Planet: Critical

November 9, 2022 9:29 AM

Planet: Critical by Rachel Donald interviews diverse exports on topics related to climate change, the environment, human society, and economics (see her archives tab).

It's easiest to navigate using her archives tab since often her interviews often have adjacent entries containing a transcript or some analysis posted.

Aside from directly climate activists like Jason Hickel in Degrowth and Ecosocialism (transcript), and economics reformers like Blair Fix in Grassroots Economics for a Better Future, there are quite a few philosophical and political theory ones:

Carl Safina: How Western Philosophy Created the Crisis

Susan Clark & Tom Prugh: Creating Deliberative Democracies (transcript, comments)

Matt Leighninger: Building Democracies for the 21st Century (comments)

George Mobus: The Limits of Human Wisdom

Jeremy Lent: The Meaning Crisis (transcript, comments)

posted by jeffburdges (8 comments total)

I've not listened to most of her interviews yet, but several nice interviews of economists and scientists include:

Steve Keen: The Economics of Climate Change (recently)

Tim Garrett: The Thermodynamics of Collapse (twitter, see Steve Keen thread too)

Nate Hagens: Seeing the Big Picture (recently)

Simon Michaux: The Climate Crisis and the Climate Crash (see Nate Hages thread too)

Anastassia Makarieva: Save The Forests To Save The Planet (see biotic pump thread)

Graeme Cumming: Understanding Resilience (transcript)
posted by jeffburdges at 10:52 AM on November 9, 2022

I'm really looking forward to--or, rather, have a sick sense of dread about!--reading these transcripts. I've already skimmed through Jason Hickel (whose writing I love), and sure enough that interview covers the question of where will we get all the materials for a full renewable transition, if our economies are still growth-oriented. I started to quote something from the interview but it was six paragraphs long full of me bolding important points so...I won't inflict that on people. But it's good stuff!
posted by mittens at 10:59 AM on November 9, 2022

I think Rachel Donald interviews more people who pushing partial solutions than say Nate Hagens does, so broadly more optimistic stuff here, although too much of it takes the form of fixing society first.

I'm always please by transcripts since you can read or skim much faster, but she stopped doing them recently. Although Hagens lacks transcripts, at least he provides timestamps for the topics discussed.

We need a wiki or git-like repo into which automated transcripts for postcasts can be dumped, and then listeners can fix the mistakes. It'd also rock if someone started a collaborative review/abstract writing service, analogous to the AMS' MathSciNet.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:21 AM on November 9, 2022

This is very meaningful to me now, jeffburdges. Thank you for this post.
posted by doctornemo at 2:46 PM on November 9, 2022

I want to thank jeffburdges for keeping us coming back to climate and energy and the challenges ahead. As the polycrisis intensifies, our ability to think long-term, proactively and big-picture might be crowded out by each fresh new hell the day brings.

I forget who, but someone phrased this as the luxury envelope collapase. Long before we become physicaly unable to act constructively, we will become so preoccupied with our falling standard of living, our disasterous weather, political infighting etc that coherent global reaponse will be absent. Essentially, we have the surplus time and wealth and attention span to look past immeadiate survival toward longterm sustainability, but that luxury is disappearing.

That time is not yet, and the barriers to global response are the self-interest of the wealthy and the pathological corporate organisms we have endowed with legal personhood.

E.F Schumacker (no longer alive for interviews) is a good compliment to Hickel.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 9:14 AM on November 10, 2022

At this point, it's really everyone's short-term self-interest, not only the wealthy, but yes our legal structures enforces almost all our organizations' short-term self-interest, making them harmful. Around this cstross' 34C3 talk is quite good.

We live in a society adapted for economic growth, which makes these problems seem kinda insurmountable. I'm dubious about the gentile-ish degrowth story told by people like Hickel, but it's clear our survival depends upon post-groth social adaptations of one form or another.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:27 AM on November 12, 2022

Luckily I'm not in charge, because the only scenario I can think of where citizens are willing to undergo rationing with some degree of acquiescence and grace, is when they're at war.
posted by mittens at 6:40 AM on November 12, 2022

Anonymous ration cards are my pet project btw.  Acceptance is initially a marketing problem, very solvable, but..

Joe Tainter, Tim Garret, Nate Hagens, etc. speak some nasty kernel of truth, which resembles the maximum power principle (MPP). It'll likely derail the nice degrowthers best laid plans: It's one thing for society to limit individuals, but quite another thing for society to really limit itself. All that wartime rationing really does liberate resources for war.

Animal species do often adapt to post-growth existences confined on small islands though, so the MPP or whatever does not forbid humans adapting either. Yet, does the MPP or whatever forbid a collaborative adaptation?

It's hard to say long-term, as human society is actually extremely flexible over many human lifetimes. Yet, near-term it appears yes, society would allocate resources towards immediate problems, not avoid long-term problems by forgoing those resources If adaptation cannot be collaborative then adaptation must work by conflict between nations, likely violence initially.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:21 AM on November 12, 2022