Planet: Critical
Planet: Critical is a podcast hosted by journalist Rachel Donald that explores the interconnected crises of climate change, energy, economics, and politics. Each episode features interviews with experts and activists who are confronting these global challenges, providing insights into what is really happening and what actions are necessary. The podcast aims to inform and inspire listeners to engage with critical issues facing our world.
Episodes
P:C ARCHIVES: Immy Kaur on The Power of Community Imagination
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
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 r
Why We Must Abolish A.I. | Denise Utochkin
Denise Utochkin was a postdoc researcher at the University of Copenhagen investigating how artificial intelligence could be used in the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. However, Denise was fired from their postdoc for starting a campaign that sought to abolish AI altogether, after realising that the only way to produce and work with fair algorithms was to not use them at all.
I invited Denise onto t
P:C ARCHIVES: Lisi Krall on How Economics Overpowers Culture
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
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
How Plastic is Corrupting Our Bodies and Our Institutions | Jane Van Dis
Since I first interviewed OB/GYN and independent researcher, Jane van Dis, on the dangers of plastic two years ago, the science has only become more stark. Not only are we discovering more ways in which plastics are harming our biological health—from changing our brain chemistry, our pregnancies and births, and polluting our organs more broadly—we're also learning exactly how the plastic industry
P:C ARCHIVES: Fadhel Kaboub on Decolonise To Decarbonise
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
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 intergove
The Dynamic Energy Budget Theory | Starrlight Augustine
Starrlight Augustine is the director at the Institute of Ecotechnics, a research initiative developing technologies that exist in harmony with nature. She heads up their agroecology division, which is based at Synergia Ranch in New Mexico where she applies a little known but radical theory of biology: Dynamic Energy Budget Theory.
DEB theory is a way of understanding how energy flows through organ
P:C ARCHIVES: Nandita Bajaj on How Pronatalism Feeds The Economy
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
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
Low Tech Lives | Philippe Bihouix
The world is full of good ideas and solutions to the crisis. But good ideas cannot trump the laws of physics, and solutions will only be such if they are deployed in a manifestly different way than our current high-energy, high-material, high-consumption regime demands.
Philippe Bihouix is an engineer and the author of The Age of Low Tech (UK version, US version), which examines why technological
P:C ARCHIVES: Sally Goerner on Citizens vs Oligarchies
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
What happens when a small percentage of the population amass resources and power? Oligarchy. And polymath 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
Journalism in Crisis | Mark Lee Hunter
Mark Lee Hunter is an investigative journalist, a founding member of the Global Investigative Journalism Network and the principle author of Story-Based Inquiry: A Manual for Investigative Journalists. I asked Mark to join me to explain a little-known story of how a group of left-wing media outlets became instrumental in the gutting of USAID. This consortium of left-wing publications released an i
P:C ARCHIVES: Reverend Billy on How To Stop The Sixth Extinction
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
Reverend Billy is the world-famous secular preacher singing out against climate change, corporate greed and consumerism. Billy has been pounding the streets of New York for decades, preaching against Disney, against mindless consumption, and against the corporations putting our planet in danger. Together with his choir, The Church of Stop Shopping, Reverend Billy uses song and a
Being Alive | Melanie Challenger
What does it mean to be alive? Where does intelligence originate? What do we share with other living creatures? Where does the individual begin, and how do each of us fit into the living world?
These are the questions I pose researcher and writer, Melanie Challenger, author of Alive: The Hidden Intelligence of the Living World (UK version, US version). In this brilliant episode, we explore the de
P:C ARCHIVES: James Dyke on Net Zero Won't Save Us
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
This week I’m joined by James Dyke, a senior lecturer in Global Systems at the University of Exeter. James reveals why net-zero targets for carbon emissions do nothing but provide an excuse to continue business as usual, posing an existential threat to humanity. He goes into great detail about the interplay of politics, economies, culture and the industrialisation connecting us
The Land-Based Living Collective | James Bullen
We need to live differently. Part of that means learning how to live together differently, both with each other, and with the wider environment around us.
James Bullen is the founder of the Land-Based Living Collective, a UK initiative aiming to create accessible, land-based communities that provide economic opportunities for the residents, nurture the land back to health, foster a sense of comm
P:C ARCHIVES: Simon Michaux on The Climate Crisis and The Climate Crash
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
So much of the hope we put in solutions for climate change falls away under a microscope. Did you know wind turbines aren’t recyclable, for example? Guess where they’re buried. Are enough people thinking about what happens when globalisation fails and post-industrial states like Europe and the US are left to mine their own materials? How can we mitigate climate change, truly, wi
How To Mobilise | Inea Lehner
Climate Vanguard is a youth-led organisation providing political education to the public and activists across the Majority World. I'm joined by Inea Lehner, one of their core team members, to discuss their outreach, strategies and principles in supporting the climate movement, and Leftist movements more broadly.
Wonderfully, this conversation explores how Inea's own life has been changed through p
P:C ARCHIVES: Steve Keen on The Economics of Climate Change
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
Professor Steve Keen was one of the few economists to realise that a serious economic crisis was imminent in 2005. He publicly warned the world, and helped his native Australia navigate the 2008 crash without the major repercussions that crippled markets everywhere else.
He is now working on a new model of economics for a post-crash world. He joined me today to discuss why and h
The Real Story of "Invasive Species" | Clare Follmann
Non-native species management has very little to do with ecology and everything to do with economics. That's what activist and writer, Clare Follmann, uncovered in her book Scapegoat: What the Invasive Species Story Gets Wrong (UK version, US version). She joins me to explain how "invasive" species have been blamed for creating the conditions of environmental degradation — conditions that have act
Treating The Epidemic of Violence | Gary Slutkin
Can violence be cured?
According to physician and epidemiologist, Gary Slutkin, it can. Gary worked for decades treating some of the most virulent disease outbreaks around the world. Then he took that model and applied it to his hometown of Chicago to treat what he believed was an outbreak of violence. His results were shocking: by implementing similar strategies to disease containment and treatme
Building An Eco-Civilisation | Jeremy Lent
In an age of bad news, it is so important to remember that everything we need to remake the world is already with us. From how we produce food to how we organise our political systems, the solutions we need have long been developed and tested. What we need now is political will and community vision—and to hold onto the fact that everything is still worth fighting for.
Acclaimed author and integrat
Remaking The World | David Farrier
What is the role of art in any crisis? To understand what is and to imagine what could be; to transcend and birth and promise.
This is the message of today's guest, David Farrier. David is a professor in literature and the environment at Edinburgh University, and the author of Nature's Genius: Evolutions Lessons for a Changing Planet (UK version, US version). He joins me to discuss poetry, litera
The Myth of Individual Responsibility | Michael Maniates
What can we actually do if we want to achieve real change?
We have been sold a comforting lie that our purchasing power is the best way to change the world. But rather than offer anything substantial, this lie promotes a myth of individual responsibility that actually inhibits the drastic structural change we desperately need.
Michael Maniates is an environmental social scientist working on issu
The Eco-Crisis is a Feminist Crisis | Natasha Walter
The women's movement sprang into being in a different world. How must it adapt to meet the challenges we face today?
Natasha Walter is a journalist, the founder of the Women for Refugee Women Charity, and the author of multiple books, including her most recent, Feminism for a World on Fire (UK version and US version out today). In it, Natasha investigates the successes and weaknesses of the women
Deep Ecology | John Seed
We don't need more ecological ideas, we need ecological selves. That's the message of this week's guest, John Seed, a longtime environmental activist who has been instrumental to the Deep Ecology movement. John joins me to explain exactly what Deep Ecology can offer us—a sense of place, time and connection in a world coming apart. He walks us through the philosophy and multiple exercises, revealin
The Truly Sustainable Alternative | Julia Steinberger
A flourishing human society doesn't have to cost the earth. In fact, our wellbeing and Earth's wellbeing hinge on the same thing: reducing inequality.
Julia Steinberger is a renowned degrowth scholar at the University of Lausanne where she and her colleagues recently produced Living Well Within Limits, which shows there is no tension between human and ecological flourishing. Julia joins me to expl
Tech Titans Won't Save Us | Paris Marx
Silicon Valley's robotic grip on the world is destroying our social fabric. "Artificial intelligence" models are now baked into our militaries, economies and political institutions—without there being a clear benefit yet as to why. a.i. is behind the indiscriminate attacks on civilian lives in Gaza and Iran, has encouraged users to commit suicide in the United States, and helped one Canadian plan
How Finance Ruined Capitalism | Hettie O'Brien
Capitalism was envisioned—and is still defended—as a vehicle for growth. This growth was meant to increase everyone's share of the pie. But one of the most opaque and unregulated finance sectors got its fingers into that pie—and built a mechanism to extract wealth from the very companies, public services and infrastructure it buys.
Welcome the the world of private equity, a shadow fleet of financi
Reform, Not Revolution | Andrés Velasco
Andrés Velasco is the Dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Chile's former Minister of Finance. He and his colleagues at LSE recently released The London Consensus, a collection of economics essays arguing for the a range of reforms to neoclassical, capitalist economics. Much needs to change, they argue—but it can be done within the existi
The Founding Mothers | Laura George
The Founding Fathers were legal revolutionaries. But over two centuries on, the world needs an update.
Reverend Laura George is the co-founder of the Founding Mothers, a movement dedicated to universal dignity, human rights, peace and ending war. By focussing on women's liberation, the Founding Mothers seek to protect the future for generations to come through policies which empower women to make
How Mexico City Unleashed Its Political Imagination | Ashwin Ravikumar
Under the left-wing leadership of mayor Clara Brugada, Mexico City has invested millions in the city's poorest neighbourhoods, building UTOPIAs which provide food, healthcare, therapy, and many other public services to those in need. The story of this incredible project involves a century-old social movement which found support in the left-wing Moderna party, led by Claudia Sheinbaum, revealing a
Feeding The Future | Nicole Negowetti
Wars have repeatedly shown us over the last few years how fragile our global supply chains are. But while we can live without semiconductors, collapses in our food supply systems are extremelhy dangerous. And this is only one of the problems of depending on a heavily industrialised food industry, an industry which harms Earth's body as much as our own. So: How can we feed the future sustainably?
N
Rojava: The Feminist Resistance in the Heart of the Middle East | Matt Broomfield
For over a decade, an autonomous zone in the Middle East founded on the principles of women's liberation has controlled and sustained a territory the size of Lebanon. Rojava is a beacon of possibility and hope, and a fierce exercise in self-determination for the Kurdish people at the heart of it. At its core, it is a self defence movement against imperialist forces, religious extremism and exploit
Designing Liveable Futures | Tatjana Schneider & Jeremy Till
At the end of last year, I received a stunning book in the post: Architecture is Climate delivers an uncompromising review of the state of human and more-than-human affairs. Written by MOULD, a research collective of academics and architects, the book targets the architecture industry specifically for its role in engendering the crisis, asking not what architecture can do for climate breakdown, bu
The Copper Curtain | Art Berman
Trump's expansionist grabs at Venezuela and Greenland are not the moves of a madman. Whether we like it or not, they're coherent strategies to secure the USA economy and power in a world where resources are running low and China's ascent is inevitable.
This is the message of world-renowned energy expert, Art Berman. We are living in a new world of Putin, Xi and Trump, all of whom are engaging in v
Lithium: The "Miracle" Mineral | Javiera Barandiaran
In the age of the energy transition, Lithium is our miracle mineral, the key to carbon-free energy storage and unlimited, cheap, harmless power. This belief has prompted a massive mining boom all over the world, destabilising ecosystems, communities, and even governance. But this is nothing new. In fact, the history of Lithium tells the same tale over and over again: the solution to our world prob
Who Will Lead the Future? | Roger Hallam
Roger Hallam is one of the most prominent climate activists in the United Kingdom. Roger helped co-found Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain and other radical organisations. He has repeatedly put his body on the line through act of civil disobedience and been arrested countless times. In July, 2024, Roger was sentenced to five years in jail for participating in a Zoom call, whic
Liberating Social Contributions | Andrew Percy
You may have noticed that billionaires have come out in force over the past year to discredit Universal Basic Income. But here's an idea they hate even more: Universal Basic Services.
I'm joined by Andrew Percy whose research at the Institute for Global Prosperity proves unequivocally that not only can we afford to unconditionally provide healthcare, education, housing, transport, food and other s
From Coloniality to Decolonisation | Farhana Sultana
What is climate coloniality? What is climate apartheid? How does our exploitation of the more-than-human world feed into the oppression of people? And what are the real pathways towards decolonising?
Interdisciplinary scholar and editor of Confronting Climate Coloniality: Decolonizing Pathways for Climate Justice, Farhana Sultana, addresses all these questions and more on today's episode, explaini
How Fiction Makes Sense of the Crisis | Heather Milligan
We're kicking off the year with a very special interview about how present-day literature is reflecting the crisis we're collectively experiencing—and why some of the novels published today fail to grasp both the intensity and complexity of our world.
Heather Milligan is a literature scholar specialising in the relatively recent genre of eco-gothic. She joins me to explain what defines climate lit
For the Future We May Never See | Rachel Donald
Welcome to 2026, and this special episode of Planet: Critical where I discuss hope, collapse, effective action and what may yet be in store for us all.
Here are the questions I chose this year:
What would be your trigger for a more drastic exit from society in preparation for collapse?
How are you planning to (or have already thus far) prepared for the coming collapse of western industrialise
Exergy Economics | Tânia Sousa
You've heard of energy—but do you have any idea what exergy is?
On today's astounding episode of Planet: Critical, scholar Tânia Sousa explains the concept of exergy—the quality of energy—and why it is critical to understanding our energy systems, our economies, and energy transitions. She explains energy degradation, energy efficiency, and the how differences in available energy actually create t
The Myth of Progress | Samuel Miller McDonald
Obviously, the world is not on an inevitable upward trajectory. But witnessing the degradation of our environment, democracies and information has come as a shock to many of us who were raised on the belief that human history is a long arc towards perfection (with just a few blips along the way). This is the myth of progress we were all sold. Astonishingly, it predates even our oldest religions.
Hyper Local Futures | Chris Smaje
Who's going to grow your food when our complex supply chains fail?
Chris Smaje, academic turned small-hold farmer, is an advocate for hyper-local agrarianism—because that's going to be our future whether we like it or not. Chris returns to Planet: Critical to discuss his third book, Finding Lights in a Dark Age, which details the history of land expropriation, the inefficiency of modern, industria
Categories of Control | Jules Falquet
Before European invaders sought to control every inch of Earth's territory, human beings organised themselves in radically different ways throughout the world. Entire cultures and knowledges were put to the sword, alongside millions of human bodies. This deliberate attack on the cultures and ideologies with which communities understood their histories, bodies, roles and people was part of what mad
The Future of Rebellion | Fernando Racimo
Just five years ago, two scientists in white coats threw red paint on the Royal Society HQ to protest against the damage being done to Earth. Their action sparked the Scientist Rebellion movement all around the world, where those who know the worst of what is to come took to the streets because to merely study it in their labs was not enough to prevent disaster. Then came the sudden rise of author
Why "Solutions" Fail | Dave Snowden
The best intentions of mice and men... aft never leave the conference centre, according to this week's guest, Dave Snowden.
Founder of The Cynefin Company, Dave is a management consultant and complexity scientist who has worked for governments and institutions around the world to help them better understand what populations need, and how to deliver it to them. He joins me today to explain why solu
Extractive Frontiers | Thea Riofrancos
Nations are rushing to secure resources within their own borders. Globalisation is over.
Colonialism and mining have always gone hand in hand. But now that the Global South has more political muscle as a bloc, and now that resources are running low, wealthy countries which have historically secured and polluted elsewhere are opening up extractive frontiers within their own territories. This is a
Material Dependencies | Nina Djukanović
Geopolitics is shifting with the supply of critical raw materials. Necessary for the so-called “green transition” these materials have created another resource rush, triggering a mining boom all over the world, which is leaving conflict, environmental devastation and political instability in its wake.
In this episode, researcher and climate analyst Nina Djukanović explains her recently published r
Update on new website
Hi everyone,
I’ve designed the new Planet: Critical website and I want your feedback. If there’s any sections, groupings, design changes that you’d like to see—or flaws you notice—I’ll spend the next week incorporating what I can. So please go and play around on the new site here and then comment on this article Substack to let me know what you think.
The new site allows for a lot more flexibility
Health Begins With Earth | Sharon Friel
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
China’s Leverage | Kenneth Hammond
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 Glo
There Are No Simple Solutions | Jessica Hernandez
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 p
How the Eco-Crisis is Changing Our Brains | Clayton Aldern
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 Chan
Beyond Paradox | Iain McGilchrist
“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 he
Bad Environmentalism | Gordon Katic
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-o
Collapse for the 99% | Luke Kemp
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,
Community Sufficiency | Kara Huntermoon
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
Knowing and Being | Tyson Yunkaporta
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
Why Complex Societies Collapse | Joseph Tainter
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 d
Is Non-Violence the Only Way? | Rowan Tilly
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
Degrowing Healthcare | Martin Hensher
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 hea
Why Earth Needs a Feminist Movement | Silvia Federici
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,
What’s Really Warming the Planet | Gerard Wedderburn-Bisshop
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 20
Resilience is Resistance | Max Wilbert
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 c
Human Exceptionalism | Christine Webb
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 Christi
Why We Can’t Understand Each Other | Damien Williams
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 realit
How to Change People’s Minds | Sarah Stein Lubrano
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 T
Change is Risk | Celine Semaan
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, an
Beyond Separation | Willow Defebaugh
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 s
Is the End Nigh? | Émile Torres
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
Voices of the Amazon | Chumpi Washikiat
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
Confronting Collapse | Vanessa Machado de Oliveira
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?
Resource Scarcity and Eco-Fascism | Antonio Turiel
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 an
Carbon is Not Our Enemy | Mongabay
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
Popping the Tech Bro Bubble | Molly White
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
A World of Contradictions | David Edgerton
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 st
Collapse: What It Is — And What To Do | Sarah Wilson
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. Wha
How To Do The Right Thing in Business | Brad Vanstone
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. Willicrof
The ”Energy Transition” is a Pipe Dream | Jean-Baptiste Fressoz
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
States, Markets, and the Rest of Us | Grace Blakeley
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
