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“Grief is a blessing. It’s a guide. It’s a signal. It’s us being our best self when we feel grief, because it’s our heart,” says OG environmentalist Paul Hawken on the Climate Curious podcast. In conversation with co-hosts Ben Hurst and Maryam Pasha, Paul invites us to reframe fear as grief, take courage over hope (particularly in regards to the Iran war), and even has a poignant message for aliens landing on Earth. Tune in to learn why your climate grief isn’t bad – it’s truth.
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Created by TEDxLondon
Executive produced by Josie Colter
Produced by Ben Beheshty
Curated by Deesha Chandra
Hosted by Maryam Pasha and Ben Hurst
Communications by Tara Cooper and Issey Gladston
00:00 Grief as a gift
00:48 Why climate stories fail
03:02 From polar bears to root causes
04:14 Colonialism and extraction origins
06:56 Green tech paradox
08:04 Language that others nature
12:50 Upstream not symptoms
16:18 Top down myths
19:05 Alliance for Earth vision
23:04 Local change and empire collapse
24:10 Civil rights shaped his lens
28:58 Avoiding cynicism and indigenous prophecy
33:12 MLK compassion and faith
34:54 Love God love all
35:32 Grief as truth
41:03 From hope to courage
44:37 Indigenous wisdom roots
49:08 Humanity immune response
53:44 Pivot to regeneration
01:00:51 Commerce versus capitalism
01:04:00 Aliens and overview
01:06:29 Closing thanks credits
Grief as a gift
[00:00:00] Paul Hawken: Grief is a fantastic, wonderful blessing as an emotion. If you’re not feeling grief, then I don’t think you’re really aware of what’s going on.
[00:00:12] Ben Hurst: This is Climate Curious, the podcast for [00:00:15] people who are bored, scared, or confused by climate change.
[00:00:18] Maryam Pasha: I’m Maryam Pasha, the director and curator at TEDxLondon, and the co-host of this podcast alongside the amazing Ben.
[00:00:25] Ben Hurst: Hi, I’m Ben Hurst, activist and advocate exploring what positive [00:00:30] masculinities can look like and self-confessed, climate norming.
[00:00:36] Maryam Pasha: We were just having a very interesting conversation before this podcast started, and I wanna come back later to what you were just saying when we have more context. [00:00:45] But let me ask you, because, um.
Why climate stories fail
[00:00:48] Maryam Pasha: You know, as part of some of the conversations we’ve been having recently, we’ve been speaking to people who have been involved in the environmental and the climate movements for like long periods of timing and getting their perspective.
[00:00:59] Maryam Pasha: And you’ve been [00:01:00] working on these issues since. Is it fair to say the 1960s? What has changed the most from your perspective?
[00:01:09] Paul Hawken: What has changed the most is that, um, I would say the [00:01:15] environmental and climate movement hasn’t learned how to have a narrative that touches people. In other words, it, it. It’s one thing to have a, a symptom, a crisis, you know, something that is coming up scientifically or, uh, [00:01:30] theoretically or experientially and say, Hey, wait a minute.
[00:01:33] Paul Hawken: This has got a cause there’s an effect. You know, let’s deal with the cause, you know, we won, have the effect, et cetera. I mean, I’m just generalizing about the environmental movement as a whole, [00:01:45] but, uh, what’s happened I feel in the last 50 years is that the climate movement, it’s called the climate movement for, for, for the sake of, uh, narrowing a little bit, uh, which is not true, but it, that is that the [00:02:00] climate narrative has.
[00:02:02] Paul Hawken: Completely failed. And if, if you think after 50 years of knowing, we understand the science very, very well. This, this is not, you know, rocket science at all, uh, about [00:02:15] increasing, uh, you know, the CO2 and atmosphere is going to change the balance between incoming and outgoing heat. You know, it’s gonna be more incoming than outgoing.
[00:02:24] Paul Hawken: You know, the earth does regulate itself in terms of heat, um, and it’s [00:02:30] regulating itself right now by absorbing it and then what it does with it. But the point being, uh, is that after 50 years, less than 1% of anybody in the world is doing anything about it. Can you imagine? Here’s a [00:02:45] crisis, by the way. The future of humanity’s at stake, not the planet.
[00:02:48] Paul Hawken: The planet will recover the future of humanity’s at stake. And after 50 years, only one less than 1% are involved in doing anything. That’s not a good narrative.
[00:02:58] Ben Hurst: Can you, can you, um, [00:03:00] can you map it for me?
From polar bears to root causes
[00:03:02] Ben Hurst: ’cause I, I don’t, like, I hear what you’re saying, but I struggle to visualize it in terms of was, has there been a period where the narrative was working or was there a period where we were getting it right and then it changed into something that wasn’t, because I remember for example, going back 20 years when I was, what, uh, 10, 15 years old.
[00:03:22] Ben Hurst: It, the narrative that I was aware of was about polar bears, about penguins, about saving animals. Right. And, and [00:03:30] whilst that might not have been an entirely accurate narrative, it did. Capture people’s attention. Yes. So was that a narrative that worked and then we’ve moved into something that doesn’t work as much?
[00:03:40] Ben Hurst: Or how has it worked?
[00:03:41] Paul Hawken: Well, there’s two things there. That narrative is really about biodiversity. [00:03:45] Okay. And that was, and so what you do is you use charismatic, uh, creatures, animals, and so forth. You know, they capture people’s attention, you know, or it’s like, oh my God, you know, something’s happened now, compass.
[00:03:55] Paul Hawken: Yeah, of course. You know, I mean, we have that innate empathy, you know, as human [00:04:00] beings and so forth. But it didn’t go to first cause. It went to saving them. Save the whales, save this, save this. Of course, of course, of course. But it didn’t go to first cause. What’s the first cause? What is causing us to destroy the biosphere?
[00:04:13] Paul Hawken: Interesting question.
Colonialism and extraction origins
[00:04:14] Paul Hawken: And then you pull the string on that flower bag and you go back to capitalism, you go back to extraction, you go back to western, colonial, uh, activities, particularly starting with the doctrine of discovery from the papacy, the Pope in 14, was it 82? I forget when it was for, you know, when the pope said to the Spanish, if you discover something, it’s.
[00:04:39] Paul Hawken: Yours to say, ours from, you know, the, the people point of view. And you [00:04:45] had these Spanish, uh, con, you know, landing in parts of South America, right? And these big ships are coming. The native, uh, people, the indigenous people going, what the heck you know, is coming in on the ocean? Never [00:05:00] see anything like it.
[00:05:00] Paul Hawken: They’re all dressed in metal. They have these things on their thing with feathers coming out, and they have, you know, swords and this and that. And they read to people, said, sit down, read, listen to us. And they explained that everything [00:05:15] there, the land, the women, the children, the riches, the crops belong to us.
[00:05:23] Paul Hawken: That’s what they said. The, the people couldn’t understand a word they were saying.
[00:05:27] Ben Hurst: Okay.
[00:05:28] Paul Hawken: Okay. I guess. Yeah, that’s, [00:05:30] and then that started it, and then the Spanish killed 88 million people in North America, south America, central America. 88 million people were extirpated. Okay. So we wanna go back and say, well, wait a minute.
[00:05:44] Paul Hawken: [00:05:45] How is it that we are extricating species now? Whole ecosystems, you know? Uh, well, we’ve been doing it for 500 years. We’re following in the footsteps. Yeah. You know, and why we do it, well, we do it for money. [00:06:00] We do it because we can get something. And so what happened then was the beginning of an extractive mentality, which is that basically Europeans, whether it be the English or the French or the Dutch or the Germans or the Spanish or the [00:06:15] Portuguese, could go out into the world get and take what they wanted.
[00:06:18] Paul Hawken: First it was silver, you know, and gold. But I mean, people. I mean, they could give anything they wanted and then it was sugar and tobacco and things like that. But, and then [00:06:30] enslaving people, the Western passage, you know, you know, going to, you know, west Africa and then, you know, bringing in workers, well, they weren’t workers, they were enslaved human beings, you know, that had really beautiful cultures that they lived within that were [00:06:45] very sustainable and viable.
[00:06:47] Paul Hawken: And so they were brought in and so forth. So and so, we are still in that economy. We are still in an economy that is extracting.
Green tech paradox
[00:06:56] Paul Hawken: And now we talk about, oh, well, we’re gonna do solar, we’re gonna do ai, we’re gonna do this. Whoa, wait a minute, hang on. What do you need to do that? Oh, you need rare earth and you need trace minerals.
[00:07:09] Paul Hawken: You know, min, not trace, but I mean, you know, rare minerals and well, where do you get them? Where you get them from all [00:07:15] over the world, from Chile to Northern China to, you know, Congo, right? And so now we are mining, we are killing children. We are destroying places, we’re destroying rivers to get things to save the earth.
[00:07:29] Paul Hawken: You know what I [00:07:30] mean? You, you see the, the paradox and the irony of the, of the narrative. You know, so the people say, oh, you know, we need to get rid of fossil fuels, you know? Okay. And how are you doing that? By destroying the living [00:07:45] world. So,
[00:07:46] Ben Hurst: yeah, I can, I can see why, I can see why it’s a, a tough sell.
[00:07:50] Ben Hurst: ’cause this is not traditionally, uh, the sexiest of messages. Right. It’s like going, going back to like colonialism and capitalism being the roots of the problem. I can see why [00:08:00] people don’t necessarily buy into that as their sales pitch.
[00:08:03] Paul Hawken: I agree.
Language that others nature
[00:08:04] Paul Hawken: And I would go right to what the, what is the, the narrative right now.
[00:08:09] Paul Hawken: Okay. Just right now, what do people hear? What do people just say to each other? And what they talk about is, first of all, the [00:08:15] climate crisis. Right? Uh, okay. The climate cannot have a crisis. It doesn’t give a hoot what we think or say or Right. It’s the climate. Yeah. Second of all, the climate is [00:08:30] not something other.
[00:08:32] Paul Hawken: It’s not distinct, it’s not separate. It’s the biosphere that creates the climate. Just like you have, you have lungs and you have air, okay? CO2, you have oxygen, you know, inside you [00:08:45] and you’re a physical body. Okay, well, the earth is the same. Right. It’s a physical body that has a gaseous envelope, right? And it breathes, it exchanges, you know, plants take in CO2, you know, and make [00:09:00] oxygen.
[00:09:00] Paul Hawken: You know, this is beautiful, beautiful cycle of life, you know, and so we’ve disturbed it, but we’re not gonna, in a sense address it if we say basically the climate has a crisis or if we use verbs, which are very [00:09:15] masculine verbs, if I may say so for my gender. Uh, we’re gonna fight, tackle, and combat the climate crisis.
[00:09:20] Paul Hawken: Now we’re in real deep. Do-do, because basically what you’ve done is you’ve othered it, you know, it’s out there somewhere. Now [00:09:30] you’re, God knows what some warrior, you know, going there and you’re gonna fight the crisis. Well. Othering is what caused the climate crisis. We have other human beings, other cultures, other places, you know, other traditions, other ways of [00:09:45] knowing, you know, and overlaid, you know, the western scientific reductionist way of understanding the world.
[00:09:52] Paul Hawken: And there’s nothing wrong with western reduction science, by the way. It’s the one way of seeing the world, but it’s not [00:10:00] the way, it’s not the only way and so forth. So again, and then we’ve come up with this amazing lexicon of words like, we’re gonna decarbonize. I mean, if the earth could giggle, it would like, oh [00:10:15] really?
[00:10:16] Paul Hawken: Yeah. Decarbonized. And really what we should be doing is decarbonizing really. ’cause we’ve taken this carbon, right, you know, from the soil, really, you know, gas, coal and oil. It was from plants and fish, marine life, you [00:10:30] know, and then burned it and stick it up in the air, you know, in the atmosphere, you know.
[00:10:35] Paul Hawken: And so we be, should be decarbonizing the earth ’cause we are decarbonizing it right now, uh, we, we talk about things like direct air capture as a solution. [00:10:45] It’s like, I’m sorry I’m laughing, but it’s like, oh really? You’re gonna capture the air and you’re gonna do what? You’re gonna put it back on the earth.
[00:10:53] Paul Hawken: How interesting. You know, what are you gonna do with that air you capture, you know that CO2, you know, [00:11:00] actually you’re gonna put it in depleted oil well so you can get more, capture, more oil so you can burn that. That’s what, that’s what all companies are wanting to do, planning to do. Spending billions of dollars, you know, just get the CO2 that we put up there, bring it back so we can put more [00:11:15] CO2 up there.
[00:11:16] Paul Hawken: You know. So, I mean, I was in an, in an audience when I’ve done this before, you know about the language, you know, and I said, you know, half this room understands what I’m talking about. I said, what do you mean why half? I said, [00:11:30] I’m talking to the women. If any woman here has not felt, felt objectified in her life, raise your hand.
[00:11:40] Paul Hawken: No one raises her hand.
[00:11:42] Ben Hurst: Yeah.
[00:11:43] Paul Hawken: Okay. [00:11:45] So. We, and I’m using gender now as we, you know, the male species objectify and thinks that that. Describes, helps, works, you know, and [00:12:00] it doesn’t, it actually alienates, separates, uh, and harms. And so that’s what I mean about the climate narrative. You know? Now I am not criticizing you people, the listeners, about what they do, what they care about, what they are [00:12:15] on a daily life.
[00:12:15] Paul Hawken: Not at all. I think they’re heroines and heroes and they have all my support, you know? Absolutely. So it’s not, I’m not talking about hu human beings now. People, they’re extraordinary. I’m talking about the [00:12:30] narrative. And the narrative came out of something that we inherited, which is, you know, western reductionists, you know, scientism and culture that actually doesn’t communicate well.
[00:12:41] Paul Hawken: It doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t land. Uh, it [00:12:45] landed for us, that’s fine, but it hasn’t landed for 99% of the people on Earth.
Upstream not symptoms
[00:12:50] Maryam Pasha: So Paul, when you see numbers that are coming out, like, um, when people do surveys where they say, look, 80% of [00:13:00] people around the world care about climate change, do you think that we’ve kinda, not, misdiagnosed is not the right phrase, but we’ve kind of missed the target.
[00:13:12] Maryam Pasha: Like we like the, the work [00:13:15] in the climate movement has been around getting people to care and know and assume that that translates to action, but actually that’s not what’s happened. I’m just curious to know, like, how does numbers like that, [00:13:30] how do they influence your thinking?
[00:13:32] Paul Hawken: Uh, not at all. I think people are caring, human beings are, are carrying species, so it, it doesn’t impress me.
[00:13:40] Paul Hawken: It validates what I believe. Actually, you know, the human beings are good [00:13:45] people and they care about each other, about their children, about their family, about other people, you know, and so, but, but I don’t think it’s an actionable question.
[00:13:54] Maryam Pasha: Right.
[00:13:54] Paul Hawken: And I don’t. I think if we’re going to be most effective, we have to go [00:14:00] upstream to first.
[00:14:01] Paul Hawken: Cause you know, there is the parable of the river, which I don’t know who created it by the way. Uh, Bishop Desmond Tutu rec, uh, uh, recited it once, uh, in, uh, uh, in Georgia and a church where I [00:14:15] was. But uh, I’ve heard it many times, which is you’re by the river and you’re having a picnic or whatever and so forth.
[00:14:21] Paul Hawken: And then you see a child or somebody, you know, in the river, you know, being washed away, can’t swim like this. And you look and you jump in the [00:14:30] river, or of course, and you save the child, right? And you bring her or him back to land and you’re going, wow, shoot. That was close. You know? And then you go back to your picnic or whatever you’re meeting, and then pretty soon, oh, there’s another child going down the river, you know, [00:14:45] and you go back in the, when the third child goes by, somebody says, you know, instead of saving the children, we might wanna go upstream and see who’s throwing them in the river.
[00:14:56] Paul Hawken: And so the same thing holds true for [00:15:00] what do you want, whatever movement you wanna call it. The climate movement, the environmental movement, biodiversity, you know, so forth, is we have to go upstream to first. Cause if we’re not focused on first cause then we’re scrambling and, and, and, you know, [00:15:15] to deal with the outcome, the symptoms, you know, the manifestations of, uh, first cause, uh, but we’re not gonna, we’re not gonna fix it.
[00:15:24] Paul Hawken: That’s another male verb, you know? And I, I have a guy and I love to fix things. I had nothing [00:15:30] wrong with fixing, but, you know, I used to raise motorcycles. I had to fix it all the damn time, you know, I mean, it broke. Uh, so it’s a good verb, but it’s a bad verb. When you look at the earth as a whole, you know, the earth can fix [00:15:45] itself.
[00:15:45] Paul Hawken: And does every single day, you know, so forth. What we need to be is in alignment with that as opposed to coming in as a, you know, charismatic species, you know, that knows [00:16:00] better. No, we don’t. No, we don’t. Yeah. Well, the last question I, last part of that question I’m not gonna answer. Are we, are, are we asked, you know, I, I would say again, go back up, like just let’s [00:16:15] sort of untangle that, you know, the, the down cycle.
[00:16:17] Paul Hawken: Okay.
Top down myths
[00:16:18] Paul Hawken: The down cycle. What’s down cycling, what, what is it exactly? You know, what’s down cycling is, uh, corporations and, and government. That’s what we’re talking about in, in terms of policy, in terms of legality, in terms of enforcement, of laws, in terms of, oh, well we don’t need ESG after all, you know, corporations who committed to ESG said, um, we’ll just kind of put that away for now.
[00:16:42] Paul Hawken: You know? I mean like, [00:16:45] well that was very sincere, wasn’t it? I mean, it was just, you know, a joke really, you know, that we’re gonna do this, we’ll buy some carbon credits like Microsoft, you know, from, you know, I mean, things like that, [00:17:00] you know, as if there was gonna make a big difference. You know? Here’s the problem, Ben, which is really important to understand.
[00:17:07] Paul Hawken: We think that there’s a top down solution, and we live on a [00:17:15] planet that is not top down. It’s not a top-down place. We live top down, only harms and destroys. So when the top down institutions talk about top down, you know, [00:17:30] solutions, and then they, then they pull back, we should say Yeah, of course. Because they don’t count in that sense.
[00:17:40] Paul Hawken: They really don’t count. They count as destroyers. I, I, I [00:17:45] don’t mean they don’t, you know, we can just forget about them, but they don’t count in terms of esprit court, in terms of our sensibility, in terms of what’s happening. And I would say it’s quite the opposite. That is that humanity is doing [00:18:00] amazing things right now everywhere in the world.
[00:18:04] Paul Hawken: And we, we don’t know about it. Why don’t we, yeah, because. It’s not in the Guardian, it’s not in ft, it’s not in, you know, the New York Times. It’s [00:18:15] not in the post. It’s not a, you know, you don’t see it. You see the big stories. The big stories are about who screwed up and who got killed and, and who’s corrupt and, you know, big thing about Mandelson and the, you know, Starr right now and so forth.
[00:18:28] Paul Hawken: And he’s like, [00:18:30] come on, you know? I mean, these are two very, very small human beings in my opinion, you know, who just happen to be in positions of power, you know, that they abuse. And in fact, what’s happening, you know, is that [00:18:45] humanity is absolutely rising up and organizing all over the world and so forth.
[00:18:51] Paul Hawken: And that is how change really occurs. And that’s how the planet has always, um, uh, manifested itself. It’s been an emergent quality. [00:19:00] And right now I think we see this emergent quality in human beings and everywhere in the world.
Alliance for Earth vision
[00:19:05] Paul Hawken: And so one of the things I’m doing is creating, uh, well, I’m not creating, a bunch of us are creating a thing called the Alliance for Earth.
[00:19:15] Paul Hawken: And you can go lance earth.org and you’ll just see a splash page. Uh, it’s not released yet. But the point is that it brings, it is to be a way that we can all see and talk to each other. Who’s we? Everybody on earth. Whether [00:19:30] it’s a, you know, an N-G-O-A-A-A-A school, uh, science, whether it’s a B Corps, whether it’s this, whether who really is acting, actively searching and acting [00:19:45] upon the problems that are very evident, you know, and the causes which are very evident, uh, uh, can connect each other.
[00:19:53] Paul Hawken: Dialogue, connect. So I can find out who in Gambia is doing deforestation work. [00:20:00] You know, just boom. And we can start talking. And it’s in the, it’s in 105 languages, okay? So we can translate back and forth. Uh, and so English is not the, you know, dominant [00:20:15] language in the thing. Yeah, I know. No, not at all. And, um, so it becomes a way in which the world can connect itself and then start to realize that we, we, this world of restore, of [00:20:30] renewal, of regeneration, uh, and kindness by the way, uh, is actually a growing, uh, uh, population, not a shrinking population.
[00:20:41] Ben Hurst: This is super interesting. It feels like, um, we are like, [00:20:45] uh. I dunno how to describe it, really. It’s like the illusion of capitalism, isn’t it? That we are all like just individuals and like we are all only the sum total of our choices. And that in the grand scheme of things, nothing we do really has any power [00:21:00] or makes any difference.
[00:21:00] Ben Hurst: And it’s just the, the big people who are the leaders that change all of the stuff. Um, which does point away from, like at this point we’ve spoken to literally hundreds of people who are creating or running initiatives that are changing and challenging, um, in [00:21:15] their local communities, in their local areas.
[00:21:16] Ben Hurst: Transforming the ways that people live. Yes. And I think there’s so much power Yes. In like, telling those stories and exposing those stories. ’cause it makes it seem possible or viable for you. Right. Like it makes, I, I mean, hearing all [00:21:30] of that stuff makes me feel like the things that I do can make some kind of difference or have some kind of impact, which I think is really important.
[00:21:38] Paul Hawken: I couldn’t agree more. And that’s what keeps me going. And those are my friends and that’s what I do. [00:21:45] You know, and I don’t try, I mean, sometimes what I do rises, you know, to some level of influence. I mean, uh, speeches or something I’ve given, you know, but in books I’ve written, but it doesn’t matter. What [00:22:00] matters is what people do every day together and, and how they, uh, uh, learn from each other and share and act.
[00:22:08] Paul Hawken: And, you know, and it may seem to some, you know, that, well, that’s not very powerful. It is the most powerful thing in the [00:22:15] world because everything we’re seeing right now from in the news, the headlines will disappear and fall and fail. It always has and always will. I mean, when power absolutely concentrates its corruption and corruption will fail.
[00:22:29] Paul Hawken: And, [00:22:30] uh, so, uh, it’s not that we. Shouldn’t address that as well politically, uh, you know, and not vote or not participate, of course we should. But to look at that, look at those powers to be [00:22:45] as somehow failing us in terms of biodiversity, in terms of ecology, in terms of climate, in terms of, uh, our children and, you know, the creatures that live here.
[00:22:56] Paul Hawken: Uh, no, you shouldn’t expect that from that, from [00:23:00] concentrated sources of power, whether it’s ca capitalism, this business or So does the change
Local change and empire collapse
[00:23:04] Ben Hurst: always feel in your experience? Does the change always feel slow and small? Is it, is that just what we’ve gotta get used to, especially in like moments like now when it feels like [00:23:15] everything is very overwhelming.
[00:23:16] Ben Hurst: Like we are, we, I I feel like we are literally watching the collapse of Empire or of the empire that we have existed in, which is like a deeply uncomfortable process to sit through. Is it a, a message that people need to hear that actually change [00:23:30] is localized and it is small and it is. Bit by bit rather than looking for big moments, or are the big moments important as well?
[00:23:38] Paul Hawken: I think both are true, Ben. I think both things are true. Absolutely. We’re seeing the collapse of Empire and there’s no question [00:23:45] that it’s going to collapse in my mind. I mean, it can go further, you know, and politically, socially eco ego in terms of ecologically and so forth, you know, it is corrupt. And, uh, [00:24:00] so we’ll see the, the, the, the demise of empire, no question.
[00:24:03] Paul Hawken: You know, and United States is leading the way again,
[00:24:07] Ben Hurst: always, always the leaders. Yes.
Civil rights shaped his lens
[00:24:10] Maryam Pasha: Paul, can I ask, I’m really curious because [00:24:15] this analysis of where we find ourselves and those root causes is not what you hear from a lot of people. And I think what Ben and I have experienced. Not from our guests, [00:24:30] but as we’ve become, because neither of us come from this movement.
[00:24:32] Maryam Pasha: You know, we’ve been, this podcast has been a vehicle of understanding what’s happening around us and, and the amazing people working on it. But from is that for a long time there’s just been a [00:24:45] desire to keep the systems of capitalism extraction and colonialism in place while also, you know, bringing down the carbon and keeping us within 1.5.
[00:24:54] Maryam Pasha: Like, we like to keep everyone just where they are, but just not, you know, [00:25:00] increase the temperature of the planet. And what you are analyzing is a completely different problem in a way. I mean, meaning the source of it is a different problem than, than what’s been said. Do you, how do you, why do you think this way?
[00:25:14] Maryam Pasha: What [00:25:15] has, what has influenced you in your life to come to this kind of conclusion? Which quite frankly, we don’t really hear anymore.
[00:25:23] Ben Hurst: It’s not super popular. Yeah.
[00:25:24] Paul Hawken: Yeah. I think the same thing that, that you’re doing, which is you ask questions, [00:25:30] you read, you listen, uh, you talk to people, you, you know, and over time, and, uh, unless you’re, uh, arrogant in a way which you may not see [00:25:45] about yourself, uh, you ch you change.
[00:25:47] Paul Hawken: That’s what the mind is for, you know? That’s what I mean. This beautiful, extraordinary consciousness, you know, and it changes Every time you hear, see anything, it changes. We know that [00:26:00] now, you know, if, so to me it, it, it’s just emergent. It’s an emergent property of being, uh, a species, a human being on this planet, you know, which is to try to figure out where do I live and how is it going?
[00:26:14] Paul Hawken: [00:26:15] And. You know, and then to listen to people who are smarter, wiser, and more seasoned than you, perhaps, you know? Um, and, but to listen to people who are suffering, it’s very important to, and to hear the, the, the [00:26:30] voiceless, they’re not voiceless, but I mean, they don’t, they’re not given voice really, really important.
[00:26:34] Paul Hawken: I mean, you, you mentioned in your questions, you know, I mean about the civil rights movement. Well, I cut my teeth on the Civil Rights movement, you know, and a little white boy from Berkeley, you know, [00:26:45] and living with African Americans in the South was, oh my goodness. And if you wanna have a, you know, now you see, now you don’t, I mean, kind of moment, you [00:27:00] know, where you, everything that you.
[00:27:04] Paul Hawken: Believed that you didn’t understand, you believed, you know, so forth. It is just stripped away, you know, and you see, uh, a world that goes back, you know, [00:27:15] uh, 400 years. 400 years in America, you know, that was absolutely, you know, if it was just exploiting African Americans, well that would be okay. Exploit, no humiliating, killing, [00:27:30] raping, you know, I mean, it’s just terrible, you know, and you saw it.
[00:27:35] Paul Hawken: You talk to people and you realize nothing gave me more faith in humanity than African American people. Uh, in the [00:27:45] south when I went down there during the civil rights movement, nothing. And I’m not just black people and human beings as a general, but in, in what people can do, given, you know, 40 years of, of humiliation, oppression, death, you know, I mean, all [00:28:00] the things that were, uh, weighed upon them as slaves, uh, and, you know, inside, they never were slaves.
[00:28:07] Paul Hawken: That’s the point. You know? And so I think, you know, when I look at the world today, I think it’s [00:28:15] that moment of realization. The good thing about being a slave is, you know, you’re one, I mean, that’s the only good thing about it. The bad thing about being a white person in, you know, the affluent society of today and so forth, is you don’t know a slave.
[00:28:29] Paul Hawken: You don’t know what [00:28:30] you just don’t know. You are. You are beguiled and charmed and seduced and you know, you got stuck. You can buy things and this and that and you know, I mean, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re absolutely blind [00:28:45] and you’ve been blinded by a culture, you know, and so forth. But there’s no difference between, you know, um, a slave and most people today in, uh, Western culture.
[00:28:56] Paul Hawken: Yeah.
Avoiding cynicism and indigenous prophecy
[00:28:58] Maryam Pasha: I’m curious to [00:29:00] know, having had those experiences early on as part of the Civil Rights movement in the us, you know, working with Martin Luther King Jr. You know, like there’s something around this [00:29:15] idea of how do you stop yourself from becoming cynical. Because I think there’s something I, I must, I I, I can only imagine having done the work you’ve done and watching what’s happening in [00:29:30] America today, both when it comes to racial equity and when it comes to climate, that it, how do you protect yourself from that cynicism and that, I don’t know, grief.[00:29:45]
[00:29:45] Ben Hurst: Yeah. Surely it feels like there is no point. Sure. Surely this is like just a very circular narrative that feels like we are right back at the beginning of where we started.
[00:29:56] Paul Hawken: It shouldn’t, uh, because there’s two, [00:30:00] there’s two counter for forces, or, you know, one is the, the everything that created, you know, uh, 1492, you know, uh, when Krista Colomba, you know, went [00:30:15] to, um.
[00:30:17] Paul Hawken: Uh, the Caribbean and so forth, and met the Tino people and, you know, and literally snatched their babies and fed ’em to their dogs. That’s the first, [00:30:30] that’s the first contact between Western Europeans, you know, and the indigenous people of the Americas and so forth. I mean, that, that’s, you know, can make you very, very, very cynical.
[00:30:44] Paul Hawken: Of [00:30:45] course. I understand that. Uh, but I, I just feel like, um, I. If you look, if you just look to the depredation and, and the cruelty, you know, and in sensitivity, if that’s a [00:31:00] even strong, not a strong enough word, you know, of western culture in a way, it has spread over the world and so forth, you know, and produce many good things too, by the way.
[00:31:10] Paul Hawken: So I, I, I, this isn’t black and white in that sense at all, and so forth. Um, [00:31:15] and, and, and, but if you look at that, um, uh, and don’t look at the people at, at the individuals, at the cultures, you know, uh, the [00:31:30] art, the language, the understandings, you know, the spiritual practices, you know, the, the courage and the bravery.
[00:31:37] Paul Hawken: Uh, you know, it, look at the 550 indigenous cultures of the Americas, you know, Canada, America, [00:31:45] turtle Island, as they call it. I mean, the, what they’ve endured is just. Oh God, it’s, it’s so terrible. So terrible. What? You know, and now it’s interesting to me to [00:32:00] see that they had a, a prophecy. Their prophecy, not they, all of them, but that those prophecies especially and the eastern part, that, that the colonists would come.
[00:32:11] Paul Hawken: They, they, they prophecy their arrival and sure [00:32:15] enough, and what they said is, you know, they will dominate for seven generations. Okay. A generation indigenous culture is 70 years. So they had just about right. 500 years. And at 500 years it flips, it goes [00:32:30] back, you know, and what you’re seeing in the Americas really beautifully.
[00:32:34] Paul Hawken: And by the way, in South America and Central America, so all the Americas is, the indigenous cultures are really organizing, rising up, uh, [00:32:45] you know, speaking, uh, and, and, and organizing and in, in beautiful ways, you know, but like Robin, well, Kimer, who is a great scientist and a, you know, uh, of the, um, and [00:33:00] Native American, you know, um, AMI culture, um, I mean the, the way of seeing the world that they embody and express and so forth is so beautiful, so exquisite.
MLK compassion and faith
[00:33:12] Paul Hawken: So, and, and, and [00:33:15] so I just feel like, you know, even working with Martin Luther King or working, you know, listening to him, I, he, he didn’t know me. I was. But I mean, but listening to him and, you know, and I mentioned [00:33:30] like, you know, I mean, two weeks before one of the deacons at the church where we met, uh, every, every night, every day was murdered by the Alabama state troopers.
[00:33:39] Paul Hawken: You know, just, I mean, it was a lynching basically. Uh, and I was, I was in [00:33:45] church and his mom was there. His mother was there, you know, of course that was her church. He was the deacon of the church. Uh, and, uh, bar Luther Kings said, do not demonize the white man. [00:34:00] That’s not what we’re here to do. You know? And express compassion for everybody and everything and every, you know, every race and so forth, and express it so eloquently and so beautifully.
[00:34:11] Paul Hawken: And that’s what the church was about. You know, and it goes [00:34:15] back to James Erco, who is running for office here in the United States and he’s a Christian and he’s going to seminary school and he’s running for Senator Texas. And what he says is this Barefoot Jew, you know, we [00:34:30] call, Jesus only said two things to people, which is love God and love thy neighbor, all the rest of that stuff.
[00:34:40] Paul Hawken: Somebody else put in. He didn’t, he didn’t say any, he didn’t attend commandments, this, that, [00:34:45] all sort of stuff. White man wrote all that stuff about the Bible, you know, about abortion, this, that stuff. I’m sorry. He said that is not in the Bible.
Love God love all
[00:34:54] Paul Hawken: That is not what Jesus said. He said, love God and love thy neighbor.
[00:34:57] Paul Hawken: That’s enough. If we [00:35:00] did that, you know, you don’t have to be a Christian to do that, you know, then it would be a different world. You know, and so, uh, and then what is God? Or, you know, that’s a good question. But, [00:35:15] and then they, my neighbor includes, you know, the dragonflies, you know, and the hummingbirds, you know, and the things that creep and crawl and fly and, you know, run through the woods at night and all that sort of stuff, depending where we live and so forth.
[00:35:28] Paul Hawken: So those are our neighbors, right? [00:35:30] As well as the people who live next to us.
Grief as truth
[00:35:32] Paul Hawken: So to me, there’s very simple, I, I don’t mean binary ways, but but of way of being and seeing the world that say, yeah, look, I, I mean, it’s hard to wake up this morning and listen to the news about Iran, okay? It’s very, very difficult for me to listen to that, and my heart aches.
[00:35:52] Paul Hawken: But you mentioned something, Ben, about grief, and to me grief is a fantastic, [00:36:00] wonderful blessing as an emotion. You wanna feel grief? If you’re not feeling grief, then I don’t think you’re really aware of what’s going on. You know? Uh, and grief comes from the heart, [00:36:15] right? It comes from the heart. And the heart is the one organ that always tells the truth.
[00:36:21] Paul Hawken: Count on it. You wanna know the truth. So grief is a blessing. It’s a guide, it’s, it’s [00:36:30] a signal. It’s us being our best self when we feel grief, uh, because it’s our heart. Uh, and that’s what’s missing. You know, when we open the page or listen to the news that where’s the, where’s the heart in all this? You [00:36:45] know, it’s not there.
[00:36:45] Paul Hawken: It’s gone. It’s absent. Um, but not in, not in most people in the world, you know? So I have faith, a tremendous of faith in people in the world, uh, who are mothers and fathers and children, and care [00:37:00] and act on that, based on that care, and do the best they can. And, uh, they will, uh, surmount, you know, the concentrations of power that exists today that are destroying, uh, our cultures and our places and our land, [00:37:15] and our oceans and our seas and our forests, and, you know, yeah.
[00:37:17] Paul Hawken: Well.
[00:37:20] Ben Hurst: This is incredible. IP Sorry, Paul. This must be a, a really weird experience for you. Normally when we do these interviews, like we are like laughing and joking and like making, making [00:37:30] witty observations, but, and for the listeners, I, but you can’t see what we are seeing in this moment. Marin’s having a very visceral reaction to this conversation.
[00:37:40] Ben Hurst: And I, I I, I’m getting like goosebumps because I, it feels [00:37:45] like you are in lots of ways speaking to us maybe from the future. I don’t know. I, I, it feels like you are, you are able to embody something in this conversation that feels like it is completely lacking for most of us in [00:38:00] this moment, which is lack hope.
[00:38:02] Ben Hurst: And it’s, it’s hope that’s not based in, um, uh, a fairy tale of like what could happen. It’s, it’s a hope that is rooted in a very, like, honest and accurate and [00:38:15] in some ways like quite brutal. Um. Uh, like analysis of the situation that we are in, but it feels so necessary. It feels so true, um, to what we’re going through.
[00:38:27] Ben Hurst: Merriam, I don’t know if you want to respond, you don’t [00:38:30] have to, but
[00:38:30] Maryam Pasha: I I might wanna
[00:38:31] Ben Hurst: ask
[00:38:31] Maryam Pasha: an action. Yeah. Um, I’ll say that I have done so many of these, I mean, hundreds of these interviews with Ben, and I don’t think I’ve like cried like this in any of them. So, Paul apologies. Um, I am Iranian and so I feel that [00:38:45] grief that you speak about at the moment, and I think what has become so evident and what I hear from you is that we have like lost our ability to see each other’s humanity and, and [00:39:00] that connection to the world around us.
[00:39:03] Maryam Pasha: Like, I think there’s nothing more symbolic than I’ve, that I’ve heard that, you know, um, will have seen this in the news, but when they bombed the [00:39:15] oil refineries in Iran. That then followed by days of, uh, oils, basically raining from the sky, followed by one foot of snow landing [00:39:30] on Tehran. And this kind of symbolism of how we’ve lost our connection to each other, you know, so deeply.
[00:39:40] Maryam Pasha: And the nature is kind of like [00:39:45] kind of coming in and trying to, um, do what we seem to be failing at. You know? It just, it just felt to me very symbolic to see those things happen in succession and. Yeah, [00:40:00] it’s, it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s very moving, hence why I’m in this state.
[00:40:06] Paul Hawken: Yeah, I mean the, what you described in Tehran, you know, with, uh, the snow and the oil, I mean, the black and the white, so to speak, you know, um, the [00:40:15] heat of oil not, you know, hasn’t been burned yet, but it was bombed in that seat.
[00:40:20] Paul Hawken: And then, you know, the contrast to the frozen water, uh, um, is beyond mythical. You know, it, it, it’s [00:40:30] like, it’s indescribable for, I think, period, but for the people who live there and who then, by the way, the second, the other part of that is to breathe enormously toxic air. I [00:40:45] mean, not just smog, you know, when you bomb an oil refinery and oil tanks and so forth, that oil, uh, is, is poison.
[00:40:57] Paul Hawken: It, it is poison air. It’s not like all toxic or bad [00:41:00] air. No, it’s poison. And so people are being poisoned.
From hope to courage
[00:41:03] Paul Hawken: And um, but you know, you said something about hope, Ben. And you know, people, I mean, maybe this will make you laugh, maybe not, but people ask me, he said, are you hopeful? I’m saying, no, not at all. And they go, they’re like, whoa, you’ve just done this whole thing about da da da da da and you’re not hopeful.
[00:41:21] Paul Hawken: I said, no, I’m not. And I said, my Buddhist background is that teaches that hope is the pretty mask of [00:41:30] fear. Now what you don’t hope, unless you’re afraid. And I said, what we need now is courage. I don’t wanna hear about hope, I wanna hear about courage and, uh, ’cause courage, you know, is [00:41:45] the heart. That’s the root of the word, you know?
[00:41:49] Paul Hawken: And so we need, that’s what we need, that’s what we need to be ourselves and so forth. And I don’t mean to disabuse hope and all what that, all that, you know, that [00:42:00] brings to people, you know, but I’m just saying is what we need is courage and uh, and, and to be fearless. And in who we are, what we do, and why we’re here.
[00:42:10] Paul Hawken: And so to me, the environmental crisis, the climate crisis, all these things [00:42:15] that are called crises and so forth, you know, what we’re experiencing and seeing and so forth, you know, is, you know, is, uh, brings us to life or not. Or not, it’s your choice. Our choice, [00:42:30] but it changes the whole fabric and quality of our life and what it means to be a human being right now.
[00:42:36] Paul Hawken: And, um, and you look at the, you know, the panorama of things that are dangling out there in terms of [00:42:45] trying to seduce this or get us to buy experience, do or go and you realize it’s just like. Silly trinkets, you know, and it doesn’t, those things aren’t important. They’re not, and they’re harming, they’re harmful, and we harm [00:43:00] ourselves when we’re attracted to them, or, you know, beguiled by them or think that somehow we’ll have a better life if we buy this or look this way and we won’t.
[00:43:09] Paul Hawken: And, and, uh, so it’s, it’s a really interesting time of disillusion as well, [00:43:15] which I think is actually, uh, um, what the activists and the, uh, you know, whether on the streets or whether in the schools or whether whatever they’re doing, what they’re doing is really a, a thing of stripping away illusions.
[00:43:28] Paul Hawken: People don’t like their [00:43:30] illusions stripped away. You know, ’cause they clinging to them, you know, it’s their identity, you know, and basically, you know, our, our media with all due respect, you know, our television, the B, B, C, so forth, we’re creating false [00:43:45] identities. Uh, and, uh, because they’re not telling, they’re not being, uh, the BBC never that I know of.
[00:43:54] Paul Hawken: You know, I read it faithfully and so forth, is very factual. I don’t, [00:44:00] I trust they’re fact checking, but they’re not telling us the truth. That doesn’t mean they’re lying or telling us untruth. No. It’s just they’re not telling us the truth.
[00:44:13] Maryam Pasha: I mean, you’ve hit the nail on the [00:44:15] head. I think we should have that written everywhere with, with what’s wrong.
[00:44:19] Maryam Pasha: I mean, I said earlier that we don’t hear. Your analysis of the problem very often, but I’m gonna revise my statement because we do hear it when we look outside of the global [00:44:30] north. Right, right. We hear it when we look at indigenous communities, we hear it in other, in, in, in communities, all else around the world.
Indigenous wisdom roots
[00:44:37] Maryam Pasha: And I’m curious to know, ’cause you’ve spoken about indigenous leadership with us so far, how has that [00:44:45] influenced you and when did you start to have those conversations that really have had such an impact and how, and I just wanna know a bit more about that.
[00:44:56] Paul Hawken: I think, um, I grew up at the, uh, in Berkeley, [00:45:00] California.
[00:45:00] Paul Hawken: And my father was a librarian at the University of California. And um, as I mentioned earlier, I had asthma until I was 17, 18. Um, and so I tend to be a bookworm. Uh, [00:45:15] uh, when I was a teenager I took a lot of drugs so I could play basketball and stuff like that, you know, I mean, to camp down my symptoms and so forth.
[00:45:22] Paul Hawken: But, but before that, I went to the library every single day from the grammar school. I could walk to the library, university of California [00:45:30] library, which was then I think really one of the two or three biggest libraries in, in North America, I mean, extraordinary library. And I was Bill’s kid, my father’s Bill.
[00:45:40] Paul Hawken: And so I could go anywhere I wanted, you know, oh, that’s Bill’s kid. And I would go to the [00:45:45] stacks, you know, these stacks that went up nine, 10 stories and, and go into the stacks and then go pick a floor and go sit down and start, pull books out by the spine. And I didn’t and start reading them and so forth, you know, and I think that [00:46:00] is when the first time that I discovered the very westernized, albeit, um, descriptions and.
[00:46:11] Paul Hawken: Tales of explorers and, [00:46:15] uh, Europeans coming to Turtle Island, uh, the north, uh, north American continent, and, uh, what they encountered, uh, and it’s, it was just amazing. Like, uh, [00:46:30] uh, for me as a child, I think for anybody, if they read those, it’d be amazing how, uh, they purified themselves, you know, in a, in a, in a culture in Washington, Washington state, uh, [00:46:45] uh, to become in a sense of what’s gonna bru, but I mean, in, in Spanish, but to become, uh.
[00:46:53] Paul Hawken: A guide, a teacher, you know, so forth. Uh, you had to have a dream. You had to have a dream that you would [00:47:00] be that. And then they would present that to the other women, by the way. You had to be a woman. Uh, and they would say, that’s a true dream. No, you didn’t have a true dream. Come back later. But if it was a true dream, then you [00:47:15] had to.
[00:47:16] Paul Hawken: Fast and dance and, uh, with water only for seven days. Okay? And then after seven days, you would eat acorn, gu okay acorn for seven days and go back until, [00:47:30] until you could see the dis disease in yourself. And literally pull it out, pull it out and see it, and then re engorge it. In other words, you could disgorge it and then you put it back in [00:47:45] and that person could see the malady, the dise, you know, the dis the, the illusion, the elusiveness or the illusion delusion really, of other people.
[00:47:57] Paul Hawken: And then she could [00:48:00] be a healer.
[00:48:04] Paul Hawken: And I go to medical school, go to person school.
[00:48:08] Ben Hurst: Something slightly different. Yeah,
[00:48:10] Paul Hawken: same one. Slightly different. Yeah. But I mean, but so for me, reading these [00:48:15] stories, you know, about, you know, the, the first encounters, you know, with, uh, native Americans, you know, was just astonishing. And so I think that’s really where it, it started, uh, Maryam and, uh, and, [00:48:30] and never stopped, you know, uh, what I learned to do is not to grow my hair out long and put feathers in it and be, you know, a fake Native American, which is what a lot of hippies did.
[00:48:42] Paul Hawken: You know, leather with little [00:48:45] tassels. And so,
[00:48:45] Maryam Pasha: I mean, we’ve already heard that you used to race motorcycles, so we’re anything is on the table at this point.
[00:48:51] Ben Hurst: Yeah, we’re building a very, a, a picture
[00:48:54] Maryam Pasha: of
[00:48:54] Ben Hurst: what you are. Like
[00:48:55] Paul Hawken: you could
[00:48:55] Maryam Pasha: get in my
[00:48:56] Paul Hawken: picture crew, Ben,
[00:48:59] Maryam Pasha: in, [00:49:00] in one of, you’ve called the, i I love this, you know, um, phrasing you’ve used in your book.
Humanity immune response
[00:49:08] Maryam Pasha: Blessed Unrest around, you know, environmental and social groups being humanity’s immune [00:49:15] system. It, it’s, I think it’s just such an, uh, I think it’s just such a visual way to think about the potential and also the importance of these groups. I’m curious, how is our immunity doing right now? [00:49:30]
[00:49:31] Paul Hawken: Well, what I said was, you call it almost.
[00:49:34] Paul Hawken: Perfectly. I said it’s humanity’s immune response.
[00:49:38] Maryam Pasha: Response. Okay.
[00:49:39] Paul Hawken: Interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that response is well in place still and so [00:49:45] forth. You can get a malady or something. Okay. And your body will have an immune response. It’s trying to heal you. Right. That’s what it’s trying to do. It’s not trying to hurt you.
[00:49:53] Paul Hawken: It may feel bad, but it, you know, um, and the way I [00:50:00] see it is that immune, that immune response, um, is definitely, um, being tested, you know, by, uh, the, um, culmination, you know, of, [00:50:15] of, uh, western colonial activity, you know, I mean, and, and, and, and manifesting in governance and in business, the two, um, and the two arms of that and so forth.
[00:50:28] Paul Hawken: And, [00:50:30] um. Uh, the, the, so that’s how, I mean, it’s just how I see it. And, and, and so the Alliance for Earth, you know, and I really encourage people to go to it and, and, and, and, and come and participate. It’s not top down. [00:50:45] It’s, you know, doesn’t, it’s, it’s, it’s us talking to each other and there isn’t a hierarchy.
[00:50:51] Paul Hawken: There’s not a leader, there’s not a, you know, nothing. It’s, it’s, let’s, let’s just see each other. Let’s talk to each other and let’s do it [00:51:00] everywhere we can, you know, so we learn and start to be in a sense, um. Uh, what’s the word? Um, looking for that word, but, um, just the joyousness of knowing our brothers and sisters out [00:51:15] there who are doing the same thing we’re doing, but in a different place, in a different way.
[00:51:20] Paul Hawken: And many may be suffering from it or may be impoverished, or they may be, you know, there’s different experiences of it and some are very successful and it depends. But [00:51:30] there are brothers and sisters and they care about each other about this world and about the world to come. That is the children that are unborn, that are coming to, you know, to be here.
[00:51:41] Paul Hawken: And, um. So [00:51:45] we need to, we need to know our tribe, you know, and that’s, you know, not, not a tribal sense of, you know, place space, but there is a place here, it’s called Earth. And that tribe, uh, is, uh, omnipotent and [00:52:00] everywhere and is, like I said earlier, is largely unseen unless look at there, there’s a really wonderful woman, five months pregnant, nor a really amazing activist who’s trying, trying to stop gold mining in Ecuador, in, you [00:52:15] know, the cloud forest and so forth.
[00:52:16] Paul Hawken: And then what the gold companies do in Canada is hire people in Ecuador, who hire people in Ecuador who hire motorcyclists. And they [00:52:30] go, they do drive-by shootings and they killed her. Boom. Okay. I mean, five months pregnant, you know. So I mean, when I see that and [00:52:45] hear that, it’s just, it’s devastating to me.
[00:52:46] Paul Hawken: It’s just devastating. But I’m also so amazed at the courage of people everywhere, you know? And if that is an example of courage, I don’t know what is and so forth, you know? [00:53:00] And so, um, I, I, it’s just like we’ve gotta know each other’s stories. We have to see that, we have to feel how extraordinary humanity is as opposed to seeing how, how selfish [00:53:15] and.
[00:53:15] Paul Hawken: I mean, I could use really different words to describe, uh, my country and my poli, not mine, but the politics that exist right now. I mean, you know, those are familiar words, but, but we wanna see the opposite, you know? Wanna [00:53:30] see us. And that’s why, uh, I, I have, I have complete faith and people say, well, you seem very positive.
[00:53:37] Paul Hawken: No, I feel grief every day. I mean, if you didn’t feel grief, then you’re not paying attention.
Pivot to regeneration
[00:53:44] Maryam Pasha: [00:53:45] So I have this question I wanted to ask you, because I think that there are some people who are listening who might feel like this way of understanding. [00:54:00] It’s not really for them because maybe they work in the world of business or they’re an entrepreneur, or they are in that capitalist system that we spoke about.
[00:54:09] Maryam Pasha: And I, I wonder, you know, you have started businesses, you know, you have [00:54:15] worked in that world. Can you speak a bit to that intersection, that contradiction, that learning, you know, how do you reconcile that? Or how can people start, not reconcile, but move [00:54:30] forward if they’re coming from that world?
[00:54:33] Paul Hawken: Yeah. If they’re entrepreneurs or social entrepreneurs or, or farmers or people in food or whatever, you know, I mean, who are producing, making, selling, [00:54:45] uh, uh, good on ’em.
[00:54:47] Paul Hawken: And, uh, that’s what I’ve tried to do. What I say is that, you know, we’ve gone down the, this, you know, exploitative, you know, basically, uh. [00:55:00] You know, capitalist system, you know, we learned that, you know, uh, extractive take, you know, I called it take, make waste in my book of College of Commerce, you know, and, uh, but we’re really good at taking really good at that, you know?[00:55:15]
[00:55:15] Paul Hawken: And, um, and so if you enter into commerce right now, you’re gonna be part of that in some way. Okay. In some way. But what’s also true is that the, the degenerative. Pathway, which [00:55:30] is really what most commerce is and has been, and even more so today. Uh, you, we can see the end of the road, all the headlines, you know, all the reports coming back from, whether it’s the atmosphere or the ocean or the lands, or, you know, the [00:55:45] degradation of land.
[00:55:45] Paul Hawken: We’re, we’re losing a hundred million hectares of arable land per year. Per year, okay? So the food crisis is just staring at us, coming at right, at us, coming, you know. But if we, if we just [00:56:00] glance at the headlines, we know that in fact, um, this road ends, you can see it. I mean, it doesn’t go much further. So either you see it and stop and say, [00:56:15] I don’t really wanna do that anymore.
[00:56:17] Paul Hawken: And then you say, well, what am I gonna do? Well. They what you wanna do, then in the best way you can, you know, given what you know, you know, and, and are capable of doing or want to [00:56:30] be capable of doing, is to say, well, I, I want to move towards regeneration. In other words, I want to create a business. I want to create a store.
[00:56:38] Paul Hawken: I want to create a farm. I want to create whatever it is that you are creating that actually starts to [00:56:45] create more life instead of less. That’s it, that’s the turning point. That is the hinge and so forth. You can’t do it a hundred percent from day one to day two. You can’t do it. You’re in a system that does it and so [00:57:00] forth.
[00:57:00] Paul Hawken: But, so for those people, it’s really about the pivot. And you know, and you have a lot of those people, a lot of those companies in the UK, by the way, are extraordinary. And, uh, from Bristol to Ireland, and I, I know these people and they’re just [00:57:15] fantastic, you know, and, um, and they’re, they’re, they’re leaders and they’re breaking the path.
[00:57:20] Paul Hawken: They’re making pathways and so forth. So it’s not about, oh, this is bad, this is good, but what am I gonna do over there? No, do what you know what to [00:57:30] do. Do what you love doing. That’s very, very important. Uh, and then pivot. You know, and, and you learn by doing it and so forth, and better ways of this, you know, using plastic now, okay, what can I do?
[00:57:44] Paul Hawken: How can I [00:57:45] get this to my customers in a way, you know, that isn’t, uh, polluting the ocean, you know, and bo and people’s bodies as well, so forth, you know? And so you don’t necessarily have the answers, but you have the questions and you have the will and your customers do too, [00:58:00] because that’s a symbiosis between what you do and the people who patronize you and care as well.
[00:58:06] Paul Hawken: So we are looking for those, you know, you and I we’re looking for those companies, those products, those entrepreneurs, if you will. Uh, [00:58:15] so, uh, I, I, yeah, I’ve done it in my life. I’ve tried, I’ve done the best. I’ve seen some of it go south, like, you know, it was just really, it was, uh, started in Boston and we had 500,000 starving [00:58:30] students who lived in Boston and we had the, the best inexpensive food in the world.
[00:58:37] Paul Hawken: And now it is in la and it is, uh, it’s ridiculous. It’s a ridiculous store. You know, [00:58:45] it’s about the privilege, feeding the privilege, you know, and so it still got the name. And Erwan was from a book by Samuel Butler, and it was, uh, basically nowhere backwards, you know, it was an anagram from nowhere backwards.
[00:58:57] Paul Hawken: And I called it [00:59:00] because at that time, uh, when I started we were nowhere. I, as long as I’m concerned, we were nowhere. And we wanted to go to somewhere to, so I used Aeron as the name. And so the people who owned it now, uh, have turned into, um, [00:59:15] something else. But that doesn’t mean that. It, the, the farm, the, the farmers that came out of that.
[00:59:23] Paul Hawken: I, I think at one time I had 30,000 acres under contract. And these are farmers who are growing, we say organic [00:59:30] now or regenerative and so forth. Actually they didn’t, they didn’t even use those terms. They just did it and they taught me so much and I walked the land with them and a lot of them had inherited these farms and they farmed that way before World War ii.[00:59:45]
[00:59:45] Paul Hawken: You know, it was what the families did. They knew how to farm and save the land, you know, and produce great products and so forth. And so that’s where I learned about farming and the land and so forth, is. I talked to the farmers who knew and, [01:00:00] and knew how to produce things that created more life instead of less.
[01:00:05] Paul Hawken: And now we have an agricultural system that actually destroys life and is substituted, or with chemicals and pesticides and herbicides and so forth. [01:00:15] Billions of pounds have imported into soils and washing down seas and rivers and so forth. You know, we, we really, uh, we have a very destructive system and, but I, I just feel like, um, I, I don’t wanna draw lines and say, oh, this good and [01:00:30] this is bad.
[01:00:30] Paul Hawken: I think people who go into business can do amazing, amazing things.
[01:00:35] Maryam Pasha: I guess the question I have is, is do you then still think it’s possible for business, for, you know, [01:00:45] commerce to be regenerative rather than destructive? Given everything you’ve seen?
Commerce versus capitalism
[01:00:51] Paul Hawken: It’s a walk. You know, I called that book I wrote, I called the Ecology of Commerce.
[01:00:56] Paul Hawken: Yeah. I didn’t say the ecology of Business.
[01:00:59] Maryam Pasha: Right,
[01:00:59] Paul Hawken: [01:01:00] right. I explain the
[01:01:01] Maryam Pasha: difference.
[01:01:02] Paul Hawken: Well, commerce is ancient and sacred. It’s exchange between peoples. And then when Lewis and Clark went, you know, the expedition went across the United States and ended up, you know, in the northwest and [01:01:15] then, uh, the Native Americans there had beads.
[01:01:18] Paul Hawken: It was called Wampum. That is a currency, you know, WAMP. So they had beads there that were from Patagonia, from Chile. Well, how’d they get there?[01:01:30]
[01:01:31] Paul Hawken: They got there by exchange. In other words, all the way up the coast of South America and then me of America and then North America and so forth. They were used as an exchange medium. [01:01:45] Right. That’s commerce. Okay? And so commerce is a really an ancient, wonderful thing that human humanity is engaged in. And so that’s different than capitalism.[01:02:00]
[01:02:00] Paul Hawken: And what’s the point of capital? If you are a capitalist company or you’re a company in a capitalist system, what’s your job to create more capital that’s otherwise you know you’re not gonna do well? [01:02:15] And uh, so you create more capital. Um, well what’s that money? Well, where does the money come from? And then why is it accumulated?
[01:02:22] Paul Hawken: And then if you accumulate it, then who has power? And then what do they do? They invest in things, they create more capital, right? So [01:02:30] that is a devolving. Whereas commerce isn’t a devolving cycle, it’s an exchange, you know, and it’s, it’s about agreement and it’s about mutual benefit. Um, [01:02:45] and so, um, so I, yeah, I, you can be regenerative, you know, you can move, but you’re moving towards it from a system that is degenerative, that’s for sure.
[01:02:55] Paul Hawken: You understand that. And then step by step one by one, you [01:03:00] start to address those things that you do without wanting to do them that are degenerative, that take, that hurt, that harm, you know, downstream perhaps, or upstream. Uh, and you Correct. [01:03:15] And you, you know, and so that’s what’s happening all over. And so in the Alliance for the Earth are like B Corps and all sorts of, you know, things that, where people are, you know.
[01:03:28] Paul Hawken: The brothers, the, [01:03:30] the P thing. I forget in Ireland the full name, the company name, but I mean, you know, I mean there’s people doing these fantastic things. And so, uh, that’s included in the Alliance for the Earth as well.
[01:03:39] Maryam Pasha: Okay.
[01:03:40] Paul Hawken: Yeah.
[01:03:41] Maryam Pasha: What a great distinction. Thank you. I think, [01:03:45] Ben, I’m gonna turn to you for our last question because quite frankly, Paul, I feel like we could talk to you for maybe two more hours, but I know you’ve already given us, you have to come back so much time come.
[01:03:53] Maryam Pasha: So Ben, why don’t you take the last question? Yeah,
[01:03:57] Ben Hurst: sorry Paul. You are gonna have to come back. Unfortunately, it [01:04:00] is very important.
Aliens and overview
[01:04:00] Ben Hurst: Um, all right, so last question I’d love to ask you, um, is if we imagine that aliens crash land on the planet, they land in your garden for some reason, I don’t know why, but they crash land in your garden.
[01:04:14] Ben Hurst: They [01:04:15] crawl out of this spaceship. Um, and the first thing they wanna know is. Why this planet is worth saving. They’ve wiped out hundreds of other planets. They’re like, why should we save this one? How do you explain that to them? Or what’s the first thing that you’d show them? [01:04:30]
[01:04:30] Paul Hawken: Well, if they were aliens and they came from another planet, they wouldn’t ask that question
[01:04:34] Ben Hurst: maybe.
[01:04:35] Ben Hurst: That’s a good
[01:04:35] Paul Hawken: point. Their question, their question is, is how, how come you’re destroying where you live?
[01:04:39] Ben Hurst: Yeah. Why don’t you like
[01:04:40] Paul Hawken: it? That’s, that’s the thing there. They would say, this is very curious, you know, uh, [01:04:45] you benefit, you flourish. You, you got a lot of you now there’s like, you know, eight plus billion, you know, running around, running around.
[01:04:53] Paul Hawken: I’m just, we’re so curious to know where you learn to destroy the thing that gives you life. Because this planet is [01:05:00] nothing but life, and it is the emergent quality of life, and you’re part of that emergence, as is every other eight point for million species who live here. You know, and, and by the way, we wanna tell you [01:05:15] something, but you may not know, which is there are 3 trillion different beings here with you that aren’t humans.
[01:05:25] Paul Hawken: And every day they’re communicating literally. [01:05:30] Communicating with each other to teach each other, to learn more about how to stay here, be here, what you can do from microbes all the way to gibbons, monkeys to, you know, I mean, you, you name it, uh, you know, so bugs and butterflies and, you [01:05:45] know, uh, wolves, you know, they’re all communicating and talking about how to stay here.
[01:05:49] Paul Hawken: You’re the only species that actually destroys where it lives. Of the 8.4 million species, you know, we are fascinated. How did [01:06:00] you get that wrong?
[01:06:02] Ben Hurst: Same as the planet. The aliens would wipe us out instead of, instead of the planet. Yeah.
[01:06:07] Maryam Pasha: I kind of feel like Paul, maybe the aliens have arrived and, and they’ve had this conversation with you, with you.[01:06:15]
[01:06:16] Paul Hawken: It’s a fair question, you know? Yeah. It’s
[01:06:18] Maryam Pasha: like you’re
[01:06:19] Paul Hawken: the only one. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:06:20] Maryam Pasha: It’s true. It’s true. The, the, when you take that perspective from. The overview effect from, from far away. Yeah.
Closing thanks credits
[01:06:29] Maryam Pasha: Um, thank you so much for this time and for your generosity. It’s been really special and we really appreciate it.
[01:06:37] Paul Hawken: Uh, I’m so grateful to that you exist, that you’re doing what you’re doing, uh, that you do it when you’re feeling under the weather.
[01:06:44] Paul Hawken: So that [01:06:45] was really well done. Uh, thank you for. Working through all that with me. Uh, and I would love to come back. I just, uh, so appreciate and am grateful for, uh, where what you are doing with [01:07:00] your life, you know, and, and it’s just so, so crucial, uh, that we listen, share, uh, uh, to each other, you know, and wherever we can.
[01:07:10] Paul Hawken: Uh, and so what you’re doing is, is seminal. It’s [01:07:15] so important. So thank you.
[01:07:17] Maryam Pasha: Beautiful.
[01:07:20] Maryam Pasha: Thank you for joining us this week. We really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode.
[01:07:24] Ben Hurst: If you did, please hit the follow button to make sure that you get next week’s releases. While you’re at it, [01:07:30] please leave a rating and a review.
[01:07:32] Maryam Pasha: Now let’s shout out to our fabulous team behind the pod
[01:07:35] Ben Hurst: executive, produced by Josie Colter,
[01:07:37] Maryam Pasha: produced by Ben Beheshty.
[01:07:39] Ben Hurst: Music, also by Ben Beheshty,
[01:07:41] Maryam Pasha: communications by Tara Cooper and Izzy Gladston.
[01:07:44] Ben Hurst: [01:07:45] Curation by Deesha Chandra,
[01:07:46] Maryam Pasha: hosted by Ben Hurst.
[01:07:48] Ben Hurst: I’m Maryam Pasha,
[01:07:49] Maryam Pasha: and remember,
[01:07:50] Ben Hurst: stay curious.
