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 some of the war crimes are denied. The settler state received unequivocal backing from the vast majority of Western leaders whilst it committed war crimes under the Geneva Convention, including cutting off electricity, water and food—everything the EU decried as war crimes when committed by Russia.On Tuesday night, a spokesperson for the Israeli government confirmed an Israeli airstrike hit the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza, killing 500 sick, wounded and refugees. But hours later, the statement was retracted and Israel began sowing doubt about the origins of the strike, pointing the finger at Palestinian Jihadis. Hamas denied the claim. Israel released footage showing the “misfiring rocket” but Twitter users pointed out the videos either had the wrong time stamp, or were clips from 2022. But by Thursday morning, Western journalists were running with the story that both sides were blaming the other—despite the fact that Israel had called the hospital and ordered it to evacuate because of planned strikes.Marc Owen Jones, Associate Professor at HBKU researching disinformation and digital authoritarianism joins me to explain how Israel weaponises doubt to allow its Western allies enough plausible deniability to continue staunchly supporting the regime, the West’s closest stronghold to the largest oil reserves in the world. Marc also explains the relationship between Israeli propaganda and Western media, revealing why so much coverage of what campaigners are calling a genocide against Palestinians only portrays Israel as the victim.Watch Bassem Youssef's amazing interview.Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project by becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

“All of those sectors are rapidly changing and the incumbent industries in those sectors are going to collapse. This is being driven by economic dynamics. It's going to happen.”What if the only viable future is a better one?Whatever the future holds, one thing is certain: tomorrow’s world will not look like today’s. We could see fossil-fascism in which nations hoard their fossil reserves (coal and gas) for accelerated use at the expense of international collaboration. We could see eco-fascism after an unplanned recession which crashes the financial system and slashes demand. We could see a descent into madness in which we run out of fuel to heat, to eat, to survive.We could also see degrowth, eco-socialism, renewable sharing and governance reimagined to meet human rights. No, this isn’t utopia—it’s laid out in the policy plans of many scholars around the world as one of the only paths to navigating the planetary crisis.Systems theorist Nafeez Ahmed joins me to discuss the interconnected grid—a piece of renewable infrastructure which, by its design, would change our economic system, our geopolitics and our relationship with one another. Nafeez debated Simon Michaux a few months ago, and I highly recommend listening to these episodes as a trio: Nafeez, Simon, the debate.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

Investigative journalist Peter Jukes exposes the corrupt relationship between the British press and politicians. He discusses the lack of accountability within the political media class, the scandals surrounding historic hacking, and the unethical practices of newspapers. Peter also emphasizes the importance of giving a platform to unknown voices and the potential impact they can make.

Regenerative farmer Nikki Yoxall discusses the patriarchal thinking in our economic systems and the importance of accepting death. We explore agroecology, the homogenisation of food, and the necessity to understand farm animals importance in healthy ecosystems. Nikki implores us to invite farmers in to understand the complexity of the challenges we face.

“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 curating, stewarding a future for these people. And the reason why I get jazzed about this is because the money, the scale of mone—30 to 50 trillion dollars globally—if we started to move that money for just the beneficiaries, we fix it for everyone. Because that is a lot of money to move.”What if we bought the fossil fuel industry?The value of pension funds in the world is a staggering amount. Unlike other funds, pensions have a fiduciary duty to their beneficiaries, a guarantee to act in the best interest of those who depend on these funds for their retirement. Ian Edwards, Founder of the Bank of Nature, says fiduciary duty encompasses guaranteeing a healthy planet—without a world under 1.5 degrees, there’s no retirement fund to pull from.He joins me to explain the history of fiduciary duty, the role of pensions, and the difference in returns necessary for pensions funds compared to other investments. This lower return means we could use pensions to start leveraging the market and force a green transition. One way, he says, is buying up the fossil fuel industry to retire it. This is about the 99% recognising their combined wealth and power, and shutting down the very system which threatens us all.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

“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 of our digital lives and say we need an early internet-like space and zone in this, where people can, for example, test out realities, test out new kinds of economy, prototype things, take those prototypes into reality, see if they work, take them into the virtual world again.”“I think the destruction of the biosphere is baked in and therefore the social disruption is baked in as well. So we need some kind of continuity of civic space on the virtual realm that is potentially before us. We need a civic stake in the specific continuity between being in the streets and protesting and literally having to quarantine because of the next biospheric disruption.”Imagine is a world beyond our wildest dreams...“A life beyond your wildest dreams” is promised to those entering Narcotics Anonymous, a decentralised, collectively-run program for sobriety in which fellow addicts help one another get and stay clean. The promise doesn’t make sense when you first hear it—it’s only after months, even years, of becoming someone different that you realise how limited your imagination was made by addiction. I think of our global relationship to capitalism very similarly. It’s difficult to imagine life without it, and thus a better world, but that doesn’t mean such a world isn’t possible. So how do we unleash our imaginations and creativity to create a culture and a world beyond our wildest dreams, one in which we look after one another and the more-than-human world? How do we code for care? This is what Pat Kane joins me to discuss. Pat is a writer and musician, an activist, and a futurist. He writes a column for The National in Scotland and is also the co-founder of The Alternative, a media organisation embedded into community resilience and imagining alternative ways of organising. Pat to join me to discuss culture—how to understand it, how to code it, how to change it. We explore the possibility of the internet as emergent collective consciousness and a tool for creativity, resilience and connection. We discuss the importance of play: the psychology of play, the impact of play, and how play as resistance reveals the absurdity of the human systems that we are forced to interact with. We meander through this and more on love, truth, cosmology, resilience, difficulty and imagination. © Rachel DonaldPlanet: 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

“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 fight for. We fight for our right, freedom, dignity, and truth. So, you can come with any number, you can come with any intelligence equipment, you can come with any kind of technology, you can come. I will fight you.”What can be justified in the name of self-defence?Ranging across the vast territory of West Papua, 34,000 guerilla soldiers fight the 700,000 strong Indonesian military controlling their sovereign land. In February, these rebels took a New Zealand pilot hostage, threatening to kill him if the Indonesian government ignored their demands for independence. But in this exclusive interview, Jeffrey Bomanak, Chairman of the Free Papua Movement, promises Philip Mehrtens will make it home alive. After negotiating their freedom with their Dutch colonists, West Papuans discovered the United States had used their land to bribe Indonesia into joining the capitalist economic order in 1963. The Free West Papua Movement (OPM, Organisasi Papua Merdeka) sprung up in resistance and has been fighting ever since. Jeffrey explains how their land was used as a pawn in a battle between world orders, the “genocide” of Papuans at the hands of the Indonesian government, and why organisations like the UN ignore the desperate plea of the Papuan people to maintain their colonial oversight. © Rachel DonaldPlanet: 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

Bill Rees, bio-ecologist and ecological economist, discusses the breakdown of our planet, systems change, potential outcomes, and creating 'lifeboats' in a crisis. Topics include exponential growth of fossil fuel consumption, crisis due to mismatch between perception and reality, impact of human expansion, energy recycling and thermodynamics, correlation between happiness and well-being, neighboring governments' actions on climate, optimism and skepticism of Rex Weiler, challenging the mainstream, and the need for social change.

“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 work. But to temper those two directions so that there is self maintenance, but also a self that joins the community, is, I would say, the goal.”What if religion wasn’t about God—but about each other?Religion is a divisive topic at best and the cause of war at worst. It has been used to control, dictate, punish and destroy people throughout the ages. Yet faith, it seems, is a critical aid in humankind’s individual and collective existence. I have always believed that faith is an act of imagination where religion is an act of dogma. That’s why I was curious when Ursula Goodenough, Professor of Biology Emeritus, emailed me a copy of her book, The Sacred Depths of Nature, suggesting we discuss “religious naturalism”. During the episode, Ursula introduces the topic as a grand story to unite humankind. We go on to discuss humankind as a symbolic species, the necessity and beauty of symbolism, how we evolve with symbolism, and how we can use story to anchor our existence. We discuss language and mindedness, consciousness and the brain, community and individuals, and the relationship between mystery and knowledge. Ursula also gives her insight into what separates religiosity, spirituality and religion.© Rachel DonaldPlanet: 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

Bill Ryerson, an expert on human population and the need to slow global fertility rates, discusses the population problem, policy problems, and history of population growth. The podcast also explores the success of Population Media Center's use of telenovelas and radionovelas to drive behavior change on population and gender violence. It touches on cultural perspectives on family size, the importance of family planning and economic growth through small family norms, and the urgent need for renewable energy and preserving the planet's habitability.