The Most Interesting People I Know
News:Politics
Sam Miller McDonald is pursuing a PhD at Oxford studying the intersection of energy production and political power. He’s also an editor at The Trouble, a news site looking at climate change from a left perspective. In 2015, Sam co-founded ActivistLab, an online publication focused on improving social change. Sam is a prolific writer, with work in Current Affairs, the New Republic, the Baffler, In These Times, and elsewhere.
I should warn you up front that this is a bummer of a conversation, but I’m glad we had it. I found Sam to be informed and honest about the challenge before us.
We touch on:
Sam's research, the problem of climate change, whether industrial agriculture is actually efficient, what would be in Sam's Green New Deal, whether cities are as good for the environment as we may think, the challenge of resettling the predicted hundreds of millions of climate refugees, dealing with the despair that climate change uniquely inspires, Extinction Rebellion, the role of nuclear power, and how you can fight climate change most effectively.
Show notes:
Sam’s articles we discuss:
The City of Tomorrow
Collapse Despair
Beyond Fluorescent Bulbs: 4 Things Millennials Can Do To Fight Climate Change
Other stuff:
Effective Altruism forum post on whether climate change is an existential risk
Sam on the BBC discussing climate anxiety
Episode photo by Zbynek Burival on Unsplash
34 - Carl Robichaud on Oppenheimer and Dealing with Nukes
33 - Habiba Islam on the Left and Effective Altruism
32 - Rutger Bregman on Why People Are Decent, Effective Altruism, and Causing Tucker Carlson’s Meltdown
31 - Alexander Zaitchik on How Bill Gates Impeded Global Access to Covid Vaccines
30 - Tobias Leenaert on the Pragmatic Path to a Vegan World
29 - Conor Oberst on Bright Eyes, the Iraq War, protest music, and the music industry under socialism
28 - David Shor on Why Bernie Would Have Won in 2016- But Not in 2020
27 -Trevor Beaulieu on Champagne Sharks and Why Killmonger Was Right
26 - Ross Barkan on Running for Office and the Return of Socialism to New York
25 - Charlie Bresler on the Lives You Can Save
24 - Edgar Villanueva on Decolonizing Wealth
23 - Akash Mehta on why Andrew Cuomo is Not Your Friend
22 - Zach Roberts on Bloomberg's NYPD and Antifascist Journalism
21 - Malaika Jabali on Identity Politics and Myths About the Midwest
20 - Meagan Day on the Case for Bernie Sanders
19 - Ben Burgis on Reclaiming Logic for the Left
18 - Marcus Davis on Nuclear War, Invertebrate Sentience, and Foundational Research
17 - Rob Scott on Teaching College in Prison
16 - Andrés Gómez Emilsson on Solving Consciousness and Being Happy All the Time
15 - Matt Stoller on Fighting Monopoly Power and Why Obama Was Actually Bad
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