Breaking Together: A freedom-loving response to collapse

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As far as I can see,15 minute cities is a good idea – an example of politicians doing something right for a change. Hands up if you have also experienced difficult emotions because of your awareness of what is happening and what is to come? Faith in government was shaken by Covid and is stretched to breaking point by their responses to the climate crisis. External applications are just as crucial, especially when it comes to fostering real change in our relationships with one another and with nature.

They are less likely to shun difficult information, or cling to their existing identity and worldview. Even when specific steps have been taken to address the needs of people and the planet, these have not been successful. Covid exacerbated the decline in many ways: early death, loss of health, distrust in government, loss of income, poor mental health, and corruption. In 2015 the United Nations launched 17 Sustainable Development Goals, a 15-year programme to provide a better and more sustainable future.I hope they find nourishing and practical wisdom there: about freedom; about the culture that got us here; about the welcome of collapse, and the grieving of it; about how we might respond and what we might want to build.

By integrating insights from a broad range of scholarship, it invites us to understand the full significance of what’s happening. My general attitude to tech innovations is to wish and work for more effective governance and more collective ownership in the commons, while adopting useful tech where I can to help share ideas I believe in while we still have the lights on. My view is that unless we talk about collapse then our suppressed anxieties will be manipulated by incumbent power to make matters worse. Covid makes regular appearances in the book because it is very much a product of the crisis that we are building around ourselves.

Considering that every other civilisation has collapsed eventually, why should we be any different and why should we question his view? I think the younger generation is more compassionate, empathic and loving than we were (it’s my biggest source of optimism, in fact). Bendell caused no small stir in 2018 when he published a paper claiming that the collapse of modern civilisation was “inevitable”, primarily as a consequence of climate change. Many people have realised they need to move to a new town, village or intentional community to do that more. First, that many foundations of modern societies are breaking together at the same time, and so societies won’t recover to what they were.

But you’re right, the imminent challenges we face as a species are grave, and the questions raised are deeply significant. It is important this matter is a priority of the new mayor of Glastonbury and that proceeds from today will contribute to local mental health support for the homeless. Professor Jem Bendell skillfully and seamlessly integrates personal reflection and hard data from virtually every domain to provide a unique vision of catagenesis – the creative renewal of post collapse society. That said, please center yourself as you engage with this brilliant, heartfelt, disturbing and often heartbreaking story of the possible futures that will touch everyone of the 8 billion of us. As societies become more unstable, the instincts of officers of the establishment will continue to be to protect and project their power.And by 'more meaningful' I mean 'more meaningful than if we just pretended that body of work didn't exist'. He says we need to reaffirm our belief in ‘freedom in nature’, arguing for the importance of free will, self-determination and freedom from other people instrumentalising us – that we must embrace eco-libertarianism and eschew eco-authoritarianism. Currently to choose that would then mean that as loans are paid off the money would disappear from circulation. This could be a movement that derives its legitimacy from falling standards of living and reversal of progress.