From What If to What Next

It's hardly a surprise that we struggle to hold onto hope and optimism given that the news we receive every day is filled with so much misery, appalling human behaviour, despots, narcissists and hopelessness. So what if instead we lived in a world in which the majority of the news we encountered was positive news? Stories of change going in the right way? That's our question for exploration today, and my two guests, Sean Wood, CEO of Positive News, the online and print magazine for good journalism about what’s going right, and Eliza Marshall, musician and champion for deep change, have been giving it a lot of thought. So lose yourself in what that future will be like. It's a treat.

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As the cost of living crisis impacts more and more people, and energy security becomes something far more widely discussed than it was 10 years ago, here is a vital conversation with two leading pioneers of the notion of community energy. Community energy is a movement that is spreading in spite of, rather than because of, government actions, but its potential is huge. What if by 2030 it was the norm? What might it unlock beyond simply kilowatt hours?

I'm joined by Leila Fortunato and Agamemnon Otero to explore this, and you are in for such a treat... thanks as always for listening, and do let me know your thoughts on this episode.

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In the light of the UK government's recent appalling proposed deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda and their new policy to electronically tag everyone who arrives on our shores, as well as the massive growth in what we might call the 'immigration industrial complex' around the world, this week we are asking a vital, and rarely asked question, what if we just got rid of the idea of borders altogether?

I'm joined by the brilliant Nandita Sharma and by Todd Miller, who have both been giving this a lot of thought for a long time. I think this is one of our most thought-provoking and mind-expanding episodes yet. I'd love to hear what you think. My thanks to you for listening, and to Ben Addicott as always for producing it.

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An odd question perhaps... yet in the hands of our guests, Belina Raffy and Sam Knights, a powerful and pertinent one. What if we were to harness the power of humour as a tool in the fight to engage people in the climate emergency? What can humour allow and enable us to do that other approaches don't?

We had a lot of fun making this episode, and I hope you will have as much fun listening to it. As always, do let me know what you think, we love to hear your thoughts on these episodes.

Please consider supporting the podcast by visiting www.patreon.com/fromwhatiftowhatnext and becoming a patron.

Today's episode was recorded live at the BTS Centre's Convocation 2022, an online event with the theme of 'Imagination and Collective Liberation for a Climate-Changed World'. It was recorded before a live (online) audience.

This was an event which set out to explore “what it means to nourish our imaginations toward a world of joyful possibility and embodied hope, while also holding space for the difficult realities we are facing”. We fitted right in.

We were joined by Dr. Keisha E. McKenzie, Senior Vice President for Programs at Auburn Seminary, and Shanon Shah, Director of Faith for the Climate and Senior Deputy Editor of Critical Muslim. This was such a delightful discussion, and my deepest thanks to everyone who made it possible, especially Nicole Diroff and everyone at BTS. As always, I'd love to hear what you think of this episode and the issues it raises....

Please consider supporting the podcast by visiting www.patreon.com/fromwhatiftowhatnext and becoming a patron.