October readings

Activists of “Just Stop Oil” glue their hands to the wall after throwing soup at a van Gogh’s painting “Sunflowers” at the National Gallery in London, Britain October 14, 2022. Just Stop Oil/Handout via REUTERS

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

559 million children currently exposed to high heatwave frequency, rising to all 2.02 billion children globally by 2050 

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

Greta Thunberg on the climate delusion: ‘We’ve been greenwashed out of our senses. It’s time to stand our ground’  

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’

A new Iran has been born

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

Ban cars on Halloween

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

Has fake meat already peaked?



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

The case for degrowth

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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