Last Born In The Wilderness

Renowned climate scientist and "ice maverick" Dr. Jason Box joins me to discuss the specific and broad implications of anthropogenic climate disruption. He cites nearly three decades worth of on-the-ground documentation of the impacts human industrial activity is having on the rapidly thawing Greenland ice sheet, written about extensively in his independently published book Faster Than Forecast: The Story Ice Tells Us About Climate Change. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/jason-box // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Darcia Narvaez and Four Arrows join me to discuss their recently published book ‘Restoring the Kinship Worldview: Indigenous Voices Introduce 28 Precepts for Rebalancing Life on Planet Earth,’ a work that contains "selected speeches from Indigenous leaders around the world—necessary wisdom for our times, nourishment for our collective, and a path away from extinction toward a sustainable, interconnected future." As I comment in the beginning of this discussion, reading this book has been a necessary balm to the various subjects I've explored on the podcast of late. This work has reminded me that our civilization's capacity for mass violence, systemic oppression, exploitation, and the destruction of life-systems of the earth is not representative of human nature, nor the human condition, as a whole. The dominant worldview that pervades all facets of modern, industrial human life is the outcome of centuries, if not millennia, of bad habits and intergenerational trauma. The kinship worldview, highlighted in this book and in this interview, has been a defining feature of indigenous cultures the world over, for "ninety-nine percent of human history," as Professor Narvaez states in her work. The question of how to return to this way of knowing and being, and how to apply it in light of the most pressing crises dominating our time, is of utmost importance. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/narvaez-arrows // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Journalist Arun Gupta returns to the podcast to discuss the "very corporeal ideology" of fascism, the so-called "Great Replacement Theory”, the recent mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, and how each of these subjects tie into the broader sociopolitical project of the far right in the United States. The ideological and conspiratorial framework of the “Great Replacement Theory” has motivated numerous individuals to commit racist mass violence over the years, with one of the most prominent examples being the recent massacre in Buffalo, New York by an 18-year-old white man on May 14th. It also, as Gupta lucidly articulates in this interview, informs the underlying white grievance politics and goals of the conservative right in the United States, informing the rhetoric of the most popular political commentators in the country, namely Fox News star pundit Tucker Carlson. With the stated aims and motivations laid bare in the manifesto of the mass shooter in Buffalo, and Carlson mainstreaming these ideas in more digestible and politically friendly terms to millions of regular viewers, fascism is alive and well in the United States. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/arun-gupta-2 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Atmospheric scientist Tim Garrett joins me to discuss, among other things, collapse. Contained within this hour-long interview, we cover the thermodynamics of civilizational growth and inevitable decline, the irrationality of dominant economic theory, Jevons Paradox, and his fascinating and wondrous study of clouds and snowflakes. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/tim-garrett // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Author, teacher, and editor Max Haiven joins me to discuss his book ‘Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire,’ published through Pluto Books. As Silvia Federici states, this book "powerfully demonstrates how, by following the history of a key commodity, we can reconstruct the logic of imperial capitalism: its destruction of land and bodies, its drive to constantly reduce the means of our reproduction, its relentless production of oppressive regimes." In this discussion, Haiven details the contours of such subjects as commodity fetishism and human sacrifice, as well as points to the straight line that shoots through the heinous histories of chattel slavery and Western imperialism to the formation of the modern global capitalist order, by focusing on one primary and ubiquitous product we all, throughout the course of lives, have consumed countless times and in countless ways: palm oil. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/max-haiven // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Activist, analyst, and author Brynn Tannehill joins me to discuss the recent leak of the Supreme Court's drafted majority opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade and Casey. Having extensively documented the factors leading to the fascist turn the United States is taking in her book ‘American Fascism: How the GOP Is Subverting Democracy’ and elsewhere, Tannehill predicted a conservative stacked Supreme Court would, in due time, overturn several sweeping decisions the Court has made over the decades, including: the expansion and protection of reproductive rights, same-sex marriage, interracial marriage, and more. As the Republican Party openly moves into fascist territory and the Democratic Party fecklessly concedes to the GOP's sweeping agenda, whatever rights and protections that have been granted by the federal government for marginalized groups will be effectively rescinded. Overturning Roe v. Wade is just the beginning. A far-right autocracy is on the horizon. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/brynn-tannehill // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Political theorist, anti-capitalist activist, and translator Sabu Kohso joins me to discuss his book Radiation and Revolution, a text that "uses the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster to illuminate the relationship between nuclear power, capitalism, and the nation-state." This interview was recorded in the Gray Coast Guildhall in Quilcene, WA, for the Communal Life & Planetary Relations at the End of This World event, held on March 12, 2022. In Radiation and Revolution, Sabu Kohso argues that “nuclear power is not a mere source of energy—it has become the organizing principle of the global order and the most effective way to simultaneously accumulate profit and govern the populace.” The 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear disaster and its effects live with us today. “The year 2011 was,” as he writes in his article Radiation, Pandemic, Insurrection published in The New Inquiry, “the beginning of the present: an age of endless disasters and struggles against ruling powers under the catastrophic conditions thereby imposed. The epoch has witnessed the intensification of two global impetuses – disaster and uprising – whose interaction, since then, has increasingly involved us.” // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/sabu-kohso // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Award-winning investigative journalist, media critic, and activist Barrett Brown joins me to discuss Silicon Valley billionaire and venture capitalist Peter Thiel. He describes the complex web of media outlets and personalities, hackers, and intelligence community assets connected directly or indirectly with Thiel — a powerful, enormously well-resourced figure aiming to undermine the last remnants of democracy and the open society. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/barrett-brown // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Charlie Angus, MP for the riding of Timmins-James Bay in Ontario, Canada, joins me to discuss his new book ‘Cobalt: Cradle of the Demon Metals, Birth of a Mining Superpower,’ published through House of Anansi Press. He shines a light on how the fascinating, and disturbing, history of a small mining town in Ontario, aptly named Cobalt, is tied up in the genocidal, and ecocidal, history of the nation-state of Canada, and its outsized role in the global mining industry today. What does a small town in northern Ontario have to with Canada's rise to becoming the world's reigning mining superpower? How is cobalt, this "demonic" metal, tied to some of the most horrific crimes of settler-colonialism and financial, extractive capitalism in the modern era? // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/charlie-angus // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Beatrice Adler-Bolton, disability justice advocate and co-host of the Death Panel podcast, joins me to discuss the sociological production of the "end of the pandemic," and what that means for the "surplus" populations made most vulnerable by the economic demands of capital. She is the author of the upcoming book ‘Health Communism: A Surplus Manifesto,’ co-authored with Artie Vierkant, which "argues for a new global left politics aimed at severing the ties between capital and health." As the hosts of the Death Panel podcast have documented, discussed, and warned, the declarations made by the political and economic elites that we have entered into a "post-Covid" reality — where any and all public health measures meant to mitigate the spread of the virus are effectively lifted, and deemed unnecessary moving forward — is but a sociological construct, not based in epidemiological reality and sound public health policy. We have entered into the "let it rip" phase of the pandemic, it seems. What does this mean for the immunocompromised/disabled and other vulnerable populations, as practically all efforts and measures (however weak) to mitigate the spread of this virus come to an end? // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/beatrice-adler-bolton // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast