Green Wave

Do you have time to listen to this podcast? Today we look at how the grip of clock time has become inescapable. The way we view and understand time is at the heart of our economic system - capitalism - and how we are wrecking our health, our communities, and the planet. If we want to radically transform our societies, we need to rediscover time’s connection to the Earth.  Written by Marie-Monique...

We turn to questions of class and workers' rights in how we tackle the climate crisis and the just transition in this week's episode. Gareth Dale explores the history of workers in all kinds of industries making the case for green and ecological transition. Written by Gareth Dale. Read by Julia Lagoutte. Text version: https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/green-class-struggle-workers-and-the-just-tr...

In this episode, we turn to Vienna, as it aims to tackle a major source of carbon emissions: housing. The Austrian city has led the way for more than a century on social housing. Can it face this new challenge of decarbonising the sector without passing the burden on to its residents? Written by Kaja Šeruga. Read by Julia Lagoutte. Text version: https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/light-air-sun-ca...

This week we turn to Israel’s war on Gaza and the internal discussions it has sparked within the climate movement. While some activists argue against taking a position, others believe fighting climate change demands addressing underlying political injustice.  Written by Joost de Moor. Read by Julia Lagoutte. Text version: https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/should-a-climate-activist-stand-up-for-g...

Compared to most other political movements, Greens have a track record of inclusive politics, and have long welcomed refugees and Muslims into their ranks. But without a comprehensive approach to the issue of Islamophobia, Green parties sometimes fall into patterns of institutionalised prejudice. Written by Samir Jeraj. Read by Julia Lagoutte. Text version: https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/are-...

This week, we turn to health. More specifically, the new European Health Union. Though a step in the right direction, public health advocates expect more from the EU’s newly established trans-national means to prevent and respond to health risks.

Veganism, the ethical choice, was once born of necessity. Today’s regular omnivore diet was previously a luxury for the wealthy, ill afforded by peasants. Preserving food was a means of subsistence. Can pickling and jamming traditions, now making a comeback, be recognised for their cultural heritage in addition to gentrified sauerkraut and cherry compote recipes?   Written by Anka Wandzel.   Read...

This week's piece is from our new edition, Aligning Stars: Routes to a Different Europe.  The Ventotene Manifesto, named after the Italian islet where its authors were imprisoned when they wrote it, is regarded as one of the foundational texts of the European Union, presenting federalism as a way to prevent future wars. Antonia Ferri, with the help of historian Antonella Braga, delves into the int...

From dangerous extremists to silly children, how the media portrays climate activists such as Last Generation and Just Stop Oil is the topic of today’s episode. While those taking direct action are accused of alienating policymakers and public opinion, a study of mainstream media in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy suggests that the othering and demonisation of climate activists are neither...

Housing is the focus in this episode - something we all need but which is increasingly expensive and in short supply, due in large part to the financialisation of the housing market. Meanwhile some renovations to make housing greener end up making rent more costly for those who can least afford it. What’s the solution? Julieta Perucca explains. Written by Julieta Perucca. Read by Julia Lagoutte. T...

Slovak voters head to the polls on the 30th September for early parliamentary elections. One of the winners looks set to be former Prime Minister Robert Fico - forced out after the 2018 murder of an investigative journalist - and now helped along by alt-right and pro-Kremlin narratives. So what happened? From covid to the war in Ukraine, Zuzana Kepplová unpacks the last few years of Slovak politic...

10 months on from the start of Italy's new far-right government under Prime Giorgia Meloni from the Brothers of Italy, this episode looks at climate politics in Italy. Direct action environmental protestors and Italy's tumultuous Green parties are not always on the same wavelength - what lies at the heart of this divide, and what can be done? Written by Anna Toniolo and Simone Fontana. Read by Jul...

Welcome to the podcast and to another piece from our latest edition! The green transition relies on the use of numerous rare minerals. Lithium especially is crucial and Serbia’s reserves of this lightest of metals are coveted. But with a proposed mine catalysing the largest environmental protests in Serbian history, it is clear that local communities are asking, “Whose green transition”?  Written...

Our latest edition is out! And if you've been sweltering in a city this summer, don't miss this episode. Celia Fernández explains how rising temperatures are making European cities increasingly unliveable in the summer months and why where you live and what you earn affects how you experience this. Adaptation measures - increasingly needed - can take this into account.  Up in Arms: Environmental...

In Spain, the installation of large renewable energy plants is generating divides - with local populations concerned at the transformation of their homelands on the one hand and a climate that cannot wait on the other. Two new films - Alcarras and As Bestas - have brought these conflicts, which risk undermining the energy transition, to the big screen. Written by Adriana Mayor. Read by Julia Lagou...

With each report from the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC), the message is more alarming and the call more strident. Yet somehow, the findings struggle to move governments to action. From ‘climategate’ to the need to cater to conflicting stakeholders, the IPCC may in fact reinforce the status quo - but it could change that by embracing its intrinsically political role. Written...

The idea of 'economic insecurity' is vital to understanding how people actually feel about their past, present and future. Put simply, it is the experience or anticipation of economic hardship. Hannah Webster and Toby Murray explore what they call the UK’s current insecurity crisis and the political decisions that led us here. They ask: what kind of policies make people feel secure in their lives...

Russia’s war on Ukraine pushed the world into a food crisis - or that’s how it felt. But this was only the latest tipping point for a global food system already on the edge. Jennifer Kwao explains how the conflict in Ukraine affected people's access to food everywhere, and especially in the Global South, and why the problems go much deeper.  Written by Jennifer Kwao. Read by Julia Lagoutte. Text v...

On this International Women's Day, we turn to Africa, where women have a long, rich, and active history of seeing their own liberation and the protection of nature as inseparable and forging ground-breaking campaigns at their intersection. From FOWA in Nigeria and Wangari Maathai in Kenya to today's generation of activists, listen to Anika Jane Dorothy and Lydia Ayame Hiraide on the movements that...

That infinite economic growth is simply not possible on a finite planet seems a truth that is increasingly hard to escape - in some circles. Yet governments continue to organise their countries around the idea that economic growth is good, necessary, and important. Is degrowth the vision that can lay out another way forward - and one that is more just and green? Jorge Pinto on The Future is Degrow...

Renewable energy cooperatives and/or communities are the focus of our attention this week, and specifically their spread - albeit slow - in Central and Eastern Europe.  Tackling three urgent crises in one - climate change, rising energy prices, and the need to find alternatives to Russian gas - renewable energy co-ops are needed today more than ever, and the EU has committed to supporting their sp...

We’ve got a book review for you this week. Konrad Bleyer-Simon unpacks Road to Nowhere. Silicon Valley and the Future of Mobility by Paris Marx which sets out how the egoistic projects of tech billionaires such as Elon Musk have shaped our car-centred transport systems and what a vision centred around the needs of ordinary people would look like. Written by Konrad Bleyer-Simon. Read by Julia Lagou...

In this episode, we zoom in on Italy again. Join us to unpack the September 2022 elections which led to Italy's most right-wing government since Mussolini. What underlies the rise in support for the party now leading the country: Brothers of Italy? What was missing in the appeals of left and progressive parties to Italian voters?    Written by Thomas Simon Mattia . Read by Julia Lagoutte. Text ver...

In this episode, we tackle one of the most important questions of the decade. With global disruption and crises set to become the norm, how should Green parties navigate this new age of shocks? How can these tensions, rather than destabilising us, teach us about working together to carve a better future? Join us to find out. This piece is from our newly-published winter issue: Priced Out: The Cost...

Welcome back! In this episode, we focus on one of the most important issues facing many of us: the cost of living crisis. It's time to question how we got here, look into the social and political effects of the crisis, and explore alternative ways of organising our society. Hear from young people in Italy and experts who explain why under-35s in Italy are so acutely affected by precarity and unemp...