Planet: Critical

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Fadhel Kaboub is a former Associate Professor of Economics at Denison University where he researched political economy, decarbonisation, colonialism, and the financial and agricultural policies necessary to facilitate a global—and just—green transition. Since recording, Fadhel has been appointed Under-Secretary-General for Financing for Development at the international intergovernmental organisation, Organisation of Educational Cooperation. This episode is thrilling. Fadhel explains the traps of inflation, debt, globalisation, and the financial and agricultural policies weaponised by the global north to exploit the global south. He walks us through the three structural traps which keep wealth pouring out of the global south into the global north, amounting to modern colonialism. And he explains why we can afford a just transition, revealing the exciting mechanisms of Modern Monetary Theory by exploring the solutions global south countries can implement to ensure their sustainable development. 🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical

Starrlight Augustine is the director at the Institute of Ecotechnics, a research initiative developing technologies that exist in harmony with nature. She heads up their agroecology division, which is based at Synergia Ranch in New Mexico where she applies a little known but radical theory of biology: Dynamic Energy Budget Theory. DEB theory is a way of understanding how energy flows through organisms and through their living environment, and how the living environment flows through organisms themselves, providing a big picture overview of the metabolic organisation of life itself. Starrlight explains the theory in depth, including what makes it distinguishes itself to other theories of biology, before describing how she applies it practically on the farm to improve their yields and reduce their impacts.  🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical

FROM THE ARCHIVES: We’re in planetary overshoot. So why are governments coercing women into having children? Nandita Bajaj is the Executive Director of Population Balance, an organisation offering education and solutions to address the intersectional impacts of human overpopulation and over consumption on the planet, people and animals. Nandita also co-hosts The Overpopulation Podcast, and teaches at the Institute for Humane Education at Antioch University, where she researches prenatal ism and human supremacy and their impacts on reproductive ecological and intergenerational justice. This episode is about the dangers of pronatalism. Nandita reveals how the coercive pronatalist policies around the world coupled with cultural mechanisms are causing a devastating impact on the planet. She also explains how existing power structures benefit from a growing population, illustrating how our economic obsession with growth demands exponential population growth. Nandita also explores the elevation of rights—human, species and natural—as a cornerstone climate policy to tackle population and create a sustainable world for everyone, and everything. 🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical

The world is full of good ideas and solutions to the crisis. But good ideas cannot trump the laws of physics, and solutions will only be such if they are deployed in a manifestly different way than our current high-energy, high-material, high-consumption regime demands.  Philippe Bihouix is an engineer and the author of The Age of Low Tech (UK version, US version), which examines why technological innovation is just not going to be enough to get our way out of our resource bottlenecks, the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis, and rising inequality. On the episode, he lays out his thesis, explaining from an engineering perspective the constraints of renewable energy, the fallacy of a circular economy, the reality of how our metals are used and recycled, and the importance of the longevity of demand side technology. Instead, Philippe calls for "techno-discernment", a collective approach for choosing what we're using our finite resources for—and what we're choosing to leave in the ground for future generations. 🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical

FROM THE ARCHIVES: What happens when a small percentage of the population amass resources and power? Oligarchy. And polymath Sally Goerner says oligarchy is the final stage of most human civilizations—and a symptom of dysfunctional human systems. She joins me to explain why the future is integral and collaborative, why empowering people with vision and hope is key to creating systemic changes, why citizenship is the foundation of any human system, and how to measure the health of those systems. This is a far-reaching and impressive conversation covering neurobiology, history, sociology, political theory and systems thinking. I found Sally and her research utterly fascinating and hope you all get as much out of it as I did. 🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical