In this interview, Jeremy Lent starts by offering an overview of some key ideas he articulates in his book “The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe.” He emphasizes the importance of generating an alternative worldview based on the understanding of our deep interconnection, and the notion of flourishing, particularly flourishing as an integrated organism. On Ecological Civilization, he invites us to visualize how the world could look like if we changed the dominant underlying operating system of our current civilization from one of extraction and exploitation to one that seeks to set the conditions for all beings to flourish on a regenerative Earth. This means envisioning not just changing one aspect, but everything. He stresses that in order to get on the path to an ecological civilization, we can look at life itself and ecosystems and apply that learning to our human societies, such as by cooperating and working together for mutual benefit. Lent makes the point that deep transformation starts with the recognition that our own ways of thinking need to be questioned and changed.

1. What are some of the key ideas we can find in your book, “the Web of Meaning”?
2. In part four of your book, you articulate three main points on “How Should I Live?” Can you comment on that?
3. What is an Ecological Civilization for you?
4. What are the key pathways to take us towards an Ecological Civilization?
5. What is the kind of education we need to help us move towards an Ecological Civilization?

6. What are the “principles and practices of deep transformation?” that you have been working on?
7. What do you think of the Earth Charter and of the possibility of using it as foundation to an Ecological Civilization?