Global Governance Futures: Imperfect Utopias or Bust

Professor Sheldon Solomon is the Ross Professor for Interdisciplinary Studies at Skidmore College, New York. Professor Sheldon is one of the true pioneers in the fields of social and evolutionary psychology. Best known for developing terror management theory (TMT), along with Jess Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski, Sheldon and colleagues have revolutionised our understanding of how humans deal with their own sense of mortality and the often destructive effects of ‘death denial’ on individual and collective behaviour. An engaging speaker and raconteur, in more recent years Sheldon has turned his attention to how death anxiety might be related to the anthropocene and the insatiable appetite of humans for more, whether that be cheap energy or lethal consumption. In this conversation we talk about why death denial is so pervasive, evidence underpinning TMT, death and the Hobbesian imperative in global politics, hope without optimism, Epicurus, Heidegger and much, much more. Solomon can be found here: https://www.skidmore.edu/psychology/faculty/solomon.php We discussed: ‘Death Denial in the Anthropocene’ In the book: K. Zywert & Stephen Quilley (eds.), Health in the Anthropocene: Living Well on a Finite Planet (University of Toronto Press, 2020): https://utorontopress.com/9781487524142/health-in-the-anthropocene/ The Worm at the Core: On The Role of Death in Life (with Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski) (Penguin/Random House, 2015): https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/170217/the-worm-at-the-core-by-sheldon-solomon-jeff-greenberg-and-tom-pyszczynski/ Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (Free Press/Macmillan, 1973): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death Flight from Death, 2003 documentary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_from_Death

Adrienne Buller is the Director of Research at Common Wealth, an organization focused on promoting democratic ownership to transform how the economy operates and for whom. Adrienne has recently published ‘The Value of a Whale: On the Illusions of Green Capitalism’ (2022), offering a deep dive into the fatal biases that have shaped the response of our governing institutions to climate and environmental breakdown. Tracing the intricate connections between financial power, economic injustice and ecological crisis, she exposes the myopic economism and market-centric thinking presently undermining a future where all life can flourish. Adrienne also has significant experience at the coalface of climate policy advocacy, having served as the Co-Director of the campaign group Labour for a Green New Deal through 2017 and 2018. Adrienne holds an MSc in Global Governance and Ethics from our very own University College London and a Bachelor of Science from McGill University. We discussed ‘The Value of a Whale,’ the flaws in mainstream climate and environmental governance, corporate ‘green growth’ mindsets, the commodification of nature. and much, much more. Adrienne tweets @adribuller: https://twitter.com/adribuller Publications: The Value of a Whale: On the Illusions of Green Capitalism (Manchester University Press, 2022): https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526162632/ Owning the Future: Power and Property in an Age of Crisis (with Matthew Laurence) (Verso Books, 2022): https://www.versobooks.com/books/3981-owning-the-future

Nate Hagens is the Director of The Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future (ISEOF), an organization focused on educating and preparing society for the coming cultural transition. Allied with leading ecologists, energy experts, politicians and systems thinkers ISEOF assembles road-maps and off-ramps for how human societies can adapt to lower throughput lifestyles. He is the host of the podcast The Great Simplification which explores the systems science underpinning the human predicament, offering analysis and discussion of the environment, ecology, geopolitics and the future implications of the upcoming energy transition. Nate holds a Masters Degree in Finance with Honors from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Natural Resources from the University of Vermont. He teaches an Honors course, Reality 101, at the University of Minnesota. We discussed peak oil, the calorific value of a barrel of oil, trade-offs between being accurate and being helpful, conspicuous consumption and dopamine hijacking, building a reality-based future and much, much more. More information on Nate and The Great Simplification can be found here: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/ Nate tweets @NJHagens: https://twitter.com/NJHagens We discussed: Nate’s lecture series Reality 101 (episodes 1-10 available here): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsgxopIZzto&list=PLdHV4AV3ixB0n2OE8ent9k2RsJfomrGpC Nate Hagens and D J White, Reality Blind Vol. 1: Integrating the Systems Science Underpinning Our Collective Futures: https://read.realityblind.world/view/975731937/

Jonathon Keats is an American conceptual artist and experimental philosopher known for creating large-scale thought experiments. He is the author of various books, including You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future which sets out to revive the inventor Buckminster Fuller’s (1895-1983) unconventional practice of comprehensive anticipatory design, placing Fuller’s philosophy in a modern context and dispelling much of the mythology surrounding Fuller’s life. As a major influence on this podcast, we were delighted to have a chance to delve deep into the life and work of Buckminster Fuller with Jonathon, a visionary thinker in his own right. Indeed, legendary sci-fi writer Bruce Sterling says of Jonathon: “If he’s one in a billion rather than just a million, he might become the pioneer of a mighty school of twenty­first century scientific art­philosophy. If he’s lucky, he won’t be—but if we’re lucky, he will." We discussed experimental philosophy, thought experiments, Spaceship Earth and Bucky’s “world game,” why absurdity is essential, and why boldly transgressive ideas are so important to revitalizing questions that ultimately concern us all: what is to be valued in life and what kind of future do we want? More information on Jonathon can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathon_Keats We discussed: You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future, Oxford University Press, 2016: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/you-belong-to-the-universe-9780199338238?cc=us&lang=en& The Library of the Great Silence: https://www.seti.org/event/seti-live-library-great-silence-and-fermi-paradox The Museum of Future History: https://mofh.net/ The Future Democracies Laboratory: https://projects.cadre.sjsu.edu/democracyproject/ The Plasmodium Consortium: https://sites.hampshire.edu/gallery/the-plasmodium-symposium/

Dr Jennifer Sterling-Folker is the Alan R. Bennett Honors Professor in Political Science at University of Connecticut. Professor Sterling-Folker is an international relations theorist whose writing focuses on theories of international organization and global governance. In this conversation we talk about nationalism and world order, how to avoid the pitfalls of political fatalism, imagined dragons and genuine fire-breathers, and much, much more. Jennifer can be found here: https://polisci.uconn.edu/person/jennifer-sterling-folker/# We discussed: Forthcoming. ‘Unipolarity and Nationalism: The Racialized Legacies of an Anglo-Saxon Unipole.’ In: Polarity in International Relations: Past, Present, Future. 2021. ‘Forum: Thinking Theoretically in Unsettled Times: COVID-19 and Beyond.’ International Studies Review: https://academic.oup.com/isr/article/23/3/1100/6273326?login=false 2006. ‘Lamarckian with a vengeance: human nature and American international relations theory.’ Journal of International Relations and Development: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/palgrave.jird.1800092 2005. ‘Realist Global Governance: Revisiting Cave! hic dragones and Beyond.’ In: Contending Perspectives on Global Governance: Coherence, Contestation and World Order: https://www.routledge.com/Contending-Perspectives-on-Global-Governance-Coherence-and-Contestation/Ba-Hoffmann/p/book/9780415356756 Susan Strange. 1983. ‘Cave! Hic Dragones: A Critique of Regime Analysis.’ International Organization: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2706530?seq=1

Amitav Acharya, Distinguished Professor of International Relations at American University, Washington DC, where he also holds the UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance, is a world-leading authority on Global International Relations, Asian regionalism and constructivism. His celebrated books include The End of the American World Order, among many others. We discussed: The End of American World Order, Polity Press, 2018: https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+End+of+American+World+Order%2C+2nd+Edition-p-9781509517114 ‘Race and racism in the founding of the modern world order’, International Affairs, vol. 98(1), 2022: https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/98/1/23/6484842 ‘After Liberal Hegemony: The Advent of a Multiplex World Order’, Ethics and International Affairs, vol. 31(3), 2017: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ethics-and-international-affairs/article/after-liberal-hegemony-the-advent-of-a-multiplex-world-order/DBD581C139022B1745154175D2BEC639 Amitav's website can be accessed here: http://amitavacharya.com/ Check out his twitter profile: @AmitavAcharya

Dr Ben Neimark is a Senior Lecturer at the Lancaster University Environment Centre. A human geographer and political ecologist by training, his research focuses on the socio-ecological effects of military supply chains and their wider environmental footprint. We spoke with him in March 2022.

Tune in for a new format this week! After our episode with essayist, speaker and activist, Bayo Akomolafe, we were inspired to see a half hour video response from Claudio on his channel, Consciousness Now. For a while we have wanted to set up a discussion within our growing community, connecting audience and guests and vice-versa. Settle in for a dialogue spanning the eternal question of what 'home' is, has been and should be - utopian visions meeting messy and complex realities. This is a new concept for us and we hope to have more discussions within the growing community going forward. Bayo writes at his website: https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/ And tweets @BayoAkomolafe: https://twitter.com/BayoAkomolafe Claudio's channel can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLrbO53XddFUl4gwvKRU6BA

Vandana Shiva is a world-renowned Indian scholar, ecological feminist and activist who over a career spanning decades has emerged as one of the world’s most prominent critics of GMOs, intellectual property rights and free trade. She holds a PhD in philosophy of physics and wrote her thesis on ‘Hidden Variables and Locality in Quantum Theory’. Her books include ‘The Violence of Green Revolution’ and ‘Monocultures of the Mind’. Dr Shiva is the Founder of Navdanya, a movement for Earth Democracy based on the philosophy of 'Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam' (The Earth as one Family), as well as the Founding Board Member of the International Forum on Globalisation and Diverse Women for Diversity. In this conversation, we talk about non-violence as positive action, hyper-globalization as recolonisation, WIPO patent 060606, what it means to be human, and much more. Vandana writes at Navdanya: https://www.navdanya.org/site/ We discussed: ‘Earth Democracy: Recognising the Rights of Nature, Respecting Human Rights’: https://www.navdanya.org/bija-refelections/2021/04/21/earth-democracy-recognising-the-rights-of-nature-respecting-human-rights/ ‘WIPO Patent 060606 – Cryptocurrency System Using Body Activity Data’: https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2020060606 ‘Universal Declaration of Rights of Mother Earth: https://www.therightsofnature.org/universal-declaration/ ‘A message for International Day for Biological Diversity, 22nd May 2020’: https://navdanyainternational.org/a-message-for-international-day-for-biological-diversity-22nd-may-2020/

Professor Alfred McCoy is the Harrington Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He specialises in the history of the Philippines, US foreign policy, European colonisation of Southeast Asia, illegal drug trade, and Central Intelligence Agency covert operations. In this conversation we talk about run-ins with the CIA, world order and empire over the past 500 years, the duality of raw power and principle, the fading of US empire and the rise of China, as well as the prospects for world order in a context of climate breakdown. Al McCoy can be found here: https://history.wisc.edu/people/mccoy-alfred-w/ His essays for Tom Dispatch are available here: https://tomdispatch.com/authors/alfredmccoy/ We discussed: The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade (1972): https://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/politics-of-heroin--the-products-9781556524837.php A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror (2006): https://history.wisc.edu/publications/a-question-of-torture-cia-interrogation-from-the-cold-war-to-the-war-on-terror/ In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power (2017): https://history.wisc.edu/publications/in-the-shadows-of-the-american-century-the-rise-and-decline-of-us-global-power/ To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change (2021): https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1742-to-govern-the-globe