Speaker.
Alastair McIntosh
Author of ‘Soil and Soul’
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Alastair is a writer, lecturer, social activist, broadcaster and campaigning academic.He works in the field of human ecology.
Some define human ecology as simply being the relationships between population, environment, resources and technology.
McIntosh prefers to study the relationships between the natural environment and the social environment which incorporates the psychological and spiritual side to things.
What I'm talking about:
Climate Change - a Challenge to Community and Spirituality.
In this talk I will speak in reference to my new book, "Hell and High Water: Climate Change, Hope and the Human Condition."
I consider that politics alone is not enough to tackle the scale and depth of the problem that faces us. At root is our addictive consumer mentality. Wants have replaced needs and consumption drives our very identity. Western societies and many others influenced by it have fallen prey to a numbing culture of violence and as part of it, the motivational manipulation of marketing.
The inner life has become hollowed out, and a disproportionate share of our energies and identies are focussed on the outer life. At its deepest level, this is a psychological and spiritual sickness. We have become addicted to false aspirations and become weakened in our authenticity. Such hubris leads to violence not just against one another, but to the Earth.
We must therefore fight climate change in all the outer ways, for sure, but also, we must seek to rekindle the inner life. That draws us towards the essence of what it means to be a human being and that, in turn, draws us towards the imperative of building community with one another. As such, there may not be many grounds for optimism about what our mainstream society is likely to do about climate change, but there is considerable scope for hope - hope in the gradual restoration of both ourselves and the human condition in general.
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My Brainfood
Websites
- The Centre for Human Ecology
- Runs inspiration courses for transformative learning
- The GalGael Trust
- Deep elemental work with folks living in a hard-pressed urban situation
- James Nayler Foundation
- A Quaker website dedicated to dealing with issues of personality disorders and the violence related to them
- International Fellowship for Reconciliation
- A mine of material on non-violence
- Centre for Action and Contemplation
- Website of Fr Richard Rohr - a great spiritual teacher of our times, coming from but not limited to the Franciscan tradition
Books
- Spiritual Emergency
- This book reveals that within the crisis of spiritual emergency lies the promise of spiritual emergence and renewalISBN: 0874775388
- Knulp
- This book is about the life of a vagrant who ponders the meaning of life and realizes his life had a purposeISBN: 3518380710
- Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination
- A book on Christian TheologyISBN: 080062646X
- Pedagogy of the Oppressed
- A seminal text in education looking at the roles of suppression, political domination and authoritarian teachingISBN: 014025403X
- Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful
- A collection of poems about revolutionaries and lovers written for those committed to beauty and love even in face of the firing squadISBN: 0156421739
Successful Marketing is manipulation - we must ensure the best marketing is reserved for the products, services and actions which will help us and the planet. Look forward to meeting you Alastair. Best, Jon