Accidental Gods - The Thrutopian Podcast

What can we do, we who see the climate emergency racing towards us, but feel powerless? What is activism at its core and where do we find the courage to put our principles - and our fear, love and compassion - into action? James Brown, multi-medal winning Paralympian and Climate Activist talks about the nature of courage, action and his sources of hope. More at https://accidentalgods.life

Show Notes

James Brown is an athlete, inventor, social entrepreneur, multi-Paralympian gold medal winner  - and climate activist.  There was a time when James was known most for his astonishing achievements across many sports. Between 1980 and 2015, he took part in no less than five Paralympic Games (winter and summer) as well as eighteen World Championship events.

His range of disciplines was extraordinary: they included track running, cross-country skiing, triathlon, swimming, road/track cycling and guide-running. He has several Paralympic Gold medals, was holder of the 800m World Record for eight years and has three other World Firsts to his name, including being the first registered blind person to compete in a World Track Masters cycling event at the velodrome in Manchester.

In 2018, everything changed for James when his daughter - then at university - broke down in front of him in a cafe in Exeter and explained all she had been reading about the climate and ecological emergency.  James wept with her, but she offered hope in the shape of the newly formed Extinction Rebellion, and the possibility that non-violent direct action might help foment change. James committed to being at her side in whatever actions she took and within weeks, they were walking arm in arm to the blocking of the five bridges that were the first London Extinction Rebellion action.

Since then, James has been arrested 13 times for his non-violent actions (once for spraying chalk paint on the road outside DEFRA in Bristol where it was raining so hard the chalk was washing off as they sprayed it one and was gone long before the arrest process was complete). Most recently, he spent two and a half months in Wandsworth prison for the action that propelled him to climate-activist super-stardom - when he climbed onto a plane at City Airport and superglued himself to the top. The Facebook Live video that he recorded at the time has gone viral and James received thousands of letters and emails while he was in prison, from people who felt desperate about the climate emergency and wanted to know how to find the same courage.

So this is what we explore in today's episode - courage and agency and activism in an age of total transformation.  What can we do, and how can we find the courage to take the action we know the world needs?

James Brown Website: https://jamesbrownparalympian.co.uk




What is Accidental Gods - The Thrutopian Podcast?

Another World IS still Possible. The old system was never fit for purpose - and now it's collapsing around us. So how do we co-create a Thrutopian future that we'd all be proud to leave as our legacy?

What stories can we weave of possibility? Of transformation? What happens if we commit to a world based on generative values: compassion, courage, integrity?

What happens if we let go of the race for meaningless money and commit instead to the things that really matter: clean air, clean water, clean soil - and clean, clear, courageous connections between all parts of ourselves, between ourselves and each other, between ourselves and the Web of Life - so that we can reclaim our birthright as self-conscious nodes in the web of life?

We can do this. Some of us already are. Every week on Accidental Gods we speak with the people who are living this world into being, courageous pathfinders who are exploring the emergent edge of inter-becoming.

As a species, we have all the answers, we just haven't yet crafted all the new stories and woven them into a future that works. 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.

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.

Find the membership and the podcast pages here: https://accidentalgods.life
Find Manda's Thrutopian novel, Any Human Power here: https://mandascott.co.uk
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