Planet: Critical

Jaksot

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  Being Alive | Melanie Challenger 23.07.2026 53min

  What does it mean to be alive? Where does intelligence originate?  What do we share with other living creatures? Where does the individual begin, and how do each of us fit into the living world? These are the questions I pose researcher and writer, Melanie Challenger, author of Alive: The Hidden Intelligence of the Living World (UK version, US version). In this brilliant episode, we explore the definition of aliveness and intelligence, with Melanie revealing the ancient histories which have dominated our cultural understanding of intelligence. She offers a new definition, one grounded in our sensory bodies—a physical intelligence that comes from being here, being present, and being finite. We also discuss the supposed binary between individualism and collectivism, with Melanie challenging both the neoliberal hegemony and the environmental mantra of unlimited entanglement, offering a nuanced perspective which reconciles these two oppositional positions into something profoundly meaningful.  🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical
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  P:C ARCHIVES: James Dyke on Net Zero Won't Save Us 16.07.2026 1t 14min

  FROM THE ARCHIVES: This week I’m joined by James Dyke, a senior lecturer in Global Systems at the University of Exeter. James reveals why net-zero targets for carbon emissions do nothing but provide an excuse to continue business as usual, posing an existential threat to humanity. He goes into great detail about the interplay of politics, economies, culture and the industrialisation connecting us all, explaining that while there is no one quick fix to the climate crisis, decarbonisation is possible—if we get rid of fossil fuels. 🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical
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  The Land-Based Living Collective | James Bullen 09.07.2026 42min

  We need to live differently. Part of that means learning how to live together differently, both with each other, and with the wider environment around us.   James Bullen is the founder of the Land-Based Living Collective, a UK initiative aiming to create accessible, land-based communities that provide economic opportunities for the residents, nurture the land back to health, foster a sense of community and tackle some of our biggest modern problems such as food insecurity, energy insecurity and financial precarity. James has spent much of his adult life living in alternative land-based collectives like this, and is honest about the challenges of such a life—and also the great wonders it offers. His vision is grounded in meeting material needs, interweaving existing solutions to create an ecosystem of resilience that can both support its residents and facilitate them supporting one another. 🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical  
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  P:C ARCHIVES: Simon Michaux on The Climate Crisis and The Climate Crash 02.07.2026 1t 8min

  FROM THE ARCHIVES: So much of the hope we put in solutions for climate change falls away under a microscope. Did you know wind turbines aren’t recyclable, for example? Guess where they’re buried. Are enough people thinking about what happens when globalisation fails and post-industrial states like Europe and the US are left to mine their own materials? How can we mitigate climate change, truly, without plunging billions into poverty? Simon Michaux is working to find solutions to all these questions. As an associate professor in the circular economy solution unit at the Geological Survey of Finland, Simon models the mining and energy industries to figure out what we can do sustainably—and what is nothing more than greenwashing. He drops more than a few bombshells throughout this episode concerning energy use and politics, but also reveals a new energy paradigm he’s working on that could provide genuine zero emission energy. 🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical
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  How To Mobilise | Inea Lehner 25.06.2026 41min

  Climate Vanguard is a youth-led organisation providing political education to the public and activists across the Majority World. I'm joined by Inea Lehner, one of their core team members, to discuss their outreach, strategies and principles in supporting the climate movement, and Leftist movements more broadly. Wonderfully, this conversation explores how Inea's own life has been changed through political education, particularly through her adoption of a materialist lens. She explains how Marxism helped her make sense of the world, and what it has to offer the youth of today in their quest to dismantle the inequities of capitalism and create a new vision for a better future. This vision is centred on political decentralisation, social infrastructure and, of course, the regeneration of Earth's body—which is all possible, she says, if we learn to build power from the ground up. 🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical
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  P:C ARCHIVES: Steve Keen on The Economics of Climate Change 18.06.2026 1t

  FROM THE ARCHIVES: Professor Steve Keen was one of the few economists to realise that a serious economic crisis was imminent in 2005. He publicly warned the world, and helped his native Australia navigate the 2008 crash without the major repercussions that crippled markets everywhere else. He is now working on a new model of economics for a post-crash world. He joined me today to discuss why and how capitalism needs to be constrained, the economics of climate change and what mainstream economists and academics are getting wrong—to the detriment of us all. 🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical
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  The Real Story of "Invasive Species" | Clare Follmann 11.06.2026 54min

  Non-native species management has very little to do with ecology and everything to do with economics. That's what activist and writer, Clare Follmann, uncovered in her book Scapegoat: What the Invasive Species Story Gets Wrong (UK version, US version). She joins me to explain how "invasive" species have been blamed for creating the conditions of environmental degradation — conditions that have actually been caused by capitalism, extraction and colonialism. In this fascinating episode, she reveals the linguistic tricks at play which colour the doctrine of invasive species management, and the insidious links between these protocols and racism and xenophobia. She gives illuminating examples of how extractive industries have blamed species for the problems caused by their pillaging of Earth, and emphasises that the very idea of non-native species forgets the diverse history of the planet which has seen species spread out all across the globe for millions of years.  🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical
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  Treating The Epidemic of Violence | Gary Slutkin 04.06.2026 53min

  Can violence be cured? According to physician and epidemiologist, Gary Slutkin, it can. Gary worked for decades treating some of the most virulent disease outbreaks around the world. Then he took that model and applied it to his hometown of Chicago to treat what he believed was an outbreak of violence. His results were shocking: by implementing similar strategies to disease containment and treatment, violent crime could be dramatically reduced. He joins me to discuss exactly that, explaining the research revealed in his book, The End of Violence (UK version, US version), which argues that violence is a pathogen, a contagion, which we can eradicate through tried and tested methods. Gary walks us through the exact methods he and his team at Cure Violence Global has used around the world to inhibit violence, and we discuss the particularities of sexual violence, state violence, and the absolute necessity of understanding that the epidemic is truly a crisis of male violence.  🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical
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  Building An Eco-Civilisation | Jeremy Lent 28.05.2026 1t

  In an age of bad news, it is so important to remember that everything we need to remake the world is already with us. From how we produce food to how we organise our political systems, the solutions we need have long been developed and tested. What we need now is political will and community vision—and to hold onto the fact that everything is still worth fighting for. Acclaimed author and integrator Jeremy Lent has spent the past years researching a vital book which explores how we can reform and revolutionise our most critical sectors, from finance to agriculture, in order to build a true ecocivilisation. Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All (US version, UK version) is a hopeful testament to both our past and our future, illustrated with real-world examples throughout the ages which show time and time again just what we are capable of when we put our minds and hearts together. On this episode, Jeremy walks us through his research, emphasising that such reforms would transform our relationships with each other and the wider world. This is a beautiful conversation which explores how we create the conditions for live to thrive—today, tomorrow, and for the rest of time. 🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical
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  Remaking The World | David Farrier 21.05.2026 50min

  What is the role of art in any crisis? To understand what is and to imagine what could be; to transcend and birth and promise. This is the message of today's guest, David Farrier.  David is a professor in literature and the environment at Edinburgh University, and the author of Nature's Genius: Evolutions Lessons for a Changing Planet (UK version, US version). He joins me to discuss poetry, literature, relationality, language and intelligence. In this wide-ranging and meditative conversation, we discuss how space and time are made between species, how the entire world is evolving with and through the crisis, and what we can learn from Nature herself to meet this moment exactly where we are. From the Enlightenment to whale song, this conversation explores just how critical art is in a moment of breakdown to be a vehicle for transformation, for transmutation, and, perhaps most importantly, daring—mirroring Nature's very own life force. 🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical
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  The Myth of Individual Responsibility | Michael Maniates 14.05.2026 45min

   What can we actually do if we want to achieve real change? We have been sold a comforting lie that our purchasing power is the best way to change the world. But rather than offer anything substantial, this lie promotes a myth of individual responsibility that actually inhibits the drastic structural change we desperately need.  Michael Maniates is an environmental social scientist working on issues of environmental governance, sustainable consumption, and sociotechnical change, and the author of The Living Green Myth: the Promise and Limits of Lifestyle Environmentalism (UK version, US version). He joins me to discuss how we were sold that big green myth, how it relates to the global neoliberal overhaul of the role of markets in the 80s, how it frustrates structural change, and what we can do instead. He also reveals the social science on how people react when their attempts to change the world through this very process are repeatedly frustrated—and how this impedes future action.
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  The Eco-Crisis is a Feminist Crisis | Natasha Walter 07.05.2026 51min

  The women's movement sprang into being in a different world. How must it adapt to meet the challenges we face today?Natasha Walter is a journalist, the founder of the Women for Refugee Women Charity, and the author of multiple books, including her most recent, Feminism for a World on Fire (UK version and US version out today). In it, Natasha investigates the successes and weaknesses of the women's movement, taking a scalpel to the most recent decades of feminist thought and action and revealing how they have been shaped by neoliberalism. She joins me to discuss just that, explaining how our hyper individualist economy has created a feminist culture which is more invested in the individuals success than in structural change and collective liberation. From there, we discuss care as an organising principle, and why this feminist school of thought must be seeded in climate camps, from degrowth theory to mobilisation. We also explore the effects of a neoliberal feminism on young women around the world, many of whom are now turning their backs on the women's movement to instead pledge allegiance to "tradwives" and other typically patriarchal forms of social organisation. We ask: What is feminism failing to provide these young women? And what about the women's movement needs to change to confront and overcome the political, economic and ecological crises which threaten our very future? 🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical: www.planetcritical.com
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  Deep Ecology | John Seed 30.04.2026 42min

  We don't need more ecological ideas, we need ecological selves. That's the message of this week's guest, John Seed, a longtime environmental activist who has been instrumental to the Deep Ecology movement. John joins me to explain exactly what Deep Ecology can offer us—a sense of place, time and connection in a world coming apart. He walks us through the philosophy and multiple exercises, revealing how our coming together with the world around us can also help us come together as people—to grieve, to love, to be. This a beautiful, resonant and poetic episode, with John's wisdom and humility blooming forth to offer a vision which neither despairs nor denies, but is instead devoted to truths that surpass humans alone and encircle all of us, each of us, in this great web of life, to be held and to hold, even for just a moment.  🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical: www.planetcritical.com
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  The Truly Sustainable Alternative | Julia Steinberger 23.04.2026 49min

  A flourishing human society doesn't have to cost the earth. In fact, our wellbeing and Earth's wellbeing hinge on the same thing: reducing inequality. Julia Steinberger is a renowned degrowth scholar at the University of Lausanne where she and her colleagues recently produced Living Well Within Limits, which shows there is no tension between human and ecological flourishing. Julia joins me to explain their award-winning research in this exciting and hopeful episode. To reduce our pressure on the planet and to improve our wellbeing, we simply need more public services. This would reduce our material footprints, energy footprints, and, of course, societal inequality. This is not a vision which has room for billionaires and autocrats. But by getting rid of them, we have room for all 8 billion of us—on a healthy, regenerating planet.  🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical: www.planetcritical.com
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  Tech Titans Won't Save Us | Paris Marx 16.04.2026 53min

  Silicon Valley's robotic grip on the world is destroying our social fabric. "Artificial intelligence" models are now baked into our militaries, economies and political institutions—without there being a clear benefit yet as to why. a.i. is behind the indiscriminate attacks on civilian lives in Gaza and Iran, has encouraged users to commit suicide in the United States, and helped one Canadian plan the worst mass shooting in recent history. Despite the risks to us and the planet, the incredibly wealthy individuals pushing our dystopia insist its for our own benefit, while cementing their political and financial power.  Paris Marx is one of the most vocal tech critics in the Minority World, challenging the techno-capitalist hegemony on his podcast Tech Won't Save Us, his newsletter Disconnect, and his first book, Road To Nowhere. He joins me to explain the deepening relationship between the tech industry and the military, who and what is being sacrificed in the pursuit of "artificial intelligence", and Silicon Valley's disturbing vision for our future. These technologists promise revolution—but not the kind any of us want to see.  🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical: www.planetcritical.com  
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  How Finance Ruined Capitalism | Hettie O'Brien 09.04.2026 51min

  Capitalism was envisioned—and is still defended—as a vehicle for growth. This growth was meant to increase everyone's share of the pie. But one of the most opaque and unregulated finance sectors got its fingers into that pie—and built a mechanism to extract wealth from the very companies, public services and infrastructure it buys. Welcome the the world of private equity, a shadow fleet of financial vehicles which are buying up our homes, schools, nurseries, roads, technology and everything in between—and yet that we know very little about. Journalist Hettie O'Brien, author of the newly released The Asset Class: How Private Equity Turned Capitalism Against Itself, joins me to expose just how wide the influence of this crooked sector is, explaining how over the past few decades private equity has undermined democracy, caused avoidable deaths in care homes, lobbied—and secured—access to our pensions, and has driven economic stagnation. Crucially, private equity does not create value—it extracts it, with no thought for the consequences which are offset onto the rest of us while the super rich get even richer off of our misfortune. 🔴 Get the UK version of The Asset Class today, or pre-order the USA version here. 🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical: www.planetcritical.com
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  Reform, Not Revolution | Andrés Velasco 02.04.2026 52min

  Andrés Velasco is the Dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Chile's former Minister of Finance. He and his colleagues at LSE recently released The London Consensus, a collection of economics essays arguing for the a range of reforms to neoclassical, capitalist economics. Much needs to change, they argue—but it can be done within the existing institutions, and without affecting growth.  Andrés joins me to explain their position and reasoning, and we enjoy numerous disagreements about the need for growth, the definition of development, the determining factors of inequality, the limits of redistribution and resource exploitation. While we agree that much must change, for Andrés the solution lies not in overhauling the fundamentals, but regulating the excesses. 🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical: www.planetcritical.com
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  The Founding Mothers | Laura George 26.03.2026 53min

  The Founding Fathers were legal revolutionaries. But over two centuries on, the world needs an update. Reverend Laura George is the co-founder of the Founding Mothers, a movement dedicated to universal dignity, human rights, peace and ending war. By focussing on women's liberation, the Founding Mothers seek to protect the future for generations to come through policies which empower women to make very different choices to the power brokers of today. On the episode, she explains the architecture of the movement, its goals and strategies, the campaigns and strikes being organised, and the importance of centring women to achieve peace. Finally, we discuss the importance of collaborating across campaigns, with Laura calling for a fierce love—a love that can defend us.  🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical: www.planetcritical.com  
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  How Mexico City Unleashed Its Political Imagination | Ashwin Ravikumar 19.03.2026 47min

  Under the left-wing leadership of mayor Clara Brugada, Mexico City has invested millions in the city's poorest neighbourhoods, building UTOPIAs which provide food, healthcare, therapy, and many other public services to those in need. The story of this incredible project involves a century-old social movement which found support in the left-wing Moderna party, led by Claudia Sheinbaum, revealing a fascinating relationship between state power and people power which is radically transforming the material conditions of Mexico's poorest residents. In this fascinating episode, professor of Environmental Studies ath Amherst College, Ashwin Ravikumar, walks us through the history of the social movement which mobilised both rural and inner-city workers, developing a collective political consciousness which made them a formidable political force in a time of land grabs and immense corruption. Ashwin explains how the national government also sprang out of this movement, and the tensions which have had to be navigated now that they have access to state power. He also explains the UTOPIAs in great detail, revealing the incredible services provided, how they're funded, and the plan to develop even more because, for the Mayor and the people, these spaces are to provide a physical space where people can come together and learn from one another, educate, agitate and win back the ground that was lost to a century of corruption to build a utopia for all.  🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical: www.planetcritical.com
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  Feeding The Future | Nicole Negowetti 12.03.2026 48min

  Wars have repeatedly shown us over the last few years how fragile our global supply chains are. But while we can live without semiconductors, collapses in our food supply systems are extremelhy dangerous. And this is only one of the problems of depending on a heavily industrialised food industry, an industry which harms Earth's body as much as our own. So: How can we feed the future sustainably? Nicole Negowetti is a lawyer, author of Feeding The Future, and founder of Food For Us. She joins me to discuss the fragility embedded in our industrialised processes, how our diets are making us sick, the food infrastructure we need to ensure localised food security, and the importance of working with existing landowners and farmers to achieve all this. We also discuss the cultural variances which affect this conversation, with Nicole insisting that food is the most intimate way we can express our relationship with Earth. 🌎 Subscribe to support Planet: Critical: www.planetcritical.com 🟢 Land Liberators film: https://www.planetcoordinate.com/land-liberators-popayan-colombia/