Planet: Critical
Rachel Donald
292 episodes · Explicit
Planet: Critical is the podcast for a world in crisis. We face severe climate, energy, economic and political breakdown. Journalist Rachel Donald interviews those confronting the crisis, revealing what's really going on—and what needs to be done. Visit planetcritical.com
Episodes page 2 of 6
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Health Begins With Earth | Sharon Friel
Doctors are tasked with an impossible job: Keep our bodies healthy while Earth’s collapses. Our healthcare systems are already under-funded and over-stretched, and that’s before we throw in the drastic changes in…
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China’s Leverage | Kenneth Hammond
Is China the next world leader? Ken Hammond is a professor of history at New Mexico State University, where he specializes in the history of China in the early modern period. Author of China's Revolution and the Quest…
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There Are No Simple Solutions | Jessica Hernandez
Imagine if we rolled up our sleeves instead of pointed our fingers? Jessica Hernandez is an indigenous climate scientist and author of Growing Papaya Trees. Her work reveals that the roots of our planetary crisis lies…
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How the Eco-Crisis is Changing Our Brains | Clayton Aldern
The climate crisis is causing an invisible health crisis. The number one cause of neurodegenerative disease is the environment. And our environment is changing—releasing bacteria, neurotoxins and pathogens into our…
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Beyond Paradox | Iain McGilchrist
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” — Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2 The two hemispheres of our brain collaborate to produce a coherent understanding of the world—at least, that’s what they’re…
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Bad Environmentalism | Gordon Katic
Gordon Katic is the founder of the award-winning podcast production company, Cited Media. This week, they’re launching Green Dreams, the new season of their flagship podcast which tells stories of radical environmental…
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Collapse for the 99% | Luke Kemp
Collapse has historically benefited the 99%. That’s the amazing conclusion of Luke Kemp, author of Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse. Luke is a research associate at the Centre for the Study…
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Community Sufficiency | Kara Huntermoon
How can we become good ancestors? Permaculturist and educator, Kara Huntermoon, says the hobbies we pick up now can be skills we pass on to our children, even if we never have to use them ourselves. In this…
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Knowing and Being | Tyson Yunkaporta
How we create knowledge is as important as the knowledge itself. This is the message of this week’s guest, Aboriginal scholar and author, Tyson Yunkaporta. In his explanation of the importance of learning through…
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Why Complex Societies Collapse | Joseph Tainter
Is the world even collapsing? Joseph Tainter is a Professor at Utah State University and the author of The Collapse of Complex Societies. He explains on this episode that collapse happens when a civilisation…
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Is Non-Violence the Only Way? | Rowan Tilly
We’ve been protesting for decades. Is it time to escalate? Rowan Tilly is an elder of the British peace and environment movements. She has risked jail multiple times to raise awareness of the atrocities carried out…
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Degrowing Healthcare | Martin Hensher
All of our industries are going to have to shrink. But how do we shrink the good ones? Martin Hensher is a health economist and a Professor of Health Systems Sustainability at the University of Tasmania. He’s spent…
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Why Earth Needs a Feminist Movement | Silvia Federici
Women’s bodies have always been the cornerstone of reproduction. So has Earth’s. It’s why the enclosure and appropriation of both is fundamental to the accumulation of the capitalist class. On this extraordinary…
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What’s Really Warming the Planet | Gerard Wedderburn-Bisshop
Ask anyone anywhere what’s the leading cause of global heating and they’ll tell you: fossil fuels. But what if we’re all wrong? Gerard Wedderburn-Bisshop is a scientist for the World Preservation Foundation and worked…
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Resilience is Resistance | Max Wilbert
How do we survive? Max Wilbert is a long-time activist who spent the past few years defending Thacker Pass, and recently joined CELDF to as part of their new strategy to build out community resilience. I first…
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Human Exceptionalism | Christine Webb
What makes humans special? Nothing. But a small band of us in the Western hemisphere have inculcated ourselves over thousands of years to believe in our supremacy over the natural world. Christine Webb, primatologist…
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Why We Can’t Understand Each Other | Damien Williams
There’s more information than ever — but we can’t agree on what it means. We think of language as a tool of communication. But it’s so much more than that. Language builds worlds and shapes realities; language is how…
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How to Change People’s Minds | Sarah Stein Lubrano
Don’t Talk About Politics! That’s the title of neuroscientist and political theorist Sarah Stein Lubrano’s first book. A phenomenal and heavily researched foray into why debate is a useless form of political…
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Change is Risk | Celine Semaan
The status quo won’t survive. Neither will we if we’re not willing to change. In this phenomenal conversation with powerhouse Celine Semaan, an artist, author and cofounder of Slow Factory, we explore why change is…
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Beyond Separation | Willow Defebaugh
Does nature have a plan? It’s a lovely thought. But we’re going to have to be more accountable than that. In this achingly beautiful conversation with writer Willow Defebaugh, co-founder and Editor of Atmos Magazine,…
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Is the End Nigh? | Émile Torres
What is an extinction event? How have human beings considered extinction in the past? How is the contemporary understanding of human extinction different to the ancient world? And why is it that tech billionaires are…
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Voices of the Amazon | Chumpi Washikiat
The Achuar people first came into contact with the outside world sixty years ago. Since then, they have mostly been left in peace, able to take what they want from the modern world and leave the rest. That’s changing…
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Confronting Collapse | Vanessa Machado de Oliveira
We need a new story. We also need to do the hard work of re-engineering our societies, re-imagining our relationships, and remembering our bodies. Vanessa Machado de Oliveira, author of Hospicing Modernity, start our…
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Resource Scarcity and Eco-Fascism | Antonio Turiel
Militarisation, isolationism, extractivism. It looks like we learned nothing from the 21st century, as the powers that be are approaching looming civilisational collapse by cranking up the gears on the very machine…
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Carbon is Not Our Enemy | Mongabay
I recently interviewed Paul Hawken for Mongabay and want to share the moving conversation with you here. Celebrated author, thinker and entrepreneur Paul Hawken joins Mongabay’s podcast to discuss his new book,…
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Popping the Tech Bro Bubble | Molly White
Free speech is under attack. Banning books, cutting library funding, attacking Wikipedia. The authoritarian regime of the tech-bro backed hard right doesn’t want to protect your free speech. It plans on eliminating…
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A World of Contradictions | David Edgerton
We can’t make this make sense. The world’s most famous face of renewable solutions spent a record-breaking amount to get Big Oil’s candidate into the White House. The ruling communist party of China is backed by…
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Collapse: What It Is — And What To Do | Sarah Wilson
The s**t’s hit the fan. We can’t turn the fan off, argues best-selling author Sarah Wilson. But we can learn how to clean up the mess. Sarah, author, podcaster and creator of the This is Precious newsletter, has been…
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How To Do The Right Thing in Business | Brad Vanstone
Businesses could run differently — with the right leaders. Brad Vanstone, cofounder of plant-based cheese company Willicroft, is an example. He founded the company out of a desire to protect the planet and innovate…
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The ”Energy Transition” is a Pipe Dream | Jean-Baptiste Fressoz
Civilisation always wants more energy. The idea that our global society will merely switch from one energy source to another is fantasy masquerading as policy. Every time human beings discover a new energy source our…
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States, Markets, and the Rest of Us | Grace Blakeley
It wasn’t always like this. Just decades ago, working people had power to leverage governments, ensuring our politicians weren’t just capitulating to markets — they were also working to keep people happy who had the…
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The Age of Territorial Expansion | Michael Albertus
Our borders are changing. Russia wants Ukraine, China wants Taiwan, Israel wants Palestine, and Trump wants Greenland. We are in the beginning of an age of territorial expansion, as nations seek to shore up more…
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Animal Agriculture Exceptionalism | Kenny Torrella
Big Oil has a Big Brother — animal agriculture. A handful of multinational companies are driving environmental degradation and cruelty around the world to feed their pockets rather than the hungry’s bellies. Welcome…
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How to Cool the Planet | Sailesh Rao
What is one thing we could all do tomorrow? Switch to a planet-based diet. Sailesh Rao, Executive Director of Climate Healers, joins me to explain how emissions from animal agriculture are not being counted properly…
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The B******t Stinking Up Silicon Valley | Ed Zitron
Ed Zitron is one of Silicon Valley’s fiercest critics. Since A.I’s arrival, Ed has virulently exposed its singular lack of intelligence, its huge energy demands, and the dangerous way its hoovering up attention and…
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The Smallest Parts | Craig Slee
Where does your body end? The human body is filled with ecosystems of creatures keeping us alive. It exists within larger ecosystems keeping us alive. Yet considering ourselves as separate and apart, as whole and…
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Climate Violence | Peter Schwartzstein
A hotter world is a more violent world. Peter Schwartzstein is an environmental journalist and researcher, and author of The Heat and the Fury which investigates the relationship between violence and climate change.…
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Israel’s Campaign To Destroy Life | Samaneh Moafi
Samaneh Moafi is the Assistant Director of Research at Forensic Architecture, a research agency operating across human rights, journalism, architecture, art, academia and the law. Their interdisciplinary investigations…
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Planetary Solvency | Sandy Trust
Ecological collapse doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Our global economy will also collapse by up to 50% before the end of this century if we continue as we are. That’s the latest diagnosis by an interdisciplinary team who…
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Climate Criminals | Aaron Regunberg
How do we take Big Oil to the criminal courts? There's been a major wave of climate litigation over the past 12 months, mostly in civil courts. But groups around the world are figuring out how to make polluting the…
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Scale Out in 2025 | Rachel Donald
Happy New Year! Following the success of last year’s special episode, we're ringing in 2025 with another one from me in which I answer your questions about the podcast and the new project we've just launched, Planet:…
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The Need for Roots | Nathalie Nahai
What is a system? This is the type of question which can only be meandered through, which is exactly what Nathalie Nahai and I do on this week's episode. Nathalie is a polymath: musician, artist, psychologist, AI…
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Exposing the Imperial Class | Matt Kennard
What is the United States for? Journalist Matt Kennard would argue the most powerful nation in the world exists to undermine democracy, deny national sovereignty, and funnel wealth to the financial elite. His book,…
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Language and Violence | Sunil Amrith
In the beginning was the word—and that word justified it all. In this stunning conversation with Sunil Amrith, historian and author of Burning Earth, we explore the systemic nature of violence. We discuss how it…
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From the Ashes | Dana Fisher
Do things have to get worse before they get better? Yes, says Dana Fisher, Director of the Center for Environment, Community & Equity and author of Saving Ourselves. Dana’s research suggests that witnessing the…
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Civil Resistance | Pasha Bell
Climate researcher and activist Pasha Bell was jailed for 22 months for protesting against the British government’s climate inaction. They join a growing group of concerned citizens disproportionately punished by the…
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Climate Litigation Breakthroughs | Nikki Reisch
Is the law fit for purpose? This is one question Nikki Reisch, Director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Center for International Environmental Law, and I discuss on today’s episode. Nikki joins me to explain…
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Hurt People Hurt People | Kosha Joubert
How does trauma show up? Kosha Joubert is the CEO of the pocket project and NGO dedicated to exploring and healing collective trauma. She joined me to discuss the impacts that collective trauma has on our bodies, on…
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WTF | Emily Atkin
WTF – What Trump F***s.* Beside his extensive sexual assault of women, Trump’s political agenda involves violently assaulting the planet, climate legislation, industry regulations, state-led climate agendas and…
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The Renewables Solution | Auke Hoekstra
Can renewables really save the day? Auke Hoekstra, Director of the NEON Research Program, says they can. The renewables researcher firmly states that we can power this society on renewables energy, dramatically…
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