Planet: Critical

Michael Maniates, an environmental social scientist and author of The Living Green Myth, debunks the idea that individual purchasing power drives systemic change. He traces the myth to neoliberal shifts in the 1980s. Conversations cover how systems shape behavior, why consumer-focused approaches breed guilt and inaction, limits of campaigns like plastic bag bans, and practical paths through local collective organizing and institutional change.

Natasha Walter, journalist, charity founder and author, reflects on how feminism shifted toward individual success under neoliberalism. She explores care as a political principle, links feminist thought to degrowth and climate activism, and looks at grassroots models like Rojava and refugee women’s struggles. Short, sharp conversations on rebuilding collective, care-centred movements for ecological survival.

John Seed, veteran environmental activist who founded the Rainforest Information Centre, talks about deep ecology and reclaiming an ecological self. He describes rituals like the Council of All Beings and the Cosmic Walk. He explores communal grief, embodied practices, and simple exercises like breathing with trees. The conversation is poetic, practical, and rooted in connection to place and time.

Julia Steinberger, a degrowth scholar and IPCC lead author, explains the Living Well Within Limits research. She discusses why rising energy is not required for wellbeing. She highlights unequal transport footprints and the need for public services and efficient housing. She describes modelling decent living standards and a feasible low-energy future by 2050. Equality and limiting extreme wealth are central themes.

Paris Marx, tech critic and author of Road To Nowhere and Hyperscale, critiques Silicon Valley’s power. He explores tech’s deep ties to the military and politics. He discusses generative AI hype, harms from chatbots, hidden human costs in AI training, and the environmental strain of hyperscale data centers.

Hettie O'Brien, Guardian journalist and author of The Asset Class, exposes how private equity quietly buys up homes, care, schools and infrastructure. She explains leverage buyouts, how debt harms public services, the fee structures that enrich managers, and the push to funnel pensions into opaque funds. The conversation traces historical parallels and options for transparency and accountability.

Andrés Velasco is the Dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Chile's former Minister of Finance. He and his colleagues at LSE recently released The London Consensus, a collection of economics essays arguing for the a range of reforms to neoclassical, capitalist economics. Much needs to change, they argue—but it can be done within the existing institutions, and without affecting growth.  Andrés joins me to explain their position and reasoning, and we enjoy numerous disagreements about the need for growth, the definition of development, the determining factors of inequality, the limits of redistribution and resource exploitation. While we agree that much must change, for Andrés the solution lies not in overhauling the fundamentals, but regulating the excesses. 🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical: www.planetcritical.com

The Founding Fathers were legal revolutionaries. But over two centuries on, the world needs an update. Reverend Laura George is the co-founder of the Founding Mothers, a movement dedicated to universal dignity, human rights, peace and ending war. By focussing on women's liberation, the Founding Mothers seek to protect the future for generations to come through policies which empower women to make very different choices to the power brokers of today. On the episode, she explains the architecture of the movement, its goals and strategies, the campaigns and strikes being organised, and the importance of centring women to achieve peace. Finally, we discuss the importance of collaborating across campaigns, with Laura calling for a fierce love—a love that can defend us.  🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical: www.planetcritical.com  

Under the left-wing leadership of mayor Clara Brugada, Mexico City has invested millions in the city's poorest neighbourhoods, building UTOPIAs which provide food, healthcare, therapy, and many other public services to those in need. The story of this incredible project involves a century-old social movement which found support in the left-wing Moderna party, led by Claudia Sheinbaum, revealing a fascinating relationship between state power and people power which is radically transforming the material conditions of Mexico's poorest residents. In this fascinating episode, professor of Environmental Studies ath Amherst College, Ashwin Ravikumar, walks us through the history of the social movement which mobilised both rural and inner-city workers, developing a collective political consciousness which made them a formidable political force in a time of land grabs and immense corruption. Ashwin explains how the national government also sprang out of this movement, and the tensions which have had to be navigated now that they have access to state power. He also explains the UTOPIAs in great detail, revealing the incredible services provided, how they're funded, and the plan to develop even more because, for the Mayor and the people, these spaces are to provide a physical space where people can come together and learn from one another, educate, agitate and win back the ground that was lost to a century of corruption to build a utopia for all.  🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical: www.planetcritical.com

Wars have repeatedly shown us over the last few years how fragile our global supply chains are. But while we can live without semiconductors, collapses in our food supply systems are extremelhy dangerous. And this is only one of the problems of depending on a heavily industrialised food industry, an industry which harms Earth's body as much as our own. So: How can we feed the future sustainably? Nicole Negowetti is a lawyer, author of Feeding The Future, and founder of Food For Us. She joins me to discuss the fragility embedded in our industrialised processes, how our diets are making us sick, the food infrastructure we need to ensure localised food security, and the importance of working with existing landowners and farmers to achieve all this. We also discuss the cultural variances which affect this conversation, with Nicole insisting that food is the most intimate way we can express our relationship with Earth. 🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical: www.planetcritical.com 🟢 Land Liberators film: https://www.planetcoordinate.com/land-liberators-popayan-colombia/