Climate Week at Caravan of Dreams #11 · Cleaned Transcript
September 24, 2026 · Caravan of Dreams, East Village, NY
An evening session in the Dream Room, recorded on the house mic. The recording begins partway through Jeremy Lent's online message: the opening meditation the listing promised and the first part of his message were not captured, so this page starts where the recording does. This is a cleaned and condensed transcript: filler trimmed, crosstalk smoothed, the shape of the session kept intact. The breakout conversations were not recorded clearly, so they appear here as their share-back. Names and organisations spoken aloud were checked where a source exists; a few the recording garbled beyond recovery are left out. The hosts are named; participants are not. It is not verbatim.
Download as .txtLent · ...a surveillance dystopia, run for the oligarchs. We want something very different. So the ambition of this coalition is huge: to find ways to engage with and influence the entire world system, by strengthening and reinforcing the change-making system we are all part of. There are millions and millions of people around the world working to make this happen, and the aim is to help that work be more effective than it is now.
Jeff, I believe, is going to take you through some of the specific strategies we're developing. The exciting thing is that we spent a couple of years building the foundation, and in just the last eight or nine months we've moved to sociocracy, a decentralized way of organizing ourselves. If we're incredibly successful, we don't want to recreate more neo-colonial structures. The idea is that people organize themselves for that world. We now have something like six or seven working groups filled with volunteers, Jeff and Maia being two examples: people inspired by what's going on, joining these groups, beginning to elaborate these strategies in more detail and move them into action.
There's a multi-decadal vision here. We're not just talking about doing something in the next few years. We're trying to set something in place that, if we have that amount of time, and none of us know, can really influence the world. I'm excited. I've basically devoted whatever I've got in this life, at this point, to trying to make this happen, and so many other people are devoting themselves to it in the same way. So I'll send it back to Jeff to take us through more detail. Thanks.
Wells · Thank you so much for joining us, Jeremy, and for your perspective on ecological civilization. We have a couple of copies of your book here for people to look at afterwards.
Here's how this will play out. I'll share some information about ecological civilization and about the coalition, and then we'll have about ten minutes for questions. Then we want to turn it over to you, and give all of you a chance to say what you're already engaged in, so that everyone in the room sees the variety of things already happening. Then some breakout groups, where we'll pose the question: how connected or supported do you feel in the things you're already doing, and what do you need? And we'll come back together briefly at the very end.
Wells · For my whole adult life I've been a pretty systemic thinker and an activist. When I learned about the vision of ecological civilization in 2021, I was immediately excited and inspired and wanted to get involved. I helped found an organization called the Living Earth Movement, which I co-led for a little over a year. They decided to focus solely on US and China relations, which wasn't my passion. So with some other people from that group I helped found the Alliance for Ecological Civilization. It ended up being a very important discussion group, with very high-level people, some of whom are now in the leadership of the Ecocivilization Coalition. But it wasn't really going anywhere. It wasn't producing any content to put out into the world, and it became inactive for a while.
When I heard the Ecocivilization Coalition was being formed, I invited some of the folks from that group to form a new group within the coalition, now called the Ecocivilization Visioning Forum. It's currently the coalition's in-house think tank. Once we rework it, it will generate discussions and help create policy briefs and other statements we can put out into the world, which we hope will help the whole movement move forward.
One important thing we're doing is expanding it. It was primarily North American and European white men, and a few women, and that wasn't going to work, especially given our desire to be a global movement. So we're working very diligently to expand the membership of both the forum and its leadership group to be much more representative of the majority world. That's a big task before us.
I've become involved in a lot of aspects of building out the organization's infrastructure. It launched publicly in July of 2025, and we're still, as Jeremy said, creating its sociocracy structure. We're beginning to plan a grassroots community network, which will provide connections between people, initially on the Hylo platform. That's not quite ready, but within the next couple of months we'll have it launched. We're working on communications strategies, and on lots of resources we'll make available.
Wells · The main purpose of the organization, as Jeremy alluded to, is to be connective tissue between projects and organizations already doing the work around the world. My estimate is there are at least tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands if you include all the local community organizations, doing something that will contribute to transforming human society. But they tend to be siloed from one another. So this is an opportunity to help make connections between organizations around the globe, then to help catalyze a movement where we cooperate and see one another, and the third level is to build a global grassroots community that can see all of this is happening around the world.
There was a study that came out in 2024 that said 80 percent of the human population believes climate change is real, is caused by human beings, and wants their governments to do more about it, and 69 percent would be willing to give one percent of their income to fund the changes that need to happen. Of course, just recognizing climate change is not where we need to be. We need to help people recognize the need for fundamental civilizational transformation, to become an ecological civilization. That means everything has to change. There's no domain of human activity that won't be affected.
Even though things look so dire right now, that vision gives me hope, because things are already happening around the world. If we can connect them, if we can show people all these islands of coherence, or as I prefer to call them, beacons of light, we can help people keep hope and not fall into despair, because in despair they won't act. It's a matter of changing people's consciousness of what's going on and what's needed. Not to fix the problem: that sounds like fixing the civilization we have. It's completely transforming the civilization, to a new way of being human in relationship with the rest of nature.
I want to read one paragraph from what's called the Ecocivilization Overview, which I'll send to all of you after the event, so you don't need to take notes. It says our aim is an alternative, cohering narrative, and to act as connective tissue to help catalyze the movement for change, facilitating the emergence of a diversified, life-affirming planetary future out of the deteriorating chaos of our times. And it says we can't do that with the current system. It's not because it's broken and needs to be fixed. It's because it was always meant to be this way. So it's going to be a post-capitalist civilization, if we succeed at all.
Wells · We have four main strategies. One is to shift the mainstream narrative. If you've heard of the Overton window, that's what this refers to: expanding it, so that ideas around ecological civilization, or more broadly around creating a flourishing web of life on our planet, become part of the mainstream conversation. Then that affects the decisions people make in businesses, in government, in their own lives, in economics and architecture and farming and everything.
Amplifying the movement for transformative change means finding the organizations and projects happening around the world and showing the world these things exist. Then to uplift those pathfinders, eventually, once we're a larger organization with the funding or the influence on funders, to help provide the resources those islands of coherence need to be more effective and to spread. And the last is to nurture a global people's movement, the grassroots community network, which I think has the potential to grow exponentially in the next ten years. Not just from our efforts: so many organizations are now taking on this huge transformational struggle that I think there will be millions, and I hope billions, of people involved in the next ten to twenty years.
Wells · To give you a sense of the breadth of the organization, you might recognize some of these names. Osprey Orielle Lake, of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network; she was one of its founders, and I got to see her speak last night. Julia Kim, who has worked on Gross National Happiness in Bhutan. There are people on this list from Britain, Canada, the US, Brazil, India, Morocco, the Amazon basin. Mirian Vilela, the executive director of Earth Charter International. This was the core team that worked with Jeremy to put together the idea of a coalition. Then there's a group of advisory partners from many other organizations, and you'd recognize a lot of their names too; that's close to fifty people. So it already has a broad reach, and in the next year or two I think we can make that much broader.
I don't know if any of you were in the mapping session yesterday. It was mind-opening, I guess, is the best way to put it. I was so impressed by what they've been able to do, and it's completely scalable, and aligned with the values of ecological civilization. I'm imagining that within a year we may have a map of all the islands of coherence we know about, and be able to drill down: I want to look at everyone working on regenerative farming, or on doughnut economics or wellbeing economies. You'd find hundreds or thousands in each category.
From the room · When was that session?
Wells · Yesterday afternoon, in this room.
From the room · He runs a company called Arcos. They're trying to create a new information ecosystem, a network capable of sharing data between different parties. They've worked on it for about six years, and they built a Climate Week app. There are flyers on the connection corner if you want to find out more.
Wells · How am I doing on time? Twenty minutes left? Then I'll stop, and afterwards I'll share not only the overview but also the coalition's Statement of Purpose, if you want to get into the weeds of what the coalition stands for.
Host · My suggestion is we hold the questions until the end, so we make sure we have time for the interactive part.
Kiley · We'll go around in a circle. Two sentences about what you're working on, what you're creating, what you're collaborating on. It doesn't have to be your job: what are you creating that you're most excited about? That's also what we'll take into our groups. I'll model it. I work as a psychotherapist with a specialty in climate distress and ecological distress. The project I'm working on now offers ecological and relational classes in New York City, for living in the city, and Earth-based community gatherings. That's my snippet.
About twenty-five people spoke, two sentences each, with one reminder partway round to keep it short.
What people are building. Nobody is named.
Several people added that they were open to connecting, and one said plainly that they were looking for work.
Kiley · We'll have five minutes in groups of four or five. Choose the people closest to you. Two questions, about a minute each: how supported or connected do you feel to the larger movement, and what do you need to feel supported and connected, or what do you need right now for what you're working on? Take a moment to check in with yourself about what's important to share. I'll ring the bell in five minutes.
The groups talked. The recorder caught one table's crosstalk, too fragmentary to transcribe.
Kiley · Welcome back. If one person from your group wants to share, we'd love to hear a golden nugget, a word or a sentence, from what people said they need. I might take some notes.
A group · More time. And reaching a wider, mainstream media audience.
A group · We talked about the circular firing squad among these islands of coherence, and how we could somehow bring them together for political action, but we're not quite sure how.
A group · More support for the creatives and the people doing the connecting work, so they're supported to be able to live.
A group · We talked about identity: feeling like you're a fit for this. I love the granola-crunchy side and feel it in my heart, and yet I don't know that the movement is always welcoming to people who aren't coming from that place.
A group · How you get started if you have a skill set but no experience in ecological activism: finding a group that needs your skills. And mentorship.
A group · Livelihood, too. There's the excitement of the work and the mission, but we need to make a living.
A group · Ideas worth spreading that I can stand behind. Focus on solutions rather than describing the problem.
A group · A sense of stress, of feeling overwhelmed, and how helpful it is to find clarity or direction. Some of us have an idea and need to translate it into action, and to get resources, especially funding, to speed that up. And one of us made a very good point: this is a very connected community once you tap into it, so be very specific about what you need.
Wells · I wish we'd had more time for this. We got squeezed into a one-hour slot because we signed up late, so we've only given you a taste of what ecological civilization means and what the coalition is doing and dreams about. I'll send you information, and I really encourage you to sign up for the coalition's newsletter. If you use the QR code you'll also see an option called Get Involved, where you can tell us more about yourself than an email address, and somebody will get in touch if you'd like to work directly with the coalition. And if not, I encourage you to flourish in all the things you're already doing, and find new ways to help them thrive and connect with other organizations.
Ben gave back a little time: eight minutes for questions.
From the room · I'm in the Deep Transformation Network, which is a membership network, I think eight thousand people, and Jeremy is on it all the time. It's amazing. But if you sign up and don't hear from anybody, don't feel bad. I did that, and they were too busy. They don't have enough people.
Wells · That will be true initially with the coalition too. We don't have enough people yet.
That prompts me to say this before the next question. I have a dream of connecting folks in or near New York City to create a collaborative group of some kind. I don't have a worked-out vision for it, but we could at least get together on Zoom or in person for an initial conversation and see where it goes. I'll send out an invitation. I've already reached out to a couple of people. I'm a representative from the coalition to the Next Economies Forum, which is having a conference in Cairo next year, and a couple of people I met on its Zoom calls also live in New York City. With some folks here and them, I think we could form a solid core, of people representing themselves or other organizations.
From the room · Thank you for this. This is the first time I'm hearing about the Ecocivilization Coalition. I'm familiar with Maia's work, and I appreciate that she brings meditation and awareness in. I'm familiar with other concurrent efforts, and I'm curious how you think about them.
Wells · Can you give me an example of another network?
From the room · Regen Commons, which is working on aligning web3 projects.
Wells · We'd definitely want to be connected with them and amplify one another's efforts. In general, if we think of communities rather than networks, our goal is to create communities of communities across the globe, all connected to one another, working in tandem, sharing their experiences, what worked and what didn't, and making new pathways forward together.
From the room · Our current civilization is very tech heavy. Even connecting with each other, we might do it through social media, and some of the companies running those platforms are the opposite of what we want. How do you handle that tension?
Wells · When we can, we use platforms and technology that align with the goals and values of the coalition. For example, we're creating our global community connection space on Hylo, which is very intentionally a platform for creating communities and collaboration. It's a nonprofit. It isn't out to make a lot of money. And it's very collaborative: there's a Hylo builders' community that meets once a month, where its users can share what they wish for in the platform. We also use a program called EcoSend for our emails, rather than Mailchimp or something like that.
Host · I really hear you on that. With the mapping piece they're talking about, people will be able to find other people and organizations and strengthen what's local, and amplify that. So it's not just all being online and seeing everything, but being connected to what's going on in your area, which is some of what Vincent's app does. We keep collaborating and bringing these different organizations together.
From the room · If our ecosystem were a patient to heal, would treating the patient be more important than stopping the people harming it, like fighting oligarchy?
Wells · I think we need to work on both fronts.
From the room · Is it a good analogy to say the organization's aim is to create an internet of ecological civilization information and resources?
Wells · That, and to connect people and organizations.
From the room · And a suggestion. Time is limited, so could everyone post their organization in the Luma group chat, if they want to stay connected?
Wells · That's a great idea. Let's all do that in the Luma chat. And if you sign up for the coalition's mailing list, we'll send an announcement when the Hylo platform is ready. That's the perfect place for conversations.
Ben · Perfect timing, because it's 7:40. Thank you all for coming. There's a Luma chat you can hop into. If you live in New York City, we've been gathering like this on a fairly regular basis. Not only do we have monthly Metacrisis Salons, we also host weekly or biweekly Action Labs, working dinners and working groups. You can check it all out at dearcrisis.com/join. The Dear Crisis website is the parent of all the events we've been hosting this week.
The event coming up next is hosted by Regen Network, and they have 150 people signed up, so we'll see exactly what happens. First we'll get everyone out of this room so we can set it up. In theory it would be really nice if you re-registered, so we can keep track of all the humans flowing through. It's a free event, and it's Climate Week, so probably half the people will come.
The intention with this space has always been to think of it like a garden. Instead of running across New York trying to chase butterflies and catch them with a net, we plant the seeds of amazing conversations here, so the right people show up in the room. I really love the seed you planted here: what are you working on, and what do you need? I personally feel there are many people here who can offer interesting friendships, but what's most exciting are the co-creation opportunities. Who would you want to collaborate and co-create with? Can you help them? Can they help you? Do your visions align? There's food. Go to the front, connect, grab a drink, grab some food, and hang out. That's the intention of this place, because ultimately Climate Week is going to end, and we're just left with each other.
Wells · When I send out the email, I'll include a request for feedback about this event, so we can make the next one better. Please take the time to respond if you can. Thank you.