Last Born In The Wilderness

André Miguéis, da Mídia Independente Coletiva (MIC), discute as origens radicais do evento 'Mais amor, menos capital' no Rio de Janeiro e seu objetivo final de construir solidariedade e poder político de base no Brasil. Ouça o episódio completo em áudio (inglês): http://bit.ly/LBWmllc Assista à segunda entrevista com a ativista Elisa Quadros: https://youtu.be/oUFDj0c66DM Esta entrevista foi gravada em colaboração com Mirna Wabi-Sabi -- teórica política, jornalista e editora da Gods & Radicals Press. Mirna foi a intérprete e gravou grande parte das imagens do evento, e nada disso seria possível sem ela. Saiba mais sobre o seu trabalho: https://medium.com/mirna-wabi-sabi Agradecimentos especiais a Nora Lynn Kommer por sua ajuda na gravação. Gravado 20 de dezembro de 2019.

In this episode, I speak with Timothy Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. We discuss his research into climate tipping points presented in the article, Climate tipping points—too risky to bet against, published at Nature. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/timothy-lenton // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak with André Miguéis and Elisa Quadros—radical political organizers of the More Love, Less Capital (Mais Amor, Menos Capital) event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, recorded on December 20th, 2019. This is the first episode featuring interviews conducted from Brazil in collaboration with Mirna Wabi-Sabi—political theorist, journalist, and editor at Gods & Radicals Press. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/more-love-less-capital // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak with Matthew Remski. He is a yoga practitioner, teacher, and author of Practice and All Is Coming: Abuse, Cult Dynamics, and Healing in Yoga and Beyond. As Matthew revealed in his article, Yoga’s Culture of Sexual Abuse: Nine Women Tell Their Stories, published at The Walrus, contemporary yoga has an appalling and pervasive sexual abuse problem. “Modern yoga has been fraught with stories of charismatic male yoga teachers who promoted their teachings as spiritually pure and later abused, or otherwise took advantage of, students who believed their mentors were gurus or saints.” (http://bit.ly/2SFaNT8) Not only is sexual misconduct and abuse an all-to-common occurrence in countless yoga studios around the world, “somatic dominance” (as Matthew has termed it) is often employed by yoga instructors to assert control over their students, creating a dynamic that leads to “trauma bonding”—a crucial process that occurs between cult leaders and their followers as a means of obscuring abuse. In this interview, Matthew explains what these dynamics look like in practice, and how these dynamics can, and do, manifest in all kinds of contexts, including within collapse-conscious activist and support groups (at least potentially). As we enter into a more climate disrupted future, various cult-like groups and charismatic figures will likely emerge to take advantage of people’s yearnings for spiritual guidance and counseling. Matthew provides much-needed insight into spotting these abusive cult dynamics in group contexts, insights that will prove to be increasingly useful in addressing the complex outcomes of the various crises manifesting in the world today. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/matthew-remski // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak with social critic, activist, writer, and textile artist Alley Valkyrie, co-founder of Gods & Radicals and author of, Of Monsters and Miso, “a bilingual book of delicious miso sauce recipes.” Waves of protests have swept nations around the globe, with robust examples mass resistance in such places as Hong Kong (http://bit.ly/2Q2LtF8), Chile, and France, just to name a few. (http://bit.ly/2SFi8lX) Organized resistance against the neoliberal economic polices imposed by governments globally, and the authoritarian responses from these states towards their respective populations, has not only demonstrated the spirit of the times we are in, but just as importantly, what the nature of resistance looks like in our time of compounding crises. Among these numerous examples of civil unrest, there is one glaring exception: the United States. As Alley explains in this episode, there are numerous historical, cultural, and sociological reasons as to why US citizens continue to believe that the electoral process, petition signing, and the ongoing impeachment proceedings against President Trump in the House and Senate will lead to the changes needed to adequately respond to the massive systemic injustices Americans experience in their economic and social lives daily. Faith in these bureaucratic processes are certainly not enough, and in fact, works to deter the kinds of direct actions required to actually force the hands of the political elite to do anything besides steal from and undermine the majority of the population in their ability to live lives of dignity, good health, and social welfare. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/alley-valkyrie-2 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak with Oliver Belcher, Assistant Professor in Human Geography at Durham University and co-author of, Hidden carbon costs of the “everywhere war”: Logistics, geopolitical ecology, and the carbon boot‐print of the US military, with Patrick Bigger, Ben Neimark, Cara Kennelly. A summary of their research was published at The Conversation, US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries – shrinking this war machine is a must. This discussion is about the often obscured impacts the United States’ global military presence has on the planetary climate system at large. Oliver and his colleagues’ research points to the fact “[g]reenhouse gas emission accounting usually focuses on how much energy and fuel civilians use. But recent work, including our own, shows that the US military is one of the largest polluters in history, consuming more liquid fuels and emitting more climate-changing gases than most medium-sized countries. If the US military were a country, its fuel usage alone would make it the 47th largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, sitting between Peru and Portugal.” We discuss why this reality is often overlooked in climate and environmental studies, and how the Military-Industrial-Complex is one of the largest purveyors of environmental and climate change in the world today. When it comes to international efforts to mitigate climate change, the overbearing effects of the maintenance and expansion of the United States Empire is the “elephant in the room” in addressing the global climate crisis. What’s also examined in this research is the awareness the US military has of its own impact on the climate system, as the “US military has long understood that it isn’t immune from the potential consequences of climate change – recognising it as a “threat multiplier” that can exacerbate other risks.” Despite this, the “American military’s climate policy remains contradictory. There have been attempts to "green" aspects of its operations by increasing renewable electricity generation on bases, but it remains the single largest institutional consumer of hydrocarbons in the world. It has also locked itself into hydrocarbon-based weapons systems for years to come, by depending on existing aircraft and warships for open-ended operations.” (http://bit.ly/396LbnZ) // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/oliver-belcher // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak with Hong Kong citizen, bilingual stand-up comedian, and activist Vivek Mahbubani. Vivek provides a much-needed ground-level view of the historic and ongoing uprising in Hong Kong these past six months. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/vivek-mahbubani // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak with Mirna Wabi-Sabi. She is a political theorist, writer, and editor at Gods & Radicals. Mirna and I begin this discussion by laying out the nature of our upcoming collaborative work together, as I’ll be traveling to southern Brazil for two months, beginning December 8th. In explaining how our work overlaps in crucial ways, we remark on the absurdity of contemporary politics in both Brazil and the United States, and how the often narrow focus of climate justice activism in the Global North often limits our approach to addressing the roots of the ecological crisis more specifically, and the legacy of colonialism more generally. From there, we move into an examination of the themes presented in Mirna’s article, The History of Displacement of Non-White Women in Villa Mimosa: Mapping the roots of Brazil’s most notorious red light district from the Byzantine Empire and WW1,, which addresses the long and complex history of slavery and sex work in Europe and how this is tied to the varied forms of displacement of marginalized populations up the present moment. This examination also includes the work of historian Clare Makepeace and her research into WWI, heterosexuality, and the role sex work played in the expression of male heteronormativity up to the present moment. Mirna examines how this dynamic is felt today in the displacement of women, with a particular focus on Rio’s red light district Villa Mimosa. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/mirna-wabi-sabi-2 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Elliot Robinson, a listener of the podcast that works in land restoration in New Orleans, dropped me a line regarding my episode with social anthropologist Dr. Khalil Avi, featured in episode 220 (http://bit.ly/LBWavi). He posed a great question regarding how to deal with a particular "invasive species" in his work, the Chinese Tallow Tree. I sent the audio of Elliot's call to Avi, and he contacted permaculture designer, teacher, and homesteader Tao Orion, author of, Beyond the War on Invasive Species, to provide her expertise in answering Elliot's question. We decided the best course of action was to set up a group call, so Elliot could more adequately pose his questions to Tao and Avi, with myself serving as a facilitator of the discussion. This nearly 40-minute conversation was featured at the end of episode 222 with Dark Mountain co-founder Dougald Hine (http://bit.ly/LBWhine). // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak with Dark Mountain Project co-founder and writer Dougald Hine. We discuss his new writing series Notes From Underground, published weekly at Bella Caledonia, that explores "the deep context of the new climate movements that have surfaced since mid-2018." In this discussion, we explore this uncharted territory that we have collectively entered into, to which Dougald has rightfully defined as “some kind of initiatory process.” What does it mean, in a time of compounding and accelerating crises (climatologically, ecologically, socially), to undergo a process of initiatory rites? For those of us that are cognizant of the general spirit of the times we are in, what can we do to provide the resources, spaces, and structures to further grapple with the “dark material we were carrying all along?” Dougald and I explore this territory in this episode. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/dougald-hine // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast