Birds, Regenerative Agriculture, Rewilding Alice Irene Whittaker Birds, Regenerative Agriculture, Rewilding Alice Irene Whittaker

Episode 39 - Birds, Imagination, and the Tyranny of Clocks

We all have times of silence — when momentum slows down, we turn inwards, or we cannot rush and produce. Taking times of silence can be one essential tool for restoring our energy and then changing how we are directing that energy: to confront a machine of oppression and extraction; nurture our communities and projects; or rebuild how we want to live.

Guest Steven Lovatt is a birder, writer, critic, parent, and teacher based in South Wales. He authored Birdsong in a Time of Silence, detailing the life of his young family through the beginning of the Covid pandemic, when he rekindled a childhood love for birds, as well as the awareness of the birds who are no longer here.

This conversation ranges from poetry to parenting, and asks about that which is endangered in our society beyond birds. We dig deep into the roots of being human, and talk about imagination - one of those fruits that comes from times of silence.

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Climate, Caretaking, Mental Health, Youth, Justice Alice Irene Whittaker Climate, Caretaking, Mental Health, Youth, Justice Alice Irene Whittaker

Episode 36 - Turn Towards Each Other: A Collective Climate Justice Movement

Collective action can lead to real, tangible victories, like halting an offshore oil project proposed by Big Oil, reminding us that collectives of people have the power to challenge destructive and powerful forces. Instead of individualistic, lonely, consumerism-heavy environmentalism of the past, the collective climate justice movement encourages us to turn towards each other.

Guest Tori Tsui is a Bristol-based climate justice activist, organiser, writer and speaker from Hong Kong. You might have seen her on the cover of Vogue, on international panels, or in Instagram posts with inspiring activist friends like Mya-Rose Craig, Greta Thunberg, Daphne Frias, and Dominique Palmer. Tori’s recent debut book, It’s Not Just You, explores climate change and mental health from a climate justice perspective.

This conversation provides wise reflections on successful movement building and sustaining, and shows how recent wins have been accomplished by collective-minded organizing that is required for these dark times.

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Climate, Justice, Culture, Storytelling, Systems Change, Youth Alice Irene Whittaker Climate, Justice, Culture, Storytelling, Systems Change, Youth Alice Irene Whittaker

Episode 25 - Rejecting Fossil Fuel Narratives, Rewriting Climate Futures

Fossil fuel narratives seep into our culture, media, politics, and minds, and it can be hard to extricate them from our lives. Fortunately, we can create our own hopeful narratives of possible climate futures that run like fast-moving rivers from person to person.

Grace Nosek is a climate justice scholar, community organizer, and storyteller. Grace has spent years studying and deconstructing the narratives and tactics of the fossil fuel industry - as well as creating her own hopeful climate narratives.

We can find the veins and rivulets of care that already exist in the growing climate movement, and together rewrite the future.

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Episode 24 - Reigniting Creativity for a Caring World

Art has often been disregarded in climate and justice conversations, but creativity is essential for the revolution towards a regenerative and caring reality. Our environmental disillusionment can be a slow erosion of imagination, day by weary day, and artists have a powerful role to play: making space to feel grief, sparking imagination, knitting people together in solidarity and shared experience, and rekindling a belief in what is possible. Guest Rebeka Ryvola de Kremer is an artist and illustrator who is creating a more just and caring world, with art as a powerful medium to communicate climate messages and build community.

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Climate, Caretaking, Relationships, Storytelling Alice Irene Whittaker Climate, Caretaking, Relationships, Storytelling Alice Irene Whittaker

Episode 22 - Rewriting Joy Amidst Crisis

How do we balance joy with sorrow in the midst of ongoing crises? This conversation with Danielle Daniel, bestselling author of Forever Birchwood and Daughters of the Deer, explores the importance of strengthening our relationships to our ancestors, protecting the places where we live, and reconnecting with our own inner child in this search for joy.

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Relationships, Soil, Systems Change, Climate, Justice Alice Irene Whittaker Relationships, Soil, Systems Change, Climate, Justice Alice Irene Whittaker

Episode 21 - A Web of Relationships

We live as part of a wondrous planet, an intricate web of interconnections and relationships. Systems thinking helps us to see interconnections and complexities, and learn from systems like a body, ecosystem, or planet. Multisolving helps us solve complex problems by taking actions that result in many interconnected benefits. This conversation looks at both systems thinking and multisolving - starting with a decades-long experience of cultivating an intentional community. Guest Dr. Elizabeth Sawin brings decades of experience as a systems thinker who leans into complexity to help small seeds grow into big changes.

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Culture, Justice Alice Irene Whittaker Culture, Justice Alice Irene Whittaker

Episode 17 - Generation Dread’s Search for Emotional Resilience

How do we courageously face our eco anxiety and grief, and cultivate the emotional resilience that we need to weather ecological crises? Britt Wray - science communicator, researcher, and author of Generation Dread - talks about climate change, mental health, and channeling our climate emotions so we become good stewards of the Earth.

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