#52 Creating Accidental Activists to Improve Health in a Post Pandemic World with George Monbiot

Today on the podcast I welcome along George Monbiot - who is is an author, Guardian columnist and environmental campaigner.

George cowrote the concept album Breaking the Spell of Loneliness with musician Ewan McLennan; and has made a number of viral videos. One of them, adapted from his 2013 TED talk, How Wolves Change Rivers, has been viewed on YouTube over 40m times. Another, on Natural Climate Solutions, that he co-presented with Greta Thunberg, has been watched over 50m times.

As we witness an improvement in the crisis and anticipate the relaxation of social distancing, I wanted to talk about the opportunities to learn and reform our political systems that globally have been woefully unprepared and slow to respond.

As we try to recuperate the losses both emotionally, physically and financially I’m trying to cultivate the opinions of thinkers from around the world who have long documented the unfolding crises in society that have now spectacularly revealed themselves to us.

In this episode, we talk about:

How to harness intrinsic human values of kindness to foster better wellbeing in societyHow cooperation and altruism is hardwired in our neurobiologyThe evolution of humans would have required community and kindness to survive rather than the prevailing narrative of individualism and inequalityNeoliberalism in politics and how we have evolved over the 20th and 21st centuryThe impact of immersing ourselves in a virtual worldHow we address alienation and loneliness, which are the defining conditions of our time.The rise in social initiatives and Accidental activistsWhat will we reward in a post pandemic era? Those with material wealth and social influence or those who seek to build community and foster relationships?Is this an opportunity to build a doughnut economy?Big Organising in the wake of the Pandemic

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