In the August 2023 edition of In Real Time with Stan Cox (yes I know it’s September) we talk about his dispatch, “The Hubris of Plutocrats”, and the escape fantasies (and condos) of the super-rich. Stan argues they can’t escape the heat that’s coming, but at least some of our troubles stem from the fact that they think they can.
Tag: In Real Time Series
In Real Time 13: Do we need states to solve climate change?
Stan Cox and I talk about Kim Stanley Robinson (KSR)’s 2020 book, The Ministry for the Future, which is a hugely important book because it pictures how we could get from our current situation to a world where CO2 emissions were actually trending downwards, saving human civilization from catastrophe. We talk about the climate events in the book, the geoengineering technologies proposed, the international policies proposed, and then I have a long critique of KSR’s geopolitics, which I argue gives undue praise to India, has an undue dislike of China and Russia, and gives too short a shrift to the imperial mechanisms of plunder that underpin the global economy and its currency regime, which leads to problems with the proposed carbon coin. But for all my critiques, this is the book we’ve got and so we have to use it as a starting point for how to get there from here.
In Real Time with Stan Cox 12: India dilemmas and how tech won’t save us
Stan Cox is back to talk about two essays. One, co-written with Priti Gulati Cox, “Between a Yoga Mat and a Hard Place”, about where India is headed. And another, “The Old Future is Gone and Technology Won’t Bring it Back”, by Stan himself. Justin goes on a mini-rant against doomerism at the end, and we talk about how next episode will be a bit of a KSR book club.
In Real Time with Stan Cox 11: Atlanta’s Cop City and Anti-Climate Legislation
Stan and I talk about two of his articles from April: the first on Atlanta’s “Cop City”, which one activist has already been killed by police over, and why it’s an environmental disaster as well as other kinds; and another article on Republicans trying to locally legislate to prevent any climate action from happening at the local level. Once again the US is blessed, instead of one big fascism the US has many small fascisms at the state level. In Real Time 11.
In Real Time 10: A 5-year and a 50-year farm bill
Back with Stan Cox on the environmental file. Stan’s written a dispatch on the Farm Bill. How the 5-year Farm Bills used to have consensus but how even that might be breaking, and then we talk about Wes Jackson’s ideas about a 50-year farm bill, thinking on the scale we probably need to be thinking on…
In Real Time 9: Attacks on the US electrical grid, defenses of US gas stoves
We are back on the environment file with Stan Cox, to discuss his latest two dispatches. January’s on who is attacking the US electrical grid? February’s on the curious defense of gas stoves from the fearful lobby, Big Indoor Air Quality. Justin starts us off with some discussion on the growing body of evidence of early habitation and Indigenous shaping of the Amazon ecosystem.
In Real Time with Stan Cox 8: No Red Wave, Plenty of Red Flags
Stan Cox is back with his November dispatch about the US midterm elections, in which the feared Red Wave didn’t materialize — but Stan wastes no time in warning us that 2024 is also going to be scary. We geek out on the election results, look at a shocking admission by a conservative that big government is good, actually, and have a little chat about nonviolent strategies… in the latest In Real Time with Stan Cox.
In Real Time with Stan Cox 7: A Thousand Rebellious Communities
Stan Cox is back for In Real Time episode 7, where we track the climate crisis and do other environmental talk. Stan reports back from some interviews he did with activists who are working locally on the climate crisis as we head towards two touchstones in November – the COP 27 conference in Egypt, from which nothing much is likely to emerge; and the November US elections, from which not much good can be expected either. And a bit from me about connections between neocolonialism and environmental destruction.
In Real Time with Stan Cox 6: Challenging CO2 Pipelines
CO2 pipelines are proof of the principle that “the greatest source of problems is solutions”. Stan Cox is back to shoot down the notion that CO2 pipelines are going to save us. Justin, meanwhile, has finally read Rachel Carson’s 1962 classic Silent Spring, which as an environmental prof he should have read decades ago. Find out who’s fighting the pipelines to nowhere and what Rachel Carson had to say about the human liver, in September’s dispatch.
In Real Time with Stan Cox 5: On the Inflation Reduction Bill and on Optimism
Our August 2022 dispatch with Stan Cox. Stan presents us this month with a discussion of the “Inflation Reduction Bill” – is climate change solved? Can Stan finally relax? We also get into a discussion of optimism and pessimism and which one is called for at this moment.