Planet: Critical

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 political education, particularly through her adoption of a materialist lens. She explains how Marxism helped her make sense of the world, and what it has to offer the youth of today in their quest to dismantle the inequities of capitalism and create a new vision for a better future. This vision is centred on political decentralisation, social infrastructure and, of course, the regeneration of Earth's body—which is all possible, she says, if we learn to build power from the ground up.
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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 how capitalism needs to be constrained, the economics of climate change and what mainstream economists and academics are getting wrong—to the detriment of us all.
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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 actually been caused by capitalism, extraction and colonialism.
In this fascinating episode, she reveals the linguistic tricks at play which colour the doctrine of invasive species management, and the insidious links between these protocols and racism and xenophobia. She gives illuminating examples of how extractive industries have blamed species for the problems caused by their pillaging of Earth, and emphasises that the very idea of non-native species forgets the diverse history of the planet which has seen species spread out all across the globe for millions of years. 
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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 treatment, violent crime could be dramatically reduced.
He joins me to discuss exactly that, explaining the research revealed in his book, The End of Violence (UK version, US version), which argues that violence is a pathogen, a contagion, which we can eradicate through tried and tested methods. Gary walks us through the exact methods he and his team at Cure Violence Global has used around the world to inhibit violence, and we discuss the particularities of sexual violence, state violence, and the absolute necessity of understanding that the epidemic is truly a crisis of male violence. 
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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 integrator Jeremy Lent has spent the past years researching a vital book which explores how we can reform and revolutionise our most critical sectors, from finance to agriculture, in order to build a true ecocivilisation. Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All (US version, UK version) is a hopeful testament to both our past and our future, illustrated with real-world examples throughout the ages which show time and time again just what we are capable of when we put our minds and hearts together. On this episode, Jeremy walks us through his research, emphasising that such reforms would transform our relationships with each other and the wider world. This is a beautiful conversation which explores how we create the conditions for live to thrive—today, tomorrow, and for the rest of time.
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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, literature, relationality, language and intelligence. In this wide-ranging and meditative conversation, we discuss how space and time are made between species, how the entire world is evolving with and through the crisis, and what we can learn from Nature herself to meet this moment exactly where we are.
From the Enlightenment to whale song, this conversation explores just how critical art is in a moment of breakdown to be a vehicle for transformation, for transmutation, and, perhaps most importantly, daring—mirroring Nature's very own life force.
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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 issues of environmental governance, sustainable consumption, and sociotechnical change, and the author of The Living Green Myth: the Promise and Limits of Lifestyle Environmentalism (UK version, US version). He joins me to discuss how we were sold that big green myth, how it relates to the global neoliberal overhaul of the role of markets in the 80s, how it frustrates structural change, and what we can do instead. He also reveals the social science on how people react when their attempts to change the world through this very process are repeatedly frustrated—and how this impedes future action.

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's movement, taking a scalpel to the most recent decades of feminist thought and action and revealing how they have been shaped by neoliberalism. She joins me to discuss just that, explaining how our hyper individualist economy has created a feminist culture which is more invested in the individuals success than in structural change and collective liberation. From there, we discuss care as an organising principle, and why this feminist school of thought must be seeded in climate camps, from degrowth theory to mobilisation.
We also explore the effects of a neoliberal feminism on young women around the world, many of whom are now turning their backs on the women's movement to instead pledge allegiance to "tradwives" and other typically patriarchal forms of social organisation. We ask: What is feminism failing to provide these young women? And what about the women's movement needs to change to confront and overcome the political, economic and ecological crises which threaten our very future?
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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, revealing how our coming together with the world around us can also help us come together as people—to grieve, to love, to be.
This a beautiful, resonant and poetic episode, with John's wisdom and humility blooming forth to offer a vision which neither despairs nor denies, but is instead devoted to truths that surpass humans alone and encircle all of us, each of us, in this great web of life, to be held and to hold, even for just a moment. 
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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 explain their award-winning research in this exciting and hopeful episode. To reduce our pressure on the planet and to improve our wellbeing, we simply need more public services. This would reduce our material footprints, energy footprints, and, of course, societal inequality. This is not a vision which has room for billionaires and autocrats. But by getting rid of them, we have room for all 8 billion of us—on a healthy, regenerating planet. 
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