Once a month, we put together a list of stories we’ve been reading: news you might’ve missed or crucial conversations going on around the web. We focus on environmental justice, radical municipalism, new politics, political theory, and resources for action and education.
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.
Long time no read! We’ve been taking a break from posting at Uneven Earth, but we’re slowly getting back to business – with lots of exciting changes to come, as we’re in the process of becoming an incorporated, salaried non-profit organization. Our editor Aaron Vansintjan also published a book on degrowth while we were inactive! You can find all the links in this newsletter.
We decided to make this a combined summer reading list – so these are articles we collected throughout May, June and July, with the occasional piece from earlier in the year that still seems relevant and worth sharing. Starting from next month, we’ll go back to our usual monthly model. We hope you’re still along for the ride, and thank you so much for your patience while we transition into this next phase of Uneven Earth.
If you find these lists useful, you can support us by sharing them on social media and with your friends and family!
A small note that the articles linked in this newsletter do not represent the views of Uneven Earth. When reading, please keep in mind that we don’t have capacity to do further research on the authors or publishers!
Uneven Earth updates
Our co-editor Aaron Vansintjan published a book with colleagues Andrea Vetter and Matthias Schmelzer! The Future is Degrowth: A Guide to a World Beyond Capitalism is now available to buy at Verso, or anywhere else you like to buy your books.
Uneven Earth contributed to this ephemera paper on alternatives to mainstream publishing within and beyond academia
Technology | Technology is not neutral. We’re inside of what we make, and it’s inside of us
A jaywalking manifesto | “Every step that is ‘jay’ is defiance in the face of the automobile machine.”
Top articles to read
Excerpts from The Future is Degrowth: Toward a post-capitalist future: On the growth of “degrowth” and Degrowth – not just Green New Deals! Also: a review.
On private jets: A 17-minute flight? The super-rich who have ‘absolute disregard for the planet’. Also: The celebs who have racked up the most CO2 emissions this year using their private jets, a Twitter thread, and an in-depth report.
Resisting the cost of living crisis in the UK could be the tipping point for socialist solidarity. Progressive movements should not focus on social issues in isolation. As we saw in countries like Colombia and Chile, solidarity builds collective power for sustained change.
The imperial core of the climate crisis and Transcending the ‘imperial mode of living’
News you might’ve missed
EU parliament votes to designate gas and nuclear as sustainable
Record number of dams removed from Europe’s rivers in 2021
Revealed: oil sector’s ‘staggering’ $3bn-a-day profits for last 50 years. Vast sums provide power to ‘buy every politician’ and delay action on climate crisis, says expert.
Big Oil is suing countries to block climate action
Corporate carbon offset company accidentally starts devastating wildfire
Big Oil has known for decades that carbon capture isn’t a solution
This climate guru is a celebrity in the US. In India, he’s accused of destroying a forest
Our burning planet
Why is it so hot in the UK and elsewhere in Europe and what are the dangers?
Europe is frying in devastating heat, yet is burning more coal
South Asia’s heatwave is only the beginning
Death and despair after deadliest urban flood in India
Somalia: ‘The worst humanitarian crisis we’ve ever seen’
‘We just pray for rain’: Niger is in the eye of the climate crisis – and children are starving
How is the jet stream connected to simultaneous heatwaves across the globe?
Food politics
Raj Patel on agroecology, reparative approaches, and land reform
Beef stakes. Climate activists have proposed an end to the livestock industry. But overhauling farming could have unintended consequences.
Report: Cash cow. How beef giant JBS’s links to Amazon deforestation and human rights abuses are aided by UK, US and EU financiers, importers and supermarkets.
How Germany is kicking its meat habit
Farmland assets. International finance and the transformation of Brazil’s agricultural lands.
Heatflation: How sizzling temperatures drive up food prices
Where we’re at: analysis
NFT scams, toxic ‘mines’ and lost life savings: the cryptocurrency dream is fading fast
We cannot adapt our way out of climate crisis, warns leading scientist
The case for climate reparations is now irrefutable
Air pollution kills 10 million people a year. Why do we accept that as normal?
Global struggles
The Global South has the power to force radical climate action. After all, Western economies – and their economic growth – depend utterly on labour and resources from the South.
The farmers restoring Hawaii’s ancient food forests that once fed an island
Indonesian islanders sue cement producer for climate damages
‘Every year it gets worse’: on the frontline of the climate crisis in Bangladesh
Inside New York’s fight for public renewables
Ecuador deal reached to end weeks of deadly protests and strikes
‘People are waking up’: fight widens to stop new North Sea fossil fuel drilling
What can other movements learn from Colombia’s elections?
Colombia’s shift to the left: A new ‘pink tide’ in Latin America?
On Ukraine-Syria solidarity and the ‘anti-imperialism of idiots’
Degrowth
Should rich countries degrow their economies to stop climate change?
This pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end. “It’s a false assumption,” argues Herman Daly, “to say that growth is increasing the standard of living in the present world.”
Ask Prof Wolff: The case for degrowth
What GDP does and doesn’t tell us
Beyond GDP: Alternatives to capitalism already exist
No, let’s not call it something else
The necessity of ecosocialist degrowth
Toward an ecosocialist degrowth: From the materially inevitable to the socially desirable
Degrowth & strategy: how to bring about social-ecological transformation. A new book, available to download for free.
Cities and radical municipalism
When cities made monuments to traffic deaths
What I mean when I say ‘ban cars’
I wanted to share a bit about how amazing yet simple Barcelona’s Superblocks are, and Barcelona school and residents create solar energy community
Land power. Sustaining a community land trust requires radical commitment to housing justice and local self-determination — not to mention real estate savvy and political diplomacy.
‘The beaches belong to the people’: inside Puerto Rico’s anti-gentrification protests
Here’s how rocketing rents and unaffordable house prices can be fixed
Just think about it…
‘The casino beckons’: my journey inside the cryptosphere. Not all cryptocurrency investors fit the cliches. Many are people looking to somehow claw their way out of a life of constant struggle.
Here’s why a border-free world would be better than hostile immigration policies
“Which coming flood?” Welcome to the Thunderdome of Ignorance
The tricky politics of ecological restoration
Is tree planting a get-out-of-jail-free card on climate?
Where should the climate movement go next? Andreas Malm thinks climate politics needs to reject pacifism for sabotage.
Is climate activism really about ‘sacrifice’?
Body politics: the secret history of the US anti-abortion movement. The overturning of Roe v Wade is part of a wider movement entangled with nativism and white supremacy.
The dangerous populist science of Yuval Noah Harari
Theory
A little bit of African thinking. The profound influence, often underplayed, that great African revolutionary Amílcar Cabral had on Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire.
Japanese scholar looks to Marx’s theory to explain pandemic, climate change
Art and storytelling
Can an artists’ collective in Africa repair a colonial legacy?
A list of films dealing with political ecology
A playlist of songs about the climate crisis
Resources
D-Econ’s seasonal alternative reading list
Ecosocialist bookshelf, June 2022. Seven important new books on science, medicine, and socialism – including The Future Is Degrowth!
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