November readings

On COP26, Indigenous futures, technological colonialism and liberatory technologies

Protesters in Marseille set a model of Earth on fire during a demonstration where members of Extinction Rebellion were supported by gilets jaunes, in July. Photograph: Gerard Bottino/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock, via The Guardian

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.

A lot happened this month. As always, while putting together this list, we tried to strike a balance between stressing how serious the state of the world is, while also elevating solutions, optimism, and better visions for the future. COP26 took place in Glasgow, and we collected a bunch of articles analysing and critiquing the conference itself and the various issues it raised. We’re highlighting discussions on technological colonialism and liberatory technologies, as well as Indigenous and decolonial perspectives on the future. We read an important article on how climate denial is being replaced by a dangerous ‘green-cloaked nativism’ on the Right. People did a lot of free advertising for Spotify, so we’re sharing an article on the costs of streaming music. And in the midst of all this chaos, Rebecca Solnit reminds us of the power of pleasure, art and beauty as forms of resistance.

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!


Top 5 articles to read

Remembering the Ogoni Nine. In 1995, nine activists from the Ogoni region of Nigeria were hanged after a campaign against oil giant Shell – decades later, their struggle for environmental justice is more relevant than ever.

Rebecca Solnit on the politics of pleasure

Climate denial is waning on the right. What’s replacing it might be just as scary 

What would it look like if we treated climate change as an actual emergency?

The hidden costs of streaming music


News you might’ve missed

Delhi shuts schools as it mulls ‘pollution lockdown’

Land and life: Feudalism and environmental change in the Philippines

Life in Pakistan without a digital ID

Greenland’s government bans oil drilling, leads Indigenous resistance to extractive capitalism

Connecting the dots between B.C.’s floods, landslides and clearcut logging. And The cost of waiting

Lee Maracle, revolutionary Indigenous author and poet, dead at 71 Also read: Inspiring and uncompromising, Lee Maracle could raise you up or eviscerate you. Read one of her essays: The lost days of Columbus



Indigenous and decolonial perspectives on the future

How Indigenous peoples are fighting the apocalypse

Indigenous cultures must not be forced to bear the brunt of global climate adaptation

Rethinking the apocalypse: An Indigenous anti-futurist manifesto

Taking the fiction out of science fiction: A conversation about Indigenous futurisms

Also read: An Old New World. When one people’s sci-fi is another people’s past

Utopia’s settler colonialism problem 



COP26

COP is broken

At U.N.’s COP26 climate summit, Indigenous voices are calling for more than lip service

The climate crisis is about the Global South’s present

Never mind aid, never mind loans: what poor nations are owed is reparations

The US is blocking climate reparations

How ExxonMobil captured COP26

Technology fetishism reigns at COP26. It’ll keep us burning fossil fuels.

Q&A: Can ‘nature-based solutions’ help address climate change?



Where we’re at: analysis

The forgotten oil ads that told us climate change was nothing

More than 2 billion workers make up the informal economy

Western monopoly of climate science is creating an eco-deficit culture

What economists get wrong about climate change

Will climate change itself derail plans to reduce emissions?

The last great forests

Ruptured worlds: a photo essay on the Lower Se San 2 Dam, Cambodia 

Dead white man’s clothes. In Accra, Ghana, imported second-hand clothing—or “dead white man’s clothes”—represents a massive industry with complex environmental, social, and economic implications.



Just think about it…

Forgive humans, not oil companies. It might seem like prison abolition and fossil fuel abolition have nothing in common, but they couldn’t be more related.

‘Injecting poison will never make you healthy’: how the wellness industry turned its back on Covid science

Do we need to work? The history of what we call work.

Congested, contested, and competitive: Are we running out of room in outer space?

Why trying to clean up all the ocean plastic is pointless

The need to trespass: let people in to protect nature, says guerrilla botanist

The moral case for destroying fossil fuel infrastructure



On technological colonialism… 

Mining the planet to death: The dirty truth about clean technologies

Green hydrogen: The new scramble for North Africa 

The headache of ‘crypto colonialism’ 

What to know about the frantic quest for cobalt



…and liberatory technologies

On the movement for the right to repair: Opening this article voids warranty

Activists are designing mesh networks to deploy during civil unrest

A path to neighborhood power



Degrowth

Perpetual growth is an impossible fantasy – even if we wanted it

Infinite economic growth caused the environmental crisis. Degrowth will help us fix it

Sand and gravel: Rethinking aggregate consumption and distribution



Cities and radical municipalism

Where are the municipalists in the US and Canada?

Sindicat: evading eviction in one of Europe’s most densely populated cities – a documentary

Play the game: Can you get a city to zero emissions? 



Sci-fi and utopian imaginings

The metaverse: colonial fantasies of the wild West

The science fiction origins of the Metaverse

Artists must confront the climate crisis – we must write as if these are the last days. “If you knew you were at the last days of the human story, what would you write?”

Shifting the narrative. Music and storytelling for a future earth.

Kim Stanley Robinson on science fiction and reclaiming science for the Left



Resources

Global Indigenous newsletter: Chemicals, climate and consultation

Here’s how to support Wet’suwet’en land defenders

Managing mental health in the age of climate change: Diagnosing climate disorder, Diagnosing climate trauma, 7 resources to help manage climate anxiety, and Mental health professionals on processing climate anxiety



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