Crazy Cat Lad Makes Music Video

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I have often talked about a ‘tyranny of positivity’ within contemporary environmentalism, whereby we are told that optimism is a moral and practical imperative. That typically comes with the ‘fake green fairytale’ of planetary salvation through electrification. That has been attractive to many environmental professionals (my past self included) as it offers possibility of feeling earnest and earning an income, despite it being a biophysical nonsense. When senior environmental leaders demonise more realistic assessments and associated despair, their ‘moodsplaining’ is promoting deference to power. Instead, for many people, feelings of despair have aided our radicalisation. That’s why an acceptance that modern societies are breaking down due to ecological degradation, amongst other factors, has been transforming people’s lives so we become more socially engaged, not less: becoming ‘doomsters’, as I term us in Breaking Together. More recently, I have wondered if there is a second tyranny in contemporary environmentalism, at least in the Western countries I have most experience of. It is a tyranny of piety.

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Meditating beyond craving salvation

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Last week, over dinner, the British comedian and author David Baddiel asked me whether my new life of farming, music and meditation means I am effectively hiding away from the difficulties of the world. We were both guests of the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, in Sydney. I accepted the invite as it’s a major cultural festival in one of the nearest English-speaking cities to where I live in Bali. David’s question reminded me of how I used to think about meditation and people focusing on their mindfulness. I wondered if they were running away from reality, and trying to be happy by disengaging. I was letting the fact that isolationism is the motive for some people to imply the motive for everyone who is into meditation. I explained to David that I could not have done my work over the last few years if I had not benefited from Buddhist philosophy and practice. It helped me to better notice and slow down my reactions to incoming information so that I didn’t reactively adopt views that might quell any difficult emotions or distract me from them. That meant I could notice the delusions arising from craving for material, psychological and spiritual salvation, both for myself and others. It meant I could look into the abyss for longer and explore what good might be done in our new context. It also helped my resolve to keep working on this topic despite a backlash and recurring feelings of defeat. Maybe I didn’t say it as eloquently as that after a couple glasses of red, but I think he got my gist. And it reminded me of my gratitude for what I’ve been exposed to over the last few years.

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The Nine Lies of the Fake Green Fairytale

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Essay shared to coincide with my speech at the 2024 Festival of Dangerous Ideas.

Self-deception is rife within the environmental profession and movement. Some denial or disavowal is not surprising, due to how upsetting it is to focus on an unfolding tragedy. But our vulnerability to self-deception has been hijacked by the self interests of the rich and powerful, to spin a ‘fake green fairytale’. Their story distracts us from the truth of the damage done, that to come, and what our options might be. Indeed, their fairytale prevents us from rebelling to try to make this a fairer disaster, or a more gentle and just collapse of the societies we live in. Averting wider rebellion might be why the fairytale receives loads of funding for books, awards, feature articles and documentaries, as well as videos for popular YouTube channels. That’s why, like me, you might not have realised for years that it is a fairytale. In this essay I will explain the nine lies that comprise this ‘fake green fairytale’ before explaining how much damage is being done to both people and planet from the dominance of this story within contemporary environmentalism.

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S’effondrer ensemble – Breaking Together in French

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Publié par Good Works de l’Institut Schumacher, S’effondrer ensemble: Vers l’écoliberté écrit par Jem Bendell,  est désormais disponible. Yes, the French version of ‘Breaking Together’ is now available, published by Good Works, of The Schumacher Institute. 

Initialement sur Amazon, il sera disponible sur d’autres plateformes et dans les librairies d’ici novembre, et sera disponible en tant qu’epub gratuit au début de 2025. Je présenterai le livre fin octobre à Grenoble et/ou Genève. Initially, on Amazon, it will be available on other platforms and from book shops by November, and will be available as a free epub in early 2025. I will give a talk about it in Grenoble and/or Geneva in late October. 

N’hésitez pas à partager ce blog avec vos amies et collègues francophones. Please share this blog with your French speaking friends and colleagues. 

Je suis reconnaissant à une équipe de traducteurs dévouée, ainsi que les dons d’argent et’de temps  qui ont rendu ce livre possible. Plus d’information sur leur contribution suivent le résumé du livre. I am grateful to a dedicated translation team, as well as donations of time and money to make this book possible. Further information on their effort follows the book description:

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We Still Care – Doomster Characteristics

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I made a mistake in my book Breaking Together, when I included a box on ‘doomster characteristics’. That was in Chapter 12, where I was explaining many people accept that societal collapse is occurring, or coming soon, and are integrating that into how they live positively. One of the curators of the postdoom collective, Karen Perry, pointed out to me that my box was describing benefits of being a ‘doomster’ rather than their common characteristics. That got me thinking. I realized that there are some ways of being that many collapse-accepting people exhibit, which I think are important to recognize and cherish at this time. So, I wrote it up.

Why does that matter? Might it be more intellectual blather from a guy who can’t stop writing? Well, I will come back to that 😉 But I think this discussion matters because of the importance of perceived identities in public discussion. Those professionals who oppose us waking up to our predicament have been misrepresenting our motivations and characteristics for years in ways that turn people away from exploring more. Therefore, it is useful to be clearer about what our motivations are and explain what we see as some common characteristics. As a conversation starter, I will list five of them below.

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Crazy Cat Lad Writes Song

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What kind of music is related to deep adaptation? I wondered this recently. I don’t think it’s music about doom and gloom. Instead, it is anything which invites us to connect with our hearts, remember ancient wisdom, feel gratitude for what has been and still is, accept loss and death as natural, and recommit to conscious living no matter what lies ahead.

With my new band, Barefoot Stars, I’m releasing songs that I wrote from such emotions. ‘Healing Hearts‘ is about allowing endings with the knowledge something new will emerge. My latest release, ‘Mystical Cat‘ is not only about a deeper appreciation of nature, as reflected in our pets, but also about the significance of life not depending on its duration (you need to wait for the 3rd verse to hear that though). I wrote the song the night Amy died. She was a rescue kitten, adopted from Villa Kitty in Bali. She was the first non-human creature I met who had a sense of humour, not just play. Getting to know her opened my mind and heart to the depth of thought and emotion that’s possible in life other than human. That paved the wave for me to rescue a black kitten from the Brahma Vihara Temple, and he accompanied me during a reclusive 21 months when I wrote and released Breaking Together.

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Internationalize the collapse conversation with me

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Thank you for following my blog. In the spirit of “if you don’t ask you can’t get…”

If you would like to see wider communication of the analysis and ideas of deep adaptation and ecofreedom, then I want to ask for the following help. Here are some things that I believe would have significant impact and I can implement efficiently:

  • Audio Book of Breaking Together in French – that will help reach French, Canadian and African audiences. The French book is out next month, and will be available as a free epub early next year. Funding required: 3k usd.  
  • Audio Book of Breaking Together in Spanish – will help reach Latin American audiences. The Spanish book is out in October, and will be available as a free epub early next year. Funding required: 3k usd.   
  • Translation of Breaking Together into Russian. For sale and also free epub release in 2025. Funding required: 8k usd.
  • Scholarships for activists from all corners of the world to attend the “Leading Through Collapse” courses with me for free. Funding required: 400 usd per person.
  • Design and delivery of an online course on collapse readiness from a collaborative and non-defensive perspective. In English with a ‘freemium’ model of participation. Funding required: 10k usd.
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Staying Curious During Collapse

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On this day 6 years ago, I released through my university the ‘Deep Adaptation’ (DA) paper on climate chaos. Since then, I’ve been experiencing a range of emotions that arise from my view of the situation and the reactions of other people to that – and learning how to be OK with that. I’ve also been experimenting with ways of living differently as my old sense of self broke apart. These two themes were the focus of a new documentary about my life that was shown on Dutch TV a few weeks ago. The filmmakers made it beautiful and so I recommend watching below on YouTube or Odysee.

The emotional side of researching, communicating, and educating on collapse has been colourful and, at times, draining. I made and lost friends. I gained allies and enemies. I lost and gained a way of life. I wonder whether I could have learned anywhere near as much about psychology and spirituality without the emotional roller-coaster of becoming public about collapse risk and readiness. 6 years after the release of the DA paper, I want to share some reflections on the conflictual side of me coming out as a ‘doomster’.  

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Dancing for Peace in an Era of Collapse

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There are many ways of living with ‘collapse acceptance’. My own approach doesn’t represent the best one. To acknowledge the diversity, and help us all learn from that, once in a while I ask a colleague or friend to share some thoughts on how they are responding. Katie Carr was a founding member of the Deep Adaptation Forum and teaches the ‘Leading Through Collapse’ course with me (online twice a year and for one time only in the States this October). I asked her to share why a dance camp is one of her most restorative activities of the year. I hope it inspires. Thx, Jem

By Katie Carr

I recently returned from rural Oxfordshire in the UK, where I joined around 300 people from across the country to dance in a circle while chanting songs and mantras from many different spiritual traditions. Sacred Arts Camp is an annual week-long community event, where we camp in small circles, sharing cooking, care, and connection. Every time I attend, I am reminded of the importance of this kind of embodied and joyful ritual, especially as the world and our day-to-day lives seem to become more precarious. I also remember how much my heart longs for the experience of community and belonging that are so difficult to imagine, let alone co-create, in the midst of industrialised consumer societies.

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Should the UN just sod off?

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If we conclude that current difficulties are aspects of an unfolding collapse of societies around the world, what might we want to see from officials in the United Nations system?

That was a question posed to me recently by an initiative which recognizes something of the scale of the challenges faced and wants to communicate that to professionals involved in international affairs. They include not only international civil servants, but also governmental officials in foreign relations, international development and environmental issues.

Having worked in the UN system in various research roles, as well as with international NGOs, I recognize the conclusion that because we have global problems, we need globally coordinated action. Since the 1990s, I wrote a lot of published papers with that in mind, including some reports for the United Nations. But years later, I now see the hope people have in the UN system in contrast to the reality of its ineffectiveness and the growing suspicion that parts of it, such as the WHO, have been hijacked by a global managerial elite (who have bad ideas on most things). I have come to see that although many international civil servants do important work on the ground in some countries, many of them in the headquarters are involved in a deadly charade, where their status, income, and emotional stability lead them to lie to themselves and to the public about our planetary predicament, its causes and what to do about it. This is exemplified by their continued lie that ‘sustainable development’ is possible, despite years of data now proving the critiques from decades ago that it was capitalist-friendly ideological tosh. For one year I discussed and corresponded with various professionals in the field of sustainable development about why they continue the charade and heard what I described as their ‘deadly sins of denial’ in an article for Brave New Europe.

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