Prof. Joel Pearson (Neuroscientist; AI and cognition scientist) returns to Wild, this time to discuss whether free will is an illusion. In our last chat (about intuition) the subject was raised and Joel promised to come back to discuss it further, particularly in the context of AI, algorithms, the rise of totalitarianism and our agency in systems collapse.  Joel is the founder and Director of Future Minds Lab which applies neuroscience findings to art, AI, media, advertising and various...

Christiana Figueres (the woman behind the Paris Agreement) is possibly the best-known official in the global climate change movement. The former Costa Rican diplomat and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (2010-2016), managed to bring together 195 nations to sign the historical 2015 agreement that set the “1.5C” target/warning. She wrote The Future We Choose, cohosts the Outrage + Optimism podcast, has a moth, a wasp and an orchid named after her,...

In this SPECIAL EPISODE British coach, author and broadcaster Elizabeth Oldfield and I sit down in her London intentional community home and interview EACH OTHER on…what is sacred (and how we access it), acedia ( the moral loneliness we feel in turbulent times), how we sit in the grief and despair of things, losing friends to the cause, how to be of service, how to be Fully Alive (the title of her book) and honour This One Wild and Precious Life (mine!). Elizabeth’s book has been endorsed by...

I do these bonus episodes occasionally whereby I interview someone I serendipitously met on my adventures and who I wrote about in my books AND who struck a chord with readers. I track them down to see where they are now, and there is ALWAYS the most amazing follow-up story. This time, Nika Kovač, a controversial Slovenian activist and Obama scholar who once invited me on a gondola ride with a communist philosopher when I was stranded without a bed for the night and pregnant (read This One...

Dr Iain McGilchrist (neuroscientist, psychiatrist, polymath, author of The Master and His Emissary) devised a thesis that sets out how the two sides of our brains can affect the way we both interact and create the world. The left hemisphere is a narrow, extractive, problem-solving “machine” that divides and conquers things, fails to see our part in the world and to fathom beauty, awe and responsibility. Our civilisation, Iain says, has become ruled by a left-brain mentality, which is killing...

Professor Corey Bradshaw (global ecologist; author) has spent a career studying species populations and biodiversity loss and has the starkest of messages for humanity: we are in our own mass extinction event. Debate rages as to whether humans have an overpopulation problem or are in a fertility collapse, and which is more likely to take us down. The director of the Global Ecology Lab at Flinders University talks us through the devasting finer points of this divide. We also cover why...

*(and that the wars, climate disasters, democratic upheavals etc today are VERY different to crises in the past)? This episode’s question has been asked by too many of you to mention. Many of us have been in situations where we try to talk about the domino’ing of crisis - AI, nuclear, climate, food insecurity, democratic decline, political polarisation, fertility collapse - and get told we’re just being a big old Henny Penny, and that crises happen all the time and humanity survives. The...

Dr Nick Bryant (BBC Washington correspondent, author) has spent most of his career covering the events that many of us see as spelling the decline of the US, a once-great nation – the school shootings, Trump presidency, Roe v Wade, storming of the Capitol, George Floyd, conspiracy theories and…all the rest. But in his new book The Forever War: America’s Unending Conflict with Itself Nick argues that the hate, divisiveness, racism and murmurings of civil war are part of the fabric of the...

Professor Clive Hamilton (public ethicist; climate activist; founder of the Australia Institute) has led the emissions reduction conversation for decades. But he - controversially - has recently switched tack, arguing that climate mitigation is now impossible. And irresponsible. And that we must instead put our efforts (and last resources) into trying to survive as best we can. In this chat the professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, recently named a 'living...

Hello, dear wild friends! I'm taking a short break, but I wanted to share some of my previous interviews with guests who delve into themes of collapse, the meta-crisis, and the decline of the systems we've always known to grow—like GDP, technology, population, and prosperity. Many of you have joined my book serialization project on Substack, where we're navigating the collapse awareness journey together. These interviews provide valuable context for our journey. You can join us here if you're...

Hello, dear wild friends! I'm taking a short break, but I wanted to share some of my previous interviews with guests who delve into themes of collapse, the meta-crisis, and the decline of the systems we've always known to grow—like GDP, technology, population, and prosperity. Many of you have joined my book serialization project on Substack, where we're navigating the collapse awareness journey together. These interviews provide valuable context for our journey. You can join us here if you're...

Hello, dear wild friends! I'm taking a short break, but I wanted to share some of my previous interviews with guests who delve into themes of collapse, the meta-crisis, and the decline of the systems we've always known to grow—like GDP, technology, population, and prosperity. Many of you have joined my book serialization project on Substack, where we're navigating the collapse awareness journey together. These interviews provide valuable context for our journey. You can join us here if you're...

Hello, dear wild friends! I'm taking a short break, but I wanted to share some of my previous interviews with guests who delve into themes of collapse, the meta-crisis, and the decline of the systems we've always known to grow—like GDP, technology, population, and prosperity. Many of you have joined my book serialization project on Substack, where we're navigating the collapse awareness journey together. These interviews provide valuable context for our journey. You can join us here if you're...

Hello, dear wild friends! I'm taking a short break, but I wanted to share some of my previous interviews with guests who delve into themes of collapse, the meta-crisis, and the decline of the systems we've always known to grow—like GDP, technology, population, and prosperity. Many of you have joined my book serialization project on Substack, where we're navigating the collapse awareness journey together. These interviews provide valuable context for our journey. You can join us here if you're...

Jem Bendell (collapse “poster kid”, academic) wrote the paper that launched the “Deep Adaptation” movement and spawned Extinction Rebellion. That was in 2018. The paper argued that societal collapse was unavoidable and would happen in our lifetimes, probably before the end of the 2030s, and it went very, very viral. The University of Cumbria Emeritus Professor and co-founder of the International Scholars’ Warning on Societal Disruption and Collapse has now released a new book, Breaking...

Jean Twenge (psychologist; professor at San Diego State University) is regarded as the world expert on “generations”. She famously described millennials as “Generation Me” (also the name of her 2006 book) and first made the (controversial) connection back in 2017 between smartphones and the sharp uptick in anxiety and depression among Gen Z teens, which has since become one of our culture’s top talking points. In her recent book, Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials,...

This week I asked fellow substacker Anya Kamenetz to help me answer the above question. Anya is a parent and climate activist, a former NPR journalist and she has written five books loosely related to the mental health of young people in the face of difficulty. She is also the producer of Joanna Macy’s incredible podcast with Jess Serrante, We Are The Great Turning.  This question - How to parent in the face of collapse and crisis? - comes up often on my Substack and there was a particularly...

Greg Lukianoff (New York Times best-selling author, attorney) co-wrote the blockbuster The Coddling of the American Mind, which argued we were failing young people by rendering them fragile victims. Then, 10 days after October 7, he came out with the first book to comprehensively track the rise of cancel culture -The Canceling of the American Mind.  Greg, who’s also CEO of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expressions) and I talk through the confused aetiology of cancel culture and...

Jenny Odell (NYT bestseller, artist) wrote a bestselling book five years ago that Barack Obama declared one of his “books of the year”. “How to Do Nothing” stuck two fingers up to the productivity industry. Jenny followed it up with the recently published, “Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond The Clock” that argues the original problem is our framing of time as a bunch of units we own, spend, must be efficient with etc. In this chat, Jenny explains that how we relate to time is our choice...

OK, this week is a kind of personal and also sociological muse-fest (from someone who's been on ALL the apps since shortly after the last ice age). I cover how I first went on the apps in 2010 (and share what I wrote about it at the time), about my experiences on Raya and, yes, on the latest app people are talking about, Feeld. I had to drop my shame for this one. However, I include a bunch of sociological perspectives and reflections some of you might find useful (and very familiar). Note,...

Frank Ostaseski (Buddhist; end-of-life teacher; elder) helps people die best. He has accompanied over 1,000 people through the dying process and trained thousands of healthcare clinicians and family caregivers around the world. He was also a lecturer at Harvard Medical School and has taught at Google and Apple Inc., has been honoured by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and appeared on Oprah and Sam Harris’ Making Sense podcast. I asked Frank to join me to talk through his book, The Five...

I need to give everyone here a bunch of updates…Plus, the BONUS video episode I promised with Dr Louise Newson is now live. Louise answers your questions about libido, whether to take HRT, how to manage menopause when you have Hashimotos etc, you can find it here. SHOW NOTES Here’s the Wild chat about perimenopause and menopause with Dr Louise Newson from earlier this week. Here’s more information about my news…(hint: a new book which you can be part of, STARTING NEXT WEEK). -- If you need to...

Dr Louise Newson (British GP; hormone specialist) is regarded as the “medic who kickstarted the menopause revolution”. For two decades women have been denied treatment for a debilitating condition that affects more than half the population, thanks to one (faulty) study that linked hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to cancer. Louise has been on a mission to undo the damage and educate women on their real choices. In this chat, I try to cover off what every woman I know is asking right now: Is...

Today’s question is one I always love answering…what do I stuff into my backpack, and what backpack do I actually use (ditto hiking shoes, tent, gear etc)? I do a show and tell for this one, so the video version over at Substack probably makes sense. I throw in some minimalist hacks, too. SHOW NOTES Join the conversation over on Substack and post your own Ask Me Anything here Book your one-on-one with me here --- If you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" page For more such...