Accidental Gods

What is the bare minimum we need world leaders to agree at COP26 and what can we do if they fail?  Rupert Read, academic philosopher, author and climate activist discusses the urgency of the moment - and how a 'moderate flank' of climate activists can grow out of the COP.  Dr Rupert Read is a long term climate activist.  On the day after this podcast goes out, he'll be in court on charges of Criminal Damage for pouring water soluble paint on the steps of a hard-core climate denying think tank.  No stranger to action as well as thought, he is one of he nation's foremost climate philosophers and in today's episode, we explore together the nature of our current crisis, the hope (or otherwise) for international agreement at COP26 and action at an appropriate scale afterwards - and then look at how we as individuals can help foment a worldwide move towards a coherent, adaptive future, including ideas such as employee strikes mirroring the 'Fridays for Future' school strikes, the employers who are actively supporting climate action, and the ways we can begin to become more resilient and less dependent on 'business as usual'.  We end by discussing the Thrutopia Masterclass, starting May 1st on which Rupert will be the inaugural speaker. Rupert Read web site: https://rupertread.net/Rupert's Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/GreenRupertRead10 Tests for COP:  https://greenworld.org.uk/article/10-tests-cop26Ocean Tipping Point Paper: https://tinyurl.com/2e25nm8sPerspective Article on Moderate Flank: https://systems-souls-society.com/what-next-on-climate-the-need-for-a-moderate-flank/New Statesman Article on employers allowing climate action: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2019/09/can-your-employer-stop-you-joining-climate-strikeSimilar article on Employers from Ian McGregor: https://theconversation.com/everyones-business-why-companies-should-let-their-workers-join-the-climate-strike-122976Tech workers global climate strike: https://www.wired.com/story/tech-workers-global-climate-change-strike/Companies who are participating in the climate strike: https://www.fastcompany.com/90403903/these-are-all-the-companies-participating-in-the-climate-strike

If we are going to meet the challenges of the climate, ecological and cultural crisis, we're going to have to change the systems that surround us: Education systems, health care systems, food systems, economic systems... ultimately systems of government.  How can we do so peacefully and kindly without leaving vast numbers of people in freefall?  The systems around us have grown up in a world that assumed them impervious to change. But - as Greta has said - change is coming. So how do we navigate it, and shape it to a flourishing future?  How can we be part of the bigger change the world needs to see?  Dr Anna Birney is Director of the School for System Change at the Forum for the Future. She is author of Cultivating System Change: A Practitioner's companion, and she is 'passionate about designing and facilitating systems change programmes that support people, communities and organisations to transform their practice'.Anna started facilitating multi-stakeholder processes around the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. At WWF-UK she ran a six-year education programme on system change which included setting up 56 communities of practice to knit together innovative practices. This experience supported her to develop practical system change frameworks for WWF-UK and Forum for the Future as well as organisations including Unilever, Nike, Shell Foundation, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Innovate UK and the NHS, through the System Innovation Lab - experimenting and learning how to develop different practices. This led onto setting up the School of System Change where as well as overseeing the learning and curriculum, Anna now coaches on a wide number of projects and initiatives including the Marine CoLab, the #Oneless project and Oxfam’s System Innovation in Woman’s Economic Empowerment. She is the author of Cultivating System Change: A practitioner’s companion which is based on her PhD.“Having cultivated the School since 2016 it gives me great pleasure to continue to engage and learn from participants, contributors and partners to evolve what we offer.  I am most excited about how we can grow the number and diversity of facilitators and the diversity of learning, exploring what systems change practice might look like in different contexts and geographies.”Links: Forum for the Future: https://www.forumforthefuture.org/School for System Change: https://www.forumforthefuture.org/school-of-system-changeYouTube Video for the BaseCamp Course: https://youtu.be/B-oqDQkQ54UAnna's Medium page: https://annasquestions.medium.com/Anna's Book: https://www.waterstones.com/book/cultivating-system-change/anna-birney/9781910174098Cultivating the Future: Medium blog: https://medium.com/school-of-system-change/cultivating-system-change-a-practitioners-companion-e05e541c1726The Presencing Institute: https://www.presencing.org/

As we understand more of the climate and ecological emergency, it becomes increasingly clear that Regenerative Agriculture needs to be one of the mainstays of our plans for systemic change.  Part 2 of 2 with Ffinlo Costain of Farmwel and the Farm Gate podcast.We live in an era of empty food, vast food miles and a burgeoning ecosystem emergency that is largely pushed by a chemical-based agriculture system that is poisoning waterways, oceans, and soil, destroying the biodiversity of our land and waters and harming the health of humanity.  A regenerative farming system that works, in Ffinlo's words 'with nature rather than in spite of nature' can do so much to improve our health, bring us back into relationship with the living earth, restore our devastated ecosystems, restore the water cycle  - and draw down CO2 into the earth so that as we build soil, we heal our climate.  With so much to go right, why are we not doing this everywhere? That's one of the questions I ask Ffinlo Costain, host of the FarmGate podcast and Founder and CEO of Farmwel, a company dedicated to helping generate momentum towards sustainable mainstream agriculture and aquaculture, focussing on the environment, people's livelihoods, and farm animal health and welfare.Ffinlo is in the almost-unique position of understanding the problems, having solutions and having the ear of people in power.  So if anyone's going to help us change, it's him.  Join us for a fascinating, detailed, inspiring pair of podcasts. Farmwel: https://www.farmwel.org.uk/FarmGate podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/farm-gate/id1490590788UNFCCC NDC calculations: https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2021_08_adv_1.pdfSoil Health Report will be released Oct 20th 2021 - available here: www.foodandsecurity.net 

How can we reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide, build living soil from the chaos of industrial farming, while growing healthy nutritious food and restoring our devastated ecosystems?  Regenerative farming has so many of the answers and this week we speak to the host of the FarmGate podcast, Ffinlo Costain. Two parts - this is Part One.We live in an era of empty food, vast food miles and a burgeoning ecosystem emergency that is largely pushed by a chemical-based agriculture system that is poisoning waterways, oceans, and soil, destroying the biodiversity of our land and waters and harming the health of humanity.  A regenerative farming system that works, in Ffinlo's words 'with nature rather than in spite of nature' can do so much to improve our health, bring us back into relationship with the living earth, restore our devastated ecosystems, restore the water cycle  - and draw down CO2 into the earth so that as we build soil, we heal our climate.  With so much to go right, why are we not doing this everywhere? That's one of the questions I ask Ffinlo Costain, host of the FarmGate podcast and Founder and CEO of Farmwel, a company dedicated to helping generate momentum towards sustainable mainstream agriculture and aquaculture, focussing on the environment, people's livelihoods, and farm animal health and welfare.Ffinlo is in the almost-unique position of understanding the problems, having solutions and having the ear of people in power.  So if anyone's going to help us change, it's him.  Join us for a fascinating, detailed, inspiring pair of podcasts. Farmwel: https://www.farmwel.org.uk/FarmGate podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/farm-gate/id1490590788UNFCCC NDC calculations: https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2021_08_adv_1.pdfSoil Health Report will be released Oct 20th 2021 - available here: www.foodandsecurity.net 

How can we build a progressive political movement that spans the world and that will take us to where we need to be: a future we can be proud of and towards which all of us will want to work?  Taking politics, activism, progressive ideals with Jeremy Gilbert, Professor of Cultural and Political Theory at the University of East London. This is one of our most nakedly political conversations - because politics is the language of power and those who rule over us do so with at least the vestige of a democratic mandate.   To understand how to affect change, we need to understand how to shift the levers of power on a worldwide scale. But change always begins at home, so in this week's episode, we're talking about political activism in the UK and where it might go in the near term.  Our guest is someone really well placed to discuss this: Jeremy Gilbert is Professor of Cultural and Political Theory at the University of East London. His most recent publications include  Twenty-First-Century Socialism (Polity 2020) the translation of Maurizio Lazzarato's Experimental Politics and the book Common Ground: Democracy and Collectivity in an Age of Individualism. His next book, Hegemony Now : How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World , co-authored with Alex Williams,  will be published in 2022. He writes regularly for the British press (including the Guardian, the New Statesman, open Democracy and Red Pepper) and for think tanks such as IPPR and Compass, is routinely engaged in debates and discussion on Labour Party policy and strategy, and has appeared on national television as a spokesperson for  Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party.He has been involved with both mainstream party politics and extra-parliamentary activism throughout his adult life, having been an active participant in the social forum movement of the early 2000s,  a member of the founding national committee of Momentum (the controversial organisation established to support Corbyn's leadership of Labour),  and being a former elected member management committee of Compass, a pluralist left-wing think tank and lobby group.Jeremy  is an an advisor to and participant in a range of ongoing projects such as The World Transformed and the New Economy Organisers Network. He has also participated in many cultural projects, particularly connected with music and sonic culture, and is a founder member of Lucky Cloud Sound System and Beauty and the Beat, two successful and respected collectives that have been organising regular dance parties in East London since the early 2000s, at many of which he still regularly DJs.Jeremy also maintains a lifelong commitment to public education outside the academy, currently hosting Culture, Power, Politics, a  regular series of free open seminars and lectures.Links: Jeremy's website: https://www.jeremygilbert.orgJeremy's blog: https://jeremygilbertwriting.wordpress.com/2021/06/04/2020-analysis/Jeremy's papers on Open Democracy: https://jeremygilbertwriting.wordpress.com/2021/06/04/2020-analysis/Guardian review of Jeremy's book 'Twenty First Century Socialism': https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/06/twenty-first-century-socialism-by-jeremy-gilbert-reviewJeremy at Novara Media: https://novaramedia.com/tag/jeremy-gilbert/Compass: https://www.compassonline.org.uk/The World Transformed: https://www.theworldtransformed.org/Momentum: https://www.theworldtransformed.org/

How can we embrace our humanity and use it in service to the earth and all that lives?  How can we bring the best of ourselves to the best of the Web of Life in full understanding of the chaos of the moment, with full and open hearts?  Deena Metzger has given her life to finding answers - and shares them here.From her experience at three years old when she saw the spirit of her grandmother at the foot of her crib, Deena Metzger's life has been devoted to the exploration of the worlds of spirit and of humanity, combined, in search of an answer to the question: What is your Calling? Working as a poet, novelist, therapist, healer and visionary, she has brought together Nineteen Ways to a Viable Future - a route by which all of humanity can become the best of ourselves and thus be what the web of life needs of us.  In this conversation, we explore some of those Ways and the routes by which Deena reached them, together with her thoughts of the present and future as we move into the time of crisis. In her own works, Deena Metzger is a poet, novelist, essayist, storyteller, teacher, healer and medicine woman who has taught and counseled for over fifty years, in the process of which she has developed therapies (Healing Stories) which creatively address life threatening diseases, spiritual and emotional crises, as well as community, political and environmental disintegration.Deena has spent a lifetime investigating Story as a form of knowing and healing. As a writer, she asks: Who do we have to become to find the forms and sacred language with which to meet these times?She conducts training groups on the spiritual, creative, political and ethical aspects of healing and peacemaking, individual, community and global, drawing deeply on alliance with spirit, indigenous teachings and the many wisdom traditions. One focus is on uniting Western medical ways with indigenous medicine traditions.Deena's website: https://deenametzger.net/

In a world of uncertainty, transformation and potential catastrophe, how can we find our own truth and, from there, speak with authenticity to the children and young people in our lives about the world that is coming?  Louis Weinstock is a celebrated psychotherapist who finds ways to help people of all ages connect with their own truth and share it.  In this episode, we explore our attitudes to death, loss - and the climate emergency - and how we can hold the conversations that need to happen. Louis Weinstock is a remarkable man - a deeply committed therapist who does his best to make his skills available to as many children and young people as need them - and so many do.  He focuses on grief and loss, initially around death and diagnoses of fatal illness, but increasingly the existential grief of our dying ecosystem and the despair, rage and frustration at a world that is not acting as it could or should.  In this profoundly moving podcast, we talk in depth about how all of us can exist with our grief and despair, how we can hold them tenderly, and how, from these places of resilience and strength, we can hold the conversations that need to happen in our widening circles. About Louis: Louis works with children, and the child inside us all, the one that wants to be loved, the one that wants to cry, the one that knows what it wants, the one that really does dance like no-one’s watching, the one that spends timeless hours looking at bugs under a piece of bark, the one that keeps getting back up no matter how many times they fall down.He helps people find a light in the darkness, especially in grief, in the shadow, in the things that are unseen, unheard, unspoken. Her sees death as our greatest teacher, and avoidance of it our biggest mistake. He made an audio course all about death and life here: it will help you become more fully alive in your everyday existence. He runs Magic Power of Grief circles at festivals, and in other spaces and places.He believes the body is deeply intelligent, and our ‘symptoms’ are just fragments of our soul seeking wholeness. Rumi once said “What is the body? That shadow of a shadow of your love, that somehow contains the entire universe”.He loves using design, collaboration and creativity to solve big, meaningful problems. One way he does this is by helping to run a charity – Apart of Me – that helps kids transform their grief into compassion. This project also has two side projects which are focused on helping younger children grow into emotionally empowered leaders: Earthlings and Bounce Works.Making a home for experience in words is his favourite spiritual craft. You can check out some of his writing here. His book about How The World Is Making Our Children Mad And What To Do About It - is available now. See also Episode 131 of the podcast where we talk to Louis about it.Louis Weinstock: https://louisweinstock.com/A Part of Me https://www.apartofme.app/Wider Horizons Summer Festival: https://widerhorizons.events/

How can sound edge us closer to the centre of ourselves, bring us closer into connection with our own authenticity and with the heart of the earth?  Caro C has produced the Accidental Gods Podcast since its inception.  Here, she talks about the wild magic of sound in all its forms. Caro C has been described as a Soul Enchantress (BBC Radio 3) and a 'One Woman Electronic Avalanche' (BBC Introducing), she's a composer and musician, a sound engineer and a solo performance artist. She's a rock climber and a dreamer, a creator of magic with all things sound.  She created the music that is our signature at the head and foot of the podcast and she's been our engineer and producer for nearly two years, weaving miracles with technology and weaving our conversations in ways that bring them to coherence while always being a balm to the ears.   As she launches her new album, Electric Mountain, we talk about her journey into sound, her experience of earth-connection and conscious evolution and how she weaves all of these into into a deeply connected, dream-woven life.  Links: Caro's Page: https://carosnatch.com/Caro on Bandcamp: https://carosnatch.bandcamp.com/

Ece Temelkuran is an astonishingly astute, great-hearted writer. Joining us from Zagreb, she gave us an hour of wisdom, insight and compassion, based around her book 'TOGETHER: 10 Choices for a Better Now' - with an international audience and some cracking questions, this is our gift to you this weekend. Ece Temelkuran is an international columnist, political analyst, novelist and sharp, brilliant, astute  - and great hearted - writer.  Her books 'HOW TO LOSE A COUNTRY' and 'TOGETHER' have been met with great international acclaim.  (she shared a stage at the Edinburgh Festival with Ed Milliband, of the outstandingly successful 'Reasons to be Cheerful' podcast. He was also something political at one point in the UK, when such things mattered...) She was our guest in podcast 74 -and on the first Sunday of September, she returned with a one hour Zoom-based Bookclub to delve deeper into the compassionate wisdom of her books. 

How can we embed circular thinking in our food, energy, water & waste to benefit people and the planet?  LEAP Micro Anaerobic Digestion is building the systems in the UK, Nigeria, Malaysia and around the world to create local zero waste cultures that provide food and energy to their communities.  Rokiah Yaman is the Project Director for LEAP Micro Anaerobic Digestion. A part of the project from the start, she coordinates the LEAP demonstration sites, oversees fundraising and planning activities, and manages infrastructure and operational logistics, helping to bring micro AD technology and the closed-loop ethos into public spaces where people can see who it works in their own communities.In this episode, Rokia talks us through the technologies involved in Micro Anaerobic Digestion, and introduces us to the projects in London, the Scottish Highlands and Islands, Nigeria and Malaysia. We find out how it works, and how we can make it work in urban and rural settings, as part of the power spectrum of the future, where circularity is embedded in the way we live and we generate our own energy closer to home, giving us autonomy and agency and cutting the mega-corporations out of the loop.  As ever, our signature music comes from Caro C, but this week, we have additional music at the head and foot from Billy Surgeoner's album 'Hey Mountain Hey' - the track is The Pollen Path   Leap: https://www.madleap.co.uk/Hey Mountain Hey:  BillySurgeoner.BandCamp.com/track/the-pollen-path/