Once a month, we put together a list of stories we’ve been reading: things you might’ve missed or crucial conversations going on around the web. We focus on environmental and social justice, cities, science fiction, current events, and political theory.
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.
This month, we’re once again featuring analysis about radical municipalism, degrowth and the green new deal. We’ve also published another piece about the Gilets Jaunes movement in France. Most importantly, though, we are featuring analysis about the Indigenous struggles against pipelines in Canada, the threat of a coup d’état in Venezuela, and farming politics. We’ve also collected some resources on Indigenous allyship. Enjoy!
Uneven Earth updates
Gilets Jaunes: A slap in the face of our vocabulary | Link | A report from an observer
Top 5 articles to read
Twelve step method to conduct regime change
Bill Gates says poverty is decreasing. He couldn’t be more wrong
An interview with Max Liboiron on what it means to do anti-colonial, feminist science
The political economy of Half-Earth
Venezuela
Venezuela crisis: Former UN rapporteur says US sanctions are killing citizens
There is nothing more undemocratic than a coup d’état. Former UN Rapporteur speaks to Democracy Now and talks about the threat of civil war.
US Coup in Venezuela Motivated by Oil and Corporate Interests – Militarist John Bolton Spills the Beans | The Grayzone
Venezuela Speaks Out against the Coup | Venezuelanalysis.com
News you might’ve missed
Gilets Jaunes “Assembly of Assemblies” calls for massive strike | Roar Magazine
Brazil’s grief turns to anger as death toll from Vale disaster hits 60 | Reuters
Bolsonaro government reveals plan to develop the ‘Unproductive Amazon’
Poor southerners are joining the globe’s climate migrants | Scalawag
Vancouver City Council votes to declare ‘climate emergency’ | Globalnews.ca
How Police Are Preparing for a Standoff Over Enbridge Line 3
The future (and past) of farming and energy
How Aquaponics, A.K.A. Fish Poop, Can Grow Food Using Less Water And Land | HuffPost Canada
Can we ditch intensive farming – and still feed the world? | News | The Guardian
We need regenerative farming, not geoengineering | Guardian Sustainable Business | The Guardian
Mexico’s Energy Transformation? — THE TROUBLE. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has promised a “fourth transformation” of the Mexican state and is taking back control of the national oil and gas firm. Workers, indigenous groups, and the environmental movement in Mexico and internationally can push the agenda further.
‘Freedom Farmers’ Tells the History of Black Farmers Uniting Against Racism | Civil Eats
Where we’re at: analysis
Headless populism and the political ecology of alienation | ENTITLE blog
Climate Change, Not Border Security, Is the Real National Emergency
The Problem Isn’t Robots Taking Our Jobs. It’s Oligarchs Taking Our Power
REDD+: A lost decade for international forest conservation | Heinrich Böll Foundation
The zombie technofix: Carbon capture and storage | The Ecologist
Vampire finance sucks the lifeblood out of the economy: An interview with Saskia Sassen | Red Pepper
A mad world: capitalism and the rise of mental illness | Red Pepper
Silvia Federici: Every Woman Is a Working Woman | Boston Review
Degrowth and the Green New Deal
Opinion: Sooner or later, we have to stop economic growth | Ensia
Discussing Degrowth with Giorgos Kallis – Plan A Academy
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘Green New Deal’ is actually an old socialist plan from Canada | Fox News
That Green Growth at the Heart of the Green New Deal? It’s Malignant – Resilience
Inequality and the ecological transition — Jason Hickel
Economic expansion boosts carbon emissions, despite green-tech gains
Indigenous struggles
The women fighting a pipeline that could destroy precious wildlife | US news | The Guardian
Canadian teen tells UN ‘warrior up’ to protect water | CBC News
‘The Nation Has Stood Up’: Indigenous Clans in Canada Battle Pipeline Project – The New York Times
Using Art to Explore Indigenous Rights, Activism and Environment | The Tyee
Just think about it…
Fascinating new map shows EVERY river basin on the globe with a different colour | Daily Mail Online
Scientists are working on a pill for loneliness | US news | The Guardian
PTSD is a western concept, says Palestine’s head of mental health services — Quartz
Collapse: You cannot prepare for what remains unthinkable – Jussi Pasanen
Radical municipalism
Fate of castles in the air in Turkey’s £151m ghost town | World news | The Guardian
Rebel Cities 18: Eight Years After Jasmine Revolution, Jemna Is Tunisia’s Oasis of Hope | Occupy.com
Did a green development project drive up the rent in a Montreal neighbourhood? | National Observer
‘Shared equity’ model for U.S. housing boosts home ownership for poorer families | PLACE
The municipalist revolution | International Politics and Society – IPS. The ‘new municipalism’ might just be the only really innovative process inside the European left.
Degrowth and the City – e-flux Architecture – e-flux
How Cities Make Money by Fining the Poor – The New York Times
Suburb Socialism – Dispatchula – Medium
New politics
Space the Nation: Dissing Utopia | SYFY WIRE. Conservatives aren’t just arguing against having to part with individual wealth, they’re arguing against change; they’re not just dismissing utopia, they’re rejecting the future itself.
Some Notes On Mass Refusal: Kim Kelly Interview with IGD – It’s Going Down
Remembering Erik Olin Wright | Dissent Magazine
A Black-Owned Food Co-op Grows in Detroit | CityLab
Chile’s feminists inspire a new era of social struggle | ROAR Magazine
Seeing Wetiko: An interview with Alnoor Ladha – Ecologise
Resources
When your research is attacked | Discard Studies
What Is Settler-Colonialism? | Teaching Tolerance
Montreal non-profit launches toolkit on how to be an Indigenous ally | CBC News
Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books with a Powerful Message of Social Justice – The B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog
New book, Fearless Cities edited by Ada Colau and Debbie Bookchin. The first book written by and for the global municipalist movement.
Want to receive this as a newsletter in your inbox? Subscribe here.