Regenerative Economics with Jonathan Dawson and Morag Gamble

It is my absolute delight to welcome Jonathan Dawson to the Sense-Making in a Changing World show. Jonathan is Program Lead of the Masters of Regenerative Economics at Schumacher College in England.

Jonathan & I met many years ago here at Crystal Waters Ecovillage visiting with my friend, Amanda Cahill CEO, The Next Economy. Jonathon was for many years the president of the Global Ecovillage Network & a long time resident of Findhorn.  Jonathan kindly hosted my family at his community in Totnes, UK. 

He is author of Gaia Education's UNITAR endorsed Sustainable Economics Curriculum drawn from best practice with ecovillages globally - a curriculum adopted by UNESCO. He is also author of Schumacher Briefing 12  Ecovillages: New Frontiers for Sustainability, Green Books, 2015, & has worked in small enterprise development in Africa & South Asia.

You can watch the youtube version of the podcast here.

PERMACULTURE AS TRANSFORMATIVE EDUCATION
In my twenties, I studied at Schumacher College, the integrated way of learning in community was so inspiring & transformative.  I have since taught at the College a number of times - most recently with Jonathan as part of a short course called Beyond Development .

The head heart & hands learning experience that I experienced there as a young woman is what I weave into the fabric of my face-to-face courses & the online Permaculture Educators Program.

Permaculture is education for one-planet-living & through this course you are immersed in exploring ways to transition to regenerative ways of being. The world needs more permaculture teachers everywhere - sharing local ways and working toward

Transcript

Morag Gamble: 0:00

Welcome to the Sense-making in a Changing World Podcast, where we explore the kind of thinking we need to navigate a positive way forward. I’m your host Morag Gamble.. Permaculture Educator, and Global Ambassador, Filmmaker, Eco villager, Food Forester, Mother, Practivist and all-around lover of thinking, communicating and acting regeneratively. For a long time it's been clear to me that to shift trajectory to a thriving one planet way of life we first need to shift our thinking. The way we perceive ourselves in relation to nature, self, and community is the core. So this is true now more than ever. And even the way change is changing, is changing. Unprecedented changes are happening all around us at a rapid pace. So how do we make sense of this? To know which way to turn, to know what action to focus on? So our efforts are worthwhile and nourishing and are working towards resilience, and reconnection. What better way to make sense than to join together with others in open generative conversation. In this podcast, I'll share conversations with my friends and colleagues, people who inspire and challenge me in their ways of thinking, connecting and acting. These wonderful people are thinkers, doers, activists, scholars, writers, leaders, farmers, educators, people whose work informs permaculture and spark the imagination of what a post-COVID, climate-resilient, socially just future could look like. Their ideas and projects help us to make sense in this changing world to compost and digest the ideas and to nurture the fertile ground for new ideas, connections and actions. Together we'll open up conversations in the world of permaculture design, regenerative thinking community action, earth repair, eco-literacy, and much more. I can't wait to share these conversations with you.

Morag: 1:49

Over the last three decades of personally making sense of the multiple crises we face. I always returned to the practical and positive world of permaculture with its ethics of earth care, people care and fair share. I've seen firsthand how adaptable and responsive it can be in all contexts from urban to rural, from refugee camps to suburbs. It helps people make sense of what's happening around them and to learn accessible design tools, to shape their habitat positively and to contribute to cultural and ecological regeneration. This is why I've created the Permaculture Educators Program to help thousands of people to become permaculture teachers everywhere through an interactive online dual certificate of permaculture design and teaching. We sponsor global Permayouth programs, women's self help groups in the global South and teens in refugee camps. So anyway, this podcast is sponsored by the Permaculture Education Institute and our Permaculture Educators Program. If you'd like to find more about permaculture, I've created a four-part permaculture video series to explain what permaculture is and also how you can make it your livelihood as well as your way of life. We'd love to invite you to join a wonderfully inspiring, friendly, and supportive global learning community. So I welcome you to share each of these conversations, and I'd also like to suggest you create a local conversation circle to explore the ideas shared in each show and discuss together how this makes sense in your local community and environment. I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land in which I meet and speak with you today, the Gubbi Gubbi people and pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging.

Morag Gamble: 3:29

It's my absolute delight to welcome to the show today. My dear friend, Jonathan Dawson, who's the program lead of the masters of Regenerative Economics at Schumacher college in Devon. This master's program challenges and offers alternative perspectives to mainstream economics and looks through the lens of ecology as both people and the planet mattered equally. Jonathan is the former president of the global ecovillage network and a long time resident of Findhorn. Jonathan has worked with small enterprise development in Africa and South Asia. He's the author of GAIA education's UNITAR-endorsed sustainable economy curriculum drawn from best practice within ecovillages globally. And this curriculum was adopted by UNESCO back in 2019. It was a delight to contribute to one of Jonathan's programs at the college called beyond development, a program that also included people like Kate Raworth, Rob Hopkins, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Jason Hickel and others. Jonathan has visited me here at Crystal Waters and most graciously hosted my entire family while I was teaching at Schumacher college at his Bowden house. And I can add a link below to a video that I made while I was there. One of the comments that Jonathan makes that I really like is that education is not the filling of the pail, but in lighting of the fire. I hope you enjoy this conversation just as much as I do. Thanks for joining me, Jonathan, it's really lovely to have you here on the show today. So for those of you who are listening, Jonathan is the program lead of the regenerative economics postgraduate program at Schumacher college. And Jonathan actually came here to Crystal Waters many years ago now, and then met again back at Findhorn and also Bowden house and Schumacher college. So it's wonderful to see you again here. And thanks for joining me. I thought maybe we could start our conversation today around why is it that you've chosen economics as your way of bringing positive change in the world and the way acting in for transition.

Jonathan Dawson: 5:44

Really lovely to be here. This question about economics. It's a really, I think it's a good place to start a conversation. I have to say that during the much of my work in life, particularly the decade and a half when I was working in Africa as an economist, but when I'm sort of there, like in a consultancy team, for example, they would refer to the economist I'd metaphorically be looking over my shoulder wondering who they were talking about because the label economist, as we recognize it in society today, doesn't feel like a good match for what I do. So I've come to the conclusion that there are actually two quite separate disciplines with a little bit of crossover that are currently calling themselves economics, but that are really totally different subjects with different methodologies and pedagogies. So the conventional economists that you will see on mainstream media are in a paradigm that is focused on mathematics, markets and money. Some of those economics is the study of what passes through the markets and the connection, the relationship between the ongoing economic growth and societal wellbeing is not challenged. It's assumed in the discipline is about how we set up our markets, particularly in a way to enhance gross domestic product, not one field of study. The other field of study is one in which economics is a branch of moral philosophy rather than mathematics. And it does question, it goes upstream immediately to question, is there a direct relationship between ongoing economic growth and well being. Most of the studies that asked that question, come to the conclusion that at least in the industrialized world where we are already hyper overdeveloped, that actually it tends to be an inverse relationship between the two. So we get to spend less time in relationship doing the stuff that tthe indicators outcomes related to health, to wellbeing, to social functioning tend after a certain point to be undermined by further economic growth. So the economics that I'm interested in, we're interested here at the college is much more economics as moral philosophy beginning with deep questions about the nature of who are we as a species and how we can, it's a philosophical question, how we can create better societies more just, and fair and joyful loving societies. So the reason why I'm attracted to this field and most of our students who are attracted to the field is that they find that economics is currently practiced, is the rock in which their various dreams and schemes are foundering. And so the desire to totally not to tweak the current system, but to really deeply question at a fundamental level, what are we talking about? What are we trying to do and to move some of those rocks over the path so we can actually create a more sympathetic joyful society.

Morag Gamble: 9:02

Hmm. So what are some of the, what are some of the leading thinkers, or even some examples that you've seen of this different type of economic system? How does it play out in communities?

Jonathan Dawson: 9:22

Yes, yes. So I really like the way that it's sometimes referred to as moving from an economy based on transactions to an economy based on relationships. So at the moment our economy is, I mean, recognizing again, that there are many things that pass through the market that are not conducive to wellbeing. Wars, oil spills, chronic health problems on and on and on. And there are many things that are not included in GDP that are essential to our well-being. Childcare, volunteerism, looking out for our neighbors, elder care. So the picture that those, I think you were really thinking of a deeply questioning and transforming the nature of our economic life are really looking at moving away from quantity towards quality and really looking particularly at the care economy, the health related economy and asking questions about how can we set up our incentive structures in terms of taxation, externalities, subsidies, things like this. How can we create economic incentives that favor developing quality of relationship and slowing down? For example, I mean, the obvious examples are that are uppermost at the moment, the things that universal basic income and the shorter working week. So it is probable that at least in the short term, automation is going to reduce the number of jobs in the system. May not be there forever, but for period. So is there a way that we can share the remaining work available fairly and equitably among the population, rather than having a relatively small group of people who are stressed out because they're working so hard and then a large group of unemployed, and again, a universal, basic income providing with the wealth that enables that being generated by automation, among other things, but then providing folk with basic security to cover their costs. So they can then choose to do the work that they love rather than being forced into often meaningless.. You know David Graeber, the late lamented David Graeber, wonderful US anthropologist just called bs jobs, which is where most of us are at the moment. Back again, he makes this observation that the first substantial proportion of the population they get up in the morning, and honestly do not believe that their work is contributing in any meaningful sense to the wellbeing of their community. And just considering the mental health of a nation, of a civilization that has that as a starting point at the beginning of each day.

Morag Gamble: 12:19

Jonathan, can you tell us more about the universal basic income. You know, I'm not sure everyone listening would understand firstly, what it is and how it works and how changing that is going to make or could make a difference.

Jonathan Dawson: 12:36

So at the moment, we have generally in most Western industrialized countries, we have means-tested welfare systems. So it means tested meaning that you've got to demonstrate that you're sufficiently needy that actually you qualify for the payments, whatever the benefit is. And we know already that the administrative costs of the, the cost of administering the system are huge and can involve also humiliation for those who actually find themselves needing to go through the process. So the idea of universal basic income is that through dramatically reducing the costs of the current welfare system and closing tax havens and ensuring correct appropriate tax payments by the rich, but actually you generate a fund that's big enough to give everybody in the country unconditionally a certain basic minimum income, and ideally that it can be sufficient, that the beneficiaries that everybody can choose to work, but to do the work that they really want to do. Now, the two big call-outs are hard, but there's never going to be enough money in the system to do that and two then people will just be lazy and they sit in front of their TVs and they will, they play video games. Now, in terms of the first one, the first point about payment, there are a lot of estimates has been done a lot of projections, financial projections, which actually demonstrate that this is not, does not need to be an issue. There is a way that we could fund this. On the second one, the evidence is there's been a number of studies one very interesting one in Canada, for example, where they found that only two categories of people were choosing to work less than they were before. So one was mothers of young children who were able to stay at home longer with their kids. And the other was young men who were choosing to stay longer in school. So they weren't being first forced out of school by the needs to support the families. So the evidence given the choice, people will continue to stay engaged, but they will stay engaged in a more meaningful way doing stuff that they love.

Morag Gamble: 15:08

Hmm. Yeah, that's really interesting. I wonder how that, how does that apply then say in places like Africa where you were working previously. How could something like that make a difference there and how would it happen there? Is it possible?

Jonathan Dawson: 15:33

Is it possible? I mean, there have been experiments in, throughout the world. I mean, I can't dive into the granularity of UBI, universal basic income. It's not something I've studied in enormous depths. I think it might be good to begin by saying that the most radical new economy thinkers are thinking within a paradigm of de-growth that we actually need to de-grow the economy. Contract the economy for our own wellbeing and mental health. However, there are similarly recognition that in the global South and particularly Africa, there is a need for continued economic growth for quite some time to come. So this coined by a guy called Aubrey Meyer called contraction and convergence. So contraction in the North and expansion in South to the point of approximate equality. So many of the issues that we face in the North to which UBI universal basic income is a really important part of the solution wouldn't apply so much in Africa. You know, the task rather is to address systemic inequalities, power inequalities in the global system. That means, so for example, I was working in Ghana. This is up at the moment in Canada. Ghana is asking the question. This is a country in West Africa where I used to live is how come we were the second largest producer in the world of cocoa. And if you look at the value of a one pound bar of chocolate we're getting about a penny and a half and the other 98 and a half percent of the value added goes to the North, and could we not produce the cocoa ourselves, produce the chocolate ourselves. Of course the reason they can't is that the European union, the United States, and I guess Australia as well, but certainly the US and European union set their import tariffs or import taxes, just a level where it's more profitable to do the process and the value added in Europe and the US than in Africa. And so they're left with the peanuts, and this is one of many examples of the dice being loaded in such a way that it's pretty much impossible for Africa to escape its poverty trap.

Morag Gamble: 18:00

Can I ask, so the work that you're doing at the college and the thinking around the type of economics we need in the world today, how does that intersect with the conversations that are in the world now around decolonization?

Jonathan Dawson: 18:21

Yeah. Yeah. So by decolonization, I, as, you know, one of the threads I'm really passionate about, I mean, in fact, I see myself as being a storyteller, at least as much as being an economist. I think the meeting points of economy and the arts, particularly story, theater, I think i t's a really juicy, powerful place. And I think that the reason I b ring this in here is the power of narratives. So, maybe the, I c an just mention t his states the final taught module in the regenerative economics program that I lead is called changing frame, the science and art of communication for transition. So recognizing that we bring to the world different narratives and stories and myths and language a nd metaphors that condition how we e xperience the world. And at the moment, I mean, really for the last 500 years, since really the conquest of the Am ericans, a nd shortly thereafter of Australia, New Zealand, t he dominant narrative is a Eurocentric narrative where we ha ve a nd even though we are now as good, modern, intelligent, progressive people, we still have this deep legacy of the superiority of male of the female, of the white civilized, European centric approach to the world to technology, to how we engage with the world. And this is, I mean, I've been immersed in this stuff from living in Africa, traveling a lot deeply studying anthropology. I' ll n ever es cape t his, this is deeply in my DN A, even though I c hallenge it. So the decolonization of the economy then relates to challenging this core story and get again something that we find a lot here at the college is this intersection, as we explore the new science and new ways of thinking, we notice the parallels with indigenous wisdom traditions. So, and I mean, I think for you, particularly in A ustralia and New Zealand, i s the opportunity to engage with the world and other cultures with a little more humility and be open to the possibility that there are other stories out there that could make more sense. Maybe just on e o f the things.. there's a regular member of our guest faculty wh o h as taught here at the college for many years, a guy called David Abram The Spell of the Sensuous, which is among the best books I've ever read. And he asks us to consider the truth of people's stories by how well they enable us to live on the earth. And so by that measure he suggests that actually our stories are deeply primitive and unhelpful, and that actually th ere's m uch wisdom to be gained from the, rather than being condescending towards indigenous people to really ask the question. Are they sitting with deep na rrative s tories that better prepare them to live well on the planet? Do we have much to learn from th em? It's a rhetorical qu estion.

Morag Gamble: 21:57

So within the college, then there seems to be sort of the completely different way of teaching economics. I mean, it's the name itself, regenerative economics, but there's something quite powerful about how it's an, it's a completely immersive experience. Do you want to just maybe describe a bit about what, what the Schumacher college economics education looks like and how that's important in terms of like creating this new economic story that's needed in the world?

Jonathan Dawson: 22:34

Yes, indeed. Thanks. So my first reaction is your use of the word teach? The conventional model of education is there's a wonderful William Butler Yeats quote that education is not the filling of a pail. It is a lighting of a fire. And so, you know, my business card says senior lecturer in economics and it's what I do occasionally. I mean, I do enjoy standing up in front of a group and saying, I'm just going to talk for half an hour, but it's not really what I do. It's much more about creating a learning environment in which the native genius intelligence of the students can flourish. I think the critical bit is the community-based nature of the education. So there's again, I think recently died again called John shutter who distinguishes between about this thinking and within this thinking. So, conventionally we're comfortable with using the intellect to analyze and to analyze out there and we'll have a somewhat extractive relationship or research, or we're actually going out and gathering data that we can put back and use our intellect as a way of to dissect and to come to wise conclusions reports. Within this thinking is actually beginning by locating within the subjectivity within the field. Like, what do I bring to this inquiry that brings it alive and can recognize that we not only allow students to use the first person pronoun, but we actually insist on it. Among the assessed learning outcomes is reflexivity on your own engagement with subjects. So in other words, it's not a thing. The economy is not a thing out there that does things to us that are mostly pretty unpleasant, but actually it is a network, a massive network of relationship in which we are deep engaged already. So it's interesting that we're coming towards the end of the academic, the residential academic year at the moment, and the students in their reflections and feedback when they do, they do mention universal basic income and community banks and other tools out there tools for new economy, but really their reflections tend to be much more focused on their own personal experiences of transformation and a recognition that they are embedded in a complex system, which is influencing them as they influence it. And consequently, they need to bring the subjectivity into the frame. And so it means that at the college where we are engaged students and staff alike in growing food, cooking food, washing dishes, um, it means that the, the membrane that would separate learning space from the other space is pretty much abolished.

Morag Gamble: 25:53

The kind of education or the learning that takes place there, that the people who come through Schumacher college, go out into the world and take this transformative experience. And where, where do they go? And how do they then have you heard stories back about how they begin to shape organizations or communities that they're in a way that is helping this transition?

Jonathan Dawson: 26:24

Yes. So on the Schumacher college Regenerative Economics Webpage, we do have a tab called alumni profile. So I direct anyone who's interested in this particularly to go there. All sorts. It's definitely a challenge. I notice a little bit of a pattern that people leave after a year. In most cases have a deeply transformative experience and spending the next months or even a year toying with this question of how do I take this stuff, which is deeply challenging the core assumptions and norms and behaviors and institutions in the dominant system currently, how do I take this and apply this in a way that will be satisfying to me and would contribute to the greater good? So like some examples are, I don't think that any student... We've been running the program for 10 years, running an economics master's program for 10 years. And, um, I don't think any student came with the law on the radar, but it definitely emerged as being a potentially powerful leverage point. So like around the world at the minute the courts are filled with cases of with cases of governments being taken to court by their own citizens, often in the name of other species or future generation in terms of the response to climate change and biodiversity loss. In New Zealand, particularly the events of ecocide and legal suits to give rivers, for example, the mountain ranges rights or challenges to exploit another platform, corporate platform the great tech giants, Uber and Airbnb, for example, who are making much of the money by denying their workers, holiday pa and other w orking rights because they call them associates. So there's tons of really i nteresting stuff happening in the law. E ducation i s another field, it's clearly a place that people could would be attracted to who are interested in enabling deep transformation of consciousness. Some people create their own social enterprises. There's a guy who was here a few years back who was fascinated by community woodlands f rom the beginning, and h e's now c reated just at the back of the college a wonderful social enterprise that is based on using the w oods as a base for education and environmental awareness raising, NGOs, think tanks, lots of really interesting. I mean, it's very impressive if you look at i t. If you can, if you look at our student alumni stories on the webpage, it's very, it's a very happy set of s tories. One more is that some of your audience may have heard of d oughnut economics. This is a woman called Kate Raworth who's created a really fascinating new way of exploring the world and how we can do it better. And she has recently created a team called the Doughnut Economics Action Lab. A nd she's had t wo employees, both of w hom h ave been through this program.

Morag Gamble: 29:55

Wonderful. Yeah we explore that too, through the Permaculture Eeducator's program that I run. That's part of what we explore too. And I wonder where in what you're describing, that you see things like the sharing economy, or like the community sharing economy or gift economy, where that plays a part in the conversations that you have.

Jonathan Dawson: 30:50

So the gift economy is strong anyway, because it's basically who we are as a species, right? Where our gift-giving species. One of the real gifts I mentioned David Graeber before recently deceased, unfortunately. He was great, a great mythbuster. Like really deeply challenging the core mythology, underlying what we assume to be normal. And this one, I really enjoy this one little piece that he brings to the puzzle where he he's saying, okay, so the dominant story we have is that, and this goes to Adam Smith and beyond is that w e a re fundamentally, we like transactions and money. And so th e r o ot o f money was the inefficiency of barter. So as long as there's only two items in the[inaudible] and clubs, then you can swap one for the other, and th at t hat's yo ur e xchange. But as soon as you begin to get other things into your economy, you know, that doesn't work be cause w hat happen I want what you've got, but you don't want what I've got. So yeah, you kind of recognize that as being our societal story, and he, as an anthropologist, he then says, no society has ever been found anywhere where that was the case. That's how mo ney c ame into operation anywhere. That I see the way the transaction happened was through the medium of gifts. So again, he asked us to i magine a hunter going into the forest and making a kill and coming back. And according to the dominant story today, he wo uld h a ve s et up a stall in the market and sold to those who could afford and not to those who couldn't. He said th at's t otal nonsense. The way it happened is that he would come back from the fo rest, give it away, p rioritizing pregnant wo men a nd children and the elderly. And the reason he did this of course, is that in a society, without a welfare state, you know, your best survival strategy is t o develop a reputation for generosity. And so our deep, deep, deep roots is gift-giving. So this is it's almost an irrepressible urgency is to give a gift. Can I just invite you to reflect on the difference between a cash transaction and th e g i ft h a ve b een given? It's a totally different experience. However, our current ec onomics e xpands by pulling things that have been in the gift economy, into the monetary economy. So you can grow GDP, gross domestic product. So this is a core motive force within the capitalist system. So how do we, your question, our question is how can we transition more from an e conomy based in t ransition to an economy based re lationship a nd it's a tricky one. And I have to say that my own personal theory of change is kind of a b ased on crisis, just inherent crises in the current system. So do I see us b eing able to make a transition in a way that favors relationship or transaction in the absence of deep systemic crisis? I don't. So if we look at the moment, for example, what's happening with the pandemic. The pandemic in t he one ha nd a n d c limate change in the other. U m, y ou know, we have a government in the United Kingdom at the moment that is probably as right-wing as any we've ever had. And they're enacting policies that were so cialist g overnment to h ave elected them. They would be held at. You know, th ere, the government is intervening to make massive payments, to support people who ar e e mployed to bring the ho meless b ack into proper accomodation. The government is spending trillions in support because it doesn't have a choice because, you know, if the government's rule is becoming rather than enabling the extraction of massive profits for corporations to looking after the people, and these crises will only intensify both the co sts a ssociated with responses to climate change. And the evidence suggests that this pandemic is th e first of a wave of pandemics that is likely to come because the source of the pandemic is our incursion into the ecosystems of ot her species, wild species that we haven't yet been coming into contact with. So in this context of crisis and growing proportion of government resources will have to be devoted to the care economy, to protect people and responding to climate change, either mitigation or ad aptation. So in this context, there's this wonderful book by a guy called Tim Jackson, he mo s t fa mously, he wrote a book called Prosperity without Growth. And thi s ne w book is called I think.. Beyond growth. Um, s o mething like that. And he' s pa inting a very plausible scenario that actually the foundations of capitalism are ac tually crumbling right at the moment and their crumbling because the government is being pulled in, in a way that it's tried to step back to enable corporations to take over that the sta te is necessarily being pulled in with its resources devoted to the care economy, because not und er an y ideological conviction, but because it doesn't have a choice. The moment I see enormous potential and lo ts of new niches opening up. But they're not opening up because of ideological conviction within society more broadly, they're opening up because the nature of the crisis converging in th e ci vilization are so great that, times of crisis open up massive. I mean, as you and I know there's a proliferation of really interesting community-based initiatives happening at the moment that's happening because of the major crises like between the unemployment, the massive and growing gap between the rich and poor, ecological dislocation, pandemics. So this is a context in which businesses as usual, profit-driven business as usual. I think it seems to me just cannot survive. As that happens then the native genius as the people as is being is manifest in all of the different activities that you are engaged in. I would, again, refer to Paul Hawkins, Blessed Unrest. This is a book that came out maybe a decade or so ago where he described the outpouring of, um, NGOs, community groups in a list of tens of thousands of them. And he describes these, he asked gleefully, he asked the question, could this be the earth's immune system kicking in? A beautiful metaphor. And I think that's what's happening, but it's happening not because we have won the ideological power of battling with capitalism, but rather because we just don't have a choice.

Morag Gamble: 38:24

So do you feel, I mean, I know this is a fraught question, but do you feel hopeful then when you see this, that we do have the capacity, we do have it inherently within us to make the changes that we need to make. Are we going to make them fast enough? What else do you think we could be doing towards this from your perspective?

Jonathan Dawson: 38:52

The question is, is, are we doing this fast enough. Like massive suffering, dislocation already in the system, mostly manifests in the global South but like Australia is getting its own its own share of it over the last couple of years. Um, and like already built into the system is massive dislocation and suffering. I'm thinking particularly of the, like what we have seen so far in terms of migrants coming into North America and Europe, like we're just beginning to touch the, this is just the, t he first signs o f much more serious l onger-term problem. So am I confident that we can make a transition? I feel c onfident that we have got, that we have got the native intelligence and like our lineage a s a g ift-giving species whose success is based on its capacity for generosity outside of the gene pool, census up beautifully for responding well to a cataclysmic crisis. So when we make a cry w here we make a transition, I think we will live skillfully through a transition that will be enforced upon us. U m, and we are meaning-making species. At the moment, not much m akes sense, which I think i s b eing translated into serious epidemics of substance abuse and depression and suicide. And my reading of history is that in times where a generation h as given a mission and feels a power of mission to achieve, but what we're capable of is astonishing. I think the invitation as well is to be here now, not to become too obsessed and fixated with like noticing that our capacity for worry is significantly greater than often the thing itself. So I think the invitation is to become much more grounded in appreciation a nd celebration of what you have at the moment and to reawaken to ourselves a nd each other and to our mission as a generation.

Morag Gamble: 41:35

That, to me, sounds like a beautiful way to close this conversation, Jonathan, because that invitation is something that I think calls to so many people in so many parts of the world. So thank you so much for taking the time today to talk.

Jonathan Dawson: 41:56

Thank you. It's been lovely to be in conversation.

Morag Gamble: 41:57

I'm going to share. So all the listeners who are here, I'm going to share all the different links that you've mentioned, different books and links to the college down in the show notes. And if there's anything else that you wanted to share as well, Jonathan, maybe about, how people can get in touch with the college, for example. How do they connect with your master's programs? For example, what's that process look like?

Jonathan Dawson: 42:28

So a web search in Schumacher College will take you directly there a nd I can be contacted via the website. So if anybody wanted, whether it's a conversation about the course or just a more generalized chat, totally open to that.

Morag Gamble: 42:52

Fantastic. And when is your, when does the year of your master's begin? When does that all start?

Jonathan Dawson: 43:02

Mid September. In September. So we have four, six week modules ecology and economy, always beginning with ecology. Economics a subsystem of ecology, not vice versa. Um, the old growth regenerative enterprise and changing the frame.

Morag Gamble: 43:28

Fantastic. Thank you so much, Jonathan. It's been such a pleasure talking with you today. Thank you. So that's all for today. Thanks so much for joining us. Head on over to my YouTube channel, the link's below, and then you'll be able to watch this conversation, but also make sure that you subscribe because that way we notified of all new films that come out and also you'll get notified of all the new, all the new interviews and conversations that come out. So thanks again for joining us, have a great week and I'll see you next time.