Planet: Critical

You've heard of energy—but do you have any idea what exergy is?

On today's astounding episode of Planet: Critical, scholar Tânia Sousa explains the concept of exergy—the quality of energy—and why it is critical to understanding our energy systems, our economies, and energy transitions. She explains energy degradation, energy efficiency, and the how differences in available energy actually create the necessary gradients for life to happen. What this means, however, is that the pockets of high quality energy deposits around the world are a gift—and when we go through them, by burning all the oil or mining all the mines, then we will find ourselves in a world where we are capable of doing much less useful work.

Planet: Critical is approaching its five year anniversary, and yet this conversation felt like the very beginning of this journey, when every episode was a revelation. And so it feels important to end the year with this mind-blowing hour. Happy festivities to one and all. See you in 2026.

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Obviously, the world is not on an inevitable upward trajectory. But witnessing the degradation of our environment, democracies and information has come as a shock to many of us who were raised on the belief that human history is a long arc towards perfection (with just a few blips along the way). This is the myth of progress we were all sold. Astonishingly, it predates even our oldest religions. 

Samuel Miller McDonald is a geographer and the author of PROGRESS: A History of Humanity's Worst Idea. He joins me today to discuss his startling research which shows how this very inextricably this myth is tied to expansionism, extractivism and centralisation. Taking us over 5,000 years, Samuel explains how that same myth has been recycled through the Holy Books, colonial legislation, international development, and even technological innovation. Exploring some counter-arguments, Samuel criticises political pundits who claim we can view the world through rosy lenses by merely examining "unbiased" data, and offers pointers on how to navigate the information cesspool of today's discourse to interpret what is really going on in the world. 

P.S. The argument we reference that I had with Hannah Ritchie can be listened to here on Mongabay's podcast.

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Who's going to grow your food when our complex supply chains fail?

Chris Smaje, academic turned small-hold farmer, is an advocate for hyper-local agrarianism—because that's going to be our future whether we like it or not. Chris returns to Planet: Critical to discuss his third book, Finding Lights in a Dark Age, which details the history of land expropriation, the inefficiency of modern, industrial farming, and the benefits to body, mind and spirit when we all muck in together and get our hands dirty.

We cover all this and more, getting into the critiques and fears people hold around small-scale farming, with Chris explaining the racist and colonial ideologies that still underpin our attitudes towards farming in the Western world. And as he reiterates over and over again, making the choice today to get involved in your own community sufficiency is one of the best ways we can prepare for the inevitable fall-out of hyper-exploitation, hyper-consumption and hyper inequality.

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Before European invaders sought to control every inch of Earth's territory, human beings organised themselves in radically different ways throughout the world. Entire cultures and knowledges were put to the sword, alongside millions of human bodies. This deliberate attack on the cultures and ideologies with which communities understood their histories, bodies, roles and people was part of what made colonialism such a successful and enduring project. And it lives on today, in our very minds, when we uncritically accept the racial and gender categories which stem from that colonial conquest, argues Feminist philosopher, Jules Falquet.

We discuss the reality—or not—of gender differences, the history of racial categorisation, and the production of children through the lens of capitalist logic, with Jules insisting that none of these particular ways of thinking or being are "natural" but rather learned processes which prevent us from escaping the shackles of our colonial history. We do not always agree on the finer details, but certainly the resounding message in this episode is that our perception of absolute differences between people and our more-than-human kin are a critical component in the volume of senseless violence we live through today.

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Just five years ago, two scientists in white coats threw red paint on the Royal Society HQ to protest against the damage being done to Earth. Their action sparked the Scientist Rebellion movement all around the world, where those who know the worst of what is to come took to the streets because to merely study it in their labs was not enough to prevent disaster. Then came the sudden rise of authoritarianism that proved peaceful demands will not be met, and the realisation we our tactics must evolve with the new political climate. 

Natural Scientist Fernando Racimo documented the movement and his own involvement in his book, Science in Resistance: The Scientist Rebellion for Climate Justice. He joins me today to discuss what works, what doesn't, and how deep the rot of complicity goes in universities. We discuss the efficacy of disruptive action and the importance of generative action, with Fernando calling for academics to focus on localised, community-based work, insisting we must embody the changes we wish to see in everything we do—because nobody is going to build a new world for us. 

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The best intentions of mice and men... aft never leave the conference centre, according to this week's guest, Dave Snowden.

Founder of The Cynefin Company, Dave is a management consultant and complexity scientist who has worked for governments and institutions around the world to help them better understand what populations need, and how to deliver it to them. He joins me today to explain why solutions fail, why populism is on the rise, and why the middle class' penchant for what he calls "talking therapy" will never deliver real change—because it ignores the stories on the street.

This is a conversation which explores geo-engineering, putting oil companies to good use, The Troubles and even Obama's first term, with Dave insisting that it is impossible to change people's minds—we can only facilitate different interactions with the world.

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Nations are rushing to secure resources within their own borders.  Globalisation is over. 

Colonialism and mining have always gone hand in hand. But now that the Global South has more political muscle as a bloc, and now that resources are running low, wealthy countries which have historically secured and polluted elsewhere are opening up extractive frontiers within their own territories. This is a tectonic shift in international politics, creating new fault lines, exacerbating inequalities, and causing conflict.

Thea Riofrancos is an associate professor of political science at Providence College, and the author of Extraction: the Frontiers of Green capitalism. Thea joins me to explain the history of extractivism and its relationship to colonialism, the extractive frontiers that are now being opened up in the global north, the conflict these create within populations, and  the economic interventions that are currently transforming how resources are being extracted. She also details the wave of resistance that is surging to meet these colonial forces as people around the world arm themselves with knowledge and skills to prevent their homelands being torn up and fed to corporate industries. 

Geopolitics is shifting with the supply of critical raw materials. Necessary for the so-called “green transition” these materials have created another resource rush, triggering a mining boom all over the world, which is leaving conflict, environmental devastation and political instability in its wake.

In this episode, researcher and climate analyst Nina Djukanović explains her recently published research into the  competitiveness, security, and socio environmental issues of critical raw materials around the world. Her paper, Material Dependencies, was produced for Czech think tank, the  Association for International Affairs, and she explains we simply do not have enough materials to transition to a green economy within an extractivist and growth model. She explains all this and more, revealing how the green transition is being dangerously interwoven with militarism and digitisation, leaving a political vacuum that the far Right is exploiting, particularly in the EU and USA.

Nina's paper: https://www.amo.cz/en/climate-team/material-dependencies-competitivness-security-and-socio-environmental-issues-of-critical-raw-materials-2/

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Hi everyone,

I’ve designed the new Planet: Critical website and I want your feedback. If there’s any sections, groupings, design changes that you’d like to see—or flaws you notice—I’ll spend the next week incorporating what I can. So please go and play around on the new site here and then comment on this article Substack to let me know what you think.

The new site allows for a lot more flexibility. I’ve created newspaper-like sections dividing the posts into topics. Currently, the sections are: Energy Crisis, Economic Crisis, Ecological Crisis, Political Crisis, Human Crisis, Inconvenient Truths, Good Ideas.

I’ve also created a page for people new to the topics covered on the site, linking the three most important episodes in each section. I hope this will be a helpful onboarding for new readers/listeners as the archive now, after almost five years, is pretty daunting.

I want to know what you think! Sadly, I’ve got no clue how to code (I’d love to add in sign up graphics between each section on the homepage, or some info cards, just to break it up) but I’ll do what I can with your suggestions!

Here’s the temporary URL again. Let me know what you think by commenting below! P:C will be back to regular scheduling before the end of the month.

Thank you for your patience!

Rachel

Doctors are tasked with an impossible job: Keep our bodies healthy while Earth’s collapses.

Our healthcare systems are already under-funded and over-stretched, and that’s before we throw in the drastic changes in disease and mortality that warming temperatures are unleashing around the world. That all this falls on the shoulders of healthcare workers is another symptom of the madness of modernity. Each and every policy is responsible for our healthcare, not just the industry itself.

Sharon Friel is a Professor of Health Equity at Australia National University, researching how planetary health and human health intersect. She joins me to explain the state of health in the coming decades, which institutional policies are already preventing effective treatment, and how our atomistic relationship to cause and effect with regards to climate change is reflected in the biomedical paradigm itself. We discuss how medical curricula around the world can and must change, the necessary integration of different epistemologies, and Sharon reveals what is sending the medical insurance industry into a panic—revealing just high Earth’s fever is climbing.