Accidental Gods

Accidental Gods podcast exists to open doors and break down barriers, to bring forward the ideas and the actions of and give voice to the gloriously creative people who give their lives to the idea and realisation of a regenerative future.   In this wide-ranging conversation with Solutionist and film-maker, Nicola Peel, we learned of the horrors of oil spills in the Amazon and the ways fungi could clear them if only the oil companies would let the work begin. We explored the nature of regenerative farming in the global north and - particularly - in Ecuador where agro-forestry is rebuilding soil on land that had previously been devastated by beef farming - and how the polycultures might save the cacao industry. We contemplated death and burial, whether carbon offsetting can be useful, the concept of air as a global commons and how to integrate localism into the map of a flourishing future. At the end - as often happens - I stopped recording but we carried on speaking and it seemed that Nicola was saying things that definitely should have been in the podcast. So I hit record again. Twice. We've stitched those bits on at the end for you. BioNicola Peel is a Solutionist, environmentalist, film maker and host of the Solutions podcast. For over 20 years her work has been focussed on environmental solutions. As a filmmaker, she has made documentaries to raise awareness, built rainwater systems for those drinking contaminated water and brought together scientists to use fungi to clean up oil spills. She has built buildings made of thousands of plastic bottles filled with rubbish and taught agroforestry to regenerate the soil and prevent further deforestation of the Amazon. She believes that around the world, people are waking up to the climate and ecological breakdown we are facing. For many they think it is up to governments or big business or someone else to fix the problems and feel disempowered to be a part of the change themselves. Believing, too, that every one of us have different strengths and different areas of expertise, Nicola's focus is to identify the issues we face and see what opportunities and solutions there are to address these issues. Nicola's website https://www.nicolapeel.com/Nicola's Solutions podcast https://www.patreon.com/solutionistNicola's annual newsletter https://mailchi.mp/3bb712bfc940/a-year-in-the-life-of-a-solutionist-nicolas-news-and-views-2022Film 'Blood of the Amazon'  https://youtu.be/Y5b--eRsX9oFilm 'A Solution to Pollution' https://youtu.be/KO1WjFRL_XAResearch into Taro and its impacts https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/5610413/taro-market-analysis-report-industry-size

Chris Smaje is a social scientist by training and a small-scale farmer by occupation. For the past 19 years, he has co-worked a small farm in Somerset, in southwest England.  Previously, he was a university-based social scientist, working in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surry and the Dept of Anthropology at Goldsmith's College. HIs focus was aspects of social policy, social identities and the environment. Since switching focus to the practice and politics of agro-ecology, he's written for various publications, such as The Land, Dark Mountain and Permaculture Magazine, as well as academic journals such as Agroecology and Sustainable Food systems. He blogs at Small Farm Futures and has previously been a director of the Ecological Land Co-op.  His latest book, A Small Farm Future, forms the basis of this conversation - in it, he lays out Ten Crises of our times, which, put together, create the Wicked Problem of this moment in history. From there, the remaining three parts of the book explore the ways in which rural localism can offer a way for humanity to see itself through the numerous crises we currently face both in the richer and poorer countries. In the podcast, we take the book as our starting point (really, you should read it) and look less at the why, of rural localism and more at the ways it might happen and how it might work.   We delve into the ways humanity has organised in the past (with deep passing references to Graeber and Wengrow's brilliant book, The Dawn of Everything') and how we might self-organise in the future.  We look at the future of energy, at our conceptions of prosperity, the ways small farms can feed the world - and the absolute insanity of the 'precision fermentation' model of feeding eight billion people while enabling them to flourish free of corporate capture. Chris's blog https://smallfarmfuture.org.uk/Chris's book https://uk.bookshop.org/books/a-small-farm-future-making-the-case-for-a-society-built-around-local-economies-self-provisioning-agricultural-diversity-and-a/9781603589024Chris's response to Monbiot's Regenesis https://smallfarmfuture.org.uk/?p=1978Article on The Land updating the book https://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/commons-and-households-small-farm-futureChris on Twitter https://twitter.com/csmajeGraeber and Wengrow - The Dawn of Everything https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-dawn-of-everything-a-new-history-of-humanity/9780141991061Simon Michaux https://www.simonmichaux.com/Rebecca Solnit - A Paradise Built in Hell http://www.rebeccasolnit.net/book/a-paradise-built-in-hell/What your food Qte https://uk.bookshop.org/books/what-your-food-ate-how-to-heal-our-land-and-reclaim-our-health/9781324004530The Agricultural Dilemma https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-agricultural-dilemma-how-not-to-feed-the-world/9781032260457

Jo Chidley is one of those forces of nature, unconstrained by the way things are usually done.  As the co-founders of Beauty Kitchen, she and her partner refused venture capital, keeping their business free to become a B-Corp and to put people and planet ahead of profit.  She's dedicated to producing the best outcome for the people who work for her as well as for the people who buy her products.  And in the process of finding the best ways forward, she came across the horror of single use packaging and the devastation it's causing both in terms of the extraction and the post-use pollution.  So Jo founded 'Re' to find ways to bring 'reuse' back into the 'reduce, reuse, recycle' triad. Now, she's invited to Davos to speak about the way this could transform the vast global packaging industry. So in this week's podcast, we talked about why this is essential to transforming our world, and how it could work.  Jo has ideas that seem (and are) innovative now, but ten years from now, will be the way things are done. With enthusiasm, integrity and a great deal of humour, she offers solutions to the meta-crisis that rely on each one of us changing behaviour - and she's devoting her life to making it possible - indeed inevitable - that we do. Bio: Jo Chidley is a circular economy expert, chemist, herbal botanist, and co-founder of Beauty Kitchen and Re.  Founded in 2014, Beauty Kitchen is the highest scoring B Corp in the UK beauty industry and it's changing the face of the beauty industry with its aim to create the most effective, natural, and sustainable beauty products in the world. Jo went on to found Re, a company devoted to reducing the mountains of waste from our global $1tr annual single use packaging industry.  As one of the pioneers of sustainable beauty, Jo and her company have accelerated the transition to Reuse through sustainable innovation by implementing Cradle to Cradle design into Beauty Kitchen’s circular approach. Jo's been instrumental in developing the world’s first closed-loop solution for beauty packaging and powered the service behind the ground-breaking Re programme which is resuable packaging for personal care brands & retailers. Beauty Kitchen is recognised on the UK’s 50 Most Disruptive Companies list and has won numerous industry awards, including ‘Who’s Who in Natural Beauty’.Jo has won multiple industry awards, including the Natwest Everywoman Award in the Brand of the Future Category and was recognised as one of the 10 most influential people in Natural Beauty in the UK. She’s been featured in the likes of ELLE, Woman & Home magazine and BBC News and is a founding member of the Global Advisory Board for Sustainable & Natural Cosmetics. Jo was voted Nr 2 in the 2018 Who’s Who of Natural Beauty.The Beauty Kitchen https://beautykitchen.co.uk/Re https://www.rereworld.com/Jo on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/jochidley/wet uplink https://uplink.weforum.org/uplink/s/The Ethical Consumer https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/

Rob Percival is a writer, campaigner and food policy expert with The Soil Association. His commentary on food and farming has featured in the national press and on prime time television, and his writing has been shortlisted for the Guardian’s International Development Journalism Prize and the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s Food Sustainability Media Award. He works as Head of Food Policy for the Soil Association.The Meat Paradox is his first book, and goodness, it's been a world changer - since its hardback publication, Rob's become a global superstar: invited to speak to groups across the spectrum of industry and culture about the nature of our relationship with the food that we eat. We left our first conversation each feeling that we'd just begun to scrape the surface of possibility and it would be good to talk again. We had scheduled another podcast for later this year, but I saw that the book had just come out in paperback and that coincided with our having a total technological crash in this week's interview. So Rob really kindly agreed to fill in at super short notice so that we could talk more about life and death and food and the nature of the meta-crisis. There's so much to this that really cuts to the core of who we are and where we're heading as a species, and we ended - again, feeling that there was more to say. But in the meantime, we explored the nature of the food system, the concept of precision fermentation, what makes 'whole' foods and how we might feed the world without industrial agriculture.  Rob gave his one big suggestion for moving things forward - stop eating chicken. At the end, we opened another huge topic and began to explore the nature of death, and who our fear of the unknown leads us to denial of the meta-crisis and, in the end, denial of death itself. So we'll be back when Rob's next book comes out, but in the meantime, here are more thoughts on the social, political, practical and moral aspects of how we take in the building blocks of life. Radio 4 Book of the Week https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001hf27Rob's website https://rob-percival.com/about/The Meat Paradox in paperback https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-meat-paradox-brilliantly-provocative-original-electrifying-bee-wilson-financial-times/9780349144573Rob on Twitter https://twitter.com/Rob_Percival_Previous Episode https://accidentalgods.life/the-meat-paradox/Green Alliance https://green-alliance.org.uk/GA Report  https://green-alliance.org.uk/publication/shaping-uk-land-use-priorities-for-food-nature-and-climate/Bionutrient Food Association https://www.bionutrient.org/Global Governance Futures podcast that refers to how we cope (or don't) with the inevitability of our own mortality https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/global-governance-futures-imperfect-utopias-or-bust/id1548522280?i=1000590656384

Ruth Catlow, co-founder of Furtherfield, delves into transformative concepts blending art and technology. She discusses how play can facilitate deep connections and even challenge societal norms, introducing innovative ideas like pacifist chess. The conversation explores quadratic voting as a revolutionary democratic tool, emphasizing its potential to foster inclusivity on a larger scale. Ruth also shares insights on engaging communities through ecological role-play, envisioning a future where all species have a voice in decision-making.

This week's guest is a friend of the podcast, Dr Gail Bradbrook.  Best known for her role in co-founding Extinction Rebellion, Gail is one of our nation's (and our world's) deepest thinkers on radical change: what will it take to shift the juggernaut of predatory capitalism from the orgy of extraction, consumption and destruction that has brought us to the edge of crisis, and instead turn it towards a celebration of life in all its forms? Gail is also a leading beacon of practical activism - how can we bring the collective conversation to bear on the existential crises of our time? In our conversation, Gail honours the teachers that have helped her to find balance and insight, and to find practical, clear-eyed hope amidst all the potential for despair.  We go on to explore her work in BCAN (see below) and, particularly, to explore the nature of horizontal organising.  In a world where half the (western) population is wedded to the old hierarchical, patriarchal structures of top-down dominance, what happens in the other half when we experiment with other, less culturally familiar ways of being? Extinction Rebellion was one of the biggest, and most public expressions of horizontal organising in the modern contemporary world. A great deal of theory was put into practice and the results were often visible in newspaper headlines.  Recorded a mere handful of days after the 'We Quit" press release from XR, we look at some of the lessons learned, and how we might do things differently next time. BIO:Dr Gail Bradbrook has been researching, planning, and training for mass civil disobedience since 2010 and is a co-founder of Extinction Rebellion (XR). Since its launch in October 2018, XR has spread around the world so that now, there are more than 1150 XR groups in 75 countries. Gail has trained in molecular biophysics, and her talk on the science of the ecological crisis, the psychology of active participation, and the need for civil disobedience has gone viral and been inspired many to join XR. She is from Yorkshire, the mother of two boys, the daughter of a coal miner, and was named by GQ as one of the top 50 influencers in the UK, and honoured in the 2020 Women’s Hour Power list for her part in instigating a rebellion against the British Government.More recently, she is one of the cofounders of the Be the Change Affinity Network of XR activists exploring ways to shift our cultural rigidity into something regenerative and distributive by design.  Gail is a genuine visionary leader - one of one of the deepest, most enlightened thinkers we know; living at the leading edge of change and exploring radical answers to the questions of our time. She's also deeply spiritual and emotionally thoughtful, and it's always an enormous joy to explore with her the big questions of our time: what are we here for and how can we shift the entire nature of our culture in practical ways? TED Talk - My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor https://youtu.be/UyyjU8fzEYUGail's Telegram link: https://t.me/+i4zNgXH_oDc4YjM0Amanita Dreamer https://www.amanitadreamer.net/Seed Sistas - https://seedsistas.co.uk/3 Horizons model - https://www.boardofinnovation.com/blog/what-is-the-3-horizons-model-how-can-you-use-it/Netflix How To Change Your Mind - https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80229847 

Eva is a climate activist, process designer and facilitator. She has co-convened the Transformative Conflict for Transition Network summit, supports sociocratic system development, decision-making and facilitation in many contexts including Extinction Rebellion Scotland.Justin is an anthropologist and activist from Edinburgh. He is a member of Extinction Rebellion Scotland. Since 2009, has worked with the Forest Peoples Programme, supporting communities to secure their community lands and determine their own futures.Long term friends of the podcast, Eva and Justin live and work right at the leading edge of change, exploring and testing ways to help people move into the flowing, more vulnerable, less triggered spaces that allow for genuine inner change, and therefore change in our outer relationships.  The spaces this work creates are essential to the move to a future where people and planet flourish. In this first Accidental Gods podcast of 2023, we explore the things that make our hearts sing, and the ways Eva and Justin's work is transforming communities around the world, with a particular emphasis on their homeland of Scotland, where Independence feels a breath away. Politics, Trauma and Empathy paper https://www.globalassembly.net/news/politicstraumaempathyRewording https://www.globalassembly.net/reworlding-2022-programmeRewording on Medium https://medium.com/experiental-space-research-lab/reworlding-the-art-of-living-systems-d6fef0deeb11Previously on Accidental Gods - Episode #44 https://accidentalgods.life/re-democratising-democracy/Previously on Accidental Gods - Episode #73 https://accidentalgods.life/reworlding-co-creating-a-politics-of-wholeness/The film on the Ogiek of Mount Elgon that Justin mentioned is hereDeep Decolonisation Resource is here

As we move from our third to our fourth year, it seemed like a good time to look back on the origins of the whole Accidental Gods project - why and how we started and what our original aims were - and then to look forward to the coming year and what we're focussing on both on the podcast and within the membership.   So much has changed even in such a short time. We're all more aware than ever of the tipping points around us, but also more aware of what we can do, of the many, many roles that are here to be filled by people who have time and energy and commitment to give to transforming the future.  So this is a paean to possibility and a thank you to all who have been part of the journey this far.  Upstream podcast with Della Duncan https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/upstream/id1082594532The Hive podcast with Nathalie Nahai https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-hive-podcast/id1387510537Richard Bartlett's blog: http://richdecibels.com/Simon MIchaux https://www.simonmichaux.com/Accidental Gods Gatherings https://accidentalgods.life/gatherings-2022/Accidental Gods Membership: https://accidentalgods.life/

In this engaging conversation, Satish Kumar, a giant in the UK's regenerative movement and founder of Schumacher College, shares his revolutionary ideas on food, farming, and education. He emphasizes the vital need to integrate agriculture into education, advocating experiential learning to connect students with nature. Kumar critiques traditional storytelling for its negativity and highlights the importance of positive narratives in fostering a bond with the environment. The discussion culminates in a serene guided meditation, promoting interconnectedness and harmony.

As the year stills and tilts afresh, we bring you our annual moment of reflection with two podcast hosts we really admire.  There's a meditation at the end, to bring you into your own space of stillness and reflection, but ahead of this, we delve into where we think the global human psyche is at this moment,  how we feel when we look upstream, and what we see; and what makes our hearts sing, and what does it prompt us to do: core questions that open up a wealth of ideas, reflections and imaginings of how our world could be as we step forward into 2023, amidst all the tipping points, clear-eyed, strong-hearted and ready to give it all we've got. Nathalie Nahai is an author, keynote speaker and host of The Hive Podcast, a series that enquires into our relationship with one another, with technology and with the living world. With a diverse background in human behaviour, persuasive tech and the arts, she brings a unique vantage point from which to examine the complex challenges we face today. Her best-selling book: Webs Of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion has been adopted as the go-to manual by business leaders and universities alike, and her new book, Business Unusual: Values, Uncertainty and the Psychology of Brand Resilience, has been described as “One of the defining business books of our times”. A consultant and facilitator to Fortune 500 companies, Nathalie also serves as a behavioural science advisor and helps organisations to ethically apply behavioural science principles to enhance their business. Having lectured at some of the world’s most prestigious institutions, Nathalie's ability to ignite conversation and offer tools and strategies with which to harness human potential, has helped countless organisations transform how they approach business online, with clients including Google, Accenture, Unilever and Harvard Business Review, among others.Della Z Duncan is a Renegade Economist. Areas of her livelihood garden include hosting the Upstream Podcast, challenging mainstream economic thinking through documentaries and conversations including most recently, The Green Transition Pt 1: The Problem with Green Capitalism and Pt 2: A Green Deal for the People, supporting individuals as a Right Livelihood Coach, helping transition businesses and organizations as a post-capitalist consultant, and teaching and facilitating retreats and workshops on the Work that Reconnects, Systems Change, and Post-Capitalist Economics. Della is also the Course Development Manager of Fritjof Capra’s Capra Course on the Systems View of Life, a founding member of the California Doughnut Economics Coalition, and a Senior Lecturer of Renegade Economics and Regenerative Livelihoods at the California Institute of Integral Studies, Santa Cruz Permaculture, Vital Cycles Permaculture, and Gaia Education. Upstream podcast with Della Duncan https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/upstream/id1082594532The Hive podcast with Nathalie Nahai https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-hive-podcast/id1387510537