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Can renewables really save the day?
Auke Hoekstra, Director of the NEON Research Program, says they can. The renewables researcher firmly states that we can power this society on renewables energy, dramatically reducing the harms caused by our current energy system and providing equitable access to energy. However, he does not think this means the renewable roll-out is inevitable thanks to political and economic forces built on fossil fuelled power.
Known as the “Debunker in chief”, Auke and I have a lengthy, nuanced, tense and joyful discussion about the question of renewables: their effectiveness, limitations, and how to use them responsibly. On the scientific side of the conversation, we cover the nitty gritty of energy density, materials access, and land use. We also situate the conversation in the wider socio-political context, leading to a conversation on shared values and responsibility.
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If not nuclear, then what else?
This is Jessica Lovering's question, co-founder of the Good Energy Collective. She says the most important thing is to lift one billion people out of energy poverty. To do that, we need a low carbon source of energy without intermittency issues. Because of this, she says, nuclear is a form of environmental justice.
Jessica begins by explaining the historical and current dynamics, regulatory issues, financial challenges, and technological advancements in nuclear. We then address the potential and complexities of nuclear power in addressing climate change, managing energy needs, and ensuring energy equity. We also explore community consent, nuclear waste management, geopolitical implications, employment impacts, before discussing whether or not nuclear is worth the risk in an increasingly unstable world.
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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The U.S Military is going green. But what does that mean?
Decarbonised bases, hybrid vehicles, micro electricity grids, recycling methane gas. In fact, the U.S military is doing what climate activists are crying out for governments to do—everything, that is, except changing their overarching strategy. In a mind-bending example of how climate action can be taken when the purpose fits the status quo, the U.S military is ahead of the curve when it comes to taking this problem seriously.
I'm joined by Sherri Goodman, Secretary General of the International Military Council on Climate and the U.S first ever Under Secretary of Defence (Environmental Security) to discuss how the military is approaching the climate crisis. She explains what happens when a climate-denying administration disagrees with the military's prognosis, the steps they're taking to decarbonise, and the purported necessity for defence during times of resource scarcity.
We then debate the reality of the big picture: Is such action truly sustainable if we're not addressing the big picture drivers which create the conditions for violence and conflict?
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The Paris Agreement is dead.
The celebrated target marked in ink in 2016 has been killed by the focus on technocratic solutions over systemic change. Now, rather than address the frightening reality spawned by delusion and incompetence, we're heading even faster towards two degrees—and that being the new acceptable target.
Earth system scientist James Dyke explains that we cannot allow this new target to be set, which the fossil fuel industry is pushing for. This is James' second time on Planet: Critical. Just a few years ago, I interviewed him about the dangers of Net Zero policies and how these carbon accounting tricks were on course to send us over the 1.5 degree limit. Many scientists were chorusing that warning. Their concerns were not heeded and just three years later, we're on course for a truly dangerous future.
In this episode, James explains how we got here, what we've done wrong, and what will happen if climate policies don't rapidly address the structural inequalities and waste of both our energy and economic systems.
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We can’t harm the planet without harming ourselves.
Plastic. It’s ubiquitous. We are now learning it’s also insidious. Plastic is linked to numerous serious health conditions, from cancers to heart disease. It’s changing our DNA—and now babies are being born pre-polluted.
Jane van Dis is a medical doctor, academic and co-founder of 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?
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What happens when an industry regulates itself?
Bad science, opaque methodologies, incorrect conclusions—and few questions asked. The fashion industry has spent over 10 years drafting sustainability guidelines under the guise of independent analysis which protect brands’ bottom lines. Thanks to an elaborate network of organisations, think tanks and funders, these guidelines have even made their into Law around the world. The problem? They’re unscientific.
Veronica Bates Kassatly is an economist and sustainable fashion consultant I met whilst investigating this story in 2022. Despite the extent of fashion’s greenwashing making international headlines years ago, little has come on since, as Veronica explains in the episode. We discuss the manipulation of sustainability metrics by the fashion industry to promote polyester fibre as sustainable, the deficiencies in current methodologies, and the impact of EU regulations on global trade, particularly for producers in the Global South. The episode highlights the interplay of economics, legislation, and industry incentives in perpetuating unsustainable practices, urging for inclusive discussions and genuine sustainability measures.
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What happens when economics takes precedence over thermodynamics?
Eventually, the system collapses—because being incompatible with thermodynamics is impossible. That’s the stark message of this week’s guest, Louis Arnoux, a scientist, engineer and managing director of Fourth Transition, who has been working on this problem for decades. Louis and his team’s research point to our energy systems collapsing by 2030 because we’re having to spend more energy than ever before to extract fuel. Soon, the energy cost of extraction will equal the energy benefit. Such an equilibrium is, in his words, a dead state.
In the episode, Louis gives a phenomenal overview of the three thermodynamic traps human civilisation is caught in, including how decarbonising to renewables is exacerbating the thermodynamic problem. He explains how our current energy systems work antithetically to the sun and the planet, including the waste problem, before highlighting the role of economics in the creation of an impossible system. He then explains what a possible energy system could look like with the technology we have available, and how we can engineer that system to mimic the efficiency and productivity of life on the planet.
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Can we engineer our way out of dystopia?
A.I. technologist Deep Dhillon and I had a heated exchange about technology after meeting by chance in Granada after a flamenco performance. The conversation was fascinating, and I invited him onto the show to discuss what's really going on in Silicon Valley around A.I., what developments are being made and why, and how this technology is going to impact us all.
As a cofounder of Xyonix and host of the podcast, Your A.I. Injection, Deep has decades of experience working on A.I. models. He explains his vision for a brighter future facilitated by technology, but equally explains the negative impacts of technology not just on society but on the industry itself which is racing to keep up with its own developments. This is a wide-ranging conversations about systems, tech, the economy and collective responsibility for engineering a better future for us all.
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This week, P:C features Mongabay.
Nations across the globe are trialing “rights of nature” laws and “legal personhood” for various ecosystems and a range of reasons, from Indigenous reconciliation to biodiversity protection. While these two concepts are closely related, they have some key differences.
Viktoria Kahui discusses what distinguishes them and how they’ve been used for conservation, while stressing there’s still little evidence that legal personhood protects biodiversity. Kahui is an environmental and ecological economist at the University of Otago in Aotearoa New Zealand and joins the Mongabay Newscast to interrogate these legal frameworks.
In this conversation with co-host Rachel Donald, Kahui outlines instances where the laws have been applied and why, despite some flaws, she thinks they are worth considering and iterating upon to combat environmental degradation, despite a global debate and many critiques, based on their intent and design. Chief among these is their imposition of an anthropocentric (and primarily Western) legal viewpoint upon something as complex as nature, which transcends the confines of human liability and, therefore, cannot be subjected to it without knock-on effects that potentially harm the people these laws are intended to empower.
Kahui weighs in on this debate and where she sees such laws being applied in a promising fashion, such as in Ecuador, where courts have examined nature in the context of established constitutional law, leading to outcomes that have benefited both people and nature.
“Very slowly, as lawyers and judges are becoming more familiar with the concept, they’re able to interpret it when there is a legal case being brought, and they’re [better able to argue] the side of nature,” she says. “It’s certainly much, much more positive than what we’ve seen in the past.”
Subscribe to or follow the Mongabay Newscast wherever you listen to podcasts, from Apple to Spotify, and you can also listen to all episodes on the Mongabay website.
Planet: Critical is back to regular programming next week. Stay tuned.
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How has the psychology industry perpetuated the problem?
Steffi Bednarek is a climate psychotherapist working both with clients on their anxiety and depression related to climate grief, and the overarching systems within the psychology profession which stigmatises mental health by failing to grasp that poor mental health can be a rational reaction to a broken world.
Steffi joins me to discuss how the dysfunction of our neoliberal economic system permeates our experience of being in the world, questioning whether health is an attainable goal in a sick society. She suggests the mental health crisis is yet another opportunity to radically transform our systems to promote a health that includes people and planet. We discuss the construct of the self, the metacrisis as a birth process, the role of the body in understanding information, and how to build psychological resilience.
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Remember the adage it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism?
Culture inculcates certainties—and only in living against them will we forge new possibilities, says writer Natasha Lennard. Changing the world from the ground up takes time, it takes bravery, it takes collective will to go against. Only power changes fast. But we can live in a world where people—not power—make changes.
In this wonderful discussion on certainty, doubt and reimagining the world, Natasha, author of two books on politics and violence, walks us through how we currently conceptualise crisis and certainty, and how once we have an understanding of that conceptualisation, we can become more aware of how certainties arise from collective meaning making. This is about moving the frontiers of certainty, rejecting things that we think to be certain in order to challenge, experiment, and joyously resist violent norms. This is about how we build a new world—and remember what truly is certain: love, shelter, community, joy.
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What if the solutions are the problem?
Life is made beautiful by the myriad possibilities that evolve—spontaneously—from interactions in the world. A look shared between strangers, a joke passed from customer to barista, a story swapped, a birdsong heard. But these possibilities are diminishing with every tech substitution for interaction. Tech gets in the way.
I'm joined by journalist and founder of Low Tech Magazine, Kris De Decker, to discuss the difference between high tech and low tech; the zealous and unfounded faith in tech crippling our climate decisions; the relationship between tech, finance, economies and state control; and how a low tech lifestyle is liberating. This is a beautiful conversation with someone really walking the walk when it comes to sustainability—and reaping the rewards.
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References: Brett Scott and Altered States of Monetary Consciousness:
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How do we come home to our bodies?
Bayo Akomolafe is a philosopher writer, activist, professor of psychology and executive director of the emergence network. He's the author of 'We Will Tell Our Own Story' and 'These Wilds Beyond Our Fences: Letters To My Daughter on Humanity's Search for Home'. Bayo is an extraordinary poet artist, linguistic dancer, who seems to revel at the very edge of thought, holding up fractal mirrors with which we can see ourselves in splendid possibility and wounded reality. He has a way of speaking that invites both the past and the future to pick up the spirit of the present and remind it not to be weighed down by all that it thinks it is.
In this conversation, Bayo talks about the crisis of mastery that we face today: white modernity and the edge of the moral field into which we must dance and play and revolt. He describes cracks as innovation; the pragmatic of the useless; the minor gestures which disrupt; and edge as a place of power. This is a conversation about carnival and bodies, on de-territorialising our senses, on emerging with reality, on relating, and on coming home.
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How can businesses make better decisions?
The corporate world needs new values, values that inspire different motivations for existing. But doing so within the existing framework of driving shareholder value is so complicated that many are claiming it can't be done. Socio-technological ethicist Nate Kinch is trying anyway.
Nate works at the intersection of values and technology, working on redesigning corporate values by focusing on building trust and morality within organisations. We discuss this at length, and whether or not business is capable of designing its own decay or degrowth due to a wider ecological imperative. We also discuss the drivers of this corporate crisis, including the story of separation.
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The global majority are not responsible for global warming.
A tiny percentage of the world's population are in positions of power, making decisions that impact the entire planet. These are the people who own and benefit from the fossil-fuelled means of production. Professor Matt Huber says taking power back from them is a class struggle—and cannot be done without building working class power.
Building on arguments from his book, Climate Change as Class War, Matt says that rather than focusing on elite consumption we should target elite production, making material arguments for systems change that the working class can relate to. He also explains what the professional class of environmentalists fail to grasp about working class voters, why capital ignores public infrastructure, and why a Green New Deal is the only way to combat petro-privatisation.
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The carbon cycle is more dangerous than an asteroid.
An asteroid killed the dinosaurs but unstable carbon cycles caused the worse mass extinctions in earth’s history—and we are putting carbon dioxide into the air at a rate the earth has never seen before.
I’m joined by science journalist Peter Brannen, author of The Ends of the World, to discuss how the carbon cycle has caused five out of the six mass extinction events — with the worst taking 10 million years for the planet to recover. Peter says all the drivers point that we are hurtling towards a sixth mass extinction if we don’t change rapidly change course, an event totally unprecedented in its man-made nature. This is an experiment in planetary systems going horribly wrong. We still have time to stop. If we don’t, the results could change the planet beyond recognition.
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A.I. is here—except it isn't. Or is it?
A.I. is all over the news all of the time, and nations are scrambling to win the race and become the world leaders in this technology which we're told will change the world. This belief, this myth, is driving policy, investment, hype and conferences. It's the myth that is making A.I., a technology which has consistenly been over-promised and failed to deliver.
Yet, nobody is asking if we want the changes we're told A.I. will deliver. The assumption is the future will be artificially intelligent. This means that other critical problems are falling off the agenda which is now dominated by the race towards a hyper-technological future—no matter the costs. Researcher Paul Schütze joins me to explore how these myths are making A.I. into a reality, with no consideration as to whether or not we want that reality. He explains the true cost of this A.I. futurism on the environment, social cohesion, and even our imagination.
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Books referenced: Rethinking Racial Capitalism
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Reparations provide legal rights.
So argues lawyer and humanitarian, Esther Afolaranmi. Esther is the founder of the Golden Love and Hands of Hope Foundation in Nigeria, working on women’s liberation, girls’ education and lobbying the UN to meet the climate pledges promised at COP meetings. Esther joins me to discuss the links between climate, family planning, social justice and explains the corruption in Nigeria preventing the country from moving past the legacies of extraction and colonialism.
Esther explains that climate reparations are not about money, but about granting equal legal rights to the world’s most vulnerable communities. She also says that as long as unethical leaders break the promises made at climate conferences, those communities will be forced to take more desperate action to secure their futures.
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What would you lose to take a stand?
Gianluca Grimalda, a climate change researcher, lost his job after he refused to fly back from fieldwork in Papua New Guinea. Gianluca has been “slow travelling” for decades. He thinks his former employer tried to make an example out of him because of his climate activism. It’s one of those stories that reveals the madness of the world—he was sent to research how vulnerable communities are responding to climate change as the seas consume their villages, and then told he could no longer continue that research if he did not commit an act of harm.
He joins me to share the preliminary results of his fieldwork and tell this incredible story: his activism, the threats of dismissal, the ongoing fight with the institute, and the incredible journey from Bougainville to Germany by ferry, train and coach. This is a tale that reminds us that some things are less complicated than we are led to believe—and that we cannot rely on our institutions for moral clarity.
Watch the film made about Gianluca’s journey here.
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Our bodies know what words fail to describe.
Shifts in culture, ravages of violence, ruptures and reconciliation—the body politic lives in our own bodies, informing and inhibiting our experience in the world. Yet, we fail to recognise this connection, and the even wider one of our own bodies as part of the earth's system, which is experiencing great violence and chaos. We need to reconnect with our bodies.
Ruptures is just one of the themes Ranu Mukherjee explores as an artist. She joins me to discuss this, and the somatic experience, deep time, the lives of plants, and the violence that ripples out through society. We explore the limitations of connection in economies of scale, how this informs our power hierarchies, and the violence we then internalise, which leads us to a beautiful conversation on uncertainty.
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