Globalization End Game

Ep 181  |  Helena Norberg-Hodge

Helena Norberg-Hodge — Globalization End Game: How Localization Builds Resilient Communities & Economies

Check out this podcast

Helena Norberg-Hodge Headshot The Great Simplification

Description

Over the last few decades, humanity has globalized everything – from food production and supply chains to communication and information systems – making countries, businesses, and individuals more connected and reliant on each other than ever before. Yet, with this increased interconnectedness comes more complexity and fragility. What have we lost through the globalization process, and how might we fortify our communities by investing in local economies?

In this episode, Nate is joined by Helena Norberg-Hodge – a leading voice in the localization movement – to explore the deep systemic challenges posed by economic globalization. Together, they examine how the global growth model has fueled environmental degradation, social fragmentation, and cultural erosion, and why shifting toward localized economies might be one of the most effective (and overlooked) responses to our predicament. Drawing on decades of firsthand experience, Helena invites us to question the assumptions underpinning our globalized lives and imagine a future rooted in local reconnection.

How might we rekindle a sense of enough in a world that constantly tells us we need more? As globalization begins to retreat, what small but meaningful steps can we take to relocalize our lives and reconnect with each other? And what kind of futures might be possible if we centered our communities around systems that regenerate the very places we call home?

About Helena Norberg-Hodge

Linguist, author and filmmaker, Helena Norberg-Hodge is the founder and director of the international non-profit organisation, Local Futures. She is also a pioneer of the new economy movement, the convenor of World Localization Day, and an expert in understanding the ecological, social, and psychological effects of the global economy on diverse cultures. 

Additionally, Helena is the author of several books, including ‘Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh’, an eye-opening tale of tradition and change in Ladakh, or “Little Tibet”. Together with a film of the same title, Ancient Futures has been translated into more than 40 languages, and sold half a million copies. Helena has continued to produce several other short films, including the award-winning documentary ‘The Economics of Happiness’.

Helena specialized in linguistics, including studies at the University of London and with Noam Chomsky at MIT. Her work, spanning almost half a century, has received the support of a wide range of international figures, including Jane Goodall, HH the Dalai Lama, HRH Prince Charles and Indira Gandhi.

In French, we have a motto that says that a simple drawing is often better than a long explanation. Jean-Marc Jancovici Carbone 4 President

That’s very understandable because with left atmosphere thinking, one of the problems is that you see everything as a series of problems that must have solutions. Iain McGilchrist Neuroscientist and Philosopher

We can’t have hundreds and hundreds of real relationships that are healthy because that requires time and effort and full attention and awareness of being in real relationship and conversation with the other human. Nate Hagens Director of ISEOF

This is the crux of the whole problem. Individual parts of nature are more valuable than the biocomplexity of nature. Thomas Crowther Founder Restor

Show Notes & Links to Learn More

00:00 – Helena Norberg-Hodge, Works, Local Futures, World Localization Day, The Economics of Happiness, Global Ecovillage Network 

Featured Local Futures Short Films: Trade Gone Mad, Raise Our Children, Closer to Home – Voices of Hope in Times of Crisis

00:49 – Local Economy, Economic Globalization

01:15 – Noam Chomsky

01:59 – Ladakhis

03:30 – Neoclassical Economics

03:40 – Diametrically opposed Definition

04:45 – Neoliberalism

04:55 – Principle of Comparative Advantage 

06:10 – Being connected to land is a spiritual foundation of many indigenous cultures

06:25 – Tibetan Plateau

06:55 – Christianity

08:10 – Romanticism, Age of Enlightenment

08:49 – Embodiment, Quantum Entanglement

09:00 – Belonging as a fundamental human need

10:10 – The Race to Mars

11:10 – The elites are less than 1%

12:11 – The Agricultural Revolution (Neolithic Revolution), Colonialism, Economic Superorganism

12:50 – Monoculture, Enclosure, Slavery

13:19 – Industrial Revolution and Industrialization

14:20 – Subsistence definition

14:44 – History of Farming: in Australia, in Asia

15:49 – Dickensian London

16:56 – Fossil Fuel, Digital Currency, Artificial Intelligence

17:31 – Financialization and its harm

18:20 – Indigeneity 

18:38 – Our economy is exponentially bigger than in the year 1500 (based on GDP per capita)

19:59 – Juggernaut definition

21:30 – Iain McGilchrist, TGS Episode 1 + 2, Right vs. Left Brain Hemispheres

22:59 – Zeitgeist definition

23:35 – Left-Wing Politics, Buddhism, Ecology

23:41 – University of California Berkeley Energy and Resources Group

26:32 – Maurice Strong, Al Gore

27:11 – Rachel Carson, The Silent Spring

28:07 – Decentralization, Small is Beautiful by E. F. Schunmacher, Herman Daly (TGS Episode)

29:15 – Amory Lovins 

29:50 – Monsanto, Agent Orange

30:20 – Earth Summit Rio 1992

30:25 – Reductionism

31:17 – Antibodies

33:00 – Trade treaties handing over power from nation-state to corporations

33:44 – Plant species with no predators, Pesticides, Glyphosate

36:09 – Corporate Propaganda, Urbanization, 5-Minute City

37:10 – Overshoot: Ecological, Social, Financial

37:38 – Credit, 6-Continent Supply Chain

38:45 – Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down

41:05 – Chris Smaje on the realities of the costs of global food imports

43:38 – Sungmisan Village

47:37 – Social Capital

47:48 – Calorie intake per capita vs. Energy usage per capita, Endosomatic vs. Exosomatic

51:09 – Helena’s Films

55:47 – Natural Building

55:55 – Grassroots movements, Permaculture, Ecovillages, Ecoversity

58:35 – History of Technology 

58:53 – Intergenerational Relationships

59:53 – Waldorf Education, Impact of technology on children’s education (Zak Stein TGS Episode on this topic)

1:02:17 – Hand-Eye Coordination

1:03:30 – The Great Simplification, Climate Change

1:03:54 – Mental health crisis of global youth 

1:04:27 – Corporate Empire

1:06:29 – Laissez-Faire Government, Countries swinging to the right

1:10:43 – Sigmund Freud

1:11:12 – Alcoholic Anonymous and its success, Connection of 12-step program to spirituality

1:12:00 – Vision Quest, Time Poverty

1:13:20 – Psychopathy

1:14:40 – The Polycrisis

1:14:46 – Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), Uranium mining company suing Greenland

1:16:15 – Economics of Happiness Conferences, Localization Action Guide

Download transcript
Back to episodes

Subscribe to our Substack

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.

The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future (ISEOF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, founded in 2008, that conducts research and educates the public about energy issues and their impact on society.

Support our work
Get in touch
x