Planet: Critical Folgen

Humankind’s footprint threatens to squash life under its heel.Our impact on the planet cannot be understated. We have thrust Earth into a new geological period, destroyed the majority of the world’s wildlife, razed her forests, and rendered innumerable species extinct. We are expert consumers with no limits to our appetite, it seems. Unless the climate becomes so unstable our own systems break down. This, of course, is what we’re already seeing.Bill Rees, bio-ecologist, ecological economist, and originator of the ecological footprint analysis, joins me to discuss this breakdown—how we got here, where we’re going, and why he has little hope for humankind to make it through. We discuss systems change, potential outcomes, and how to create “lifeboats” in a crisis. We also go head-to-head on the framing of some of these issues before finding common ground towards the end of the episode.“Half of the fossil fuels ever used on planet Earth by human beings has been consumed in just the last 35 years. This is the power of exponential growth. So hugely important things have happened in 50 years, including the first book that warned us of limits to growth. We've seen the evidence before the US Congress on Climate Change. We've had 27 COP meetings on climate change, a half a dozen formal agreements to reduce carbon emissions. There's been several formal scientists’ warning to humanities. This has all taken place in the last 50 years.“Yet, during that past 50 years, the pace of negative change has accelerated. So, despite the best of our science, despite the best evidence you can possibly come up with in terms of climate activity and so on and so forth, the mainstream has not budged.”Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

“There isn't likely to be a future where all critters have no interest in themselves and are only interested in the collective. That's not gonna work. But to temper those two directions so that there is self maintenance, but also a self that joins the community, is, I would say, the goal.”What if religion wasn’t about God—but about each other?Religion is a divisive topic at best and the cause of war at worst. It has been used to control, dictate, punish and destroy people throughout the ages. Yet faith, it seems, is a critical aid in humankind’s individual and collective existence. I have always believed that faith is an act of imagination where religion is an act of dogma. That’s why I was curious when Ursula Goodenough, Professor of Biology Emeritus, emailed me a copy of her book, The Sacred Depths of Nature, suggesting we discuss “religious naturalism”. During the episode, Ursula introduces the topic as a grand story to unite humankind. We go on to discuss humankind as a symbolic species, the necessity and beauty of symbolism, how we evolve with symbolism, and how we can use story to anchor our existence. We discuss language and mindedness, consciousness and the brain, community and individuals, and the relationship between mystery and knowledge. Ursula also gives her insight into what separates religiosity, spirituality and religion.© Rachel DonaldPlanet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

Human population is a problem—tackling it through education isn’t.We need to slow our global fertility rate to 1.5 children per woman if we’re to lower our population to a sustainable level of around 3 billion. That decline is already happening in many post-industrial nations, to the chagrin and panic of their leaders. However, many cultures around the world still prize large families. But in a world of increasingly scarce resources like water, limiting family sizes remains the main driver of some campaigners, including Bill Ryerson.Bill is an ecologist and founder of the Population Media Center, an initiative which creates mainstream entertainment in many nations around the world, pushing the needle on cultural practices to drive behaviour change on population and even gender violence. PMC produces telenovelas and radionovelas which have seen fertility rates decline in nations they’ve been shown.Bill and I spend the first half of the episode talking about the population problem, the policy problems, the history of population growth. He then introduces the concept of the demographic dividend, which showed that small families actually lead to economic growth, before explaining the successes and heartwarming stories of the work PMC has done around the world.Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription. Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe