Radically rethinking urban planning in (and from) the Global South
At a time when the spaces we inhabit determine our chances to survive a deadly virus, it is crucial to challenge canonical urban planning and its deep failures in the Global South
July readings
On a summer of climate disasters, air conditioning, and the global costs of green technology
June readings
On the Gates Foundation’s influence over the global food system, species justice, and the connection between agrarian reform and queer rights
Why the National Páramo Day in Ecuador matters
The páramo is a wetland ecosystem found only in the Andes, but its future well-being has global implications
Discounting
Descriptive discount rates both reflect and sustain a highly unequal and myopic world
May readings
On justice for Palestine, mining’s scars on our planet, and the power of the imagination
GDP
What is GDP, and why should we learn to live without it?
Brave New Normal
Cultivating cooperative, self-sustaining communities can undermine destructive economic systems and offer meaningful responses to social-ecological crises in the wake of the pandemic
April readings
On global environmental justice struggles, ‘third places’, and the problem with nature documentaries
Is green growth happening?
The answer is no. Decoupling will not be enough to ensure ecological sustainability without a downscaling of production and consumption.
The commons
The commons opposes and transcends the logic of capitalism by building relations based on cooperation, solidarity, mutualism and direct democracy
Review of Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador by Thea Riofrancos
Resource Radicals marks an important contribution to burgeoning literature on resource politics and democratic practice
Well diggers tackling water woes in a megacity: The case of Bangalore, India
The ever-fast growing metropolis Bangalore is running out of groundwater. Yet traditional water practices might be key to a sustainable use of the blue gold below us.
March readings
On ecological imaginaries, post-pandemic futures, and the long shadow of colonial science
Slow violence
This harm is slow, ill-defined, and often perceptible only in retrospect, when its perpetrators are long gone, if they were ever physically present at all
Permaculture
A design system that offers a radical reimagination of the possible
January & February readings
On extractive tourism, global vaccine justice, and the power of mutual aid
A new book tells us what is really behind the ‘K-shaped recovery’
A review of The Asset Economy by Lisa Adkins, Martijn Konigs, and Melinda Cooper
Rewilding
A growing movement repurposes the term rewilding to be a political and cultural project that is more than merely conservation biology
Blue neocolonialism
The Nature Conservancy is promoting “Blue bonds”—a market-based solution to fund conservation—as a new wave of neocolonialism in the Seychelles
Who owns the city? Cars and COVID-19
Car-centred urbanisation is tied to the growing threat of deadly epidemics. Solutions lie beyond technocratic policy, instead we must look to the soul of the city.
November readings
On the false “job versus environment” dilemma, the industrial exploitation of pigs, and the #Landback movement
Work
Work is drudgery for a lot of people, but it can be different and meaningful, if radically reorganised
Political ecology
Like a toolbox to unpack and understand the complexity of the socio-ecological crises we live in, political ecology is dedicated to a more just and inclusive world
Development
For development to truly deliver on its promise—the betterment of life for all—it must engage a multidimensional understanding of poverty
September & October readings
On the politics of mental health, conservation, and the ecology of fire
Make life, not work: democratizing, decommodifying and remediating existence
Emancipation from labour requires us to democratize and decommodify the economy as a whole
Renewable energy
To provide the conditions for a sustainable technology, we must begin by establishing a sustainable economy
Structural violence and the automobile
The intertwined legacy of fascism and the motorcar
Degrowth
Degrowth is not a passive critique but an active project of hope
August readings
On remembering David Graeber, the service sector, and climate reparations
Unequal exchange
Global trade conceals ecological and human exploitation in peripheries and maintains an unjust world order
Offsetting
A policy tool that allows us to imagine a world in which everything is replaceable, and where there are no limits
Extractivism
One of the most expansionist global enterprises—squashing any other ways of living with the land
Extractivismo
Uno de los proyectos globales más expansionistas, que aplasta cualquier otra forma de vivir con la tierra
July readings
On decolonial ecologies, struggles for land around the world, and radical syllabi for the new school year
Population
Neo-Malthusian promotion of family planning as the solution to hunger, conflict, and poverty has contributed to destructive population control approaches, that are targeted most often at poor, racialized women
Littoral Drift: Coastal currents and industrial echoes mingle to shape the landscape in Southern France
Photographer and filmmaker Neal Rockwell explores new natures on the Landes coast
The Revolution Will Not Be “Green”
A truly equitable and sustainable conservation movement must abandon both green capitalism and the idea of pristine nature
June readings
On our current political moment, Black Lives Matter, and food politics
Decoupling
Given the historical correlation of market activity and environmental pressures, relying on decoupling alone to solve environmental problems is an extremely risky and irresponsible bet
Jevons paradox
Efficiency gains contribute to increasing production and consumption which increases the extraction of resources and the generation of wastes
NOlympics, everywhere
In LA, a coalition to stop the Olympics pairs localism with internationalism
May readings
On anti-racism, the end of policing, and reimagining a world where justice is possible
Human nature
In the first entry of our new glossary, Eleanor Finley argues that there is no human nature, only human potential
Crisis Collage
How do we move ahead now?
Planet of the dehumanized
Environmentalism that does not center structural inequality is a dangerous nod to both eco-fascists and eco-modernists alike
March & April readings
Resources on the global COVID-19 pandemic
When viruses shatter limits
Viruses are invisibly small, cause monumental pandemics, and force us to rethink our taxonomies
To organize in times of crisis, we need to connect the dots of global resistance against Imperialism
Moving beyond a politics of confusion towards Internationalism
Now is the time to end the climate emergency
Reading “The Green New Deal and beyond” in the middle of a global crisis
This pandemic IS ecological breakdown: different tempo, same song
Comparisons between the toll of COVID-19 and climate change are not helpful because they view each as two separate “things”
Exploring transformative change on the brink
In moments such as these, the landscape of possibility shifts. How can activists engage on the ground?
Pandemic strike
Rob Wallace says we need new tactics to show that people’s lives matter more than profit
Where did coronavirus come from, and where will it take us?
An interview with Rob Wallace, author of Big Farms Make Big Flu
The only thing to last forever
An endless repetition had taken hold of the world
February readings
On solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en, new perspectives on coronavirus, and free public transportation
Remembering
“I remember rent being low. But water was expensive. A lot of electricity went into the desalination plants.”
A post-growth Green New Deal
To decarbonize we must degrow, decommodify, and democratize the economy
A Wood Wide Web Story: an Apple Tree in Daegu
“The surrogate mothers could only be married to the earth.”
Who owns the Green New Deal?
Making sense of remote ownership problems and place-based governance
January readings
On the overpopulation myth, green colonialism (and decolonialism), and the Wuhan coronavirus
Energy and the Green New Deal
The complex challenge of powering societies
Swedish colonialist neutrality
A tradition of double standards from historical colonialism to current environmental injustice
Public money for environmental justice
We’ll never fund a transformative Green New Deal with money designed for capitalism
Hayashi-san’s Green Headband
“In Tokyo, New York, Montreal, Rome, Paris, Beijing, Kinshasa, millions of people were wearing green headbands … this has made you a martyr and brought the environmental movement to a level never before reached.”
Show me the money
How will we pay for the Green New Deal?
A just food transition
Why the Green New Deal should give farmers a Basic Income
Birth
“Maybe then we’ll regain the access to the river, the river that is now controlled by the insiders and their obsession with energy resources.”
November readings
On the wave of global protests, lessons from the 1999 Seattle shutdown, and nuclear energy
The technical assistant
It had been a long time since human hands had touched grain bins
Trade governance will make or break the Green New Deal
How the GND could, should, must redefine “protectionism” and transform international trade
Rethinking education for the Green New Deal
Governance for an eco-centered curriculum—or not?
Down Maria
There was only one prisoner left, and he would not live forever.
October readings
On world-wide uprisings against austerity, Rojava, and working class environmentalism
Shrink the military, shrink injustice
The US Green New Deal must be anti-imperialist
A Green New Deal for an ecological economy
Introducing a series of proposals for a truly transformative GND
Designing for a world after climate catastrophe
While architects are often told they will change the world, a new book fails to imagine what a world after capitalism could look like
September readings
On climate fascism, climate de-nihilism, and climate rage
Degrowth should be a core part of the just transition
A review of Degrowth by Giorgos Kallis
Utopia, not futurism: Why doing the impossible is the most rational thing we can do
This 1978 speech by Murray Bookchin is strikingly relevant today
Last stand on Ménez Hom
At the top of the Ménez Hom, between the earth and the sky, history had displayed the ability to repeat itself.
Life in flames
On pain and hope in the aftermath of catastrophic fires in Bolivia’s Chiquitanía and Amazon regions
The vine underground
“The unthinkable had happened. No one plans for the end of their own world.”
Destructive space-time
How war bombs and resource extractivism compress past, present, and future
August readings
On eco-fascism(s), the burning Amazon, and worldwide uprisings
Why a hipster, vegan, green start-up service economy lifestyle cannot be sustainable
Dematerialized service economies, industrial veganism and hipsterized eco-aesthetics will only deepen the social and ecological damage wrought by capitalism
Report card on Bernie Sanders’ Green New Deal
A hot take from an eco-socialist
A toy keyboard for a Coca-Cola bottle of gas: Amadeus’ story
“Mogadishu was slowly dying, like an LED at low battery”
Micro effect
“In the space of a summer month, the outbreak had infected 309 people, with 182 dead so far”
The founding of New Crockett, Texas
Hurricane Elmer had blown all the other record storms off the map
In the land of the rising sun, climate efforts are falling behind
As the Abe government and major corporations fail to take meaningful steps to reduce emissions, Japanese citizens are working to pick up the slack
July readings
On global land conflicts, agro-ecology, and the fall of the discipline of economics
Super glue / Superlepak
‘Fuck, he can do this every single day. Why the fuck does he have to do it? What are we going to do? There’s no point in rushing like this and trying to save him each time he gets into a dark mood’, Ivan said, looking out of the taxi window.
Redwashing capital
Left tech bros are honing Marx into a capitalist tool
June readings
On batshit jobs, utopia vs. the apocalypse, and fascist environmentalism
Metamphynus baalis
Un bebé bisonte de la especie Metamphynus baalis es capaz de distinguir los humores fertilizados de las mujeres en los restos del sueño
The right to say no
Women organizing against extractivism in southern Africa
