GND Media

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We're back! Welcome to 2021 where the pandemic carries on the points don't matter! As long as Climate breakdown keeps happening we will keep talking and this week we are joined by the people who are down on the front line.

 Our guest this week is secretary of the Fire Brigades Union Matt Wrack (@MattWrack). We discuss the long left history of the FBU, what it's like taking on ever increasing natural disasters linked to climate change and what the trade union movement has to do to rebuild itself.

Shout outs

United Fire Fighters Union Australia dealing with bush fires this season
https://www.facebook.com/ufuav.asn.au

GMB gas worker who are striking against Fire and rehire contracts
@GMB_union
Go fund me to support the workers https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/british-gas-strike-fund

David Oliver @mancunianmedic
for his clear and concise info on Covid and slapping down anti-vaxers and covid minimisers 

Sarah Wilson @sarahirwilson2
for her piece on rewilding Scotland
https://www.scotsman.com/interactive/rewilding-scotland-natural-ecosystem

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It's our Christmas special! We shoot the merry breeze and look back at the shows of 2020, picking our favourite guest of this year and line up our dream guests for 2021. 

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There is a sane man back in the White House, a Covid-19 vaccination is beginning to be rolled out and Bill Bailey won strictly, 2020 is really turning itself around. All that is left is to enact a Green New Deal that decarbonises the global powers and everything will be fine, right? As much as decarbonisation of the likes of the US and China is important, if getting to that point requires the global south to be metaphorically thrown under the bus is it even really a New Deal at all?  

 This week we are joined by Dr Leon Sealey Huggins (@Leon_Ayo) Assistant professor at Warwick University.  We discuss the racist underpinnings of capitalism, how international politics condemns the global south to a climate catastrophe and how do we design a Green New Deal that doesn't exploit those regions who are on the front lines of climate breakdown. 

Links

Leon's article on green capitalism
https://novaramedia.com/2020/12/13/green-capitalism-will-never-succeed-in-tackling-climate-breakdown/

Leon's paper "The Climate Crisis is a Racist Crisis
http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/103485/13/WRAP-climate-crisis-racist-crisis-structural-racism-inequality-climate-change-VoR-Sealey-Huggins-2018.pdf

Climate Justice activists Wretched of the Earth. A grassroots collective for Indigenous, black, brown & diaspora groups  demanding climate justice + in solidarity with  UK & Global South communities  @wretchedotearth

Shout Outs

COP26 Coalition . A coalition campaigning for COP26 to be built of a Climate Justice 
framework
@COP26_Coalition

UNICEF- for feeding our children where the state fails to do so.
@UNICEF_uk

Everyone working hard to keep Ancoats green.

Alan Good- campaigning for saving city center green field sites 
@AlanGoodLD

Save New Islington Green
@saveNIgreen

Trees not Cars 
@TreesNotCars

Save Ryebank Fields
@ryebankfields



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**Apologies for some of the audio issues, Andrew had a night off**

As the nights draw in and  the GND team snuggle up in our cozy, retrofitted, zero carbon  house of the future (powered entirely by the hot air supplied by Andrew) it's time for a catch up with the low traffic neighbourhood Santa Claus himself, Councillor Jon Burke of Hackney.

This week we discuss the on going campaign to make Hackneys streets for people not just cars, the climate impacts of catering the world to cars and we debunk myths about low traffic neighbourhoods.

Links

Jons' article in the Huffington Post on electric vehicles
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/electric-cars_uk_5fb64017c5b695be8300137c

The Hackney Citizen article on the journey from against to for LTNS
https://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2020/12/08/ltns-from-horror-to-acceptance/


Shout outs

Claire Stocks- XR and Walk Ride GM campaigner
@stocksyatlarge

Chris Stark- chief exec at the Climate Change Committee (UK)
@ChiefExecCCC

Scarlett West- Climate activist
@ScarlettOWest

Alice Toomer McAlpine - Manchester Meteor Co-editor

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If there is one thing to be said about the last 40 years of Neoliberalism it's this. You can put a price on everything. If it can be quantified then it can be priced and sold. Even when it comes to the existential threat of climate breakdown and biodiversity destruction the strategy has been give it a price tag and then someone in the system can pay for the damage.  Existence has turned into a game of who will pick up the insurance policy excess.  Does the commodification of everything give us the tools to tackle climate change? Or are we green washing are way extinction?

This week we are joined on the show by Adrienne Buller (@adribuller) Senior Research Fellow at Common Wealth. We discuss how green finance is a cover for some of the markets ecological sins, could UBS be a pathway out climate breakdown and how should the labour party  define its self, now the tories have supposedly become the big spenders?

Adriennes' article on attaching market value to life 
https://novaramedia.com/2020/10/16/whats-the-value-of-a-whale/

Dealing with the commodification of housing.
https://www.common-wealth.co.uk/reports/charting-a-just-and-sustainable-recovery-for-scotland

Governing the Commons by Elinor Ostrum
https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/political-theory/governing-commons-evolution-institutions-collective-action-1?format=PB

Progressive International 
https://progressive.international/wire/2020-12-02-common-wealth-to-makeamazonpay-reimagine-the-platform-economy/en


Shout Outs

The Standsted 15, here's a short film on their story. 
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/stansted-15-tell-their-story-through-film

Sophie Yeo - @some_yeo
https://inkcap.substack.com/

the Yard @theyard_mcr a fantastic venue/co working space in North Manchester
https://theyardmcr.com/

Luca Rudlin- Amazing Videographer, editor and all round amazing dude
@People_Staring

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We find degrowth fascinating. For us as a show it really turns the world upside on what we should see a human progress. However, you'll be hard pressed to find its message front and center of any political parties commitments unlike the Green New Deal.  So are these ideas compatible? Can parties stand on a platform of Degrowth? Or is political hope too tied to the idea of growth?

This week we are joined by Riccardo Mastini (@r_mastini) to discuss how the concept of degrowth fits inside a Green New Deal, the ideological frame work of Growth, is Modern Monetary Theory a boon for degrowthers? And are humans intrinsically good people?




Shout outs
The Trouble Webzine on eco-socialism 
https://www.the-trouble.com/

@thetroublemag

Positive Money
@PositiveMoneyUK
The tragedy of Growth 
https://positivemoney.org/publications/tragedy-of-growth/

Common Wealth- think tank specialising in new ownership models.
@Cmmonwealth

Retrofit Get in project Articles 

Mancehster Meteor @nickjwprescott
https://themeteor.org/2020/11/12/theatre-workers-tackle-the-climate-crisis/

The Guardian 
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/nov/22/manchester-theatre-staff-upgrade-homes-covid-layoffs-retrofitting-scheme

Issac Rose from GM Housing Action
@_isaacrose
@gmhousingaction


Craft-D 
@Craft_D
A letter to Corbyn
https://ditto.fm/letter-to-corbyn

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For decades, we were told that individual action was the best way to tackle the climate crisis. If only we would stop using plastic bags and straws, while taking care to recycle, through behavioural change we could prevent climate change.

Yet the rise of XR and the school climate strikers, and their clarion call “system change not climate change”, suggests climate breakdown is an economic crisis rather than a moral dilemma. To fight against climate change is to fight against capitalism. But if we want to fight the good fight, first we must understand how capitalism works.

Joining us on the podcast this week is Professor of Socio-legal Studies at the University of Liverpool, Professor David Whyte. We discuss David Whyte’s new book, ‘Ecocide: Kill the Corporation Before it Kills Us’, in which David makes the case that we must rid ourselves of the profit-making corporation altogether. We delve into the architecture and history of corporate capitalism, the shortcomings of regulatory approaches to curbing the corporation’s ecocidal tendencies, and the complex role played by organised labour in fighting climate breakdown and international injustice.

Links
David's book Ecocide: Kill the Corporation before it kills us
https://bit.ly/36WZ4F6

Green Peace oil and gas worker survey
https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Oil-Gas-Workers-Report-Final-Web.pdf

Shout outs
Tina Louise Rothery-  Anti fracking activist

Anne Roy- David's mentor and colleague

All the people who love or live with people with learning disabilities in particular 
@SEND_Action and Liz Crow

Conrad Bower- Editor of the meteor 
@ConradBower1

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www.retrofitgetinproject.com

It's been a pretty rough year to put it mildly. A planet ravaged by a pandemic and incompetent governance being the order of the day, hope has been hard to find. Politics has been listless at best. But being a member of the Labour Party isn't about waiting around for a CLP to tell you to go canvassing, it's not about waiting for a just government it's about taking on injustice and supporting each other. So instead of waiting for orders from on high, we got to work. 

The Retrofit Get-in Project is a scheme setup by  our own resident producer Andrew Glassford and Red Co-op (@RedCooperative) to support theatre and live events workers.  The project takes the multi-skilled talents of theatre workers and puts them to use tackling the climate crisis by retrofitting homes. The Retrofit Get-in Project provides good green jobs to a sector that is on its knees.  

This week we welcome back Charlie Baker from Red Co-op and give a warm welcome to Rebecca Slack one of the workers on the project. 

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Note: This episode was recorded before the results of the U.S election were published. 

How do we define the success of a city? Or a country? Or human civilisation all together? The last 60 years we've been tied to GDP, growth, trade surpluses, amounts of debt, the strength of currency. Economic strength has been the barometer for the majority of the world to look to when we want to know how we're doing. If stock and shares are high surely there can't be any problems? When an economy bifurcates massively between the haves and the have nots,  and to become a haver you need to extract from the environment considerably, measures of economic superiority really start to miss the point. So what's the alternative? 

Joining us on the podcast this week is Professor Julia Steinberger ( @JKSteinberger). Julia is a Professor in social ecology and ecological economics at l'Université de Lausanne in Switzerland and is currently working on the next IPCC report on climate change . We discuss the links between consumption and capitalist affluence, how epicurean philosophy has informed economics of the past 50 years and the balancing act of extraction for a greener future. 


Shout outs

Councillor Jon Burke
@jonburkeUK

Marcus Rashford
@MarcusRashford

Swiss campaign for corporate accountability 


**LINKS**
Scientists warning on affluence (co-authored by Julia)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y

The Flawed science of deep adaptation 

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/faulty-science-doomism-and-flawed-conclusions-deep-adaptation/

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As a blanket statement, Left politics is about establishing and maintaining mass movements, thousands hopefully millions of people into a cohesive group to fight back against concentration of power in the world.  At the same time left wing politics is classically factious with splinter groups and offshoots starting regularly.  Looking into a different sphere in 2011, 59 million people saw them selves as Christians in the UK.  So what is religion getting so right that maybe we're getting wrong? What do Christians in the U.K think about climate change? And what do they want to do about it? 

This week we are joined by Reverend Grace Thomas (@GraceREThomas) from Moss side to discuss, building communities, the christian approach to climate change and was Jesus really a socialist?


Shout outs
Inspired by grace blakeley's new podcast A World to Win, where she recently interviewed Cornell West on Christian Socialism.  https://tribunemag.co.uk/a-world-to-win

 Cornel West 
@CornelWest

Grace Blakeley 
@graceblakeley

Greater Manchester Savers network 
@GMSavers

Moss Side Eco Squad
@moss_side_eco

Upping it
@UppingIt

Hannah Malcom - researching climate greif
@hannahmmalcolm

Christian Climate Action 
@CClimateAction

Prestwich Environmental Forum
@PrestwichForum

Incredible edible
@IEPrestwich

If you like the show tell your comrades!
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