To say that a book has changed my life sounds like a cliché. There aren’t many that truly do, but Jem Bendell’sBreaking Together: a Freedom Loving Response to Collapse is certainly one of them.
So when I heard Jem Bendell was coming to Lisbon for the launch of the Portuguese edition of Breaking Together, I had to try to interview him. We recorded this conversation in late 2024, the day after the book launch.
My angle, as usual, was personal. Beyond asking Jem about societal collapse—which he’s spoken about widely elsewhere—I wanted to meet the human behind the thesis: Who is Jem Bendell? How did he become who he is? How did he get to do this important work? And what does it mean for him to live with more consciousness and wisdom, now?
Guest Bio:
Jem Bendell is a world-renowned scholar on the breakdown of modern societies due to environmental change. For decades he worked in Sustainable Development—as a researcher, NGO manager, professor, and consultant to businesses, political parties, and UN agencies.
In 2012, he was recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and has since become one of the clearest critics of the globalist agenda on sustainable development.
In 2018, after a sabbatical studying the latest climate science, he published Deep Adaptation—an academic paper that went viral and is credited to inspiring the Extinction Rebellion movement.
Since then, Jem has stepped away from the sustainability industry. He published Breaking Together in 2023, moved to Bali, opened an organic farming school, became a singer-songwriter, and, in his own words, a militant mysticist.
Links:
* Buy Breaking Together: a Freedom Loving Response to Collapse
* Buy Juntos na Rutura, the Portuguese edition of Breaking Together
* Download Breaking Together for free
* Subscribe to Jem Bendell’s blog
* Join Jem’s monthly Metacrisis meetings
Credits:
* Music Audio Producer & Editor: Carlos Sierra
* Producer, Writer & Host: Carlota Guedes
