Planet: Critical

Gordon Katic is the founder of the award-winning podcast production company, Cited Media. This week, they’re launching Green Dreams, the new season of their flagship podcast which tells stories of radical environmental thinkers and their dreams for our green future, asking: Should we make those dreams reality, or are they actually nightmares?Gordon contacted me to arrange a mutual podcast shout-out, and instead I invited him on the show to discuss both the season and their innovative research method which prioritises and plural and collaborative approach. Gordon braids in much of what he’s learned into this conversation, in which we tackle some of the historical and current fallacies of the environmental movement. He shines light on the cult of the Western environmental intellectual whilst holding in high esteem the possibility for a bright future—his own realistic and determined green dream.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

Collapse has historically benefited the 99%.That’s the amazing conclusion of Luke Kemp, author of Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse.  Luke is a research associate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, and has spent the past five years studying the collapse of civilisations throughout history. He joins me to explain his research, detailing the difference between complex, collective civilisations and what he calls “Goliaths”, massive centralising forces by which a small group of individuals extract wealth from the rest through domination and the threat of violence. Today, he says, we live in a global Goliath.In this astounding conversation, Luke takes us from the Ancient times to the modern day, revealing the root causes of collapse and paralleling them what we’re living through today. He explains the egalitarian nature of our species, and shines new light on what a future could look like free from today’s global Goliath. He reminds us all that we tend to view collapse through the eyes of the 1%, those who have the most to lose, and gives startling accounts of how populations bounced back after their domineering rulers fell. For a conversation about the collapse of the modern world, this conversation is as hopeful as it is brutal.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

How can we become good ancestors? Permaculturist and educator, Kara Huntermoon, says the hobbies we pick up now can be skills we pass on to our children, even if we never have to use them ourselves. In this wide-ranging and empathetic conversation on relationality, intergenerational solidarity, and hard work, Kara explores how community sufficiency practiced properly creates the common ground in which we can plant the future. This conversation weaves the importance of our relationships with the increasing political alienation experienced by many on the left, with Kara examining how to find allies in those our political binaries would deem enemies. Braiding feminism with back-breaking work, Kara invites us all to remember that there are always different worlds possible, but it's only if you get your hands dirty and do the work that they will grow from the soil.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

How we create knowledge is as important as the knowledge itself. This is the message of this week’s guest, Aboriginal scholar and author, Tyson Yunkaporta. In his explanation of the importance of learning through living, and living with learning, Tyson points to the how the discourse around decolonisation has granted expertise based on identity rather than experience. He highlights how indigenous thinking is fundamentally consensus building, mirroring the Western scientific method, and warns that neoliberal thinking has infected what should have been a radical transformation, creating individuals who consider themselves fully contained “little corporations”.In this unflinching and compassionate conversation, Tyson weaves the culture wars, knowledge production, indigenous science, landscapes and the body to reveal the mismatches between how we think and how we live, which have opened wounds in the collective body which act as voids into which our potential solidarity falls. This is a dialogue on truth, kinship and action, in which Tyson gives one of the most honest accounts of where the best of intention has gone wrong in recent years, delivering a call to refuse these narratives of separation between ourselves, our kinfolk and the great Earth upon which we all depend. 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

Is the world even collapsing?Joseph Tainter is a Professor at Utah State University and the author of The Collapse of Complex Societies. He explains on this episode that collapse happens when a civilisation experiences a diminishing return on complexity, the fact that it takes more capital, more energy, more resources to maintain society until eventually that maintenance is no longer useful.We discuss his research and apply it to today’s world, linking in energy, technology, even geopolitical order, with Joseph—surprisingly, despite all the evidence that points to this moment in history as truly exceptional given Earth’s systems breakdown—stating that there is nothing special about the world we live in and its precarious future. 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’ve been protesting for decades. Is it time to escalate?Rowan Tilly is an elder of the British peace and environment movements. She has risked jail multiple times to raise awareness of the atrocities carried out against human beings and the planet. All of her direct action is non-violent, and she is deeply committed to an activism which provokes the public to confront the state’s violence. I am extremely grateful to Rowan for her activism and commitment over the years. I am especially grateful that she was open to recording this episode in which I challenge the current belief that non-violence is the only way to achieve our goals.In this stark and compassionate episode, we discuss the traditional tenets of non-violence, their efficacy and their results. We hold different positions of what the future of activism should entail, and go deep into the weeds of morality, violence itself, and different cases of resistance from all around the world.This episode went out to paid subscribers only yesterday because I ticked the wrong box. Apologies, everyone! Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

All of our industries are going to have to shrink. But how do we shrink the good ones?Martin Hensher is a health economist and  a Professor of Health Systems Sustainability at the University of Tasmania. He’s spent years researching how to create a degrowth model for the health industry—and why it will be better for people as well as our planet. Martin argues that the way we currently run our healthcare is another symptom of overconsumption, explaining when healthcare benefits and healthcare expenditure actually decouple. This is a fascinating episode in which Martin interweaves the health of the planet’s body with our own, providing a vision for a sustainable, global healthcare industry which doesn’t depend on economic growth, inequality, or over-extraction. He explains we can save lives and prevent disease—but to stay within our planetary boundaries, we’re going to have to transform how we do that. 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

Women’s bodies have always been the cornerstone of reproduction. So has Earth’s. It’s why the enclosure and appropriation of both is fundamental to the accumulation of the capitalist class.On this extraordinary episode, I interview Marxist-feminist scholar, Silvia Federici, author of Caliban and the Witch, a phenomenal book which articulates how capitalism did not naturally evolve from feudalism, but necessitated the violent displacement of women’s power in their communities and control over their own reproduction. We discuss this in the context of women’s rights being violated all around the world today as we enter a period of resource scarcity, and why it is therefore imperative that the Western feminist movement recover this analysis to create an effective resistance movement. 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

Ask anyone anywhere what’s the leading cause of global heating and they’ll tell you: fossil fuels. But what if we’re all wrong? Gerard Wedderburn-Bisshop is a scientist for the World Preservation Foundation and worked as a Principal Scientist with Queensland Government Natural Resources, using satellite data to monitor three decades of vegetation cover and broadscale deforestation. In February 2025, he released a paper showing how the IPCC is using different models to calculate the emissions from fossil fuels and animal agriculture. Gerrard researches shows, when we use the same model for both, animal agriculture becomes the biggest driver of global heating. In this episode, Gerard explains his research and other problems with emissions calculation, including how deforestation is disregarded and methane is misrepresented. He calls all of this inconsistent emissions accounting—and it could be leading policy-leaders astray. 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

How do we survive?Max Wilbert is a long-time activist who spent the past few years defending Thacker Pass, and recently joined CELDF to as part of their new strategy to build out community resilience. I first interviewed Max on why techno-optimism won’t save the day. As with many compatriots around the world, the answer he’s landed on as to what will is local action.In this winding and weaving conversation we discuss the new bill on the floor of the New York State Senate which would give rights of nature to all water in the state before examining legal strategies more broadly under the umbrella of climate activism. We then examine Empire’s death throes and how it is violently grasping at power to maintain itself. We discuss violence and defence, patriarchy and permaculture, showing how resilience is an act of resistance in a system which has spent the past 500 years ripping apart our communal social fabric. This is a conversation about how to reweave a tapestry that had been lost to us, and why doing is of vital importance to survive what’s coming. 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 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