I know we say this all the time around Doomer Optimism, but this time we really have a special episode. Brought live from Colombia, host Steven Morris (@lifesmyth) interviews Joe Brewer (@cognitivepolicy) about the Earth Regenerators community and the work they're doing in Colombia. Jason Snyder (@cognazor) also joins them. Gear up for an optimism-heavy episode.
About Joe Brewer
Joe Brewer has separate bachelors degrees in physics, mathematics, and interdisciplinary studies and a masters in atmospheric sciences. He is a complexity researcher, innovation strategist, experience designer, and serial social entrepreneur who brings a wealth of expertise to the adoption of sustainable solutions at the cultural scale. His experiences as a social entrepreneur and cross-disciplinary scholar weave together a combination of skills dedicated to open collaboration, interactive design, and empowered civic action for catalyzing change toward greater resilience in our turbulent world.
More recently, he has moved to Colombia and is engaged in regenerating an area of dry desert with the aim of returning it to flourishing biodiversity. He has written The Design Pathway for Regenerating Earth and established Earth Regenerators, a community, a study group and a place to share ideas that will bring us closer to a prosocial world, focussed on bioregions where the human and More-Than-Human worlds integrate, where we organise with direct local democracy, create a steady state economy, based on shared values and not on growth, and where we predicate our actions on trusting the good intentions of others.
About Steven Morris
Steven Morris started his journey into then unnamed realm of Doomer Optimism in 2011 when, during the time of a divorce, he stumbled upon 3 of the many early doomer optimist voices: Chris Martenson's Crash Course, John Michael Greer's blog The Archdruid Report, and KMO's C-Realm podcast. These 3 identified the many issues of decline in the world that he could sense but didn't have words for. At the same time they all provided positive possibilities for the future. Steven considers himself an amateur Renaissance Man and Polymath of sorts with a wide variety of interests including: appropriate use of technology, regenerative systems, explorations in consciousness, alternative (sometimes called complementary) currency systems, computer technology, and complex systems. He has worked on multiple award winning independent films, managed warehouse logistics for a small business, run a college radio station and lead ecstatic dance workshops. He is a trained Host for Nora Bateson's People Need People gatherings. He currently generates income from running the audio visual technology behind corporate events and is working with the Commons Engine as the video editor for their upcoming Currency Design for Change Agents master class to be launched this spring. Steven is committed to supporting people find their way through the rapidly changing chaos, especially those who don’t see themselves as homesteaders.
About Jason Snyder
Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.
Episode 57 - Joe Brewer w/ Steven Morris and Jason Snyder