September & October readings

Illustration by Rob Sato, via The New Yorker

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.

We’re back! After a much-needed summer break, we’re going to share all noteworthy articles we read during September and October. Themes this time include global land struggles, food justice (including spicy takes on veganism and lab-grown meat), effective communication for environmental justice, degrowth, and re-readings of history, to name a few. Enjoy.

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

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



Top 5 articles to read

Labors of love. The work of Ivan Illich can provide an antidote to fears about automation.

‘We’re all fighting the giant’: Gig workers around the world are finally organizing

Agroecology is the solution to world hunger

The coming green colonialism

Ecological multiplicity against capitalist hegemony in India



News you might’ve missed

COP26: Document leak reveals nations lobbying to change key climate report 

Today’s youth will face ‘unmatched’ climate extremes compared to older generations

Generational conflict over climate crisis is a myth, UK study finds

Access to a healthy environment declared a human right by UN rights council 

Chile is at the dawn of a new political era



Global land struggles

Murders of environment and land defenders hit record high

The industries causing the climate crisis and attacks against defenders 

Indigenous people of Brazil fight for their future

Study: Indigenous resistance has staved off 25% of U.S. and Canada’s annual emissions. And Forest people offer the best hope of saving them

Land acknowledgments meant to honor Indigenous people too often do the opposite – erasing American Indians and sanitizing history instead 

Black families passed their homes from one generation to the next. Now they may be lost.

Women on storm-hit Philippine island lead Indigenous effort to restore mangroves

‘We will be homeless’: Lahore farmers accuse ‘mafia’ of land grab for new city 

From Stroessner to Syngenta: Paraguay’s soy conflicts 

Norway court rules two windfarms harming Sami reindeer herders



Where we’re at: analysis

Think disasters are isolated? Think again, warns the UN

‘Pristine wilderness’ without human presence is a flawed construct, study says

The climate crisis is a colonial crisis

The extractive circuit

After Covid, Sankara’s lessons on debt are as relevant as ever

The dirty dozen: meet America’s top climate villains 

Permian climate bomb. A six-part series that explores the ongoing oil, gas, and petrochemical boom in the Permian Basin and Gulf Coast.

Is nuclear power our best bet against climate change? 

An energy transition at whose expense?



Food politics

Food justice files. A New Internationalist series.

The unsung Caribbean roots of the vegan food movement

Red vegans against green peasants

Lab-grown meat is supposed to be inevitable. The science tells a different story. And Giant meat and dairy companies are dominating the plant-based and cellular meat market

African agriculture without African farmers 

Can small-scale farming feed the world? A video essay.

Farmers don’t have to contribute to the environmental crisis – we can solve it

Agribusiness and big finance’s dirty alliance is anything but “green”

How food became the perfect beachhead for gentrification

The power of food



Just think about it…

Forget your carbon footprint. Let’s talk about your climate shadow.

The advertising industry is fuelling climate disaster, and it’s getting away with it

The billionaire space race reflects a colonial mindset that fails to imagine a different world

Why your internet habits are not as clean as you think 

Capitalism is making you lonely 

Do we live in a selfish world? An experiment on video.

Too much free time isn’t actually bad for you 

The dark side of wellness: the overlap between spiritual thinking and far-right conspiracies, and It’s shocking to see so many leftwingers lured to the far right by conspiracy theories

The co-option of mutual aid. “The reality is that mutual aid has its roots in community resistance by Black and Indigenous people.”

The class contradictions of scholar activism



Communicating (environmental) justice

Why we need a new local language of climate change reporting

The seven deadly sins of politi-speak  

Imagination, transformed. “As a movement who cares about climate justice and justice overall, we need to better leverage the power of culture because culture is what transforms the imagination—culture shows us what’s possible. And we can do that by including artists and culture makers in our organizing work.”

All Aboriginal art is political: you just need to learn how to read it

Stop trying to find magic words to convince climate opponents



New politics

A decolonial, feminist Global Green New Deal

The ZAD: between utopian radicalism and negotiated pragmatism

An Indigenous community land trust rises, making Land Back a reality

Climate reparations: The case for carbon removal 



Degrowth

Demystifying degrowth

Who is afraid of degrowth? A Global South economic perspective

GDP: A countdown to doom

Degrowth: why some economists think abandoning growth is the only way to save the planet – podcast 

Tailor made degrowth: How a localised clothing economy can contribute to a degrowth future

Futures beyond GDP growth: a report 

How shorter workweeks could save Earth 

Enough for everyone. “It is possible to satisfy humanity’s universal needs fairly—and keep the world livable.”

Degrowth and revolutionary organizing



Cities and radical municipalism

The inside story of how Berlin took on corporate landlords and won

Is it more sustainable to live off the land or in the city? 

A city without cars is already here, and it’s idyllic. Slovenia’s capital Ljubljana has been car-free for over a decade. Is it time to export their model?

Hundreds of kids and parents are biking to school together in Barcelona 

Democratic confederalism and movement building in South Africa

A billionaire wants to build a utopia in the US desert. Seems like this could go wrong

The real urban jungle: how ancient societies reimagined what cities could be

The grand crash. Some notes on housing markets in China, and what this tells us about wider economic realities.



History revisited

Early civilizations had it all figured out, The radical promise of human history, and check out a YouTube presentation of David Wengrow and David Graeber’s newly released The Dawn of Everything

Built on the bodies of slaves: how Africa was erased from the history of the modern world 

Amitav Ghosh explores the hidden history of climate change 

Un-sustaining sustainability? Tracing the colonial origins of India’s rising “sustainable” fashion industry.

How the Dutch are facing up to their colonial past



Sci-fi and utopian imaginings

Imagine 2200: Climate fiction for future ancestors. Short stories.

Why this gives me hope for the future. A video essay on the solarpunk movement. Also: Solarpunk is not about pretty aesthetics, it’s about the end of capitalism

The realism of our times: Kim Stanley Robinson on how science fiction works

‘Dune’ has a desert problem



Resources

New Socialist issue on Ecologies 

Earthcare fieldcast. A new podcast about struggles for ecology and care. 

Resources for working with climate emotions

A bullshit job title generator. David Graeber would love this. 



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