Wow, it has been a whole year since my book Breaking Together came out.
To mark the occasion, I want to share with you an in-depth discussion I had about the book’s themes, with the filmmaker Michael Shaw.
If you haven’t seen his film yet, I really recommend it. ‘Living in the Time of Dying’ sensitively covers a very difficult topic through discussions with folks far more interesting than myself. Alternatively, you could watch the Q&A which he hosted with me in Byron Bay, last March (video below). It was a full house, with a lot of resonance amongst people who have already been adversely affected by a destabilised climate. Their experience and expertise is why I expect important international leadership of the collapse-readiness and response agendas to be emerging from Byron Shire.
We must not deprioritise international solidarity at such times, so I was happy that we raised $1400 AUD from participants for training Balinese smallholders in organic farming. My colleagues at Bekandze Farm planted a tree in honour of Michael (image above). Yep, I can’t let this opportunity pass to invite you to also contribute whatever you can to a good collapse-ready cause (by clicking here after you have finished reading this post or watching the Q&A).
We chose the date of publication, May 9th, to mark my gratitude to my father, Peter, who encouraged me to finish the book when I was living with him for some months during his final year. I was pleased he liked the book – or at least the sections I read to him in hospice. A year on, I took the opportunity to reflect on what I think are the most important trends and shared that during the first alumni gathering of our ‘leading through collapse‘ course.
I try to be as strategic as possible about where I travel to, and decline most invitations. But the next leg of my book tour begins in October, when Breaking Together is published in Spanish and French. I will be launching those in Mexico and Geneva in October. Sign up here (Mexico) and here (Geneva) to be informed when there is more info. My next live Q&A will be in California in October, and to learn about that please sign up here. Alternatively you could join me on a 4 day course in Oakland (Leading Through Collapse). Then after a keynote in Berlin in November, about how investors might help us soften the crash through financing relocalisation and suchlike, I’ll ‘call it quits’ on my book promotion unless someone funds a new translation and we deem it needs a nudge in the media (Portuguese might be in the works).
As I’ve gotten older, have more going on at home, and the world seems more unstable, I become stressed and exhausted when travelling. I don’t need people complaining about my carbon footprint to dissuade my travel. If you are not flying as part of your choice to live lightly, then I respect that a lot. It’s something I had a constructive discussion about on Twitter recently. I know that’s hard to believe! Check for yourself here.
I also know some people who have chosen to have no, or fewer, children, because they live in countries with heavy ecological footprints. That’s a far greater sacrifice than not flying, and I respect such choices deeply, especially given the recent rise of Muskian hyperventilating ‘pro-natalists’. To see the way some engage on this issue, check out a Twitter chat I had with the popular youtuber called ‘Canadian Prepper’. He’s smart on climate and other issues, but baby-making can be a trigger-issue for some folks. Despite that, many pro-natalists don’t want to recognise the evidence that spiralling costs of living and accommodation due to decades of neoliberalism is the biggest factor reducing birth rates in advanced economies (I provided evidence of that in the twitter thread).
Here’s the Q&A in Byron:
If you haven’t time for that right now, here are some reviews of the book by October last year. Of the many since then I found the one in The Conservation particularly insightful.
Prof Jem Bendell 