I am so honoured and delighted to welcome Rachel Donald from Planet: Critical as our inaugural guest on The Modern Maze.

Rachel is a climate corruption journalist whose work at Planet Critical illuminates the intricate links between the climate crisis and global geopolitics.

In this episode, Rachel and I explore the ongoing global resource crises, highlighting how competitive resource acquisition among nations has escalated conflicts in regions such as Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan. We discuss the critical roles of symbolic language, power dynamics and economic systems in exacerbating these crises. Rachel also offers perspectives on confronting the global challenges threatening our planet and humanity.

I highly recommend the Planet Critical podcast to everyone, it's a fantastic podcast with great guests and engaging conversations. I'm constantly engaged with the podcast and it's one of my go-to sources for understanding what's really going on in the world. You can listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. Check out the website and subscribe to the newsletter (linked below) for exclusive investigations and analysis.

Planet Critical: https://www.planetcritical.com/

YouTube podcast link: https://youtu.be/UVBe72vRhhs?feature=shared

Recently, I've been unable to get off my phone when I start looking at the news; it usually begins with one story, and then before I know it, it's been half an hour, and I've gone down the rabbit hole. After that, I feel emotionally and physically drained. Has something like this happened to you before? This is more common than you might think. Named "doomscrolling", refers to a state of media use typically characterised as someone scrolling through their social media newsfeeds with an obsessive focus on distressing, depressing, or otherwise negative information. This term really became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What are the reasons for this? Why does it seem like we have a predisposition towards consuming negative media?

In this episode, we'll explore why our brains are predisposed to focus on the negative and how both traditional and social media amplify this effect. More importantly, we'll provide practical strategies to break free from this negativity loop.

To balance the discussion, we'll also share four uplifting news stories to remind us of the good in the world.

Join me as we embark on a journey to navigate and balance our media consumption. Our goal is to achieve a healthier mental outlook, free from the negative impacts of excessive media consumption.

References:

• Vaish, A., Grossmann, T. and Woodward, A. (2008) ‘Not all emotions are created equal: The negativity bias in social-emotional development.’, Psychological Bulletin, 134(3), pp. 383–403. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.134.3.383.


• Robertson, C.E. et al. (2023) ‘Negativity drives online news consumption’, Nature Human Behaviour, 7(5), pp. 812–822. doi:10.1038/s41562-023-01538-4.


• Sharma, B., Lee, S.S. and Johnson, B.K. (2022) ‘The dark at the end of the tunnel: Doomscrolling on social media newsfeeds.’, Technology, Mind, and Behavior, 3(1). doi:10.1037/tmb0000059.


• Aoki, N. et al. (2024) ‘Soundscape enrichment increases larval settlement rates for the brooding coral  porites astreoides’, Royal Society Open Science, 11(3). doi:10.1098/rsos.231514.


• https://earth.org/can-soundscapes-save-coral-reefs/


• https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/04/16/greece-to-become-first-in-europe-to-ban-bottom-trawling-in-all-marine-protected-areas


• https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-24/australasian-bittern-returns-to-lagoon-of-islands/103754336


• https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/66275/climate-justice-international-court-hearings-klimaseniorinnen-duarte-careme/


• https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/04/09/top-european-human-rights-court-could-rule-that-governments-have-to-protect-people-from-cl

** If you are feeling overwhelmed by the news and would like to speak to someone about it, please use the following resources**

Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636

Lifeline: 13 11 14

www.ruok.org.au

A question that I asked myself often but never knew the answer to was, "How did our economic structures emerge? Was it by accident, by design or a natural evolution of trades and markets?" I finally began getting the answers I was seeking when I read the book "Less is More" by Dr Jason Hickel, which revealed the history of capitalism and its not-so-gentle rise from the collapse of feudalism. 

In this episode, we will embark on a journey through the birth of capitalism, guided by this book and its concepts.

Unlike the seamless transition taught in history classes, capitalism's emergence was anything but natural, marked by a violent reshaping of societal norms and an aggressive enclosure of commons. As we delve into the historical struggles for land and autonomy, we uncover the dismantling of a communal society's ideals, setting the stage for the emergence of capitalist structures that prioritise profit at the expense of communal well-being.

Let's peel back the layers of our economic foundation and invite a reflection on the implications of capitalism's deep-seated ideologies that continue to shape our world.

References:

Less is More by Jason Hickel 

In this episode, we embark on a journey through the provocative insights of Kate Raworth's "Doughnut Economics", the book that began my journey towards the Modern Maze. Diving into the heart of our modern economic system, we question the long-held pursuit of endless economic growth and its alignment with the realities of our planet and society. 

We explore the ambitious quest to redefine the very goals of economics, shifting from the singular focus on GDP to the holistic vision of the Doughnut. This model balances human prosperity with ecological sustainability. We unravel the seven ways to think like a 21st-century economist, each a stepping stone towards an economy that nurtures human nature, embraces system thinking, and designs for distributive justice and regenerative capacity.

This book and its concepts invites us to reimagine our economic systems, not as self-contained entities but as interconnected parts of a larger societal and environmental whole.

References:

Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth

Less is More by Jason Hickel

To ensure humanity's continued thriving, we must create an ecologically safe and socially just planet. Despite remarkable efforts by individuals and communities worldwide, we're currently grappling with multifaceted crises—from climate change to economic challenges, which threaten us with prolonged instability. 

Instead of racing collectively towards our shared goal of a safe planet that is just for all, we have created a maze for ourselves. We have become a fragmented and distracted species. We are guided by our collective ideologies, philosophical beliefs, and deepest desires, needs, and wants. We create barriers, illusions and dead ends for ourselves, forever searching for our utopia.

So step into The Modern Maze with me, a journey through the urgent challenges our planet and society face today. Our generation's defining task is to create an ecologically sustainable relationship between humanity and the Earth, while nurturing our collective societal well-being. Together, we'll explore the necessity of reimagining our structures and systems and whether a profound shift in consciousness and culture is also required to create the world of tomorrow.

References:

https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/will-mining-resources-needed-clean-energy-cause-problems-environment

2023 Global Slavery Index by Walk Free