Jules Pretty
Award-Winning Author | Story | Podcast & Films
Emeritus Professor of Environment and Society
I am Emeritus Professor of Environment and Society at the University of Essex. I am an award-winning author, writing about nature, climate and people, creating stories about transformations that lead to action and change.
I am a regular speaker on the climate and nature crises, on how stories create agency, and on the great contemporary journeys to low-carbon living and nature abundance. These draw on my two recent books, Sea Sagas of the North and The Low-Carbon Good Life. My next book will be Bamboo and Butterfly: “wondrous worldwide tales of transformation.”
My YouTube channel is “Story for Climate and Nature Recovery”, and can be found at https://www.youtube.com/@JulesPretty58.
My new podcast series is “Heat! Camera! Action!” appears as video on Youtube and as audio on all podcast platforms.
Heat – too much in the air and oceans.
Camera – for focus and attention.
Action – what we need.
We’re in a hole. The planet’s losing. This is how we get out.
My blog series The Climate Chronicles uses story to help create new ideas about cracking open fixed habits and ways of seeing the world.
I run Story Masterclasses for organisations, and am a regular public speaker.
I am Chair of the Essex Climate Action Commission and have a number of further advisory roles, fellowships and appointments.
We’re deep in a hole. Story with a swerve gets us out.
It’s the shape of all our lives. Up-down, down-up. And this slantwise story, it creates hope and intent.
Bamboo and Butterfly contains thousand-year old story shapes for the modern era. Great transformations, a new cast, the power of togetherness. A book of eighty-two wondrous worldwide tales and koans. Linked by a common narrative arc. Each story grows out of the distinct assets of place and people, culture and nature.
You and me. How about it? This is how climate and nature recovery starts the leap into a world of plenty. A world of kindness and connection. A butterfly flaps its wings. And changes whole earth and social systems.
Good story is not just a hiding place. It’s a finding place.
This book: it’s all about living on abundant earth.
You will on this website my story series, The Climate Chronicles, and on my YouTube channel my story films (see https://www.youtube.com/@JulesPretty58): “Story for Climate and Nature Recovery.”
My podcast series “Heat! Camera! Action!” was launched in May 2026. Series 1 of 40 episodes will complete in December 2026, and then series 2 will commence in spring 2027.
I hosted 76 podcasts and films in the Louder than Words and Brighter Futures series between 2021 and 2024.
You will also find photographs and Sumi-e and Shodo ink artwork and calligraphy in the galleries.
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 half-day and evening Story Masterclasses and Climate Classes.
I am available to give talks pretty much at any time and place. Please contact me by email.
Shodo is the way of traditional brush calligraphy. I use shodo to create and illustrate the koans that feature as central content in both Bamboo and Butterfly and The Climate Chronicles series.
Sumi-e is Chinese/Japanese ink painting. There are also oil pastels of therian storytellers in the sumi-e gallery.
I am also a tai chi practitioner.
This kanji character to the right is mu (nothingness, or just no) in sosho style.
I use colour and black & white photographes 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 poems.