Holding a Ph.D. in (Ecological) Economics and having studied international development, political science, and management, Thomas Legrand works in the field of sustainability for UN agencies, private companies, and NGOs. His focus is on forest conservation, climate change, sustainable finance, and organizational transformation.His spiritual journey began at the age of 23 with an encounter with native spirituality in Mexico, before embracing the wisdom of a wide range of traditions and practices, including meditation, energetic healing and Tai-chi-chuan. He lives with his wife and their two young daughters near Plum Village, the monastery of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in the South West of France, his country.His spiritual search, his thought as a social scientist and his professional experience have gradually converged on the importance of spiritual wisdom in humanity’s ongoing transition. Searching for a way to mainstream this understanding in the political and sustainability conversation, he has dedicated much of the last 10 years to researching and reflecting how we can radically rethink our model of development. The result is his book, 'The Politics of Being: Wisdom and Science for a new Development Paradigm' which synthesises so many of the foundations of Accidental Gods - the merging of a universal spirituality, grounded in connection with the web of life, and a political and social framework for a new way of organising ourselves and each other. In this wide-ranging conversation, we discuss how Thomas first encountered shamanic spirituality and then explore the ideas that are the backbone of his book: how do we shape our new reality and, crucially, who is already doing so? LinksPolitics of Being website: https://politicsofbeing.comThe Politics of Being: book https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Politics-of-Being-by-Legrand-Thomas/9782957758302Video intro to the book: https://politicsofbeing.comPolitics of Being Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/politicsofbeingThomas on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-legrand-b8406215/Politics of Being on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/politics-of-being/

By now it's obvious that our current system is destroying all life on the planet - and our food/farming system is key both to the current levels of destruction: industrial farming is eroding soil, poisoning the biosphere on land and sea, gobbling up fossil fuels and harming our health. Conversely, local community agriculture projects that link together viable enterprises in a network of circular economies is one part of the key to a viable, flourishing future.  Liberty Nimmo is part of a three-person team (The Three Turnips CSA) at Lower Hampen Farm in the English Cotswolds that is working towards a viable future. Their work aims to provide an environment where nature is allowed to flourish and thereby help to support a sustainable, diverse system of agriculture.  In this holistic, regenerative approach they wish to benefit all life, building soil health, contributing to cleaner air and improving water quality.  They operate a low input, low output farming system and constantly strive to reduce our energy requirements and aim to become carbon negative.Liberty herself is a Regenerative Horticultural Grower, and the Founder of Nimmo Skincare which uses Pasture Fed Tallow as a key ingredient, along with home grown oil infused herbs.  Liberty has a lifelong interest in herbal medicine and using local plants on people and livestock and combines her work at the farm with part time Italian Travel Consultancy.In this episode, we explore the practicalities of starting from scratch in the evolution of a new regenerative project: what are the aims and values that underpin it, and how can a network of enterprises grow up, each sustaining the others, so that the end result is a community supported agriculture project that feeds and nurtures the local community. Links: Hampen FarmNimmo SkinCareFiberShedZero DigCharles Dowding No Dig GrowingHuw Richards YouTube Channel (Growing)Elinor Ostrom: Governing the Commons Outrage and Optimism w Jacqueline Novogratz: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/outrage-optimism/id1459416461?i=1000570653731Nicole Masters: For the Love of Soil: https://www.farmingsecrets.com/mentor/nicole-masters/

James Brown is an athlete, inventor, social entrepreneur, multi-Paralympian gold medal winner  - and climate activist.  There was a time when James was known most for his astonishing achievements across many sports. Between 1980 and 2015, he took part in no less than five Paralympic Games (winter and summer) as well as eighteen World Championship events.His range of disciplines was extraordinary: they included track running, cross-country skiing, triathlon, swimming, road/track cycling and guide-running. He has several Paralympic Gold medals, was holder of the 800m World Record for eight years and has three other World Firsts to his name, including being the first registered blind person to compete in a World Track Masters cycling event at the velodrome in Manchester. In 2018, everything changed for James when his daughter - then at university - broke down in front of him in a cafe in Exeter and explained all she had been reading about the climate and ecological emergency.  James wept with her, but she offered hope in the shape of the newly formed Extinction Rebellion, and the possibility that non-violent direct action might help foment change. James committed to being at her side in whatever actions she took and within weeks, they were walking arm in arm to the blocking of the five bridges that were the first London Extinction Rebellion action. Since then, James has been arrested 13 times for his non-violent actions (once for spraying chalk paint on the road outside DEFRA in Bristol where it was raining so hard the chalk was washing off as they sprayed it one and was gone long before the arrest process was complete). Most recently, he spent two and a half months in Wandsworth prison for the action that propelled him to climate-activist super-stardom - when he climbed onto a plane at City Airport and superglued himself to the top. The Facebook Live video that he recorded at the time has gone viral and James received thousands of letters and emails while he was in prison, from people who felt desperate about the climate emergency and wanted to know how to find the same courage. So this is what we explore in today's episode - courage and agency and activism in an age of total transformation.  What can we do, and how can we find the courage to take the action we know the world needs? James Brown Website: https://jamesbrownparalympian.co.uk

With a track record of founding startups at a young age, and executing entrepreneurial roles in global non-profits, Saurav Roy was selected as one of the youngest Global Shapers by the World Economic Forum at Bangalore in 2017.  Since then, he has studied for a Masters in Regenerative Economics at Schumacher Collage, and is now working for the Carbon Tracker Initiative, a London-based, independent financial think tank that strives to influence the nature of global finance, away from stranded fossil fuel assets. It has cemented the terms 'Carbon bubble', 'stranded assets' and 'unburnable carbon' into the financial lexicon. Saurav's Master's thesis focused on the 'just transition' elements of the Green New Deal with the realisation that 'everything would change and everything would stay the same' in terms of the balance between the global north's endless consumption at the expense of human dignity, ecosystem annihilation and cultural balance in the global south.  He examined the lack of supply chain justice in the existing concepts, evolved radical, inspiring ideas of how a global token system might fund non-debt-based climate reparations, and created the idea of a 'Carbon Truth and Reconciliation Commission' - because not all climate devastation can be healed simply by throwing money at it. In this inspiring, thought-provoking episode, we explore these ideas in depth, evolving ideas and questions for COP27 and learn Saurav's three core concepts for healing our times. Saurav on LinkedInCarbon Tracker InitiativeSDRsBarbados PM Mia Motley: articleJayati Ghosh

Ben is head of Horticulture and Forestry at the Soil Association.  Author or co-author of eight books including Zero Waste Gargenind, The Woodchip Handbook and The AgroForestry Handbook, Ben holds specialist knowledge and experience that includes Community Supported Agriculture, woodchip, and starting up new horticultural businesses.All told, he has been working in horticulture for more than 25 years and has been with the Soil Association since 2006.During that time he has chaired the DEFRA Edibles Horticulture Roundtable, sat on the boards of the Organic Growers Alliance and Community Supported Agriculture Network UK, and on the committee of the Farm Woodland Forum.His own experience includes running a walled garden in Sussex supplying a Michelin starred restaurant, working for Garden Organic at their gardens in Kent and running the 10-acre horticultural production at Daylesford Organic Farm, before moving to the Welsh College of Horticulture as commercial manager.More recently he is project managing an agroforestry planting at Helen Browning’s farm in Wiltshire and has acted as Horticultural Advisor and Board Member for the Community Farm near Bristol.This conversation follows on from the one on Regenerative Farming with Caroline Grindod, as part of our ongoing exploration of how we can transform our food and farming systems, heading for the complete paradigm shift that we need to an entirely new system and a new way of being in the world, while allowing farmers, growers and ordinary people to continue to flourish in the existing system. Ben is at the heart of an agro-forestry revolution in the UK and abroad, experimenting and gathering data and experience in the planting of trees as we move deeper into a changing climate. We talk about the practical implications of working with trees that, by their nature, require long term thinking and planning. We learn of the mistakes that have been made, and the accidental discoveries of things that work. We explore the changing face of farming, and how agro-forestry, sylvo-pasture and other ways of farming with trees can transform modern agriculture from being part of the problem, to being part of the solution. Ben's WebsiteBen at the Soil Association Ben at the Sustainable Food TrustBen at LinkedInBen's BooksThe Woodchip HandbookPlant a Tree and Save the WorldZero Waste GardeningBooks mentioned by Ben The Reindeer ChroniclesBarn ClubEvents and Organisations: The Farm Woodland Forum 

Caroline Grindrod is a consultant and coach in regenerative systems and leadership. Along with background in environmental conservation and upland land management, holistic management and experience in designing sustainable and regenerative food businesses, Caroline has a lifelong passion for personal development, wild spaces and a growing interest in regenerative leadership.She draws upon that diverse range of skills and experience to offer an ever-evolving and truly unique approach to working with ‘keystone’ people in food and farming.Our climate is changing month on month, year on year. Growing food has always been precarious, but never more so than now. Our global food system lacks resilience and people are starving in greater numbers than ever.  If we believe the answer is not in yet more chemical inputs, or in growing food in vats that distance people ever more from the heart of the land, how can we foster resilient systems that enable people to heal our damaged landscapes while still growing good, nutritious, health-full food.  First of two episodes exploring regenerative farming in practice. The second is with Ben Raskin in 2 weeks' time. Roots of NatureWilder CulturePrimal MeatsCaroline at LinkedInWe Are Carbon  (Caroline has featured on this podcast, and recommends it) 

Exploring the work of Dave Snowden and his approach to facilitating generative change in organizations and society. Discussing upbringing, activism, empathy in governance, global landscapes, redefining narratives for social transformation, language influence, data interpretation, and empowering change. Delving into political structures, societal interactions, and closing with a call to action for systemic change.

We live in a world where facts are at our fingertips and yet we increasingly live in conceptual silos where ideas are neither broad nor deep.  How can we transform our ways of educating ourselves as we grow to adulthood/elderhood in a world where the ground is shifting under our feet? With Professor DJ Helfland, educator and astronomist.  Professor David J. Helfand, a faculty member at Columbia University for forty-five years, served nearly half of that time as Chair of the Department of Astronomy. He also recently completed a four-year term as President of the American Astronomical Society, the professional society for astronomers, astrophysicists, planetary scientists and solar physicists in North America. He is the author of nearly 200 scientific publications and has mentored 22 PhD students, but most of his pedagogical efforts have been aimed at teaching science to non-science majors. He instituted the first change in Columbia's Core Curriculum in 50 years by introducing science to all first-year students. In 2005, he became involved with an effort to create Canada's first independent, non-profit, secular university, Quest University Canada. He served as a Visiting Tutor in the University's inaugural semester in the Fall of 2007 and was appointed President & Vice-Chancellor the following year to lead this innovative experiment in higher education. For six years in a row, Quest has been ranked #1 in North America in the National Survey of Student Engagement. ​He completed his term as President of Quest in the fall of 2015 and returned to Columbia to teach. His first book, "A Survival Guide to the Misinformation Age" appeared in February 2016 and came out in paperback Aug 10, 2017.In this episode, we explore the nature of higher education in a changing world and the models that could work as we move into a time when what matters is emotional literacy and resilience and the ability to garner ideas and synthesise them broadly rather than learning 'more and more about less and less until we know everything about nothing.' Prof Helfand TED Talk 'Designing an Education for the 21st Century' Quest University in British ColumbiaA Survival Guide to the Misinformation Age by David J Helfand Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal

How can we create a world where our children can grow in safety - both physical and emotional?  How can we find that sense of psychological safety within ourselves? How can we find the authenticity and compassion to heal our own wounds so we don't pass them on? With Louis Weinstock, child psychologist and expert in complex trauma.  Louis Weinstock is a psychotherapist who works with children and the child within us all. He helps people find light in the darkness - in the things the are unseen, unheard and unspoken. For over 20 years, he has expertly guided children and adults through some of the toughest challenges life can throw at us - loss, trauma, divorce, burnout and breakdowns. And now he has a new book: How our World is Making our Children Mad - and what to do about it. He's taking 'mad' in both senses of the world - the one that means 'not fitting in with consensus reality' and the one that means 'massively angry - enough to go on strike and take to the streets'.   With absolute compassion, deep wisdom and years of insight, he opens up seven roots of our trauma and the fruits of healing that each offers if we heal it. In the podcast, we explore the origins of the book, and move beyond it to the ways we can heal ourselves and the divided culture in which we live.  We touch on some of the moving case studies in the book, and the ways we can extend the learning they bring to ourselves, our inner children, and the children in our lives, always striving for healing of self and planet.   I am always struck by Louis' deep authenticity, his emotional intelligence and his capacity to hold balance and find wisdom in the chaos of our world.  As a starter for healing, this feels huge. Louis' Website and Book: https://louisweinstock.comThe Visionaries: Rites of Passage: https://thevisionaries.org.uk/our-impact/

How do we bring the world's media on board with the climate and ecological emergency?  What would happen if they became the fourth arm of the climate movement?  Donnachadh McCarthy, journalist, columnist, author and long term climate activist explains why this is the single most urgent action we can take.  Donnachadh McCarthy is a professional eco-auditor, author and environmental campaigner. He is a former deputy chair of the Liberal Democrats and served on the board of the party for seven years. He is now not a member of any political party and enjoys working with people in all parties or none to address our common environmental crises. He is a former columnist with The Independent and has had articles printed in the Guardian, Times, Ecologist, Resurgence etc.He is the author of Saving the Planet Without Costing the Earth, Easy Eco-auditing, and The Prostitute State – How Britain’s Democracy has Been Bought. He is the co-founder of the successful cycling campaign group Stop Killing Cyclists. His environmental consultancy 3 Acorns Eco-audits helps deliver the Corporation of London’s City Bridge Trust eco-auditing programme for London charities. His Victorian home in Camberwell, was London’s first carbon negative home. It has solar electric and solar hot-water, a Clean Air Act compliant wood-burner, solid-wall insulation, rain-harvester and composting toilet. In this rawly honest conversation, he lays out the reasons why he believes that if we are to survive the Great Derangement, the media must become the fourth pillar of the environment movement.   Along the way, we discuss his visit to the Yanomami and how it changed his life, his political experience at the rotten core of Britain's corrupt political system, and his swan-dive into a new future on the stage at Covent Garden.  Join us to reframe the setting of your intent. Climate Media Coalition http://climatemediacoalition.org/ Donnachadh on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/donnachadhBook: The Prostitute State: http://www.theprostitutestate.co.uk/buy.htmlPioneering the Possible by Scilla Elworthy