Planet: Critical: Recent Episodes
Rachel Donald
It's a critical time for our planet. We face severe ecological, economic and energy crises. Journalist Rachel Donald interviews experts confronting those crises head on, revealing the big picture of what's really going on.
www.planetcritical.com
Doctors are tasked with an impossible job: Keep our bodies healthy while Earth’s collapses.
Our healthcare systems are already under-funded and over-stretched, and that’s before we throw in the drastic changes in disease and mortality that warming temperatures are unleashing around the world. That all this falls on the shoulders of healthcare workers is another symptom of the madness of modernity. Each and every policy is responsible for our healthcare, not just the industry itself.
Sharon Friel is a Professor of Health Equity at Australia National University, researching how planetary health and human health intersect. She joins me to explain the state of health in the coming decades, which institutional policies are already preventing effective treatment, and how our atomistic relationship to cause and effect with regards to climate change is reflected in the biomedical paradigm itself. We discuss how medical curricula around the world can and must change, the necessary integration of different epistemologies, and Sharon reveals what is sending the medical insurance industry into a panic—revealing just high Earth’s fever is climbing.
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Is China the next world leader?
Ken Hammond is a professor of history at New Mexico State University, where he specializes in the history of China in the early modern period. Author of China's Revolution and the Quest for a Socialist Future, Ken joins me to explain the stark differences in how China is deploying its newfound wealth and political power within its own borders and throughout the Global South.
We also discuss the persecution of the Uyghurs, with Ken and I taking very different positions about how nation states should manage diversity within their borders. We end up debating whether or not a sustainable, socialist future can ever be achieved through centralised forces—and what the possible fallout could be.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Join subscribers from 186 countries to support independent journalism.
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Imagine if we rolled up our sleeves instead of pointed our fingers?
Jessica Hernandez is an indigenous climate scientist and author of Growing Papaya Trees. Her work reveals that the roots of our planetary crisis lies in the violence of colonialism and neo-colonialism. In this gentle and humorous conversation, Jessica explains what it means to be a displaced indigenous person, why the Lands need people to be well, and the worldviews impeding us as a global collective to take the necessary action to protect Earth and each other.
We discuss the recent creation of a global indigenous identity, how renewable energy is encroaching on indigenous rights, our shared suspicion of the “just transition”, the common failures found amongst all humans, and how Western individualism has promoted a culture of blame when what we need, more than ever, is to take accountability for our world today.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Join subscribers from 186 countries to support independent journalism.
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The climate crisis is causing an invisible health crisis.
The number one cause of neurodegenerative disease is the environment. And our environment is changing—releasing bacteria, neurotoxins and pathogens into our warming world which can change the very matter in our brains.
Clayton Aldern is a neuroscientist and environmental reporter at Grist. In his 2024 book, The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains,Clayton revealed how the climate crisis intersects with our psychological, mental and brain health, warning that this health crisis, if left untreated, could upturn our lives. In this astounding episode, he walks through the different ways climate intersects with brain health, revealing the increased risk of a number of different diseases, what triggers them, and the absolute failure of policy-makers to address it. We discuss stress, violence, aggression, and using our bodies as an empathetic tool to understand the pain of others, with Clayton painting an optimistic picture about the power of story-telling to change the world.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Join subscribers from 186 countries to support independent journalism.
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“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
— Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2
The two hemispheres of our brain collaborate to produce a coherent understanding of the world—at least, that’s what they’re supposed to do. In his groundbreaking book, The Master and His Emissary, neuro-philosopher and psychiatrist, Iain McGilchrist, proposed that our culture has been captured by the left hemisphere, whose dogmatic, technical and irrational way of processing information leads it to manifestly dangerous conclusions about the way the world works. Importantly, the left hemisphere never changes its mind.
In one of the widest-ranging conversations on Planet: Critical to date, Iain explains how we came to lose sight of the bigger picture by forsaking the intuition, creativity and intelligence of the right hemisphere. We discuss how our relationship to language makes and unmakes the world, the search for meaning, human agency, relationality, morality, art and the divine, with Iain clearly spelling out a path to human fulfilment—which may very well be the only thing which can save Earth from the worst of us.
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Gordon Katic is the founder of the award-winning podcast production company, Cited Media. This week, they’re launching Green Dreams, the new season of their flagship podcast which tells stories of radical environmental thinkers and their dreams for our green future, asking: Should we make those dreams reality, or are they actually nightmares?
Gordon contacted me to arrange a mutual podcast shout-out, and instead I invited him on the show to discuss both the season and their innovative research method which prioritises and plural and collaborative approach. Gordon braids in much of what he’s learned into this conversation, in which we tackle some of the historical and current fallacies of the environmental movement. He shines light on the cult of the Western environmental intellectual whilst holding in high esteem the possibility for a bright future—his own realistic and determined green dream.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Join subscribers from 186 countries to support independent journalism.
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Collapse has historically benefited the 99%.
That’s the amazing conclusion of Luke Kemp, author of Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse. Luke is a research associate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, and has spent the past five years studying the collapse of civilisations throughout history. He joins me to explain his research, detailing the difference between complex, collective civilisations and what he calls “Goliaths”, massive centralising forces by which a small group of individuals extract wealth from the rest through domination and the threat of violence. Today, he says, we live in a global Goliath.
In this astounding conversation, Luke takes us from the Ancient times to the modern day, revealing the root causes of collapse and paralleling them what we’re living through today. He explains the egalitarian nature of our species, and shines new light on what a future could look like free from today’s global Goliath. He reminds us all that we tend to view collapse through the eyes of the 1%, those who have the most to lose, and gives startling accounts of how populations bounced back after their domineering rulers fell. For a conversation about the collapse of the modern world, this conversation is as hopeful as it is brutal.
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How can we become good ancestors?
Permaculturist and educator, Kara Huntermoon, says the hobbies we pick up now can be skills we pass on to our children, even if we never have to use them ourselves. In this wide-ranging and empathetic conversation on relationality, intergenerational solidarity, and hard work, Kara explores how community sufficiency practiced properly creates the common ground in which we can plant the future.
This conversation weaves the importance of our relationships with the increasing political alienation experienced by many on the left, with Kara examining how to find allies in those our political binaries would deem enemies. Braiding feminism with back-breaking work, Kara invites us all to remember that there are always different worlds possible, but it's only if you get your hands dirty and do the work that they will grow from the soil.
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How we create knowledge is as important as the knowledge itself.
This is the message of this week’s guest, Aboriginal scholar and author, Tyson Yunkaporta. In his explanation of the importance of learning through living, and living with learning, Tyson points to the how the discourse around decolonisation has granted expertise based on identity rather than experience. He highlights how indigenous thinking is fundamentally consensus building, mirroring the Western scientific method, and warns that neoliberal thinking has infected what should have been a radical transformation, creating individuals who consider themselves fully contained “little corporations”.
In this unflinching and compassionate conversation, Tyson weaves the culture wars, knowledge production, indigenous science, landscapes and the body to reveal the mismatches between how we think and how we live, which have opened wounds in the collective body which act as voids into which our potential solidarity falls. This is a dialogue on truth, kinship and action, in which Tyson gives one of the most honest accounts of where the best of intention has gone wrong in recent years, delivering a call to refuse these narratives of separation between ourselves, our kinfolk and the great Earth upon which we all depend.
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Is the world even collapsing?
Joseph Tainter is a Professor at Utah State University and the author of The Collapse of Complex Societies. He explains on this episode that collapse happens when a civilisation experiences a diminishing return on complexity, the fact that it takes more capital, more energy, more resources to maintain society until eventually that maintenance is no longer useful.
We discuss his research and apply it to today’s world, linking in energy, technology, even geopolitical order, with Joseph—surprisingly, despite all the evidence that points to this moment in history as truly exceptional given Earth’s systems breakdown—stating that there is nothing special about the world we live in and its precarious future.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Join subscribers from 186 countries to support independent journalism.
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We’ve been protesting for decades. Is it time to escalate?
Rowan Tilly is an elder of the British peace and environment movements. She has risked jail multiple times to raise awareness of the atrocities carried out against human beings and the planet. All of her direct action is non-violent, and she is deeply committed to an activism which provokes the public to confront the state’s violence. I am extremely grateful to Rowan for her activism and commitment over the years. I am especially grateful that she was open to recording this episode in which I challenge the current belief that non-violence is the only way to achieve our goals.
In this stark and compassionate episode, we discuss the traditional tenets of non-violence, their efficacy and their results. We hold different positions of what the future of activism should entail, and go deep into the weeds of morality, violence itself, and different cases of resistance from all around the world.
This episode went out to paid subscribers only yesterday because I ticked the wrong box. Apologies, everyone!
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All of our industries are going to have to shrink. But how do we shrink the good ones?
Martin Hensher is a health economist and a Professor of Health Systems Sustainability at the University of Tasmania. He’s spent years researching how to create a degrowth model for the health industry—and why it will be better for people as well as our planet. Martin argues that the way we currently run our healthcare is another symptom of overconsumption, explaining when healthcare benefits and healthcare expenditure actually decouple.
This is a fascinating episode in which Martin interweaves the health of the planet’s body with our own, providing a vision for a sustainable, global healthcare industry which doesn’t depend on economic growth, inequality, or over-extraction. He explains we can save lives and prevent disease—but to stay within our planetary boundaries, we’re going to have to transform how we do that.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Join subscribers from 186 countries to support independent journalism.
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Women’s bodies have always been the cornerstone of reproduction. So has Earth’s. It’s why the enclosure and appropriation of both is fundamental to the accumulation of the capitalist class.
On this extraordinary episode, I interview Marxist-feminist scholar, Silvia Federici, author of Caliban and the Witch, a phenomenal book which articulates how capitalism did not naturally evolve from feudalism, but necessitated the violent displacement of women’s power in their communities and control over their own reproduction. We discuss this in the context of women’s rights being violated all around the world today as we enter a period of resource scarcity, and why it is therefore imperative that the Western feminist movement recover this analysis to create an effective resistance movement.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Join subscribers from 186 countries to support independent journalism.
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Ask anyone anywhere what’s the leading cause of global heating and they’ll tell you: fossil fuels. But what if we’re all wrong?
Gerard Wedderburn-Bisshop is a scientist for the World Preservation Foundation and worked as a Principal Scientist with Queensland Government Natural Resources, using satellite data to monitor three decades of vegetation cover and broadscale deforestation. In February 2025, he released a paper showing how the IPCC is using different models to calculate the emissions from fossil fuels and animal agriculture. Gerrard researches shows, when we use the same model for both, animal agriculture becomes the biggest driver of global heating.
In this episode, Gerard explains his research and other problems with emissions calculation, including how deforestation is disregarded and methane is misrepresented. He calls all of this inconsistent emissions accounting—and it could be leading policy-leaders astray.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Join subscribers from 186 countries to support independent journalism.
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How do we survive?
Max Wilbert is a long-time activist who spent the past few years defending Thacker Pass, and recently joined CELDF to as part of their new strategy to build out community resilience. I first interviewed Max on why techno-optimism won’t save the day. As with many compatriots around the world, the answer he’s landed on as to what will is local action.
In this winding and weaving conversation we discuss the new bill on the floor of the New York State Senate which would give rights of nature to all water in the state before examining legal strategies more broadly under the umbrella of climate activism. We then examine Empire’s death throes and how it is violently grasping at power to maintain itself. We discuss violence and defence, patriarchy and permaculture, showing how resilience is an act of resistance in a system which has spent the past 500 years ripping apart our communal social fabric. This is a conversation about how to reweave a tapestry that had been lost to us, and why doing is of vital importance to survive what’s coming.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Join subscribers from 186 countries to support independent journalism.
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What makes humans special?
Nothing. But a small band of us in the Western hemisphere have inculcated ourselves over thousands of years to believe in our supremacy over the natural world. Christine Webb, primatologist at Harvard University, argues this unique arrogance is at the root of our ecological crisis in her forthcoming book, The Arrogant Ape.
This is a fascinating conversation, with Christine revealing how almost all of the characteristics which we human beings have claimed distinguished ourselves from our kinfolk have eventually been found in other species. Perhaps most importantly, she explains how this culture of arrogance is learned by young children somewhere around the age of 4, who before that do not discriminate between humans and other species, meaning we could very swiftly learn to enjoy the kind of relationship with the more-than-human world that seems to come naturally to us. Although, of course, it would bring all of industrialised modernity tumbling down…
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There’s more information than ever — but we can’t agree on what it means.
We think of language as a tool of communication. But it’s so much more than that. Language builds worlds and shapes realities; language is how we make sense of what we experience, and that sense-making is always done in partnership with each other. Language is the mechanism by which we develop shared understandings of reality. So why can’t we seem to find common ground with each other?
Damien Williams is an assistant professor of philosophy and data science, and he joins me to tackle that question, explaining we live in a world of “bespoke realities” whereby people’s lived experiences are seemingly so different they cannot even come to a mutual understanding of the parts that are objective — like science. He explains why other people’s realities feel threatening, and offers key insight as to how we can build bridges with those who disagree with us.
Damien and I only began to scratch the surface of this complex and critical topic. If you’d like to see this conversation continued as a roundtable with more interlocutors, please leave a comment below!
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Don’t Talk About Politics!
That’s the title of neuroscientist and political theorist Sarah Stein Lubrano’s first book. A phenomenal and heavily researched foray into why debate is a useless form of political communication, why citizens of the Western world are particularly prone to disbelieving their neighbour’s lived experience, and the strategies which do work when on the campaign trail, Don’t Talk About Politics explains why the very art of conversation is breaking down with our political systems—and what to do about it.
Sarah explains all this and more on the episode, explaining how our brains are atrophying along with our communities, the reason activists score happier than their peers on psychological tests, and how to begin growing the roots of a new political system on our very streets. We discuss her research in the context of the phenomenal community building and resistance movements I documented for Planet: Coordinate across Colombia and Ecuador, adding the lens of inter-relationality as a resource which remains much more available elsewhere.
I interviewed Sarah in 2023 when she was deep in research mode for the book so it was a pleasure to have her come back on and reveal her findings, strategies and own lived experience of how to talk about politics—successfully—in the 21st century.
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The status quo won’t survive.
Neither will we if we’re not willing to change. In this phenomenal conversation with powerhouse Celine Semaan, an artist, author and cofounder of Slow Factory, we explore why change is understandably terrifying—and why it’s now or never that we do it.
In this wide-ranging and nuanced discussion we explore the big picture, colonialism, why systems are slow-moving, and the emotional load of confronting what’s happening. Celine reveals why most climate organisations are failing and how Slow Factory has set themselves apart by designing with risk at the centre. Slow Factory is a fascinating organisation which produces open source educational courses, information and comms for other NGOs in the space. We I discuss their agile model which has helped them break out in the climate space, and how they are now looking to transition to a more on-the-ground approach to community organising.
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Does nature have a plan?
It’s a lovely thought. But we’re going to have to be more accountable than that. In this achingly beautiful conversation with writer Willow Defebaugh, co-founder and Editor of Atmos Magazine, we discuss how it is we can approach healing together. We explore the designs found in nature and how, with humility, we can learn to be inspired by those designs, reimagining human society. We question the impulse to demarcate moral purity and evil, suggesting that much of our human ills may very well be the result of following biological impulse. We investigate how to talk to each other, especially those we disagree with, and discuss the sad state of Leftist affairs which can be boiled down to, at times, a politics of narcissism.
Finally, we dig deep into embodiment, how to feel and to hold and to trust and to network, together. How to see one another as connected bodies rather than political identities and, from there, how to share space with the wondrous more-than-human world which surrounds us.
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What is an extinction event?
How have human beings considered extinction in the past? How is the contemporary understanding of human extinction different to the ancient world? And why is it that tech billionaires are so obsessed with it to the extent that they're making the decisions that are more likely to hasten its arrival?
Philosopher of extinction, Émile Torres, has dedicated their life to answering these questions. A former advocate of long-termism, Émile is now one of the most outspoken critics of the dangerous ideologies driving development in Silicon Valley, warning against a vision of utopia which will decimate the planet and upend democratic ideals. In this wide-ranging discussion which pulls much from Émile’s latest book, Human Extinction: A History of the Science and Ethics of Annihilation, we delve into the minds of people like Musk and Bezos through a historical lens, examining how it is that extinction anxiety is driving the most powerful to make dangerous decisions.
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The Achuar people first came into contact with the outside world sixty years ago. Since then, they have mostly been left in peace, able to take what they want from the modern world and leave the rest. That’s changing now. Their territory is under threat by careerist politicians within their own community, by other indigenous nations whose populations have exponentially increased thanks to contact with fossil fuels, and by industry who, every year, is figuring out how to penetrate even deeper into the forest.
I had the privilege of interviewing Chumpi Washikiat about these threats. Chumpi is an Achuar leader who has been instrumental in promoting their eco-tourism project as an alternative to extractivism. He is one of two of the thirty thousand strong Achuar who speak English, and I spent a few days with him near the village he grew up in. I watched him expertly debate his peers during a forum that lasted nine hours about which Presidential candidate would be best for indigenous nations in Ecuador. Floating down the river at dawn, I listened to stories of shamanism, learning how the Achuar inhabit the spirits of the forest. I heard the daily ceremony every morning when the Achuar arise before dawn to purge their bodies and interpret their dreams together. And, a few hours after this interview, Chumpi and I did an Ayahuasca ceremony together, listening to the voices of the Amazon echo across the lagoon.
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We need a new story.
We also need to do the hard work of re-engineering our societies, re-imagining our relationships, and remembering our bodies. Vanessa Machado de Oliveira, author of Hospicing Modernity, start our conversation right there, teasing apart the comforting notion that the hard work is just a language problem. Yes, we need a new story. And what else? And where do stories come from? And how are we wired to reject uncomfortable stories? And how do we make the uncomfortable possible? And which of our traditional strategies are getting in the way of the future?
Vanessa is celebrated for her work on modernity, and providing the tools to confront its collapse by reframing it as palliative care. Her new book, Outgrowing Modernity, develops more tools for how to nurse the possible futures emerging on our horizon. We harness these tools and metaphors to journey on a conversation of enquiry rather than conclusion, laughing with the notion that there is a single answer to any of this. This is a probing, thoughtful and curious conversation in which Vanessa and I think out loud together about what to do at the end of the world.
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Militarisation, isolationism, extractivism.
It looks like we learned nothing from the 21st century, as the powers that be are approaching looming civilisational collapse by cranking up the gears on the very machine which caused it. We’re re-entering a period of dog-eat-dog in a resource scarce world, which could result in the return of serfdom.
That’s the warning from Antonio Turiel, physicist and a mathematician who works as an environmental scientist at the Institute of Marine Sciences at the CSIC in Spain. On this big picture episode, we cover everything from fossil fuel production to re-armament to male supremacy, with Antonio cutting through noisy data to reveal exactly how resource scarcity is driving the violent shift in global politics, and what we can expect to happen in the coming years including military colonisation, food shortages, oil crashes, and rampant inequality.
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I recently interviewed Paul Hawken for Mongabay and want to share the moving conversation with you here.
Celebrated author, thinker and entrepreneur Paul Hawken joins Mongabay’s podcast to discuss his new book, Carbon: The Book of Life. He argues that the jargon and fear-based terms broadly used by the climate movement alienate the broader public and fail to communicate the nuance and complexity of the larger ecological crises that humans are causing.
In this wide-ranging discussion, Hawken explains that carbon — the fourth most abundant element in the universe, and a fundamental building block of life — is being maligned in a way that distracts from the root causes of ecological destruction in favor of technological solutions that are not viable at scale, or international agreements that prioritize carbon accounting.
Jargon is useful for communication of concepts within the scientific community, but when applied to messaging for the general public, it fails to communicate the problems humans face effectively: “We have to create a climate movement that is actually the human movement. And the human movement is humans that are not separate and distinct from nature.”
Subscribe to or follow theMongabay Newscast wherever you listen to podcasts, from Apple to Spotify, and you can also listen to all episodes here on the Mongabay website.
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Free speech is under attack.
Banning books, cutting library funding, attacking Wikipedia. The authoritarian regime of the tech-bro backed hard right doesn’t want to protect your free speech. It plans on eliminating freedom altogether.
When it comes to dismantling democracy, it’s far easier if your populace is divided and uneducated with limited access to diverse opinion. Enclosing our information spaces, both online and physically, is a key strategy in undermining our rights, minimising our power, and draining our wallets. Researcher, writer and software engineer, Molly White, has been tracking exactly how these tech billionaires have been dismantling the information space so their political allies can dismantle the political space, boosting their profits while we suffer.
Molly writes the newsletter Citation Needed and runs the websites Follow the Cryptoand Web3 is Going Just Great. She joins me to the radical political agenda of these tech bros, how cryptocurrency helped buy the election, and how much money Trump and his family are making off of meme coins. We then explore the ideological failings of these power brokers, and why they’re determined on denying us access to information. Finally, we examine how to build resilient, reliable, open-access information systems, alternatives which protest our the erosion of our collective web of knowledge—and protect our fundamental human rights.
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We can’t make this make sense.
The world’s most famous face of renewable solutions spent a record-breaking amount to get Big Oil’s candidate into the White House. The ruling communist party of China is backed by Chinese billionaires. Political pundits are whipping up war fever without reason. The international rule book is merely scattered pages in the wind. And, in the midst of it, the Left is struggling to produce a coherent and collective analysis.
David Edgerton, historian and author of The Rise and Fall of the British Nation, joins me to explain how we are in a unique period of history, pointing to changing geopolitical relations, emboldened authoritarians, oligarchic capitalists and flailing climate policy as evidence. We discuss the contradictions which make this world so hard to navigate, and probe the failures of Leftist discourse to make sense of the mess. This broad conversation covers war, productivity, dematerialisation, power and information — explaining why it’s so hard to keep up with a rapidly changing world.
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The s**t’s hit the fan.
We can’t turn the fan off, argues best-selling author Sarah Wilson. But we can learn how to clean up the mess.
Sarah, author, podcaster and creator of the This is Precious newsletter, has been on a similar journey to me. Four years of interview experts, research and writing on a topic the mainstream refuse to engage with: collapse. She joins me to discuss exactly that. What’s going on, how we got here, and what we can do about it.
This conversation weaves Western and indigenous theories, examining everything from Moloch theory and the Church to Tech Bro eugenics. We end by discussing crisis as turning point and opportunity, and how to spread the right ideas so that, when the time comes, the right ones are lying around in the ashes, ready to be used.
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Businesses could run differently — with the right leaders.
Brad Vanstone, cofounder of plant-based cheese company Willicroft, is an example. He founded the company out of a desire to protect the planet and innovate the food industry. Along the way, he pioneered campaigns, helped transition animal agriculture farms to plant-based farming, and even paid to have an activist on his payroll. Willicroft’s transparent and thoughtful values attracted solid investment, and within a few years their cheese was in major supermarkets around Europe.
But in 2024, Brad and his team decided to close the business. The finance on offer came at a price they wouldn’t pay: sacrificing some of the company’s values. Instead, they decided to liquidate. Brad joins me to walk us through that decision, beginning at the very beginning of how the company started and the amazing innovations they pioneered along the way. He also explains the strategic attacks on the plant-based industry levvied by the animal agriculture lobby which makes surviving in the food industry extremely hard, and how they tried to stay one step ahead. Brad’s analysis of our food systems is insightful, pragmatic and empathetic. This is a wonderful story of doing the right thing in a climate when people claim business has to put profit above all else — and what we can do differently, together.
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Civilisation always wants more energy.
The idea that our global society will merely switch from one energy source to another is fantasy masquerading as policy. Every time human beings discover a new energy source our overall consumption of raw materials increases. Whether that’s wood powering newly discovered coal mines in the 19th Century, or fossil fuels manufacturing renewable technology, the history of human energy consumption shows we have no precedent for the policy adopted by every single nation in the world.
So where did the idea come from?
Jean-Baptise Fressoz, historian and author of More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy, joins me to explain this false history — that we have projected a story of technology onto a story of materials, explaining that raw materials never become obsolete. He explains how the phrase “energy transition” was coined by atomic scientists after World War 2, and only gained traction after being adopted by President Jimmy Carter, revealing how these fantastical notions were rubbished in the scientific discourse until the private sector inserted itself into the conversation, buttressed by the nonsense published by neoclassical economists.
Jean-Baptiste’s research is astounding, and this episode is filled with incredible insights and revelations, and he ultimately points to the same conclusion as almost every guest on this podcast: There is no such thing as “decarbonisation” or dematerialisation”. The only meaningful policy that will protect the planet is reducing our pollution and consumption.
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It wasn’t always like this.
Just decades ago, working people had power to leverage governments, ensuring our politicians weren’t just capitulating to markets — they were also working to keep people happy who had the power to shut the economy down. Then our unions disappeared.
Since then, the markets and states have worked in tandem to secure power and wealth, stripping everyday people from their communities, a sense of purpose, and their source of power: collectivism. Part of how they’ve done this, argues political economist Grace Blakeley, is create the illusion of markets and states being at odds with one another, of existing separately rather than being both sides of the same coin. She joins me to explain how we came to think of the economy as an abstract entity, why politicians throw working people under the bus the minute they come to power, and how people can organise to resist the erosion of their lives and livelihoods by reinvigorating local economies.
To learn more, you can read Grace’s most recent book, Vulture Capitalism. You can also read her regular analyses on Substack, and support her latest venture, the What Can We Do newsletter which platforms British communities who are organising pockets of resistance against neoliberal capitalism.
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Our borders are changing.
Russia wants Ukraine, China wants Taiwan, Israel wants Palestine, and Trump wants Greenland. We are in the beginning of an age of territorial expansion, as nations seek to shore up more resources, wealth and power by acquiring land. I’m joined by Michael Albertus, a Professor in Political Science at the University of Chicago, to discuss the history of land as an asset, and what a return to colonial and imperial policies of invasion will look like over the coming years.
We also discuss local and national resistance around the world, delving into the universality of our desire to protect what we call home from extraction and exploitation. Mike reveals the land restitution policies in South Africa and I discuss my recent work with communities in Colombia who are holding off multinational mining companies from tearing up their land. To learn more, get a copy of Mike’s latest book, Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn’t, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies.
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Big Oil has a Big Brother — animal agriculture.
A handful of multinational companies are driving environmental degradation and cruelty around the world to feed their pockets rather than the hungry’s bellies. Welcome to the world of animal agriculture, an industry which gets away with practices which would be considered illegal in any other sector.
Vox reporter Kenny Torrella lays out how this destructive industry has inserted itself into policy at every level of government, ensuring policy-makers ignore the fact the sector is the number one driver of air and water pollution, fresh water use, and habitable land exploitation. While some Nordic governments are trying to push back, as Kenny explains, the EU bloc as a whole is deliberately undermining the plant-based food industry while the meat-heavy American diet remains the aspiration for “developing” economies around the world. This episode is both devastating and revealing — but Kenny ends on a note of hope, explaining how, because this industry functions in the shadows, the movement against it politically homeless, meaning it could generate bipartisan support for animal-human-planetary health.
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What is one thing we could all do tomorrow?
Switch to a planet-based diet.
Sailesh Rao, Executive Director of Climate Healers, joins me to explain how emissions from animal agriculture are not being counted properly in the IPCC report, claiming that animal agriculture is, when analysed properly, responsible for 87% of climate change. Sailesh offers his hypothesis as to why animal agriculture isn’t taking as much heat as the fossil fuel industry, and of course I challenge his position which is contrary to most climate science which points to energy as the leading cause of climate change.
We go on to discuss strategies of non-violence, the problem of human supremacy, and how our relationship towards meat impacts our capacity to address the roots of the climate crisis: colonisation and domination.
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Ed Zitron is one of Silicon Valley’s fiercest critics. Since A.I’s arrival, Ed has virulently exposed its singular lack of intelligence, its huge energy demands, and the dangerous way its hoovering up attention and capital on nothing more than the vague promises of a couple of zealots.
He joins me to reveals the myths that abound in the Valley, and the reality that everyone has run out of ideas. He explains that Big Tech is no longer run by techologists but by “barely smart” capitalists who are desperately banking on A.I. to create a new hyper growth market to pull their flailing companies out of their slumps. He walks us through the “enshittification” of tech — why things are getting worse, who’s in charge, who’s pretending to have ideas, and how these powerful men build up their images as geniuses rather than grossly wealthy headless chickens.
Sadly, this episode was recorded before Elon’s rapid takeover of the American government and China’s humble popping of the A.I bubble (proving Ed right). Get his take on DeepSeek on his Better Offline podcast, or read his lengthy investigation into Elon Musk on his newsletter.
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Where does your body end?
The human body is filled with ecosystems of creatures keeping us alive. It exists within larger ecosystems keeping us alive. Yet considering ourselves as separate and apart, as whole and contained, dismisses the reality of our interconnection. What keeps us alive is everything, from the smallest things to the large web of life. Our very existence is an entanglement of possibility. To understand it, we have to figure out a way to think together, with our bodies, and the earth's body.
Craig Slee is a writer and theorist, and he joins me to discuss the permeability of our bodies and therefore of reality itself. This is a conversation about capitalism, ableism, suffering and language, how to find the words from our throats, and how to feel into the very edges of who we are, who we could be, and where, together, we can do.
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A hotter world is a more violent world.
Peter Schwartzstein is an environmental journalist and researcher, and author of The Heat and the Fury which investigates the relationship between violence and climate change. He joins me to explain how a changing climate is creating pockets of violence in poor and rural communities around the world. Local and national governance failures are driving violence, with the changes to the earth's body being felt in our own.
Taking us all around the world, Peter explains the particular set of circumstances which generate violence, given communities often do their utmost to avoid clashing. Climate change alone does not brew violence, but combined with a loss of sense of self and an awareness of wealth disparity, people turn to extremes to protect themselves from further abandonment. We then turn this model on this West, hypothesising how violence could spring up in liberal democracies where increasingly people are feeling let down by their elected officials. Finally, we explore the trauma of watching the earth break down around us, and how people's minds are being lost with the stability we once knew and relied upon, inspiring behaviour that was also once previously unimaginable.
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Samaneh Moafi is the Assistant Director of Research at Forensic Architecture, a research agency operating across human rights, journalism, architecture, art, academia and the law. Their interdisciplinary investigations have been crucial in providing evidence in cases of state violence where ordinary and typical investigative journalism has failed.
Samaneh joins me today to discuss their most recent report released on the state of genocide in Palestine at the hands of Israel. ‘A Cartography of Genocide’ shows how Israel has repeatedly reshaped the Gazan territory, attacked citizens in safe zones, destroyed food and water systems, targeted medical infrastructure, attacked civilian infrastructure and targeted aid. They have come to the conclusion that the violence in Gaza is a systemic and organized campaign to destroy life.
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Ecological collapse doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
Our global economy will also collapse by up to 50% before the end of this century if we continue as we are. That’s the latest diagnosis by an interdisciplinary team who are sounding the alarm that current national climate policies are not enough to mitigate the damage to ecology and economy. The Institute of the Faculty of Actuaries and the University of Exeter today published Planetary Solvency which warns that widely used but deeply flawed assessments of the economic impact of climate change render policymakers blind to the immense risk created by current trajectories.
Sandy Trust, actuary and co-author, joins me to explain how these flawed assessments play out in climate policies and an alternative methodology for calculating risk laid out in the report. This is Sandy’s second time on the show, as in 2023 he joined me to explain how the world of finance underestimates the destruction climate change will cause on our economy after 1.5 degrees of warming. The update is no less frightening—especially, as Sandy reveals, given policy makers have little interest in heeding the warnings of experts.
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How do we take Big Oil to the criminal courts?
There's been a major wave of climate litigation over the past 12 months, mostly in civil courts. But groups around the world are figuring out how to make polluting the planet a criminal offence. They're targeting the fossil fuel industries to attempt what governments, so far, are failing to do: Hold Big Oil to account, and stop them dead in their tracks before the whole world goes up in smoke.
Aaron Regunburg is is a lawyer and progressive politician who served as a member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019. Since leaving government, Aaron has become a progressive organiser, serving as senior policy counsel with Public Citizen’s climate program. Aaron joins me to discuss the legal case they're building in order for local and state courts to take big oil companies to criminal trial for their part in causing climate change and human death. He explains the legal layout of those cases, the precedent of criminal liability, what a positive result of these cases could look like, and the different strategies and going after both companies as legal entities and individual CEOs and board members as criminal defendants.
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Happy New Year!
Following the success of last year’s special episode, we're ringing in 2025 with another one from me in which I answer your questions about the podcast and the new project we've just launched, Planet: Coordinate.
Here are the questions I chose this year.
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Why is the world in crisis ? Is there a time to cease dissent and protest, to move toward strategy and dreaming of places to survive ?
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Why can't we achieve the scale required to address the urgency of the climate crisis?
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Why do we leave the climate crisis problem-solving in the hands of the problem-makers? Government is not designed, nor interested, in solve the climate crisis. We need to look for other climate heroes.
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What do you see, or hope for, as the necessary social structure after capitalism inevitably collapses. The second thought is: how on earth do 'we' transition to that, given the appalling mess we are in today?
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Thank-you Rachel for your inspired work throughout 2024. I will not be following the new project which looks to me to be another unnecessary travel jolly, burning yet more fossil carbons. I wonder how you justify this when we know we are on the backside slide of the carbon pulse?
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How can we reform and transform mainstream science so it can help solve the multi-crisis / polycrisis rather than make it worse as science is doing now?
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How do we fully dismantle the Domination Paradigm?
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How much fun can we have while attempting to save the planet?
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
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What is a system?
This is the type of question which can only be meandered through, which is exactly what Nathalie Nahai and I do on this week's episode. Nathalie is a polymath: musician, artist, psychologist, AI expert and the host of 'In Conversation', her own podcast which she interviewed me on at the beginning of this year. We had a stunning conversation, one which we continue today, discussing relationships, connections, ecosystems, resilience, care and love.
This is the perfect conversation to approach the new year with, filled with hope, uncertainty and laughter.
Thank you for our time together this year.
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What is the United States for?
Journalist Matt Kennard would argue the most powerful nation in the world exists to undermine democracy, deny national sovereignty, and funnel wealth to the financial elite. His book, The Racket, exposed the true nature of the American Empire, a nature the mainstream on both the Left and Right refuse to acknowledge.
Matt’s first appearance on Planet: Critical saw him exposing How Corporations Overthrew Democracy. Today, he reveals the complicity and active participation of the American State as a counter-revolutionary force in the world, giving numerous examples from almost every continent as to how the United States has sought to undermine the rule of law and democracy in order to secure resources, security and power for itself. We also discuss how difficult it is to broach these topics in the mainstream, with Matt giving a searing critique of major journalism outlets who take up space as seemingly leftist publications without ever challenging imperialism. We also discuss the nightmare in Gaza and how bearing witness to a genocide is radicalising people all around the world to take action. This is an episode about the lies we have been told—and how to fight the information war while we can.
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In the beginning was the word—and that word justified it all.
In this stunning conversation with Sunil Amrith, historian and author of Burning Earth, we explore the systemic nature of violence. We discuss how it permeates the human project at every level, and how language is deployed to obfuscate, distract and even deny that which we bear witness to. Sunil walks us to different points in history to reveal the incontrovertible relationship between violence against the earth and violence against people, and that the justification to extract life from the non-human world inevitably justifies the hierarchies which then see the world’s most vulnerable human beings exploited and even killed.
This is a conversation about how the injustice with which the human project was built, about the ideologies that have justified rampant destruction and extraction, and about how to think of a better world tomorrow with the political language the past has to offer.
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Do things have to get worse before they get better?
Yes, says Dana Fisher, Director of the Center for Environment, Community & Equity and author of Saving Ourselves. Dana’s research suggests that witnessing the inevitable mass repression of fellow citizens through state violence or incarceration will mobilise the public to take action against climate-denying leaders.
This conversation on resistance is nuanced, addressing the uncomfortable truths that post-industrial democracies are suffering from increasing authoritarian policies which inhibit their right to protest and even speak. President-elect Trump has been forthright about his willingness to deploy the police and national guard against his opponents and American citizens. But Dana argues this worsening state violence could be the very thing that tips the rest of the country into action.
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Climate researcher and activist Pasha Bell was jailed for 22 months for protesting against the British government’s climate inaction. They join a growing group of concerned citizens disproportionately punished by the British state for exercising their democratic right to protest. The draconian measures introduced by the last Conservative government—which the current Labour government is making no plans to repeal—were drafted by think tanks funded by Big Oil. The laws are so unjust that the UK’s own High Court declared them illegal earlier this year.
Pasha joins me to run through exactly which laws were changed and how they’ve led to the criminalisation of protest in one of the world’s richest “democracies”, and how these laws are now impacting journalists’ attempts to cover the genocide in Gaza. We go on to discuss the connections between corporations, oligarchs and nation states in liberal democracies, and the alternatives that activists and communities are organising on the ground all over the UK, including Citizens’ Assembly, Youth Demand, and Just Stop Oil.
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Is the law fit for purpose?
This is one question Nikki Reisch, Director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Center for International Environmental Law, and I discuss on today’s episode. Nikki joins me to explain the wave of climate litigation taking place around the world, making climate a human rights issue for the first time in history.
We discuss this in the context of nation states currently undermining international law on the global stage. Nikki insists that the law is a powerful tool which must be both used and protected by support from the public arena, reminding us that the basis for law is consent, and that these landmark decisions provide credence for citizens to take action on the ground against climate inaction.
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How does trauma show up?
Kosha Joubert is the CEO of the pocket project and NGO dedicated to exploring and healing collective trauma. She joined me to discuss the impacts that collective trauma has on our bodies, on our systems and how it can even explain the way we are seemingly barreling towards even further destruction rather than turning towards healing.
Pocket project is launching a Climate Consciousness Summit that begins Friday the 15th and runs to next Thursday, the 21st of November, including amazing speakers like Amy Westervelt and Gabor Mate.
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WTF – What Trump F**s.
Beside his extensive sexual assault of women, Trump’s political agenda involves violently assaulting the planet, climate legislation, industry regulations, state-led climate agendas and international negotiations.
And that was just the first time round. His second term will likely be far worse, with his team having had four years to plan. Details from Project 2025—published by a think tank with links to the Atlas Network—show how Trump is likely going to strip climate legislation away and ramp up fossil fuel production.
I asked Emily Atkin, editor of HEATED (which if you don’t know, you should immediately subscribe to), to explain exactly what another round of Trump does to international and national climate agendas. We also get into Musk, bitcoin, coal, what Biden could do, and how the media also needs evolve its messaging.
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*the answer is the future, btw.
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Can renewables really save the day?
Auke Hoekstra, Director of the NEON Research Program, says they can. The renewables researcher firmly states that we can power this society on renewables energy, dramatically reducing the harms caused by our current energy system and providing equitable access to energy. However, he does not think this means the renewable roll-out is inevitable thanks to political and economic forces built on fossil fuelled power.
Known as the “Debunker in chief”, Auke and I have a lengthy, nuanced, tense and joyful discussion about the question of renewables: their effectiveness, limitations, and how to use them responsibly. On the scientific side of the conversation, we cover the nitty gritty of energy density, materials access, and land use. We also situate the conversation in the wider socio-political context, leading to a conversation on shared values and responsibility.
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If not nuclear, then what else?
This is Jessica Lovering's question, co-founder of the Good Energy Collective. She says the most important thing is to lift one billion people out of energy poverty. To do that, we need a low carbon source of energy without intermittency issues. Because of this, she says, nuclear is a form of environmental justice.
Jessica begins by explaining the historical and current dynamics, regulatory issues, financial challenges, and technological advancements in nuclear. We then address the potential and complexities of nuclear power in addressing climate change, managing energy needs, and ensuring energy equity. We also explore community consent, nuclear waste management, geopolitical implications, employment impacts, before discussing whether or not nuclear is worth the risk in an increasingly unstable world.
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The U.S Military is going green. But what does that mean?
Decarbonised bases, hybrid vehicles, micro electricity grids, recycling methane gas. In fact, the U.S military is doing what climate activists are crying out for governments to do—everything, that is, except changing their overarching strategy. In a mind-bending example of how climate action can be taken when the purpose fits the status quo, the U.S military is ahead of the curve when it comes to taking this problem seriously.
I'm joined by Sherri Goodman, Secretary General of the International Military Council on Climate and the U.S first ever Under Secretary of Defence (Environmental Security) to discuss how the military is approaching the climate crisis. She explains what happens when a climate-denying administration disagrees with the military's prognosis, the steps they're taking to decarbonise, and the purported necessity for defence during times of resource scarcity.
We then debate the reality of the big picture: Is such action truly sustainable if we're not addressing the big picture drivers which create the conditions for violence and conflict?
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The Paris Agreement is dead.
The celebrated target marked in ink in 2016 has been killed by the focus on technocratic solutions over systemic change. Now, rather than address the frightening reality spawned by delusion and incompetence, we're heading even faster towards two degrees—and that being the new acceptable target.
Earth system scientist James Dyke explains that we cannot allow this new target to be set, which the fossil fuel industry is pushing for. This is James' second time on Planet: Critical. Just a few years ago, I interviewed him about the dangers of Net Zero policies and how these carbon accounting tricks were on course to send us over the 1.5 degree limit. Many scientists were chorusing that warning. Their concerns were not heeded and just three years later, we're on course for a truly dangerous future.
In this episode, James explains how we got here, what we've done wrong, and what will happen if climate policies don't rapidly address the structural inequalities and waste of both our energy and economic systems.
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We can’t harm the planet without harming ourselves.
Plastic. It’s ubiquitous. We are now learning it’s also insidious. Plastic is linked to numerous serious health conditions, from cancers to heart disease. It’s changing our DNA—and now babies are being born pre-polluted.
Jane van Dis is a medical doctor, academic and co-founder of Healthcare Without Harm. She joins me to explain the myriad impacts of plastic on the body, the collusion she has investigated between the petrochemical industry and government, how the fossil fuel industry got society hooked on the stuff, and the medical industry’s own plastic pollution problem. This is a jaw-dropping episode, exemplary both of the systems of harm we are forced to live in, and how civic advocacy begins when we take care of one another. For Jane, her journey began when she asked the question: Why are my patients getting sicker?
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What happens when an industry regulates itself?
Bad science, opaque methodologies, incorrect conclusions—and few questions asked. The fashion industry has spent over 10 years drafting sustainability guidelines under the guise of independent analysis which protect brands’ bottom lines. Thanks to an elaborate network of organisations, think tanks and funders, these guidelines have even made their into Law around the world. The problem? They’re unscientific.
Veronica Bates Kassatly is an economist and sustainable fashion consultant I met whilst investigating this story in 2022. Despite the extent of fashion’s greenwashing making international headlines years ago, little has come on since, as Veronica explains in the episode. We discuss the manipulation of sustainability metrics by the fashion industry to promote polyester fibre as sustainable, the deficiencies in current methodologies, and the impact of EU regulations on global trade, particularly for producers in the Global South. The episode highlights the interplay of economics, legislation, and industry incentives in perpetuating unsustainable practices, urging for inclusive discussions and genuine sustainability measures.
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What happens when economics takes precedence over thermodynamics?
Eventually, the system collapses—because being incompatible with thermodynamics is impossible. That’s the stark message of this week’s guest, Louis Arnoux, a scientist, engineer and managing director of Fourth Transition, who has been working on this problem for decades. Louis and his team’s research point to our energy systems collapsing by 2030 because we’re having to spend more energy than ever before to extract fuel. Soon, the energy cost of extraction will equal the energy benefit. Such an equilibrium is, in his words, a dead state.
In the episode, Louis gives a phenomenal overview of the three thermodynamic traps human civilisation is caught in, including how decarbonising to renewables is exacerbating the thermodynamic problem. He explains how our current energy systems work antithetically to the sun and the planet, including the waste problem, before highlighting the role of economics in the creation of an impossible system. He then explains what a possible energy system could look like with the technology we have available, and how we can engineer that system to mimic the efficiency and productivity of life on the planet.
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Can we engineer our way out of dystopia?
A.I. technologist Deep Dhillon and I had a heated exchange about technology after meeting by chance in Granada after a flamenco performance. The conversation was fascinating, and I invited him onto the show to discuss what's really going on in Silicon Valley around A.I., what developments are being made and why, and how this technology is going to impact us all.
As a cofounder of Xyonix and host of the podcast, Your A.I. Injection, Deep has decades of experience working on A.I. models in the Valley. He explains his vision for a brighter future facilitated by technology, but equally explains the negative impacts of technology not just on society but on the industry itself which is racing to keep up with its own developments. This is a wide-ranging conversations about systems, tech, the economy and collective responsibility for engineering a better future for us all.
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This week, P:C features Mongabay.
Nations across the globe are trialing “rights of nature” laws and “legal personhood” for various ecosystems and a range of reasons, from Indigenous reconciliation to biodiversity protection. While these two concepts are closely related, they have some key differences.
Viktoria Kahui discusses what distinguishes them and how they’ve been used for conservation, while stressing there’s still little evidence that legal personhood protects biodiversity. Kahui is an environmental and ecological economist at the University of Otago in Aotearoa New Zealand and joins the Mongabay Newscast to interrogate these legal frameworks.
In this conversation with co-host Rachel Donald, Kahui outlines instances where the laws have been applied and why, despite some flaws, she thinks they are worth considering and iterating upon to combat environmental degradation, despite a global debate and many critiques, based on their intent and design. Chief among these is their imposition of an anthropocentric (and primarily Western) legal viewpoint upon something as complex as nature, which transcends the confines of human liability and, therefore, cannot be subjected to it without knock-on effects that potentially harm the people these laws are intended to empower.
Kahui weighs in on this debate and where she sees such laws being applied in a promising fashion, such as in Ecuador, where courts have examined nature in the context of established constitutional law, leading to outcomes that have benefited both people and nature.
“Very slowly, as lawyers and judges are becoming more familiar with the concept, they’re able to interpret it when there is a legal case being brought, and they’re [better able to argue] the side of nature,” she says. “It’s certainly much, much more positive than what we’ve seen in the past.”
Subscribe to or follow the Mongabay Newscast wherever you listen to podcasts, from Apple to Spotify, and you can also listen to all episodes on the Mongabay website.
Planet: Critical is back to regular programming next week. Stay tuned.
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How has the psychology industry perpetuated the problem?
Steffi Bednarek is a climate psychotherapist working both with clients on their anxiety and depression related to climate grief, and the overarching systems within the psychology profession which stigmatises mental health by failing to grasp that poor mental health can be a rational reaction to a broken world.
Steffi joins me to discuss how the dysfunction of our neoliberal economic system permeates our experience of being in the world, questioning whether health is an attainable goal in a sick society. She suggests the mental health crisis is yet another opportunity to radically transform our systems to promote a health that includes people and planet. We discuss the construct of the self, the metacrisis as a birth process, the role of the body in understanding information, and how to build psychological resilience.
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Remember the adage it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism?
Culture inculcates certainties—and only in living against them will we forge new possibilities, says writer Natasha Lennard. Changing the world from the ground up takes time, it takes bravery, it takes collective will to go against. Only power changes fast. But we can live in a world where people—not power—make changes.
In this wonderful discussion on certainty, doubt and reimagining the world, Natasha, author of two books on politics and violence, walks us through how we currently conceptualise crisis and certainty, and how once we have an understanding of that conceptualisation, we can become more aware of how certainties arise from collective meaning making. This is about moving the frontiers of certainty, rejecting things that we think to be certain in order to challenge, experiment, and joyously resist violent norms. This is about how we build a new world—and remember what truly is certain: love, shelter, community, joy.
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What if the solutions are the problem?
Life is made beautiful by the myriad possibilities that evolve—spontaneously—from interactions in the world. A look shared between strangers, a joke passed from customer to barista, a story swapped, a birdsong heard. But these possibilities are diminishing with every tech substitution for interaction. Tech gets in the way.
I'm joined by journalist and founder of Low Tech Magazine, Kris De Decker, to discuss the difference between high tech and low tech; the zealous and unfounded faith in tech crippling our climate decisions; the relationship between tech, finance, economies and state control; and how a low tech lifestyle is liberating. This is a beautiful conversation with someone really walking the walk when it comes to sustainability—and reaping the rewards.
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References: Brett Scott and Altered States of Monetary Consciousness:
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How do we come home to our bodies?
Bayo Akomolafe is a philosopher writer, activist, professor of psychology and executive director of the emergence network. He's the author of 'We Will Tell Our Own Story' and 'These Wilds Beyond Our Fences: Letters To My Daughter on Humanity's Search for Home'. Bayo is an extraordinary poet artist, linguistic dancer, who seems to revel at the very edge of thought, holding up fractal mirrors with which we can see ourselves in splendid possibility and wounded reality. He has a way of speaking that invites both the past and the future to pick up the spirit of the present and remind it not to be weighed down by all that it thinks it is.
In this conversation, Bayo talks about the crisis of mastery that we face today: white modernity and the edge of the moral field into which we must dance and play and revolt. He describes cracks as innovation; the pragmatic of the useless; the minor gestures which disrupt; and edge as a place of power. This is a conversation about carnival and bodies, on de-territorialising our senses, on emerging with reality, on relating, and on coming home.
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How can businesses make better decisions?
The corporate world needs new values, values that inspire different motivations for existing. But doing so within the existing framework of driving shareholder value is so complicated that many are claiming it can't be done. Socio-technological ethicist Nate Kinch is trying anyway.
Nate works at the intersection of values and technology, working on redesigning corporate values by focusing on building trust and morality within organisations. We discuss this at length, and whether or not business is capable of designing its own decay or degrowth due to a wider ecological imperative. We also discuss the drivers of this corporate crisis, including the story of separation.
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The global majority are not responsible for global warming.
A tiny percentage of the world's population are in positions of power, making decisions that impact the entire planet. These are the people who own and benefit from the fossil-fuelled means of production. Professor Matt Huber says taking power back from them is a class struggle—and cannot be done without building working class power.
Building on arguments from his book, Climate Change as Class War, Matt says that rather than focusing on elite consumption we should target elite production, making material arguments for systems change that the working class can relate to. He also explains what the professional class of environmentalists fail to grasp about working class voters, why capital ignores public infrastructure, and why a Green New Deal is the only way to combat petro-privatisation.
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The carbon cycle is more dangerous than an asteroid.
An asteroid killed the dinosaurs but unstable carbon cycles caused the worse mass extinctions in earth’s history—and we are putting carbon dioxide into the air at a rate the earth has never seen before.
I’m joined by science journalist Peter Brannen, author of The Ends of the World, to discuss how the carbon cycle has caused five out of the six mass extinction events — with the worst taking 10 million years for the planet to recover. Peter says all the drivers point that we are hurtling towards a sixth mass extinction if we don’t change rapidly change course, an event totally unprecedented in its man-made nature. This is an experiment in planetary systems going horribly wrong. We still have time to stop. If we don’t, the results could change the planet beyond recognition.
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A.I. is here—except it isn't. Or is it?
A.I. is all over the news all of the time, and nations are scrambling to win the race and become the world leaders in this technology which we're told will change the world. This belief, this myth, is driving policy, investment, hype and conferences. It's the myth that is making A.I., a technology which has consistenly been over-promised and failed to deliver.
Yet, nobody is asking if we want the changes we're told A.I. will deliver. The assumption is the future will be artificially intelligent. This means that other critical problems are falling off the agenda which is now dominated by the race towards a hyper-technological future—no matter the costs. Researcher Paul Schütze joins me to explore how these myths are making A.I. into a reality, with no consideration as to whether or not we want that reality. He explains the true cost of this A.I. futurism on the environment, social cohesion, and even our imagination.
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Books referenced: Rethinking Racial Capitalism
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Reparations provide legal rights.
So argues lawyer and humanitarian, Esther Afolaranmi. Esther is the founder of the Golden Love and Hands of Hope Foundation in Nigeria, working on women’s liberation, girls’ education and lobbying the UN to meet the climate pledges promised at COP meetings. Esther joins me to discuss the links between climate, family planning, social justice and explains the corruption in Nigeria preventing the country from moving past the legacies of extraction and colonialism.
Esther explains that climate reparations are not about money, but about granting equal legal rights to the world’s most vulnerable communities. She also says that as long as unethical leaders break the promises made at climate conferences, those communities will be forced to take more desperate action to secure their futures.
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What would you lose to take a stand?
Gianluca Grimalda, a climate change researcher, lost his job after he refused to fly back from fieldwork in Papua New Guinea. Gianluca has been “slow travelling” for decades. He thinks his former employer tried to make an example out of him because of his climate activism. It’s one of those stories that reveals the madness of the world—he was sent to research how vulnerable communities are responding to climate change as the seas consume their villages, and then told he could no longer continue that research if he did not commit an act of harm.
He joins me to share the preliminary results of his fieldwork and tell this incredible story: his activism, the threats of dismissal, the ongoing fight with the institute, and the incredible journey from Bougainville to Germany by ferry, train and coach. This is a tale that reminds us that some things are less complicated than we are led to believe—and that we cannot rely on our institutions for moral clarity.
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Our bodies know what words fail to describe.
Shifts in culture, ravages of violence, ruptures and reconciliation—the body politic lives in our own bodies, informing and inhibiting our experience in the world. Yet, we fail to recognise this connection, and the even wider one of our own bodies as part of the earth's system, which is experiencing great violence and chaos. We need to reconnect with our bodies.
Ruptures is just one of the themes Ranu Mukherjee explores as an artist. She joins me to discuss this, and the somatic experience, deep time, the lives of plants, and the violence that ripples out through society. We explore the limitations of connection in economies of scale, how this informs our power hierarchies, and the violence we then internalise, which leads us to a beautiful conversation on uncertainty.
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We belong to our symbols as much as they belong to us. Like the planetary environment, our relationship with language and symbols has impacted our culture, even our biology, argues Professor of Anthropology, Terrence Deacon. Our capacity for interpretation allows us to understand one another and work as a collective mind, explaining the incredible leaps our species has made—and also the trouble we’re in.
Terrence joins me to explain our relationship to symbols and how they evolve with the world. We then discuss what happens when our symbols get stuck, or disconnected, simplifying into ideological constructs which fix our identities.
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Whoever controls the energy supply controls the new world order.
Russia and China are deepening their relationship, Western allies in the Middle East are joining the fossil-fuelled BRICS alliance spanning the globe, and the Wagner group is loosening Europe’s grip of Africa. The tectonic plates of geopolitics are shifting along new fault lines as rising powers focus on securing resources while the old Empire in the West pretends it can decouple economies and energy. The world is at war, but only one side is being honest about what for.
Acclaimed energy expert Art Berman says this is the culmination of millennia of human fallibility. This is a conversation that takes us from 3000 BCE and the discovery of what he calls the most disruptive technology humans ever had right up to today and the energy wars blooming around the world. We discuss our psychological disposition to immaturity, our cognitive shortcomings when examining complexity, the secrets of holy texts and even morality. Art explains how energy is reshaping geopolitical alliances, which leaders understand the reality of our situation, and why technology cannot solve our problems.
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What's the relationship between our energy consumption, our material footprint and our economies?
Tim Garrett and I come to refer to these as “the holy trinity”. Tim is a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Utah, and over two years ago, he joined me to discuss the thermodynamics of collapse, where he explained his research into the behaviour of snowflakes and how you could extrapolate the behaviour of economies and civilization using the laws of thermodynamics. He's back on the show to explain how we use our energy, the necessity of a surplus of energy and how all of this relates to a society's growth and health.
In this conversation we discuss questions like: Will renewables facilitate an increased consumption of fossil fuels? Can we reduce inequality by reducing energy consumption? How can we organise a wave-like civilisation, which grows and decays within safe boundaries? Can we decline in order to recover before crashing completely?
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What does artificial intelligence have in common with eugenics?
The first person to float the idea of a "general intelligence" was a eugenicist who was determined to rank intelligence according to race. This is just one of the legacies of A.I., a technology which Silicon Valley vehemently promises will transform the world, but which for now only consumes enormous quantities of energy. Despite the warnings from technologists around the world, for-profit companies are racing to develop A.G.I. no matter the costs.
Artist John Wild has traced the deep history of A.I., finding its roots in disturbing schools of thought which seek to raise the dead. He's also found where these histories are alive and kicking in C-Suite boardrooms. He joins me to reveal the disturbing imaginaries associated with A.I., and how we can begin to reimagine it as an entangled, decentralised, collaborative tool to create new ways of being.
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Who takes the initiative when governments fail to ask?
Amazingly, in Denmark, an industry is lobbying its government for much tighter regulations to absolutely reduce emissions in order to meet the Paris Agreement. Stakeholders across the entire Danish building industry have agreed to an ambitious reduction roadmap tafter a team of architects undertook an independent review of government policies. They found that global building emissions must be reduced by 96% to limit global warming, and are currently lobbying for an emissions cap of carbon dioxide kilograms per meter squared.
I'm joined by Dani Hill-Hansen, sustainable design engineer, architect at EFFEKT, and co-author of the Reduction Roadmap. She explains the findings of their research, the ambitious targets of the roadmap, how they got 540 stakeholders across the industry to sign on, and the methodology of "brand activism" they've developed alongside this project to kickstart other industries across the globe to initiate necessary climate action.
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What’s the future of food?
Last year, two of my former podcast guests had a long and very public disagreement about the politics of food, locking horns over the utility of farming in a densely-populated world. Activist and writer George Monbiot has written extensively about lab-grown food and the need to revolutionise our food systems with technology so that we can better feed everyone. Farmer and academic Chris Smaje has argued that farming is a critical component of community autonomy, and wrote a book in response to George’s own, Regenesis, criticising the vision as “eco-modernist”. George hit back that Chris’ proposal is a “cruel fantasy”.
I watched this unfold online, worried to see two experts disagree so deeply on something fundamental to how we organise society, and invited Chris back to talk about this second book, Saying No To A Farm-Free Future. Chris explains how our food production systems are emblematic of our crisis of relationship to the earth. He argues that de-materialising our food supply plays into the colonial history of uprooting people from the land and denigrating agriculture. This leads us to discuss land, language, and culture, decentralising power, and the political binaries that could be dissolved by grounding our thinking in the land.
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Correction: The previous version of this interview stated that the debate between George Monbiot and Chris Smaje was around lab grown meat instead of lab grown food.
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We’re breaking all kinds of records at the moment: cities are boiling at 62C, ocean temperatures are literally off the charts, and governments have increased the global defence budget to an alarming $2440 billion.
War costs life, and not just human life. The environmental impacts of war are colossal, with one study already showing that the first few months of Israel’s assault on Gaza emitted more carbon dioxide than 20 climate-vulnerable nations do in one year. Our ecosystems are at their breaking point, with six of nine planetary boundaries crossed. We need global collaboration to commit the huge systems overhaul necessary to survive the planetary crises and mitigate the catastrophic decisions of the last centuries.
Olivia Lazard, research fellow at Carnegie Europe, joins me to discuss just how complex that task is, detailing the five steps of the Anthropocene and how violence increases at each step. We discuss these legacy systems of extraction and violence and how they are embedded into decisions being made around A.I., creating security risks in a resource-scarce world. We also cover the dematerialisation of our economies, the myths that blind us to energy and materials, before discussing the balance of power tipping our planet and human systems further into crisis.
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Can the market do the right thing?
Not without supportive policy. Market-based solutions do not have a good track record when it comes to climate, stuck as they are within an exploitative economic framework. But, equally, we cannot just do away with markets, which have existed for millennia in many different forms. They need revolutionised, not abandoned.
Civil engineer and geo-hydrologist Delton Chen joins me to discuss the Global Carbon Reward, a policy for managing climate-related risk. Described as a “carrot policy”, Delton says the GCR incentivises polluting industries to reduce their emissions whilst encouraging the private market to invest in research and development of mitigation technologies. This conversation is filled with nuance, technicality, analysis and discussion on the viability of market-based solutions in a market that drives perverse incentives.
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You can also listen to my latest episode of the Mongabay Newscast where I spoke with Dahr Jamail about the resource wars driving climate-fuelled conflict.
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Here’s the good news: People can change—quickly.
Sometimes it feels impossible to imagine anything other than collapse with the way our energy systems are designed, the corruption in governance, and the financial motives which skew the present system towards profit over everything else. It’s true that if nothing changes, the global system will collapse. But it’s also true that people are capable of amazing feats of imagination and adaptation—especially social imagination.
This week I’m joined by Erin Remblance, degrowth advocate and co-founder of ReBiz, an “un/school” designed toequip all people with the worldview and skills to create regenerative and pluriversal post-growth futures. ReBiz offers a core course on social tipping points and Erin joined me to discuss exactly that: What are social tipping points? And, importantly, how do we create them? This is a conversation about technology, economy, imagination, politics and a just transition—because most people are good people.
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When do you think we’ll run out of oil?
2050? 2100? Never? That’s understandable given the IPCC models access to oil until 2100; politicians like Rishi are betting big on North Sea deposits. Petroleum is the life blood of our global economy, and it’s difficult to imagine it drying up. More often, when we talk about transitioning away from fossil fuels, it’s because of the necessity to limit global warming—not because we run out.
But a team in Scotland are warning exactly that—we’re running out. Fast. Alister Hamilton is a researcher at the University of Edinburgh and the founder of Zero Emission Scotland. He and his colleagues self-funded research into oil depletion around the world and the results are shocking: We will lose access to oil around the world in the 2030s.
They calculated this by establishing the Energy Return On Investment (EROI) and found that whilst there will still be oil deposits around the world, we would use more energy accessing the oil supply than we would ever get from burning it. This is because we’re having to mine further into the earth’s crust to access lower-grade oil. According to their calculations, the oil in the North Sea will be inaccessible—in a dead state—by 2031, and the oil in Norway by 2032. Around the world, oil reserves see the same trend through the 2030s.
Petroleum is the life blood, and we haven’t yet built out a different circulatory system to support renewable energy—in less than a decade, the world as know it could crash.
© Rachel Donald
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I like to think of intellectual discourse as the entangled root network of an ancient tree: everything is connected to everything else. Not so much a linear march of progress but a gnarled and entangled mess from which fruits bear. This is why, despite thousands of years, some ideas don’t travel very far, but double back and loop themselves around other roots, creating something that feels solid, but may be rotten at its core.
This week I’m joined by ecologist and writer Carl Safina who has spent the past few years researching that root network of cultural beliefs from all over the world, discovering profound similarities and critical differences. He explains that the main difference between Western thought and most other cultures is the disconnectedness of humankind from nature, and he traces this back to Plato’s philosophy of absolute ideals.
This is my second episode with Carl. We first spoke over two years ago when he was deep in the process of researching his latest book, Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe. That conversation was truly fundamental to my own thinking, so it was a real joy to have Carl back on the show now that the book is out. This conversation goes begins with Plato, takes us through the delightful common threads that weave together most human cultures, and ends with Carl explaining how this rift between humans and nature results in the perverse incentives in our psychotic system today.
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We need to confront political impossibility.
A few months ago, I was sitting on a train bashing out a furious article about the British government’s climate incompetence. The man next to me was in a zoom call on climate change, vigorously shaking his head. I couldn’t help but ask.
That’s how I met today’s guest, Jonathan Mille, a researcher at University College London’s Climate Action Unit, where he studies systemic risk and the impact of our interdependent global systems on climate change response. Jonathan focuses much of his attention on the physical and political possibility of the energy transition, and in today’s episode we discuss that exact tension between what is physically possible and what is politically possible. We explore the narrative challenge we face as a society, along with the distinct knowledge gaps found in industry, policy circles and business which create blind spots of psychological vulnerabilities, impeding the necessary psychological transition.
© Rachel Donald
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We need to restore our own ecology.
That doesn’t just mean fencing off parts of the earth into “nature conservation” spaces because, as this week’s guest Laura Martin points out, what does that say about the space on the other side of the fence? That human spaces are unnatural? Or that they don’t deserve to be protected?
Laura is an environmental historian, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Williams College, and author of the extraordinary book, Wild by Design: The Rise of Ecological Restoration. She joins me to discuss how policies create crises, not just abstract notions of neoliberalism, fossil-fuelled capitalism, and industrialisation. She says that environmental policies offer us alternatives to our present. So which ones can we use to build a world that protects both ourselves and the species with whom we share this planet?
We then discuss at length the difference between conservation and restoration, with ecological restoration—rewilding—offering a politics of care that sees humanity collaborate with fellow species to promote ecological well-being everywhere, from the grasslands to the inner city.
© Rachel Donald
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Nuclear: The perfect energy or perfect weapon.
There are such widely-held—and understandable—fears surrounding nuclear that in 2023 the Green party in Germany were instrumental in decommissioning the nation’s final plants—in the middle of an energy crisis. The environmentalists in the sixtoies and seventies were key to the anti-nuclear movement which swept the world, with France one of the only nations to resist the calls to shut down the reactors for fear of states weaponising the waste. That decision means France is now one of the only energy resilient nations in Europe.
There are obvious benefits to nuclear, and a new generation of nuclear engineers desperate to prove it. Mark Nelson is one of them. An engineer and consultant in the energy transition, Mark joined me to dispel myths around nuclear, where he believes the backlash started, and how we can transform existing fossil fuel infrastructure into truly renewable energy. We cover a lot in this conversation—including a couple of disagreements on the social and political angles—and there’s a lot to be mined in the episode. It certainly won’t be the last one on nuclear energy.
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Could AI be a natural intelligence?
Artist Mer Maggie Roberts, cofounder of the collective Orphan Drift, has been investigating how the natural world can inspire technological development to resist continuing anthropocentrism. The more-than-human world has so many perspectives to offer which could open our eyes to our own blind spots, and encourage a politics of care, stewardship and understanding. We need diversity, more than ever, and not limited only to human experience. But AI, an unknowably powerful tool, is being coded in man’s image, with all the biases, reductionisms, flaws and dispassion we exhibit.
Maggie sought to open up the fields of possibility with a project that imagines training an AI model on the experience of an octopus. Octopi are multi-perspectival creatures, boasting one brain in each leg and a ninth, central brain in their body. The way they experience the world is complex, nuanced and utterly different to our own experience. Building technology which reflects rather than consumes the natural world could be a critical tool in marrying man’s relationship to the wider world, which we discuss in this wonderfully wide-ranging and nuanced conversation on the role of art in a crisis.
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Truth is stranger than fiction—but fiction is better written.
We know their playbooks and their networks, but the bad guys of this story are in no rush to change their tactics. From funding dodgy research to bleating lies on prime time television, the fossil fuel industry and its allies are audaciously villainous. They’d been getting away with it for decades—but now independent media has them running scared.
Amy Westervelt is an award-winning investigative climate journalist and media founder with 20 years on the climate beat. Her investigations have exposed the worst crimes of the fossil fuel industry, and she now leads an international team of climate reporters at Drilled who uncover the connections between governments, industry and policy.
She joins me today to discuss their recent exposé of The Atlas Network, the shadowy ecosystem of think tanks pushing for the criminalisation of climate activists all around the world. Amy explains the roots of the network’s beginnings in World War Two, its rapid expansion as neoliberalism sunk its teeth into global politics, and its vast grip today on policy-makers around the world. This is a startling conversation, revealing the terrifying reach of right-wing extremism and corporate capture, with Amy suggesting the only path forward may indeed be revolutionary.
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If society is sick, how do we heal?
The idea of an “original trauma” bears similarities with the concept of an “original sin”: We fell, from grace, and have suffered ever since. The sinner, traumatised, cannot find his way back into paradise. The devil whispers in his ear. Hurt people hurt people.
Wisdom suggests there may be some truth to these tales. That a portion of humanity aeons ago faced terrible strife and were traumatised to the extent their relationship with the world suffered, and they became extractive accumulators, unable to trust in the gift of life, suspicious of the world and one another. These people took without giving, and the trauma spread through the land. From this, the “veneer of civilisation” was imposed upon the wildness of the natural world, a bid to control which resulted in the eventual destruction of nature.
My guest this week, Paddy Loughman, is my friend. He describes himself as a strategist and narrative consultant working in the climate space. I think of him as a story-teller and word-weaver. Paddy and I have weekly phone calls about the state of the world, and he kindly acquiesced to recording one of them. We discuss original trauma, civilisation vs savagery, sickness, collapse, healing and story. This conversation spans life and decay, death and possibility, love, hope and reality, with Paddy offering we may be in a position now where the best we can do is create crash pads to save all that is beautiful when the veneer comes tumbling down.
Paddy is the cofounder of Stories For Life and Inter-Narratives, focusing on the interplay of narrative change and systems change. He’s a former advisor to the UN’s Climate Champions and some of the world’s biggest businesses. This week he has launched his own Substack which offers a gentle yet unflinching exploration of the world as it is, and how it could be.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
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If they won’t get it done, then we’ll do it ourselves.
Chaytan Inman is uninspired by politics. The computer science student was fed up or energy-blind and materials-blind promises made by big political names, promises of unlimited economic growth on a finite planet and infinitely available renewable energy, all tied up in the language of “Net Zero”. Chaytan didn’t see anyone running on a political platform which promised a liveable future. So he decided to run for Governor of Washington State.
“We cannot consume our way out of an overconsumption problem.”
Chaytan joined me to discuss his decision and his political platform: Enshrining the rights of nature in the state constitution. He aims to ensure the Pacific Northwest will “still have rain, trees, food and water” for the future, envisioning a radical shift in how natural resources are valued by giving nature the same rights as people, and embedding citizenship in the state’s natural ecosystem. He also reveals two other policies around taxation and agriculture, offering a true degrowth platform for Washington residents.
Chaytan is young—and he says he truly does not want to have to run for governor—but his elders have failed his generation. It's truly heartbreaking to see how many young people are having to put themselves on the line because of this failure. We should have a society of elders that knows how to lead, that can use all of their life experience to seed their imagination with possibilities for the future. Elders know when it's time to move on. In such a society, young people should have the freedom to be idealists, not burdened with the pressure of being realists. But, in our world, we are led by no one, and run by idiots and ideologues. This crisis demands leadership. It may come from surprising places.
© Rachel Donald
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What do W.E.I.R.D countries have in common?
Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic. The citizens of these countries exhibit markedly more extreme psychological characteristics than those of non-WEIRD nations. One of the weirdest characteristics is a belief in a fixed “self’ which will behave in a reliable and predictable manner no matter the environment. The belief in this unchanging self is what makes it very difficult for us to change our minds—and even concoct wild rationalisations to justify our behaviour. Welcome to the age of cognitive dissonance.
Sarah Stein Lubrano, a researcher at Oxford University, joins me to explain the cognitive dissonance phenomenon, its roots in the alleged security granted to us by a fixed sense of self, and why it’s so hard to change our beliefs. She then reveals what neurophilosophy tells us about how to help others change our minds, the power of storytelling, and the importance of social infrastructure for creating cohesive, fluid and non-judgemental communities. It is these brave communities which dare examine themselves, their beliefs about the world—and change their maladaptive behaviours. This is an episode about how to dare change our minds.
© Rachel Donald
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
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Did you know the government doesn’t spend your taxes?
Welcome to the world of Modern Monetary Theory, a revolutionary way of decoding our monetary systems—and making them work better for us. I’m joined by Steven Hail, economist and lecturer, who explains, using MMT, what we get wrong about money, taxes, inflation and even currency. Steven reveals how the notion of states not being able to afford certain necessities—like education, health, the green transition—is nonsense, explaining how the supply of resources impacts our economy, not running a deficit. Alongside debunking a range of money myths, he also reveals the fascinating history of taxation as a means to create a citizenry and their dependence on a centralised state.
This is a technical episode, but Steven’s explanations are clear and concise, and we successfully cover a lot of ground to uncover the real relationships between governments, markets and the monetary system they swear by.
Episodes referenced include my interviews with Fadhel Kaboub, Jason Hickel and Kate Raworth.
© Rachel Donald
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
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Neoliberalism is the disease which keeps on killing.
But did you know the neoliberal economic gospel we live under today is a deliberate misinterpretation of the original theory?
In her new book, The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market, historian of science Naomi Oreskes shows how a group of American plutocrats distorted the the conservative teachings of Friedrich van Hayek’s theory of neoliberalism in order to plunder the world’s resource, unleash the markets, and undermine federal power.
Naomi joins me today to give an incisive and brutal summary of why our world is in crisis, detailing the criminal avarice of these plutocrats; how institutions, lobbyists and corporations continue to undermine democracy; and why a renewable world threatens the powers that be. This phenomenal explanation shows why the climate crisis is not a scientific problem, but a political, economic and social issue, with Naomi revealing tactics civilians used throughout history against the destructive elite.
© Rachel Donald
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
‘It’s Not the End of the World’ book assumptions & omissions spark debate
Check out my latest episode on Mongabay’s Newscast in Hannah Ritchie and I go head-to-head about her book, It’s Not the End of the World, and the data omissions which paint a far rosier picture of the polycrisis than her backer, Bill Gates, would have us believe.
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We can’t do this without taking power back.
But with the systems of power so effectively tied up in the complex system of unelected officials, hidden relationships and the ownership of natural resources, there seems to be no clear strategy for taking power back. One theory of change is putting pressure on the system until it caves—becoming ungovernable at scale.
Fabian Dablander, an energy transition researcher at the University of Amsterdam, and a member of the activist group Scientist Rebellion joins me to discuss that strategy: Is it possible? How do we do it? We also discuss nonviolence vs sabotage, hope and denial, and the tipping points of social change. We then confront power: Where does power lie? How much is power willing to give up? And should we recognise that power is not willing to come to the table to negotiate?
© Rachel Donald
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
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One week ago I emailed my subscribers and asked them to submit any burning question they may have about me or Planet: Critical. I expected most questions to be personal, about me and my journey. Instead, most were asking for advice or my opinion on the state of the world. I guess I never thought about the moment when I would become more than the interviewer, but three years of Planet: Critical have furnished me with more knowledge, ideas and dare I say wisdom than I ever imagined possible.
Thank you to everyone who submitted to the form, there were many questions to choose from, and many of them touching on similar themes. Here are the 13 I chose:
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You've had many answers to your opening question, all of which go some way to approaching a single dimension of the meta-crisis. Is there a picture building in your head which brings together and synthesises these threads, or could start a conversation to do just that?
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What political ideology would you say you closest identify with?
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How can we quickly change the way everyone on the planet understands and engages with the causes and effects of climate change, so that we can have more concerted and faster progress to prepare for it's effects and stop it from becoming worse?
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Truly deeply madly, what do you, (you personally) - based on all the knowledge and inspiration you have acquired through your interviews - think this world will look like in 2100?
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What role do you see for religious innovation/improvisation in our civilisations ongoing & unavoidable decline?
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Rachel: people talk of the gut/brain axis, and the heart/brain axis. When you were moving towards Planet: Critical, what was your road between your gut, your heart, and your mind?
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How has what you have learned from Planet Critical changed you? Your mindset, priorities and how you live?
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How important is the United States government to the health of the planet? Can climate action happen without the government?
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Do you think mainstream centrist politics will ever come round to the idea of degrowth or the steady-state economy?
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Can women save the world?
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What helps you stay steadfast and optimistic in the face of so much knowledge of how deeply tragic our situation is?
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Members of Novara Media say it is very important to them that they work in a team with editors. You seem to be all alone. How do you manage?
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I listened to your episode with George Monbiot, and you both mentioned the "machine" ratcheting up. This is despite the well-meaning people shouting from the rooftops in protest for decades, if not centuries (if we reach all the way back to, say, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and John Muir). Do you feel that your podcast and similar endeavours from other people (such as George Monbiot, Nate Hagens, Jem Bendell, James Hansen, Resilience.org etc.) make any difference or are you bound to "bark as the caravan moves on"? If the latter is the case, are you at peace with it? Is it enough for you that "you tried", as Louise Harris sings in her song that you've shared? Do you think humanity will have a change of heart at the 11th hour or do you think that the "machine" will run until it hits the hard physical, biological and climatic boundaries?
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
© Rachel Donald
Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe
Carbon Colonialism won’t solve the crisis.
State response to the interlocking climate, biodiversity, water, inequality, and health crises has mostly been to unleash the free market to promote solutions which perpetuate the global system of pillaging and exploitation. This only protects the status quo whilst sacrificing current and future generations. We have a name for this terrible violence: greenwashing.
I’m joined today by Laurie Parsons, a senior lecturer in Human Geography, to discuss the tensions between a global political economy, national legal jurisdictions, and a populace that is drowning in information. Taking examples from his book, Carbon Colonialism, Laurie explains how the people footing the climate bill are local and indigenous people around the world who are suffering under the extractive actions of corporations and the reticence of national governments to act. He also reveals the history of greenwashing as it began in the 1960s as “Eco-Pornography”, before giving an excellent analysis of the deliberate divide and conquer tactic separating land, labour and capital has long driven wealth into the world’s most powerful nations.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
Laurie researches at Royal Holloway, the University of London, and is the principal investigator of the projects, The Disaster Trade, The Hidden Footprint of UK Imports and Investment Overseas, and also Hot Trends, How the Global Garment Industry Shapes Climate Vulnerability in Cambodia.
© Rachel Donald
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We need to stop pretending we live in a democracy.
The essence of a democratic state is rule by the people, for the people. This has only ever been an illusion to mask oligarchic power. Upheld by the media, this illusion serves to sequester resources, power and divide a population who should be united in the face of their exploitation.
We are a society of altruists governed by psychopaths. This is the message of George Monbiot, distinguished writer and activist, on today’s episode. George’s Guardian columns are read all over the world, lauded for their big picture scope on issues of climate, justice and politics. A fervent anti-capitalist and environmental campaigner, George joins me to discuss political, economic and legal corruption, the link between colonialism and strong welfare states, social tipping points, and movement-building. This is a wide-ranging and thorough discussion covering violence, sabotage, language and system dynamics: You cannot control a complex system from the centre—we are fighting against those who want to do just that at the expense of everything else.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
The episode also features the deeply moving song We Tried by climate activist Louise Harris. This is the anthem we’ve been waiting for, a rallying cry in the dark to take action before all is lost. Let’s get it to Christmas Number 1 in the UK charts to pierce the mainstream. Get the song here and support Louise’s climate album fund.
© Rachel Donald
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Public Service Announcement!
I’m now collaborating with Mongabay on their weekly Newscast podcast, bringing you conservation news from all around the world. To celebrate—and to encourage you all to subscribe!—I’m sharing my inaugural episode as cohost with you today.
On this episode, I interview Brandon Wu of ActionAid USA about the Loss and Damages negotiations that took place ahead of COP28—and how the USA used its political weight to bully developing nations into accepting a deal unrecognisable from the premise of L&D.
Loss and Damages is, in effect, climate reparations—a fund paid into by developed nations, who are historically responsible for the emissions causing global warming, which developing nations can then use to respond to the chaos caused by climate change: floods, storms, crop failures, displaced populations. However, it was the vulnerable nations who were forced to concede at the negotiating table, walking away with a deal which serves the interests of the world’s most powerful.
Brandon gives an excellent overview and analysis of the situation, revealing how the USA used its muscle to twist the arms of developing nations at the final hour. I then discuss these details with my wonderful cohost, Mike DiGirolamo.
Mike and I have collaborated over the years on a couple of projects and I was truly delighted when he suggested we join forces on this project! Please join us as we uncover the most important stories in conservation and environmental journalism from around the world.
Subscribe to the Mongabay Newscast:
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Apple
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Spotify
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Mongabay website
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Download the free app on Apple or Android to access all episodes
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What maniac would suggest a hothouse earth would be economically positive?
The financial services—and their incorrect models is costing us time to implement effective policies to mitigate climate change as much as possible. This is the warning from a report published by the Institute of Actuaries. The Emperor’s New Climate Scenarios warns that the world of finance is massively underestimating the destruction climate change will cause on our economy after 1.5 degrees of warming.
Actuary and lead author, Sandy Trust, joins me to explain how such thinking got baked into the financial services by way of one man’s dodgy calculations, how to better interpret climate modelling, and the difference between risk assessment and scientific assessment. This is a truly fascinating conversation with Sandy expertly guiding us through technical terms to reveal a stark image: The people in charge are totally unaware of what’s coming.
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All the money and power in the world—but still the ruling class is failing.
James Schneider, Communications Director for Progressive International, explains how crisis is a permanent feature of fossil capitalism, which is currently cannibilising itself. He reveals a strategy for progressive movements around the world to unite around energy rights, before explaining how we need revolution over reform, including an anti-regime campaign to overthrow the ruling class. This is an acute and scathing analysis of the ruling class—and why hope lies with a green democratic revolution.
James Schneider is the cofounder of People’s Momentum, author of Our Bloc: How We Win, and Labour’s Head of Strategic Communications under Jeremy Corbyn.
© Rachel Donald
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
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What Big Oil knew — from climate to Iraq.
John Browne, Chairman of BeyondNetZero, was CEO of BP from 1995 – 2007. In 1997, he broke ranks with the industry and delivered a landmark speech on the impact of burning fossil fuels on the climate. But this was two decades after Exxon had hired their own climate scientists and buried the results.
John explains what he and his executive team knew in the mid-nineties, insisting they began working solutions as soon as they understood the planet was heating up. However, as I point out, there are clues on BP’s website which suggest the company knew beforehand. We also discuss the impact of resources and particularly fossil fuels on conflict with John revealing he was invited to the Pentagon around the time of the Iraq war to estimate how much oil was in the Middle East nation.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project by becoming a free or paid subscriber.
© Rachel Donald
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Genocides are a Weapon of War
Ideologies are weaponised by the morally bankrupt to control those who are oriented towards values. Despite what the long arc of narrativised history would have us believe, even as it is being rewritten in realtime, the minority want more than their share—and they’ll do anything to take it. Wars are fought over resources; only the soldiers pray as dawn breaks.
Hamza Ali Shah is a British-Palestinian writer and journalist. He joins me to discuss the establishment’s lack of moral clarity concerning the genocide taking place in Gaza. We discuss the colonial roots of Israel’s ethnic cleansing and the long history of Western forces’ desire to appropriate the immense fossil fuel resources of the Middle East. We also explore the failures of Arab state leaders to protect the Palestinian people, the weaponisation of ideology, and the deliberate obfuscation of linguistic tricks that see Israel acting with impunity on the international stage.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project by becoming a free or paid subscriber.
© Rachel Donald
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Welcome to the sophisticated world of greenwashing.
From outright climate denial to tactics of delay, the status quo is rapidly responding to the eco-crisis—just not in the way we need it to. Rather than throw money at an energy transition, tackle runaway capitalism and tax polluters, Big Oil and governments alike are muddying the waters of discourse to eke out every last drop of fossil fuel.
Ketan Joshi joins me to explain how this happened. A climate researcher and communications consultant, Ketan is one of the most astute guardians of our future, prolifically revealing greenwashing tactics used to dupe the public by private and state institutions. In this episode, he reveals these and the actions that the fossil fuel industry took to delay national energy transitions, the link between wealth, power and influence, and the root of the inequitable distribution of resources.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project by becoming a free or paid subscriber.
© Rachel Donald
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Honduras is being sued for a third of its GDP by an American company—why?
Because the developing nation changed its mind about Prospera building a charter city on its territory. This case, which could bankrupt Honduras, will be judged in a back room of the World Bank by three people, none of whom are obliged to even have a law degree.
Matt Kennard, investigative journalist and author of Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy, explains the origin of this shadowy legal system, and how it has infiltrated politics, skews policies, and traps developing nations into exploitative relationships with some of the world’s biggest corporations, definitively undermining the democratic process.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
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Genocide.
Israel will not stop until it subsumes the entirety of Gaza and, from the words of their leaders, destroys the Palestinian people.
Brave people everywhere are protesting. Many are talking. Some stay quiet, for fear of losing their jobs. A minority around the world firmly believe the rhetoric developed by the Israeli state. The injustice in the Middle East, the violent impunity murdering thousands of civilians, backed by Western powers who blush not at their own hypocrisy, is uniting people all over the globe. This is an uprising against colonialism, against violence itself.
lisa minerva luxx, poet, political activist, and member of Palestine Action joins me to discuss the dignity of the Palestinian people, and the dignity they have long been denied. We discuss their right to resist under international law, examining the narrative that passivity could have led to their liberation. We also explore the relationship of the Palestinian struggle for freedom to all other liberation movements around the world, with luxx highlighting the many leaders who fought for freedom using the tools of resistance, including guerilla warfare and sabotage.
This is an episode about colonialism, violence, action and love. This is an episode about the reality of the situation in Palestine, and the Israelis and Palestinians suffering under this colonial regime.
“Many people have been talking about and been horrified by—but not enough people—the use of “these are human animals”. We heard this before with the persecution of Jews. How are we not learning? Jews were called rats. And that's why so many people allowed for the Holocaust to happen. ‘Oh, well, it's not happening to humans, I can allow it to happen to rats. I don't like rats.’ We allowed for this to happen before. How are we back here?"
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“I don't think you want an organisation that is misleading the public about its achievements addressing the climate crisis, to necessarily be the one leading the global effort to do something about the climate crisis.”
The UN claims they're "climate neutral"—it couldn't be farther from the truth.
A recent investigation done by Mongabay and the New Humanitarian revealed many carbon credit projects the UN buys are linked to protest, rainforest destruction and dispossession of indigenous people. I'm joined by reporter Jacob Goldberg who investigated this story for over a year.
Shockingly, he reveals the UN performs no checks on the carbon credits they buy—and did not respond to the reporters once they raised the alarm. As he says during the episode—can we trust an institution that can’t even keep track of the harm it’s doing to really lead the world through the climate crisis?
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project by becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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It’s one rule for Israel and her allies—another for everyone else.
Israel’s allies can turn a blind eye to its genocide of Palestine—as long as some of the war crimes are denied. The settler state received unequivocal backing from the vast majority of Western leaders whilst it committed war crimes under the Geneva Convention, including cutting off electricity, water and food—everything the EU decried as war crimes when committed by Russia.
On Tuesday night, a spokesperson for the Israeli government confirmed an Israeli airstrike hit the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza, killing 500 sick, wounded and refugees. But hours later, the statement was retracted and Israel began sowing doubt about the origins of the strike, pointing the finger at Palestinian Jihadis. Hamas denied the claim. Israel released footage showing the “misfiring rocket” but Twitter users pointed out the videos either had the wrong time stamp, or were clips from 2022. But by Thursday morning, Western journalists were running with the story that both sides were blaming the other—despite the fact that Israel had called the hospital and ordered it to evacuate because of planned strikes.
Marc Owen Jones, Associate Professor at HBKU researching disinformation and digital authoritarianism joins me to explain how Israel weaponises doubt to allow its Western allies enough plausible deniability to continue staunchly supporting the regime, the West’s closest stronghold to the largest oil reserves in the world. Marc also explains the relationship between Israeli propaganda and Western media, revealing why so much coverage of what campaigners are calling a genocide against Palestinians only portrays Israel as the victim.
Watch Bassem Youssef's amazing interview.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project by becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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“All of those sectors are rapidly changing and the incumbent industries in those sectors are going to collapse. This is being driven by economic dynamics. It's going to happen.”
What if the only viable future is a better one?
Whatever the future holds, one thing is certain: tomorrow’s world will not look like today’s. We could see fossil-fascism in which nations hoard their fossil reserves (coal and gas) for accelerated use at the expense of international collaboration. We could see eco-fascism after an unplanned recession which crashes the financial system and slashes demand. We could see a descent into madness in which we run out of fuel to heat, to eat, to survive.
We could also see degrowth, eco-socialism, renewable sharing and governance reimagined to meet human rights. No, this isn’t utopia—it’s laid out in the policy plans of many scholars around the world as one of the only paths to navigating the planetary crisis.
Systems theorist Nafeez Ahmed joins me to discuss the interconnected grid—a piece of renewable infrastructure which, by its design, would change our economic system, our geopolitics and our relationship with one another. Nafeez debated Simon Michaux a few months ago, and I highly recommend listening to these episodes as a trio: Nafeez, Simon, the debate.
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“We found more undocumented meetings between senior newspaper editors—especially his real boss, as Dominic Cummings called Boris Johnson's former employer, The Telegraph,—than any other industry by far. What do they get? What does the political class get? Boris Johnson's got one million pounds per year at The Daily Mail. That's what he gets. They get cover. They get support from these papers.
What do the papers get in return? We've documented it. At least 200 million in covid subsidies through this advertising, which was only given to members of the News Media Association, which includes the Guardian and The Mirror and The Independent. The Independent takes money from Saudi, so it’s greenwashing. You ask them to comment on it, they won't touch it because their salaries are being paid by it.”
Oligarchy has infiltrated media—but the elite invited them in.
Keeping up with the revolving door between media, politics, intelligence and corporations would make anyone queasy. There is an elite class of people with access to power, wealth and influence, and they trade that power, wealth and influence between them to keep it in the family. The press would like us to think they’re the independent watchdog above it all. It’s the greatest story they’ve ever spun.
Peter Jukes is the cofounder and executive editor of Byline Times, the British media outlet created to expose corruption in media and write the stories the establishment won’t. In this episode, he explains how oligarchy took over the markets after 2008, the reality of the press ecosystem, how it’s unravelling, and how to create a forum for ideology.
© Rachel Donald
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Can regenerative farming fix our food systems?
One relatively effective action for an individual to combat climate change is going vegan. Industrial agriculture is razing the Amazon rainforest, facilitating endless suffering, and causing a health crisis. However, regenerative farmer Nikki Yoxall says whilst these things are all huge problems, going vegan doesn’t treat the root of the problem—capitalism.
Founder of Regenerative Women On The Land, Nikki joins me to discuss the patriarchal thinking embedded in our economic systems which trickle down to our food systems; the importance of accepting and celebrating death; the disconnection between humanity and nature; and the necessity to understand that animals—including farm animals—are a critical in healthy and functioning ecosystems. We discuss agroecology, the homogenisation of food, the disaggregation of food from our land supply, and Nikki ends by imploring us to invite farmers in to understand the complexity of the challenges we face rather than ignoring the generational wealth of knowledge, concern and connection held by the industry, many of whom are working to regenerate a healthy society from the ground up.
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“You can't go off and get growth. That's not the foundations of a pension, especially a public pension as a public good. It is about quality curating, stewarding a future for these people. And the reason why I get jazzed about this is because the money, the scale of mone—30 to 50 trillion dollars globally—if we started to move that money for just the beneficiaries, we fix it for everyone. Because that is a lot of money to move.”
What if we bought the fossil fuel industry?
The value of pension funds in the world is a staggering amount. Unlike other funds, pensions have a fiduciary duty to their beneficiaries, a guarantee to act in the best interest of those who depend on these funds for their retirement. Ian Edwards, Founder of the Bank of Nature, says fiduciary duty encompasses guaranteeing a healthy planet—without a world under 1.5 degrees, there’s no retirement fund to pull from.
He joins me to explain the history of fiduciary duty, the role of pensions, and the difference in returns necessary for pensions funds compared to other investments. This lower return means we could use pensions to start leveraging the market and force a green transition. One way, he says, is buying up the fossil fuel industry to retire it. This is about the 99% recognising their combined wealth and power, and shutting down the very system which threatens us all.
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“If the internet was based on a kind of commons, an almost scholarly freedom, then we need to pressure the people who are regulating the virtuality of our digital lives and say we need an early internet-like space and zone in this, where people can, for example, test out realities, test out new kinds of economy, prototype things, take those prototypes into reality, see if they work, take them into the virtual world again.”
“I think the destruction of the biosphere is baked in and therefore the social disruption is baked in as well. So we need some kind of continuity of civic space on the virtual realm that is potentially before us. We need a civic stake in the specific continuity between being in the streets and protesting and literally having to quarantine because of the next biospheric disruption.”
Imagine is a world beyond our wildest dreams...
“A life beyond your wildest dreams” is promised to those entering Narcotics Anonymous, a decentralised, collectively-run program for sobriety in which fellow addicts help one another get and stay clean. The promise doesn’t make sense when you first hear it—it’s only after months, even years, of becoming someone different that you realise how limited your imagination was made by addiction.
I think of our global relationship to capitalism very similarly. It’s difficult to imagine life without it, and thus a better world, but that doesn’t mean such a world isn’t possible. So how do we unleash our imaginations and creativity to create a culture and a world beyond our wildest dreams, one in which we look after one another and the more-than-human world? How do we code for care?
This is what Pat Kane joins me to discuss. Pat is a writer and musician, an activist, and a futurist. He writes a column for The National in Scotland and is also the co-founder of The Alternative, a media organisation embedded into community resilience and imagining alternative ways of organising. Pat to join me to discuss culture—how to understand it, how to code it, how to change it. We explore the possibility of the internet as emergent collective consciousness and a tool for creativity, resilience and connection. We discuss the importance of play: the psychology of play, the impact of play, and how play as resistance reveals the absurdity of the human systems that we are forced to interact with. We meander through this and more on love, truth, cosmology, resilience, difficulty and imagination.
© Rachel Donald
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“From the 1963 up until today, they can't kill our ideology. They can't kill our philosophy. They can’t kill our fight. Because we believe what we fight for. We fight for our right, freedom, dignity, and truth. So, you can come with any number, you can come with any intelligence equipment, you can come with any kind of technology, you can come. I will fight you.”
What can be justified in the name of self-defence?
Ranging across the vast territory of West Papua, 34,000 guerilla soldiers fight the 700,000 strong Indonesian military controlling their sovereign land. In February, these rebels took a New Zealand pilot hostage, threatening to kill him if the Indonesian government ignored their demands for independence. But in this exclusive interview, Jeffrey Bomanak, Chairman of the Free Papua Movement, promises Philip Mehrtens will make it home alive.
After negotiating their freedom with their Dutch colonists, West Papuans discovered the United States had used their land to bribe Indonesia into joining the capitalist economic order in 1963. The Free West Papua Movement (OPM, Organisasi Papua Merdeka) sprung up in resistance and has been fighting ever since. Jeffrey explains how their land was used as a pawn in a battle between world orders, the “genocide” of Papuans at the hands of the Indonesian government, and why organisations like the UN ignore the desperate plea of the Papuan people to maintain their colonial oversight.
© Rachel Donald
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
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Humankind’s footprint threatens to squash life under its heel.
Our impact on the planet cannot be understated. We have thrust Earth into a new geological period, destroyed the majority of the world’s wildlife, razed her forests, and rendered innumerable species extinct. We are expert consumers with no limits to our appetite, it seems. Unless the climate becomes so unstable our own systems break down. This, of course, is what we’re already seeing.
Bill Rees, bio-ecologist, ecological economist, and originator of the ecological footprint analysis, joins me to discuss this breakdown—how we got here, where we’re going, and why he has little hope for humankind to make it through. We discuss systems change, potential outcomes, and how to create “lifeboats” in a crisis. We also go head-to-head on the framing of some of these issues before finding common ground towards the end of the episode.
“Half of the fossil fuels ever used on planet Earth by human beings has been consumed in just the last 35 years. This is the power of exponential growth. So hugely important things have happened in 50 years, including the first book that warned us of limits to growth. We've seen the evidence before the US Congress on Climate Change. We've had 27 COP meetings on climate change, a half a dozen formal agreements to reduce carbon emissions. There's been several formal scientists’ warning to humanities. This has all taken place in the last 50 years.
“Yet, during that past 50 years, the pace of negative change has accelerated. So, despite the best of our science, despite the best evidence you can possibly come up with in terms of climate activity and so on and so forth, the mainstream has not budged.”
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“There isn't likely to be a future where all critters have no interest in themselves and are only interested in the collective. That's not gonna work. But to temper those two directions so that there is self maintenance, but also a self that joins the community, is, I would say, the goal.”
What if religion wasn’t about God—but about each other?
Religion is a divisive topic at best and the cause of war at worst. It has been used to control, dictate, punish and destroy people throughout the ages. Yet faith, it seems, is a critical aid in humankind’s individual and collective existence. I have always believed that faith is an act of imagination where religion is an act of dogma. That’s why I was curious when Ursula Goodenough, Professor of Biology Emeritus, emailed me a copy of her book, The Sacred Depths of Nature, suggesting we discuss “religious naturalism”.
During the episode, Ursula introduces the topic as a grand story to unite humankind. We go on to discuss humankind as a symbolic species, the necessity and beauty of symbolism, how we evolve with symbolism, and how we can use story to anchor our existence. We discuss language and mindedness, consciousness and the brain, community and individuals, and the relationship between mystery and knowledge. Ursula also gives her insight into what separates religiosity, spirituality and religion.
© Rachel Donald
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Human population is a problem—tackling it through education isn’t.
We need to slow our global fertility rate to 1.5 children per woman if we’re to lower our population to a sustainable level of around 3 billion. That decline is already happening in many post-industrial nations, to the chagrin and panic of their leaders. However, many cultures around the world still prize large families. But in a world of increasingly scarce resources like water, limiting family sizes remains the main driver of some campaigners, including Bill Ryerson.
Bill is an ecologist and founder of the Population Media Center, an initiative which creates mainstream entertainment in many nations around the world, pushing the needle on cultural practices to drive behaviour change on population and even gender violence. PMC produces telenovelas and radionovelas which have seen fertility rates decline in nations they’ve been shown.
Bill and I spend the first half of the episode talking about the population problem, the policy problems, the history of population growth. He then introduces the concept of the demographic dividend, which showed that small families actually lead to economic growth, before explaining the successes and heartwarming stories of the work PMC has done around the world.
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It’s so much more than “climate change”.
The most biodiverse regions of the world are under threat. Beyond the models, the data, the papers and the Twitter spats, the world’s ecosystems are collapsing under the pressure of mankind’s interference, extraction and exploitation. The Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest, has been mined, plumbed and sawed for its resources to the extent it may soon become a carbon emitter as its systems begin to decay. Protecting it is vital in the fight against our own destruction. Paul Rosolie set out to do just that when he was 18 years old.
Paul is a conservationist, writer, speaker, filmmaker, protecting 55000+ acres of Amazonian habitat and wildlife Director of JungleKeepers and Tamandua Expeditions. His memoir, Mother of God, documents his years spent deep in the jungle fighting to save it. Paul joins me to discuss this and more. He reveals the gifts of the Amazon and the lessons to be learned from its inhabitants. He also explains the limitations of typical conservation efforts due to the pressures of our globalised financial system. Finally, he gives a vision for what conservation could be in the future—and a call to action for those who understand the depth of the emergency.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
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“The ways in which we really value property, that to me is an extremely infinite growth capitalism, hyper-masculine and extractive and colonialist thought — this idea that property is as important as like the lives and comfort and kindness that we show people. We must show that same love and kindness and respect to property.
And so in that way, I think that we could redefine nonviolence to include property destruction, destruction of specific property, which is essentially doing violence upon future generations or present generations of people in the global south.”
Are we really going to protect private property at all costs?
That’s the question myself and Rose Abramoff, an earth scientist and activist, circle around this week. We live in a violent world, one in which profiteering infrastructure kills, millions, threatens billions, and is tipping our planet over the edge. In the face of such violence, would sabotaging fossil fuel infrastructure really be an equivalent act of violence? Or would it be a necessary act of sabotage to protect life on earth?
Rose is one of the first earth scientists to be fired for protesting against the climate crisis. We discuss the reality of the emergency, how to view taking action as a science experiment, the different kinds of action around the world, and the ethics of property destruction.
Rose began her career as a forest ecologist and now studies the effect of climate change and land use change on the land carbon cycle, with a focus on plants and soil. As an activist, she works on a variety of environmental justice issues with Scientist Rebellion and other groups. She has engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience targeting colonial resource extraction, luxury emissions, and fossil fuel expansion and funding. Follow her on Twitter, Instagram and Mastodon at @ultracricket
© Rachel Donald
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
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“If you think about how you might get out of this and get to something better, what really matters is the distribution of resources. Who has what? Who holds the wealth? And what are they doing with it? Government borrowing and quantitative easing, this sort of thing, can change some of that, but really when you get down to it, you're going to have to think about how you're going to tax some of that wealth because you need to shift actual resources around. The most effective mechanism we have for doing that is taxation.”
Economics is a pretty bizarre field: A social science masquerading as an actual science, economics inflexibly dictates life, relationships, election manifestos and policy despite none of it being set in stone. The beauty of economics is we can radically overhaul our economic systems and institutions to better serve us, rather than being prey to the outputs of a haggard and worn out system. Such a realisation is, though, beyond the imagination of most economic leaders.
But there are economists out there working to debunk the myths, cut through the noise, and creating policies which would serve both people and planet. James Meadway—former treasury advisor, member of the Progressive Economy Forum council, and the host of the Macrodose podcast—is one of them. He joins me to discuss the emergency and long-term policies we should implement to navigate the climate crisis, the economic crisis, and to radically overhaul and transition our societies to those which support life over productivity. We discuss some alternative frameworks that are being researched around the world, including de-growth and modern monetary theory, whilst James insists that which needs to be re-evaluated is value itself.
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What to do when words get in the way?
We see the world through language, reality shaped by the words we use to signify concepts, systems, relationships and even knowledge. This surreal layer over the world then becomes more true to us than reality itself, shaping desire, hatred, ideology and conviction. Yet, we have evolved with language, we need it to make sense of the experience of being human. So, how do we reimagine our relationship to language so it may reveal the real instead of hide it?
This is what Ray Ison and I discuss in today’s wonderful episode. Ray is a Professor in Systems at the Open University who has been investigating systems and language for decades. We discuss relational dynamics, metaphor theory, knowledge creation, governance, meaning and obfuscation.
Ray also explains other forms of signification and communication being explored in the systems community, and how we can participate with language to deframe the world as we see it and reveal its true complexities.
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So do we have enough materials for a renewable economy or not?
A few months ago, the energy-Twittersphere exploded into debate over Simon Michaux’s report detailing how we lack enough materials and minerals for a renewable economy. I interviewed Simon, a researcher at GTK Finland, about this report, in which he laid out the lack of raw materials and the ecological cost of mining which will impede a renewable energy future.
The report was divisive, with anyone and everyone weighing in on the debate, and more than some name-calling online. Nafeez Ahmed, a systems researcher and investigative journalist who has been reporting on the environment for 20 years, published a detailed piece “debunking” Simon’s report. It caused another stir online, with calls for a debate between the two tweeted from around the world.
Watching this unfold, I was concerned by how those on the same side of the fight can end up at odds, and bemused by the vitriol I witnessed on Twitter in both Simon and Nafeez’s name. Simply, if we can’t learn to speak with one another, what’s the point?
They were both quick to agree to a debate, and had already been engaging over email on the topic. We go into the technical details of the report but also discuss the polarisation of science, the processing of information, the politics and tribalism driving conversation, before exploring the benefits of how an energy transformation can truly transform society.
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How do we unlock the inherent creativity of people?
Imagination activist, Phoebe Tickell, founded Moral Imaginations to provide an imagination-based approach to systems change. A “renegade scientist”, Phoebe has spent the past year training the London borough of Camden in imagination activism. You can read their Phase One report here as they prepare for Phase Two of the project.
Phoebe joins me to discuss the role of imagination in activism, the universality of values in human culture, and the crisis of imagination within the current system. She details the Camden Imagines Project, explaining how 32 officers were trained in moral imagining and the startling impact this has had on the organisation and the borough, revealing some of the fascinating ideas councillors had once their imagination was unleashed.
“Human beings can operate in ways that are deeply loving, collaborative, imaginative, And our big challenge, I think right now, is that we've created an entire mega-structure of institutions, and ways of working, and policies and frameworks, and regulations that actually stop us from responding to the alive sense of what is needed and what we should do: what's needed, what we should do, what's possible. That's what moral imagination gestures at.”
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We need an energy transition—a feminist energy transition.
For years, Cara Daggett has been researching “petromasculinity” and how this patriarchal understanding of energy impacts our relationship to it, ourselves and the fabric with which we bind society. A political scientist at Virginia Tech, Cara’s investigations into the politics of work and feminist approaches to power reveal a new understanding about how global warming emerged—and how to navigate it.
In this thrilling episode, Cara lays out the genealogy of energy back to the nineteenth-century science of thermodynamics to challenge the underlying logic that informs today’s uses of energy. She explains how sexism manifests in our energy systems, how the concept of energy is weaponised by the oil industry, and the anxiety of entropy, exploring the emotional underpinnings of a linear society which is fearful of confronting its own impermanence. She explores feminist energy systems, introducing the three spheres of a feminist energy transition which would see historically feminised work finally valued.
Cara’s book, The Birth of Energy: Fossil Fuels, Thermodynamics, and the Politics of Work was awarded the Clay Morgan Award for best book in environmental political theory. In it she argues that only by transforming the politics of work — most notably, the veneration of waged work — will we be able to confront the Anthropocene's energy problem.
“In the 19th century you did have people starting to warn about coal exhaustion or wonder what happens when fossil fuels are gone, but you still had this economy develop around the sense of limitless expansion. This idea that freedom could come through freeing the constraints that the earth posed to putting the world to work. Fossil fuels really help with this kind of astronomical sense of power, helped to make that fantasy seem possible; this dream, almost, of a free energy. And I think you can see that sometimes mapped onto solar and wind, that one day we will actually have free energy, energy that is somehow unbound from life and the earth and death and decay and all these things.
I think this is really connected to an understanding of freedom that's about this individual independence and liberation from having to depend upon other people and having to depend upon the earth, and as a very masculine understanding, that is not just undervaluing, but also wanting to transcend, care relations and work and all these things that are feminized.”
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Exploitative elites are everywhere—so is resistance
The Global North vs Global South divide fails to capture the reality of power dynamics as national elites extract from their own citizens—often in the name of development. Capitalism funnels wealth to the top in every country, facilitated by a globalised system built on economic growth. But around the world, people are organising to resist these structures, to reclaim their land and their labour in order to benefit their communities. They are modelling alternative ways of being together; they are weaving together possibility.
Ashish Kothari is an environmentalist who has been working at the intersection of environment, biodiversity and development for decades. He’s the founder of Kalpavriksh, an Indian non profit organisation working on environmental and social issues at local, national and global levels. He also organises both the Confluence of Alternatives and the Global Tapestry of Alternatives, projects which bring together people all around India and the world to imagine and strategise alternative ways of being, politics, economies and systems.
We discuss the history of colonialism, the global obsession with economic growth, development as neo-colonialism, global and national inequality, patriarchy and the reality of elite exploitation across all nations. Ashish then goes on to introduce the people’s movements springing up around India, turning imagination into possibility as viable models are trialled which re-embed communities in their land and heal their relationship with the earth.
“What we need are systems across the country, across the globe, of this kind of political and economic localisation where people are able to take control over their ecosystems, their actual resources, their knowledge, their technologies, and also invite knowledge and technologies from outside if they think that what they have is not enough—but in on their own terms. Not being dominated from outside, so the political decision making and the economic decision making is at that local level. It is not with private corporations, nor is it even with the nation state.
“That is what we call radical ecological democracy, or, here in India, we call it eco-swaraj.”
© Rachel Donald
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The Amazon is in trouble—so are its people.
Journalist Heriberto Araujo has been investigating the stories of the Amazon for over a decade. In his forthcoming book: Masters of the Lost Land. The Untold Story of the Amazon and the Violent Fight for the World's Last Frontier he presents a three-year investigation to uncover a widespread underworld of violence, corruption, and impunity that has delivered the riches of the Amazon to a ruthless elite. But in this true crime story, set against the backdrop of the towering Brazilian jungle and unfolding over five decades, not everyone surrenders to the power of guns and money. And that's what makes the story extraordinary.
He joins me to tell the story of Maria Joel Dias Da Costa, the widow of murdered activist, José Dutra da Costa. Dezinho, as he was known, had rallied the rural worker’s union against rampant corruption of wealthy landowners driving deforestation and death through the jungle. He died in the arms of his wife after being shot outside their home. Maria took it upon herself to continue her husband’s work, confronting the political, economic and industry elites to save her home, family and community from these terrible forces.
Heriberto goes on to discuss the fascinating connection between inflation and land-grabbing in the Amazon, explaining how many people take land to protect their interests in an unstable economic climate, before taking a wider overview of Brazilian politics and relationship with China, and the impact that may have on the climate fight in coming years.
“There were many businessmen and wealthy families who saw opportunity and decided to move to the Amazon to expand dramatically the land that they could own. There are some cases which are shocking—some landowners had ranches, or claimed to have ranches, the size of Cuba or Honduras…
“Maria Joel was a normal housewife with four underage children whose husband was murdered. She held her husband in her arms while he was dying. She had two choices. Either she simply move from the region, from this small town, and try to turn the page because she suspected that she would have to confront the economic and the political elite of the town. In one of those momentous situations of her life, she decided to stay in that town no matter the risk. What I found incredibly interesting from my book was exploring the feelings and the doubts and the controversies of a woman who would have chosen another life.”
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
© Rachel Donald
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If we can’t undo the damage, how do we survive it?
Bob Jensen, political theorist, is the co-author of An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Environmental Collapse, Climate Crisis, and the Fate of Humanity. He joined me to discuss the book’s message: transitioning humanely to a more equitable and a smaller society will demand creativity, resilience and community.
In this episode, we swap stories on those themes, telling tales of friends who marked us, communities who are forming in the face on political instability, the importance of storytelling as a tool with which to remind us of the best of humanity. This is a moving interview which intertwines knowledge with emotional honesty in the face of potential collapse.
During, I also introduce a new project, WE WILL BEAR WITNESS, which documents stories from around the world detailing the perils and resistance of this moment in history. Sign up to bear witness.
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© Rachel Donald
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But What Can I Do?
That’s the title of Alastair Campbell’s latest book, a passionate treatise on how broken politics is and what to do about it. His answer? Teaching the youth to oust the old.
Alastair’s message is simple: Learn how to campaign and don’t stop til you win. The original spin doctor, Alastair has decades of experience campaigning as a strategist for Tony Blair’s New Labour government, and then as a mental health campaigner. He’s a prolific writer, co-host of the UK’s top podcast, The Rest is Politics, and remains one of the UK’s most sought-after strategists.
We discuss what the climate campaign needs. Alastair emphasises the importance of getting both power and people onboard, stressing the importance of a unified and simply message to inspire action. He addresses the levers and systems which need to be utilised in Power and Politics, and details the roadblocks of Populism and Polarisation. Finally, we discuss the reality of politicking vs the urgency of the crisis before I ask:
Will you help?
“If enough people get engaged and enough people get involved, don't underestimate the power and the agency that we all have as individuals and, obviously, working together with other people.”
© Rachel Donald
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What if the answer is all of us?
We need to change the system. But if the system is made up of individuals, should we start there? On this week’s episode, Colombian changemaker Isabel Cavalier negates the binary of systems vs individuals, explaining that while cultural change starts from within, its impact and progress can be non-linear—much like climate change. Isabel effortlessly weaves political strategy with spiritual knowledge to explain how culture is the solution to the polycrisis, emphasising that we must re-embed individuals within communities to embody a politics of a better world.
Isabel is a former diplomat who held advisory roles on environmental issues at the Colombian Mission to the United Nations in New York and at the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bogotá. After leaving international politics, Isabel co-founded Transforma, a prominent Bogota-based environmental think tank. She is a writer, story-teller and potter, who trained as a lawyer and in socio-cultural studies at the University of Los Andes. She has a Master of Laws from the University of Cambridge. She has worked and published in diverse fields including human rights, racial and gender discrimination, and climate change.
“We are able to reinvent ourselves infinitely. That's the capacity of life on earth. Reality is fractal. What we see in a city is a reflection of its inhabitants. What we see in a community is a reflection of people who are part of that community. This means that. It's not that you need to forget the systemic vision; the cultural shift we are looking at is not a cultural shift of becoming more individualistic and autonomous. It’s the opposite. It's understanding that we are interdependent, that we live in systems and not in isolation. Nobody can survive in a bubble by themselves. Not an individual, not a local community, not a municipality, not a city, not a country. Nobody.”
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
© Rachel Donald
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How can we know so much and yet continue to live so dangerously?
Gregg Henriques has been working on this problem for over 20 years. He believes the problem lies with our knowledge systems, which arise from the Enlightenment but fail to make sense of the fundamental system through which we understand the world—ourselves, our own psychology. He says we need a second enlightenment, enlightenment in order to repair our relationship with ourselves, the world, one another, and with knowledge so we can respond to the climate crisis and build a better world for all.
“Science afforded us a partial understanding of the world which emerged in the enlightenment. What I'm saying is they gave us physics and chemistry and biology pretty nicely. But it broke at the level of psychology, the social sciences and, in particular, how to connect sciences to the humanities.
“As a function of that breakdown we built this entire institutional structure—but we don't have the wisdom to coordinate ourselves. We're flying blind with an enormous amount of power, but not wisdom. Part of the reason we don't have wisdom is because our knowledge systems are inadequate and broken.”
Gregg Henriques is a a Full Professor and a core faculty member in James Madison University's Combined-Integrated Clinical and School Psychology Doctoral Program. He’s the author of A New Unified Theory of Psychology, and writes the Theory of Knowledge blog on Psychology Today. He’s a leader in the Unified Psychotherapy Movement, which attempts to use meta-theory to achieve an effective integrative scheme for the various psychotherapy paradigms. He’s also interested in synthetic approaches to philosophy, and leads a group called the Theory of Knowledge Society, which hosted its first conference in April (2018), titled: Toward a Big Theory of Knowledge.
He is currently developing a systematic evaluation of character functioning and well-being (called the Well-being Checkup), examining an approach to psychological mindfulness called "CALM MO" (which stands for developing a Curious, Accepting, Loving-compassionate, and Motivated toward valued states of being Metacognitive-Observer) and researching the college student mental health crisis and what might be done about it.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
© Rachel Donald
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"Here we are at a crossroads of human history. There's never been this historical confluence of war, political instability, economic vulnerability, on top of the impending ecological apocalypse.
Here we are, just marinated in death reminders. And what we know from our research is that that turns us into depressed, demoralized, proto fascists plundering the planet in our insatiable desire for dollars and dross in an alcohol-oxycodone-TikTok-twittering stupor.
This is not a great position to be in."
Are you afraid of dying?
Sheldon Solomon has been researching death anxiety and its impact on our behaviour for decades, finding that unmitigated death awareness drives mindless consumption, political polarisation and more disordered behaviour. In short, our fear of death could be driving the climate crisis.
We discuss the link between death awareness and self-awareness, how cultural beliefs are used to anesthetize death anxiety, how Western culture has the ironic effect of exacerbating that very anxiety that it's trying to solve, and why the solutions lie with imagination and creativity.
Sheldon Solomon is Professor of Psychology at Skidmore College. His studies of the effects of the uniquely human awareness of death on behaviour were featured in the award winning documentary film Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality. He is co-author of In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror and The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
© Rachel Donald
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The climate fight is a fight for children’s rights.
When Carter Dillard began researching family planning systems he found a fallacy in international policy: The Children’s Rights Convention, ratified by the UN, entitles children to health, education, well-being and fulfilled potential—but no country implements family planning systems around these rights. Family planning systems are based around what parents want, not what children need. Every country, in effect, is breaking the Children’s Rights Convention.
Why? For economic growth.
Carter’s research shows a series of policy interventions in the 20th century made family planning a private matter. This absolved states of the responsibility to invest in children and redistribute wealth, whilst guaranteeing a boom in population to feed the economic machine.
“If we'd had to invest in children to give them everything they need to ensure that children are born in what, in the conditions that comply with the convention, we would not have had growth.”
Carter is the author of the Justice as a Fair Start in Life: Understanding the Right to Have Children, and thePolicy Director of the Fair Start Movement, an organisation committed to raising awareness of the Children’s Rights Convention. They are currently petitioning the UN Human Rights Council claiming the UN has misinterpreted the right to have children, and have forthcoming constitutional litigation in the USA. He joins me to discuss this work, his research into the history of family planning, and the impact of climate change on children. He also provides a vision for reframing family planning reform as an active climate policy which could advocate systemic change through one simple message: that everybody deserves a fair start in life.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
© Rachel Donald
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Which papers are telling the truth? And which are giving inches to climate skeptics?
In this episode, Lucy McAllister, Assistant Professor in Environmental Studies at Denison University, explains how journalism's obsession with "balance" causes bias in climate reporting. She walks us through new research which shows how climate coverage accuracy has improved since the initial findings in 2004, but that there is still a significant divide between left-leaning and right-wing papers, specifically those owned by Rupert Murdoch.
She also reveals how the tactics of muddling the discourse has become more sophisticated, with column inches now being given to climate skeptics or discourses of delays. Combatting this is critical, Lucy says, pointing to solutions journalism as critical in the fight to "reframe" narratives to empower communities around the world.
“We're seeing media more accurately representing the science on climate change—climate change is happening, it's caused by humans. Now we're seeing in terms of climate action that climate skeptics, deniers, or discourses of delay, are being given more space in the news article, more power than like a relevant climate expert or policymaker.
“So they're getting the science right but then when they're talking about the actual solution and action moving forward, we're still seeing this problematic balance issue where one side is being favored.”
Referenced Papers/Articles:
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Balance as Bias: global warming and the US prestige press
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Balance as bias, resolute on the retreat? Updates & analyses of newspaper coverage in the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and Canada over the past 15 years
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Positive, global, and health or environment framing bolsters public support for climate policies
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Tactical framing around the Green New Deal
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Discourses of Climate Delay
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Media Representations of Climate Change: A Meta-Analysis of the Research Field
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The International Reporting of Climate Scepticism
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The 2021 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: code red for a healthy future
Lucy McAllister is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Denison University. Prior to this position, she worked at the Technical University of Munich, Babson College, and Boston College. Lucy's interdisciplinary research focuses on the framing of overlapping global environmental injustices—climate change and hazardous waste—and the disproportionate impact on minorities, women, children, future generations, and other stigmatized groups. Broadly, her research explores how we communicate and perceive social harms and environmental injustices, and therefore informs work on inclusive, interdisciplinary solutions. She has published research in several outlets, such as Environmental Research Letters, The Lancet, The Lancet Planetary Health, Health and Human Rights, Science and Engineering Ethics, and the Sociology of Development. Lucy is a part of the research group at the Media and Climate Change Observatory, University of Colorado Boulder.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
© Rachel Donald
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You can’t go green without going small.
Our fossil-fuelled economy is destabilising the planet. But a renewable economy might not be much better. Simon Michaux and his team at the Geological Survey of Finland have been researching how much minerals and materials we have on earth to build our renewable energy. They’ve found that we simply do not have enough—and mining for those materials would bears a huge environmental cost.
On this episode, Simon walks us through the research, the possible outcomes from calculated energy contraction to collapse, what policymakers are doing with this information, and how the geopolitics of the US-China proxy war could make the green transition impossible for the West.
“Renewables get cheaper when it's still a small system. But if it can be shown that we don't have enough minerals in the ground to make a replacement system, we will hit an asymptote in the market where all of a sudden there's now scarcity of metal supply, and the systems you want to use are no longer available on the market…
“So when I say st's gonna get real, it’s when the mining industry now has to run in a situation where it is on non-fossil fuel systems only; the manufacturing supply chain at the moment is only conceptual and we just haven't thought it through. Fossil fuels are a hidden subsidy for everything. Take that away and you've now got a hidden penalty.
“I think a lot of mining and a lot of manufacturing will just simply stop.”
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
© Rachel Donald
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When institutions fail—communities take back control.
Community organising has never been more important in a world where people are increasingly isolated from one another, competing in a deliberately precarious market, dislocated from their culture, their land, their history. We experienced the power of community resilience during the pandemic, and the deep desire to help and rebuild. Humankind has a long history of doggedly overcoming the odds when facing a crisis. But we don’t have to rely on a crisis to push us over the edge—and the coming crisis will be much worse than anything we’ve ever experienced.
CIVIC SQUARE in Birmingham is infrastructure for the public good, embedded in the local community’s needs, dreams and desires. Launched by the team who ran Impact Hub for five years, CIVIC SQUARE is reimagining the public space as a neighbourhood that fosters the convening of ideas in a participatory ecosystem.
Immy Kaur is the co-founder of CIVIC SQUARE. She explains the history of community organising which led to this immense project, detailing how to leverage systemic change and nurture imagination. She explains the history between public good, government and industry, the importance of knowledge, and the role communities will face in the upcoming crisis.
See also WeCanMake in Bristol.
“You get to a stage where those systems are crumbling. You start to see a resilience, an organising, a healing, a coming together, that cannot be organised by the conglomerates, that cannot be manipulated by the mainstream media.”
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
© Rachel Donald
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How can we change an economic system that has a life of its own?
10,000 years ago, homo sapiens began farming a grain surplus. This surplus led to the creation of societal and cultural hierarchies which divorced our species from our long relationship with the natural world.
This week’s guest, Lisi Krall, argues that our current economic system of fossil-fuelled capitalism is an interpretation of that same system—and we must repair our relationship to the more-than-human world if we are to change the system. But it is a momentous challenge. One, she argues, we must not think culture alone can overcome.
Lisi Krall is a Professor of Economics at the State University of New York Cortland where she researches political economy, human ecology, and the evolution of economic systems. She's also the author of Bitter Harvest: An Inquiry into the War Between Economy and Earth.
“Agriculture severs the ties of humans to the more-than-human world. We're no longer embedded in the rhythm and dynamic of the more-than-human world.
“But the development of capitalism is a particular institutional and energetic interpretation of what began with agriculture. You get this expansive, dynamic, interdependent system, growth system that functions unto itself as if it isn't connected to its biophysical roots.”
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
© Rachel Donald
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Our scientific model of the universe is changing.
From the mechanistic, rational ideas of the 20th century, physics is now understanding that the universe itself is conscious—that we are all expressions of consciousness. Looks like those indigenous teachers were right.
On this episode, Jude Currivan, cosmologist and author of The Story of Gaia, walks us through all of the evidence we have to suggest that the universe is conscious, from the latest Nobel Prize Award in physics to thousands of years of spiritual wisdom. Jude then explains the necessity of a new worldview of unity and wholeness to help mitigate the crises that we are seeing, whether these are human crises or the climate crisis, and become the next stage in this evolution of universal consciousness.
“Our universe, we're now discovering, is innately intelligent, and its innate intelligence is meaningfully informed in a way through the laws of physics and through their relationships to enable it to not just exist, but to evolve from that first moment 13.8 billion years ago—from its initial simplicity to ever greater levels of complexity and diversity.”
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
© Rachel Donald
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What if we educated young people in how to change the world?
Black Mountains College is the world’s first college dedicated to the climate crisis. The inaugural Bachelors, Sustainability: Arts, Ecology and Systems Change launches this September, aiming to educate young people in how to navigate the polycrisis, and how to steer us to safety. Set in the heart of the Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales, BMC focuses on the challenge of our times: how to build a fair and just society within safe planetary boundaries.
Owen Sheers, the college co-founder joins me to discuss the college and its aims. Owen is a writer and professor in creative practice at Swansea University. Along with his co-founder, Ben Rawlence, they’ve put creativity and systems thinking at the heart of this educational experiment, firmly believing that unlocking the imagination of young people—along with teaching them the connectivity and complexity of the natural world—will give our future leaders the knowledge and ideas we need to implement to build a better world.
“The climate crisis, the ecological crisis, is a wicked problem. You can't address it by following a single discipline, it's entirely interrelated, and our learning in the face of it has to be as well. This isn't going to work if we stay within our silos.”
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
© Rachel Donald
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We’re in planetary overshoot. So why are governments coercing women into having children?
Nandita Bajaj is the Executive Director of Population Balance, an organisation offering education and solutions to address the intersectional impacts of human overpopulation and over consumption on the planet, people and animals. Nandita also co-hosts The Overpopulation Podcast, and teaches at the Institute for humane education at Antioch university, where she researches prenatal ism and human supremacy and their impacts on reproductive ecological and intergenerational justice.
This episode is about the dangers of pronatalism. Nandita reveals how the coercive pronatalist policies around the world coupled with cultural mechanisms are causing a devastating impact on the planet. She also explains how existing power structures benefit from a growing population, illustrating how our economic obsession with growth demands exponential population growth. Nandita also explores the elevation of rights—human, species and natural—as a cornerstone climate policy to tackle population and create a sustainable world for everyone, and everything.
“Who benefits from shaming people who do not have children, or glorifying large families? Pushing marriage, pushing children, keeps corporations, the baby industry, the car industry, the housing industry, the property development industry, in business.
“All lines, for the most part, lead to growth: Growth in your own kind, growth in GDP, growth in consumerism, growth of religion, growth of a certain ethnic tribe. And all of those things undermine not just reproductive autonomy, they undermine the rights of the children that are simply seen as commodities to continue on that growth.”
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
© Rachel Donald
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People all around the world wonder what makes human beings so special. One scientist flipped the question on its head: What got in the way of other species developing a similar consciousness?
Ajit Varki met Danny Bower, the man behind the theory, by chance at a conference. They spoke for two hours and never met again. Bower died before having published his theory, but Varki received the manuscript from Danny’s widow. Denial: Self-Deception, False Beliefs, and the Origins of the Human Mind proposes a new theory of the origins of the human species. Bower and Varki suggest that human beings became aware of their own mortality and simultaneously, to deal with the terror of that knowledge, developed a profound capacity for reality denial.
Ajit Varki is a physician-scientist and distinguished professor of medicine and cellular and molecular medicine, co-director of the Glycobiology Research and Training Center at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and co-director of the UCSD/Salk Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA).
“Everywhere you look, humans are ignoring reality – earthquakes happen and people go back and build in the same space again: “It's not gonna happen to me.”
“What is optimism? Denial of reality. What is extreme optimism? Extreme denial of reality. If you didn't have optimism, humans couldn't move forward. We just ignore everything. We corrupt reality at our will look. Just look around the world today and see what's going on. What person on the people on the planet today is not ignoring reality?”
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
© Rachel Donald
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What if a nation built policies for the future, not the election cycle?
Sophie Howe was the world’s first “commissioner for the unborn”, appointed to steer Welsh politics away from short-term electoral goals to long-term policies that protect the population and planet. During her seven year term she achieved incredible successes—including stopping all new road planning projects in the nation.
Sophie joins me to discuss the Future Generations Act, the progressive piece of legislation that led to her appointment and makes it statutory that the Welsh government keep seven long-term goals in mind: prosperity, resilience, health, equality, community, culture and global responsibility. She explains how the Act has transformed education, culture and political thinking in the modest nation in a short time—and why other governments around the world are putting their own Acts through parliament as we speak.
“You wouldn't think it was revolutionary for a country to have a set of long-term goals but it's completely revolutionary. There's no other country in the world that has that. It's all just short-term electoral cycles, so nobody really knows where we are, and therein lies the problem with the ageing population, with addressing issues around automation and AI, with addressing issues around climate.
“These things span way beyond, and so the political system doesn't account for them. So having these seven long-term goals, it means, for Wales, we know where we're going.”
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
© Rachel Donald
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If politics is broken—what's the alternative?
Indra Adnan is an author, political entrepreneur and psychosocial therapist. She's also the founder of The Alternative UK political platform and a global consultant on soft power. For over twenty years, Indra has been writing, consulting, network-building and event-organising on the themes of future politics, conflict transformation, the role of the arts and integral thinking.
She joins me to discuss the problem with narratives peddled by mainstream media, the power of story, and how to reimagine the story of now in order to get people excited about building a new future together. This episode covers so much, exploring conflict, creativity, education, the economy, disconnection, and gives a vision of a new politics centred around relationships.
“Conflict can be the very thing that shows you what's wrong: there's something amiss with our relationships in this society, we need to flush this out. If you're doing it well, it can lead to the transformation of that society.
“But if you're simply buying into the conflict as an opportunity to gain power over the other side, that it's a zero sum game, then it's going to lead to violence.”
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it.
© Rachel Donald
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Dave Jones is the Head of Data Insights at Ember, a think tank helping shift the world from coal to clean energy—rapidly.
Dave joined me to discuss the energy transition, going into detail about the impact of coal, gas and oil before comparing our renewable options. He reveals the nations around the world leading the renewable race, the supply chain weaknesses that need to be addressed, and, as ever, the necessity of energy demands vs desires.
“We need to get beyond just thinking about coal and gas power, and to be thinking about like the extra electrification of all the other sectors coming on, because that's gonna hit us really hard in the next few years….
“It's not hitting us at the moment, we’re seeing it fall at the moment. But we know that we’re going to get this big increase coming in the next few years, and trying to keep an eye on that, trying to make sure that we’re putting that into our calculations —Christ, we’re going to have to build an awful lot of clean electricity for all of this.”
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it.
© Rachel Donald
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Benjamin Franta is the founder of the Climate Litigation Lab at the University of Oxford, informing climate litigation around the world. The lab researches how to bring—and win— lawsuits against companies, institutions, and individuals who have aided and abetted public deception, the suppression of information, and put the whole world in danger by driving the climate crisis.
In the episode, Ben reveals the “fossil fuel playbook”, explaining the industry’s long history of suppressing information about its impacts on the climate, and twisting the arms of the powerful in order to stop governmental action. He also discusses the lawsuits happening around the world, the fossil fuel defence, and what we can learn from these cases to reform the intimate relationship between corporate and political interests.
“Those companies also knew, and we know this from their internal documents, that to avoid severe global warming they needed to act then. They needed to start replacing fossil fuels then. When governments tried to act, fossil fuel companies banded together and came up with a playbook to stop that from happening…
“We could see trials in this climate litigation. We could also see the biggest settlement in legal history potentially because the damages are so enormous.”
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it.
© Rachel Donald
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Fadhel Kaboub is a former Associate Professor of Economics at Denison University where he researched political economy, decarbonisation, colonialism, and the financial and agricultural policies necessary to facilitate a global—and just—green transition. Since recording, Fadhel has been appointed Under-Secretary-General for Financing for Development at the international intergovernmental organisation, Organisation of Educational Cooperation.
This episode is thrilling. Fadhel explains the traps of inflation, debt, globalisation, and the financial and agricultural policies weaponised by the global north to exploit the global south. He walks us through the three structural traps which keep wealth pouring out of the global south into the global north, amounting to modern colonialism. And he explains why we can afford a just transition, revealing the exciting mechanisms of Modern Monetary Theory by exploring the solutions global south countries can implement to ensure their sustainable development.
"You can't decarbonise a system that hasn't been decolonized yet, economically speaking. Similarly, you can't democratise a system that hasn't been decolonised yet.
Because you can't meet the aspirations of your people and meet their needs in terms of food or housing or quality of life if your economic paralyses you and prevents you from serving those needs, and requires of you to serve the needs of the global supply chains in manufacturing or energy and so on."
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it.
© Rachel Donald
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Kim Stanley Robinson is a science fiction writer and author of the acclaimed novel, The Ministry for the Future. Set in the near future, this work of climate fiction explores the geopolitical, technological, political and economic demands of the climate crisis, imagining how nations around the world will respond to its impacts—resulting in the destruction and reimagining of the world order.
Stan joins me to discuss the role of writing, of art, of fiction in particular in the face of a crisis. He gives a fascinating overview of science fiction’s response to the world over the past few decades, exploring the role of stories, narrative, and how citizens can both grapple with and demand change in their societies.
“History is malleable and is constantly changing in people's heads. I say there was a moment that was intensely revolutionary in the new wave science fiction between 1965 and 1975. Then, along with Reagan and Thatcher, came this kind of reactionary, defeatist science fiction, sometimes called cyberpunk. And that was dispiriting, and science fiction kind of lost its way and fantasy came in to replace it.
“So I have a macro story for even my own field that is very personal, but what I can say is that now it has blown up. There are scores of writers with scores of stories coming at it from every possible angle trying to say, we can make a better world. In other words, I think utopia keeps rising to the top; the story of things getting better is something that people are hungry for, and so people keep writing it. And sometimes it does feel like magical thinking. Other times it's like social planning.”
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it.
© Rachel Donald
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Max Ajl is a fellow at Ghent university researching the climate and agrarian issues. He's also the author of the acclaimed A People’s Green New Deal, a “radical alternative” to the Green New Deals peddled by government institutions over the past years.
Max joined me to discuss the necessity of land reform in the global green transition, explaining the importance of peasants, the relationship between land, production and debt, and how the post-colonial nations can liberate themselves from the late stage capitalist economy inflicted upon them by the global north.
“In many post-colonial countries, if the issue is that you have an excess of labour, which is the case across Latin America, Africa, West Asia, you actually have capacity to mobilise labour and apply it to land. And the best way to do that is to carry out an agrarian reform, to actually increase the size of the units of land available to the poorest people…
“Automatically, you would increase national production and you would increase the wellbeing of the poorest sectors of your population. So this is actually a developmental imperative. Therefore, unless there's some overriding ecological reason to say we shouldn't be doing that, then it should be an overriding developmental imperative in any form of green transition.”
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it.
© Rachel Donald
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Brian Czech, founder of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy, is an ecological economist and former conservation biologist. Brian joined me just after returning from COP15 and, thankfully, says the fallacy of economic growth is finally being discussed at these critical conferences.
On the episode, Brian explains the relationship between economics and the planet’s biosphere before introducing steady state economics, an economic model which prioritises stability and the protection of planetary boundaries. He also describes his time working for the US government, and walks us through the trophic theory which dismantles any techno-utopian argument that we can innovate our way out of the climate crisis and continue to enjoy growth for growth’s sake.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it.
© Rachel Donald
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In July, I recorded a roundtable with six of my former guests. The aim was to create an interdisciplinary assessment of the climate crisis, and what to do about it. Today, you can listen to the roundtable here, or watch it on Youtube.
There were six fascinating presentations, each followed by a round of questions. This is what to expect:
Maximum Power Principle in Biology & EconomicsCarey King, research scientist and Assistant Director at the University of Texas Energy Institute
Global Climate CompensationHenrik Nordborg, Physics Professor and Renewable Energy and Environmental Technology Program Director at the Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences
MEER & Warming MitigationYe Tao, Physicist and Founder
Carbon Credit CurrencySteve Keen, Economist and Academic
Economy 3.0: Networked Societies & Energy StandardChris Cook, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Security and Resilience Studies at University College London
Oligarchy & Energy Systems PrinciplesSally Goerner, Director of Edinburgh University’s Planetary Health Lab
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© Rachel Donald
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Wendy Schultz is an academically trained futurist with over thirty-five years of global foresight practice. Director at Infinite Futures, she has designed futures research projects for NGOs, government agencies, and businesses.
Wendy and I discuss the Law in the Emerging Bio-Age report she recently published, which asked how legal structures can support second chances at improving human relations with living systems and our planet. We also discuss how to bridle the finance industry to support a just transition, the role of activism, governments’ relationship to information, and, more generally, how to solve wicked problems.
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“The public do trust science and scientists more than probably any other social group, according to social surveys. The public have expectations on scientists that they will speak out if they see issues of national or social concern because they expect that scientists are working in the public good.
“So what’s the responsibility on us as academics then, knowing what we know, knowing that we're heading for disaster, knowing that that governments aren't doing nearly enough to avert it, in fact are actually pouring fuel on the fire? What do we do? And I think for us to not then speak out about that, to not resist, that would be to really fail in our duty, both as scholars, but also as citizens.”
Aaron Thierry is an ecologist and environmental activist. After spending years on the frontline of the climate crisis in the Arctic, Aaron now researches the communication strategies of activist organisations, examining the interplay between reason and emotion in the climate emergency movement.
Aaron joins me to discuss his research, explaining the positive impact of scientists rebelling against government inaction, and why all academics must broaden their understanding of their role as educators to warn their students of the realities of the crisis. Aaron explains the benefits of a decentralised activist movement sharing one single coherent message—and, in doing so, reveals the true sunken cost of fossil fuel infrastructure that will likely send us well over the 1.5 degree limit.
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© Rachel Donald
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“How long do we keep pretending that capitalism works? How long are we going to keep pretending that there is such a thing as objectivity? How long are we going to keep pretending that we're not in a runaway climate crisis? Systems are literally collapsing – the UK is in massive crisis, the United States is in massive crisis. These countries are seen as the leaders of the western world in a lot of ways and the reality is neither country is even a democracy anymore. We're a corporatocracy at best.
“What happens in countries where there's not legitimate journalism in the mainstream is you end up with a society that's overwhelmed with information. In the United States, huge swaths of the country can't even tell truth from fiction, which is something that Hannah Arendt in Origins of Totalitarianism warned: the best subject for totalitarian rule is not someone with a certain political bias, but someone who literally just can't tell truth from fiction anymore.”
Dahr Jamail is an award-winning journalist and author, who was one of the few independent journalists to report extensively from the ground during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Dahr later became a climate reporter, tracking climate disruption around the world and collating his knowledge in the wonderful book, The End of Ice.
Dahr joined me to discuss what’s going wrong with journalism and how to create a journalism which can respond to the climate crisis. We discuss information pollution in the mainstream media, the fallacy of objectivity, the corruption of profit-maximising goals, self-selecting biases, and how the abject failures of the mainstream media have disempowered, disengaged and confused populaces around the world—making them ripe for manipulation by populists.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it.
© Rachel Donald
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“How do we challenge the hegemony and change it, and start to plan for a future for our children, for our grandchildren, for our great grandchildren? That is the great challenge. But as I've been implying, it's really something which is or should be an incredibly mainstream and commonsensical point of view. Everybody cares about their children having a decent life, and that means they care about their grandchildren and their great grandchildren and their great, great grandchildren having a decent life.
“So this is why perhaps this can be a hopeful moment that the kind of shift that we're talking about here, which is very, very far from where the UK government in particular is right now, is one which should be and can be and, I think, is deeply and widely appealing to a broad spectrum of people.”
Rupert Read is an ecological philosopher and activist. Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, Rupert has written over a dozen books whilst campaigning for the climate with the Green Party and Extinction Rebellion. His recent work focuses on the precautionary principle—examining how humankind often fails to act cautiously despite not having enough evidence to warrant our choices and decisions. This can be applied both to the climate crisis and the development of AI.
Rupert joins me to discuss truth, counter-histories, chance, through-topias, and the moderate flank—the next branch of activism which seeks to recruit those resistant to the radical action which more commonly makes the headline. Don’t fancy throwing soup at paintings or shutting down roads? There are myriad ways we can all get involved in resisting the fossil-fuel economy and demand change. Rupert reveals the many campaigns happening in the UK for those who want to take action but don’t know where to start.
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© Rachel Donald
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Ella Saltmarshe is “incorrigibly plural” — an anthropologist by training, Ella is a writer, activist, organiser, founder and narrative strategist with experience in public policy and international development. Ella works at the intersection of stories and the climate crisis, channeling her immense creative energy and agency into creating a world we can leave behind for generations to come.
Alongside discussing Ella’s impressive work in the narrative field, which includes helping policy-makers around the world reframe their understanding of the future to consider our long-term impacts and responsibilities, we delve into the principles of storytelling, the fight against propaganda, short-term vs long-term thinking, and the fascinating concept of considering oneself an ancestor to future generations.
© Rachel Donald
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Laurie Laybourn is a policy researcher and author. He leads Cohort 2040, which explores how to deepen rapid action toward a more sustainable and equitable world even as the effects of the environmental crisis get far worse. Laurie is a visiting fellow at Chatham House and at the Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter, as well as an associate fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). He is a regular commentator on TV and radio and co-author of Planet on Fire (Verso 2021).
We discuss the opportunity in crisis moments throughout history, with Laurie revealing the best policies for navigating the climate crisis, nationally and internationally, as well as those for a sustainable future. He also explains how the our current fiscal ideologies, including our relationship to debt, impedes necessary climate action around the world whilst hobbling the global south’s capacity to respond to increasing catastrophes. Laurie says the climate crisis is a fiscal problem—could reimagining fiscal policies keep 1.5 alive?
© Rachel Donald
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Charlie Gardner is a conservationist, activist and writer. An outspoken member of Scientist Rebellion, Charlie left academia last year to focus on raising the climate alarm through civil disobedience and science communication.
Charlie joins me to discuss why scientists feel forced to choose activism. After decades of ignored data, warnings and suggestions, these same scientists who have been fighting to understand the crisis are taking to the streets to be heard.
We discuss ecological systems, energy policy, corrupt politics, media, Extinction Rebellion, how to engage the public and how people can get involved in the face of disastrous inaction. Just this week, a new report on the state of climate action looked at 40 indicators of change and found not a single one is on track to keep the world from heating to the level at which world leaders promised to try to stop global warming.
© Rachel Donald
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Kate Raworth is a renegade economist focused on making economics fit for 21st century realities. Senior Associate at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, she is the creator of the Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries, and co-founder of Doughnut Economics Action Lab.
Kate joins me to discuss Doughnut Economics, her radical theory of a regenerative and distributive economics model which protects both planet and citizens. This is an economy which prioritises well-being, rejects the market principles and profit-maximisation, and enables the principles of community and creativity to flourish.
We discuss the fallacy of growth and neoliberalism, the extractivism of “developed” nations, long-termism vs short-termism, and the principles of regeneration and distribution. Kate also shares success stories from the communities and local governments implementing the doughnut model.
© Rachel Donald
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John Vervaeke is a cognitive scientist at the University of Toronto and world renowned thinker, bridging science and spirituality in order to understand the experience of meaningfulness: how to cultivate it and why it’s crucial for human beings.
John joins me to discuss “the meaning crisis”—the global phenomenon of modern humans having access to so much, and yet so little profundity. Referencing neurobiology, faith and behavioural science, John explains the impact the meaning crisis is having on individuals all around the world, and what to do about it.
We then explore its intersection with the metacrisis, and the historical traditions which are the root of our global energy, economic and climate crisis. Critically, John says we cannot solve the climate crisis without addressing the cultural forces driving the meaning crisis
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it.
© Rachel Donald
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Matt Leighninger is the Head of Democracy Innovation at the National Conference on Citizenship. A pioneer in democracy innovation, Matt’s spent the past 20 years working on improving our political processes, from researching voting reforms to bringing technology into a typically analogue space; he engineered the Text, Talk, Act campaign under Obama’s presidency to encourage active citizenship in the youth.
Matt joins me to discuss what we can do about our increasing polarized society, insisting we must move beyond thinking about “saving” democracy and focus our energies on improving it.
Explaining we currently run 21st century democracies with 20th century institutions, Matt introduces democratic innovations which are being used all over the world by cities and nations alike. He also explains the limitations elected officials face and the importance of deliberative processes in any democracy.
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© Rachel Donald
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John Harvey, The Cowboy Economist, is a Professor of Economics at Texas Christian University, Forbes columnist, and author of Contending Perspectives in Economics: A Guide to Contemporary Schools of Thought.
He joins me to discuss the history of capitalism—how we went from Friedman and Hayek’s ideas of the free market to a deregulated monstrosity driving inequality and the climate crisis—how the Cold War influenced neoclassical economics, and how to reimagine the relationship between governments, the private sector and citizens to create an alternative to capitalism.
John says, “Economics is dead".” The British government certainly seem hell-bent on proving it with PM Truss and Chancellor Kwarteng delivering a neoliberal mini-budget the likes of which we’ve never seen. But here’s the thing—that neoliberal madness was rejected by people and markets alike.
Is the world ready for something new?
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Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it.
© Rachel Donald
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Jon Alexander is the co-founder of the New Citizens Project and author of Citizens: Why The Key To Fixing Everything Is All Of Us. A former award-winner in the advertising world, Jon advises companies and communities on the power of narrative, helping them reclaim and restructure the stories they tell to in order to empower the shift from consumer to citizen.
Jon joined me to discuss this very problem: How do we shift the paradigm from consumer to citizen? Building on his book, he explains how how human history has shifted from the subject paradigm, to consumer, and the necessary move to a collective and community-based citizen world. He gives riveting examples of this happening all around the world today, revealing the power of the stories we choose to tell—and which we choose to suppress.
We also discuss deliberative democracy, the theory of narrative, and the framework of systems. Jon’s powerful message is: If you want to build a new system, you must simply begin. We cannot know where we’re going exactly, but we’ll never get there if we don’t start.
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Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it.
© Rachel Donald
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Phoebe Barnard is a biologist, global change scientist, and policy analyst with decades of experience confronting some of the most pressing problems of our time, bridging the gap between academia and government. She’s also CEO of the Stable Planet Alliance, a coalition of scientific, legal, social, health, media, policy, leadership, faith, culture, and grassroots organizations tackling the overpopulation and hyperconsumption problem.
Phoebe joins me to discuss overpopulation—its effects, our trajectory, and the difficult decisions we face as a species. She argues we must reduce our population to 3 billion in the next century if planet earth is to survive, and us along with it, warning that population reduction policies may be forced on citizens in the future if we do not choose for ourselves now.
We discuss the morality and politics of overpopulation, addressing the West’s all-too-recent history of eugenics and ethnic cleansing. We then explore population reduction as an intergenerational right: There may be less of us in the future, but those future people may be better off for it.
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Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it.
© Rachel Donald
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Robbie Watt is a Lecturer in Politics at the University of Manchester, researching climate change politics, carbon markets, global governance, and critical theory. His article, The Fantasy of Carbon Offsetting, was runner-up for Environmental Politics journal's best article award 2021.
Robbie joins me to discuss the moral economy of offsetting schemes, the politics of climate change, and how power depoliticises spaces to maintain control. This is an episode all about power dynamics—where they hide and how to reveal them.
Join us as we blast through psychoanalysis, postmodernism and Marx to find the right words to describe the greatest problem humankind faces: Critical Climate Theory (you heard it here first).
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it.
© Rachel Donald
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Trevor Hilder is an IT expert and cybernetics specialist who worked under Stafford Beer to develop the Viable System Model.
Trevor joins me to explain how systems malfunction, why organisations crumble under complexity, and how to build resilient systems by infusing them with values. He explains the Viable System Model, walking us through the key components based on cybernetics and management theory.
We discuss the universal laws of organising and how to apply the VSM to the climate crisis, politics and globalisation. Trevor also teaches the Viable System Model to organisations and individuals. If you’re interested in learning more, email him: trevor.hilder@webofwealth.org
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it.
© Rachel Donald
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George Mobus is Professor Emeritus at University of Washington, Tacoma. His broad academic background saw him conduct research on artificial intelligence, cybernetics and systems science.
George joins me to discuss how systems science is failing to grasp the polycrisis—that the field has been split into silos, leaving most systems scientists without the tools to model the complexity of the emergency we face.
He also explains the neurological limits of individual human wisdom, suggesting the agricultural revolution affected our capacity for abstract thinking, before revealing how humans can work past those limits—collectively.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it.
© Rachel Donald
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Max Wilbert is an activist, wilderness guide and writer, co-authoring Bright Green Lies: How The Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It.
Max reveals how mainstream environmentalism is merely a proponent for green growth and business as usual. He says this comfortable form of environmentalism, which sees people trade in their cars for electric vehicles and go meatless only on Mondays, is a damaging distraction to the real work which has to be done: Systemic change.
We also discuss his years protesting resource extraction, the role of technology, and the trauma of the West’s colonialism.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it.
© Rachel Donald
Chris Smaje is a social scientist, farmer, and author of A Small Farm Future: Making the Case for a Society Built Around Local Economies, Self-Provisioning, Agricultural Diversity, and a Shared Earth.
Chris joins me for a fascinating discussion about the political importance of land, its historical context, the current inefficiencies of farming, and the liberation people can find in reclaiming land and the capacity to produce their own food.
We also discuss the historical framing of peasantry and serfdom, and offer new narratives which could galvanisee urbanised populations to rebuild their relationships to land, food and independence.
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Susan Krumdieck is a mechanical engineer, Professor of Engineering at Heriot Watt University, Chair of the university’s Energy Transition, and author of Transition Engineering: Building a Sustainable Future.
Susan joins me to discuss how a sustainable future is possible by starting with engineering principles. Rather than focusing on politics and economics, which can only react in the short-term, engineering provides long-term vision, planning and design which will reimagine a sustainable world—and drag politics and economics into the future.
She explains the inefficiencies of fossil-fuel economies, how renewable economies will automatically contract (hello, degrowth), and how sustainable engineering can provide a better quality of life for every being on the planet. We also have a lovely conversation on the importance of narrative: start with scientific principles, but sell them as a story.
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Caroline Lucas is the UK Green Party’s first Member of Parliament, elected to represent Brighton and Hove in the 2010 General Election. Caroline has won every subsequent election, increasing her majority each time, and has twice led the Green Party in the UK.
Caroline joins me to discuss the dangerous climate ignorance of the two candidates in the running to become Britain’s next Prime Minister, why net zero isn’t enough, the “immoral” rejection of global climate justice by Western governments, and why we should beware labelling bad decisions by climate-skeptic leaders as merely “incompetent”.
We also discuss the importance of platforming the radical policies happening all over the world. If you haven’t heard the news yet, Chile’s socialist government created an autonomous committee to rewrite their constitution and the proposed section on climate and environment is the most daring bid to tackle the climate crisis I have ever seen. As ever, the solutions are there—and our votes certainly do count.
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John Gowdy is Professor of Economics and Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. He is the recipient of the Herman Daly Award for contributions to ecological economics, and author of Ultrasocial: The Evolution of Human Nature and the Quest for a Sustainable Future.
John joins me to explain how humans, like ants and termites, are “ultrasocial” and what this form of hyper-complex social organisation does to our relationships, our neurochemistry, and our individuality.
He says increasingly complex social organisation leads to a decrease in individual complexity. John argues that rather than environmental destruction and extreme inequality being due to human nature, they are the result of the adoption of agriculture by our ancestors.
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Mike Joy is a freshwater ecologist and Senior Researcher at IGPS Victoria University of Wellington. He has been working for two decades at the interface of science and policy in New Zealand with a goal of strengthening connections between science, policy and real outcomes to address the multiple environmental issues facing New Zealand.
He explains the multiple links between New Zealand’s dairy industry and environmental damage—giving a fantastic example of what a systems problem looks like in a real-world context—before diving into an analysis of the correlation between human and planetary health.
We discuss political gridlocks, science communication, activist movements, technology and art in this far-reaching conversation, before turning to the question: How do we precisely target the people causing the crises around the world?
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Frederic Hache is the cofounder and executive director of Green Finance Observatory, an NGO tracking the world of “sustainable finance”, debunking its claims, and working with European policymakers to warn against supposed market-based solutions.
He joins me to explain how the markets have financialised and commodified the climate crisis: why carbon credit schemes are nonsense, the worrying advent of biodiversity offsetting, and the tokenisation of environmental protection. He explains that environmental regulations have a long history of being effective, and questions why protection of the natural world is being handed over to markets.
He reveals which “green” markets are already linked to human rights abuses around the world, how crypto is muscling in on the space, and how lobbyists have hijacked the agenda to protect profits.
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Katherine Stewart is an investigative reporter and author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism. She’s spent the past 12 years investigating how USA’s far right got organised after the original Roe vs Wade ruling, using abortion to polarize political debate in the USA and unite a multi-denominational movement to enact their vision of white ethno-nationalism.
She joins me to explain how abortion became key to their rise to power; how they’ve spent the past 50 years inserting themselves into education, legislature, and government; the deep network of funders, organisations and individuals whose sole wish is to take power back from the Left.
These people aren’t pro-life. They’re pro-power. And to claw it back from them, Katherine says we need to begin organising with the same vigilance and determination they exhibit.
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Henrik Nordborg is a physics professor at the Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences, and program director for the university’s Renewable Energy and Environmental Technology. He began giving public lectures about the climate crisis some years ago when he felt his students deserved more honest information about the state of the world and the looming crisis. This led to him developing the Global Climate Compensation, a plan to tax fossil fuel companies and redistribute those funds to every nation around the world.
Henrik’s plan differs from other carbon tax proposals—he wants to tax fossil fuel companies at production, not from calculations of their emissions. He says this not only prevents companies’ capacity to skew the data, but actually involves no additional accounting—these companies know exactly how much they’re producing because that’s where their profits come from.
The redistribution factor is equally key. This fund would be redistributed around the world, per capita, and governments could then choose what to do with that money. It could provide a buffer for developing nations to begin their own energy transition. This is crucial in a world where Western nations are avoiding paying climate reparations—Loss and Damages payments—which Global South nations have tried to bring to the table at Cop conferences.
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Jeremy Lent is an author and integrator whose dedicated his life since the dot com boom to understanding meaning: how to find it, how to make it, and how to apply it.
Author of renowned books ‘The Web of Meaning’ and ‘The Patterning Instinct’, Jeremy joins me to discuss how to combine traditional knowledge with scientific understanding to navigate the polycrisis, the impact of cultural worldviews and how to shift them, and how we can use interconnectedness as a foundation to create a better and more diverse world.
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How do we build resilient systems? How do we allow for transformation? How do we encourage adaptation? How does this apply to both to ecosystems and human systems? And how we use this to better understand and tackle the climate crisis?
These are questions Professor Graeme Cumming answers on today’s episode. Graeme is the Director of the Arc Center of Excellence coral reef studies at James Cook University in Australia. An ecologist by training, his research increasingly focuses on socio-ecological functions, problems and resilience in systems.
He explains what dung beetles can teach us about political division, why resilience is not enough on its own, and ultimately why we cannot use ecological systems as an exact map for understanding the complexity of human systems.
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One of the greatest challenges we face when tackling the polycrisis is understanding and applying a diversity of approaches. This means recognising the solutions are as complex as the crisis itself. There is no singular, simple answer.
Accepting the ecosystem of solutions we need to implement also comes with accepting both unknown variables and the fact that different people are going to attempt different things—but each attempt is valid, and potentially plays a significant role in the bigger picture. A diversity of approaches demands a diversity of understanding. It also demands accepting we’re not always going to agree with how some choose to fight the battle.
Asher Miller, CEO of Post Carbon Institute, joins me to discuss this very problem on today’s episode. He explains the role the Institute has played in pointing out the severity of the crisis, the dangers of oversimplifying or universalising responses, and how to apply systems thinking to creating complex solutions—and just how tough that can be.
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“Too many cooks spoil the broth.” That’s the old adage—but could the opposite be true when it comes to politics?
Researchers and writers Susan Clark and Tom Prugh say so. Their research into deliberative democracies show that inviting local communities to take responsibility for local governance improves engagement, depoliticises debate, and achieves excellent results. And the best thing about it? The more people see their impact in the community, the more responsibility they take—creating even better results every time.
What’s even more exciting is the deliberative democracy model scales up. It may not be “fast”, like the political processes we live in today, but it might just be the model we need to empower citizens to confront the climate crisis and hold their leaders to account.
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From the global financial crash in 2008 to Arab Springs in 2011 to the rise of authoritarian regimes climaxing in the election of a fake-tanned despot to the White House and a compulsive liar buffoon in Downing Street, the past decade and a half has seen the unravelling of political, financial and ecological stability.
What was the first domino?
Academic, documentarian and author, Rupert Russell, thinks we can blame prices. Rupert spent the past few years tracking how speculative markets and the resulting volatility in prices have exacerbated and even caused much of the crises we see around the world.
He joins me to explain how the coffee crash in Guatemala led to the U.S border crisis, how the Arab Springs were caused by a spike in wheat prices, and how the physical effects of the climate crisis are driving vulnerable people into market climate wars, dictated by the speculative whims of bankers in the West.
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We’re living in the anthropocene — a geological period defined by the impact of human activity on the planet’s climate and ecosystems. Essentially, it’s our behaviour that’s at the root of the problem. But so often this isn’t addressed as the root. Our economic system claims tech will save us from ourselves—but imagine we do find a silver bullet, do we have the social cohesion in place to implement that solution, or any?
That’s what Richard Heinberg, senior fellow at Post Carbon Institute, joins me to discuss. Richard’s devoted his life to understanding the crisis and its solutions, authoring 14 books and hundreds of articles on the topic. Richard’s a big picture thinker, and he believes it is our behaviour and our current political division which is the real threat to climate progress.
We discuss energy rationing, political division, the effect of increasing economic inequality, and the knowledge gap between the public and leaders.
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© Rachel Donald
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Degrowth is making waves in academic and climate circles. Not only does the research field provide genuine hope for a more equitable and environmental future, but its advocates are hellbent on revealing the incorrect math, manipulated data and idiotic assumptions propping up capitalism’s regime. They’re debunking the myth of green growth.
Ecological Economist, Tim Parrique, the lead author of ‘Decoupling Debunked’ joins me this week to explain how neoliberal ideologies have co-opted the climate movement by promoting “green growth”.
He exposes the language and mechanisms economists and politicians use to lull the public into a false sense of security, gives a damning analysis of decoupling (believe me, you need to know this), drops a bombshell about the IPCC report, and puts to bed the argument that growth on a finite planet could be a good thing.
This is a brilliant episode building on Jason Hickel’s Introduction to Degrowth a few weeks ago. Listen to the full interview here, catch it on on Apple or Spotify or watch on Youtube. You’ll find the bonus episode on Youtube tomorrow, and this week everyone has access to the interview transcript.
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Extinction Rebellion drew attention to the climate crisis like no other group before them. Founded in just 2018, they’ve forced the climate conversation into the mainstream, and their organisation is an inspiring reminder of what citizens can achieve when mobilized.
But what happens after the alarm has been raised? How do activist groups evolve their messaging and their mission to identify a new goal: solutions.
That’s what Dr Gail Bradbrook joins me to discuss. Gail is one of the original members who set up Extinction Rebellion and has now transitioned to Being The Change which empowers both activist groups and members of the public to connect with one another around the world and do something. Gail also gives insight into where activism is going wrong in the West, from white saviour complex beliefs to inadequately connecting with the public.
This is a fascinating discussion from someone who really knows these movements about where they’re going and what to do about it. Listen to the full interview here, catch it on on Apple or Spotify or watch on Youtube. You’ll find the bonus episode on Youtube over the weekend, and paid subscribers have access to the interview transcript on Planet: Critical.
© Rachel Donald
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Listen now | Researcher Sally Goerner says oligarchy is the final stage of most human civilizations—and a symptom of dysfunctional human systems.She joins me to explain why the future is integral and collaborative, why empowering people with vision and hope is key to creating systemic changes, why citizenship is the foundation of any human system, and how to measure the health of those systems.Sally is the Director of Edinburgh University’s Planetary Health Lab.
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Listen now | Microbiologist and regenerative agriculture expert, Walter Jehne, on how soil can capture carbon, promote global cooling, and feed billions on very little space. He explains how politics got in the way of progress in the 70s, and why government defence departments are scrambling to speak to him and his team.
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Listen now | Jessie Henshaw is a physicist, architect and natural systems designer who worked with the UN to reframe their sustainability goals. She believes our misunderstanding of natural systems as a whole is what’s gotten us into this mess, and why we may not get out. We discuss how and when growth is necessary, collectivism in systems, and why science’s atomisation of systems in a bid to understand them is impeding the urgent progress we need to make.
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Listen now | We're running out of time—how far will we go to do the right thing? Joseph Merz founded the Merz Institute to combat the climate crisis, gathering some of the world’s best scientists to establish what is going wrong and how to fix it. He says the answer is behavioural change—and they’re developing a programme that would manipulate mass behaviour on a subconscious level using the same techniques as the advertising industry.
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Listen now | Could this project win some battles while we fight the war against climate change? This week, physicist and engineer Ye Tao introduces Meer, the mirror rays project which he says could halt global warming, buying humanity the necessary time to combat the climate crisis. He explains how Meer could cool the planet while decreasing energy demands, and improving water retention and food resources.
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Listen now | Why putting people before profit is crucial in the battle to save our planet. Economic anthropologist, Jason Hickel, is one of the leading degrowth researchers, writers and thinkers leading the charge for ecosocialism. He says if we limit the energy demands of the elite and hungry multinational corporations, reimagining economics to support and nurture human dignity, we could stay within our planetary boundaries—and lift the entire world out of poverty.
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Listen now | What roles do democracy, education and citizenship play in building a better, safer world for both ourselves, our planet and the living things we share it with? David Orr believes active citizenship is key, and is creating educational programmes around the United States to teach ecological literacy and active participation in democracy. These programmes reframe the concept of society to include the living planet we call home. David W. Orr is Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics Emeritus at Oberlin College. He is a founding editor of the journal Solutions, and founder of the Oberlin Project. He is the author of eight books, including Dangerous Years: Climate Change, the Long Emergency, and the Way Forward, and Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse.
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Listen now | Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a terrible, devastating conflict causing an inexcusable loss of life. The rest of the world has bound together to sanction the nation, Putin and his oligarch friends. But how effective will these sanctions be? And how does the current market paradigm allow for war between nations?I invited energy market strategist Chris Cook back on the show to discuss these key questions. He explains what we can learn from the U.S’s sanctioning of Iran, what role Russia’s energy dominance will play in this war, and, crucially, how we can build markets which promote interdependence—and peace.
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Listen now | Why we must defend the industry—and why it must innovate. Pulitzer-prize winning investigative journalist, Ian Urbina, spent 17 years at the New York Times before setting up his own non-profit newsroom in 2020, The Ocean Outlaw Project. Ian and his team investigate “the final frontier”, finding stories at the intersection of environment and human rights which typically go under the radar.The Outlaw Ocean Project models itself after ProPublica, and Ian’s explanation as to how these newsrooms can and must work alongside “legacy” newspapers is absolutely fascinating. We discuss the responsibility of journalists during a crisis, and sharing that responsibility with readers. The innovation at the heart of Ian’s work is really thrilling.
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Listen now | Chris Cook is the former director of the International Petroleum Exchange and is now a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Security and Resilience Studies at University College London. He firmly believes ethical markets are the most resilient, and provides a series of ideas to prove that this is more than just theory or hope—it is legally possible to create mutually assured financial relationships that cut out middlemen and yet still provide the current financial system with a role in protecting populations rather than exploiting them.
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Listen now | Religious ideology has a long history of exacting swift and lasting social change. Could faith-based teaching provide the necessary shift in modern thinking to combat the climate emergency? Or is doctrine too a dangerous weapon to consider?These are the questions I pose Erik Assadourian, leader of the Gaianism movement, on this week’s episode. Erik was a senior research fellow at World Watch for decades, and came to believe faith is crucial when demanding huge sociological shifts in a short space of time to deal with the climate emergency.
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Listen now | Which animal consumes more energy producing food than it does eating that food? None, except industrialised humans. Jason Bradford is a biologist and farmer working on how to transform food systems to make them more rural, sustainable, and to provide a net-positive energy consumption. He explains the failings of our current food production, encourages everyone to learn to farm as soon as possible, and reveals why veganism isn't the answer.
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Listen now | Science is upheld as objective—but could this be the root of its failure to tackle the climate crisis? Ecologist Dan Fiscus thinks so. He argues that the modern scientific paradigm is ROAM: Reductionist, Objectivist, Analytic and Mechanistic. Dan describes its failures to understand and treat the environment as inseparable from Life, and proposes a new paradigm for the future.
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Listen now | What’s Plato got to do with the environmental crisis? Everything, according to Carl Safina, ecologist, author, fellow, and winner of the MacArthur genius grant. Carl discussds his new book which examines culture’s across the world, and their relationship to the planet. He argues that Plato’s concept of profanity engendered the Judeo-Christian monotheistic religions which view the world, and man, as sinful, in turn creating a Western culture which has no respect nor care for the natural world.
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Listen now | A post-carbon world could be our opportunity to so better—and make the difficult transition much harder to swallow. That’s Alice Friedemann's message on this week's episode: if the world as we know it is going to change we might as well make the most of it. She worries we won’t be given the opportunity due to all the misinformation flying around, and gives a cutting analysis of how the climate change conversation is distracting from many other dangerous, concurrent such as biodiversity loss and water scarcity.
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Listen now | What can snowflakes teach us about the economy, civilisation and crisis? Professor Tim Garrett, atmosphere scientist at the University of Utah, has modelled how the behaviour of snowflakes and clouds can be used to predict energy consumption and GDP, bridging the gap between economic theory and the natural world. He says we can learn where we are and where we're going using the laws of thermodynamics—and would be foolish to ignore them.
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Listen now | Welcome to this special episode of Planet: Critical where we journey from the podcast’s humble beginnings to what it is today, and what I hope it will evolve into.
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Listen now | Joshua Farley is a Professor of Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont. His research focuses on designing an economy capable of balancing what is biophysically possible with what is socially, psychologically and ethically desirable. This episode is a big picture conversation about the roots of the climate and social crises. We discuss human values—and common sense—and how to reimagine an economics which will allow the best of human nature to triumph.
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Listen now | What’s theoretical physics got to do with trees? Everything. Physicist Anastassia Makarieva has dedicated her life to understanding how the world’s forests regulate not just themselves but the water system of the entire planet. Alongside her colleagues, Anastassia is desperately trying to raise awareness of the dangers of disturbing the world’s forest, especially the Boreal forest, which despite being the largest on the planet is often forgotten about. She says stopping logging overnight would have the biggest impact on reducing climate change. So why isn’t anyone listening?
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Listen now | Journalist and author Paul Greenberg breaks down some of the radical solutions individuals can use to fix their climate diet (that’s the fish part). We then go on to discuss renewables vs nuclear (fusion), before tackling the big problem bringing international negotiations to a grinding halt: Who’s to blame, and how do we make them change?
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Listen now | Understanding the critical connections between our values, our economy and our world. Nate Hagens is one of the most acclaimed big picture thinkers tackling the sustainability question. He joins me to explain that creating a sustainable future demands tackling social and economic inequalities, and ultimately creating a new system of values.
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Listen now | Ugo Bardi is a Professor in Physical Chemistry at the University of Florence, and a member of the Club of Rome. In this fascinating interview Ugo reveals some of the most exciting technological advancements which could help us navigate our planetary crisis. From 3-D printing bacteria-grown food to a new theory of evolution, we may yet pull through.
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Listen now | Gary Juffa is the Governor for Oro Province in Papua New Guinea, and has become famous for taking on the "bioterrorists" decimating one of the world’s most precious rainforests. He bravely names and shames the logging companies “raping and pillaging” his country, explaining how they took over local government through bribes, blackmail and even assassination. He explains how he’s fighting them in his province, how the West must lend funds and muscle to the fight, and what he thinks of the deals made at COP26.
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Listen now | Dr Carey King is a research scientist at the university of Texas and Assistant Director at the Energy Institute. We discuss the fallacy of pursuing economic growth whilst trying to decarbonize the planet, how to re-evaluate what an economy provides for mankind, and how energy and the economy truly interact to create what he calls an “economic superorganism”.
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Listen now | Blair Fix is an economist and post-doc at York University, researching big picture solutions to big picture problems like resource distribution and income inequality. He discusses his theories—and what mainstream economists are getting wrong.
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Listen now | Professor Simon Michaux on how to navigate the climate crisis without triggering a global economic crash. Simon drops more than a few bombshells concerning energy use and politics, but also reveals a new energy paradigm he’s working on that could provide genuine zero emission energy.
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Listen now | Lebanese graphic designer and activist, Maya Moumne, on how consumers can be emancipated—and manipulated—by design. Maya applies her knowledge by working with clients and projects with a mission, and is launching a women's magazine for Arab communities later this year.
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Listen now | Professor Steve Keen warned the world of the 2008 financial crash years before it hit. He joins me to explain how mainstream economics is driving the climate disaster, and how to build an economics for a post-crash world.
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Listen now | Bruno Skvorc is a blockchain expert committed to saving Web 3.0 from privatisation. He discusses how the blockchain can liberate individuals from reliance on private and state-owned systems, the alternatives he and his community are building on to save this technology from the grips of the market, and which states are trying to shut them down.
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Listen now | Reverend Billy is the world-famous secular preacher singing out against climate change, corporate greed and consumerism. Together with his choir, The Church of Stop Shopping, Reverend Billy uses song and arrest as a form of protest, trespassing into banks, labs and private land to sing about the dangers of the sixth extinction event—and what we can do to stop it.
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Listen now | Our financial systems trap people in poverty. Community financing expert, Dan Leibsohn, explains how the banks hurt the most vulnerable, and introduces the methods he uses to lift those same people out of poverty.
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Listen now | Earth Systems scientist James Dyke on why net-zero targets for carbon emissions do nothing but provide an excuse to continue business as usual, posing an existential threat to humanity.
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Listen now | Online marketplace, Simbi, addresses the scarcity of fiat money by enabling people to earn and pay in community crypto credits. Contrary to a lot of crypto theory, Simbi's team understand that alternative currencies can play an important role within existing economies. By giving people more options to earn credits for the things they need, in markets built around community, Simbi provides immediate relief and resources to people experiencing increasing precarity.
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Listen now | Artist Linda Havenstein explores and tests both capitalism and language through her incredible work. We delve deep into the irony of the art market, the profound terror of creating within a capitalism regime, and dispel the long-told myth of the suffering artist.
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Listen now | Cofounder of Ignition Brewery, Will Evans, explains why this South London tap room exclusively employs people with learning disabilities.
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Listen now | British filmmaker, Marc Silver, joins me to discuss his documentaries which demand deep investigation into culture, society, and the self, from racist murders in Florida to the extractive capitalism decimating the Amazon
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Listen now | Italian artist Chiara Ciccarello built the home she shared with her husband from reclaimed wood—until a supposed landowner's arson attack destroyed the community
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Listen now | Housing activist and all-round Leftie, Gordon Maloney, has campaigned for a fair and equitable housing market for years, growing the Living Rent campaign into a red-blooded organisation with thousands of members all over the U.K.
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Listen now | Financial hacker, Brett Scott, reveals how our financial systems are turning the world into a dystopia
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This week I speak with Ugandan entrepreneur, Trinity Heavenz, a former street child who now employs over 25 people, many of whom were living in poverty before working at Era92, the company that “builds brands to build lives”.
This is a startling conversation about the benefits of the free market in a nation where people are afforded little opportunity. Trinity makes the case for business in Africa as a tool of empowerment, and says he believes the continent will learn from Western mistakes to come out as a superpower in the decades ahead.
Don’t miss it. You can also listen on Apple or Spotify.
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Listen now | Acclaimed poet Joelle Taylor on class and art
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Listen now | Is business for good the answer? Volunteering expert wants social enterprises to lead the charge for a better world!
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Listen now | Alternative currencies, community organising and how to design a movement
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Listen now | Pharma doesn't give a phuck about people—in this pandemic or the next
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Listen now | This global crypto project provides users with a Universal Basic Income
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Listen now | Writer and artist, Alice Frecknall, on literature, art and the creative process, in a conversation that highlights how remiss the world would be without Art.
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Listen now | Satellite challenges tech monopolisation and data harvesting
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Listen now | Using the lens of adventure, Adventure Hydrology share stories about your world, inviting you to join them on a journey across our amazing planet.
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Listen now | Telekommunisten founder, Baruch Gottlieb, joins me to discuss data, democracy and economics.
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Listen now | Discussing poetry, joy and institutionalised barriers with with acclaimed poet, Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa
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Listen now | Supermarkt Berlin founder on how to create an economy for people and the planet
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Listen now | Founder of Extinction Rebellion on solving the climate crisis
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Listen now | Meet the activist-artist-hacker-philosopher building a tool to help programmers redesign the world
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This week I’m joined by Matt Peterson of Woodbine. Woodbine rushed to organise around its New York community during the pandemic when local and federal government failed its constituents. Matt advocates for more self-organised spaces where communities can fulfil their own needs during this discussion on community, governance and the future of politics.
Woodbine’s website: www.woodbine.nyc
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Listen now | Hydrologist, Heather Scott on the devastating effect the fashion industry has on our world’s waterways, and what we can do about it. Heather calls brands out for greenwashing, for illusory sustainability policies, and ultimately confirms the planet—and people—will never be healthy if we don’t change our attitude towards consumption.
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Listen now | Artist, Nika Dubrovsky, on The Museum of Care and why we need to organise society around the principles of care-giving.
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Listen now (60 min) | Clare Rewcastle Brown is the journalist who single-handedly investigated and exposed billions of dollars stolen from the Malaysian people to fund lavish parties and Hollywood films—like The Wolf of Wall Street. The 1MDB scandal exposed a global network of corrupt elite, including household Hollywood names, Trump staff, and Goldman Sachs' executives. Clare reveals all in this explosive interview—and drops an exclusive halfway through.
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Listen now (67 min) | Farmer and chef, Andres Jara, gives a detailed insight into the amazing potential of regenerative farming, and explains why he thinks the future of agriculture needs to be community-based. Roots, Rice and Beans: https://rootsricebeans.com/ Stagsgroenteboer:
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Listen now (64 min) | Entrepreneur and printing engineer, Hunter Bliss, introduces stone paper, and explains how plastic could truly benefit a circular economy whilst revealing paper isn't nearly as sustainable as people think. Pebble Printing Group: www.pebbleprinting.com
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Listen now (76 min) | Asylum lawyer, Alina Kilpatrick, reveals the harrowing and deadly journey her clients face through the Northern Triangle—only to be met with cruelty at the US border. Sacred Heart Center: https://shcrichmond.org/en/ Platform Enterprise Newsletter: stories.platformenterprise.com
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Listen now (64 min) | Distinguished poet and activist, Lisa Luxx, gives a detailed explanation of her philosophy of sisterhood, her collaborative work to create an economy that supports women—and her struggle to come to terms with poetry after Beirut's deadly 2020 explosion.
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Listen now (57 min) | Brad Vanstone is the founder of Willicroft, one of the fastest-growing vegan cheese companies in The EU. He discusses the EU's recent policy failure, Willicroft's work to transition local farmers to plant-based agriculture, and why their cheeses will soon be nut-free.
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Listen now (79 min) | Writer Dennis discusses life at The Foundry, one of Europe's rare extra-capitalist spaces, and why he thinks such spaces are more necessary than ever before. The Foundry: https://bravosfoundry.com/
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Listen now (71 min) | Intellectual property journalist, Charlotte Kilpatrick, gives a detailed explanation of the IP laws at play in the race to make a coronavirus vaccine that are making some companies billions of dollars as the West snaps up extra doses per head of population. These same IP laws ensure that countries unable to compete with the West's buying power will never have access to the knowledge to replicate—or even test—the vaccine. The Global South is being abandoned—again—and this time to a deadly virus.
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