Planet: Critical
Episodes
Climate Delay and the Fossil Fuel Industry | Ketan Joshi
09 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to the sophisticated world of greenwashing.From outright climate denial to tactics of delay, the status quo is rapidly responding to the eco-c...
How Corporations Overthrew Democracy | Matt Kennard
02 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Honduras is being sued for a third of its GDP by an American company—why?Because the developing nation changed its mind about Prospera building a ch...
Dignity and Liberation | lisa minerva luxx
29 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Genocide.Israel will not stop until it subsumes the entirety of Gaza and, from the words of their leaders, destroys the Palestinian people.Brave peopl...
Exposing UN Greenwashing | Jacob Goldberg
26 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“I don't think you want an organisation that is misleading the public about its achievements addressing the climate crisis, to necessarily be the on...
Doubt as a Weapon of War | Marc Owen Jones
19 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It’s one rule for Israel and her allies—another for everyone else.Israel’s allies can turn a blind eye to its genocide of Palestine—as long as...
The Interconnected Grid | Nafeez Ahmed
12 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“All of those sectors are rapidly changing and the incumbent industries in those sectors are going to collapse. This is being driven by economic dyn...
Oligarchs, Media and Markets | Peter Jukes
05 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“We found more undocumented meetings between senior newspaper editors—especially his real boss, as Dominic Cummings called Boris Johnson's former...
Patriarchy and Pasture | Nikki Yoxall
28 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Can regenerative farming fix our food systems?One relatively effective action for an individual to combat climate change is going vegan. Industrial ag...
Leveraging Pensions to Force the Transition | Ian Edwards
21 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“You can't go off and get growth. That's not the foundations of a pension, especially a public pension as a public good. It is about quality curatin...
Creating The Alternative | Pat Kane
14 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“If the internet was based on a kind of commons, an almost scholarly freedom, then we need to pressure the people who are regulating the virtuality ...
Fighting for Freedom in West Papua | Jeffrey Bomanak
07 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“From the 1963 up until today, they can't kill our ideology. They can't kill our philosophy. They can’t kill our fight. Because we believe what we...
Overshooting Earth's Boundaries | Bill Rees
31 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Humankind’s footprint threatens to squash life under its heel.Our impact on the planet cannot be understated. We have thrust Earth into a new geolog...
Religious Naturalism | Ursula Goodenough
24 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“There isn't likely to be a future where all critters have no interest in themselves and are only interested in the collective. That's not gonna wor...
Mainstreaming Behaviour Change | Bill Ryerson
17 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Human population is a problem—tackling it through education isn’t.We need to slow our global fertility rate to 1.5 children per woman if we’re t...
Protecting the Amazon | Paul Rosolie
10 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It’s so much more than “climate change”.The most biodiverse regions of the world are under threat. Beyond the models, the data, the papers and t...
Non-Violence in the face of Violence | Rose Abramoff
03 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“The ways in which we really value property, that to me is an extremely infinite growth capitalism, hyper-masculine and extractive and colonialist t...
The Eco-Fiscal Crisis | James Meadway
27 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“If you think about how you might get out of this and get to something better, what really matters is the distribution of resources. Who has what? W...
The Problem With Language | Ray Ison
20 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What to do when words get in the way?We see the world through language, reality shaped by the words we use to signify concepts, systems, relationships...
Debating the transition | Simon Michaux & Nafeez Ahmed
13 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
So do we have enough materials for a renewable economy or not? A few months ago, the energy-Twittersphere exploded into debate over Simon Michaux’s ...
Imagination Activism | Phoebe Tickell
06 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How do we unlock the inherent creativity of people?Imagination activist, Phoebe Tickell, founded Moral Imaginations to provide an imagination-based ap...
Petromasculinity | Cara Daggett
29 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We need an energy transition—a feminist energy transition.For years, Cara Daggett has been researching “petromasculinity” and how this patriarch...
An Alternative India | Ashish Kothari
22 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Exploitative elites are everywhere—so is resistanceThe Global North vs Global South divide fails to capture the reality of power dynamics as nationa...
The Untold Stories of the Amazon | Heriberto Araujo
15 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Amazon is in trouble—so are its people.Journalist Heriberto Araujo has been investigating the stories of the Amazon for over a decade. In his fo...
A Humane Transition | Bob Jensen
08 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If we can’t undo the damage, how do we survive it?Bob Jensen, political theorist, is the co-author of An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Environmental Coll...
The Climate Campaign | Alastair Campbell
01 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
But What Can I Do?That’s the title of Alastair Campbell’s latest book, a passionate treatise on how broken politics is and what to do about it. Hi...
How To Change A System | Isabel Cavelier
25 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What if the answer is all of us?We need to change the system. But if the system is made up of individuals, should we start there? On this week’s epi...
Closing the Enlightenment Gap | Gregg Henriques
18 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How can we know so much and yet continue to live so dangerously?Gregg Henriques has been working on this problem for over 20 years. He believes the pr...
How Death Drives the Anthropocene | Sheldon Solomon
11 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"Here we are at a crossroads of human history. There's never been this historical confluence of war, political instability, economic vulnerability, on...
Protecting Children in a Warming World | Carter Dillard
04 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The climate fight is a fight for children’s rights.When Carter Dillard began researching family planning systems he found a fallacy in international...
The Media's Role in the Crisis | Lucy McAllister
27 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Which papers are telling the truth? And which are giving inches to climate skeptics?In this episode, Lucy McAllister, Assistant Professor in Environme...
The Unsustainable Green Transition | Simon Michaux
20 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
You can’t go green without going small.Our fossil-fuelled economy is destabilising the planet. But a renewable economy might not be much better. Sim...
The Power of Community Imagination | Immy Kaur
13 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When institutions fail—communities take back control.Community organising has never been more important in a world where people are increasingly iso...
How Economics Overpowers Culture | Lisi Krall
06 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Understanding Reality | Jude Currivan
30 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Our scientific model of the universe is changing.From the mechanistic, rational ideas of the 20th century, physics is now understanding that the unive...
Creating the Leaders We Need | Owen Sheers
23 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What if we educated young people in how to change the world?Black Mountains College is the world’s first college dedicated to the climate crisis. Th...
How Pronatalism Feeds The Economy | Nandita Bajaj
16 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We’re in planetary overshoot. So why are governments coercing women into having children?Nandita Bajaj is the Executive Director of Population Balan...
Mind Over Reality: Why Men Are Destroying The Planet | Ajit Varki
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
People all around the world wonder what makes human beings so special. One scientist flipped the question on its head: What got in the way of other sp...
The Woman Who Transformed A Nation | Sophie Howe
02 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What if a nation built policies for the future, not the election cycle?Sophie Howe was the world’s first “commissioner for the unborn”, appointe...
Power, Politics and Possibility | Indra Adnan
23 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If politics is broken—what's the alternative?Indra Adnan is an author, political entrepreneur and psychosocial therapist. She's also the founder of ...
Cleaning The Energy Grid | Dave Jones
16 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dave Jones is the Head of Data Insights at Ember, a think tank helping shift the world from coal to clean energy—rapidly.Dave joined me to discuss t...
How To Sue Big Oil | Benjamin Franta
09 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Benjamin Franta is the founder of the Climate Litigation Lab at the University of Oxford, informing climate litigation around the world. The lab resea...
Decolonise to Decarbonise | Fadhel Kaboub
02 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Fadhel Kaboub is a former Associate Professor of Economics at Denison University where he researched political economy, decarbonisation, colonialism, ...
Writing A Better World | Kim Stanley Robinson
26 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Kim Stanley Robinson is a science fiction writer and author of the acclaimed novel, The Ministry for the Future. Set in the near future, this work of ...
The Green Transition Needs Land | Max Ajl
19 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Max Ajl is a fellow at Ghent university researching the climate and agrarian issues. He's also the author of the acclaimed A People’s Green New Deal...
The Steady State Economy | Brian Czech
12 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Brian Czech, founder of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy, is an ecological economist and former conservation biologist. Bria...
Solving the Climate Crisis | Roundtable
22 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In July, I recorded a roundtable with six of my former guests. The aim was to create an interdisciplinary assessment of the climate crisis, and what t...
Message From The Future | Wendy Schultz
15 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Wendy Schultz is an academically trained futurist with over thirty-five years of global foresight practice. Director at Infinite Futures, she has desi...
Why Scientists Must Rebel | Aaron Thierry
08 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“The public do trust science and scientists more than probably any other social group, according to social surveys. The public have expectations on ...
Information Pollution | Dahr Jamail
01 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“How long do we keep pretending that capitalism works? How long are we going to keep pretending that there is such a thing as objectivity? How long ...
Activism: The Moderate Flank | Rupert Read
24 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“How do we challenge the hegemony and change it, and start to plan for a future for our children, for our grandchildren, for our great grandchildren...
The World We Leave Behind | Ella Saltmarshe
17 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ella Saltmarshe is “incorrigibly plural” — an anthropologist by training, Ella is a writer, activist, organiser, founder and narrative strategis...
Crisis Policies: What We Need From COP27 | Laurie Laybourn
10 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Laybourn is a policy researcher and author. He leads Cohort 2040, which explores how to deepen rapid action toward a more sustainable and equit...
Why Scientists Choose Activism | Charlie Gardner
03 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Charlie Gardner is a conservationist, activist and writer. An outspoken member of Scientist Rebellion, Charlie left academia last year to focus on rai...
The Most Sustainable Economy in the World | Kate Raworth
27 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kate Raworth is a renegade economist focused on making economics fit for 21st century realities. Senior Associate at Oxford University’s Environment...
Making Sense of the Meaning Crisis | John Vervaeke
20 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
John Vervaeke is a cognitive scientist at the University of Toronto and world renowned thinker, bridging science and spirituality in order to understa...
Building Democracies for the 21st Century | Matt Leighninger
13 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Matt Leighninger is the Head of Democracy Innovation at the National Conference on Citizenship. A pioneer in democracy innovation, Matt’s spent the ...
Alternatives To Capitalism | John Harvey
06 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
John Harvey, The Cowboy Economist, is a Professor of Economics at Texas Christian University, Forbes columnist, and author of Contending Perspectives ...
The Future is History | Jon Alexander
29 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jon Alexander is the co-founder of the New Citizens Project and author of Citizens: Why The Key To Fixing Everything Is All Of Us. A former award-winn...
Overpopulation: From 8 billion to 3 | Phoebe Barnard
22 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Phoebe Barnard is a biologist, global change scientist, and policy analyst with decades of experience confronting some of the most pressing problems o...
Power vs People | Robbie Watt
15 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Robbie Watt is a Lecturer in Politics at the University of Manchester, researching climate change politics, carbon markets, global governance, and cri...
How Systems Malfunction | Trevor Hilder
08 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Trevor Hilder is an IT expert and cybernetics specialist who worked under Stafford Beer to develop the Viable System Model. Trevor joins me to explain...
The Limits of Human Wisdom | George Mobus
25 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
George Mobus is Professor Emeritus at University of Washington, Tacoma. His broad academic background saw him conduct research on artificial intellige...
Bright Green Lies | Max Wilbert
18 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Max Wilbert is an activist, wilderness guide and writer, co-authoring Bright Green Lies: How The Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can D...
The Politics of Land | Chris Smaje
11 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Chris Smaje is a social scientist, farmer, and author of A Small Farm Future: Making the Case for a Society Built Around Local Economies, Self-Provisi...
Transition Engineering: A Sustainable Future is Possible | Susan Krumdieck
04 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Susan Krumdieck is a mechanical engineer, Professor of Engineering at Heriot Watt University, Chair of the university’s Energy Transition, and autho...
Let's Talk About Real Zero | Caroline Lucas
28 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Caroline Lucas is the UK Green Party’s first Member of Parliament, elected to represent Brighton and Hove in the 2010 General Election. Caroline has...
Why Complex Societies Need Simple Individuals | John Gowdy
21 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
John Gowdy is Professor of Economics and Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. He is the...
It's Not Just A Climate Crisis | Mike Joy
14 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mike Joy is a freshwater ecologist and Senior Researcher at IGPS Victoria University of Wellington. He has been working for two decades at the interfa...
The Truth about Green Finance | Fred Hache
07 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Frederic Hache is the cofounder and executive director of Green Finance Observatory, an NGO tracking the world of “sustainable finance”, debunking...
Pro-Power: How the Far Right Stole America | Katherine Stewart
30 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Katherine Stewart is an investigative reporter and author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism. She’s spent...
Global Climate Compensation | Henrik Nordborg
23 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Henrik Nordborg is a physics professor at the Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences, and program director for the university’s Renewabl...
The Meaning Crisis | Jeremy Lent
16 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jeremy Lent is an author and integrator whose dedicated his life since the dot com boom to understanding meaning: how to find it, how to make it, and ...
Understanding Resilience | Graeme Cumming
09 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do we build resilient systems? How do we allow for transformation? How do we encourage adaptation? How does this apply to both to ecosystems and h...
Creating Complex Solutions | Asher Miller
02 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
One of the greatest challenges we face when tackling the polycrisis is understanding and applying a diversity of approaches. This means recognising th...
Creating Deliberative Democracies | Susan Clark & Tom Prugh
26 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“Too many cooks spoil the broth.” That’s the old adage—but could the opposite be true when it comes to politics? Researchers and writers Susan...
Price Wars: How Prices Caused the Crisis | Rupert Russell
19 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From the global financial crash in 2008 to Arab Springs in 2011 to the rise of authoritarian regimes climaxing in the election of a fake-tanned despot...
The Climate Crisis is a Social Crisis | Richard Heinberg
12 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We’re living in the anthropocene — a geological period defined by the impact of human activity on the planet’s climate and ecosystems. Essential...
Debunking Green Growth | Tim Parrique
05 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Degrowth is making waves in academic and climate circles. Not only does the research field provide genuine hope for a more equitable and environmental...
The Future of Activism | Gail Bradbrook
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Extinction Rebellion drew attention to the climate crisis like no other group before them. Founded in just 2018, they’ve forced the climate conversa...
Citizens vs Oligarchies | Sally Goerner
21 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when a small percentage of the population amass resources and power? Oligarchy. And polymath Sally Goerner says oligarchy is the final st...
Creating Resilient Biosystems | Walter Jehne
14 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What’s a resilient biosystem? Healthy soil, healthy water, healthy cycles. They’re so key that even defence departments around the world are start...
Understanding the Nature of Systems | Jessie Henshaw
07 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why, when armed with so much knowledge, are we failing to tackle the climate crisis? There must be some piece of the puzzle we haven’t grasped to co...
Urgency, Action and Ethics | Joseph Merz
31 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There are no easy solutions to the climate crisis—most governments admit their hope lies in technology which doesn’t even exist yet. Science and “...
Buying Time With Geoengineering | Ye Tao
24 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Geoengineering is often accused of falling prey to techno-optimism—that technology will get us out of this anthropocenic mess. A lot of proposals se...
Degrowth and Ecosocialism | Jason Hickel
17 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine if we could support 10 billion people on our planet using just 60% of our current energy demands. Sound too good to be true? Not according to ...
Saving Democracy to Save the Planet | David Orr
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the fight against climate change, we have some of the key details down: reducing emissions, pollution, consumption. But what about the bigger pictu...
Russia's War: The Impact of Sanctions and Markets | Chris Cook
04 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a terrible, devastating conflict causing an inexcusable loss of life. The rest of the world has bound together to sa...
Journalism's Role in a Crisis | Ian Urbina
25 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“The media”. This is the 21st century’s term for journalism—netizens have clocked how many online publications are nothing more than content-c...
How To Make Markets Serve People | Chris Cook
18 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The global financial system is exploitative, and squeezing the vast majority of people out of living a safe, well and happy life. It’s knackered, as...
Gaianism: Can a Spiritual Movement Combat the Crisis?
11 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
I have a question for you all: Would you find interview transcriptions useful? I’m considering making them available to Patrons and paid subscribers...
Transforming Food Systems to Transform the Future | Jason Bradford
04 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Which animal consumes more energy producing food than it does eating that food? None, except industrialised humans. You don't need to be a scientist t...
How Science is Failing the Crisis | Dan Fiscus
28 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“Follow the science!” This value-neutral field with its objective logic and cold reasoning is our beacon of hope in an ecological crisis. But shou...
How Western Philosophy Created the Crisis | Carl Safina
21 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What’s Plato got to do with the environmental crisis? Everything, according to Carl Safina, ecologist, author, fellow, and winner of the MacArthur g...
Life After Fossil Fuels | Alice Friedemann
14 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A post-carbon world could be our opportunity to do better—and make the difficult transition much easier to swallow. That’s the message of Alice Fr...
The Thermodynamics of Collapse | Tim Garrett
07 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
According to the laws of physics, the economy can only sustain itself by growing. So how bound are we by the laws of thermodynamics?Professor Tim Garr...
One year of Planet: Critical
31 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to this special episode of Planet: Critical where we journey from the podcast’s humble beginnings to what it is today, and what I hope it wi...
Common Sense vs Economics | Joshua Farley
17 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Did you know that four years of studying mainstream economics at university has such a profound impact on students that their value systems change? An...
Save The Forests To Save The Planet | Anastassia Makarieva
10 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What’s theoretical physics got to do with trees? Everything.Life on this planet is in grave danger. While life does what it can to self-regulate (br...
Fish, Fusion and Revolution | Paul Greenberg
03 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Tackling climate obesity will take a very strict diet—and it’s not a one size fits all solution. We’ve got to make big changes, and fast. But wh...
Seeing the Big Picture | Nate Hagens
26 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to the era of generalists, of the big picture thinkers who translate concepts into action. These are the people who join the dots to get a bet...