Planet: Critical
Rachel Donald
www.planetcritical.com
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Top 10 Planet: Critical Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Planet: Critical episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Planet: Critical for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Planet: Critical episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
The Energy Collapse | Louis Arnoux
Planet: Critical
09/19/24 • 90 min
What happens when economics takes precedence over thermodynamics?
Eventually, the system collapses—because being incompatible with thermodynamics is impossible. That’s the stark message of this week’s guest, Louis Arnoux, a scientist, engineer and managing director of Fourth Transition, who has been working on this problem for decades. Louis and his team’s research point to our energy systems collapsing by 2030 because we’re having to spend more energy than ever before to extract fuel. Soon, the energy cost of extraction will equal the energy benefit. Such an equilibrium is, in his words, a dead state.
In the episode, Louis gives a phenomenal overview of the three thermodynamic traps human civilisation is caught in, including how decarbonising to renewables is exacerbating the thermodynamic problem. He explains how our current energy systems work antithetically to the sun and the planet, including the waste problem, before highlighting the role of economics in the creation of an impossible system. He then explains what a possible energy system could look like with the technology we have available, and how we can engineer that system to mimic the efficiency and productivity of life on the planet.
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Global Oil Depletion | Alister Hamilton
Planet: Critical
04/04/24 • 55 min
When do you think we’ll run out of oil?
2050? 2100? Never? That’s understandable given the IPCC models access to oil until 2100; politicians like Rishi are betting big on North Sea deposits. Petroleum is the life blood of our global economy, and it’s difficult to imagine it drying up. More often, when we talk about transitioning away from fossil fuels, it’s because of the necessity to limit global warming—not because we run out.
But a team in Scotland are warning exactly that—we’re running out. Fast. Alister Hamilton is a researcher at the University of Edinburgh and the founder of Zero Emission Scotland. He and his colleagues self-funded research into oil depletion around the world and the results are shocking: We will lose access to oil around the world in the 2030s.
They calculated this by establishing the Energy Return On Investment (EROI) and found that whilst there will still be oil deposits around the world, we would use more energy accessing the oil supply than we would ever get from burning it. This is because we’re having to mine further into the earth’s crust to access lower-grade oil. According to their calculations, the oil in the North Sea will be inaccessible—in a dead state—by 2031, and the oil in Norway by 2032. Around the world, oil reserves see the same trend through the 2030s.
Petroleum is the life blood, and we haven’t yet built out a different circulatory system to support renewable energy—in less than a decade, the world as know it could crash.
© Rachel Donald
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Global Carbon Reward | Delton Chen
Planet: Critical
04/18/24 • 104 min
Can the market do the right thing?
Not without supportive policy. Market-based solutions do not have a good track record when it comes to climate, stuck as they are within an exploitative economic framework. But, equally, we cannot just do away with markets, which have existed for millennia in many different forms. They need revolutionised, not abandoned.
Civil engineer and geo-hydrologist Delton Chen joins me to discuss the Global Carbon Reward, a policy for managing climate-related risk. Described as a “carrot policy”, Delton says the GCR incentivises polluting industries to reduce their emissions whilst encouraging the private market to invest in research and development of mitigation technologies. This conversation is filled with nuance, technicality, analysis and discussion on the viability of market-based solutions in a market that drives perverse incentives.
Planet: Critical is 100% independent and community-powered. If you value it, and have the means, become a paid subscriber today!
You can also listen to my latest episode of the Mongabay Newscast where I spoke with Dahr Jamail about the resource wars driving climate-fuelled conflict.
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The Body Politic | Ranu Mukherjee
Planet: Critical
06/13/24 • 62 min
Our bodies know what words fail to describe.
Shifts in culture, ravages of violence, ruptures and reconciliation—the body politic lives in our own bodies, informing and inhibiting our experience in the world. Yet, we fail to recognise this connection, and the even wider one of our own bodies as part of the earth's system, which is experiencing great violence and chaos. We need to reconnect with our bodies.
Ruptures is just one of the themes Ranu Mukherjee explores as an artist. She joins me to discuss this, and the somatic experience, deep time, the lives of plants, and the violence that ripples out through society. We explore the limitations of connection in economies of scale, how this informs our power hierarchies, and the violence we then internalise, which leads us to a beautiful conversation on uncertainty.
Support journalism for a world in crisis.
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Climate Corruption | Amy Westervelt
Planet: Critical
02/22/24 • 71 min
Truth is stranger than fiction—but fiction is better written.
We know their playbooks and their networks, but the bad guys of this story are in no rush to change their tactics. From funding dodgy research to bleating lies on prime time television, the fossil fuel industry and its allies are audaciously villainous. They’d been getting away with it for decades—but now independent media has them running scared.
Amy Westervelt is an award-winning investigative climate journalist and media founder with 20 years on the climate beat. Her investigations have exposed the worst crimes of the fossil fuel industry, and she now leads an international team of climate reporters at Drilled who uncover the connections between governments, industry and policy.
She joins me today to discuss their recent exposé of The Atlas Network, the shadowy ecosystem of think tanks pushing for the criminalisation of climate activists all around the world. Amy explains the roots of the network’s beginnings in World War Two, its rapid expansion as neoliberalism sunk its teeth into global politics, and its vast grip today on policy-makers around the world. This is a startling conversation, revealing the terrifying reach of right-wing extremism and corporate capture, with Amy suggesting the only path forward may indeed be revolutionary.
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How Net Zero Killed 1.5 | James Dyke
Planet: Critical
10/10/24 • 58 min
The Paris Agreement is dead.
The celebrated target marked in ink in 2016 has been killed by the focus on technocratic solutions over systemic change. Now, rather than address the frightening reality spawned by delusion and incompetence, we're heading even faster towards two degrees—and that being the new acceptable target.
Earth system scientist James Dyke explains that we cannot allow this new target to be set, which the fossil fuel industry is pushing for. This is James' second time on Planet: Critical. Just a few years ago, I interviewed him about the dangers of Net Zero policies and how these carbon accounting tricks were on course to send us over the 1.5 degree limit. Many scientists were chorusing that warning. Their concerns were not heeded and just three years later, we're on course for a truly dangerous future.
In this episode, James explains how we got here, what we've done wrong, and what will happen if climate policies don't rapidly address the structural inequalities and waste of both our energy and economic systems.
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Energy Wars | Art Berman
Planet: Critical
05/30/24 • 73 min
Whoever controls the energy supply controls the new world order.
Russia and China are deepening their relationship, Western allies in the Middle East are joining the fossil-fuelled BRICS alliance spanning the globe, and the Wagner group is loosening Europe’s grip of Africa. The tectonic plates of geopolitics are shifting along new fault lines as rising powers focus on securing resources while the old Empire in the West pretends it can decouple economies and energy. The world is at war, but only one side is being honest about what for.
Acclaimed energy expert Art Berman says this is the culmination of millennia of human fallibility. This is a conversation that takes us from 3000 BCE and the discovery of what he calls the most disruptive technology humans ever had right up to today and the energy wars blooming around the world. We discuss our psychological disposition to immaturity, our cognitive shortcomings when examining complexity, the secrets of holy texts and even morality. Art explains how energy is reshaping geopolitical alliances, which leaders understand the reality of our situation, and why technology cannot solve our problems.
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02/08/24 • 37 min
If they won’t get it done, then we’ll do it ourselves.
Chaytan Inman is uninspired by politics. The computer science student was fed up or energy-blind and materials-blind promises made by big political names, promises of unlimited economic growth on a finite planet and infinitely available renewable energy, all tied up in the language of “Net Zero”. Chaytan didn’t see anyone running on a political platform which promised a liveable future. So he decided to run for Governor of Washington State.
“We cannot consume our way out of an overconsumption problem.”
Chaytan joined me to discuss his decision and his political platform: Enshrining the rights of nature in the state constitution. He aims to ensure the Pacific Northwest will “still have rain, trees, food and water” for the future, envisioning a radical shift in how natural resources are valued by giving nature the same rights as people, and embedding citizenship in the state’s natural ecosystem. He also reveals two other policies around taxation and agriculture, offering a true degrowth platform for Washington residents.
Chaytan is young—and he says he truly does not want to have to run for governor—but his elders have failed his generation. It's truly heartbreaking to see how many young people are having to put themselves on the line because of this failure. We should have a society of elders that knows how to lead, that can use all of their life experience to seed their imagination with possibilities for the future. Elders know when it's time to move on. In such a society, young people should have the freedom to be idealists, not burdened with the pressure of being realists. But, in our world, we are led by no one, and run by idiots and ideologues. This crisis demands leadership. It may come from surprising places.
© Rachel Donald
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What We Get Wrong About Money | Steven Hail
Planet: Critical
01/25/24 • 62 min
Did you know the government doesn’t spend your taxes?
Welcome to the world of Modern Monetary Theory, a revolutionary way of decoding our monetary systems—and making them work better for us. I’m joined by Steven Hail, economist and lecturer, who explains, using MMT, what we get wrong about money, taxes, inflation and even currency. Steven reveals how the notion of states not being able to afford certain necessities—like education, health, the green transition—is nonsense, explaining how the supply of resources impacts our economy, not running a deficit. Alongside debunking a range of money myths, he also reveals the fascinating history of taxation as a means to create a citizenry and their dependence on a centralised state.
This is a technical episode, but Steven’s explanations are clear and concise, and we successfully cover a lot of ground to uncover the real relationships between governments, markets and the monetary system they swear by.
Episodes referenced include my interviews with Fadhel Kaboub, Jason Hickel and Kate Raworth.
© Rachel Donald
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe
Trauma, Power and Stories | Paddy Loughman
Planet: Critical
02/15/24 • 87 min
If society is sick, how do we heal?
The idea of an “original trauma” bears similarities with the concept of an “original sin”: We fell, from grace, and have suffered ever since. The sinner, traumatised, cannot find his way back into paradise. The devil whispers in his ear. Hurt people hurt people.
Wisdom suggests there may be some truth to these tales. That a portion of humanity aeons ago faced terrible strife and were traumatised to the extent their relationship with the world suffered, and they became extractive accumulators, unable to trust in the gift of life, suspicious of the world and one another. These people took without giving, and the trauma spread through the land. From this, the “veneer of civilisation” was imposed upon the wildness of the natural world, a bid to control which resulted in the eventual destruction of nature.
My guest this week, Paddy Loughman, is my friend. He describes himself as a strategist and narrative consultant working in the climate space. I think of him as a story-teller and word-weaver. Paddy and I have weekly phone calls about the state of the world, and he kindly acquiesced to recording one of them. We discuss original trauma, civilisation vs savagery, sickness, collapse, healing and story. This conversation spans life and decay, death and possibility, love, hope and reality, with Paddy offering we may be in a position now where the best we can do is create crash pads to save all that is beautiful when the veneer comes tumbling down.
Paddy is the cofounder of Stories For Life and Inter-Narratives, focusing on the interplay of narrative change and systems change. He’s a former advisor to the UN’s Climate Champions and some of the world’s biggest businesses. This week he has launched his own Substack which offers a gentle yet unflinching exploration of the world as it is, and how it could be.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.
Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe
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FAQ
How many episodes does Planet: Critical have?
Planet: Critical currently has 192 episodes available.
What topics does Planet: Critical cover?
The podcast is about Society & Culture, Podcasts and Science.
What is the most popular episode on Planet: Critical?
The episode title 'Nationalism and Greenwashing | Laurie Parsons' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Planet: Critical?
The average episode length on Planet: Critical is 63 minutes.
How often are episodes of Planet: Critical released?
Episodes of Planet: Critical are typically released every 7 days.
When was the first episode of Planet: Critical?
The first episode of Planet: Critical was released on Dec 15, 2020.
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