Free Will in Nature | Jem Bendell
From What Lies Beyond Podcast by Matt Colborn
June 5, 2025 · 1h 33m · Season 2 · Episode 11
About this episode
Jem Bendell discusses the concept of free will in nature and its implications in the context of climate breakdown and consciousness.
Show Notes Season 2 Episode 11 ‘Free Will in Nature’ Today my guest is Jem Bendell. Before the summer of 2023, Jem was a full Professor of Sustainability Leadership and Founder of the Initiative for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) at the University of Cumbria. He was also the founder of the Deep Adaptation Forum and the co-founder of the International Scholars’ Warning on Societal Disruption and Collapse. A major transformation in his career began in 2017 as he took a year out to study the latest climate science and released the Deep Adaptation paper which went viral. After the release of his book Breaking Together in May 2023, Jem decided to leave employment as a full Professor in the UK. Jem then entered a new phase of his life, where the development of the Bekandze regenerative farm school in Bali and playing devotional music for groups become his main focus. He still writes and lectures on collapse readiness and response. Jem begins today’s discussion with an outline of the main thesis of Breaking Together : that societies globally have already begun to experience climate breakdown driven collapse. This gives a context for our main discussion of free will in nature. We…
People in this episode
Host: Matt Colborn
Guest: Jem Bendell
Topics covered
- free will
- climate change
- sustainability
- consciousness
- Buddhism
- Vedanta
Keywords
- free will
- climate breakdown
- sustainability leadership
- consciousness
- Buddhism
- Vedanta
- Deep Adaptation
- Jem Bendell
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: University of Cumbria, Deep Adaptation Forum, International Scholars’ Warning on Societal Disruption and Collapse
Books & works: Breaking Together
Places: Bali
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