How do we design our built environment to be more than just 'sustainable' (doing things slightly less badly) and instead to be genuinely regenerative where all we build and make heals people and the planet? Professor. Janis Birkeland is Honorary Professorial Fellow in the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning in the University of Melbourne. Janis has dedicated her personal, professional and academic life to figuring out what is genuine sustainability - how to plan for a built environment that is not just 'less bad' than the alternatives, but actually returns more to the land and the people who live in and around it thn whatever went before.  Throughout her professional career, she has been drawn to figuring out how cities and buildings, despite their huge impacts, can transform society and save the planet. First, she became an architect and urban designer, transferring into city planning. Later, she became a lawyer to better understand the barriers to systems change. Now she is an academic, author of many dozens of papers and a number of books, of which the most recent is ‘Net- Positive Design and Sustainable Urban Development’. She is a clear and consistent advocate for the design of human settlements that are socially and ecologically ‘net positive’ and has just published "Net-Positive Design and Sustainable Urban Development" (Routledge) which provides methods, models and metrics to enable practitioners and students to create eco-positive environments. It also includes a free computer app to facilitate net-positive designIn this wide-ranging conversation, we explore the myriad ways we could choose to design our buildings differently - and the many practical ways we could upgrade what exists as well as creating new models for what might arise.  Janis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janis-birkeland-84135120/Net Positive Design WebsiteAlgae-Tecture: https://carloratti.com/project/algaetecture/Mycelial Bricks: https://wasterush.info/mycelium-construction/https://whitneyfungifun.wordpress.com/2017/04/13/sustainability-of-mycelium-bricks/https://happho.com/an-emerging-sustainable-construction-material-mycelium-bricks/https://www.certifiedenergy.com.au/emerging-materials/emerging-materials-mycelium-brick

What are the most effective tools we can engage to create new, different, better futures?  How do we translate our visions of a generative future into action now? What are our bridging tools, that exist now and take us forward to a world that would work for everyone?  Phoebe Tickell is an imagination activist, renegade scientist, systems thinker and social entrepreneur.  Originally trained as a biologist (she has a first class degree in Biological Natural Sciences from Cambridge University), she now works across multiple societal contexts applying a complexity and systems thinking lens and has worked in organisational design, advised government, the education sector and the food and farming sector. Until 2021 she was working in philanthropy at The National Lottery Community Fund to implement systems-thinking approaches to funding and and leading insight and learning in the £12.5 million Digital Fund.On the way through, she has co-founded a series of organisations dedicated to systems change via innovative approaches, including 225 Academy, which delivered 5-day transformative experiences for young people aged 11-18 globally; Future Farm Lab, which created systemic interventions to the food system and the Our Field Project — an experiment in a group of citizens co-owning and co-governing a field of grain in Hertfordshire.More recently, she is founder of Moral Imaginations and RenaissanceU, a member of Enspiral, part of the Don't Go Back to Normal Project, on the board of Renaissance U, and an advisor to the Consilience Project.  She's a certified Warm Data Lab host and an advisor to the International Bateson Institute.  She recently led 1,000 people in a Collective Imagination journey in Berlin and then 4,000 in Sweden. In all of this, she took time out to talk to Accidental Gods about the nature of the present moment, how we can find the learning tools that will bridge to the future we want to envision, and how we translate those visions of the future into values. In a wide ranging, inspiring, edge-walking conversation, she explored the balance of inner and outer worlds, tangible and intangible and how we might connect them; she talks of falling in love with Solar Punk again (her Twitter handle is @solarpunk_girl, so that feels quite huge), having read that 'Solar Punk without the end of capitalism, is just greenwasher CyberPunk'.  So we explore what cyber punk is, too, and Protopian writing, and how it relates to Thrutopian writing, before we move onto the nature of existing Solar Punk communities and how they frame their underlying values. This was a genuinely sparky conversation: it felt as if we really dug deep into the nuts and bolts of change and how it could happen - come along for the ride!SolarPunk links: SOLARPUNK: Life in the future beyond the rusted chrome of yestermorrowHow We Can Build A Solarpunk Future Right Now (ft. @Andrewism) How We Can Build A Solarpunk Future (ft. @Our Changing Climate)

Joe Brewer, a bioregionalist and earth regenerator, discusses the transition from the Anthropocene to the Symbiocene, emphasizing the importance of regenerative change and healing amidst planetary collapse. Topics include sustainable human culture, regenerative design, shamanic connection with the land, and reconnecting with nature in urban environments. The podcast explores the role of community and Earth Regenerators in fostering connections for mutual growth and healing.

Revolutions don't work, and we don't have time. What we need now is a Regenerative Renaissance where we all envisage the whole, beautiful, clean, thriving world we want, and set about making it happen. In this second part (of two) podcasts, Rieki Cordon of the SEEDS regenerative currency explains how a new economy could work, based on regenerative values and principles.Rieki Cordon of SEEDS says, 'We need a Renaissance over revolution because a revolution is technically just revolving. It’s having the same power structures, but with new people in power.  What’s interesting about a Renaissance is it’s a fundamental shift of the paradigm. So it’s not something that’s “us vs them”; like a revolution where the mission is often, “let’s take down the 1%.”It’s more about rethinking how our systems are designed, and how we show up in society. We have fundamentally new technologies. We have a fundamentally different environment that humanity is operating in and we’ve never before had a global civilization."SEEDS is not just about money and value exchange, it's about finding ways we can be in the world that are genuinely regenerative: Reiki is also a part of HYDRA, which is evolving the rules and baselines for regenerative villages.  In this second of two parts, we explore how a genuine regenerative renaissance might spread, how it might look and feel - how we can make it work. SEEDS: https://joinseeds.earthSEEDS conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqfAy1mKQGM

We all know that our economic system is broken - that the ways we share value are skewed so that the super-rich grow richer while the rest of the people and planet suffer. But if we're to replace the dollar as an international currency, what will work, how will it work, how can we make the transition to a genuinely equitable, regenerative currency?  What does a Regenerative Renaissance look like? Rieki Cordon of SEEDS has an answer. First part of two. Rieki Cordon, one of the facilitators of SEEDS regenerative currency, describes the necessary regenerative renaissance as follows: "We need it (the renaissance) to be regenerative; if not, humanity is not going to be able to continue this experiment called civilization because our planetary ecosystem services will fail. That’s one side. The other side is we can build the most beautiful world and civilization the world has ever known. And why not? Why not make all of our rivers drinkable again? Why not live in forests full of food?"  And why not create a currency that grows out of, through and alongside community so that never again do we enter into the bizarre transactional nightmare of debt and compound interest where, beyond a certain threshold, money is a self-replicating extractor, sucking value and life from people and planet. SEEDS currency is built on the blockchain, but it's not Bitcoin: the principles that govern its creation and exchange are built on the values of a genuinely regenerative renaissance. In this first part of two podcasts, Reiki describes how SEEDS arose and what it can do. SEEDS: https://joinseeds.earthThrutopia Masterclass: https://thrutopia.life

It's long been said that it's easier to imagine the total extinction of humanity than it is to imagine an end to capitalism.  But Charles Eisenstein's Sacred Economics blew that away.  An updated version has been released on the tenth anniversary of publication.  Here, Della Duncan talks to Charles and his son Jimi about life, capitalism and building the more beautiful future our hearts know is possible.For over a decade, Charles Eisenstein has been a pillar of the movement to a regenerative future.  His book is essential reading, his blogs and podcasts are always thoughtful interventions that offer insight at crucial junctures of our progress towards a more conscious evolution.  He dares to go where others either fear to tread or just don't have the insight, and he leads by example: his life is based on compassion and the gift economy. He's one of the few people who lives as far as possible outside predatory capitalism.  His son, Jimi, is a transformative animator whose clear, clever art explains complex regenerative principles in ways that everyone can understand.  He, too, explores the edges of our being and lives them into reality. Here, these two remarkable people speak with Della Duncan of the Upstream podcast, celebrating the tenth anniversary edition of Charles's book, but also exploring the delicate and transformative moment in which we live, shining lights on ways we can live the change we need to see. As we head into Thrutopia, we are delighted to be able to bring you this as an introduction to thinking - and being - the transition. Sacred Economics: Money, Gift and Society in the Age of Transition: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/sacred-economics-money-gift-and-society-in-the-age-of-transition/9781623175764Jimi's You Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6IIFtrrKH_J3555XGJkl1AMusical Chairs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BZ-WGnZMXMRegenerative Agriculture: https://youtu.be/fSEtiixgRJICharles Eisenstein's website: https://charleseisenstein.orgCharles Eisenstein's Substack: https://charleseisenstein.substack.comThrutopia Masterclass: https://thrutopia.life

We all know the current system of politics and governance is utterly dysfunctional. But what will it look like - what will it feel like - to organise ourselves so that everyone has a voice, so that we come together as co-creators and build networks and movements based on our common visions and values?  With Indra Adnan of The Alternative Global, author of The Politics of Waking Up. Indra Adnan is a psychosocial therapist, founder of The Alternative Global and author of The Politics of Waking up: Power and possibility in the fractal age.  She has been a journalist, a director of a political think tank and a community organiser. She is always an activist. Her passion is the creation of methods of connection that allow everyone to be fully themselves, to find the place from which meaning and purpose arise and to act from there.  She gave up her job at the think tank on the day the British MP Jo Cox was murdered in the run up to the 2016 Brexit Referendum, and has spent the time since then considering and creating ways to bring about the change we need to see if we're going to address the climate, ecological and cultural chaos of our time. In this conversation, we delve deep into the ways we might do things differently - how does a different kind of politics and governance work? How does it feel? What are the logistics and how might we bring it about?  On the way, we consider the creation of an alternative media system - one that brings people together instead of splitting them apart - and the ways that local citizens action networks (CANs) can join together to create a movement of movements with unstoppable momentum.  Indra's Book: https://systems-souls-society.com/insight/perspectiva-press/the-politics-of-waking-up-power-and-possibility-in-the-fractal-age/The Alternative Global: https://www.thealternative.org.ukSimon Anholt: The Good Country: https://www.goodcountry.org/simon-anholtDavid Wood: London Futurists: https://londonfuturists.com/Trust The People: https://www.trustthepeople.earthMarge Piercy: The Low Road: https://thechangeagency.org/testimonials/marge-piercy/Thrutopia: https://thrutopia.life

We all know that methane is a far more dangerous greenhouse gas than CO2.  But what if we could harness it and put it to good use?  What if it we could power our cars and heat our homes on waste food? Will Llewellyn of Red Kite Management explains the potential and how to apply it.  Will Llewellyn has worked in the renewables industry for decades.  Now a co-director of Red Kite Management, he advises individuals and firms on the use of food waste, animal slurry and human effluent as feedstocks for biodigesters which can both reduce the leakage of fugitive methane into the atmosphere where it acts as a greenhouse gas and provide a power source for vehicles, a heating source for buildings and a potential baseline load filler in power generation.Will on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/will-llewellyn-31aa0420/ Waga Energy www.waga-energy.comCNG Fuels: https://cngfuels.comGeneco Biomethane: https://www.geneco.uk.com/our-services/biomethane

In a world in existential crisis, deep within what Joanna Macy called The Deep Unravelling, we have a critical need for road maps to help us navigate a way forward to a future we can't yet imagine.  Rupert Read, originator of the Thrutopia concept, discusses how he came to coin the term, what it means - and, crucially, how we get there.Nobody can doubt now that we're in the midst of the climate and ecological emergency: doom scrolling is now a national sport.  But if we think about doom, that's what we'll get and most of us would prefer that we had a way through to a future we'd be proud to leave behind. It's up to us to make this happen and Professor Rupert Read, with his long history of climate action through the Green Party, Extinction Rebellion and his writing, is well placed to make this happen. He's also the originator of the name, 'Thrutopia' - laying out the need for a Thrutopian genre in the Huffington Post back in 2017.  As we head towards the Thrutopia Masterclass and endeavour to make this happen, Rupert and Manda discuss the need for this genre and how it might look and feel. Thrutopia Masterclass: https://thrutopia.life Rupert's Website: https://rupertread.netRupert's Paper: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/rupert-read/thrutopia-why-neither-dys_b_18372090.html/IPCC report: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_SummaryForPolicymakers.pdfUrsula le Guin: The Dispossessed: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-dispossessed/9781473228412Lawyers for net zero https://www.lawyersfornetzero.comClimate Emergency Centres network https://climateemergencycentre.co.ukMothership https://mothership.sg/2021/09/climate-crisis-halimah/Guardian article on fish: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/17/trawling-for-fish-releases-as-much-carbon-as-air-travel-report-finds-climate-crisis

As our world balances on the edge of transformation, how do we rewild ourselves and our inner cities?  How do we build communities of place and of purpose that work, that give us resilience, life, hope - and a deep, enduring, magical connection to the earth?  Jamie Quince-Starkey and Ross Nicholson of Down to Earth Derby describe the utterly inspiring work they are doing to achieve exactly this. Jamie Quince-Starkey has worked with planes, trains and automobiles, but he found himself most at at home in himself, and at peace with the world when he had his hands in the soil, growing thing to eat. Many of us might resonate with this, but Jamie took it a step further and set up Down to Earth Derby, a life-changing project that, as he says, "is an idea born out of conflict; the conflict of living life in the modern-day and the realisation of the negative impact we have on this planet. The challenge is making a difference whilst also being realistic and having an understanding of how life is for the average person; I know we can’t just jump ship and move to an off-grid community (imagine if the problem was that simple)!" It's not simple, and he was working full time and had recently become a dad, but even so, he set up the project and threw himself into its mission:- to work for our communities empowering everyone to be part of making Derby a world leader in nature-based urban regeneration.  - to make living with nature a part of our everyday lives.- to create a movement with the people of Derby through a series of nature-based engagement projects and promoting the new city social.- to promote and contribute to a thriving sustainable-regenerative economy for everyone, making Derby a blueprint for world-class nature-based urban regeneration.Jamie was mentored by Tim Smit of the Eden Project, who introduced him to another Derby resident, Ross Nicholson. Ross is co-founder of Neo, an international network of 15,000+ individuals and companies across over 100 countries across the sustainable futures space which 'makes vital human connections to get stuff done.'  And getting stuff done is what Down to Earth Derby is all about - this is about creating real change in a real city for real people, working on real regenerative principles.   It's an idea that's evolving in real time and is replicable anywhere in the world.  Making change from the ground up and the inside out. "DTE Derby is about growing people, connecting with nature and the importance of creating community."If you enjoy this, check them out - and see what you can do in your local community. Down to Earth Derby https://www.dtederby.orgEden Project https://www.edenproject.comRoss Nicholson's websitehttps://neojourneys.ioTim Gill Book https://uk.bookshop.org/books/urban-playground-how-child-friendly-planning-and-design-can-save-cities/9781859469293