Tim Smedley's 'The Last Drop' delves into the escalating global water crisis, examining the challenges and potential solutions for a sustainable water future. The book investigates regions around the world where water scarcity is already a pressing issue, from Cape Town to California, revealing the social, economic, and environmental consequences of dwindling water resources. Smedley explores the factors driving the crisis, including climate change, population growth, and unsustainable agricultural practices. He also highlights innovative approaches to water management, such as rainwater harvesting, desalination, and improved irrigation techniques. 'The Last Drop' serves as a wake-up call, urging readers to recognize the urgency of the water crisis and to take action to conserve and protect this vital resource.
This book offers a dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging fundamental assumptions about social evolution, the development of agriculture, cities, the state, democracy, and inequality. Graeber and Wengrow argue that traditional theories of human history, such as those posited by Hobbes and Rousseau, are not supported by anthropological or archaeological evidence. Instead, they show that humans have lived in large, complex, but decentralized societies for millennia, often without ruling elites or hierarchical systems. The authors draw on extensive research in archaeology and anthropology to reveal a history that is more varied and hopeful than previously assumed, emphasizing human experimentation with different social arrangements and the potential for new forms of freedom and societal organization.
Kate Raworth's "Doughnut Economics" proposes a new economic model that prioritizes social and ecological well-being. It challenges the traditional focus on GDP growth, advocating for a system that operates within planetary boundaries while ensuring a minimum standard of living for all. The model is visualized as a doughnut, with an inner ring representing social needs and an outer ring representing ecological limits. Raworth's work has gained significant attention, influencing discussions on sustainable development and economic justice. The book offers a compelling alternative to conventional economic thinking, emphasizing the interconnectedness of social and environmental issues.
In this book, Elinor Ostrom investigates how self-organized governance systems can effectively manage common-pool resources, such as fisheries, water basins, and high mountain meadows. She challenges the conventional wisdom that such resources must be managed either by the state or the market to avoid overconsumption. Through detailed case studies from around the world, Ostrom identifies the key characteristics of successful common-pool resource management schemes and develops a theory of institutional arrangements that support sustainable governance. Her work emphasizes the importance of local knowledge, context-dependent rules, and cooperative strategies in achieving collective improvements and long-term sustainability.
How do we let go of the sense of scarcity, separation and powerlessness that defines the ways we live, care and do business together? How can we best equip our young people for the world that is coming - which is so, so different from the future we grew up believing was possible?
This week's guest, Jennifer Brandsberg-Engelmann is an educator, regenerative - and I would say renegade - economist who is Project Lead at the Regenerative Economics for Secondary Schools and Lead Author of the online textbook of the same name. Jennifer has taught economics for nearly thirty years, but as you'll hear, the Global Financial Crash led her to rethink the rules and structures of the system and now she's one of the world's leading thinkers on Regenerative Economics - how we can refocus away from business, markets and the structures of neoliberalism towards ways of being that are grounded in reciprocity, respect and responsibility, in the realities of being human in the twenty-first century.
In 2023, Jennifer stopped working as a teacher and is now focused full time on shifting the paradigm in the education system and beyond, moving us away from the toxic mindset of scarcity, competition and the rise of oligopolies, towards an understanding of our place as integral nodes in the web of life. Her new two year curriculum is one of the most ambitious I've ever seen. It builds a solid, damning critique of the old paradigm and offers credible, structured routes through to a new one that would allow us all to flourish within a thriving ecosystem, to have not just an economy, but a way of being that is predicated in reciprocity, care, sharing and the kinds of lives we yearn to lead, but don't yet know how.
Truly, this is evolutionary and if we can spread these ideas far enough, wide enough and root them deep enough in all that we are and do, I genuinely believe this is at least part of the key to the continuation of complex life on earth. Because, yes, we are that close to extinction. And yes, there is still time to veer from the cliff's edge.
So if you do nothing else this week, please share this conversation and the links within it to anyone and everyone you know who cares about shifting the paradigm - or even is involved in the education system at any level. Enjoy.
Jennifer on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-brandsberg-engelmann/
Regen Economics on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/regenerative-economics-for-secondary-schools/
Regenerative Economics for Secondary Schools - Project website (including online textbook with a creative commons license). 5/7 topics have been published + a Topic on systems thinking. https://www.regenerativeeconomics.earth/home
Reimagining Economics: Five Transformative Shifts for Secondary Schools (Version for England) - A discussion paper to help curriculum authorities consider key changes to economics curricula. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R8e3wRmHYzqPl0Mfvv34oHv610F2RH8xveQ79xoZzYs/
Regen Economics online Textbook https://www.regenerativeeconomics.earth/regenerative-economics-textbook/about-the-book
Regen Economics Open Letter on D.E.A.L https://doughnuteconomics.org/stories/open-letter-for-a-course-in-regenerative-economics
Doughnut Economics book https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Kate-Raworth/Doughnut-Economics--Seven-Ways-to-Think-Like-a-21st-Century-Economist/21739630
Teach the Future - Curriculum for a Changing Climate (Track Changes) Project
Where the Regenerative Economics for Secondary Schools got its start
https://www.teachthefuture.uk/tracked-changes-project
How captured economics stole our climate — and how we can reclaim it (Part 4/4)
Katy Shields' article in Medium with a brilliant causal loop diagram showing the reinforcing feedback loops that prevent change in the economics discipline
https://medium.com/@katyrshields/how-captured-economics-stole-our-climate-and-how-we-can-reclaim-it-part-4-4-6de66f5255af
Katy is also the co-producer of the Tipping Point podcast, a true-crime style podcast about the Limits to Growth report and how it was undermined by economists https://tippingpoint-podcast.com/
David Bollier, the expert support for Topic 2: Commons, recently released the second edition of his book Think Like a Commoner
https://thinklikeacommoner.com/
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