Structure of the Bulletin

Each weekly issue of the Planetary Intelligence Bulletin is built around a consistent structure that helps readers orient themselves within the turbulence:

1. The Shift Beneath the Surface – A deep dive into a major global signal—whether geopolitical, ecological or economic—interpreted through the planetary phase shift lens.
2. Human System – Divided into:
   • Engine Room (material systems: energy, food, mobility, information, materials)
   • Control Room (operating paradigms: governance, worldview, economy, culture)
3. Earth System – Signals of ecosystem breakdown and regenerative breakthroughs from around the world.
4. Signals & Data – Key metrics, visualizations and indicators mapping where the system is moving.
5. Strategic Foresight – Closing insights into what the week’s signals mean for what comes next.

This structure is designed not just to inform, but to train the reader’s capacity to see patterns, anticipate change, and allocate energy, capital or action accordingly.

What You Can Expect

Each edition will bring together empirical reporting, scientific synthesis, systems analysis and critical foresight. It will be:

• Empirically grounded – Each claim is based on rigorous horizon scanning, but using the planetary phase shift framework to see the signal through the noise.
• Systems-literate – We focus not on symptoms, but on structures, feedback loops, thresholds and tipping points.
• Civic and strategic – We provide implications not just for policymakers and investors, but for citizens, activists, and communities on the ground.

The Planetary Intelligence Bulletin will help you answer questions like:

• How are war, inflation, climate, food and misinformation interconnected?
• Where are the greatest risks for cascading breakdown?
• Where are the most promising breakthroughs—and how do we scale them?
• What does it look like to lead, adapt or invest with foresight in this new context?

A Teaser: This Week’s Bulletin

This week’s bulletin opens with the US bombing of Iranian nuclear sites—an event that reveals not just a military escalation, but a rupture in the geopolitical logic of the fossil fuel age. Simultaneously, 84% of the world’s coral reefs are undergoing mass bleaching, Europe is suffering deadly early-summer heatwaves, and global clean energy investment has surged past $2 trillion a year.

In short, the collapse and the breakthrough are both accelerating. The question is whether we are paying attention to the right signals—and whether we are ready to act on them.

In the age of disorientation, planetary intelligence is not a luxury. It is a survival imperative. 

The Planetary Signal Brief is our free, condensed edition of the long-form, in-depth Planetary Intelligence Bulletin (which goes out to the premium members)
It offers a sharp weekly snapshot of the key dynamics shaping our world.

Subscribe, share, and step into the deeper story of our time.

Glossary of Core Concepts

Planetary Phase Shift: A systemic civilizational transformation involving the collapse of the fossil-fueled industrial paradigm and the potential emergence of a regenerative, distributed, and post-extractive operating system. The latter is not guaranteed.

Control Room: The domain of worldviews, governance models, economic logics, and cultural values that shape collective decision-making and institutional behavior.

Engine Room: The material infrastructure of civilization—energy systems, food production, mobility networks, information flows, and materials—which reflect and reproduce the operating logic of the control room.

Polycrisis: The convergence and entanglement of multiple interrelated crises—climate, economic, geopolitical, cultural—into a self-reinforcing system of instability.

Tipping Point: A threshold at which a small additional stressor causes a system to shift irreversibly to a new state.

Feedback Loop: A process where a change in one part of a system either amplifies (positive feedback) or dampens (negative feedback) changes elsewhere in the system.

Degenerative System: An extractive, polluting, and inequitable system that undermines ecological integrity and human well-being over time.

Regenerative System: A system that restores ecosystems, builds social equity, and enhances systemic resilience by working with natural and social feedbacks.

Strategic Foresight: The disciplined exploration of plausible futures to inform decision-making in conditions of complexity and uncertainty.

Planetary Intelligence: The capacity to perceive, interpret and act upon systemic risks and opportunities in ways that align human activity with the Earth’s life-support systems.