Regenerate, Renew, Rewild.
“Regeneration is the only way to come out of overshoot and collapse. We've gone too far across planetary boundaries. This is the time for us to boldly, ambitiously learn how to collaborate to regenerate the world.”
Joe Brewer is a culture designer learning how to live regeneratively in the Andes mountains of Colombia. His project, Origen del Agua, aims to transform a community and a landscape — all to bring a river back to life. This living demonstration shows us a path to restore planetary health at scale. And is also giving birth to a design school for Earth regeneration.
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite platform.
“Yes, humans can bring rivers back to life. ”
About our guest
Joe Brewer is a change strategist working on behalf of humanity, and also a complexity researcher, cognitive scientist, and evangelist for the field of culture design. Joe has a unique background in physics, math, philosophy, atmospheric science, complexity research, and cognitive linguistics. More than a decade ago, he left the academy to trail blaze a path for other research practitioners to follow. Awakened to the threat of human-induced climate disruption while pursuing a Ph.D. in atmospheric science, he switched fields and began to work with scholars in the behavioral and cognitive sciences with the hope of helping create large-scale behavior change at the level of global civilization.
Connect with Joe Brewer:
Medium | Linked In | Twitter | Patreon | YouTube
The Design Pathway for Regenerating Earth
Humanity is confronted with threats unprecedented in the history of our species. There is an urgent need to describe the “how” for managing the convergent threats of ecological overshoot and civilization collapse. This book offers a clear and cogent pathway for safeguarding humanity’s future through an extended period of cascading consequences.
Origen Del Agua
Origen del Agua is located in Barichara, which is a town in the northern Andes of Colombia with about 7,000 residents. It is situated on a plateau where there was tropical dry forest -- a threatened ecosystem at risk of disappearing. The forest is 98% destroyed and in urgent need of restoration. This is a pilot project to demonstrate how to apply solutions to restore planetary health and avoid human extinction at the speed and scale required.
Learn more at RegenerateBarichara.org
The Earth Regenerators Community
Earth Regenerators is a global network of people seeking to participate in the restoration of landscapes and cultivation of regenerative communities. We started as a study group and quickly grew into a vibrant community of people learning how to support each other as regenerators of the Earth. This network is freely available and open to all who share this vision for the future of humanity. We are fellow humans initiating, struggling, and learning to live more regenerative lives - from a backyard to coordinating whole-system regeneration efforts. Check out our latest learning journeys, teach-ins, social support events, and newsletter.
Links & resources from this episode:
Surviving the Future, by David Fleming
Selected Articles From Joe Brewer:
Culture Design Labs -- Evolving the Future
A Global Network of Culture Design Labs
Tools for Culture Design -- Toward A Science of Social Change?
Guiding the Evolution of Social Systems
Cultural Evolution in the Anthropocene
The Complexity of Cultural Evolution
