Planet: Critical Folgen

"Here we are at a crossroads of human history. There's never been this historical confluence of war, political instability, economic vulnerability, on top of the impending ecological apocalypse.Here we are, just marinated in death reminders. And what we know from our research is that that turns us into depressed, demoralized, proto fascists plundering the planet in our insatiable desire for dollars and dross in an alcohol-oxycodone-TikTok-twittering stupor.This is not a great position to be in."Are you afraid of dying?Sheldon Solomon has been researching death anxiety and its impact on our behaviour for decades, finding that unmitigated death awareness drives mindless consumption, political polarisation and more disordered behaviour. In short, our fear of death could be driving the climate crisis.We discuss the link between death awareness and self-awareness, how cultural beliefs are used to anesthetize death anxiety, how Western culture has the ironic effect of exacerbating that very anxiety that it's trying to solve, and why the solutions lie with imagination and creativity.Sheldon Solomon is Professor of Psychology at Skidmore College.  His studies of the effects of the uniquely human awareness of death on behaviour were featured in the award winning documentary film Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality.  He is co-author of In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror and The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life. Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.© Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

The climate fight is a fight for children’s rights.When Carter Dillard began researching family planning systems he found a fallacy in international policy: The Children’s Rights Convention, ratified by the UN, entitles children to health, education, well-being and fulfilled potential—but no country implements family planning systems around these rights. Family planning systems are based around what parents want, not what children need. Every country, in effect, is breaking the Children’s Rights Convention.Why? For economic growth.Carter’s research shows a series of policy interventions in the 20th century made family planning a private matter. This absolved states of the responsibility to invest in children and redistribute wealth, whilst guaranteeing a boom in population to feed the economic machine.“If we'd had to invest in children to give them everything they need to ensure that children are born in what, in the conditions that comply with the convention, we would not have had growth.”Carter is the author of the Justice as a Fair Start in Life: Understanding the Right to Have Children, and the Policy Director of the Fair Start Movement, an organisation committed to raising awareness of the Children’s Rights Convention. They are currently petitioning the UN Human Rights Council claiming the UN has misinterpreted the right to have children, and have forthcoming constitutional litigation in the USA. He joins me to discuss this work, his research into the history of family planning, and the impact of climate change on children. He also provides a vision for reframing family planning reform as an active climate policy which could advocate systemic change through one simple message: that everybody deserves a fair start in life.Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.© Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe

Which papers are telling the truth? And which are giving inches to climate skeptics?In this episode, Lucy McAllister, Assistant Professor in Environmental Studies at Denison University, explains how journalism's obsession with "balance" causes bias in climate reporting. She walks us through new research which shows how climate coverage accuracy has improved since the initial findings in 2004, but that there is still a significant divide between left-leaning and right-wing papers, specifically those owned by Rupert Murdoch.She also reveals how the tactics of muddling the discourse has become more sophisticated, with column inches now being given to climate skeptics or discourses of delays. Combatting this is critical, Lucy says, pointing to solutions journalism as critical in the fight to "reframe" narratives to empower communities around the world.“We're seeing media more accurately representing the science on climate change—climate change is happening, it's caused by humans. Now we're seeing in terms of climate action that climate skeptics, deniers, or discourses of delay, are being given more space in the news article, more power than like a relevant climate expert or policymaker.“So they're getting the science right but then when they're talking about the actual solution and action moving forward, we're still seeing this problematic balance issue where one side is being favored.”Referenced Papers/Articles:* Balance as Bias: global warming and the US prestige press* Balance as bias, resolute on the retreat? Updates & analyses of newspaper coverage in the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and Canada over the past 15 years* Positive, global, and health or environment framing bolsters public support for climate policies* Tactical framing around the Green New Deal* Discourses of Climate Delay* Media Representations of Climate Change: A Meta-Analysis of the Research Field* The International Reporting of Climate Scepticism* The 2021 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: code red for a healthy futureLucy McAllister is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Denison University. Prior to this position, she worked at the Technical University of Munich, Babson College, and Boston College. Lucy's interdisciplinary research focuses on the framing of overlapping global environmental injustices—climate change and hazardous waste—and the disproportionate impact on minorities, women, children, future generations, and other stigmatized groups. Broadly, her research explores how we communicate and perceive social harms and environmental injustices, and therefore informs work on inclusive, interdisciplinary solutions. She has published research in several outlets, such as Environmental Research Letters, The Lancet, The Lancet Planetary Health, Health and Human Rights, Science and Engineering Ethics, and the Sociology of Development. Lucy is a part of the research group at the Media and Climate Change Observatory, University of Colorado Boulder.  Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.© Rachel Donald Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe