GND Media

The big push by governments in the Global North for a move to electric vehicles (EVs) seems to be one of the central planks of the decarbonisation effort of capitalism. Rare earth minerals such as cobalt, lithium and nickel are strategic resources in this transition and play a huge part in the creation of EVs and the batteries that power them.  The Largest deposits of these elements can be found in the global south and particularly central Africa in places like the Congo.

This week on the show we are joined by Anneke Van Woudenberg (@woudena) the CEO of RAID, a NGO that looks to hold corporations to account for their human rights and environmental abuses in the global south (@raidukorg). 

We discussed the horrific working conditions of miners in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the envrionmental damage of this resource extraction: how multinational companies like Glencore are abusing their position in  DRC , the struggles of the labour movement organising in DRC, why taking these corporations to court in the UK is more effective than Congolese courts and what are the limits of  justice.

Links
https://www.raid-uk.org/

RAIDs report on Cobalt mining in Congo. read it here.

Industriall Union  Miners Union in Congo

Lucha- Congolese Youth group

Apple and Google named in Human rights abuses and child labour in Congolese Cobalt mining

Shout outs

CAJJ- who've been working with RAID on their recent report
https://www.cajj-rdc.org/public/home

Dan Weegmann

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Our Ads is on a mission to understand why the working class is so hesitant to get involved in the climate movement in its current form.

 Each week he'll be talking to climate-conscious people who identify as working class to discover their thoughts on how working class people can become a force in the fight for our very survival.

This week Ads is joined by Jay Chambers, a friend of the family who grew up in Blackley where Adam is from. Topics discussed are the differences between North and South Manchester, when they both first saw a wealth divide in Blackley, music, art, language, and how outreach programmes may be the key to connecting Working Class people to the climate movement.

Check out the rest of Jays music here:  https://soundcloud.com/jaycmcr/blackley-boy

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Our Ads in on a mission to understand why the working class is so hesitant to get involved in the climate movement in its current form.

Each week he'll be talking to climate-conscious people who identify as working class to discover their thoughts on how working class people can become a force in the fight for our very survival.


This week Ads chats with an old Labour comrade Rebecca Pollitt. The themes for this episode centers around the contrasts between working class meetings and environmental meetings, the effectiveness of protests, spirituality and oneness and what working class movements can learn  from the environment movement.

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With the UN IPCC Working Group 3 report coming out last week, and it explicitly saying economic growth will be a prevailing factor in burning the world into a crisp, it’s time to ask again: what are the alternatives? How do we build societies that don't have fossil-based growth at the heart of them?

This week on the show we are joined by Timothée Parrique (@timparrique). Timothée's writings include his PhD “The political economy of degrowth”, which is he currently writing as a book adaptation, and “Decoupling debunked - Evidence and arguments against green growth”, a report for the European Environmental Bureau (EEB). We discuss the upcoming French elections (recorded before the results of the first round), degrowth in the latest IPCC report, the language of degrowth vs a Green New Deal, and why growth is a poor way to describe economic behaviour.

Check out our Just As Well series of articles with great writers across the world looking at just transitions. 

LINKS

Delphine Batho - French presidential candidate on degrowth during a primary last year:

https://www.tellerreport.com/life/2021-09-09-delphine-batho-pleads-for-degrowth-in-the-face-of-the-climate-emergency.H1dgs0PzF.html

1972 Donella Meadows' report, The limits to Growth:

https://www.donellameadows.org/wp-content/userfiles/Limits-to-Growth-digital-scan-version.pdf

IPCC Group 3 report 

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/

The social shortfall and ecological overshoot of nations 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00799-z

The World Happiness Index 

https://worldhappiness.report/

SHOUT OUTS

Scientist rebellion

@ScientistRebel1

The one and only Julia Steinberger (all the love to your mum right now) 

@JKSteinberger

Ben Crawford  

Suzie lawrence - our fantastic illustrator for the Just as Well series

@zanillustration

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Our Ads in on a mission to understand why the working class is so hesitant to get involved in the climate movement in its current form.

So, each week he'll be talking to climate-conscious people who identify as working class to discover their thoughts on how working class people can become a force in the fight for our very survival.

We start the series by meeting Ad's cousin, John. This episode explores themes around perspectives on protests, the depiction of violence between classes, and how documentaries can be a gateway to knowledge on climate change. 

Links
Seaspiracy
https://www.seaspiracy.org/

Game Changers
https://gamechangersmovie.com/

Artwork by Daniel Weegmann

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When it comes to getting around, we normally jump to the big topics: public transport, buses, trains, cars, ownership, low traffic neighbourhoods and so on. We spend a lot of time wondering what we should be using for transport over who is using it and how they can use it. 

But disabled voices have been at the bottom of the list when it comes to many aspects of society and unfortunately tackling the climate crisis is one of them. That needs to change. 

On today's show, we are joined by the fantastic Harrie Larrington-Spencer (@tricyclemayor). Harrie is a researcher working in the Healthy Actives Cities team and the Sustainable Housing and Urban Studies unit at the University of Salford (@ActiveCitiesUoS).  On top of that, she is a disabled rights activist specifically around active travel and transport and a PHD candidate at the University of Manchester. 

Harrie, Lucy and Alex discuss the intersection between climate and disability, how disabled people are excluded from their local neighbourhoods by poor design and road law enforcement, how the climate movement can be more inclusive for disabled activists, and what our cities can do to make transport and active travel more accessible for all. 

Links

Healthy actives cities 

https://blogs.salford.ac.uk/healthyactivecities/

Some of Harries current work “levelling up locally”

https://blogs.salford.ac.uk/healthyactivecities/2172-2/

Manchesters New active travel commissioner Dame Sarah Storey

https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2022-03-14/dame-sarah-storey-appointed-new-active-travel-commissioner

Shout Outs

Harrie’s colleagues at the Healthy active cities team Graham, Luke and Nick

UCU strikers at Manchester Universities including;

Ria Deakin 

@RiaDeakin

@mscrow who worked on The Picket Line Podcast which you can listen to here

https://bit.ly/3u27eJ7

Staten Island Amazon workers who just voted to unionise and become Amazons first Union!

@amazonlabor

You can support their strike fund here too! 

https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-amazon-labor-union-solidarity-fund?utm_campaign=p_nacp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer

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It's Part 2 of our Local election week.

In this episode we are meeting Green New Deal council candidates from outside of Greater Manchester and looking at the picture across these green and pleasant lands.

On this show we are joined by Minesh Parekh (@min_esh) who is running in Crookes and Crosspool, Sheffield and  we are also joined by Matt Buckley (@_Matt_Buckley) running in Caversham Heights, Reading.

We discuss what brought them into environmental politics, the balance of green space vs housing, what can councils actually do for the climate? How living in wards next to national parks affects that balance and what their big Green New Deal ideas are for their local councils.

Links

If you'd like to support either candidates campaigns here's how you can reach them

Minesh- Crookes  and Crosspool
https://twitter.com/CACLabour

https://www.facebook.com/minesh4cc

Matt- Caversham Heights
https://twitter.com/_Matt_Buckley

https://twitter.com/RDGLabourCllrs

support the stewart foods strikers 

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With the local elections a little over a month away, we are dedicating an entire week, with two shows, meeting Labour for a Green New Deal candidates from around the country. We are finding out what a GND could mean for local communities even with a hostile government still in power and what tools councils have to tackle climate breakdown. 

We are starting off at home with West Heywood candidate Angela Brown (@Angel4brown598)  and Gorse Hill candidate Fianna Hornby (@fiannahornby). Angela a Labour for a Green New Deal Legend who spoke on behalf of the 2019 motion at conference and Fianna a community wealth building and GM for Labour for a Green New Deal stalwart.

This week we ask them what got them into politics, green politics in the UK Labour Party, what they will do if they win and how climate breakdown goes down on the doorstep. 

Shout outs
Restoring Hope West heywood
https://www.facebook.com/restoringhopeheywood

Middleton cooperating 
@MiddCooperating

gorgeous gorse hill 
@gorse_hill
 

Links

Fianna 
Gorse Hill Labour Party
https://www.facebook.com/LabourGorsehill

Labour party website
https://events.labour.org.uk/


Angela  
Angela Brown for West Heywood Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100078734591941

West Heywood Labour party
https://www.facebook.com/HeywoodLabour

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As spring begins to bloom into life we're heading back into the garden to see how biodiversity, botany, and our green and pleasant land is vital in our fight against climate change.

We are joined this week by Leif Bersweden. Leif is a Botanist, plant geneticist and writer who specialises in flora across the British Isles. Leif spent a year travelling the British Isles to discover how people and communities connect to their environments and explored the rich biodiversity of the isles. We discuss how we can rejuvenate Britain's wild meadows, cultivating empathy with wildlife, how poor soils can create biodiversity and Britain's most devious plants.

Links
You can check out Leif's books here:
https://leifbersweden.com/books/

Shout outs
Sarah Watts for her mountainous plant conservation  work
@Watts_SH

P&O workers
@nautilusint

CHEPS pallet workers 
@Unite_NorthWest
You can support the CHEPs Pallet workers strike fund by donating to
Unity Bank NW/1 Strike Fund. Account 20217873. Sort code 60-83-01.

Louis McKechnie - Louis tied himself to goal posts during the Newcastle VS Everton game to bring to light the amount of fossil fuel investment in the game. 

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We have rebranded as GND Media!

Head over to www.gndmedia.co.uk to see all the wonderful new stuff we are doing on there.

Our first big project is our article series "Just as Well' that looks at what a Just Transitions will look like across the world. Friend of show and Eco Socialist Legend Max Ajl kicks off the series with looking at climate breakdown in Latin America and the Middle East.

You can read Max's article here.
https://www.gndmedia.co.uk/articles/why-the-world-needs-eco-socialism


On this weeks show we are delighted to welcome Rosanna Wiseman (@RoWise1) from Green New Deal  Rising  (@GNDRising). GND Rising are most well known for their MP challenges and you may have seen them challenge Rishi Sunak, Nichola Sturgeon and Keir Starmer on their climate policies.  We discuss the tactics of these challenges and their affects, the delicate balance of supporting people in multiple political parties, how GND rising is organised ,  keeping racial justice tied to climate justice and how to generate new movements while learning from the past.

Links
GND Rising
gndrising.org

GND Rising Leadership programme
https://350.org/uk/gndrising2022/

Shout outs

Clive Lewis MP
@labourlewis

Fi Quekett -  GND rising organiser
@FionaQuekett

Lucas Clay - the legend that designed our new website!
@LTMClay

Timothée Parrique
@timparrique
18 tips to make your company look green even though it's not 
https://twitter.com/timparrique/status/1494584152020168713?s=20&t=buyWTYiSLIHU439YknS4Vg

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