“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? Who holds the wealth? And what are they doing with it? Government borrowing and quantitative easing, this sort of thing, can change some of that, but really when you get down to it, you're going to have to think about how you're going to tax some of that wealth because you need to shift actual resources around. The most effective mechanism we have for doing that is taxation.”Economics is a pretty bizarre field: A social science masquerading as an actual science, economics inflexibly dictates life, relationships, election manifestos and policy despite none of it being set in stone. The beauty of economics is we can radically overhaul our economic systems and institutions to better serve us, rather than being prey to the outputs of a haggard and worn out system. Such a realisation is, though, beyond the imagination of most economic leaders.But there are economists out there working to debunk the myths, cut through the noise, and creating policies which would serve both people and planet. James Meadway—former treasury advisor, member of the Progressive Economy Forum council, and the host of the Macrodose podcast—is one of them. He joins me to discuss the emergency and long-term policies we should implement to navigate the climate crisis, the economic crisis, and to radically overhaul and transition our societies to those which support life over productivity. We discuss some alternative frameworks that are being researched around the world, including de-growth and modern monetary theory, whilst James insists that which needs to be re-evaluated is value itself.Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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 and even knowledge. This surreal layer over the world then becomes more true to us than reality itself, shaping desire, hatred, ideology and conviction. Yet, we have evolved with language, we need it to make sense of the experience of being human. So, how do we reimagine our relationship to language so it may reveal the real instead of hide it?This is what Ray Ison and I discuss in today’s wonderful episode. Ray is a Professor in Systems at the Open University who has been investigating systems and language for decades. We discuss relational dynamics, metaphor theory, knowledge creation, governance, meaning and obfuscation.Ray also explains other forms of signification and communication being explored in the systems community, and how we can participate with language to deframe the world as we see it and reveal its true complexities.Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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 report detailing how we lack enough materials and minerals for a renewable economy. I interviewed Simon, a researcher at GTK Finland, about this report, in which he laid out the lack of raw materials and the ecological cost of mining which will impede a renewable energy future.The report was divisive, with anyone and everyone weighing in on the debate, and more than some name-calling online. Nafeez Ahmed, a systems researcher and investigative journalist who has been reporting on the environment for 20 years, published a detailed piece “debunking” Simon’s report. It caused another stir online, with calls for a debate between the two tweeted from around the world.Watching this unfold, I was concerned by how those on the same side of the fight can end up at odds, and bemused by the vitriol I witnessed on Twitter in both Simon and Nafeez’s name. Simply, if we can’t learn to speak with one another, what’s the point?They were both quick to agree to a debate, and had already been engaging over email on the topic. We go into the technical details of the report but also discuss the polarisation of science, the processing of information, the politics and tribalism driving conversation, before exploring the benefits of how an energy transformation can truly transform society.Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

How do we unlock the inherent creativity of people?Imagination activist, Phoebe Tickell, founded Moral Imaginations to provide an imagination-based approach to systems change. A “renegade scientist”, Phoebe has spent the past year training the London borough of Camden in imagination activism. You can read their Phase One report here as they prepare for Phase Two of the project.Phoebe joins me to discuss the role of imagination in activism, the universality of values in human culture, and the crisis of imagination within the current system. She details the Camden Imagines Project, explaining how 32 officers were trained in moral imagining and the startling impact this has had on the organisation and the borough, revealing some of the fascinating ideas councillors had once their imagination was unleashed.“Human beings can operate in ways that are deeply loving, collaborative, imaginative, And our big challenge, I think right now, is that we've created an entire mega-structure of institutions, and ways of working, and policies and frameworks, and regulations that actually stop us from responding to the alive sense of what is needed and what we should do: what's needed, what we should do, what's possible. That's what moral imagination gestures at.”Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

We need an energy transition—a feminist energy transition.For years, Cara Daggett has been researching “petromasculinity” and how this patriarchal understanding of energy impacts our relationship to it, ourselves and the fabric with which we bind society. A political scientist at Virginia Tech, Cara’s investigations into the politics of work and feminist approaches to power reveal a new understanding about how global warming emerged—and how to navigate it.In this thrilling episode, Cara lays out the genealogy of energy back to the nineteenth-century science of thermodynamics to challenge the underlying logic that informs today’s uses of energy. She explains how sexism manifests in our energy systems, how the concept of energy is weaponised by the oil industry, and the anxiety of entropy, exploring the emotional underpinnings of a linear society which is fearful of confronting its own impermanence. She explores feminist energy systems, introducing the three spheres of a feminist energy transition which would see historically feminised work finally valued.Cara’s book, The Birth of Energy: Fossil Fuels, Thermodynamics, and the Politics of Work was awarded the Clay Morgan Award for best book in environmental political theory. In it she argues that only by transforming the politics of work — most notably, the veneration of waged work — will we be able to confront the Anthropocene's energy problem.“In the 19th century you did have people starting to warn about coal exhaustion or wonder what happens when fossil fuels are gone, but you still had this economy develop around the sense of limitless expansion. This idea that freedom could come through freeing the constraints that the earth posed to putting the world to work. Fossil fuels really help with this kind of astronomical sense of power, helped to make that fantasy seem possible; this dream, almost, of a free energy. And I think you can see that sometimes mapped onto solar and wind, that one day we will actually have free energy, energy that is somehow unbound from life and the earth and death and decay and all these things.I think this is really connected to an understanding of freedom that's about this individual independence and liberation from having to depend upon other people and having to depend upon the earth, and as a very masculine understanding, that is not just undervaluing, but also wanting to transcend, care relations and work and all these things that are feminized.”Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

Exploitative elites are everywhere—so is resistanceThe Global North vs Global South divide fails to capture the reality of power dynamics as national elites extract from their own citizens—often in the name of development. Capitalism funnels wealth to the top in every country, facilitated by a globalised system built on economic growth. But around the world, people are organising to resist these structures, to reclaim their land and their labour in order to benefit their communities. They are modelling alternative ways of being together; they are weaving together possibility.Ashish Kothari is an environmentalist who has been working at the intersection of environment, biodiversity and development for decades. He’s the founder of Kalpavriksh, an Indian non profit organisation working on environmental and social issues at local, national and global levels. He also organises both the Confluence of Alternatives and the Global Tapestry of Alternatives, projects which bring together people all around India and the world to imagine and strategise alternative ways of being, politics, economies and systems.We discuss the history of colonialism, the global obsession with economic growth, development as neo-colonialism, global and national inequality, patriarchy and the reality of elite exploitation across all nations. Ashish then goes on to introduce the people’s movements springing up around India, turning imagination into possibility as viable models are trialled which re-embed communities in their land and heal their relationship with the earth.“What we need are systems across the country, across the globe, of this kind of political and economic localisation where people are able to take control over their ecosystems, their actual resources, their knowledge, their technologies, and also invite knowledge and technologies from outside if they think that what they have is not enough—but in on their own terms. Not being dominated from outside, so the political decision making and the economic decision making is at that local level. It is not with private corporations, nor is it even with the nation state.“That is what we call radical ecological democracy, or, here in India, we call it eco-swaraj.”© Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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 forthcoming book: Masters of the Lost Land. The Untold Story of the Amazon and the Violent Fight for the World's Last Frontier he presents a three-year investigation to uncover a widespread underworld of violence, corruption, and impunity that has delivered the riches of the Amazon to a ruthless elite. But in this true crime story, set against the backdrop of the towering Brazilian jungle and unfolding over five decades, not everyone surrenders to the power of guns and money. And that's what makes the story extraordinary.He joins me to tell the story of Maria Joel Dias Da Costa, the widow of murdered activist, José Dutra da Costa. Dezinho, as he was known, had rallied the rural worker’s union against rampant corruption of wealthy landowners driving deforestation and death through the jungle. He died in the arms of his wife after being shot outside their home. Maria took it upon herself to continue her husband’s work, confronting the political, economic and industry elites to save her home, family and community from these terrible forces.Heriberto goes on to discuss the fascinating connection between inflation and land-grabbing in the Amazon, explaining how many people take land to protect their interests in an unstable economic climate, before taking a wider overview of Brazilian politics and relationship with China, and the impact that may have on the climate fight in coming years.“There were many businessmen and wealthy families who saw opportunity and decided to move to the Amazon to expand dramatically the land that they could own. There are some cases which are shocking—some landowners had ranches, or claimed to have ranches, the size of Cuba or Honduras… “Maria Joel was a normal housewife with four underage children whose husband was murdered. She held her husband in her arms while he was dying. She had two choices. Either she simply move from the region, from this small town, and try to turn the page because she suspected that she would have to confront the economic and the political elite of the town. In one of those momentous situations of her life, she decided to stay in that town no matter the risk. What I found incredibly interesting from my book was exploring the feelings and the doubts and the controversies of a woman who would have chosen another life.”  Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.© Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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 Collapse, Climate Crisis, and the Fate of Humanity. He joined me to discuss the book’s message: transitioning humanely to a more equitable and a smaller society will demand creativity, resilience and community.In this episode, we swap stories on those themes, telling tales of friends who marked us, communities who are forming in the face on political instability, the importance of storytelling as a tool with which to remind us of the best of humanity. This is a moving interview which intertwines knowledge with emotional honesty in the face of potential collapse.During, I also introduce a new project, WE WILL BEAR WITNESS, which documents stories from around the world detailing the perils and resistance of this moment in history. Sign up to bear witness.Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.© Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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. His answer? Teaching the youth to oust the old.Alastair’s message is simple: Learn how to campaign and don’t stop til you win. The original spin doctor, Alastair has decades of experience campaigning as a strategist for Tony Blair’s New Labour government, and then as a mental health campaigner. He’s a prolific writer, co-host of the UK’s top podcast, The Rest is Politics, and remains one of the UK’s most sought-after strategists.We discuss what the climate campaign needs. Alastair emphasises the importance of getting both power and people onboard, stressing the importance of a unified and simply message to inspire action. He addresses the levers and systems which need to be utilised in Power and Politics, and details the roadblocks of Populism and Polarisation. Finally, we discuss the reality of politicking vs the urgency of the crisis before I ask:Will you help?“If enough people get engaged and enough people get involved, don't underestimate the power and the agency that we all have as individuals and, obviously, working together with other people.”© Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

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 episode, Colombian changemaker Isabel Cavalier negates the binary of systems vs individuals, explaining that while cultural change starts from within, its impact and progress can be non-linear—much like climate change. Isabel effortlessly weaves political strategy with spiritual knowledge to explain how culture is the solution to the polycrisis, emphasising that we must re-embed individuals within communities to embody a politics of a better world.Isabel is a former diplomat who held advisory roles on environmental issues at the Colombian Mission to the United Nations in New York and at the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bogotá. After leaving international politics, Isabel co-founded Transforma, a prominent Bogota-based environmental think tank. She is a writer, story-teller and potter, who trained as a lawyer and in socio-cultural studies at the University of Los Andes. She has a Master of Laws from the University of Cambridge. She has worked and published in diverse fields including human rights, racial and gender discrimination, and climate change.“We are able to reinvent ourselves infinitely. That's the capacity of life on earth. Reality is fractal. What we see in a city is a reflection of its inhabitants. What we see in a community is a reflection of people who are part of that community. This means that. It's not that you need to forget the systemic vision; the cultural shift we are looking at is not a cultural shift of becoming more individualistic and autonomous. It’s the opposite. It's understanding that we are interdependent, that we live in systems and not in isolation. Nobody can survive in a bubble by themselves. Not an individual, not a local community, not a municipality, not a city, not a country. Nobody.”Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.© Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe