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Jules Pretty
Jules Pretty

Author | Researcher | Story

Professor of Environment and Society

About me

I am Professor of Environment and Society at the University of Essex. I write about nature, climate and people, creating stories about hope that leads to change.

I am a regular speaker on the climate crisis, on how stories create agency, and on the great contemporary journey to low-carbon living. These draw on my two recent books, Sea Sagas of the North and The Low-Carbon Good Life.

My blog series The Climate Chronicles uses stories and koans to help crack open fixed habits and ways of seeing the world. I am the host of 76 podcasts and films.

I am Chair of the Essex Climate Action Commission and Kansas State Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab, and have a number of further advisory roles, fellowships and appointments.

More about me
My Latest Release: Sea Sagas of the North

My 2022 book, Sea Sagas of the North, is about identity, place, and the dance of ecological and cultural change. There are shadows on the shining sea. Fish cities have shrunk to hamlets, old ports have been levelled and harbours are full of warming water yet there’s barely a single ship.

 

An Arctic author asks, how do you say goodbye to a glacier? A burnished skipper leans across the table and says, you know, we were more tolerant in those days, when we sailed and steamed and brought home gifts and stories. They travelled on a sea that once was dry, and now is warming once again, washing at the lower lands. It seems more storms are gathering.

 

This book is about the many inspiring stories and sagas from the North Sea and eastern North Atlantic. These offer hope for different futures.

View more books
My media

You will find links below to my blog series, The Climate Chronicles, and to the 76 podcasts and films I have hosted in the Louder than Words and Brighter Futures series. You will also find photographs and Shodo artwork in the galleries.

podcasts
Bending Circular Economies Into Shape
25/10/23 Bending Circular Economies Into Shape
Public speaking

I give talks to a wide range of public groups, at dedicated meetings, at arts and book festivals, at conferences, and online. A major focus in the 2020s has been on climate action and story. These have been to parishes, councils, schools, bookshops, community climate groups, businesses, wildlife organisations and U3As.

I also give masterclasses on story and climate.

I am available to give talks pretty much at any time and place. Please contact me by email.

Shodo calligraphy

Shodo is the way of traditional brush calligraphy. I use shodo to create and illustrate the koans that feature as central content to The Climate Chronicles series.

I am also a tai chi practitioner.

This kanji character to the right is mu (nothingness, or just no) in sosho style.

My gallery

I use colour and black and white photography to explore the essence of place, nature and people. You will find a selection of images drawn from locations worldwide in the Gallery. Some of these are illustrated by haiku 3-line poems.

View gallery
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