Planet: Critical Folgen

Why, when armed with so much knowledge, are we failing to tackle the climate crisis? There must be some piece of the puzzle we haven’t grasped to continue overshooting the planetary boundaries at an alarming rate. Even this week’s IPCC report—the big piece of literature that’s meant to tell us what’s going on and what to do about it—came under fire from some climate scientists for continuing to propagate the endless growth maxim.But even our valuing growth as either good or bad reveals how little we understand the complexity of natural systems—and that’s what this week’s guest joined me to discuss.Jessie Henshaw is a physicist, architect and natural systems designer who worked with the UN to reframe their sustainability goals. She believes our misunderstanding of natural systems as a whole is what’s gotten us into this mess, and why we may not get out. We discuss how and when growth is necessary, collectivism in systems, and why science’s atomisation of systems in a bid to understand them is impeding the urgent progress we need to make. Listen to the full interview here, catch it on on Apple or Spotify, or watch on Youtube. You’ll find the bonus episode on Youtube over the weekend, and paid subscribers have access to the interview transcript on Planet: Critical.© Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

There are no easy solutions to the climate crisis—most governments admit their hope lies in technology which doesn’t even exist yet. Science and “visionaries” propose increasingly mad ideas, like refreezing the Arctic, or sending humans to live in Space. But given the urgency of the situation, would we be mad not to consider these mad ideas?Joseph Merz thinks we’ve run out of time to ask questions. He founded the Merz Institute to combat the climate crisis, gathering some of the world’s best scientists to establish what is going wrong and how to fix it. He says the answer is behavioural change—and they’re developing a programme that would manipulate mass behaviour on a subconscious level.How? Well, using the same techniques as the advertising industry.Joseph explains how his team came to this conclusion and how they plan to effect these change, giving examples of which kinds of changes would be most beneficial. We dive deep into the ethics of such a program, the dangers of these technologies, and whether or not we even have time to be discussing ethics. Listen to the full interview here, catch it on on Apple or Spotify, or watch on Youtube. You’ll find the bonus episode on Youtube over the weekend, and paid subscribers have access to the interview transcript.© Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

Geoengineering is often accused of falling prey to techno-optimism—that technology will get us out of this anthropocenic mess. A lot of proposals seem to have walked off the pages of a dystopian novel, existing only to prop up a destructive and unequal society. But do we need to diversify our strategy and accept these compromises just to buy time over the coming decades? This week, physicist and engineer Ye Tao introduces Meer, the mirror rays project which he says could halt global warming, buying humanity the necessary time to combat the climate crisis. He explains how Meer could cool the planet while decreasing energy demands, and improving water retention and food resources.But Ye is far from a techno-optimist. Whilst he thinks geoengineering could win us some battles, he believes dismantling power structures and our capitalist economy is key to winning the long-term war. He explains we’re locked onto a heating trajectory of at least 2 degrees Celcius, meaning we must deploy technologies to cool the planet. Once we’ve figured that out, he says we then must turn our attention to improving society for everyone—and offers a fascinating proposal to metric human progress. This episode involves some serious science and I hope you all enjoy it. Listen to the full interview here, catch it on on Apple or Spotify, or watch on Youtube. You’ll find the bonus episode on Youtube over the weekend, and paid subscribers have access to the interview transcript.© Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe