The RegenNarration

Zach Bush MD is a renowned, triple board certified physician, and internationally recognized educator on the microbiome, as it relates to human health, soil health, food systems, and a regenerative future. Dr Zach became highly decorated in the medical field, with multiple awards.  Then a growing set of insights built towards a moment of transformation.  His touchstone insight was that we don’t need to solve each of the many increasingly prevalent diseases – we need to regenerate the source of our health and vitality.  This led to ground breaking research on how our microbiome (a community of microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, and viruses) works - or more to the point, how communication happens between the microbiome and our human cells. Zach has said the microbiome is more responsible for our health than our genes, and is actually the great coordinating force of biology on earth.  And that we’re destroying it, with our dominant agricultural and medical systems. Zach’s work charts the intimate, absolute connection between humans and humous – the earth and its soil.  The soil and our gut are sisters, you could say, and carbon is our best mate.   And while we flirt with superbugs and the ‘end of antibiotics’, we are courting what may even be greater disaster with the chemical glyphosate. Glyphosate’s touted strength of being water soluble appears to be proving the undoing of no less than the integrity of our physiological being – implicated in our epidemics of cancer, auto-immune issues and neurological conditions.In response to all this, Zach has also been startled by our regenerative capacity and what he calls the intelligence of nature, since embarking on a film project called Farmer’s Footprint.  This has become a global phenomenon, prompting the creation of a broader project called Project Biome.  This is due to launch in a couple of months.  Its mission?  No less than the universal adoption of regenerative agricultural, medical and related systems around the world.To talk about all this, Zach was kind enough to join me online from his home in Hawai’i. Music:The System, by the Public Opinion Afro Orchestra. Interlude and concluding music by Jeremiah Johnson.Find more:Listen to the special extra to this episode, More Poisoning than Infection: A further look at COVID-19 with Zach Bush MD.The website of Zach Bush MD.Farmer’s Footprint film and project. Convergence: Agriculture, Human and PlSend us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

I feel compelled to post one last extract from the very end of my conversation with the legendary Hunter Lovins - for those who might prefer to listen in ‘chapters’, for those who might not have made it all the way through on first listening, and for those who might be particularly interested in the themes covered here.  And because I’m still deeply moved by how our conversation culminated. This extract segues directly from extract 2, where Hunter left off talking about trying to figure out how the rest of the world recovers from COVID-19.  We explore her brilliant stories and current views of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, Wellbeing Governments Coalition, Regenerative Communities Network, the Club of Rome, Doughnut Economics Action Lab, and how Dana Meadows’ famous piece ‘Places to Intervene in a System’ was born. Title slide: Hunter Lovins, sourced here.Music:The System, by the Public Opinion Afro Orchestra.Find more:Listen to our conversation in full (and access links in the show notes) wherever you get your podcasts, or on our website.Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

This is a second brief extract from towards the end of my conversation with the legendary Hunter Lovins.  It opens by looking at the tectonic shift that is apparently underway in the capital flows that will back in regenerative economies.  Where banks are already looking at the stranded fossil fuel assets they’re reclaiming and wondering what to do with them.  And where the opportunities on the other side of the ledger grow.I heard Hunter say not long ago that the regenerative economy was already bigger than the extractive one in her home state of Colorado.  But that nobody knows.  So we talk about how they found out, how they engaged with 90% of the economy on it, and where else this might be true.  Along with what to look out for. So much has changed in just the last couple of months, in the world at large and in Hunter’s thinking. “Things are shifting,” she says. And “you can see the shape of the future.” Title slide: Hunter Lovins, sourced here. Find more:Listen to our conversation in full (and access links in the show notes) wherever you get your podcasts, or on our website. Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

"We can roll back climate change." - L. Hunter LovinsThis is a brief extract from episode 61 with the legendary Hunter Lovins, on the importance of the bio-regional scale – place and community - in creating regenerative economies.  Especially now. There are a couple of great stories in this short clip, including more of her own - starting here with how she recently took out the Humungous Fungus Award.Title slide: Hunter Lovins, by West Coast Green sourced here. Find more:Listen to our conversation in full (and access links in the show notes) wherever you get your podcasts, or on our website. Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

Hunter Lovins has been a highly influential figure for many decades in the regenerative economies movement.  She’s a best-selling author, including of the seminal Natural Capitalism, with Paul Hawken and Amory Lovins. She’s also founder and President of Natural Capitalism Solutions, founding Professor of Sustainable Management at the Bard MBA, a pioneering rancher, and Chief of Impact at Change Finance. Hunter consults for companies and countries around the world, has been named Millennium TIME Magazine Hero of the Planet, and was awarded the 2008 Sustainability Pioneer Prize by the European financial community for her decades of pioneering work.  I could go on.  Oh, she also recently took out the Humungous Fungus Award – and we will talk about that!I heard Hunter say not long ago, before the pandemic, that her research suggests the regenerative economy is already bigger than the extractive one in her home state of Colorado.  But that nobody knows.  So I asked Hunter if she’d join me to talk about it, along with how things are changing right now, and of course some of her brilliant life story.Like my other extensive conversations with legendary figures in this space, like Hazel Henderson and Paul Hawken, this one drifted into ever more meaningful and heart felt exchanges as we went.  Our conversation includes why she ditched being a lawyer and accidentally became a regenerative rancher, her retrospective view on change and approaches to it over the decades (spoiler alert – where were the stories?), and the growing number of calls she’s receiving asking how to build a regenerative economy out of the COVID collapse. And on that, so much of her thinking, she says, has changed in just the last couple of months.We’re up against it, but we can still make something good of this situation, Hunter believes.  Tectonic shifts are upon us.  So where and how do we go from here?This episode was recorded online on 7 May 2020.Music:The System, by the Public Opinion Afro Orchestra.Find more:Hunter’s organisation, Natural Capitalism Solutions. Her most recent book ‘A Finer Future: Creating an economy in service to life’.John Fullerton’s 8 principles (or qualities, as he’s currently speaking of them) of a regenerative economy.Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll).Regenerative Communities Network.Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

This is a brief extract from the end of episode 60 with Matthew Evans, exploring a vision for how we can feed the world (well), in a way that regenerates communities, economies and the planet as a whole. All the more, how we can do it by building on the foundation of where most food is currently produced. Matthew is a farmer and chef at Fat Pig Farm, host of the popular TV series Gourmet Farmer, and most recently the author of ‘On Eating Meat – the truth about its production, and the ethics of eating it’. Title slide: Matthew Evans, from the publisher’s website.Find more:Listen to our conversation in full wherever you get your podcasts, or on our website. Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

Matthew Evans is a chef, farmer, host of the popular TV series 'Gourmet Farmer', and most recently the author of ‘On Eating Meat – the truth about its production, and the ethics of eating it’.  The publisher calls it ‘A scorching manifesto on the ethics of eating meat by the best placed person to write about it.’ This is a book and conversation that I’ve so been wanting to have. Whether you’re a meat eater, vegan or somewhere in between, this will change how you see things. And if Matthew has his way – and I hope he does – it’ll open up vast new possibilities for constructive dialogue, and truly vital systemic change.Personally, I’ve been a meat eater, vegetarian, vegan, and now a meat eater again – but in a much different way than before. If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you’ll be across some of my journey. The matter of meat is massive, when it comes to the health of people, other animals, and the planet as a whole.  Our summer fires here, and COVID-19 everywhere, bring that home even more.  In that context, I felt compelled to allocate plenty of time to this one.  I hope you find this time worth your while too.  Ordinarily, of course, I would love to have met up with Matthew in person on the Farm - it’s always so much more vivid when the place gets to speak too.  But we’re blessed nonetheless to be able to connect online, across closed borders.  This episode was recorded online on 14 April 2020.Music:The System, by the Public Opinion Afro Orchestra.Find more:Fat Pig Farm. The book ‘On Eating Meat: The truth about its production and the ethics of eating it’. For the Love of Meat documentary TV series (& more).Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

This is a second brief extract, this time from the end of episode 59 with Dr Eduard Müller. Eduard is the founder of the University for International Cooperation, now at the heart of Regenerate Costa Rica. These closing words from Eduard were so resounding and impactful, they seemed worth sharing in their own discrete package.I've received a number of comments from people strongly moved by this conversation. Thanks very much for sending your messages. It makes this all feel worthwhile.Title slide: The launch of the Regenerative Costa Rica Hub in 2018 (pic: supplied).Find more:You can listen to our conversation in full here. Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

This is a brief extract from episode 59 with Dr Eduard Müller, founder of the University for International Cooperation, now at the heart of Regenerate Costa Rica. It features a part of our conversation that focused on how Regenerate Costa Rica is fast gathering steam, both with local stakeholders and global institutions and networks. Title slide: Rancho Margot, Costa Rica. Eduard describes it as a demonstrative site for true regeneration. It was a degraded cattle farm 14 years ago and now very rich in biodiversity while providing agriculture, tourism and education. The photo is of the pig farm under green roofs and lots of biodiversity around (pic: supplied).Find more:Listen to our conversation in full here.Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

Dr. Eduard Müller is founding President and Rector of la Universidad para la Cooperación Internacional (the University for International Cooperation) in Costa Rica. Eduard was a vet, till a growing sense of responsibility for state of the world, prompted a change of course. He got involved in the sustainability movement of the late 1980s, and after the pivotal Rio Summit in 1992, he went on to found the university. It now has thousands of graduates all over the world in regenerative development. And out of that, has sprung Regenerate Costa Rica.Through collaborative work led by the University, Regenerate Costa Rica is working across bio-regions on site-based, holistic approaches to produce 3 key outcomes: high carbon capture in soils, increases in biodiversity, and improvements in human wellbeing. Regenerating land through natural and assisted processes is essential to this work, along with broader regeneration of the economy, politics and culture. And in the broader global agenda, they are part of the growing Regenerative Communities Network, hosted by the Capital Institute. All that harks back to my very first podcast guest, the founder of that Institute John Fullerton. The ultimate goal? Reverse the high risk associated with having trespassed a number of planetary boundaries, to assure the safe operating space for humanity. The early successes, willingness to change among farmers and ranchers, and the trajectory of the project and broader regenerative networks are wonderfully inspiring. Eduard has presented to organisations such as the World Meteorological Organization, the Latin American Parliament, the Parliamentary Confederation of the Americas, The Earth Charter, IUCN, national and provincial legislatures. And he has worked as a consultant for the World Bank, UN, IUCN, governments and various other organizations.This episode was recorded with Eduard at home in Costa Rica, on 25 March 2020.Title slide: supplied.Music:The System, by the Public Opinion Afro Orchestra.Due to licencing restrictions, our guest’s nominated music can only be played on radio or similarly licenced broadcasts of this episode. Find more:Regenerate Costa Rica.Regenerative Communities Network.Universidad para la Cooperación Internacional (the University of International Cooperation).Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!