If you’ve taken part in Plenty! and enjoyed the conversations around a fairer and more sustainable world, you might want to keep exploring.
Below are some collections of audio and video material on similiar themes to Plenty! Browse them in your own time, or you might want to organise your Plenty! group to discuss them together. If you’ve got further suggestions for things we should add here, let us know and we’ll add some links.
Restorative Revolution
The Restorative Revolution is a resource to “transform wealth, power and communities for a flourishing world” from Tearfund.
“In a restorative economy, each of us has sufficient economic agency and power to meet our basic needs – but not at the expense of other people or the natural world. This means that no one can have too much or too little. It means the earth’s life-support systems – the animals, plants and ecosystems that we all rely on – are protected, not overstretched or harmed.”
The resource includes research reports looking at our current world and how we can rebalance power and wealth, and restore creation. Churches can then explore this in a series of six Bible studies.
The Great Simplification
A podcast by Nate Hagens, The Great Simplification offers lots of thought-provoking conversations for those interested in sustainability, inequality and the future. John Daniels introduces the podcast here and picks some relevant episodes below.
When more is not enough
Peter Whybrow
For more on the themes of Plenty session two, try this one. Psychiatrist, neuroscientist and author of The Well-Tuned Brain, Peter Whybrow, explains why we tend to over-consume. What leads us to take more than we need? And how can we overcome that tendency?
Money money money
Josh Farley
Following Plenty session three – what is money? Where does it come from and what does it have to do with the environment? Ecological economist Josh Farley explains how money works and how it could be different in future.
Energy inequality
Taimur Ahmad
Addressing questions raised in the fourth session of Plenty, researcher Taimur Ahmad compares energy use across nations. How will climate change and energy scarcity affect the existing inequalities between nations and their energy use?
Our global energy predicament
Jean-Marc Jancovici
Following the discussion of the climate emergency in session five, you may like to listen to French educator Jean-Marc Jancovici on our dependence on cheap fossil fuels. Can we wean our economies off them? And what does the economy look like on the other side? See also Roger Pielke on climate models.
The future of farming
Jason Bradford
Activist, farmer and author Jason Bradford discusses the challenges of feeding the world, stewarding the soil, and how to grow more food without using more chemical inputs. See also Anne Bikle and David Montgomery on nourishing the soil and ourselves.
Resource depletion
Arthur Berman
Geologist Arthur Berman explains what oil is, why it is quite so remarkable, and how much of it might be left. Resource depletion affects the new economy too, argues Simon Michaux. Are we blind to the mineral needs of renewable energy and electric cars?
Our Common Home
This short resource is a co-production from the Vatican and the Stockholm Environment Institute, “the result of a collaboration between the scientific and spiritual communities.”
It’s one of the pithiest summaries you’ll come across of environmental issues, with the basic facts presented alongside quotes from Laudato Si that frame the problems in a faith context. It covers the topics of climate, biodiversity, water, air pollution, food, consumerism, and equality. Each one has action points to discuss.
Our Common Home could be read individually, or groups could use the resource as a starting point for discussion. You could also print off the spreads for a notice board. It’s free to download and available in five different languages.
Joy in Enough 