Canadian mining companies ‘get away with atrocities,’ Indigenous reporter says
Mongabay Newscast
An international tribunal of environmental rights activists recently found that the Canadian mining sector is “guilty for the violation of Rights of Nature across South America and Serbia.” The guest on this episode of Mongabay’s podcast corroborates these accusations, and describes human rights abuses in South American nations that she has seen in her reporting, too. , a Cree-Iroquois-French environmental journalist and freelancer for Mongabay, discusses how Canadian mining projects impact ecological health and the rights of Indigenous communities in places such as Ecuador and Bolivia....
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Top court delivers a 'huge' climate win for island nations
Mongabay Newscast
The recent from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on states' obligations regarding climate change was celebrated globally for providing clarity on countries’ legal obligation to prevent climate , but was also appreciated by island nations for its additional certainty on their maritime boundaries remaining intact regardless of sea level rise. This week on Mongabay’s podcast, environmental lawyer Angelique Pouponneau, a Seychelles native and lead negotiator for the (AOSIS), explains these victories, their legal implications, and how they matter for small island nations. She says...
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Saving ourselves and nature means tackling inequality
Mongabay Newscast
is a primary culprit behind the ecological and environmental collapse of societies over the past 12,000 years, which have come to be dominated by a small circle of elites hoarding resources like , research shows. Today, instead of an isolated collapse, we face a global one, says , a researcher at the University of Cambridge’s . On this episode of Mongabay’s Newscast, Kemp explains how wealth inequality is not just tied to, but may be the very cause of the ecological destruction we are witnessing today, and how tackling that is key to how we solve all these challenges, as he recently told...
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‘To protect nature, you have to love it,’ says Natalie Kyriacou
Mongabay Newscast
On this episode of the Newscast we take a look at Natalie Kyriacou’s widely praised new book, , whose high-profile fans, like Paris climate agreement architect call it a “lyrical call to awaken our love for the wild before the music stops.” Kyriacou, the founder of the environmental organization , shares her aim of the book, her thoughts on real solutions to our ecological problems, what she wishes more people understood about nature, and why they need to fall in love with it. “If there’s one simple thing that we can do, it is to just step outside and feel...
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Rewilding the world, one acre at a time
Mongabay Newscast
Rewilding advocate, financier and host of the popular podcast , Ben Goldsmith, joins Mongabay’s podcast to discuss nature restoration in his home country of England, where a significant cultural change is taking hold toward reviving biodiversity, such as . Once seen as a nuisance there, many farmers and planners now embrace the rebound of the huge rodent, thanks to its impressive ability to mitigate flooding events that the island nation now experiences with regularity, due to climate change. “If you stop a random person on the street now, in the city or in the countryside, they know that...
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Alan Weisman’s ‘Hope Dies Last’ weaves stories of environmental hope
Mongabay Newscast
On this week’s episode of Mongabay’s podcast, best-selling author Alan Weisman details the people and places he visited in reporting his new book, , a chronicle of miraculous accomplishments and resilience of the book’s protagonists, many of whom are working to solve humanity’s most intractable ecological problems. The book’s impetus was an accumulation of despair at the state of the world and how humanity treats it. “I started this book because I was really, really, really depressed about how I saw systems breaking down,” Weisman says. But as he uncovered each story, Weisman’s...
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How empathy and spiritual ecology can heal humanity’s rift with nature
Mongabay Newscast
is a new podcast series from the nonprofit nature and culture magazine that speaks with prominent figures in conservation and culture about how humans relate to the natural world, and how they might heal and strengthen that relationship. On this episode of Mongabay’s podcast, its host and Atmos editor-in-chief Willow Defebaugh details the series’ resulting revelations and why her publication covers the environment through the lens of community, identity, arts and culture. “From the beginning, we knew that we wanted to invite creative storytellers and artists into this conversation...
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How Singapore leads the way in urban-wildlife coexistence
Mongabay Newscast
Singapore has come a long way since the 1880s, when only roughly 7% of its native forests remained. Since the 1960s, when the city-state gained independence, it has implemented a number of urban regreening initiatives, and today, nearly 47% of the city is considered green space, providing numerous benefits to human residents and wildlife, like heat mitigation, freshwater conservation and cleanliness, carbon sequestration, coastal climate adaptation, biodiversity protection, and public enjoyment. To discuss his city’s regreening efforts — from the philosophical to the practical applications...
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To change the world, change the narrative
Mongabay Newscast
Narratives help shape our society, culture and environment, entrenching beliefs that can help — or harm — our planet and human rights. , story manager at , joins Mongabay's podcast to explain how dominant narratives — stories shaped by existing power structures and institutions — often undergird destructive industries and favor the powerful and the wealthy, and to discuss what people can do to counter such narratives. In this interview, she expands upon thoughts shared in the essay “How to Reject Dominant Narratives,” from the new book , published by . "A dominant narrative in...
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Cash for community conservation is tight, but this nonprofit unlocks it
Mongabay Newscast
says organizations know best how to tackle the complex conservation challenges unique to their ecosystems. However, they’re also among the most underserved in terms of funding of all stripes. On this week's episode of Mongabay's podcast, Collomb explains how his nonprofit, (WCN), is working to change that. When it comes to funding conservation," it's really difficult to know who to give your money to besides a handful of organizations that a lot of people are familiar with," Collomb says. WCN facilitates partnerships between community-based conservation groups, primarily in Global South...
info_outlineWealth inequality is a primary culprit behind the ecological and environmental collapse of societies over the past 12,000 years, which have come to be dominated by a small circle of elites hoarding resources like land, research shows. Today, instead of an isolated collapse, we face a global one, says Luke Kemp, a researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk.
On this episode of Mongabay’s Newscast, Kemp explains how wealth inequality is not just tied to, but may be the very cause of the ecological destruction we are witnessing today, and how tackling that is key to how we solve all these challenges, as he recently told The Guardian.
“Imperial overexpansion, depleting the natural environment, having elite competition and popular immiseration, all [are] just simply the natural effect of inequality. All is driven by growing concentrations of power and wealth inequality,” he says.
Humans are not naturally like this, Kemp explains. Rather, for the vast majority of their existence, they have coexisted in nomadic, interconnected societies, functioning in a largely egalitarian fashion. Until the discovery that grain could be harvested — and therefore also stolen and hoarded with violence — humans did not dominate one another, as we do today.
As mentioned in the episode, you can read a recent opinion piece on what listeners and readers can do overcome despair in the face of existential threats such as climate change and biodiversity loss.
Subscribe to or follow the Mongabay Newscast wherever you listen to podcasts, from Apple to Spotify, and you can also listen to all episodes here on the Mongabay website.
Image Credit: Statue of Queen Hatshepsut, Egypt. Photo by Rhett Butler/Mongabay.
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Timecodes
(00:00) Why humans are egalitarian
(08:06) Why authoritarianism is so pervasive
(14:12) How and why societies fall
(20:58) Our global society is at risk
(24:22) How we solve it
(30:25) Capping wealth at 10m
(37:54) Citizen juries and how they work
(45:11) Could a ‘ministry for the future’ work?
(46:54) Lessons from the Khoisan Peoples
(51:00) Democracy isn’t just a ‘left-wing’ idea