Ep39 - Societal Collapse as Personal Initiation with Jem Bendell

Waking Youth

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Ep39 - Societal Collapse as Personal Initiation with Jem Bendell

New podcast interview 🎧

Carlota Guedes

Jan 24, 2026

To say that a book has changed my life sounds like a cliché. There aren’t many that truly do, but Jem Bendell’s Breaking Together: a Freedom Loving Response to Collapse is certainly one of them.

I read it in solitude, in 2024, while retreating in the northern Portuguese countryside to focus on the writing of my first novel. I thought I was retreating to write. I didn’t realize that I was also stepping into another kind of initiation (read essay I wrote about Breaking Together here).

Jem’s book, *Breaking Togeth*er, in English and Portuguese

Chapter after chapter of Breaking Together, my mind and heart broke more and more open. I learned about Jem’s story and the money system, about global food supply chains and the latest climate science with no sugar coating. I learned why our modern civilization is structurally bound for collapse, and how unlikely it is that our political institutions will save us. I also learned about the lives of the “doomsters”, those of us who have accepted the inevitability of collapse and are seeking to live our most meaningful, beautiful life not despite our predicament, but because of it.

The permission that Breaking Together gave me was simple: go wild, be free. Don’t pour your energy into chasing the illusion of success inside a crumbling system—whether that is a shiny career, a fancy house and life in the city, or even a huge social media following. Focus on what truly matters: radical social transformation through direct action, community resilience, art, creativity, and real spiritual development.

Book launch of the Portuguese edition of *Breaking Together*

So, when I heard Jem Bendell was coming to Lisbon for the launch of the Portuguese edition of Breaking Together, I had to try to interview him. What I didn’t expect was to end up co-moderating the book launch itself, alongside researcher & activist Pedro Macedo, and the wonderful team at Bambual Portugal, the publisher responsible for bringing this book to Portuguese-speaking readers.

Below you can watch the full book launch of Juntos na Rutura, so you can feel into Jem’s vital book and message:

The following day, Jem and I met in a more intimate setting to record the conversation you’re about to hear. My angle, as usual, was personal. Beyond asking Jem about societal collapse—which he’s spoken about widely elsewhere—I wanted to meet the human behind the thesis: Who is Jem Bendell? How did he become who he is? How did he get to do this important work? And what does it mean for him to live with more consciousness and wisdom, now?

Listen to find out :) And let me know what came up for you in the comments section.

With Love,
Carlota

Guest Bio

Jem Bendell is a world-renowned scholar on the breakdown of modern societies due to environmental change. For decades he worked in Sustainable Development—as a researcher, NGO manager, professor, and consultant to businesses, political parties, and UN agencies.

In 2012, he was recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and has since become one of the clearest critics of the globalist agenda on sustainable development.

In 2018, after a sabbatical studying the latest climate science, he published Deep Adaptation—an academic paper that went viral and is credited to inspiring the Extinction Rebellion movement.

Since then, Jem has stepped away from the sustainability industry. He published Breaking Together in 2023, moved to Bali, opened an organic farming school, became a singer-songwriter, and, in his own words, a militant mysticist.