Biocentric

Hi everyone,

A few years ago I connected with Aashis Joshi, who at the time was studying for a PhD in climate adaptation and lives in Nepal. I was immediately struck by his clarity of analysis, and in the intervening years we’ve stayed in touch and learned from each other’s work.

This interview, cross-posted from Truth and Reckoning (I recommend subscribing if you haven’t already), is one of the more enjoyable and important out of more than a hundred I’ve conducted since 2019.

If you’re new here, this is Biocentric, a newsletter about sustainability, greenwashing, and resistance. I’m author and organizer Max Wilbert. If you want to follow, you can subscribe for free. Paid subscribers, in return for supporting this publication and the activism you see here, receive access to private posts which contain behind-the-scenes reports and unreleased drafts. I can’t do this without support from readers, so thank you!

In this episode, I speak with Aashis Joshi

Aashis lives in Kathmandu, Nepal, and is a fierce critic of imperialism and greenwashing. He was pursuing a PhD in climate adaptation at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands until recently, when he dropped out after increasingly recognizing that the technological solutionism and Eurocentric siloed thinking that characterized academia was leading to more problems than it was solving. He is now pursuing public education on these topics.

Our conversation explores these topics, weaving through the challenges and misconceptions in climate adaptation and ecological research, the scale of the ecological crisis, the imperialism and colonial violence inherent in technological approaches to solving these problems, and the political agency that’s available when we abandon these false solutions.

That violence is key to the functioning of the global industrial economy, and it’s not an accident. As Aashis recently wrote:

“The ruling class of the West & Global North knows that food & resource scarcities & unlivable conditions leading to mass migrations & geopolitical turmoil are inevitable & imminent. They know full well that there is no way to address climate & ecological breakdown & live with their consequences in a fair way that doesn’t involve redressing global power imbalances, i.e. without ending their economic & geopolitical hegemony.

As they have no intention to carry out real climate & ecological action, they hold climate conferences & peddle techno-consumerist greenwashing “solutions” to buy time to divert resources towards systems that help strengthen their imperial hegemony. It’s all distraction.

In a world woefully unprepared for the biosphere breakdown that’s just getting started, they are investing in their military & armed forces to control lands & resources abroad & their public at home.

They are fortifying their borders & developing advanced technologies & methods of surveillance, terror & deadly violence including AI & drones, which they are currently testing on the people of Palestine.

Their media, academic & cultural institutions are actively complicit in their imperialist agenda, helping run their propaganda to normalize colonialist & fascist atrocities & enforce a performative democracy where people protesting genocide & ecocide are brutalized & criminalized but universities have research & financial ties with weapons manufacturers & fossil fuel & other ecocidal corporations.

They will go to great lengths & cross many red lines to quash the global public’s potential to strive for a better, kinder system than the extractivist capitalist empire they helm, which lies at the root of our accelerating social-ecological polycrisis.

They have abandoned global cooperation on the climate, biodiversity & human rights & committed themselves to the vicious & insane vision of maintaining their imperialist, white supremacist domination at all cost instead.”

Aashis is a brilliant thinker and I am glad bring you his voice.

Links and Resources

* The Global South’s Climate Aid Strategy is Flawed by Aashis Joshi (a relevant piece as COP30 is scheduled to begin on November 10th, 2025 in Brazil)

* Facing Climate And Ecological Breakdown Requires A New Vision For Education And Politics by Aashis Joshi

* A discussion on degrowth and decoloniality featuring Aashis Joshi and Erin Remblance

* Decolonizing the Degrowth Movement’s Imaginary of Technology by Max Wilbert (a response to Jason Hickel’s piece in Monthly Review titled “On Technology and Degrowth”)

Chapters

* 00:00 Introduction to Ashish Joshi and His Work

* 8:08 The Flaws in Climate Action Research

* 15:28 The Dutch Approach to Climate Adaptation

* 24:15 The Limits of Technological Solutions

* 32:21 The Disconnect Between Science and Social Change

* 41:00 The Role of Academia in Climate Solutions

* 44:00 Educating Broadly vs. Hyperspecialization

* 46:49 Conquest and Assimilation (Forced Proletarianization) of Land-Based Peoples as Imperial Expansion

* 49:00 Fascists Always Target Intellectuals and the Need for Courage

* 53:00 Interconnectedness of Climate and Geopolitical Injustices

* 55:45 Scale of the Ecological Crisis, Climate Denialism, and Psychopaths

* 1:04:15 Fear, Courage, and Collective Action

* 1:10:40 The Rise of AI and Other New Technologies

* 1:24:50 Reimagining Progress and Other Paths Forward

About the Truth and Reckoning Podcast

In this show, we learn from front-line organizers and communities fighting against environmental destruction. We explore different perspectives and innovative strategies for movement building, the potency and potential of rights of nature, and effective action in defense of our communities. And, we share inspiring stories of people working towards right relationship with the land and each other. The show is hosted by CELDF Community Resistance and Resilience Program Co-Director Max Wilbert.

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About CELDF — Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

CELDF is a nationwide community of organizers, lawyers, and partners who educate, agitate, and organize to confront systemic injustice and restore humanity’s reciprocal relationship with the Earth. For over 30 years, we’ve helped communities resist corporate exploitation, reject regulatory false promises, and assert their right to self-govern through systems grounded in ecological balance and collective power.

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Sometimes you just have to sit back and enjoy the beauty and wonder of this world.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit maxwilbert.substack.com/subscribe