'Green Thinking' with Natalie Bennett

We’re absolutely delighted to welcome back Natalie Bennett, Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Australian-British politician and journalist who served as Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales from 2012 to 2016. Bennett was given a peerage in Theresa May’s 2019 resignation honours. In this June Words on Wednesday event, Natalie will be discussing her new book Green Thinking.

Green Thinking seeks to “compost” the views of dead white men (René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, Norman Borlaugh) and of some not white or dead (Francis Fukuyama, Richard Dawkins, Richard Thaler). It explores the flowering of probiotic Green thinking in the 21st century.

This book understands the foundation of life is cooperation, not competition; that diversity is essential to resilience and health of systems; that humans are just one more species of animal, or rather, holobiont; that reductionism has to be replaced by relational thinking; that financialising society has destroyed – as it was meant to do – relationships essential to wellbeing; and, perhaps most crucially at all, that we have to draw on the knowledge and wisdom of indigenous societies that have maintained themselves and their environments in healthy balance for thousands or tens of thousands of years. That means acknowledging the time, energy and talents of all life must contribute to a new way for humans to live in balance with the more-than-human world.

This book will appeal to fans of David Graeber, Kate Raworth, Tyson Yunkaporta, Jason Hickel, Anna Tsing, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Ursula Le Guin, Bruno Latour, Wangarii Maathai, Merlin Sheldrake, Vandana Shiva, Lynn Margulis, Kim Stanley Robinson, as well as listeners to the New Books Network, Past Present Future, and HPS podcasts.