Webinar on Deep Adaptation
Your Invitation
A free 2-hour Webinar and Conversation on Deep Adaptation
Hosted by HEART Community Group
When and Where?
Wednesday 24th February 2021
or
Saturday 6th March 2021
both at 11 am – 1 pm
Please e-mail kim@heartofthriving.com to register and receive the zoom link for either of these webinars.
Who is the webinar for?
Anybody who is deeply concerned about the climate and other planetary predicaments – and is curious to learn more about what they and their local community could be doing NOW to prepare and adapt for what may be a very different way of life.
Some of you may be members of Extinction Rebellion, and/or local Transition Town organisations. You may work in local government, or volunteer in a community group. And it doesn’t matter if you’re not a member of any organisation! It’s enough if you are a citizen of Hertfordshire.
Probably not suitable for children 12 and under.
A vital conversation about our collective future
It was more than five years ago, in 2015, that the Paris Climate Agreement was reached, and late 2021 sees the important (postponed) COP26 in Glasgow.
Despite messages from politicians and the mainstream media, things are getting worse, not better.
2020 has seen a vast amount of new science and research findings being published.
We are happy to provide a comprehensive list of recent scientific resources after the webinar for those of you who wish to take more of a deep dive.
Even for those of us who are awake to the emergency, the conclusions from this latest science force us to go beyond our usual narratives about the planetary predicaments we face. If we’re able to face the situation honestly, we no longer have time for a gentle and gradual transition.
The challenge is by no means limited to reducing carbon emissions. There are many other, related issues – including mass species extinction, eco-system collapse (both on land and in oceans), climate-created refugees, and likely future Zoonotic virus pandemics.
There are many things we can begin doing now that will help us to prepare and adapt.
“Fighting to turn things around” in the face of a rapidly deteriorating situation can be highly stressful. Many of you have done this for years, and some of you are exhausted. Yet we are closer to the edge of the cliff than ever.
9 of the 15 known global climate tipping points that regulate the state of the planet have already been activated, and we are racing towards the others.
HEART Community Group’s acceptance about what may be coming our way doesn’t mean we’ve given up. Far from it. We are totally engaged in meaningful projects that come under the heading of Deep Adaptation, and building local resilient communities.
We very much look forward to seeing you on the webinar!
Who are HEART Community Group?
HEART stands for Hertfordshire Enabling and Adapting for Resilience Together.
We are a group of Hertfordshire residents who accept that societal collapse is possible, likely or inevitable in our lifetimes, or is already occurring. We are committed to contributing to local community resilience, both practically and emotionally.
We seek to inform and support local leaders in political and local community organisations, and encourage them to be curious and open minded about collapse and its implications.
We also seek to demonstrate and share the values of Love, Kindness, Empathy, Collaboration and Community in all that we do.
On e-mail
On Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1842345099239467
On Twitter
https://twitter.com/HEARTCommGroup
What is Deep Adaptation?
Professor Jem Bendell’s 2018 paper “Deep Adaptation: Navigating the Climate Tragedy” is the most downloaded academic paper of all time. The paper has been downloaded more than a million times, and has been translated into more than 10 languages.
He published an update in July 2020 which you can read here: http://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf
“Millions of people are already suffering. It’s worse than we’ve been told. We are now in danger. We must do all that we can to try and slow the problem down. But we must also now do all that we can to help each other through this.” Professor Jem Bendell.
Deep Adaptation (DA) is an idea, a community and an agenda initially created by Professor Jem Bendell to help us to reflect on useful activities, cultural norms, values and behaviours now. People who share the DA narrative accept that societal and economic ‘collapse’ is now likely, inevitable or already unfolding.
Mitigation is about anything we do to ‘turn things around’ so that we achieve our carbon-emissions targets and continue with business as usual. That’s important too, in that there are mitigation strategies that will at least avoid making things worse, or slowing down the worst effects – but if we bring down carbon emissions to zero and continue with business as usual, we will still destroy ourselves..
Adaptation refers to those things we do to prepare for the conditions that we know are coming, but most people are still in denial about. Good examples are building sea-walls, changing buildings to cope with different temperatures, food and water security, and re-wilding or permaculture.
DEEP Adaptation is about asking some fundamental and profound questions about who we are, what’s most important and how we choose to live now. It includes approaches that deepen our resilience.
And starting now to build resilient, deeply connected local communities.
It includes a useful framework of questions to reflect on, and we will be exploring these during the webinar.
The Pasqueflower (Pulsatilla vulgaris) is the County Flower of Hertfordshire. It blooms around Easter-time. Hertfordshire is one of the last remaining strongholds of this rare plant.