Michael Dowd wikipedia page     •      Postdoom.com      •      Postdoom wikipedia page
 


Table of Topics on this page






  Best INTERVIEW of Michael Dowd

Best ONSTAGE SERMONS by Michael Dowd

Sample of ZOOM SERMON during Covid

Best ONSITE WEEKEND by Michael Dowd

Best ONLINE PRESENTATION by Michael Dowd

The LEGACY of Michael Dowd

Dowd's Best EDUCATIONAL videos

Most LYRICAL spiritual support

Honor Your and Our MORTALITY

TEXT Publications influenced by the book Overshoot

Dowd & Barlow Sunday Service Collaboration

Dowd's WORLDVIEW SHIFTS

AUDIO NARRATIONS by Dowd of Books and Blogs by Others

More EDUCATIONAL videos by Dowd

More SERMONS by Dowd

More INTERVIEWS of Dowd

Dowd's Hosting of "Postdoom Conversations"


Best INTERVIEW of Michael Dowd

VIDEO: Terry Patten ("State of Emergence" podcast) interviews Michael Dowd

   This 2020 CONVERSATION was recorded only in audio. Terry Patten, author with Ken Wilbur of Integral Practice, died in 2021. In January 2024 Michael's widow (Connie Barlow) reworked the audio into a youtube video.

The long-time friends are both at their best here: clear in their differences, authentic in their expressions, ending in gratitude and deep affection.

66 minutes - (recorded AUDIO SEPTEMBER 2020; images added 2024)

TEACHINGS BY DOWD include:

Clarity and calm begin with bringing to mind a deep understanding of ECOLOGY and the HISTORY of civilizational rise and fall.

An "I-Thou" relationship with nature is "the fundamental spiritual discipline."

• Presentation of POSTDOOM shifts in DEATH and IDENTITY. (1) Death is sacred and necessary. (2) Identity of self expands to the biosphere, the cosmos. "Not only am I not afraid of my own death but I'm not afraid of our species death.... My larger 'self' continues into the future."

• FIVE CATEGORIES OF CERTAINTIES: (1) Geological & Biological, (2) Climatological, (3) Linguistic, (4) Cultural and Civilizational, (5) Psychological

• The value of DISSENSUS and how the newly forming POSTDOOM COMMUNITY exemplifies authentic communication and caring for one another.

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Best ONSTAGE SERMONS by Michael Dowd
leading to his Postdoom perspective
(reverse chronological)

2023
   "Being the Calm in the Storm" was Michael's best sermon post-covid.

Recorded August 2023 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Flint, MI, it was also his last. Michael died two months later.

Eerily, the 3 main points brought the topic of death into the foreground:

    1. Nurture intimacy with Life
    2. Honor your & our mortality
    3. Attend to what matters most


     Upon posting this
30-minute sermon and the 25-minute Q&A, Michael wrote:

"This pair of videos is now my top recommendation for general audiences interested in the POSTDOOM concept and emotional support that I have been developing since 2019."

Note: Above is the MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED SERMON by colleagues in the POSTDOOM community. Michael's very presence is peaceful, compassionate, and graciously accepting of views other than his own. Another exemplar of Michael's near-end-of-life presence is the May 2023 Q&A session of his CACOR (Canadian Club of Rome) webinar.

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2019

ABOVE LEFT: Sermon presented November 2019 at Westside Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Seattle, WA. He begins with how sustainable cultures differ from our culture in three fundamental ways of relating to Reality. Nevertheless, "Doom," he concludes, "is the midpoint between denial and regeneration — with or without us.... Post-doom is what opens up when we remember who we are, accept what is inevitable, honor our grief, and invest in what is pro-future and soul-nourishing."

ABOVE RIGHT: Sermon presented December 2019 at East Shore Unitarian Church in Bellevue, WA. Topics are three-fold: (1) Getting to doom (honoring the stages of grief); (2) A post-doom mind and heart; (3) Post-doom living.

   "Ecology Is the Heart of Theology"

Filmed in March 2019, this sermon signals the beginning of Michael's transition into a fully "POSTDOOM" worldview. He begins speaking of civilizational contraction as inevitable.

Professionally filmed before a very large congregational audience at Unity Church of Christianity in Houston, TX.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for Christian audiences.

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2018

ABOVE: Two versions of Dowd's newly darkening view of the future, both presented in Unitarian Universalist congregations during September 2018. LEFT: (Ludington, MI) and RIGHT: (Brighton, MI). Tagline, "Progress is the de facto religion of the industrial world. But something has changed in America, and beyond. What happens when we progressives 'lose the faith'?"

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2017
   "Not the Future We Ordered: Honoring Our Grief".

Sermon delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Ventura, CA.

Dowd begins by saying, "The title of my sermon is one I've never used before ... and I've never before spoken on a Sunday morning sitting on a stool. I'm doing this because this is a heavy topic — and I don't want to be too intense."

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2016
   "Ecology is the New Theology" was delivered at Tahoma Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Tahoma WA just one month after the 2016 elections. This was the weekend when protests at Standing Rock (Indigenous "Water Protectors") came to a head.

Three stances ground a sustainable culture. They all indicate that "ecology is theology" and nothing is more important: (1) Reverent Humility, (2) Reciprocal Gratitude, and (3) a Fierce Commitment to Future Generations.

   "Evolutionary Gratitude for Challenging Times" was delivered at Unity of Portland, OR on the first Sunday following the 2016 elections.

Michael's 3 points: (1) Decline is divine and chaos catalyzes creativity, (2) Interpretations matter (and mythic interpretations matter most), (3) You can't know the impact of your actions, so get on with it.

Note: An audio-enhanced version of this sermon (reduced echo) is recommended, especially for those with hearing problems.

Both of the above 2016 sermons are HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for liberal religious and secular audiences who recognize the immense challenges ahead but are not yet ready to acknowledge as inevitable the severity of civilizational contraction and climate deterioration. In other words, Dowd's expression here pre-dates his own acknowledgment of doom, and thus also the concept of "postdoom" as a welcome landscape accessible once one has passed through the grief stages.

   "Prophetic Inspiration for Chaotic, Challenging Times" was delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Whidbey Island, WA on the second Sunday following the 2016 elections.

Clearly stating his regard for the mythic language of Christianity, but presenting from his elder stance as a "religious naturalist," this sermon is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for Unitarian Universalist and secular audiences.

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2009
   Michael shed his evangelical form of Christianity when Thomas Berry became his mentor in 1988. Scriptural literalism was gone — but not the religious fervor.

Rarely did Michael have an opportunity to preach full-out in a pentecostal style after he made that worldview shift. The video at left is a high point. In 2009 he delivered the Wednesday evening sermon at a New Thought megachurch in California. Three cameras captured this 35-minute dynamic sernon.

Watch "7 Great Gifts of Evolutionary Spirituality".

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Sample of Zoom-style sermon during Covid

  
"True Sustainability

Michael extended this Independence Day message into the necessity of honoring our Interdependence with the natural world, and thus drawing upon Indigenous wisdom as well as ecological and anthropological sciences.

Beginning with slides, he then speaks from the heart of Four Laws of TRUE Sustainability:
(1)G🌎D First! (2) 7th Generation!
(3) Sacred Limits! (4) Consequence Capture!

• Recorded July 4, 2021 (18 minutes)

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Best ONSITE WEEKEND by Michael Dowd
March 2023: Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was already experiencing collapse


     LEFT: Evening Presentation:
"Living Beyond Hope and Fear: Staying Calm in the Storm" (100 minutes)

     RIGHT: Sunday Sermon: Sustainability 101: Ecology as the Heart of Theology
                (Readings at timecode 32:45, sermon begins at 38:21 and continues in 3 parts

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Best Online PRESENTATION
Canadian Association for the Club of Rome

   Part 1 (presentation) (52 minutes)

Part 2 (Q&A) (76 minutes)


• Posted May 2023


MICHAEL DOWD wrote: "I consider this 52-minute presentation delivered via Zoom on May 3, 2023 to the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome (CACOR) to be my most important and emotionally supportive video to-date."

(Many viewers regard the Q&A session as even more significant than the talk.)

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The LEGACY of Michael Dowd
November 19, 1958   to   October 7, 2023


   • 2023 VIDEO ON YOUTUBE (5 minutes)

Video produced by Michael Dowd's wife, Connie Barlow, expressly for individual and group remembrances by his colleagues.

The photos chosen (with musical accompaniment) show Michael's presence with a shifting population of colleagues throughout his adult years of work and spheres of contribution.

(The comments posted on the video page are extraordinary; so do look at those, too.)

VIDEO CONTENT: The video begins with Michael's early experience of the work of Thomas Berry, in what came to be known as the Epic of Evolution. Michael blended those learnings with his previous career as a Christian pastor, and thus was born his writing and speaking focus on what came to be called Evolutionary Christianity. In December 2012, he woke up with horror to the speed and scale of the climate crisis. A philosophy major in college, but autodidact ever since, Michael devoured books and blogs on the science of climate change and what lay ahead. This rapidly shifted his attention from evolution as foreground to "ecology as the new theology". (Thomas Berry, who had died in 2009, had emphasized both.) It was then that Michael donned a green clergy shirt and became "Reverend Reality" in his guest speaking around the country.
     Michael's emphasis shifted again when he encountered in 2015 a book written by William R. Catton in 1980. Now he understood that the climate crisis was a new, global manifestation of the human tendency to overshoot ecological limits (which Michael translated as "grace limits") whenever forms of society complexified such that Indigenous values were lost. By the spring of 2019, he had a name for this new understanding:
Postdoom.
     It is centrally for the Postdoom Community that this webpage is created. Visit their website: POSTDOOM.COM Video of the Oct 12 postdoom zoom gathering im memory of Michael was edited and later posted on youtube: "Michael Dowd Celebration of Life". For those more interested in his earlier focus on the evolutionary epic, including his 18 years of living on the road with his wife, visit the webpage titled:
    • Michael Dowd: America's Evolutionary Evangelist
__________

   Rev. Jim Hollister, a long-time friend and colleague of Michael Dowd, delivered this sermon at his church, the First Congregational UCC in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He titled his reflections on Dowd's Legacy, "Living Between Denial and Resurrection".

The full church service is available, with the sermon beginning at timecode 26:25, preceded by a prayer. The prayer and sermon set alone is also posted on youtube.

• Recorded February 11, 2024

 

2016 Freeland, WA     •     2018 Houston, TX    

   John Halstead wrote an essay, "Hope Beyond Hope, in June 2024 that entails a superb biography of Michael Dowd's worldview shifts. He delivered an early version of it as the Sunday message in his Unitarian church (video left). Both entail his tribute to Michael, whom John regards as a mentor. The essay is richly illustrated and is posted on John's website, which shares the same title as his 2019 book, Another End of the World Is Possible.

Michael Dowd video-recorded a "postdoom conversation" with John in April 2020: "Love at the End of Our World".

EARLY CAREER
Dowd's most passionate presentation (2009)
Prior to his "Grace Limits" ecological conversion (2012)

ABOVE: June 2009 at Agape International Spiritual Life Center, Los Angeles
WATCH: "7 Gifts of Evolutionary Spirituality"

   27-min VIDEO: "New Hampshire PBS: One on One with Michael Dowd" (December 2010)

Segments include the interview and clips of Michael's presentation at the Quaker Meeting House in Dover NH.

Also pieced in to this documentary are clips from a church presentation Michael delivered in 2004, as drawn from his 2005 DVD titled, "Evolutionary Christianity."

• ACCESS the ARCHIVED full list of Michael Dowd's career projects, including those prior to his reading of William Catton's book Overshoot in 2015 and thereby prioritizing the "grace limits" of ECOLOGY over the Epic of EVOLUTION.
 

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Dowd's Best EDUCATIONAL videos
offering clarity and calm in a Postdoom context

    Collapse in a Nutshell: Understanding Our Predicament

Overshoot in a Nutshell: Understanding Our Predicament

Posted November 2021

Each video is about 30 minutes

   Note: This pair of educational videos "in a nutshell" are still his most popular (more than 50,000 views).


   Michael Dowd gives voice to a decade of his own research into (1) why denial of biospheric and civilizational collapse is instinctive, and (2) how we can live fully and contribute meaningfully — even in the worst circumstances.

"... Acceptance of collapse and its inevitable consequences may be the single most important thing any of us can do to live fully, fearlessly, and inspiringly in this Age of Decline."

"Basic Training - 94 minutes    "Cliff Notes" - 30 minutes


   This visually rich and information-dense video was created in 2022. It includes the most credible and important resources available for understanding:
(a) Where we are
(b) How we got here, and
(c) Distinguishing what is still possible in moving forward

Practical tools and insights are offered for staying sane, grounded, and grateful in increasingly "crazy-making times".

There are 3 versions (different lengths):

   • "All you can eat buffet (2 hours)   •   "Mid-size meal" (49 minutes)   •   "Appetizer (33 minutes)

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Most LYRICAL spiritual support

"My G🌎D, What Have We Done?" is a video narration (with text overlaying pictures) of an essay by Michael Dowd that was published in a January 2022 issue of the online journal Progressing Spirit.

   There are four titled sections within it:
• "By Fate or Failure"

• "Progressive Christianity Today"

• "G🌎D's Judgment"

• "Redemption"

14 minutes - (recorded and posted January 2022)

  A pdf is also available, as well as an AUDIO on Soundcloud.

   To honor his legacy 8 weeks after his death, Connie Barlow assembled a set of photos she had taken of Michael in nature during their 18 years of itinerant ministry. These she wove together into a graceful video format and posted on youtube.

"A Remembrance of Michael Dowd Celebrating Nature"

9 minutes - (posted December 2023)

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"Honor Your and Our Mortality"
1 retrospective • 2 presentations • 2 interviews • 1 children's story

"Michael Dowd: Sermons on Death" (51 minutes; 2024)

   To honor the first anniversary of Michael's death, his widow (Connie Barlow) assembled video excerpts of three of Michael's sermons on the topic of death that he had delivered during the couple's 18 years of itinerant ministry throughout the USA and Canada. The 3 exerpted sermons are:

• 2015 at People's Church of Ludington, MI

• 2018 at Unity of Houston, TX

• 2023 at Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Flint, MI

"Impermanence and Death as Sacred" (18 minutes; 2018)

  

Upon hearing of Michael's death, Dean Spillane-Walker posted on his youtube channel the "Death" section of an 8-part video series by Living the Questions. That series was based on video captured in November 2018, while Michael was speaking to a large audience at St. Paul's United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas.

The full video program is titled, "ProFuture Faith: The Prodigal Species Comes Home". A dvd version is available for purchase from the Christian educational organization that filmed and edited it: Living the Questions.

"Embrace Death to Live Life Fully" (28 minutes; 2015)

  

Guest sermon delivered 2015 at People's Church of Ludington, MI. This is Michael's fullest and most personal rendition of "Death as natural and necessary and no less sacred than life". Following, he leads the congregation in a recitation of a litany written by Connie, "The Gifts of Death." Key references to the wisdom of others (with image overlays) include William R. Catton, Paul Kingsnorth ("Dark Mountain Manifesto") and John Michael Greer. Audios Michael recorded of all three authors are posted on his Soundcloud page - "Michael Dowd: RIP Homo colossus", with table of contents here.

"Beyond Death Acceptance: A Conversation with Michael Dowd" (35 minutes; 2023)

  

February 2023, Duane Kuss sent a draft essay he wrote on the topic of grief to his old friend, Michael Dowd, for a critique. Eight months later, Dowd dies suddenly of a heart attack.

Duane decided to edit the original video to highlight Michael's comments and wisdom and then post it on his youtube channel. Michael's widow, Connie Barlow, agreed.

QUOTE: "An expanded sense of identity both in time and in space fundamentally informs everything for me."

"What Can We Celebrate?" - Michael Dowd with David Baum (37 minutes; 2022)

  

Winter Solstice 2022, David Baum (Collapse Club) asks "Given the bad news that we all know about, what can we celebrate at this special time?" Michael responds, "If you really understand our predicament, the question isn't what can we celebrate. It's like, what the hell would I not celebrate?!"

Thereby Michael turns the rest of the conversation into an understanding of how COLLAPSE acceptance, coupled with one's individual DEATH acceptance, can evoke a prevailing sense of gratitude for the blessings of life that we otherwise take for granted.

• Michael Dowd posted two essays on death in his Huffington Post blog in 2012: "Death: Sacred, Necessary, Real" and "A Scientific Honoring of Death".

     Although written as a CHILDREN's story by his wife, Connie Barlow, in 2009, it is also very suitable (and poignant) for oral delivery with adults. The AUDIO version was recorded in 2009. Michael was ill in bed following his 4th chemo treatment for cancer. So she asked him to play the interactive role of the child, while she AUDIO-RECORDED the reading.

August 2024, 10 months after Michael's death, Connie listened again to that old audio recording. She was inspired to turn it into a 54-minute VIDEO, with text and image overlays.

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Dowd's Text Publications
Influenced by Catton's book Overshoot (2016 through 2023)

2016 - "Evidential Medicine for Our Collective Soul", Oneing

2017 - "The Way Home for the Prodigal Species", Progressing Spirit

2019 - "Christ As the Future Incarnate", Oneing

2022 - "My God: What Have We Done?", Progressing Spirit. (Also: 14 minute video)

2023 - "The Real End Times: From Doom to Faith", Progressing Spirit

2023 - "Collapse and Denial: Inevitable and Unstoppable", The New Ecozoic Reader

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Dowd & Barlow Sunday Service Collaboration
Sermon delivered by Michael; Storytelling by Connie

Michael's sermon begins the video.

Connie's story, "Helping Forests Walk," begins at timecode 18:00.

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Dowd's Worldview Shifts
Epic of Evolution to Ecological Overshoot to Postdoom

     While still in divinity school in the late 1980s, Michael moved into a naturalistic and evolution-celebrating version of Christianity when he encountered the ideas of Thomas Berry. Immediately, he "adopted" Thomas as a mentor and borrowed books from Thomas's library during visits to the Riverdale Center. (Great Red Oak photo at left.)

By 1992 Michael had his first book published, EarthSpirit: A Handbook for Nurturing an Ecological Christianity, based on Thomas's ideas — and especially as those ideas were expressed for popular audiences by Sister Miriam MacGillis.

     Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow began their working partnership and marriage in 2001. A year later they launched their itinerant ministry celebrating the Epic of Evolution.

LEFT: Connie, Thomas, and Michael in front of the couple's first van for travelling. "Ecozoic" is the license plate; a term coined by Thomas for the planetary future to strive toward.

ABOVE: In the late 1980s until his death in 2009, THOMAS BERRY was Michael Dowd's great mentor. Periodically Michael would visit Thomas and borrow books from him at the Riverdale Center north of New York City. PHOTO RIGHT: Together in 2007 (Thomas died 2 years later).

ABOVE: (Left) During Michael's last visit to Green Mountain Monastery in Vermont, May 2019, Michael lay upon the grave of his mentor. (Right) A set of Michael's ashes were placed at the boulder in October 2024.

__________

ABOVE LEFT: Michael remotely adopted a new mentor (William R. Catton, Jr.) in January 2015 when he read, for the first time, the 1980 book Overshoot — which Thomas Berry had suggested he should read during their early meetings at the Riverdale Center! Alas, Catton had died suddenly two weeks earlier.

ABOVE RIGHT: Immediately, Michael tracked down a descendant of Catton's, helped to ensure publication of the official family obituary, then solicited tributes and posted them on a new webpage, "Tribute to William R. Catton, Jr: A leader in environmental sociology".

Immediately, the understanding of "ecological overshoot" and the implications for civilizational collapse entered into Michael's presentations, which had already been infused with "ecology as the new theology" when the climate crisis became front and center for him early in 2013. Three sermons he presented Summer of 2015 exemplify the shift in the OVERSHOOT worldview:

     • "When Religion Fails, Economics Becomes Demonic"
     • "Inspired on Dark Mountain"
     • "From Techno-Utopian to Apocaloptimist"
__________

 

ABOVE: May 2019 Michael and Connie meet with Paul Chefurka (far left) and Paul Beckwith in Ottawa, Canada. Paul Chefurka's framing of "doom" awareness as the beginning of a spiritual journey in "finding the gift" inspires the couple to explore "postdoom" thinking, being, and action. Summer of 2019 Michael begins recording and posting on youtube Postdoom Conversations with Chefurka and many others. Those conversations and further reading culminates in a December 2019 sermon Michael delivers that gives full expression to the postdoom worldview. SERMON: "Post-Doom Inspiration"

Connie Barlow creates a POST-DOOM WIKIPEDIA page in September 2023. Michael dies one month later, and a new LEADERSHIP TEAM for the Postdoom website and community takes shape.

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Audio Narrations by Dowd
of Books and Blogs by Others
The Educational Legacy of Michael Dowd's Voice

Playlists on Michael Dowd's SOUNDCLOUD

START HERE: Sample first Michael's essay-format webpage of the what and why of his highest recommendations for educating yourself via the works of others. Here you can learn from multiple authors why the collapse of global industrial civilization is not only underway — but that it was inevitable. Learn the ecological, systems-science, and religious/worldview causes of our downward plunge. Equally, learn from others how to navigate the grief cycle from "collapse awareness" to "collapse acceptance." Then, emotionally moving from "doom" into a state of calm, clarity, compassion, and "courageous love-in-action." Access AUDIOS: Material Grace Limits & Systemic Piety.

RECOMMENDATION: Whatever audios you may choose to sample, be aware that Michael Dowd regarded the 1980 book by William R. Catton as the most important of all he had ever read. He often felt it necessary to communicate differently between those, like himself, who had read OVERSHOOT and those who had not.

Overshoot - 1980 book (full 12 hours) by William R. Catton, Jr. Michael regards this book as the "grace limits bible." Your education into why human-centric civilizations cannot escape the classic rise-and-fall pattern begins here. (He recorded this audio narration with the publisher's blessing.)

AUDIOS on the POSTDOOM.COM website is another way to access many of these same narrations.

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More EDUCATIONAL videos by Dowd
2016 - 2021 (reverse chronological)

   

   

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More SERMONS by Dowd
2013 to 2023 (reverse chronological)

     

   

   

   

    

   

   

   

   

   

   

 

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Video Interviews of Michael Dowd
chronological

VIDEO: Rick Archer ("Buddha at the Gas Pump") interviews Michael Dowd

   This lengthy interview is the best place to hear Michael present nearly the entirety of his "Ecology is the New Theology" perspective, by which he reinterprets Christian symbols and stories. All is grounded in the work of his mentor, Thomas Berry, whom Michael met in 1988.

You will learn, too, that just 5 months earlier, Michael read William Catton's 1980 book, Overshoot, which amplifies his ecological grounding and gives birth to what he calls "Grace Limits." Thus his worldview begins to shift again.

2 hours - (recorded and posted JUNE 2015)

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VIDEO: Terry Patten ("State of Emergence" podcast) interviews Michael Dowd

   This 2020 conversation was recorded only in audio. Terry Patten, author with Ken Wilbur of Integral Practice, died in 2021. In January 2024 Michael's widow (Connie Barlow) reworked the audio into a youtube video.

The long-time friends are both at their best here: clear in their differences, authentic in their expressions, ending in gratitude and deep affection.

66 minutes - (recorded AUDIO SEPTEMBER 2020; images added 2024)

TEACHINGS BY DOWD include:

Clarity and calm begin with bringing to mind a deep understanding of ECOLOGY and the HISTORY of civilizational rise and fall.

An "I-Thou" relationship with nature is "the fundamental spiritual discipline."

• Presentation of POSTDOOM shifts in DEATH and IDENTITY. (1) Death is sacred and necessary. (2) Identity of self expands to the biosphere, the cosmos. "Not only am I not afraid of my own death but I'm not afraid of our species death.... My larger 'self' continues into the future."

• FIVE CATEGORIES OF CERTAINTIES: (1) Geological & Biological, (2) Climatological, (3) Linguistic, (4) Cultural and Civilizational, (5) Psychological

• The value of DISSENSUS and how the newly forming POSTDOOM COMMUNITY exemplifies authentic communication and caring for one another.

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VIDEO: Michael Shaw ("Living in a Time of Dying") interviews Michael Dowd

   Director / Producer of "Living in the Time of Dying" Michael Shaw interviews Rev. Michael Dowd about the place and the state of religion in this time of social and ecological collapse.

Dowd lays out a framework of religion that is life-centered rather than human-centered. One of the ways he describes it is "Postdoom Compost Theology".

50 minutes - (recorded DECEMBER 2020, posted 2021)

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VIDEO: Jem Bendell (founder of Deep Adaptation) interviews Michael Dowd

   CAPTION description begins, Michael Dowd is known today for his leadership in the realm of post-doom, which his website defines as: "A fierce and fearless reverence for life and expansive gratitude — even in the midst of abrupt climate mayhem and the runaway collapse of societal harmony, the health of the biosphere, and business as usual."

1 hour - (recorded and posted NOVEMBER 2022)

TOPICS include:

MENTORS who stimulated Michael's final worldview shift into a POSTDOOM perspective. These include: (1) William R. Catton, Jr, centered on his 1980 book, Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change. (2) Edward (Teddy) Goldsmith and especially his books The Stable Society (1978) and The Way: An Ecological Worldview (1992). (3) William Ophuls for his scholarly work on the ecological and societal causes of the rise-and-fall of civilizations. Specific to our own civilizational collapse underway and written for a broad audience are Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail (2012) and Apologies to the Grandchildren: Reflections on Our Ecological Predicament, Its Deeper Causes, and Its Political Consequences (2018).

OTHER TOPICS include: The Hope-Fear cycle that precedes collapse acceptance • Tipping Points and how some are already "in the rear-view mirror" • Denial of Collapse as an instinctively healthy response • how Clarity about the causes of collapse offers calm and the end of confusion • understanding the causal inevitability of collapse transforms the anger state of grief into compassion • the benefits of collapse acceptance and how these may differ between younger and older age groups • the importance of passing one's own "mirror test" for finding ways to serve • why "the Almighty We" doesn't exist in our industrial consumer culture, and how this may limit prospects for realistically achievable activism beyond the local level.

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Dowd's Hosting of "Postdoom Conversations"
August 2019 through August 2023

HISTORY: From Summer 2019 until his Autumn 2023 death, Michael Dowd video-recorded more than 80 conversations with others who were likewise coming to terms with a foreboding sense of the future — and who were exploring ways to nevertheless live with meaning (and even joy). A four-way conversation in Ottawa, Canada, Spring 2019 was the spark for Dowd's "postdoom" conversation series.

   This PHOTO shows the Ottawa conversation.

Michael, along with wife/mission partner Connie Barlow, met up with two Canadians: author Paul Chefurka (left) and climate scientist Paul Beckwith (center left).

They were meeting each other for the first time. It was Beckwith's climate-science knowledge and Chefurka's blogpost "Finding the Gift" (following collapse acceptance) that catapaulted Michael into hosting the POSTDOOM conversation series.

The day after this conversation, MICHAEL DOWD delivered a talk at St. Matthew's Anglican Church (Ottawa), reported as "Speaker Michael Dowd offers antidote to climate despair".

Following Michael's death October 2023, Connie Barlow spent several weeks reviewing the conversations.

Of the total recorded (or chosen by Michael from other websites), Connie selected 66 to be featured on the POSTDOOM.COM website. The remaining 35 videos can be accessed through the youtube playlist titled, "Extra Postdoom Conversations".

While every selected video had to have a good-quality audio, the pattern for ordering the conversations emerged along the way. Connie recalls,

"I figured that most folks arriving at the Postdoom website would first scroll through the names and faces, looking for people they already admired. That was a given.
    So my role was to place toward the top the videos that I felt showcased people whose words and ways of being exemplified (a) postdoom equanimity and vitality, (2) practical advice for moving from awareness to acceptance of what lies ahead but then also on to the emotional benefits of settling into a postdoom mindset. Equally, I wanted (3) a diversity of ages and life experiences throughout the entire list."
VIDEO PRODUCTION: Of the 66 featured videos, 6 are interviews posted on other websites (by Collapse Club, Jem Bendell, and Michael Shaw). Of Michael's own hosted conversations, Connie Barlow edited 37 and Carolyn Ivey-Cone performed a light edit on 23. Any video that has a title in the front matter (and often a set of previews), plus image and text overlays, was edited by Connie. Anything that begins with music and with Michael himself providing a short introduction was edited by Carolyn.

Video Summaries and Links"
(A *NAME* marked by ASTERISKS links directly to the video conversation.)


ROW 01: POSTDOOM HISTORY & LEADERSHIP: The history of the postdoom concept is best conveyed in the *Paul Chefurka* conversation. It was Paul's blogpost "Finding the Gift" that convinced Michael Dowd that emotional "doom" need not be the endpoint when one accepts that civilizational collapse and climate chaos are unstoppable. • *Karen Perry* has become a leader of the postdoom community, first with her "Postdoom Bloom" weekly women's gathering online, and then her conversation with Michael based on her essay, "15 Benefits of Collapse Acceptance". • Meanwhile, her husband *Jordan Perry* offered the community a widely ranging list of "14 Postdoom Actions". Note: Karen and Jordan Perry are among the 5 team leaders who, following Michael Dowd's sudden death, immediately began carrying forward the Postdoom website and community.


ROW 02: GLORY & STORY: *Carolyn Baker* is one of the elders in the collapse community, having grasped the downward trajectory beginning in 2007. A prolific author, she is also a Jungian therapist and is admired for her ability to help others find gratitude in being alive here and now. Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse is the title of one or her most mentioned books. • *Daniel Dancer* has been very open about climate grief in his "Art for the Sky" outdoor participatory projects that he leads at schools throughout the United States. Having understood ecological devastation (and its unstoppability) since he was a child, Daniel always apologizes to the kids (for the future they will be facing). But the event itself is exuberant and joyful, as is the video he gives to each school of the children preparing the large form outline and then creating with their bodies for a minute or two the ephemeral art out on the school grounds. • The title and overall message of the conversation with *Shaun Chamberlin* is not only inspiring but practical. That is, "What story do you want your life to tell?. Connie also wanted to feature this video because Shaun's decision to keep his material needs minimal and to find a mentor outside of college is a path for other disillusioned young people to consider. As well, a pile-up of sudden deaths he had to endure (his financée and his mentor) is extreme for those of us who live in privileged nations. (This is the only conversation uploaded in two parts; access Part 2.)


ROW 03: WIDELY KNOWN ELDERS: All have a string of books they authored, and all have had to make dramatic worldview shifts in their lives — most recently having to accept a far more foreboding sense of the future than they held in previous decades. • *Joanna Macy*, whose recent book was titled Active Hope, conversed with Michael in ways that evoked the title for this video: "To Collapse Well". (An earlier video conversation Michael had with her can be accessed in row 21.) • *Margaret (Meg) Wheatley* was interviewed by (the late) Terry Patten, but it was so good that Michael cross-posted it here, choosing the title, "Opening to the World". For decades, Meg's career was teaching leadership skills within corporations, NGOs, and even once for the US military. Accepting that civilizational collapse was unstoppable shifted her approach to "Warriors for the Human Spirit". • *Richard Heinberg* recounts his journey from reading the 1972 book Limits to Growth from its original year of publication through his several decades of sustainability writings. He also spent many years in a Hindu ashram in the USA, wisdom from which he shapes into the final story of this conversation. He points to the Bhagavad-Gita and speaks the philosophy that keeps him writing, "Do good for good's sake and don't be attached to the result."


ROW 04: INNER AND OUTER ASPECTS OF POSTDOOM: *Ganga Devi Braun* opens this new row as a young person with the experience, wisdom, and speaking ability of a true elder. As with the previous interview (Heinberg) Braun has experience living on an ashram. She speaks of a personal conversation she had with Ram Dass just before he died, but she explains "my guru is the Earth." From a young age she apprenticed in grief work and the art of deep listening. Now she is drawn toward "hospicing humanity." • Viewers familiar with the television survival show "Alone" may recognize *Juan Pablo Quiñonez* as the youthful winner from Season 9. • However, the conversation Michael had with *Frank Forencich* comes in first. This puts an elder's life experience of living and teaching the physical and outdoor capabilities of "the human animal" — all within a worldview grounded in his 1970s reading of the book, Limits to Growth.


ROW 05: WOUNDED LANDSCAPES: *Trebbe Johnson* is a prolific writer, whose life experiences range from guiding wilderness quests to her current focus on sojourning in wounded landscapes, as depicted in her book, Radical Joy for Hard Times: Finding Meaning and Making Beauty in Earth's Broken Places". • Living along the industrial south shore of Lake Michigan, *John Halstead* necessarily communes with nature via a wounded landscape. His personal story of deep involvement in climate activism (to the point of arrest) and speaking authentically with his young adult children about the future he foresees matches that told by Karen Perry (Row 01). His book (and blog), Another End of the World Is Possible, is grounded in a postdoom perspective. • "Beginning with Heartbreak" is the title of the conversation with *Deena Metzger*. She is referring both to wounded landscapes and to wounded habitats for animals whom she encountered during her many decades of projects and writings on her life path as storyteller and healer.


ROW 06: POSTDOOM MEANS DEEPLY ADAPTING: Michael Dowd credits the 2018 paper "Deep Adaptation" by *Jem Bendell* as one of the foremost writings that launched his own quest to read the scholarship underpinning how we can know that climate catastrophe and civilizational collapse are already in runaway mode. • In 2023, Jem invited postdoom leader Karen Perry into his own conversation series, which he titled *"There Are Benefits from Accepting Collapse"*. • In 2023 two of the other core leaders in the postdoom community were interviewd by David Baum for his Collapse Club youtube channel. The title of this conversation: *"Collapse Acceptance Alliance" — Val Christensen and Peter Melton"*. (Learn about the Collapse Acceptance Alliance on the Connect page of the Postdoom.com website.)


ROW 07: ACROSS GENERATIONS *Bill Kauth* is an early leader of the men's movement in the USA, co-founding the Mankind Project and the New Warrior Training Adventure in 1984. He tells the story of how he realized that moving beyond doom is crucial, and toward the realization that, "no matter what befalls humanity, the world will be okay". • *Dave Pollard* is a well-known Canadian blogger who has been helping readers since 2002 understand why this civilization cannot be sustained. Michael Dowd's conversation with Dave is placed here because Bill Kauth mentions him as important in his own learnings about collapse. • *Vanessa Blakeslee* is an award-winning writer, mostly of short stories and poetry. An essay about a road-trip she and her partner took through the major oil production region in Texas came to Michael's attention when the "collapse community" made it popular. Its title: "Our Permian Paradox". (Access Michael's audio recording of "Our Permian Paradox.") Michael and Vanessa discuss the importance of not judging others for "denial" and the importance of Catton's book Overshoot in their shedding unrealistic assumptions about the future of civilization. Recognizing the centrality of "cycles" in the universe has helped her accept the inevitability of collapse.


ROW 08: GRIEF AND GRATITUDE: *LaUra Schmidt & Aimee Lewis-Reau* had already launched their Good Grief Network when Michael recorded this video in September 2019. They offer a 10-step (10 weeks) approach for "peer-to-peer" support circles for those "overwhelmed by collective injustices and eco-anxiety, climate grief, and eco-distress." • *Barbara Cecil*, especially in her 2019 essay-writing collaboration with Dahr Jamail, played a big role in Michael Dowd's decision to shift his own life work into what he came to call postdoom. Barbara co-hosted three episodes in this conversation series, including the next one: • *Stephen Jenkinson*, a.k.a. "Griefwalker", uses his social work experience in a hosptial palliative care wing to correlate how a lack of wisdom in dominant culture's handling of individual death carries over into an unwillingness to "face what's coming" for this society.


ROW 09: CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVES: All conversations here articulate their understanding of civilizational and ecological contraction from their religious grounding. • *Richard Rohr*, a Franciscan, founded The Center for Action and Contemplation in 1987, based in New Mexico USA. He speaks of his journey in that shedding the myth of progress was "slow because I held onto my Franciscan optimism and romantic sentimentality about the beauty of the Earth." • *Damaris Zehner* teaches writing at a community college in Indiana; she also devotes time to her home gardening and goat. She learned the joy of simple living while in the Peace Corps in the 1960s. Echoing Stephen Jenkinson (from the previous row), she reflects on Eastern Orthodox doctrine: "The root of all sin is a fear of death." Michah 6:8 is a good practical foundation, summarized as "Love justice, do mercy, and walk humbly with your God." • *Gail Worcelo* is a Passionist nun who is carrying forward the teachings of Father Thomas Berry. She co-founded Green Mountain Monastery in Vermont and is a leader of "Sisters of Earth".


ROW 10: RADICAL EARTH ACTION: *Max Wilbert* and *Derrick Jensen* are well known in the USA for what they call "Deep Green Resistance". Activism to maintain as much of the living world as possible while civilization continues its collapse is their shared prime directive. (Derrick is also a prolific author.) • In 2018 *Roger Hallam* stepped beyond his career as an organic farmer in the U.K. to co-found Extinction Rebellion.


ROW 11: ECOLOGICAL SCIENTISTS: *William Rees* is a Canadian population ecologist best known for the "ecological footprint" concept and tool. This hour-long episode is a superb review of the basic ecological, sociological, and systems science principles underlying the civilizational and biospheric unravelling. (Connie Barlow, a science writer, co-hosted this episode with Michael Dowd.) • Michael was also eager to converse with *Tom Wessels* because of Tom's book, The Myth of Progress. (Michael volunteered his voice for the audiobook.) Key to Tom's science trajectory was reading Black Elk Speaks, Sand County Almanac, and Silent Spring during his first year of college (1969). • Stanford professor *Paul Ehrlich* has written popular books laying out the severe ecological consequences of human overpopulation and overconsumption since the 1960s.


ROW 12: VISIONARY YOUNGERS: *Mike Garfield*, podcast host of "Future Fossils", spent 13 years as a professional musician and visual artist before becoming a parent. His day job now is in communications at the Santa Fe Institute, NM: "I live at the intersection of art and science, and philosophy and spiritual practice." • *Krista Hiser* identifies religiously as a gaian. Trained for university administration, she leads the "Sustainability Education and Key Competencies Framework" at the Global Council for Science and the Environment. She speaks poignantly of how the grief journey following suicide of a loved one gave experience for her coming to terms with a foreboding future for all. • *Gauthier Chapelle* trained as an agricultural engineer in Belgium. He is among the French-speaking leaders of the new field they call "Collapsology". (See also Wikipedia "Collapsology".) A young parent himself, he speaks of how his generation in France is deeply questioning the ethics of becoming parents.


ROW 13: CLIMATE COMMUNICATORS: *Dahr Jamail* is the author of The End of Ice (2019). Acclaimed as one of the best books of climate science for a popular audience, each chapter also delves into the emotional impacts of the science upon the scientists themselves. A core topic of this conversation is the contrasting values between Indigenous cultures and those of dominant culture. • *Robert Hunziker* is a well-known climate journalist in alternative media. This conversation is titled "Abrupt Climate Change: The World Tour." Although recorded in 2020, the grounding science operative in 6 distinct regions is always foundational: Antarctica, Australia, Amazon rain forest, Oceans, Greenland, and Arctic. • *John Englander* (former CEO of the Jacques Cousteau Society), is widely recognized as one the world's foremost experts on the rapidity and unstoppability of climate-induced rising sea levels. Here both of his books provide the focus: High Tide on Main Street and Moving to Higher Ground.


ROW 14: CLIMATE COMMUNICATORS: Of this second set of climate communicators, *Paul Beckwith* and *Nick Humphrey* have graduate backgrounds in the field. The host, Michael Dowd, runs their conversations as opportunities for viewer education in the science. • *Jennifer Hynes* offers a fascinating story of how she also became a trusted climate communicator. She is the only one of the three who, at the time, were ready and eager to talk about fully accepting "doom" enroute to a postdoom perspective. Jennifer is co-host of the climate episodes of the "Environmental Coffeehouse" on youtube, and Nick also makes occasional appearances there.


ROW 15: ECOLOGY, NUKES, & ECONOMICS: Climate change is far from the only looming doom scenario for humanity, as made clear in this set of conversations. *Sid Smith* is a mathematician in the academy who chose to learn and write and advocate about humanity overshooting the ecological limits to growth. Notoriety came his way when, upon the invitation of the Greens at Virginia Tech in 2018, he delivered a talk titled, "Humanity: The Final Chapter". • *Alan Weisman* recalls touring the world as a top-level environmental journalist. His brief visit to post-meltdown Chernobyl surprised him with the fecundity of plants and animals who reoccupied the buildings and grounds in the absence of humans. Thus was born his best-selling book, The World Without Us. • *Gail Tverberg* used her mathematical gift to earn a living as an actuary — helping finance, insurance, and other business calculate risks when considering shifts in their endeavors. Along the way, she volunteered her time as one of the early contributers in the "peak oil" community, via her blog "Our Finite World".


ROW 16: LIVING IN A TIME OF ENDINGS: *Jessica Canham* is a leader in the global Deep Adaptation community. Locally, she focuses on helping her community on the Caribbean island of Dominica recover from hurricanes and to become more sufficient in growing their own food. This conversation is unique in also featuring the ethical importance of privileged nations sharing wealth in service to ecological justice and as climate change reparations. • As with the previous conversation, *Dougald Hine* speaks both about his personal shift into localism whilst writing for audiences scattered around the globe. Well-known as coauthor of the "Dark Mountain Manifesto" (2009) and, in 2023, of the book At Work in the Ruins, this conversation was recorded in 2019 and titled "Living in a Time of Endings." • With graduate training in science communication, *Britt Wray* pulls no punches about how the older generations have left a bleak future for the youngers. She began in 2020 with a newsletter titled, "Gen Dread", which translated into the title of her 2022 book, Generation Dread. The tagline is expressly postdoom: "Finding Purpose in an Age of Eco-Anxiety."


ROW 17: POSTDOOM PERMACULTURE & REGENERATIVE DESIGN: In the 1970s, *David Holmgren* cofounded the approach to food-growing known as permaculture. Applying that now to an already collapsing global civilization, his new teachings and writings begin with localism and entail "retrofitting what we already have in the built, the biological, and the behavioral." • Having just experienced one of California's biggest wildfires, the calm and community mindedness of *Denise Rushing* exemplifies the value of a postdoom worldview — both for personal emotional wellbeing in a time of crisis and for cultivating practical love-in-action. Her 2012 book exemplifies this blending: Tending the Soul's Garden: Permaculture as a Way Forward in Difficult Times. • *Daniel Christian Wahl* works in regenerative design. The interview is co-hosted by Ganga Devi Braun. It is a long, ideas-rich episode. Access his essays as reposted on the Resilience website.


ROW 18: BACK TO THE FUTURE: Michael Dowd begins with a recitation not only of the nonfiction and fiction books by *James Howard Kunstler*, but also affirming the ones he himself has read (even read twice) during in his own autodidactic journey to grasp the causes and consequences of civilizational collapse. Foremost was Kunstler's nonfiction: The Long Emergency (2005) and Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation (2012). Kunstler points to his World Made By Hand fiction series as his own realistically possible best-case scenario: that here in America, conditions would go back to what prevailed in the early 1800s. • *Peter Russell* (still well known for his 1983 book The Global Brain: Speculations on the evolutionary leap to planetary consciousness) doesn't quibble with the certainty of civilizational contraction and a scaling back to previous technological constraints. Where he uniquely differs in this series is his emphasis on meditation, while pointing to "the evolution of consciousness" continuing in a progressive way — despite the "unravelling" of the material world. • *Sandy Schoelles* makes no pretense about having ideas or predictions of her own to share. Rather, she is well known in the "collapse" and postdoom communities for founding a youtube channel that invites others to share what they are learning. The channel is Environmental Coffeehouse. Fans of that channel may wish to go to timecode 24:27 to learn its history and how climate change became the focus.


ROW 19: VOICES FROM NEW ZEALAND, GERMANY, & APPALACHIA: *Kevin Hester* hails from New Zealand where his career for hire as a master sailor and diver offered him direct experience of marine biological decline over decades. Heroes in his youth included Rachel Carson and Jacques Cousteau. Assisting Guy McPherson in the Nature Bats Last podcast series offered Kevin a foundational understanding of climate change as presented in academic papers. • *Fabian Scheidler* is an independent journalist and writer in Germany, best known for his book The End of the Megamachine: A Brief History of a Failing Civilization. This is an ideas episode, as the book has been endorsed by the likes of Bill McKibben, Noam Chomsky, and Vandana Shiva. • Finally, even though *Rory Varrato* lives in the USA, the way he describes his growing up in a collapsed coal-mining town in Pennsylvania makes it clear that he was not a privileged American. Nonetheless, he found a way to pursue interdisciplinary graduate scholarship in existentialism, human nature, the foibles of this form of civilization, and how education might be transformed to serve students in a declining world. He was noticed as a young visionary in 2018 for his essay, "We Are the Threat: Reflections on Near-Term Human Extinction". (Hear Michael Dowd narrate the essay.) During the early days of "Extinction Rebellion" Rory served as media liaison for activists in the USA.


ROW 20: POTPOURRI
*Dean Spillane-Walker* has been hosting "impossible conversations" for those struggling with collapse awareness. Trained in counseling, Dean's website, Living Resilience, features "Transformative tools, support, and practices for people bravely facing human-caused collapse of Earth and human systems." • *Rupert Read* was a philosophy professor at the University of East Anglia, U.K. when he stepped into activism. First in the Green Party and then Extinction Rebellion. After this episode was recorded, he reported on his website that after 26 years in the academy, "I've taken voluntary severance ... to dedicate myself to the Climate Majority Project." • *Joe Brewer* explores and practices regenerative design scaled to bioregions. This work entails attending to the social needs and opportunities as much as those that the regional ecology calls forth. His 2021 book is The Design Pathway for Regenerating Earth.


ROW 21: ANOTHER ROUND OF LEADING VOICES: These three videos all entail guests featured in earlier episodes of Postdoom Conversations. Michael Dowd valued them so much that he reprised opportunities for more people to hear them. *Karen and Jordan Perry* appeared in 2022 on David Baum's "Collapse Club" podcast, and it is crossposted here. "Getting Real About Collapse" is the title. • In 2021 Barbara Cecil cohosted with Michael a conversation with *Joanna Macy* titled "Children of the Passage". (The sequel hosted by Dowd appears in Row 3 above and was recorded exactly a year later — during which time, collapse became even more evident. Hence the title, "To Collapse Well".) • The *Meg Wheatley* video here dates to October 2022. Titled "Beyond Hope and Fear", this is actually the first time that Michael recorded a conversation with her for a wider public. The previous conversation with Meg appears in Row 3 above, and it was hosted by Terry Patten in May 2020.


ROW 22: POSTDOOM LEADERS NOW & THEN
Here's yet another superb video interview (by David Baum) of *Karen Perry*, titled "Smoke and Fire" (September 2022). The founding host of Postdoom Conversations, *Michael Dowd*, was interviewed by Terry Patten (September 2020; Terry died one year later). Then in December 2022, *Michael Dowd* was the subject of a "Collapse Club" interview by David Baum. Much of their conversation turned to the linked topics of death and gratitude. Ten months later, Michael Dowd would become a revered ancestor of the Postdoom Community.

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