Accidental Gods | Five Insights for Avoiding Global Collapse with economist Gaya Herrington

What does it take to avoid global collapse?  Is there still time?  And if so, what are the societal, social, cultural and goal-oriented changes that we need to make to get there? 

This week's guest is one of the new generation of super-thinkers who have the capacity, individually and collectively, to bring into being that better future our hearts know is possible. 

Gaya Herrington received her first master’s degree in Econometrics from the Liberal University of Amsterdam and her second master’s in Sustainability from Harvard University. In between she worked for KPMG, for the Dutch Government as a regulator and then back to KPMG in the US, where she now lives. She is a member of the Transformational Economics Commission of the Club of Rome, a recurring guest lecturer at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and works at Schneider Electric as Vice-President of ESG Research.

She wrote her thesis for her second Masters on the seminal Limits To Growth work that first came out in 1972. The paper she wrote as a result of this went viral - and she expanded it into a book called Five Insights for Avoiding Global Collapse. She has made this freely available by download and I have put a link in the show notes - because this is absolutely essential reading for anyone on this path. The take home message though, as you'll hear, is that if we all work together, there is still time. Which should be a fairly familiar idea to those of you who have listened to other guests. But this time, we'll really unpick the data and concepts behind it in the company of someone who has worked hard at the coal face of the old system and has seen how to change it. 

Gaya's book https://mdpi-res.com/bookfiles/mono/6206/Five_Insights_for_Avoiding_Global_Collapse.pdf?v1682069789
Gaya's paper at KPMG https://advisory.kpmg.us/articles/2021/limits-to-growth.html
Manfred Max-Neef https://gaiafoundation.org/the-barefoot-economist-manfred-max-neef/
Club of Rome: Earth for All https://www.clubofrome.org/publication/earth4all-book/

What is Accidental Gods ?

Another World is still Possible. The old system was never fit for purpose and now it has gone - it is never coming back.

We have the power of gods to destroy our home. But we also have the chance to become something we cannot yet imagine,
and by doing so, create a future we would be proud to leave to the generations yet unborn.

What happens if we commit to a world based on the values we care about: compassion, courage, integrity?

What happens if we let go of the race for meaningless money and commit instead to the things that matter: clean air, clean water, clean soil - and clean, clear, courageous connections between all parts of ourselves (so we have to do the inner work of healing individually and collectively), between ourselves and each other (so we have to do the outer work of relearning how to build generative communities) and between ourselves and the Web of Life (so we have to reclaim our birthright as conscious nodes in the web of life)?

We can do this - and every week on Accidental Gods we speak with the people who are living this world into being. We have all the answers, we just lack the visions to weave them into a future that works. We can make this happen. We will. Join us.

Accidental Gods is a podcast and membership program devoted to exploring the ways we can create a future that we would be proud to leave to the generations yet to come.

If we're going to emerge into a just, equitable - and above all regenerative - future, we need to get to know the people who are already living, working, thinking and believing at the leading edge of inter-becoming transformation.
Accidental Gods exists to bring these voices to the world so that we can work together to lay the foundations of a world we'd be proud to leave to the generations that come after us.
We have the choice now - we can choose to transform…or we can face the chaos of a failing system.
Our Choice. Our Chance. Our Future.

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