Planet: Critical

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…Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Join subscribers from 186 countries to support independent journalism. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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! Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Join subscribers from 186 countries to support independent journalism. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Join subscribers from 186 countries to support independent journalism. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Join subscribers from 186 countries to support independent journalism. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

 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. Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Join subscribers from 186 countries to support independent journalism. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Join subscribers from 186 countries to support independent journalism. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Choose a paid subscription to support independent, paywall-free journalism. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Choose a paid subscription to support independent, paywall-free journalism. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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 the Mongabay Newscast wherever you listen to podcasts, from Apple to Spotify, and you can also listen to all episodes here on the Mongabay website.Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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 Crypto and 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. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. * 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 ? * Why can't we achieve the scale required to address the urgency of the climate crisis?* 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.* 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? * 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? * 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? * How do we fully dismantle the Domination Paradigm? * 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. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today! Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today!*the answer is the future, btw. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today! Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today! Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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?Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today! Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today! Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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 ObGyns For Sustainable Future within 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?Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today! Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today! Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today! Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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 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.Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today! Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today! Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today! Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today!References: Brett Scott and Altered States of Monetary Consciousness: Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today! Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Support journalism for a world in crisis. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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.Support journalism for a world in crisis. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today! Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today!Books referenced: Rethinking Racial Capitalism Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe