Planet: Critical

A post-carbon world could be our opportunity to do better—and make the difficult transition much easier to swallow.

That’s the message of Alice Friedemann on this week’s episode, author of When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation. The transition is coming, perhaps collapse is coming, and if the world as we know it is going to change we might as well make the most of it. She worries we won’t be given the opportunity due to all the misinformation flying around, and gives a cutting analysis of how the climate change conversation is distracting from many other dangerous, concurrent such as biodiversity loss and water scarcity.

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

For Alice, the big problem is the energy crisis. She explains how oil prices can precipitate nation state collapse, with high oil prices driving 11 of the past 12 recessions.

This is a phenomenally interesting interview, which also manages to be a lot of fun, despite the topics! Listen here on catch it on on Apple or Spotify.

Visit Alice’s website Energy Skeptic and get your hands on a copy of When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation.

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

Both E.O. Wilson and Tom Lovejoy were major figures in the conservation field and passed away in late 2021 -- both also appeared on this show, so we play some clips of those conversations and talk with two guests about their legacies, but also where to look for new conservation leadership. Do we need new figures like them, or is this conservation's post-icon era? What about the great diversity of new scientists coming up via programs like STEM, and whole communities like Indigenous ones who have their own scientists, plus rich traditional ecological knowledge (TEK)? We discuss this with two guests: Rebecca McCaffery, who is Society of Conservation Biology's president for North America, and Mongabay staff writer Liz Kimbrough, who interviewed E.O. Wilson just 2 months before his passing. 

Both of these women hold conservation science PhDs and share expansive views on what's next for leadership in the field.

Update 2/2022: In late January, correspondence found among the late E.O. Wilson’s papers connected him with J. Phillipe Rushton, whose research in the 1980s and 1990s has been linked with white supremacy. The E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation has now issued a statement.

Related listening from the Newscast:

• Tom Lovejoy on  episode #51: The ‘Godfather of Biodiversity’ on why it’s time to manage Earth as a system
• Wilson on episode #56: E.O. Wilson discusses Half-Earth and conservation solutions

And here's Liz Kimbrough's late 2021 print interview of E.O. Wilson & friends for Mongabay.com:

• Half-Earth, conservation, and hope: An interview with E.O. Wilson, Paula Ehrlich and Sir Tim Smit

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: A moray eel in the Daymaniyat Islands, Oman. Image by Warren Baverstock / Ocean Image Bank.

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].

According to the laws of physics, the economy can only sustain itself by growing. So how bound are we by the laws of thermodynamics?

Professor Tim Garrett, atmosphere scientist at the University of Utah, argues we’re completely bound by those laws. He has modelled how the behaviour of snowflakes and clouds can be used to predict energy consumption and GDP, bridging the gap between economic theory and 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.

Tim’s research is nothing short of fascinating; this is a mind-bending hour you won’t regret. Listen to the episode here or catch it on Apple or Spotify.

Read more of Tim’s 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

New Guinea is one of the most most biodiverse regions on the planet and also the world's largest tropical island. It makes up less than 0.5% of the world’s landmass, but is estimated to contain as much as 10% of global biodiversity.

To unpack the vast biodiversity of New Guinea, conservation policy, and NGO efforts to protect land, culture and Indigenous rights, we spoke with Rodrigo Cámara-Leret, of the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies at the University of Zurich, Charlie Danny Heatubun, head of the research and development agency of the provincial government of West Papua, and Miriam Supuma of Synchronicity Earth.

In this third season of the podcast, we take a look at what makes New Guinea unlike any other place in this world, the contributing environmental impacts that threaten its culture and biodiversity, and what is being done to protect it.

Listen to the previous 2 seasons of Mongabay Explores via the podcast provider of your choice or find them at our podcast homepage here. 

Episode artwork: (Casuarius unappendiculatus) is one of the majestic birds that New Guinea is famous for. Image by Rhett Butler for Mongabay.

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].

Welcome to this special episode of Planet: Critical where we journey from the podcast’s humble beginnings to what it is today, and what I hope it will evolve into.

None of this would be possible without you all and so I thank you endlessly for your support and encouragement. It’s wonderful to witness a community coalesce around the podcast and the information my incredible guests provide us, and I’m so looking forward to what we will continue learning, and where it will take us.

Knowledge is the only renewable fuel we have and I’m humbled to play a small part in spreading it as far and wide as possible. I wouldn’t be getting very far without you all, especially given how terrible I am at promoting the show. So to those of you who spread the word every week, and to the others who chose a paid subscription—thank you, I’m touched you find value in my work.

I hope you all enjoy whatever plans you have for this December 31st, and here’s to a 2022 filled with critical thinking and vision.

Cheers,Rachel

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 perfect time to pick up a great book, and this episode's got recommendations for you!

We welcome to the show Janisse Ray, award-winning author of "Wild Spectacle: Seeking Wonders in a World Beyond Humans," detailing her search for “heart-pounding flashes of wild spectacle.” Ray shares stories of the places she's traveled and explains why she did all that travel without getting on a plane.

We also welcome Jordan Salama, whose new book is called "Every Day the River Changes: Four Weeks Down the Magdalena." He discusses 4 weeks spent traveling down Colombia's Magdalena River, which Colombians speak of with “an almost religious fervor,” and what he hopes people can take away from his book.

These two share some great adventures but also counsel seeking such enlightening journeys close to home, as well!

Further reading from the episode:

• “Rewilding news” on Mongabay
• FARC peace deal in Colombia sparked war on forests, report says
• In Colombia, end of war meant start of runaway deforestation, study finds

Salama wrote a fascinating 2019 story for Mongabay about community activism for rivers in southern Europe, 

• In Bosnia-Herzegovina, grassroots opposition stalls a hydropower project

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].

Did you know that four years of studying mainstream economics at university has such a profound impact on students that their value systems change? And not for the better.

Economic theory affects the very fabric of human society, and the dominant neoliberal model is at the root of many of the crises we face. Assuming human nature is fundamentally selfish has created a terrible feedback loop of individualism, precarity and abuse. Ecological economists are fighting back with new models, models they believe are more in line with humankind’s long history of collaboration.

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

Joshua Farley is a Professor of Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont. His research focuses on designing an economy capable of balancing what is biophysically possible with what is socially, psychologically and ethically desirable.

This episode is a big picture conversation about the roots of the climate and social crises. We discuss human values—and common sense—and how to reimagine an economics which will allow the best of human nature to triumph. 

Listen to the episode here or catch it on Apple or Spotify.

Read more of Joshua’s 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

What’s theoretical physics got to do with trees? Everything.

Life on this planet is in grave danger. While life does what it can to self-regulate (breaking the second law of thermodynamics to do so), when environments become disturbed beyond repair, the “biota” breaks down exponentially. To physicist Anastassia Makarieva, this is the reality of climate change.

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

Anastassia has dedicated her life to understanding the biota and, more specifically, how the world’s forests regulate not just themselves but the water system of the entire planet. Alongside her colleagues, Anastassia is desperately trying to raise awareness of the dangers of disturbing the world’s forest, especially the Boreal forest, which despite being the largest on the planet is often forgotten about.

She says stopping logging overnight would have the biggest impact on reducing climate change. So why isn’t anyone listening?

Listen to the episode here or catch it on Apple or Spotify.

Read more of Anastassia’s work here and 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

We discuss two big stories from Southeast Asia that Mongabay's been covering which highlight the importance of land rights and also Free, Prior, and Informed Consent for Indigenous and local communities.

Cynthia Ong is our first guest, she's founder of LEAP, an NGO based in the state of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo, who shares the fallout from a story broken by Mongabay about a giant carbon deal signed by government officials in Sabah -- covering more than 2 million hectares of the state’s forests for at least the next 100 years -- without consulting local communities.

Our second guest is Gerry Flynn, a Mongabay contributor based in Cambodia who has been covering a recent government decree that made 127,000 hectares of protected areas available for sale or rent.

Flynn discusses why there are fears that it will amount to a land grab by powerful interests.

Further reading about the Sabah deal:

• Is colonial history repeating itself with Sabah forest carbon deal? (Ong's commentary)
• Details emerge about Sabah carbon deal

Articles about Cambodia by Flynn:

• The great Koh Kong land rush
• Carving up the Cardamoms: Conservationists fear massive land grab in Cambodia

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!

Episode artwork: Stung Proat, Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia. Photo via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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].

Tackling climate obesity will take a very strict diet—and it’s not a one size fits all solution. We’ve got to make big changes, and fast. But who is “we” and what are these changes?

Journalist and author Paul Greenberg joins me this week to break down some of the radical solutions individuals can make to fix their climate diet (that’s the fish part). We then go on to discuss renewables vs nuclear (fusion), before tackling the big problem bringing international negotiations to a grinding halt: Who’s to blame, and how do we make them change?

There’s a lot to learn in this episode. Listen here or catch it on Apple or Spotify.

Tuck into Paul’s fantastic range of books.

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