There is a strange idea in some environmentalist circles that human population is the main cause of ecological breakdown, and that humans have an *intrinsically* negative impact on ecosystems. Both claims are incorrect. First, human ecological impact is entirely a function of the system of production and provisioning. It depends on what is being produced, under what conditions, and how the yields of production are distributed. For instance, an economy that uses mostly public transit, renewable energy, multi-unit housing and plant-based protein can meet human needs with a fraction of the impact of an economy that produces a lot of SUVs, fossil fuels, mansions and industrial beef, and which allocates a bunch of totally unnecessary production to service the fantasies of overconsuming elites. Remember, we know it is possible to provide decent living standards (DLS) for 8.5 billion people with 30% of current global energy and material use, by ensuring efficient technologies and focusing production on socially necessary goods and services. That much is fairly straightforward. But one might say that, even so, every person will always have some negative impact. This too is incorrect. Again, it depends entirely on the production system, and specifically, what people are mobilized to do. Under capitalism, labour is mobilized overwhelmingly to produce things that are profitable to capital. But labour could just as easily be mobilized instead for regeneration. Using straightforward public finance mechanisms, we can fund massive programmes to reforest barren lands, regenerate degraded ecosystems, restore biodiversity, advance agroecological methods, etc. Under these conditions, it is possible for societies to not only have minimal negative impact on ecology, but to have a net-positive impact, actively improving ecological indicators. People buy into the myth of the intrinsic destructiveness of humans because we have come to take capitalism for granted. But it is 100% possible to organize production and labour differently. Under capitalism, we are compelled to produce whatever is most profitable to capital, even if it is destructive to humans and nature. Under conditions of economic democracy, we can produce what we know is necessary for well-being and ecology.

The Palestinian struggle for food sovereignty, is part of the universal struggle for the realization of the right to food. The tools that will free the Palestinian people from occupat'n, oppress'n &exploitat'n will be the same ones that can free us all Art by: Omar Khouri /end

Convergence along these lines is also not possible given the imperialist structure of the world economy. High consumption in the core of the world-system depends on massive net-appropriation from the periphery. This model cannot be universalized.

Kinda overwhelmed right now. The RC into state abuse has a 110-page case study looking at the Great Barrier boot camp I've spent two decades excavating. It's somehow - impossibly - worse than I thought. abuseincare.org.nz/assets/Wh…

We have modelled the health impacts of 5 food policies that could be implemented in NZ to improve the health of the population: thespinoff.co.nz/partner/09-…

"Our house is on fire and we're literally telling the firemen they have too much water." It has long been clear that despite all the climate pieties mouthed by global elites, if an energy transition threatened to upset the geopolitical status quo the collective West would do everything possible to block, or slow it down. This is why the planetary crisis is primarily a geopolitical problem and not an issue that can be 'solved' through techno-scientific fixes.