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.
In October, the infamous soup incident – in which two young Just Stop Oil activists threw soup on a Van Gogh painting at the National Gallery in London as a form of climate protest – was on everyone’s lips, so we decided to dedicate a section in this newsletter to discussions around activism and strategy. We also unfortunately lost three great thinkers: philosopher and anthropologist Bruno Latour, Leftist urban theorist and historian Mike Davis, and ecological economist Herman Daly. We featured readings on their legacy in the ‘theory’ section. For some good news, we have a huge victory to celebrate this month: Lula won the Brazilian election, and while this is only the beginning, the dystopian era of Bolsonaro is over! Finally, we read great articles on convivial technologies and the deep history of work, and enjoyed a two-part podcast series on what a just green transition might look like; and, as usual, we turned the spotlight on struggles around the world, and compiled a section on fake climate solutions and real reparations.
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
Green growth | Capitalist and neocolonial fantasies are hampering a just transition
Top 5 articles to read
A two-part series from the Upstream podcast: The green transition part 1 (the problem with green capitalism) and The green transition part 2 (a Green Deal for the people)
How Lula and the Brazilian Left can save the Amazon
Lessons from the deep history of work. What anthropological research on early human societies can teach us about improving our jobs today.
These technologies help you live lightly on a fragile planet
News you might’ve missed
Enormous emissions gap between top 1% and poorest, study highlights
Business groups block action that could help tackle biodiversity crisis, report finds
World close to ‘irreversible’ climate breakdown, warn major studies
Climate crisis: UN finds ‘no credible pathway to 1.5C in place’
Fake climate solutions and real reparations
Nova Scotia touted its huge ‘green’ energy plant. Turns out it’s powered by coal
Nuclear power is a dead end. We must abandon it completely.
In seaweed, climate capitalists see green
The Middle East is going green — while supplying oil to others
How a Quebec graphite mine is dividing a community’s support for the EV revolution
Phantom forests: Why ambitious tree planting projects are failing
‘It’s got nasty’: the battle to build the US’s biggest solar power farm
World Bank criticized as poor countries talk reparations
As UN climate talks near, a showdown on reparations looms
What African governments must fight for at COP27
Where we’re at: analysis
Interview with Marc Edelman: How rural America’s assets have been systematically stripped away and The capitalist transformations of the countryside
The world has one big chance to eliminate plastic pollution
What if polluters footed the climate bill?
Who holds up half the Earth?: A review of Half-Earth Socialism
The colonial roots of present crises. An interview with Amitav Ghosh.
Global struggles
The climate crisis is driving poorer nations to desperate measures
Nigerian flood victims decry government’s response to disaster
West accused of double standards over oil and gas exploration in DRC
Sudan’s hidden resistance: ‘The day that can no longer wait’
Women Life Freedom – the revolutionary call of the Kurdish Women’s Movement
The climate injustices—and solutions—shared by Puerto Rico and Jackson, Mississippi
In Chile, even water is privatized. The new constitution would change that
US-backed foreign intervention has led to the disaster in Haiti. And from the Progressive International: Hands off Haiti!
Cities and radical municipalism
Stockholm thinks it can have an electric bikeshare program so cheap it’s practically free
How the indoor air quality in our buildings is making us sick
Food politics
Bangladesh farmers revive floating farms, as seas rise
The challenges to food sovereignty in the West Bank are political
Just think about it…
Born to swim: the Bajau offer a glimpse into how humans may have adapted to an aquatic way of life
The return of Aztec floating farms
Bears, fungi and global warming
Stop erasing transgender stories from history
The pipeline from elite universities to Wall Street and Silicon Valley
Why experts say you shouldn’t bag your leaves this fall
Degrowth
Liz Truss’s economic growth delusion
Degrowth is growing in popularity – but what even is it?
Degrowth in 7 minutes. A video explainer.
How degrowth can save the world. A video essay.
Podcast: The future is degrowth. Our editor Aaron Vansintjan was on the Srsly Wrong pod to talk about degrowth!
Rethinking work for sustainability and justice
European project to explore pathways towards post-growth economics
Sci-fi, art and storytelling
The climate films shaping society
They Live is a timeless anti-capitalist horror classic
Activism and strategy
Is breaking things the best way forward for climate activists?
Are Just Stop Oil’s dramatic art museum protests hurting their own cause?
Also, Movement soup. History may absolve the soup throwers. And We’re talking about soup. Finally, in the soup throwers’ own words: An interview with Just Stop Oil
Armchair strategists, the climate movement needs you
Just beans. What was ethical consumption under capitalism?
Undaunted by DeSantis, immigrant workers are heading to Florida to help with hurricane cleanup
What we can learn from Indigenous communities about conservation
The people’s mayor is an abolitionist
Theory
A Twitter thread summarizing some of Herman Daly’s best ideas, and an in-depth interview
On Mike Davis’ life and work: Mike Davis, City of Quartz author who chronicled the forces that shaped L.A., dies, California’s ‘prophet of doom’ on activism in a dying world, and Mike Davis could see the future
Bruno Latour showed us how to think with the things of the world
Resources
Don’t tell me to just breathe. An animation that speaks to the spiralling levels of anxiety and depression in the UK and other rich nations by revealing the often silenced links between these mental health crises and the current economic system, including not only the increasing pressures upon people’s basic needs, but also the ‘capitalist realism’ that allows climate breakdown to unfold before our very eyes.
Decolonising Utopia resource list
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