The ABCs of Green Politics

Climate Camp Ireland, organised by the all-island, anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, pro-craic grassroots climate movement Slí Eile, and hosted by Save Lough Neagh Coalition, is taking place from 7th - 11th August on the shores of our blue-green algae ridden biggest lake - Loch nEachach.

Themes of the camp: climate justice, extractivism, industrial agriculture, Palestine, migrant justice, storytelling, sexwork, Rojava, Traveller traditions and more

Thanks to Pól and Pádraig for the chat!

This episode is a conversation with host John Barry and two artists, Mags Byrne, artistic director of DU Dance, and writer and performer Stephen Beggs on the role of the arts in communicating and helping us understand the climate and ecological crisis, and the ways in which the arts can empower and illustrate difficult issues in ways that generate hope and agency.

In this episode, host John Barry is joined by Stiofán Ó

We talk to Mary McGuiggan and James Orr all about Water - Lough Neagh, Mobuoy dump, neocolonialism, mining, industrial agriculture, Rights of Nature, Seamus Heaney, dancing, art, climate camp...

Podcast series on Mobuoy dump: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m001hf1w

Rights of Nature:

https://vimeo.com/773336092

https://ejni.net/rights-and-nature/

The Gathering: https://twitter.com/0thegathering0

Sli Eile (Climate Camp): https://twitter.com/sli_eile_

FoENI: https://twitter.com/foe_ni

Save Lough Neagh campaign: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557091190629

Save Our Sperrins: https://www.facebook.com/SaveOurSperrins

In this episode, host John Barry is joined by Dr. Ross Mittiga, researcher and lecturer at the University of Graz's Department of Philosophy. The conversation ranges from how few of us want to talk about the issue of violence and social change; philosophical and practical arguments about how given the worsening climate and ecological crisis is causing multiple harms, including the deaths of millions of people, that violence for social transformation to end those harms may not only been legitimate but obligated; to the distinction between ‘rebellion’ and ‘revolution’; and why in relation to the fossil fuel industry and financial capital we need to make them ‘bleed green’ and ‘run yellow’. Enjoy!

His latest book has just been published, Climate Change as Political Catastrophe: Before Collapse with Oxford University Press.

As Israel continues its genocide in Gaza, enabled by Western governments, we hear the testimony of Dr Saeb Sha'ath, a Palestinian writer living in Belfast. Saeb's family in Gaza have been forcibly displaced multiple times and are now living through a deliberately-imposed health pandemic, with their lives constantly at risk.

On a day such as this, as the ICJ rules that the case for genocide is plausible and that those who incite it must be punished, we call for a Ceasefire Now, and a Palestine that is free, from the river to the sea.

In this episode we ask 'If the planet is on fire, how can universities and academics continue in a business as usual manner?'... this week host John Barry is joined by three academic-activists, Dr. Laura Horn, Dr. Aaron Thierry and Prof. Jennie Stephens to discuss the views on how and in what ways the higher education system needs to change, what we need to unlearn as well as learn, why so many of our colleagues seem not to be affected by the polycrisis we are now in, the emotional and psychological dimensions of teaching and researching this issue and the challenges and benefits of being an activist and sometimes (well often!) being as 'welcome as a fart in a space suit' for asking awkward questions! Knowledge is power...so arm yourselves...enjoy!

In this episode we are joined by Emma River-Roberts, a working class environmental activist based in England, to talk about the middle class character of the mainstream green movement, its tendency to moralistic and scientistic forms of analyses, degrowth and how to communicate green politics, the importance of a class analysis to understanding the planetary crisis and how to connect solutions to that crisis to improving the lives of working class people and winning their support for a just transition. And why most working class people don't want to know about the recipe, they just want the cake!

We need a Total Transformation, not just a Transition from capitalism to green capitalism. How do we democratize our economy? How do we democratize our democracy? What is to be done? Everything, everywhere, all at once.

In this episode John Barry talks to activist Michelle Byrne (from our sister Left Bloc pod - The Week at Work) and Belfast-based researcher-activist Calum McGeown, on whether the worsening planetary crisis and related economic and social crisis are such that we now need revolutionary transformation and not simply green reforms. So questions discussed include 'what is revolution'? Who are the agents of such revolutionary action? What are the strategies than revolution requires?