Ep 191 Helena Norberg Hodge - Localism that Heals & Creates Oneness - Winter Windbacks 2025

Helena Norberg-Hodge is a writer, filmmaker, international speaker and leader of the global localisation movement. 

She’s been promoting an economics of personal, social and ecological well-being for more than 40 years, and is one of the world’s most treasured environmentalists and visionaries.

Today Helena pulls up an apple crate at the Futuresteading campfire to share stories from Ladakh, lament the madness of globalization and light the way back (and forward) to oneness.

We discuss the true wealth of traditional societies, the dangers of scale and tech solutions, pressure to conform to a consumer monoculture, and the real economy of Mother Gaia. 
Oh, she’s brilliant folks. We’re so excited to welcome you into this conversation. 

LINKS YOU'LL LOVE

• World Localization Day
• Local Futures
• Noam Chomsky
• Small is Beautiful ~ E F Schumacher
• Naomi Klein
• Russel Brand
• Brian Eno

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We Talked About

• How she ended up on a remote plateau in Tibetan India.
• Discovering the healthiest, happiest, most peaceful people she had ever met.
• Existing under surveillance in times of political tension.
• The true wealth of traditional societies.
• Why people everywhere are being pressured to conform to a consumer monoculture.
• A  need for a deeper dialogue between the west and the global south.
• The path of separation; being herded into urban centres and separated from the land. 
• Instead of being dependent on the land, we became dependent on enormous institutions to meet our needs.
• Manufactured scarcity.
• The luxury of using more energy per person per capita… is it actually a luxury?
• Policy change is needed to make decentralisation possible
• Pollies on auto-pilot re. urbanisation. Governments are separating us from the sources of our food, creating unsustainable, toxic, energy-hungry situations in the name of growth.
• Why most people are getting poorer despite our obsession with growth. 
• Towards smaller towns and smaller cities. 
• When you shorten the distance between farm and table, you have market pressure towards diversity.
• What happens when people are replaced by energy and technology.
• Stay away from the propaganda that’s saying we need technological fixes.
• In Ladakh, everyone grows up with a multi-dimensional knowledge of how to grow, build, make clothes, dance, create. 
• How modernity negatively affects young people versus radiantly confident youth in Ladakh.
• Australia flies food to China to be processed before being flown back again.
• The things we aren’t hearing about in the climate movement.
• Are people in power totally evil? 
• Localisation is a clear path towards systemic healing.
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