Planet: Critical

“The media”. This is the 21st century’s term for journalism—netizens have clocked how many online publications are nothing more than content-churners. However, more care should be taken to separate what we understand as “journalism” and “media”. Rather than protect the privilege of a free press, we’ve begun using the laziest blanket word which puts journalism in the firing line alongside institutions like Facebook. The result is terrifying, but blame doesn’t lie solely with readers. This week’s guest shines a light on how journalism needs to evolve to protect both itself and its purpose—especially during this critical period in history. Planet: Critical is a resource for a world in crisis, supported by people like you. Join the community by becoming a subscriber today. Pulitzer-prize winning investigative journalist, Ian Urbina, spent 17 years at the New York Times before setting up his own non-profit newsroom in 2020, The Ocean Outlaw Project. Ian and his team investigate “the final frontier”, finding stories at the intersection of environment and human rights which typically go under the radar. The Outlaw Ocean Project models itself after ProPublica, and Ian’s explanation as to how these newsrooms can and must work alongside “legacy” newspapers is absolutely fascinating. We discuss the responsibility of journalists during a crisis, and sharing that responsibility with readers. The innovation at the heart of Ian’s work is really thrilling. Listen to the full interview here, catch it on on Apple or Spotify, or watch on Youtube. You’ll find the bonus episode on Youtube over the weekend, and paid subscribers have access to the interview transcript. Learn more about The Outlaw Ocean Project. You can also follow Planet: Critical on Youtube and support the project on Patreon. Read the interview transcript here. © Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

The global financial system is exploitative, and squeezing the vast majority of people out of living a safe, well and happy life. It’s knackered, as this week’s guest puts it, and it’s got to change. Chris Cook is the former director of the International Petroleum Exchange and is now a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Security and Resilience Studies at University College London. He firmly believes ethical markets are the most resilient, and has spent the past 15 years investigating how to create legal frameworks to bind markets to serve people. Planet: Critical is a resource for a world in crisis, supported by people like you. Join the community by becoming a subscriber today. Chris says we’re headed for a third market paradigm, markets 3.0, which will be network-based and inherently collaborative. During this interview he provides a series of ideas to prove that this is more than just theory or hope—it is legally possible to create mutually assured financial relationships that cut out middlemen and yet still provide the current financial system with a role in protecting populations rather than exploiting them. This is an utterly fascinating episode with one of the world’s top market strategists, and I’m thrilled to present it to you all. Listen to the full interview here, catch it on on Apple or Spotify, or watch on Youtube. You’ll find the bonus episode on Youtube over the weekend, and paid subscribers have access to the interview transcript. Learn more about Chris’ work at the Institute for Security and Resilience Studies. You can also follow Planet: Critical on Youtube and support the project on Patreon. Read the interview transcript here. © Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

I have a question for you all: Would you find interview transcriptions useful? I’m considering making them available to Patrons and paid subscribers on this platform. Let me know: rachel@planetcritical.com Religious ideology and doctrine has long been used to exact swift and lasting social change throughout human history. Could faith-based teaching provide the necessary shift in modern thinking to combat the climate emergency? Or is doctrine a dangerous weapon which should be left out of the conversation? And if an ideology doesn’t lend itself to extremism—will it even take hold? Planet: Critical is a resource for a world in crisis, supported by people like you. Join the community by becoming a subscriber today. These are the questions I pose Erik Assadourian, leader of the Gaianism movement, on this week’s episode. Erik was a senior research fellow at World Watch for decades, and an expert on all things sustainability. Over the course of his research, he came to believe faith is crucial when demanding huge sociological shifts in a short space of time to deal with the climate emergency, and began the Gainism movement, connecting with people all over the world in a bid to create a hopeful and spiritual response to the necessary life-shifts the crisis demands of us. Listen to the full interview here, catch it on on Apple or Spotify, or watch on Youtube. You can also find the bonus episode on Youtube over the weekend. Discover Gainism. You can also follow Planet: Critical on Youtube and support the project on Patreon. © 2022 Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

Which animal consumes more energy producing food than it does eating that food? None, except industrialised humans. You don't need to be a scientist to know that's bad news. Jason Bradford is a biologist and farmer working on how to transform food systems to make them more rural, sustainable, and to provide a net-positive energy consumption. He explains the failings of our current food production and encourages everyone to learn to farm as soon as possible. Planet: Critical is a resource for a world in crisis, supported by people like you. Join the community by becoming a subscriber today. But beyond that, Jason provides a beacon of hope for the future, revealing the positive changes in his life and his community's since they began their own food production. Without over-simplifying "the great simplification", he thinks it could be a positive transformation. Listen to discover why veganism isn't the answer and why everyone needs to upskill their practical abilities in the next decade. Listen here, catch it on on Apple or Spotify, or watch on Youtube. Discover Jason’s work, or learn to farm on his Youtube channel. You can also follow Planet: Critical on Youtube and support the project on Patreon where I upload a bonus video every Saturday. © 2022 Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

“Follow the science!” This value-neutral field with its objective logic and cold reasoning is our beacon of hope in an ecological crisis. But should we celebrate its lack of values, or is it time to shift our scientific paradigm? That’s the argument of this week’s guest, ecologist Dan Fiscus, who says the very nature of science as value-neutral is a driving force in the climate crisis. He argues science will never be able to tackle the scale of the problem posed by the climate crisis until we infuse the field with ethics. Planet: Critical is a resource for a world in crisis, supported by people like you. Join the community by becoming a subscriber today. It’s a fascinating proposition. Dan explains how the modern paradigm is ROAM: Reductionist, Objectivist, Analytic and Mechanistic. He describes its failures to understand and treat the environment as inseparable from Life, and proposes a new paradigm for the future. I’m thrilled to release this the week after Carl Safina took us on a journey back to Ancient Greece, to argue the climate crisis has its roots in Plato’s concept of profanity. I’d highly recommend listening to them back-to-back. Listen here or catch it on on Apple or Spotify. Discover Dan’s work. You can also follow Planet: Critical on Youtube and support the project on Patreon where I upload a bonus video every Saturday. © 2022 Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

What’s Plato got to do with the environmental crisis? Everything, according to Carl Safina, ecologist, author, fellow, and winner of the MacArthur genius grant. Carl joins me this week to discuss his new book which examines culture’s across the world, and their relationship to the planet. He argues that Plato’s concept of profanity engendered the Judeo-Christian monotheistic religions which view the world, and man, as sinful, in turn creating a Western culture which has no respect nor care for the natural world. Planet: Critical is a resource for a world in crisis, supported by people like you. Join the community by becoming a subscriber today. He explains how this culture exported its ideology across the world and argues solutions will be found by examining and learning from Indigenous cultures which celebrate their role as within a wider ecosystem. Carl’s fierce intellect and deep love for the natural world shine through this incredible interview. Listen here on catch it on on Apple or Spotify. Discover Carl’s books and work here. You can also follow Planet: Critical on Youtube and support the project on Patreon where I upload a bonus video every Saturday. © 2022 Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

A post-carbon world could be our opportunity to do better—and make the difficult transition much easier to swallow. That’s the message of Alice Friedemann on this week’s episode, author of When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation. The transition is coming, perhaps collapse is coming, and if the world as we know it is going to change we might as well make the most of it. She worries we won’t be given the opportunity due to all the misinformation flying around, and gives a cutting analysis of how the climate change conversation is distracting from many other dangerous, concurrent such as biodiversity loss and water scarcity. Planet: Critical is a resource for a world in crisis, supported by people like you. Join the community by becoming a subscriber today. For Alice, the big problem is the energy crisis. She explains how oil prices can precipitate nation state collapse, with high oil prices driving 11 of the past 12 recessions. This is a phenomenally interesting interview, which also manages to be a lot of fun, despite the topics! Listen here on catch it on on Apple or Spotify. Visit Alice’s website Energy Skeptic and get your hands on a copy of When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation. You can also follow Planet: Critical on Youtube and support the project on Patreon where I upload a bonus video every Saturday. © 2022 Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

According to the laws of physics, the economy can only sustain itself by growing. So how bound are we by the laws of thermodynamics? Professor Tim Garrett, atmosphere scientist at the University of Utah, argues we’re completely bound by those laws. He has modelled how the behaviour of snowflakes and clouds can be used to predict energy consumption and GDP, bridging the gap between economic theory and the natural world. Planet: Critical is a resource for a world in crisis, supported by people like you. Join the community by becoming a subscriber today. Tim’s research is nothing short of fascinating; this is a mind-bending hour you won’t regret. Listen to the episode here or catch it on Apple or Spotify. Read more of Tim’s work here. You can also follow Planet: Critical on Youtube and support the project on Patreon where I upload a bonus video every Saturday. © 2022 Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

Welcome to this special episode of Planet: Critical where we journey from the podcast’s humble beginnings to what it is today, and what I hope it will evolve into. None of this would be possible without you all and so I thank you endlessly for your support and encouragement. It’s wonderful to witness a community coalesce around the podcast and the information my incredible guests provide us, and I’m so looking forward to what we will continue learning, and where it will take us. Knowledge is the only renewable fuel we have and I’m humbled to play a small part in spreading it as far and wide as possible. I wouldn’t be getting very far without you all, especially given how terrible I am at promoting the show. So to those of you who spread the word every week, and to the others who chose a paid subscription—thank you, I’m touched you find value in my work. I hope you all enjoy whatever plans you have for this December 31st, and here’s to a 2022 filled with critical thinking and vision. Cheers,Rachel Planet: Critical is a resource for a world in crisis, supported by people like you. Join the community by becoming a subscriber today. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

Did you know that four years of studying mainstream economics at university has such a profound impact on students that their value systems change? And not for the better. Economic theory affects the very fabric of human society, and the dominant neoliberal model is at the root of many of the crises we face. Assuming human nature is fundamentally selfish has created a terrible feedback loop of individualism, precarity and abuse. Ecological economists are fighting back with new models, models they believe are more in line with humankind’s long history of collaboration. Planet: Critical is a resource for a world in crisis, supported by people like you. Join the community by becoming a subscriber today. Joshua Farley is a Professor of Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont. His research focuses on designing an economy capable of balancing what is biophysically possible with what is socially, psychologically and ethically desirable. This episode is a big picture conversation about the roots of the climate and social crises. We discuss human values—and common sense—and how to reimagine an economics which will allow the best of human nature to triumph.  Listen to the episode here or catch it on Apple or Spotify. Read more of Joshua’s work here. You can also follow Planet: Critical on Youtube and support the project on Patreon where I upload a bonus video every Saturday. © 2022 Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe