Author: jembendell

I'm a British national living in Indonesia. I am known for my work on societal collapse risk and response. That includes the Deep Adaptation paper and Breaking Together book. I cofounded Scholars’ Warning to help academics communicate about a post-Sustainability agenda for reducing harm in the face of catastrophic ecological change. I cofounded Bekandze Farm School to enable smallholders to switch to organic and resilient farming methods. Last year I quit my full Professorship to focus on deep adaptation to societal disruption and collapse.

Why Growth became God

jembendell3 Comments

Since last week, I’ve been reading a few chunks of my book Breaking Together to my Dad, in hospice. That means I must choose the bits that might be worth listening to! One passage tells of an experience at Davos, when I was being encouraged to regard increasing rates of GDP as an evangelical quest. You can hear me read it. The passage is from Chapter 2 on monetary collapse, which you can read in full. The book is also available in all formats and locations.

Subscribe / Support / Study / Essays / Covid

Why Growth Became God

At Davos I thought, perhaps naively, that I was mixing with the real power wielders of the world. I never felt at ease in what Mr Johnston once described as “a constellation of egos involved in massive mutual orgies of adulation.” A few tequilas at the McKinsey Party helped me to ease my awkwardness hobnobbing with people who were often described to me as really-nice-and-down-to-Earth-despite-being-who-they-are. That was the ‘high’ bar that non-famous people tended to set for the people who happen to be billionaires, film stars, CEOs, despots and such like. I learned that the appropriate response was to put on my smile of amazement and say “that’s great.” I had thought it was important that someone like me attended and tried to promote alternative ideas. Some years later, I now know that there have been hundreds of other gullible I-am-different-and-will-make-a-difference activists who tell themselves that story as they maintain fake smiles while listening to absolute garbage coming from one panellist after another and wondering which party to go to next. But at least my years of attending the summits in Davos as a Young Global Leader opened my eyes to a reality of global power. It’s a mess. Most of the people I met with powerful roles seemed incapable of acting competently in the collective interest in accountable ways. Worse, attempts to invite people to think beyond their organisation or ego just seemed to make matters worse.

Continue reading “Why Growth became God” →

I also hate this conclusion (on net zero)

jembendell8 Comments

I begin the final section of my chapter on Energy Collapse with the subtitle “I also hate this conclusion”. Because I did not want to discover that modern societies cannot continue their energy trajectories by simply displacing fossil fuels with new technologies. But that is what the sum of the relevant research shows us. In addition, the pursuit of the total electrification of economies will have hugely damaging effects on the biosphere, due to the mining involved. This is the awkward reality that most Western environmentalists are ignoring. The ‘green’ capitalists are extremely happy for us to keep ignoring that reality, as then any pressure for action translates into more money and pleasure for them. But if activism is about our personal commitment to higher goals, whether using moderate or radical tactics, then it must start with a fair assessment of reality and possibility. Otherwise, how is such activism not simply a mix of self-aggrandisement and emotional distraction by keeping busy?

The book Breaking Together is now available in audio, and Chapter 3 on Energy Collapse can be heard for free on soundcloud. To convey some of the arguments, below I share the first and last sections of the chapter. The image of the Kintsugi Tesla is from the Kintsugi World art project which accompanies the book.

Continue reading “I also hate this conclusion (on net zero)” →

Audiobook and art for Breaking Together

jembendell

The audiobook of Breaking Together is out. So you can learn about a freedom-loving response to collapse without taxing your eyes! It is narrated by my friend and longtime colleague Matthew Slater. To celebrate this, I am sharing a video of the Kintsugi World art project that accompanies the book (and from which the Kintsugi Atlas adorns the front cover). There have been a number of reviews already, and they follow the video below. The video includes the full introduction of Breaking Together.

Other ordering information is available here. The book will become free as an epub download from July 10th from www.jembendell.com.

Continue reading “Audiobook and art for Breaking Together” →

Alternative approaches to combat respiratory viruses – freedom from the failing corporate-induced orthodoxy of the early 2020s

jembendell1 Comment

Faced with ongoing risks from Covid-19, as well as future pathogens, all responsible citizens have an interest in what actions might combat respiratory viruses in future. That is whether actions are in addition to, or instead of, the approaches that have largely failed since 2020, despite the hiding of that fact by government authorities and mass media. Low levels of awareness about complementary or alternative approaches to combatting respiratory viruses has meant that many people assume that anyone critiquing the orthodoxy on Covid-19 must have less concern for public health, rather than being more concerned about it. Such lack of awareness is due to the corporate takeover of medicine, government, media and the digital sphere, which is hiding relevant expertise while promoting false moral narratives to elicit disdain towards people with heterodox views. Despite the resultant vilification, some experts have been so concerned about public health that they have been assessing whether other approaches might work better, as well as having fewer negative impacts on health and wellbeing. As I am often asked what I suggest would be a smarter response to the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as future epidemics, I am summarising some of my understanding in this essay.  

Subscribe / Support / Study / Essays / Covid

Continue reading “Alternative approaches to combat respiratory viruses – freedom from the failing corporate-induced orthodoxy of the early 2020s” →

Should scientists moonlight as ideologues?

jembendell1 Comment

This is an edited excerpt from Chapter 7 of ‘Breaking Together’ where I get a bit technical on the nature of the scientific method and how unscientific some natural scientists and other experts have become when they discuss our societal predicament. Listen to the whole of this chapter on “recognising collapse and cultural decay” for free on Soundcloud. The release coincides with the availability of the paperback from the Schumacher Institute. Further ordering info follows at the end of this excerpt.

Subscribe / Support / Study / Essays

—

Much of the discussion about risks and processes of societal collapse involves arguments about what people think is useful to believe, or how they wish to feel about the future. Such discussion is about people’s own identities and worldviews, involving lots of assumptions and logical fallacies. It can get quite nasty and resort to demonisation of individuals, condemned for being too negative. However, returning to the basics of scientific method can help to cut through this ‘noise’.

Continue reading “Should scientists moonlight as ideologues?” →

Why we must ALL challenge authoritarian views in green politics

jembendell2 Comments

Lancaster University academic, John Foster: “Forcefully transformative government… would have to be authoritarian…” “…if [Dr] Bendell wants to send GH [the Green House UK thinktank] an argued objection to what I said in my piece, GH will publish it along with a response from me. This is too important an issue not to encourage responsible debate on it.”

The following in an edited excerpt from the chapter “resisting the fake green globalists” in the book “Breaking Together: a freedom-loving response to collapse.” I am sharing it here in response to the Green House think tank supporting the views of the academic John Foster, which I quote further below. They invited a more substantive dialogue than possible on twitter. That seems appropriate as the thinktank claims to be “leading the development of green thinking in the UK” and has influential people on its board. The concepts I mention in this excerpt, and the evidence for them, are argued in detail elsewhere in the book, which is currently available as paperback/hardback/kindle, and will be available as a free epub download from The Schumacher Institute (TSI) from July 10th 2023 (as TSI always notes, these views are the author’s not the institute’s).

Subscribe / Support / Study / Essays

Continue reading “Why we must ALL challenge authoritarian views in green politics” →

Getting more serious about food system breakdown

jembendell1 Comment

Combativeness and moral disdain pervades recent public discussion of environmental problems. It is not just one ‘side’ that resorts to such tactics. Take food and agriculture as an example. Some people speculate that eco-totalitarians will successfully force us to eat bugs and goo, whereas others oddly claim that anyone defending farmers is a far right extremist, obstructing the technological salvation of humanity and life on Earth. The AI generated image above is poking fun at the piety that’s in an unnecessarily binary discussion – as if we must all be steak lovers or steak haters, food tech fanatics or small farm purists. The famous climate activist Greta Thunberg has not descended into those silly binaries. Which is good, as they are unhelpful when we need a plurality of ideas on what to do about the unfolding breakdown of global food systems, as I chronicle in detail in Chapter 6 of my book “Breaking Together”. This blog coincides with the release of that chapter as a free audio (it is also available free from my University). 

Continue reading “Getting more serious about food system breakdown” →

It’s time for a Great Reclamation in the face of collapse

jembendell

A free audio recording of the Introduction to ‘Breaking Together: a freedom-loving response to collapse’ is now available. It is an extensive introduction in which I seek to encapsulate the full argument of the book, albeit without the detail in the following chapters. Below is an excerpt which introduces a few of the terms and ideas.

Subscribe / Support / Study / Essays

Excerpt from Breaking Together (Jem Bendell, 2023, Good Works).

“The people I am describing as ‘ecolibertarians’ have concluded that societies destroy their own eco-social foundations because the self-interests of the powerful are institutionalised to then coerce or manipulate people to experience life as unsafe and competitive, so that more people cope by becoming more unthoughtful, uncaring and acquisitive. Therefore, today, those same institutionalised patterns of establishment power are distorting public awareness of the breakdown of societies and the best means of responding to that (Chapter 13). In response, ecolibertarians believe less-oppressive ways of being and behaving need to be restored and applied to obtaining greater control of capital and state organisations, thereby funnelling resources into commonly-owned organisations, resources, platforms and currencies so that a gentler and fairer collapse of societies might be possible. The agenda is about reclaiming our power from the manipulations and appropriations of our lifeworld by the systems of Imperial Modernity. Around the world, various parts of this ‘Great Reclamation’ agenda are being pursued but, apparently, not yet with an overarching framework that enables integration and amplification of efforts.[i] Although the pace of collapse might be so fast that we do not have much time for updating our strategies for social change, I believe it is worth sharing such ideas while international communications still exist in their current form—so please read on!

Continue reading “It’s time for a Great Reclamation in the face of collapse” →

4 better or 4 worse? As XR nears its ‘big one’

jembendellLeave a comment

Four years ago I stood by the pink boat of truth in Oxford Circus to give the opening speech at the international rebellion against governmental crimes against humanity for inaction on the ecological and climate crises. The video of the full speech:

Four years on, many of the activists who have been involved in XR since that time have been reassessing how they will engage in future. The former finance lead of XR UK, Andrew Medhurst has written up his reflections, where he also summarises some of the new strands of work – showing how movements evolve due to successes and failures. I share my own journey in a book that is now on sale (ahead of free release as an epub in July). It is called “Breaking Together: a freedom-loving response to collapse” – a title that I hope conveys some of the ideas. It has entered the Amazon bestseller charts at #1 in its category ‘political freedom.’ That category fits, as I map out a very different agenda to the one that has hijacked Western environmentalism in the last decade. That is the now-dominant agenda telling us that technology, enterprise, surveillance, restrictions and the schemes of billionaires, are the way ahead, and so we must force each other to stay hopeful and compliant. As co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, Clare Farrell, has explained “if you want to save some of the world, but hate being told what to do, this book is for you.” She is encouraging everyone out for the ‘big one’ in a couple of days. I am pleased to see a range of environmental groups supporting their effort to remind leaders of the level of public concern about the climate and ecological crises.

I remained convinced, however, that unless the green movement escapes its deference to the establishment and stops looking down on whomever corporate media tells us to, then there is no chance of a truly society-wide mass mobilisation for radical social change.

Continue reading “4 better or 4 worse? As XR nears its ‘big one’” →

I was wrong to conclude collapse is inevitable…

jembendell3 Comments

I was wrong to conclude collapse is inevitable… because when I was concluding that, it had already begun.

When I concluded that societal collapse is inevitable, nearly 5 years ago, it may have been one of the reasons my Deep Adaptation paper attracted unusual attention. Many people agreed and thanked me for expressing that conclusion publicly. They said it helped validate what they already felt, and so enabled their emotional processing and to change their lives accordingly. Other people chose a variety of ways to disagree. Some claimed I was not being scientific to claim an inevitable outcome, and instead language like “near certain” or “very likely” would be more appropriate. Others preferred to regard societal collapse as a possibility, as they wanted to hope for a managed transition to a new form of society. Unfortunately, other people misrepresented what I wrote. To recap: in the paper I did not claim that we faced inevitable near-term human extinction and did not claim that the inevitable collapse would happen by 2028. Instead, in that paper in 2018 I wrote: “Recent research suggests that human societies will experience disruptions to their basic functioning within less than ten years due to climate stress. Such disruptions include increased levels of malnutrition, starvation, disease, civil conflict and war – and will not avoid affluent nations.” In 2023 many experts and UN officials are saying similar.

I summarised my position thus: “Currently, I have chosen to interpret the information as indicating inevitable collapse, probable catastrophe and possible extinction.” I then warned against the trap of concluding inevitable human extinction: “I have witnessed how people who doubt extinction is either inevitable or coming soon are disparaged by some participants for being weak and deluded. This could reflect how some of us may find it easier to believe in a certain than uncertain story, especially when the uncertain future would be so different to today that it is difficult to comprehend.”

Continue reading “I was wrong to conclude collapse is inevitable…” →