Best Sixth Extinction Podcasts (2024)

1
Sick People or Sick Society? | Steffi Bednarek 59:51

33m ago59:51

59:51

How has the psychology industry perpetuated the problem? Steffi Bednarek is a climate psychotherapist working both with clients on their anxiety and depression related to climate grief, and the overarching systems within the psychology profession which stigmatises mental health by failing to grasp that poor mental health can be a rational reaction …

1
132. Who's Afraid of the 6th Extinction? 29:00

6h ago29:00

29:00

The riddle of our time is: How could we remain so passive, when the violence is so near and so well-known in every way. We know the perpetrators, their bank accounts, the location and operation of their greed. Every month for the last 14 months has been the hottest on record. The scientists who reported what weather to expect based on computer mode…

1
We Deserve Better Certainties | Natasha Lennard 46:42

1h ago46:42

46:42

Remember the adage it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism? Culture inculcates certainties—and only in living against them will we forge new possibilities, says writer Natasha Lennard. Changing the world from the ground up takes time, it takes bravery, it takes collective will to go against. Only power changes fast. B…

1
131. The Accelerating Apocalypse and My 15 Minutes 29:00

1h ago29:00

29:00

Like the tour with Neil Young last spring, we are being allowed to celebrate our radical Earth activism in a surprising new setting. In both cases, an opening was provided for us to walk out of our 99-seat storefront and shout Earthalujah! to millions.By Reverend Billy and Savitri D

1
Low Tech Life | Kris De Decker 1:02:16

7d ago1:02:16

1:02:16

What if the solutions are the problem? Life is made beautiful by the myriad possibilities that evolve—spontaneously—from interactions in the world. A look shared between strangers, a joke passed from customer to barista, a story swapped, a birdsong heard. But these possibilities are diminishing with every tech substitution for interaction. Tech get…

1
130. The Day that ACTUAL Ate VIRTUAL Alive 29:00

14d ago29:00

29:00

The storms and wildfires and floods are a daily apocalypse that we mistake for sense-surround blockbusters. The Earth's violent insistence on a new realism for its chief predator is beginning to move some of us. But we are years away from a new "Earth Movement”. We don't even have the most basic things all successful social movements have: hot musi…

1
Crisis of Mastery | Bayo Akomolafe 51:58

5d ago51:58

51:58

How do we come home to our bodies? Bayo Akomolafe is a philosopher writer, activist, professor of psychology and executive director of the emergence network. He's the author of 'We Will Tell Our Own Story' and 'These Wilds Beyond Our Fences: Letters To My Daughter on Humanity's Search for Home'. Bayo is an extraordinary poet artist, linguistic danc…

1
129. The Earth Crashes Into The World 29:00

21d ago29:00

29:00

The necessary revolution is here in this extraordinary moment. Our only task is to live up to it. The Earth's 6th Extinction is not demanding a response within our quiver of desire, or our strategy, or even our reverence. It is happening, that's all. And a new Wisdom must come from us.By Reverend Billy and Savitri D

1
Building Trust | Nate Kinch 1:07:26

27d ago1:07:26

1:07:26

How can businesses make better decisions? The corporate world needs new values, values that inspire different motivations for existing. But doing so within the existing framework of driving shareholder value is so complicated that many are claiming it can't be done. Socio-technological ethicist Nate Kinch is trying anyway. Nate works at the interse…

1
128.The Hope Deep in Funky Hopelessness 29:00

15d ago29:00

29:00

The Earth is quickly changing us. Everything everywhere is undergoing unprecedented change and this change sees the surfacing of the once hidden Empress of Secrets. It is the Earth's gift in this time of apocalypse. Silicon Valley, the Pentagon and M and M's are camouflaging the surface around us with a thick coat of dullness, but the Earth is peel…

1
127. History Slows Down and Waits for Change 29:00

22d ago29:00

29:00

The Sunday "Earthchxrch" services remain so fulfilling, the soaring voices with their justice lyrics delivered with the 200 mph wind of recent storms. The choir sings I Go The Mountain and I'm Filled with the Fabulous Unknown from our new album. And we celebrate in this Earth Riot some of our greatest "necessary interruptions": Sister Rosetta Tharp…

1
Climate Change as Class War | Matt Huber 1:12:56

1M ago1:12:56

1:12:56

The global majority are not responsible for global warming. A tiny percentage of the world's population are in positions of power, making decisions that impact the entire planet. These are the people who own and benefit from the fossil-fuelled means of production. Professor Matt Huber says taking power back from them is a class struggle—and cannot …

1
126. Consumerism Has Disabled Our “What’s Important?” Gene 29:00

1M ago29:00

29:00

Today’s Importance Exercise: What’s more important? Atmospheric rivers over the Pacific, or artificial intelligence in Silicon Valley? The rise in carbon units per million, or crypto currency market rates? Suicides among young native Americans or celebrities-on-the-cover-of-PEOPLE who got sober and remarried? The trillions in profits from toxins by…

1
The Sixth Mass Extinction | Peter Brannen 1:00:43

2M ago1:00:43

1:00:43

The carbon cycle is more dangerous than an asteroid. An asteroid killed the dinosaurs but unstable carbon cycles caused the worse mass extinctions in earth’s history—and we are putting carbon dioxide into the air at a rate the earth has never seen before. I’m joined by science journalist Peter Brannen, author of The Ends of the World, to discuss ho…

1
125 The Post-Religious Church of the Fabulous Unknown 29:00

1M ago29:00

29:00

Since the Earth's crisis gives us months or maybe years, gradualism is a faster kind of suicide. Every one of our prayers needs to be like an ambulance, flooring it right at the emergency. Scientists say that most of reality is a whirlwind of subatomic particles called Dark Energy. So, we are stranded on a desperate little human island, while Dark …

1
How A.I. is Driving Policy | Paul Schutze 49:59

2M ago49:59

49:59

A.I. is here—except it isn't. Or is it? A.I. is all over the news all of the time, and nations are scrambling to win the race and become the world leaders in this technology which we're told will change the world. This belief, this myth, is driving policy, investment, hype and conferences. It's the myth that is making A.I., a technology which has c…

1
124. A Village of Convicted Activists asks Neil Young 29:00

2M ago29:00

29:00

Asks Neil to please name his band after the mystic who met George Armstrong Custer at Little BigHorn, and Neil, open your set with Cortez the Killer. Let in the Earth radicals from where? Who are they? … let the unknown arrestees take the stage to shout for the Earth’s life. Ask dazzling Daryl Hannah, can she please produce the harmonizing tree-hug…

1
Climate Reparations | Esther Afolaranmi 36:29

2M ago36:29

36:29

Reparations provide legal rights. So argues lawyer and humanitarian, Esther Afolaranmi. Esther is the founder of the Golden Love and Hands of Hope Foundation in Nigeria, working on women’s liberation, girls’ education and lobbying the UN to meet the climate pledges promised at COP meetings. Esther joins me to discuss the links between climate, fami…

1
123. What Has Trash, Blacktop, Cars, and Unnatural Heat. And - the Earth! 29:00

2M ago29:00

29:00

Yet our neighborhoods continue to drift toward a great mono-culture, deadly to play and resistance. The physical characteristics of the city are against the body, against the poor and people of color. We are more aware of the attack on us by the rich since Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, and Occupy Wall Street. These are the great freedom rides …

1
Doing the Right Thing | Gianluca Grimalda 1:06:21

2M ago1:06:21

1:06:21

What would you lose to take a stand? Gianluca Grimalda, a climate change researcher, lost his job after he refused to fly back from fieldwork in Papua New Guinea. Gianluca has been “slow travelling” for decades. He thinks his former employer tried to make an example out of him because of his climate activism. It’s one of those stories that reveals …

1
122 Animals Teach Us the Song of Power 29:00

2M ago29:00

29:00

Dreams of liberation and laughter, freedom and love. When we get up our dreams turn into music and the more-than-human creatures sing in passionate harmonies, preparing to pull our dreams into action in broad daylight. The melody and beats that dreamily echo in our bodies make a common song shared by all living things as we march on the fossil pois…

1
Episode 5 - Animal Rights 20:22

3M ago20:22

20:22

By Hapi & the Lost Species

1
The Body Politic | Ranu Mukherjee 1:02:04

3M ago1:02:04

1:02:04

Our bodies know what words fail to describe. Shifts in culture, ravages of violence, ruptures and reconciliation—the body politic lives in our own bodies, informing and inhibiting our experience in the world. Yet, we fail to recognise this connection, and the even wider one of our own bodies as part of the earth's system, which is experiencing grea…

1
121. Modern Life Was Supposed To Be This Dazzling, Shiny Thing. 29:00

2M ago29:00

29:00

The Earth's every measurement, every single set of numbers we can give to the sky-rocketing heat, the sea-rise and wind-speed of storms and Iowa tornadoes and drowned polynesian islands... all the mass death of wild-life as well as the mass war of humans... it is all deadly-looking. But look we must, and the first thing we see is that many others, …

1
The Symbolic Species | Terrence Deacon 59:36

3M ago59:36

59:36

We belong to our symbols as much as they belong to us. Like the planetary environment, our relationship with language and symbols has impacted our culture, even our biology, argues Professor of Anthropology, Terrence Deacon. Our capacity for interpretation allows us to understand one another and work as a collective mind, explaining the incredible …

1
120. Mockingbirds and John Coltrane Will Save us 29:00

3M ago29:00

29:00

Turn to the Earth for your leadership NOW. How is this possible? Wait for direction from what Russel Means called ‘The Great Mystery’. Decrypt the wild life. Presidents should always not be sure of their answers. The only special quality that nation-states have, which make them unique, is that they are weaponized. Disarm nations and start over with…

1
Energy Wars | Art Berman 1:13:26

3M ago1:13:26

1:13:26

Whoever controls the energy supply controls the new world order. Russia and China are deepening their relationship, Western allies in the Middle East are joining the fossil-fuelled BRICS alliance spanning the globe, and the Wagner group is loosening Europe’s grip of Africa. The tectonic plates of geopolitics are shifting along new fault lines as ri…

1
119. IS THIS APOCALYPSE FRIENDLY? 29:00

3M ago29:00

29:00

The danger continues. The big boys are up there messing with mother nature while I'm brushing my teeth in the suburb with no name. And entire towns are disappearing in the downpours and fires... But one person's Nessun Dorma is another person's Screaming Mountain Gopher. One person's Thus Spake Zarathustra is another person's Go Away Bird. The shad…

1
The Thermodynamics of Degrowth | Tim Garrett 1:33:12

3M ago1:33:12

1:33:12

What's the relationship between our energy consumption, our material footprint and our economies? Tim Garrett and I come to refer to these as “the holy trinity”. Tim is a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Utah, and over two years ago, he joined me to discuss the thermodynamics of collapse, where he explained his research into t…

1
118. Proposal: We Take Back Our Insides 29:00

3M ago29:00

29:00

The con-men and con-women look in at us and claim our insides. They introduce us to our own interior, our identity is their property. THIS ARRANGEMENT WILL KEEP US MODERATE, UNABLE TO CHALLENGE THE POISONERS. THE MASS EXTINCTION OF NATURAL LIFE AND ITS PARALLEL CRIME OUR EXTREME WEALTH AND EXTREME POVERTY…. THE MASS MORTALITY WILL ACCELERATE. Shopp…

1
Reimagining A.I | John Wild 1:03:50

4M ago1:03:50

1:03:50

What does artificial intelligence have in common with eugenics? The first person to float the idea of a "general intelligence" was a eugenicist who was determined to rank intelligence according to race. This is just one of the legacies of A.I., a technology which Silicon Valley vehemently promises will transform the world, but which for now only co…

1
117. Loving the Earth in a Mudslide 29:00

4M ago29:00

29:00

It's tricky. When 10,000 products try to hardsell you every day, promising happiness, sex, wealth, health and beauty, but those products are secretly polluting the Earth creating impossible wind and waves, fire and floods... And the answer to this betrayal is to love the Earth and team up with the Earth against the product toxins, but then the Eart…

1
The Reduction Roadmap | Dani Hill-Hansen 1:07:38

4M ago1:07:38

1:07:38

Who takes the initiative when governments fail to ask? Amazingly, in Denmark, an industry is lobbying its government for much tighter regulations to absolutely reduce emissions in order to meet the Paris Agreement. Stakeholders across the entire Danish building industry have agreed to an ambitious reduction roadmap tafter a team of architects under…

1
116. Freedom Fighting inside Neil Young's Songs 29:00

4M ago29:00

29:00

The history of movements is felt deeply in Neil's songs, in "Four Dead in Ohio" and the cracking whip in "Southern Man", the vulnerability of "Comes a Time" and "Searching for a Heart of Gold" and the relentless rock of Crazy Horse when it breaks into "Hey Hey My My (out of the Blue and into the Black). In this Riot we select as an echo to our nigh…

1
The Politics of Food | Chris Smaje 54:49

4M ago54:49

54:49

What’s the future of food? Last year, two of my former podcast guests had a long and very public disagreement about the politics of food, locking horns over the utility of farming in a densely-populated world. Activist and writer George Monbiot has written extensively about lab-grown food and the need to revolutionise our food systems with technolo…

1
115. On the Road with Neil Young 29:00

4M ago29:00

29:00

The powerful thing about this experiment is that we are talking directly to people about the Earth’s crisis. It’s not graphics, mass mailings, or social media’s pixels. In the first three shows the choir and I played to 21,000 people. Our job is like an opening act, but also we are hosting the event of the LOVE EARTH tour. Neil and his partner Dary…

1
Designing Collective Security | Olivia Lazard 1:31:25

4M ago1:31:25

1:31:25

We’re breaking all kinds of records at the moment: cities are boiling at 62C, ocean temperatures are literally off the charts, and governments have increased the global defence budget to an alarming $2440 billion. War costs life, and not just human life. The environmental impacts of war are colossal, with one study already showing that the first fe…

1
114. Malcolm, Sinéad, Bernie, 29:00

4M ago29:00

29:00

Beatles, Panthers, Standing Rock, David Graeber, Act-Up, Earth First, XR. Today as we prepare to tour with Neil Young, we find ourselves wondering: Can a famous activist or group make change on the level that the Earth needs? Or is Consumer Society always pushing such people to depoliticize?By Reverend Billy and Savitri D

1
Global Carbon Reward | Delton Chen 1:44:16

4M ago1:44:16

1:44:16

Can the market do the right thing? Not without supportive policy. Market-based solutions do not have a good track record when it comes to climate, stuck as they are within an exploitative economic framework. But, equally, we cannot just do away with markets, which have existed for millennia in many different forms. They need revolutionised, not aba…

1
113. Government by Eco-Orgasm 29:00

5M ago29:00

29:00

“There must be more to life!” was the cry as the new movement toward Earth-friendly Love took root in a White Christian Nationalist enclave of rural Texas. Worshippers were stranded with their Bibles as the mass of Trumpers seemed to veer off during a Pentecostal hymn that spun out of control. Senior church officials lamented “You could feel a happ…

1
Social Tipping Points | Erin Remblance 56:47

5M ago56:47

56:47

Here’s the good news: People can change—quickly. Sometimes it feels impossible to imagine anything other than collapse with the way our energy systems are designed, the corruption in governance, and the financial motives which skew the present system towards profit over everything else. It’s true that if nothing changes, the global system will coll…

1
112. 99 Failed Human Protests. Then the Earth Makes Her Move. 29:00

5M ago29:00

29:00

The Earth is the protester now. We don't know how to join her and - we must. The consume-life economy will oppose any effort to break out of the virtual world of American-style capitalism. We are all the natural disaster. We are inside the tsunamis and quakes and typhoons and heat-waves and fires and floods... We are inside the disappearance of lif…

1
Global Oil Depletion | Alister Hamilton 55:15

5M ago55:15

55:15

When do you think we’ll run out of oil? 2050? 2100? Never? That’s understandable given the IPCC models access to oil until 2100; politicians like Rishi are betting big on North Sea deposits. Petroleum is the life blood of our global economy, and it’s difficult to imagine it drying up. More often, when we talk about transitioning away from fossil fu…

1
111 Start the Ecstatic Enviromania 29:00

5M ago29:00

29:00

It is clearly a moment for a new approach to defending the Earth. All manner of protests can be absorbed by the police and their corporation sponsors. Control of the press, shadow-banning of social media, the constant presence of aggressive marketing - the sources of climate toxins have had many years to perfect their response to standard protestin…

1
The Origins of Hell On Earth | Carl Safina 53:17

5M ago53:17

53:17

I like to think of intellectual discourse as the entangled root network of an ancient tree: everything is connected to everything else. Not so much a linear march of progress but a gnarled and entangled mess from which fruits bear. This is why, despite thousands of years, some ideas don’t travel very far, but double back and loop themselves around …

1
110. When Your Try to Fire the EARTH 29:00

5M ago29:00

29:00

Always invite the Earth - the living being who creates living beings that become a part of it - to whatever event you are hosting. If you are negotiating with New York City about what to do with the 10,000 migrants arriving each month, and you don't have the Earth at the table, then you are pissing in Hell. First of all, they are coming here becaus…

1
Earth Riot Radio Trailer 1:56

5M ago1:56

1:56

Hosted by Reverend Billy and Savitri D, EARTH RIOT is a comedy-infused, music-filled exploration of the planet’s Sixth Extinction. Made by "Earth-loving urban activists" from The Church of Stop Shopping, this podcast inspires listeners to embrace reality and take action. Featuring “News From the Natural World,” a weekly gathering of climate change’…

1
The Psychological Transition | Jonathan Mille 59:11

5M ago59:11

59:11

We need to confront political impossibility. A few months ago, I was sitting on a train bashing out a furious article about the British government’s climate incompetence. The man next to me was in a zoom call on climate change, vigorously shaking his head. I couldn’t help but ask. That’s how I met today’s guest, Jonathan Mille, a researcher at Univ…

1
109. Goddamnit Be Kind! The Sequel... 29:00

6M ago29:00

29:00

We find kindness in the strangest places. Kindness is confusing to the fearful; mistaken for crime by politicians. Kindness has power, after all, that cannot be controlled. Kindness is not a static quality; it is always in motion as people touch and fly apart. Mutual kindness can blossom into radical sharing. Strangers living in a sudden conscious …

1
Rewilding the Earth to Rewild Ourselves | Laura Martin 1:00:59

6M ago1:00:59

1:00:59

We need to restore our own ecology. That doesn’t just mean fencing off parts of the earth into “nature conservation” spaces because, as this week’s guest Laura Martin points out, what does that say about the space on the other side of the fence? That human spaces are unnatural? Or that they don’t deserve to be protected? Laura is an environmental h…

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