Planet: Critical

We’re breaking all kinds of records at the moment: cities are boiling at 62C , ocean temperatures are literally off the charts , and governments have increased the global defence budget to an alarming $2440 billion . War costs life, and not just human life. The environmental impacts of war are colossal, with one study already showing that the first few months of Israel’s assault on Gaza emitted mo...

Can the market do the right thing? Not without supportive policy. Market-based solutions do not have a good track record when it comes to climate, stuck as they are within an exploitative economic framework. But, equally, we cannot just do away with markets, which have existed for millennia in many different forms. They need revolutionised, not abandoned. Civil engineer and geo-hydrologist Delton...

Here’s the good news: People can change—quickly. Sometimes it feels impossible to imagine anything other than collapse with the way our energy systems are designed, the corruption in governance, and the financial motives which skew the present system towards profit over everything else. It’s true that if nothing changes, the global system will collapse. But it’s also true that people are capable o...

When do you think we’ll run out of oil? 2050? 2100? Never? That’s understandable given the IPCC models access to oil until 2100; politicians like Rishi are betting big on North Sea deposits. Petroleum is the life blood of our global economy, and it’s difficult to imagine it drying up. More often, when we talk about transitioning away from fossil fuels, it’s because of the necessity to limit global...

I like to think of intellectual discourse as the entangled root network of an ancient tree: everything is connected to everything else. Not so much a linear march of progress but a gnarled and entangled mess from which fruits bear. This is why, despite thousands of years, some ideas don’t travel very far, but double back and loop themselves around other roots, creating something that feels solid,...

We need to confront political impossibility. A few months ago, I was sitting on a train bashing out a furious article about the British government’s climate incompetence. The man next to me was in a zoom call on climate change, vigorously shaking his head. I couldn’t help but ask. That’s how I met today’s guest, Jonathan Mille , a researcher at University College London’s Climate Action Unit, wher...

We need to restore our own ecology. That doesn’t just mean fencing off parts of the earth into “nature conservation” spaces because, as this week’s guest Laura Martin points out, what does that say about the space on the other side of the fence? That human spaces are unnatural? Or that they don’t deserve to be protected? Laura is an environmental historian, Assistant Professor of Environmental Stu...

Nuclear: The perfect energy or perfect weapon. There are such widely-held—and understandable—fears surrounding nuclear that in 2023 the Green party in Germany were instrumental in decommissioning the nation’s final plants—in the middle of an energy crisis. The environmentalists in the sixtoies and seventies were key to the anti-nuclear movement which swept the world, with France one of the only na...

Could AI be a natural intelligence? Artist Mer Maggie Roberts, cofounder of the collective Orphan Drift, has been investigating how the natural world can inspire technological development to resist continuing anthropocentrism. The more-than-human world has so many perspectives to offer which could open our eyes to our own blind spots, and encourage a politics of care, stewardship and understanding...

Truth is stranger than fiction—but fiction is better written. We know their playbooks and their networks, but the bad guys of this story are in no rush to change their tactics. From funding dodgy research to bleating lies on prime time television, the fossil fuel industry and its allies are audaciously villainous. They’d been getting away with it for decades—but now independent media has them runn...

If society is sick, how do we heal? The idea of an “original trauma” bears similarities with the concept of an “original sin”: We fell, from grace, and have suffered ever since. The sinner, traumatised, cannot find his way back into paradise. The devil whispers in his ear. Hurt people hurt people. Wisdom suggests there may be some truth to these tales. That a portion of humanity aeons ago faced te...

If they won’t get it done, then we’ll do it ourselves. Chaytan Inman is uninspired by politics. The computer science student was fed up or energy-blind and materials-blind promises made by big political names, promises of unlimited economic growth on a finite planet and infinitely available renewable energy, all tied up in the language of “Net Zero”. Chaytan didn’t see anyone running on a politica...

What do W.E.I.R.D countries have in common? Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic. The citizens of these countries exhibit markedly more extreme psychological characteristics than those of non-WEIRD nations. One of the weirdest characteristics is a belief in a fixed “self’ which will behave in a reliable and predictable manner no matter the environment. The belief in this unchanging...

Did you know the government doesn’t spend your taxes? Welcome to the world of Modern Monetary Theory, a revolutionary way of decoding our monetary systems—and making them work better for us. I’m joined by Steven Hail , economist and lecturer, who explains, using MMT, what we get wrong about money, taxes, inflation and even currency. Steven reveals how the notion of states not being able to afford...

Neoliberalism is the disease which keeps on killing. But did you know the neoliberal economic gospel we live under today is a deliberate misinterpretation of the original theory? In her new book, The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market , historian of science Naomi Oreskes shows how a group of American plutocrats distorted the the conservative tea...

We can’t do this without taking power back. But with the systems of power so effectively tied up in the complex system of unelected officials, hidden relationships and the ownership of natural resources, there seems to be no clear strategy for taking power back. One theory of change is putting pressure on the system until it caves—becoming ungovernable at scale. Fabian Dablander , an energy transi...

One week ago I emailed my subscribers and asked them to submit any burning question they may have about me or Planet: Critical. I expected most questions to be personal, about me and my journey. Instead, most were asking for advice or my opinion on the state of the world. I guess I never thought about the moment when I would become more than the interviewer, but three years of Planet: Critical hav...

Carbon Colonialism won’t solve the crisis. State response to the interlocking climate, biodiversity, water, inequality, and health crises has mostly been to unleash the free market to promote solutions which perpetuate the global system of pillaging and exploitation. This only protects the status quo whilst sacrificing current and future generations. We have a name for this terrible violence: gree...

We need to stop pretending we live in a democracy. The essence of a democratic state is rule by the people, for the people. This has only ever been an illusion to mask oligarchic power. Upheld by the media, this illusion serves to sequester resources, power and divide a population who should be united in the face of their exploitation. We are a society of altruists governed by psychopaths. This is...

Public Service Announcement! I’m now collaborating with Mongabay on their weekly Newscast podcast, bringing you conservation news from all around the world. To celebrate—and to encourage you all to subscribe!—I’m sharing my inaugural episode as cohost with you today. On this episode, I interview Brandon Wu of ActionAid USA about the Loss and Damages negotiations that took place ahead of COP28—and...

What maniac would suggest a hothouse earth would be economically positive? The financial services—and their incorrect models is costing us time to implement effective policies to mitigate climate change as much as possible. This is the warning from a report published by the Institute of Actuaries. The Emperor’s New Climate Scenarios warns that the world of finance is massively underestimating the...

All the money and power in the world—but still the ruling class is failing. James Schneider, Communications Director for Progressive International , explains how crisis is a permanent feature of fossil capitalism, which is currently cannibilising itself. He reveals a strategy for progressive movements around the world to unite around energy rights, before explaining how we need revolution over ref...

What Big Oil knew — from climate to Iraq. John Browne, Chairman of BeyondNetZero , was CEO of BP from 1995 – 2007. In 1997, he broke ranks with the industry and delivered a landmark speech on the impact of burning fossil fuels on the climate. But this was two decades after Exxon had hired their own climate scientists and buried the results. John explains what he and his executive team knew in the...

Genocides are a Weapon of War Ideologies are weaponised by the morally bankrupt to control those who are oriented towards values. Despite what the long arc of narrativised history would have us believe, even as it is being rewritten in realtime, the minority want more than their share—and they’ll do anything to take it. Wars are fought over resources; only the soldiers pray as dawn breaks. Hamza Y...

Welcome to the sophisticated world of greenwashing. From outright climate denial to tactics of delay, the status quo is rapidly responding to the eco-crisis—just not in the way we need it to. Rather than throw money at an energy transition, tackle runaway capitalism and tax polluters, Big Oil and governments alike are muddying the waters of discourse to eke out every last drop of fossil fuel. Keta...