October readings

Source: ROAR Magazine


Once a month, we put together a list of stories we’ve been reading: things you might’ve missed or crucial conversations going on around the web. We focus on environmental and social justice, cities, science fiction, current events, and political theory. 

We try to include articles that have been published recently but will last, that are relatively light and inspiring, and are from corners of the web that don’t always get the light of day. This will also be a space to keep you up to date with news about what’s happening at Uneven Earth. 

So much has happened around the world this month, it’s hard to keep up. From massive protests around the world that toppled whole governments and won people’s demands against austerity, to Turkey’s attack on Rojava, to massive wildfires in California (again). But that’s exactly why we put together this newsletter for you! This month, we feature some excellent analysis on what links these global protests against austerity, and on-the-ground analysis of protests in each country. We offer many stories that can help inform you about what’s going on in Rojava, and how we can respond to Turkey’s invasion and the US role. After Extinction Rebellion protesters tried to block commuters in London, a debate ensued about appropriate forms of direct action, which we feature here. Now that California is up in flames again, we offer some timely analyses on the economic system and built environment that have led to its current ecological crisis. We also highlight a few analyses from inside the movement for local democracy in North America, with several reflections on the Symbiosis Congress of Municipal Movements this September. There was also a lot of analysis about the role of corporations in the climate crisis, including Silicon Valley’s funding of climate change denial. 

On the whole, a thread running through this month’s events was the perceived conflict between working class demands and environmental policy. Reminding us of France’s Yellow Vest protests, in Ecuador, social movements rose up against rising gas prices; in London, Extinction Rebellion was mocked for blocking a commuter train in a working class area. In California, austerity has led to the failure of its energy companies to provide energy for millions of people, targeting the poor. What are the opportunities for environmental policies to meet people’s needs, and at the same time reconstruct the world system ecologically? How can environmentalists, especially those in the Global North, appeal to the global working class? These are some key questions going forward. 



Uneven Earth updates

Shrink the military, shrink injustice | Link | The US Green New Deal must be anti-imperialist

A Green New Deal for an ecological economy | Link | Introducing a series of proposals for a truly transformative GND

Designing for a world after climate catastrophe | Link | While architects are often told they will change the world, a new book fails to imagine what a world after capitalism could look like

Degrowth should be a core part of the just transition | Link | A review of Degrowth by Giorgos Kallis

Utopia, not futurism: Why doing the impossible is the most rational thing we can do | Link | This 1978 speech by Murray Bookchin is strikingly relevant today


Top 5 articles to read

The US city preparing itself for the collapse of capitalism

New bubbles, mounting debt: preparing for the coming crisis

Post-capitalists must understand the role of migration in global capitalism. “When reading and hearing of ambitious programmes for social transformation, it is our task to consider whether or not such programmes have a sense of the ‘real’ determinants of economic development that Marx recognised: international relations of production, the international division of labour in a world market, exploitation of resources and emigration of displaced people, and at the forefront of these processes, the inner structures of middle and working classes and relations between them.”

The stories we need: pan-African social ecology

Why mental health is a political issue, by Mark Fisher. “Depression is the shadow side of entrepreneurial culture, what happens when magical voluntarism confronts limited opportunities.”



News you might’ve missed

Unprecedented’ murder charges for loggers in deaths of indigenous activists. Two timber executives and three loggers charged in shooting deaths of activists who battled illegal logging in Peruvian Amazon.

Fishery collapse ‘confirms Silent Spring pesticide prophecy’ 

Indonesia finds one-fifth of palm oil plantations are illegal

Maquiladoras and the exploitation of migrants on the border 

Understanding extinction: humanity has destroyed half the life on Earth

Dutch development bank is financing land theft, intimidation and Landless: How the Dutch development bank marginalises farmers.

‘Consumers are not aware we are slaves inside the greenhouses’

Higher temperatures driving ‘alarming’ levels of hunger – report

Indigenous Mapuche pay high price for Argentina’s fracking dream

Cambodia’s Bunong reel from deforestation

History threatened as Turkey prepares to flood ancient city

Harvard and TIAA’s farmland grab in Brazil goes up in smoke 




Worldwide uprisings against austerity

Analysis of the common threads in global uprisings: 

The revolution isn’t being televised

Prole Wave: climate change, circulation struggles and the communist horizon

Hong Kong, Chile, Lebanon: Global protests are fueled by deeper discontent

Revolts against the neoliberal world order

The Interpreter: The global protest wave, explained

Why democracy is crumbling in the West

And analyses of protests in each country:

Massive protests in Chile force repeal of fare hikes and Chile doesn’t need to rebuild, it needs to be restructured. Also: Debt and neoliberalism: The global roots of Chile’s crisis

The Algerian Hirak: Young people and the non-violent revolution

Lebanon’s ‘October Revolution’ must go on!

As protests grow, Lebanese are ‘reclaiming’ public spaces

Lebanon is experiencing a social revolution

Update from Catalonia and “Be water”: Catalonia protesters learn from Hong Kong 

Social and political earthquake in Ecuador and a piece by Diana Vela Almeida, contributing editor at Uneven Earth: The fight against the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies in Ecuador: Lessons for environmental and social justice




Extinction Rebellion: Critique and defense

Resources on colonialism, racism, and climate justice for Extinction Rebels

The flawed social science behind Extinction Rebellion’s change strategy

How seven thousand Quebec workers went on strike against climate change

It is not just a bunch of flowers

Don’t use XR tube action to attack the climate rebels

Extinction Rebellion has a politics problem




Revolution in Rojava

Trump’s betrayal of Rojava

This Vermonter’s theories laid the groundwork for revolution in Rojava

The Kurds—a history of agony

PKK letter to the American people and President Trump

The Rojava revolution in peril

What the world loses if Turkey destroys the Syrian Kurds

New education system was central to the Kurds’ Rojava Revolution in northern Syria – now it’s under attack

Turkish attack on Syria endangers a remarkable democratic experiment by the Kurds

Not just ethnicity: Turkey v. Kurds and the great divide over political Islam v. the secular Left

This isn’t the first time the US has abandoned the Kurds

The annihilation of Rojava




Reflections on the Symbiosis Congress

Grassroots democracies form North American coalition

Symbiosis: federating municipalist movements in North America for real democracy and en français: L’émergence d’un municipalisme nord-américain

Of egg and chicken: A report back from the Symbiosis Federation Congress

Report back from the Symbiosis Congress of Municipal Movements

We do it badly, or not at all: reflections on the Congress of Municipal Movements




California’s wildfires and ecological crisis in the United States

It’s the end of California as we know it. “Our whole way of life is built on a series of myths — the myth of endless space, endless fuel, endless water, endless optimism, endless outward reach and endless free parking.” 

Ordinary life has vanished in fire-ravaged California

‘I’m standing right here in the middle of climate change’: How USDA is failing farmers

California’s power shutdown was primed by climate change




Corporations and climate injustice

Global climate laws threatened by rise in investor-state disputes

Revealed: the 20 firms behind a third of all carbon emissions

Fossil fuel firms’ social media fightback against climate action

Money to burn: How iconic banks and investors fund the destruction of the world’s largest rainforests

Revealed: Google made large contributions to climate change deniers

In its insatiable pursuit of power, Silicon Valley is fuelling the climate crisis

How to pay for climate justice? Tax the rich, say the rich

Free Trade Agreements are fueling and shaping the oppression and injustice against women




Just think about it…

The act of giving and the chance of life on a finite planet

Has capitalism become our religion?

Being busy is eliminating the joys of shared free time

The past is still present: why colonialism deserves better coverage

Digital dystopia: how algorithms punish the poor

Humans will not ‘migrate’ to other planets, Nobel winner says

The real reason scientists downplay the risks of climate change

Mining is destroying the planet

Ancient farmers irreversibly altered Earth’s face by 3000 years ago

Climate is missing the point. We have an ecosystem emergency

How capitalism ‘solved’ the nitrogen crisis




Where we’re at: analysis

‘Racism dictates who gets dumped on’: how environmental injustice divides the world. The Guardian launched a year-long series, Our Unequal Earth, investigating environmental injustices: how ecological hazards and climate disasters have the harshest impacts on people of color, native tribes and those on low incomes.

As sea levels rise, so do ghost forests

‘Like a sunburn on your lungs’: how does the climate crisis impact health? 

Against ‘consumption’ . We must shift our perspective from reducing consumption to radically reorganising society.

Professional-managerial chasm and On the origins of the professional-managerial class: An interview with Barbara Ehrenreich

Connecting trade and climate chaos

Reflections on Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch, by Peter Linebaugh

Depoliticization is a deadly weapon of neoliberal fascism  




New politics

A growing anti-racist network takes on the rise of far-right politics in Germany

Uganda’s eco-feminists are taking on mining and plantation industries

Saving Aru: The epic battle to save the islands that inspired the theory of evolution

Burial ground acknowledgements. Land acknowledgments as acts of institutional inclusion obscure the antagonism that follows from genocide.

Farewell to the World Social Forum? And an oldie but goodie: Mzonke Poni on the World Social Forum

Germany’s big green mood lacks radicalism

For the sake of life on Earth, we must put a limit on wealth

The other Marx. Why the Communist Manifesto is obsolete

“Every time a civilization is in crisis, there is a return of the commons” – Interview with Michel Bauwens

‘One of the biggest, baddest things we did’: Black Panthers’ free breakfasts, 50 years on 

What living well means for the Tseltal and Tsotsil Maya of the Chiapas




Cities and radical municipalism

Property owners can do basically whatever they want to homeless people now. In San Francisco, they’re even getting the government’s help.

A new kind of housing co-op emerges in San Francisco

Can our ‘global city’ offer transnational solidarity?

‘Van homes’ aren’t romantic – they are proof of our horrifying housing crisis

India builds homes to resist climate-linked floods

An Athenian remedy: the rise, fall and possible rebirth of democracy

The urban shepherd of Paris – photo essay




Degrowth!

Techno-fix futures will only accelerate climate chaos – don’t believe the hype 

A Green New Deal between whom and for what?

Degrowth and the Green New Deal

Why degrowth is essential: A rejection of Left ecomodernists Phillips, Sharzer, Bastani, and Parenti

Climate futures: Renewable energy vs. technologies of degrowth




Sci-fi and the near future

Angela Davis, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Nikita Dhawan: Planetary utopias

Reclaiming sci-fi’s lost history

We need more imagination in the face of climate catastrophe

Comrades in deep future

The rise of Indigenous horror: How a fictional genre is confronting a monstrous reality




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April readings

Source: Ecohustler

Once a month, we put together a list of stories we’ve been reading: things you might’ve missed or crucial conversations going on around the web. We focus on environmental and social justice, cities, science fiction, current events, and political theory.

We try to include articles that have been published recently but will last, that are relatively light and inspiring, and are from corners of the web that don’t always get the light of day. This will also be a space to keep you up to date with news about what’s happening at Uneven Earth.

This month, we’ve focused on the ongoing debates over different takes on ecological politics in connection to Extinction Rebellion, the Green New Deal, and degrowth. And there are quite a few articles about how capitalists are reacting to climate change –  like blaming you for having children while they are continuing to spew out carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and prepping for disaster. You will also find the usual range of themes, including radical municipalism, Indigenous resistance, alternative politics, farming, and the limits to extractivism.


Uneven Earth updates

Degrowth is utopian, and that’s a good thing | Link | A response to Socialist Forum on degrowth by Giorgos Kallis


Top 5 articles to read

All crises, THE crisis (the industrial agri-food system is central to all of them)

It gets worse. What’s in store as the planet heats up.

Heaven or high water. Selling Miami’s last 50 years.

Climate chaos is coming — and the Pinkertons are ready

Degrowth vs. the Green New Deal



News you might’ve missed

Restoring forests rules out growing crops

Resource extraction responsible for half world’s carbon emissions

Major victory for Indigenous rights. On April 26th 2019, the Waorani people won a historic legal victory to protect 500,000 acres of their rainforest from oil extraction.

‘It’s a groundswell’: the farmers fighting to save the Earth’s soil

The mass movement that toppled Omar al-Bashir

Women are leading the protests in Sudan

Bolsonaro’s three-month rule is a disaster

‘Decades of denial’: major report finds New Zealand’s environment is in serious trouble

Half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population


Extinction rebellion

Let’s talk about Extinction Rebellion. What can we learn from it? And how can we build on its momentum?

Extinction Rebellion: inside the new climate resistance

The origins and rise of the Extinction Symbol

The life of Extinction Rebellion. The lifelike DNA, structure and story of Extinction Rebellion can be used to revive socialist organisation.

If politicians can’t face climate change, Extinction Rebellion will. “If real passion and vision are necessary, they will have to come from outside the system.”

Only rebellion will prevent an ecological apocalypse. Mass civil disobedience is essential to force a political response.


Where we’re at: analysis

Western industrial farming is eating our forests and accelerating climate change

How robots became a scapegoat for the destruction of the working class

What Karl Marx has to say about today’s environmental problems

Agrarian social movements: The absurdly difficult but not impossible agenda of defeating right‐wing populism and exploring a socialist future


Green New Deal

Between the devil and the Green New Deal

A comradely critique of Jasper Bernes’ “Between the devil and the Green New Deal” in Commune Magazine

It begins with the land

The Green New Deal must have a zero waste policy

What’s the deal with the Green New Deal?

Could a Green New Deal make us happier people?

Organizing to win a Green New Deal

How to build the zero-carbon economy. The Green New Deal sets an ambitious goal. Here’s how to get there.


Limits to extractivism

The dystopian lake filled by the world’s tech lust

U.S. nuclear power plants weren’t built for climate change

Going 100% renewable power means a lot of dirty mining

Rotten eggs: e-waste from Europe poisons Ghana’s food chain

Political ecologies of waste: Salvaged livelihoods and infra-structural labour

No more Hoover dams: Hydropowered countries suffer higher levels of poverty, corruption and debt

The dirty truth about green batteries


Just think about it…

The story we’ve been told about America’s national parks is incomplete

What lies beneath: Robert Macfarlane travels ‘Underland’

Who owns the country? The secretive companies hoarding England’s land

When the hero is the problem.“Positive social change results mostly from connecting more deeply to the people around you than rising above them, from coordinated rather than solo action.”

Imagining social movements: from networks to dynamic systems

The tragedy of “the tragedy of the commons”

Uprooted: old tree transplants for China’s new cities – in pictures

A case for small climate stories

The real estate sector is using algorithms to work out the best places to gentrify

Don’t bother waiting for conservatives to come around on climate change

Don’t blame the babies. “It’s hard to think of a more neoliberal bit of gaslighting than telling a young woman to take responsibility for the crimes of capital by making a huge personal sacrifice — one that for some people would feel as unnatural and inhuman as giving up on love or sex — while letting those with all the money and power off the hook.”

Names and locations of the top 100 people killing the planet


Radical municipalism

A collective hub in Ridgewood wants to realign your gaze away from the abyss

Shade

These neighbors got together to buy vacant buildings. Now they’re renting to bakers and brewers

The anarchists who took the commuter train

The alarming state of civic space in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sudan and Venezuela: a global trend

How gentrification impacts community bonds

Barcelona and urban planning: the ultimate potential of superblocks

Superblocks: Barcelona’s radical urban plan to take back streets from cars

The Airbnb invasion of Barcelona

Why grocery co-ops build strong towns and how to start your own

Where it hits, gentrification hits hard

New Orleans gentrification tied to Hurricane Katrina

This is how borrowing things from our neighbors strengthens society. A comic.

How to design our neighborhoods for happiness

How to make friends, build a community, and create the life you want

The healing power of gardens


New politics

Patterns for cooperative networks and associations

What’s in a just transition?

Youths strike for climate change

A new social contract for the 21st century

Gilets Jaunes may be the start of a worldwide revolt against climate action

A new chance for climate justice? New climate movements are demanding equity, not just urgent action. They need to get even bolder about global demands for climate justice.


Sci-fi and climate change

17 writers on the role of fiction in addressing climate change


Resources

Get up and get going: How to form a group

10 tips on receiving critical feedback: A guide for activists

The MappingBack network. Mapping has long been used as a tool for colonial dispossession; MappingBack seeks to reverse this by using mapping as a tool to fight back. Using maps as a weapon to resist extractive industries on Indigenous territories.

Learning: Exploring post-extractivism

Areas of the world where biodiversity collapse is being driven by US consumption patterns

A guide to climate violence


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