Infiltrate the System: curated climate justice news, calls-to-actions, and events in so-called Canada
Shake Up The Establishment
Non-partisan, federally incorporated nonprofit promoting environmental literacy and political climate action in Canada.
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?? Podcast: Brown Girl Green
Platform: Spotify?
Follow Filipina American Kristy Drutman as she talks about all things environment, diversity, and climate justice. Learn about interesting topics like art activism and youth organizing or even dating as an environmentalist.
Listen to the podcast here: https://www.browngirlgreen.com/media?
Recommended by: Jane Pangilinan, Policy, Community & Campaigns Coordinator (she/her)
?? Upstream Podcast: How The North Plunders The South?
Platform: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
A conversation with Jason Hickel (professor and author) exploring the theory of uneven exchange and how it sheds light on neocolonialism in practice, discussing some of the key findings from Jason’s research on imperialist appropriation in the world economy, dispelling some of the myths perpetuated by those claiming that capitalism has lifted “millions out of poverty,” and talking about what a just degrowth transition of the global economy would look like and, crucially, how we might achieve it.
The imperial core—which is comprised of settler-colonial states like those in Western Europe, as well as states like the United States, Canada and Australia—have been stealing the resources and labor of the Global South—or the periphery—for centuries. It started with the direct colonial violence and resource exploitation that marked much of the last few centuries, but it didn’t end there. Neo-colonialism is broadly defined as the use of economic, political, cultural, or other pressures to control or influence other countries, especially former colonies. The practice of widespread crude, cruel, brute force that marked direct colonialism may not exist in the same exact form as it once did—but the outcome is still the same: mass extraction and exploitation from the Global South which has resulted in a staggering net transfer of resources, wealth, and labor to the Global North.
Listen to the podcast here: https://sites.libsyn.com/435210/unlocked-how-the-north-plunders-the-south-w-jason-hickel??????
Recommended by: Angelo Maurer, Director of Campaigns and Partnerships (he/they)
?? Book: The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Amitav Ghosh traces the origins of the climate crisis to Western colonialism’s exploitation of racialized bodies and natural resources. Set largely against the backdrop of the Dutch conquest of nutmeg during the colonization of the "New World", Ghosh demonstrates that our crisis ultimately stems from a mechanistic perspective of the Earth.
Recommended by: Zeina Seaifan, Policy, Community & Campaigns Coordinator (she/her)
?? Book: Braiding Sweetgrass?
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
"Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer beautifully intertwines indigenous wisdom, botany, and environmental consciousness. It urges us to reconnect with nature, honoring reciprocal relationships and offering profound insights into sustainability and spirituality.
Purchase here: https://milkweed.org/book/braiding-sweetgrass
Recommended by: Nicola Radatus-Smith, Policy, Community & Campaigns Coordinator (she/her)
?? Book: Octavia’s Brood
Publisher: AK Press
Science Fiction stories from social justice movements. Walidah Imarisha and Adrienne Maree Brown have brought twenty of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change. The visionary tales of Octavia’s Brood span genres—sci-fi, fantasy, horror, magical realism—but all are united by an attempt to inject a healthy dose of imagination and innovation into our political practice and to try on new ways of understanding ourselves, the world around us, and all the selves and worlds that could be.
Recommended by: Manvi Bhalla, Executive Director (she/her)
?? Book: Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case For Hope For Healing In A Divided World
Publisher: Atria Books
"Saving Us" by Katharine Hayhoe outlines climate science's urgency with hope, advocating for unity amidst division to tackle global challenges through understanding, compassion, and collective action.
Recommended by: Jane Pangilinan, Policy, Community & Campaigns Coordinator (she/her)
?? Book: The Fragile Earth
Publisher: HarperCollins
A collection of essays from the New Yorker, follow along through stories from in the lab, the field, the forest and more to learn what science, politics, and nature have to say about the climate.?
Purchase here: https://shop.queenbooks.ca/item/MEgaIBq6_d9McSsHv0kmUg?
Recommended by: Jane Pangilinan, Policy, Community & Campaigns Coordinator (she/her)
?? Book: Woman on the Edge of Time
Publisher: Self-Published
This book provides a guided experience for readers to explore and play with our Rest, Recovery and Resistance (3Rs) framework, a spin on sustainability’s well-known slogan “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”. By making time for rest, promoting recovery from burnout, and celebrating sustained acts of resistance, this book helps to facilitate radical dreaming and imagination beyond current systems. To support progress towards actualizing shared visions for just, equitable, climate-resilient futures, this self-published organizer's manual features 244 hand-illustrated pages rich with activities and educational resources that guide readers on how to incorporate intersectionality, systems-thinking and anti-colonial practices within their climate solutions work.
Purchase here: https://www.shakeuptheestab.org/journal?
Recommended by: Shake Up The Establishment
?? Research: Amidst Garbage and Poison: An Essay on Polluted Peoples and Places
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Through collaborative ethnography with local students in Flammable shantytown in Buenos Aires, Auyero and Swistun highlight the pervasive contamination and its dire health impacts on the community, particularly on children.
Access here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1525/ctx.2007.6.2.46?
Recommended by: Chloe Wu, Creative Design Support (she/her)
?? Documentary: There’s Something in the Water?
Streaming: Netflix?
This documentary expands on the book and work by Dr. Ingrid Waldron studying and addressing environmental racism in so-called Nova Scotia. With the passage of Bill C-226 this year, this documentary serves as a great reminder of the decades of advocacy and grassroots organizing that got us here.?
Recommended by: Anna Huschka, Director of Policy Interventions (she/her)
?? Documentary: Down to Earth with Zac Efron
Streaming: Netflix
This docuseries provides a really lighthearted introductory look at global climate solutions that can be used to inspire systemic and individual climate action in your community.?
Recommended by: Anna Huschka, Director of Policy Interventions (she/her)
?? Documentary: The Climate Baby Dilemma on CBC
Streaming: CBC
For a growing number of young people, the climate crisis is affecting decisions about whether or not to have kids.
Recommended by: Manvi Bhalla, Executive Director (she/her)