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Accidental Gods – The Thrutopian Podcast

Another World IS still Possible. The old system was never fit for purpose – and now it’s collapsing around us. So how do we co-create a Thrutopian future that we’d all be proud to leave as our legacy?

What stories can we weave of possibility? Of transformation? What happens if we commit to a world based on generative values: compassion, courage, integrity?

What happens if we let go of the race for meaningless money and commit instead to the things that really matter: clean air, clean water, clean soil – and clean, clear, courageous connections between all parts of ourselves, between ourselves and each other, between ourselves and the Web of Life – so that we can reclaim our birthright as self-conscious nodes in the web of life?

We can do this. Some of us already are. Every week on Accidental Gods we speak with the people who are living this world into being, courageous pathfinders who are exploring the emergent edge of inter-becoming.

As a species, we have all the answers, we just haven’t yet crafted all the new stories and woven them into a future that works. We have the choice now – we can choose to transform…or we can face the chaos of a failing system.

Our Choice. Our Chance. Our Future.

Accidental Gods is a podcast and membership program devoted to exploring the ways we can create a future that we would be proud to leave to the generations yet to come.

Find the membership and the podcast pages here: https://accidentalgods.life
Find Manda’s Thrutopian novel, Any Human Power here: https://mandascott.co.uk
Find Manda on BlueSky @mandascott.bsky.social
On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mandascottauthor/
On FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/MandaScottAuthor

Copyright: ©AccidentalGods 2020

Latest Episodes:

Must Read, Must Listen, Must View: Manda's favourite books, podcasts and videos this Winter Season Dec 14, 2024

Show notes

It's that time of year - when all we really want is to curl up and reflect, go inside, become the potential that will arise in the unfolding spring. If you want things to listen to or watch or read as you head into the long-nights, then these are (some of) the things that have caught my attention this year. Enjoy!

Books:

Non-Fiction
Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Machada de Oliviera https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/hospicing-modernity-parting-with-harmful-ways-of-living-vanessa-machado-de-oliveira/6401710?ean=9781623176242
Pedagogies of Collapse: A Hopeful Education for the End of the World as we Know It by Ginie Servant-Miklos https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/pedagogies-of-collapse-9781350400498/ NB - you can download the pdf for FREE!
Flourishing Kin: Indigenous Foundations for Collective Wellbeing by Yuria Celidwen https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/flourishing-kin-indigenous-wisdom-for-collective-well-being-ph-d-celidwen-yuria/7727216?ean=9781649632043
Right Story, Wrong Story Tyson Yunkaporta https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/right-story-wrong-story-adventures-in-indigenous-thinking-tyson-yunkaporta/7645728?ean=9781922790439
Down the Rabbit Hole by Charlie Bennett CharlieBennettauthor.co.uk

Fiction:
Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-ministry-of-time-kaliane-bradley/7445878?ean=9781399726344
Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/venomous-lumpsucker-ned-beauman/2764635?ean=9781473613577

Denise Baden 'Murder in the Climate Assembly' You can get a feel for the book here: https://www.dabaden.com/murder-in-the-climate-assembly/
Kickstarter here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dabaden/murder-in-the-climate-assembly

Katherine Addison 'Throne of Dragons' - due March 11th US and a few days later UK https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-tomb-of-dragons-the-cemeteries-of-amalo-book-3-katherine-addison/7764905?ean=9781837864393

Films
Richard Wain: The Oath of the Hopeful https://youtu.be/JFNEPx9NYVk
Roots so Deep https://rootssodeep.org/
The Shopping Conspiracy Trailer: https://youtu.be/OVfZw_eqJW8 Full film: https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81554996
Future Council - not yet released: https://theregenerators.org/future-council/see-the-film/

Podcasts

Farm Gate 1 'What is Bill Gates doing to Africa's Food?' https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/farm-gate/id1490590788?i=1000675185519
Farm Gate 2 'Down the Rabbit Hole with Charlie Bennett' https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/farm-gate/id1490590788?i=1000678521906
The Great Simplification: Future Council: How Children are responding to our Planetary Crisis https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-great-simplification-with-nate-hagens/id1604218333?i=1000678061953
What is a Good Life with Mark McCartney - Rekindling our Wild Nature with Diarmuid Lyng https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/what-is-a-good-life/id1663668603?i=1000677421697
Wild w Sarah Wilson Indy Johar: the Starkest Collapse Prognosis I've heard https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/wild-with-sarah-wilson/id1548626341?i=1000677521024

The Power of (good) Food with Nick Weir of the Open Food Network Dec 11, 2024

Show notes

Clearly we're at an inflection point in the history of humanity. Our experiment with a notional democracy is failing and either we find something that actually works, or we sink into autocracy. And given that the current global flavour of autocracy is in deep denial of the climate and ecological catastrophe that's currently underway, then that's a pretty fast road to extinction: you can't deny your way out of biophysical reality.

So what can we do, we who care deeply about passing an inhabitable - thriving - world to the generations not yet born? We need to go back to basics. We all need clean water, clean air, safe shelter and good nutritious food - and we are rapidly heading for a space where just accessing these will become more of a priority than our recent experiment with unleashing ancient sunlight has led us to believe. But more than this, the community that grows around these, particularly the growing and sharing of food - is the glue that keeps us together. We are a prosocial species. We are astonishingly creative when we put our minds to it. So what happens when we put our minds to creative ways of growing and sharing food that are founded in solid values of cohesion and connectivity? One of the things that happens is the Open Food Network which is a global community of farmers, growers, community food enterprises and software geeks with a common belief that world food systems are broken - and that better, more connected, open, resilient systems can arise in their place. They are building alternative food systems from the bottom up: this is their theory of change and this is a recent podcast about a new OFN project called the Power of Food.

So this week, I've been talking to Nick Weir who helped to set up the Open Food Network UK. Nick has a background in IT account management, but, as you'll hear, he is also a long-term grower who co-founded the Stroudco Food Hub and Stroud Community Agriculture and is deeply passionate about the role of innovative food systems in creating a kinder, more interconnected society, and the ways in which the Network can model a new way of working which empowers people to bring more of themselves to their work. If you're feeling crushed by the global political chaos, I hope this conversation cheers you as it did me, with living examples of change happening on the ground, and the ripple effects it can have.

Open Food Network Global https://openfoodnetwork.org/
Open Food Network uk https://about.openfoodnetwork.org.uk/
Power of Food podcast https://www.wearecarbon.earth/power-of-food-collaboration/
Open Food Network resources https://about.openfoodnetwork.org.uk/resources/
Landworkers' Alliance https://landworkersalliance.org.uk/our_vision/
Sustain https://www.sustainweb.org/about/
Social Farms and Gardens https://www.farmgarden.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do

The Power of Food theory of change https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oSn8g-b-GlVku9g9TOKoVO0GvxSRSuCy/
Living Justice https://livingjustice.earth/projects/

Avoiding Burn Out, Fall Out, Drop Out (and Freak Out): Practical Routes to a whole, healed future with Dan McTiernan of Earthbound Dec 04, 2024

Show notes

How do we become the change we need to see in the world? What are the actual, practical steps to grounding, connecting and resonating with the world?

We're on the brink of cataclysmic change. Knowing this, we have choices: we can either fold into despair, terror, rage…whatever rises up in us as we watch the whole biosphere hurtle towards irrevocable tipping points. Or we can become the change we need to see in the world: each of us. This is a cliché by now, but that doesn't stop it being true. Here are others: we are the people we have been waiting for and if not us, now then who and when? We've been saying these for a long time and if you're listening to this podcast, then you're already on board, at least intellectually. You know there is no going back, that ideology cannot win out over biophysical reality and avoiding ecosystem collapse doesn't just mean moving to regenerative farming or buying second hand clothes or even changing all the narratives of all the world's media systems - good though each of these things would be.

But there's been a gap between what we know and how we behave, between where our better selves might push us and the behaviours that are locked into the core of our being, our firmware, if you like. But now - this minute now - we're hitting the buffers where the old paradigm is so obviously not fit for purpose that we need something new. The core questions are what? And how?

And this is where we're going with the podcast just now - After Dr John Izzo of the Elders Action Network reminded us of our purpose on the earth, and Andrea Hiott of Waymaking helped us embrace paradox - now we're talking to someone who can help guide us into the embodied reality of a different way of being.

Dan McTiernan is a certified Transpersonal Psychology Coach, embodied meditation teacher and breathwork instructor. With is wife Johanna, he's the co-founder of embodied coaching organisation, Earthbound. He hosts the Being Earthbound podcast which is absolutely on my must-listen list, as is the Substack blog from which it arises. He's a facilitator on Alef Trust’s Nurturing the Fields of Change programme and is the project leader for the Embodied Permaculture Project - an international 2-year action research project exploring the impacts of holistic wellbeing on outer ecological change work. The first 9 weeks of this programme are about to be released as a self-study course - and by the time this podcast ends, you will want to join up with that - I'll put a link in the show notes as soon as I have one - hopefully before this goes live.

He is currently working with Alef Trust and the A Team Foundation to deliver an innovative project supporting farmers and growers in the UK with a programme of embodied wellbeing known as Calmer Farmer which will be launched in January 2025.

As you'll hear, Dan is working at the leading edge of the change we need to embody. He has straightforward practices that any of us can do to help us with grounding, attunement, opening and integration so that we can be the nodes in the web of life. This is key people: we need to stop trying to think our way out of this with our head minds. It doesn't work. It's not going to work. We need to come into our physical bodies, find that truly calming place of peace - and then find connections we can trust with the wider web. This is what we're here for. And Dan has routes to get there.

For more information about this coaching approach, to book a 1-1 appointment or to find out more about Earthbound’s courses and practice group: www.earthbound.fi

For more information about Calmer Farmer: www.calmerfarmer.org

To read more about Dan’s work and to listen to the Being Earthbound podcast: www.beingearthbound.substack.com
The Embodied Permaculture Course is here https://earthbound.fi/embodied-permaculture-course

If you want to share the journey with us, we're here:
Accidental Gods Gatherings https://accidentalgods.life/gatherings-2025/
Accidental Gods Membership https://accidentalgods.life/join-us/

Adaptation is Here: Launching the TrAd (Transformative Adaptation) Book with Rupert Read and Morgan Philips Nov 27, 2024

Show notes

We're teetering on the brink of ecosystem and cultural collapse. How do we adapt and transform to the changing realities?

This week sees the launch of a new book: Transformative Adaptation: Another world is still just possible. The main editors and contributors are friend of the podcast, author, activist and co-founder of the Climate Majority Project, Rupert Read and - new to the podcast - Morgan Philips who is an educator, currently working for Global Action Plan, an environmental charity that mobilises people and organisations to take action on the systems that harm us and our planet. Full disclosure, I'm also a contributor - the book is published by Permanent Publications, the book-publishing arm of the Permaculture Magazine, and Maddy Harland, who edits the magazine and has published the book, brought together the five articles I wrote on Thrutopia: what it is, why we need it and how we get there, and fitted them into the mix.

The book launch has been timed to coincide with the end of COP29. At the time of recording, we have no idea how that will go, but if it's like all the previous 28 COPs it will be a triumph of obstructionism and irrelevancy masquerading as action. We might be surprised. We hope we are. But even if the nations who truly understand the magnitude of the meta-crisis somehow manage a worldwide diplomatic miracle and succeed in making it clear that we need total systemic change - we still need guidelines that help us see how this can happen: ideas of what to do at local and national levels, examples of the kinds of deliberate democracies that we'll need to bring everyone on board; templates of how the world can be if we actually bring all our creativity to bear on the single most important issue of our time.

This is exactly what this podcast is for - the whole of it - and this particular episode lays out the detail, from the concept of a 6th Mission for the UK government (and any other national government that wants to take it up) to examples of how we might shift our educational focus, to why building flood defences is really not enough, never going to be enough and how we could shift our communities to stop reacting and start…adapting.

None of this is easy. We do know this. But we can at least start the important conversations. This is what we're doing here - and we hope you find it inspiring enough to buy the book and read it, give it to your friends, family and colleagues - do whatever it takes to help your local community to find creative, flourishing, inspiring ways to meet the chaos of our world.

TrAd book https://www.permanentpublications.co.uk/port/transformative-adaptation/
TrAd Collective https://transformative-adaptation.com/
Climate Majority Project http://www.climatemajorityproject.com/
Climate Majority Complimentary Approach https://climatemajorityproject.com/safer/
The Rojava Project https://thekurdishproject.org/history-and-culture/kurdish-democracy/rojava-democracy/
Solar farms can be havens of biodiversity https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/solar-farms-biodiversity-pv/
Kikaru Komatsu https://sites.google.com/site/kmthkr/home/publications

Holding the Paradox: Navigating a changing world with Andrea Hiott of Making Ways Nov 20, 2024

Show notes

We are not going back. But how do we go forward now in a world where the old norms are under assault by people who move fast and break everything? How do we find a place of balance and compassion - for ourselves, each other and the More than Human world - so that we can move forward in a way that isn’t just a replaying of the old binaries?

Our world changed irrevocably with the results of the US election on the 5th of November. On this podcast, we talk a lot about total systemic change and now that change is happening in front of our eyes. Clearly, there is no going back from here. So how do we who care deeply about a flourishing future - who wish there to be a survival of complex life in all its amazing creativity - navigate this new landscape? How do we embrace the polarities and dichotomies of an unpredictable
world so that we can embrace the infinite complexity - and unknowability - of the future?

This week's guest is someone who has devoted her life to exploring the paradox at the heart of our existence. I first met Andrea Hiott through her 'Love and Philosophy' podcast which has become part of my essential listening list. From the outset, Andrea struck me as someone whose way of viewing life is, if not unique, then definitely exceptional and well worth exploring. As you'll hear, she is someone who throws herself into learning: she can talk with authority on everything from philosophy and phenomenology to neuroscience and ecology and as we speak, she's completing her doctorate, which is called Ecological Orientation. She's an author of various books, including Thinking Small, The long, strange trip of the Volkswagen Beetle, and has long worked on issues of motoring and mobility as a consultant, writer, and ghostwriter. She has appeared in films and TV shows, such as The Bug and Cars that Changed the World. She's been on a whole variety of other podcasts, and has worked extensively for museums, artists, collectors, and agencies.

She is also developing the philosophical framework of Waymaking and the practice of Navigability and I have never in my life spoken with someone who has evolved their own philosophy to the extent that they can talk about it in depth and in detail and make so much sense. There's a YouTube where Andrea does exactly this - I've put a link in the show notes.
On top of all this, she is founder of the private educational consulting platform, Making Ways and pours her energy into collaborating with other thinkers and creators at the intersection of multiple different philosophical, cognitive and ecological landscapes, so that she can create a deeper, more emergent understanding of the world we live in.

We booked this conversation over six months ago and we were not particularly hinging it around the US election. But we recorded this one week to the day after the vote that has so completely changed our world so it would have been impossible not to reflect on this. Andrea is a US citizen, currently living in Europe, so she has a particular set of perspectives - and a capacity to see beyond the polarities that feels particularly useful now. I felt a lot calmer after this conversation than I did going into it and that wasn't all about the pony with colic that put our recording back by a day. So in the hope that this helps you, too, to deepen into this moment of absolute change,

https://www.andreahiott.net/

https://making-ways.ck.page/profile

https://www.youtube.com/@waymaking23

https://www.youtube.com/@DesirableUnknown

https://www.facebook.com/TheBugMovie

Thinking Small Book

If you want to share the journey with us, we're here:
Accidental Gods Gatherings https://accidentalgods.life/gatherings-2025/
Accidental Gods Membership https://accidentalgods.life/join-us/

Being the Best Ancestors we can - with Dr John Izzo of the Elders Action Network Nov 13, 2024

Show notes

How do we all respond to the seismic events of the US election? Specifically, how do those of us over 50 respond? (and how would the younger generations like us to respond)?

This is the question of now. It would be hard to discuss anything else, but my guest this week is uniquely placed to address these questions. As you'll hear, John Izzo was once an ordained Minister in a Presbyterian Church. Now, he's a bestselling author, speaker, and thought leader focused on social responsibility. He's a Board Member of the Elders Action Network and the Elders Climate Action group and one of the co-hosts of a podcast called The Way Forward Regenerative Podcast which is expressly aimed at people over 50 who want to explore what it means to be an elder.

I met John on that podcast back in the summer and was so impressed with his approach to things. John is a deeply thoughtful, deeply spiritual person who takes his time to look at things from all angles. He's dedicated his entire career to helping individuals and organisations discover purpose and foster meaningful change. He is absolutely committed to exploring the role of elders in creating a regenerative future. And we need this now, more than ever.

Originally we had scheduled this week's guest for a recording on the 4th of November. Clearly this wasn't going to be as constructive as a conversation held in the wake of the election, whatever the outcome. And so we rescheduled and spoke together on Thursday 7th, which gave us time to process the results and speak more directly to a future that is unknowable, but not entirely unpredictable. How do we feel? What world do we want to create? How best can we bring alive a flame of hope from the ashes of the old system? These are our questions - a starting point, not an end point and no doubt this conversation will continue for the rest of our lives. This is our truth for now.

John's website https://drjohnizzo.com
John's books https://drjohnizzo.com/books/
Elders Action Network https://eldersaction.org/
Elders Action Network on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/EldersActionNetwork/
Elders Action Network on YouTube https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCMAJFT3jmRlQHnM4p6Rrh7g&ved=2ahUKEwjF-Iq3ubuJAxXRVkEAHZtzH98QFnoECBgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3JK2afgUEPwxIJz-tO0ZRM
Elders Climate Action https://actionnetwork.org/groups/elders-climate-action
The Way Forward Regenerative Conversations podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-way-forward-regenerative-conversations/id1651941803

If you want to share the journey with us, we're here:
Accidental Gods Gatherings https://accidentalgods.life/gatherings-2025/
Accidental Gods Membership https://accidentalgods.life/join-us/

Bonus: The System is Dead. Long Live the (new) System! Thoughts on the US election and the self-terminating algorithm Nov 08, 2024

Show notes

It occurs to me that we are now at an inflection point in the WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich and - notionally - Democratic) culture that has been so successful in destroying the ecosphere.

A significant number of us now see what has been obvious to a minority for some time: that the system is not broken - it is doing what it was always designed to do: which is to maintain power in the hands of a few white men.

What we know now, is that the system is not fit for purpose - IF that purpose is the survival of complex life on this planet, if it is the flourishing of the human and More-than-Human worlds in an indivisible web of life.

We need a new system - and this realisation has landed not with the people who solve their problems with violent insurrection (see Jan 6th 2021) but with people whose primary driving aim is to find ways to connect and consiliate, to create coherence with compassion, to find courage and confidence and creative curiosity.

And so this is our goal now - there is no point waiting for the side we favour to win in a broken system.

- We need a whole new system predicated on new and better values.

- We need to find our connectedness.

- At a bone-deep level, in the core of our tissues and the vast expanses of our individual and collective awareness, we need to remember our place in the Web of Life and work only from this.

- We need to start building something entirely different that does not rely on the structures of the broken system, even as it crumbles (or is dismantled) around us.

This is our challenge. Facing it will require everything we've got, but the old system is a self-terminating algorithm and we can all see the route to chaos and extinction now.

If we're going to pull through and find that flourishing world we can bequeath with pride to future generations, nothing else matters now.

Nothing.

Find what's yours to do and do with all your heart. Build imaginal islands with friends, colleagues and co-evolutionaries of the human and More than Human world. Build narratives based on the heart-focused values that are our birth-right.

Above all else, do whatever you can to connect to the More than Human world - to the Web of Life in all its awe-inspiring wonder, its majesty and beauty - and ask 'What do you want of me?'

Listen to the answer, however it comes.

And then do it.

Turning waste into wellbeing, wildlife, food and forests: Bringing permaculture to schools with Elliot Riley Nov 06, 2024

Show notes

If you're over 40, the world you grew up believing in no longer exists. The younger generation approaches the polycrisis with open eyes, striving to find and nurture resilience, to listen to the whispers of synchronicity and let it lead them - and us - to a world that works for all life.
Today, we're talking to Elliot Riley. Elliot is an educator, permaculture designer and practitioner working to bring wellbeing, reforestation and perennial food production into schools.

Elliot graduated during the pandemic. When he left school, he was planning to join the paratroops, but after what he describes as a 'Thunderbolt moment', he shifted tack and, despite not having the grades, was able to get a place to study history at the New College of Humanities. One pandemic and a degree later, he realised that mainstream education struggles to equip us for the challenges of a changing world. After two years upstream, studying Trauma-Informed Education and permaculture in the Dominican Republic, Elliot returned to his hometown, where he now works at The Saint Leonard’s Academy, leading a wellbeing programme called Future Growth, which supports students whilst transforming the community’s waste into a regenerative food forest. Through an initiative called OFFSET, Elliot’s working to spread the mission further.

Elliot's Patreon Page for OFFSET https://www.patreon.com/offsetfoodforests/about/

Elliot's instagram account for OFFSET food forest: https://www.instagram.com/offset_food_forests/

The One World Orchestra's first single https://open.spotify.com/album/62UZvSNV1gtBXdqLQLdfrw?si=WIdwzar_RvivoA-P3dBiA

The Human Hive https://www.thehumanhive.org/our-story
Vaughan Wilkins and links to his PhD thesis on the Zoochosis of humanity https://www.vaughanwilkins.com/thesis

Accidental Gods Membership https://accidentalgods.life/enrol/

Having your C.A.K.E. (Compassion, Awareness, Knowledge, Empathy) and sharing what you learn - with Andrew Hale of Dog Centered Care Oct 30, 2024

Show notes

How does an understanding of what makes dogs tick, help us to understand ourselves and our place in the world? What does it take to feel safe - as a human, or as a dog (or cat, or horse, or... anything)? And how can we help ourselves and each other find regulation in a VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous)?

Andrew Hale is a Certified Animal Behaviourist who specialises in working complex behaviour cases, especially those involving 'Reactivity and Aggression.' Look around you at the world. Look at the news. What two words best describe the nature of our local, national and geo-political processes?

Andrew is one of those remarkable people committed to a Dog Centred Care approach, working with empathy and compassion to understand why any being is behaving in this way. His focus is on dogs, but what we're learning - and the reason I have invited Andrew onto the podcast - is that all the theories of secure or ruptured attachment, of the need for autonomy, agency, confidence and safety, apply in dogs as much as they do in people -or indeed, any sentient being.

This conversation dives deep into trauma (or at least, trauma responses), our capacity for secure attachment in the modern world, our parenting skills, our skills as people who choose to share our lives with other animals - and ultimately, our skills in helping ourselves cope with a culture that's increasingly going off the rails. It's not about to get any better, either. So the more we can find our own stability, the more we can help others. Which is what this episode is all about. Relax, get yourself a cup of tea and let's explore what really makes us tick.

Dog Centered Care https://dogcc.org/
Dog Centered Care TV on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DogCentredCare/videos
Dog Centered Care Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/dogcc

Candace Pert Molecules of Emotion https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/molecules-of-emotion-why-you-feel-the-way-you-feel-candace-pert/355476
Attachment and Bonding in dogs and people https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4348122/

If you want to share the journey with us, we're here:
Accidental Gods Gatherings https://accidentalgods.life/gatherings-2025/
Accidental Gods Membership https://accidentalgods.life/join-us/

Rethink, Repair, Rebuild – with Natalie Bennett, former leader of the Green Party of England and Wales Oct 23, 2024

Show notes

How can we achieve total systemic change? And are there politicians anywhere who are ready to make it happen (in a way that supports the continuation of complex life on this planet, not the scorched-earth destruction of the right)?

The short answer is that yes, there are people deeply embedded in politics who know how dire things are and that we need urgent change. One of these is Natale Bennett, former Green Party leader and now Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle, one of two Green Party members of the UK’s House of Lords.

She is also the author of the book Change Everything: How We Can Rethink, Repair and Rebuild Society, which was published by UnBound in 2024.

Her thesis is that what has been called political common sense over recent decades—that greed is good, inequality doesn’t matter and we can keep treating the planet as a mine and a dumping ground—has been a recipe for disaster. The ideology of neoliberalism has delivered poverty and destruction, with a few benefiting while the rest of us pay. We need urgent change - and we have the routes to do it. Many ideas and arguments in this book have been inspired by the people she has met around the UK. Every idea in it has been road-tested, honed by interaction. We can only get through this dangerous stage by relying on the collective ingenuity, talents and creativity of millions of people, all empowered to “do politics”. This book aims to synthesise the voices Natalie has heard and read –and encourage them to step forward. They collectively represent true common sense.

That’s why she chose to publish it with Unbound using crowdfunding. You can order it through them, or it should be in your local bookstore.
YouTube Introduction to Natalie's book https://youtu.be/US7EaCHR0Zs

Other links of things we mentioned

Planetary Health Checks https://www.planetaryhealthcheck.org/
Florida Congressional Race - details of where you can support this are in the blog https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/10/15/2275160/-Hard-evidence-that-having-a-candidate-in-every-district-makes-a-big-difference
The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-dawn-of-everything-a-new-history-of-humanity-david-graeber/5715204?ean=9780141991061
Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/bullshit-jobs-the-rise-of-pointless-work-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-david-graeber/2523934?ean=9780141983479
Christian Felber's book, also called Change Everything, exploring the Economy for the Common Good https://christian-felber.at/en/books/change-everything/

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