Planet: Critical

The global financial system is exploitative, and squeezing the vast majority of people out of living a safe, well and happy life. It’s knackered, as this week’s guest puts it, and it’s got to change.

Chris Cook is the former director of the International Petroleum Exchange and is now a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Security and Resilience Studies at University College London. He firmly believes ethical markets are the most resilient, and has spent the past 15 years investigating how to create legal frameworks to bind markets to serve people.

Planet: Critical is a resource for a world in crisis, supported by people like you. Join the community by becoming a subscriber today.

Chris says we’re headed for a third market paradigm, markets 3.0, which will be network-based and inherently collaborative. During this interview he provides a series of ideas to prove that this is more than just theory or hope—it is legally possible to create mutually assured financial relationships that cut out middlemen and yet still provide the current financial system with a role in protecting populations rather than exploiting them.

This is an utterly fascinating episode with one of the world’s top market strategists, and I’m thrilled to present it to you all. Listen to the full interview here, catch it on on Apple or Spotify, or watch on Youtube. You’ll find the bonus episode on Youtube over the weekend, and paid subscribers have access to the interview transcript.

Learn more about Chris’ work at the Institute for Security and Resilience Studies.

You can also follow Planet: Critical on Youtube and support the project on Patreon. Read the interview transcript here.

© Rachel Donald

For this third episode of the New Guinea season, Mongabay interviews Bustar Maitar, CEO of EcoNusa, and biologist Edwin Scholes from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology about the diverse and charismatic birds-of-paradise and the potential for New Guinea to harness ecotourism to power a sustainable economy. 

If you missed the first two episodes of Mongabay Explores New Guinea you can find it via the podcast provider of your choice or find all the episodes of the Mongabay Explores podcast on our podcast homepage here. 

Episode Artwork: A Cendrawasih (bird of paradise) on a tree in Malagufuk village, located in the rainforest in Kalasou valley, Sorong, West Papua. Copyright: Jurnasyanto Sukarno/Greenpeace

Sounds heard during the intro and outro include the following: rusty mouse-warbler, growling riflebird, raggiana/lesser bird-of-paradise, superb fruit-dove, long-billed honeyeater, little shrike-thrush, brown cuckoo-dove, black-capped lory. Special thanks to Tim Boucher and Bruce Beehler for identifying them.

Please invite your friends to subscribe to Mongabay Explores wherever they get podcasts.  If you enjoy our podcast content, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep the show growing, Mongabay is a nonprofit media outlet and all support helps! 

See all our latest news from nature's frontline at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok by searching for @mongabay.

Feedback is always welcome: [email protected].

I have a question for you all: Would you find interview transcriptions useful? I’m considering making them available to Patrons and paid subscribers on this platform. Let me know: [email protected]

Religious ideology and doctrine has long been used to exact swift and lasting social change throughout human history. Could faith-based teaching provide the necessary shift in modern thinking to combat the climate emergency? Or is doctrine a dangerous weapon which should be left out of the conversation?

And if an ideology doesn’t lend itself to extremism—will it even take hold?

Planet: Critical is a resource for a world in crisis, supported by people like you. Join the community by becoming a subscriber today.

These are the questions I pose Erik Assadourian, leader of the Gaianism movement, on this week’s episode. Erik was a senior research fellow at World Watch for decades, and an expert on all things sustainability. Over the course of his research, he came to believe faith is crucial when demanding huge sociological shifts in a short space of time to deal with the climate emergency, and began the Gainism movement, connecting with people all over the world in a bid to create a hopeful and spiritual response to the necessary life-shifts the crisis demands of us.

Listen to the full interview here, catch it on on Apple or Spotify, or watch on Youtube. You can also find the bonus episode on Youtube over the weekend.

Discover Gainism.

You can also follow Planet: Critical on Youtube and support the project on Patreon.

© 2022 Rachel Donald

Join us for a dive into two ambitious Indigenous-led conservation initiatives on the U.S. West Coast on this episode. 

Host Mike G. speaks with Dune Lankard, founder and president of The Native Conservancy, who discusses their work to create a regenerative economy for Alaska’s Prince William Sound--based on conservation and restoration-- via projects like kelp farming.

We also speak with Tiana Williams-Claussen, she's the director of the Yurok Tribe’s Wildlife Department and shares their efforts to bring condors back to the tribe’s territory in Northern California, which is set to culminate in the first four birds being released into the wild in April 2022.

Articles mentioned:

• “Thanks to the Yurok Tribe, condors will return to the Pacific Northwest” 
• “By cultivating seaweed, Indigenous communities restore connection to the ocean”
• Mongabay Series: Indigenous Peoples and Conservation

Episode artwork: A condor in southern California by B W via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Creative Commons license.

Please invite your friends to subscribe to the Mongabay Newscast wherever they get podcasts, or download our free app in the Apple App Store or in the Google Store to get access to our latest episodes at your fingertips.

If you enjoy the Newscast, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep the show growing, Mongabay is a nonprofit media outlet and all support helps!

See all our latest news from nature's frontline at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay.

Please share your thoughts and ideas! [email protected].

Which animal consumes more energy producing food than it does eating that food? None, except industrialised humans. You don't need to be a scientist to know that's bad news.

Jason Bradford is a biologist and farmer working on how to transform food systems to make them more rural, sustainable, and to provide a net-positive energy consumption. He explains the failings of our current food production and encourages everyone to learn to farm as soon as possible.

Planet: Critical is a resource for a world in crisis, supported by people like you. Join the community by becoming a subscriber today.

But beyond that, Jason provides a beacon of hope for the future, revealing the positive changes in his life and his community's since they began their own food production. Without over-simplifying "the great simplification", he thinks it could be a positive transformation.

Listen to discover why veganism isn't the answer and why everyone needs to upskill their practical abilities in the next decade. Listen here, catch it on on Apple or Spotify, or watch on Youtube.

Discover Jason’s work, or learn to farm on his Youtube channel.

You can also follow Planet: Critical on Youtube and support the project on Patreon where I upload a bonus video every Saturday.

© 2022 Rachel Donald

If you missed episode one of Mongabay Explores New Guinea you can find it via the podcast provider of your choice or find all the episodes of the Mongabay Explores podcast on our podcast homepage here. 

Episode artwork: Loggers from Turama Forest Industries cut down a tree with a chainsaw in the 'Turama extension' logging concession, Gulf Province. These forests are being felled by Turama Forest Industries - a group company of Malaysian logging giant Rimbunan Hijau. Photo by Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert for Greenpeace. 

Sounds heard during the intro and outro include the following: rusty mouse-warbler, growling riflebird, raggiana/lesser bird-of-paradise, superb fruit-dove, long-billed honeyeater, little shrike-thrush, brown cuckoo-dove, black-capped lory. Special thanks to Tim Boucher and Bruce Beehler for identifying them.

Please invite your friends to subscribe to Mongabay Explores wherever they get podcasts.  If you enjoy our podcast content, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep the show growing, Mongabay is a nonprofit media outlet and all support helps! 

See all our latest news from nature's frontline at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok by searching for @mongabay.

Feedback is always welcome: [email protected].

“Follow the science!” This value-neutral field with its objective logic and cold reasoning is our beacon of hope in an ecological crisis. But should we celebrate its lack of values, or is it time to shift our scientific paradigm?

That’s the argument of this week’s guest, ecologist Dan Fiscus, who says the very nature of science as value-neutral is a driving force in the climate crisis. He argues science will never be able to tackle the scale of the problem posed by the climate crisis until we infuse the field with ethics.

Planet: Critical is a resource for a world in crisis, supported by people like you. Join the community by becoming a subscriber today.

It’s a fascinating proposition. Dan explains how the modern paradigm is ROAM: Reductionist, Objectivist, Analytic and Mechanistic. He describes its failures to understand and treat the environment as inseparable from Life, and proposes a new paradigm for the future.

I’m thrilled to release this the week after Carl Safina took us on a journey back to Ancient Greece, to argue the climate crisis has its roots in Plato’s concept of profanity. I’d highly recommend listening to them back-to-back. Listen here or catch it on on Apple or Spotify.

Discover Dan’s work.

You can also follow Planet: Critical on Youtube and support the project on Patreon where I upload a bonus video every Saturday.

© 2022 Rachel Donald

He also speaks with Swati Hingorani, a senior program officer at the IUCN and Global Coordinator for the Bonn Challenge, one of the world's most important reforestation programs. 

Hingorani discusses reforestation trends and the Bonn Challenge’s newly revamped and relaunched Restoration Barometer that tracks ecosystem restoration progress being made by countries around the world.

Related reading:

• “Rainforests in 2022: A look at the year ahead” by Rhett Butler
• “The year in rainforests 2021” by Rhett Butler
• “Global ecosystem restoration progress: How and who’s tracking it?”
• “Beyond tree planting: When to let forests restore themselves”

Two related podcast episodes mentioned in this episode include episode #133 (December 9, 2021), "What do two giant land deals mean for the future of Southeast Asia's forests?" and "Natural forest regeneration’s critical role in reforestation goals" from November 10, 2021 (episode #131).

Please invite your friends to subscribe to the Mongabay Newscast wherever they get podcasts, or download our free app in the Apple App Store or in the Google Store to get access to our latest episodes at your fingertips.

Episode artwork: Evergreen forest in California via drone, image by Rhett Butler for Mongabay.

If you enjoy the Newscast, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep the show growing, Mongabay is a nonprofit media outlet and all support helps!

See all our latest news from nature's frontline at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay.

Please share your thoughts and ideas! [email protected].

What’s Plato got to do with the environmental crisis?

Everything, according to Carl Safina, ecologist, author, fellow, and winner of the MacArthur genius grant. Carl joins me this week to discuss his new book which examines culture’s across the world, and their relationship to the planet. He argues that Plato’s concept of profanity engendered the Judeo-Christian monotheistic religions which view the world, and man, as sinful, in turn creating a Western culture which has no respect nor care for the natural world.

Planet: Critical is a resource for a world in crisis, supported by people like you. Join the community by becoming a subscriber today.

He explains how this culture exported its ideology across the world and argues solutions will be found by examining and learning from Indigenous cultures which celebrate their role as within a wider ecosystem.

Carl’s fierce intellect and deep love for the natural world shine through this incredible interview. Listen here on catch it on on Apple or Spotify.

Discover Carl’s books and work here.

You can also follow Planet: Critical on Youtube and support the project on Patreon where I upload a bonus video every Saturday.

© 2022 Rachel Donald

20 years after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 that leveled natural old-growth forests, scientists have discovered one endemic mouse has become the dominant rodent species. First discovered in 1956, it wasn't seen again until 2011 when scientists returned to Pinatubo to survey the area. 

While endemic tropical island species are typically seen as the most vulnerable, Apomys sacobianus bucks the trend. A study published in the Philippine Journal of Science calls the species a "disturbance specialist," noting its resilience to the cataclysmic event. 

Experts speculate that as the forests around Pinatubo continue to develop and recover, other species requiring more forest cover may move in, dethroning the mouse. However, it's still very possible for ap. sacobianus to continue living in conditions with low leveles of disturbance.  

This episode features the popular article, "On a Philippine volcano, an eruption proof mouse rules the roost," by Leilani Chavez

https://news.mongabay.com/2021/02/on-a-philippine-volcano-an-eruption-proof-mouse-rules-the-roost/

Please invite your friends to subscribe to the Mongabay Newscast wherever they get podcasts, or download our free app in the Apple App Store or in the Google Store to have access to our latest episodes at your fingertips.

If you enjoy this series, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep the show growing, Mongabay is a nonprofit media outlet and all support helps!

See all our latest news from nature's frontline at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay.

Photo Credit: Mount Pinatubo erupting via Wikipedia.