Reality Studies
Urgent Futures with Jesse Damiani
Wim Carton & Andreas Malm: Overshoot & Climate Breakdown | Urgent Futures #39
0:00
Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -1:32:19
-1:32:19

Wim Carton & Andreas Malm: Overshoot & Climate Breakdown | Urgent Futures #39

🎙 Jesse sits down with 'Overshoot' co-authors to discuss the climate politics, philosophies, and strategies that are destroying the biosphere and putting us all at risk.

Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds {signals} in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.

Like what you see? 🤓 Pop over to YouTube and Subscribe and/or share it with a friend you think would enjoy it.

My guests this week are Wim Carton and Andreas Malm.

Wim Carton is Associate Professor of Sustainability Science at Lund University, Sweden. He's the author of over 20 academic articles and book chapters on climate politics. His work has appeared in top journals such as Nature Climate Change, WIRES Climate Change and Antipode.

Andreas Malm teaches human ecology at Lund University, Sweden. He is the author of, among other books, Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming and How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire.

Together, they are authors of Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown. This book should be required reading. Grab your copy here.

Well, this episode could not be better timed—and I mean that in the worst imaginable way. On Monday, Donald Trump announced that the U.S. is in the midst of an “energy crisis,” and signaled that it was time for us to “drill baby, drill.” This is an unimaginably stupid decision that will damn millions of people and other earthlings to unnecessary death or suffering. And it’s precisely reflective of what Andreas and Wim argue in their superb, devastating new book, Overshoot. Here’s a quote to give you a sense of their argument:

And when the third decade of the millennium dawned, the relationship remained firmly in place: the warmer the globe became, the more fossil fuels were poured on the fire. The higher the temperatures, the larger the emissions. The closer the Earth came to being engulfed in flames — literally and figuratively — the harder companies worked to get oil and gas and coal out of the ground and ferry them off to combustion.

Fans of the channel will recognize the term “overshoot” here, but the authors are quick to note that their usage is adjacent to “ecological overshoot,” which holds that humanity is consuming more resources than the Earth can sustain. Rather, Andreas and Wim identify overshoot as the political stance that holds we can “overshoot” the “1.5° C to stay alive” heating limit as long as we return back to it.

This stance has found widespread enthusiasm among powerful nations and corporations for the simple fact that it allows them to keep raking in record profits and kick the can on curbing emissions and segueing to more sustainable forms of energy. This form of political overshoot also puts critical distance between us and a future full of cleaner energy like solar and wind, again, for the simple fact that they yield less profit for these companies. Of course, this “smoke ‘em if you got ‘em” attitude is going to drive our Earth to uninhabitability.

Andreas and Wim outline the history that brought us here, analyze the present moment, and identify a few salient recent examples of modest successes in “asset stranding,” rendering fossil fuel infrastructure unviable—plus so much more.

Some other episodes you might like:

If you’re loving the Urgent Futures podcast…

Please subscribe + leave a review on your preferred podcast platform! Or recommend it to a friend who might like it. All of it help the podcast grow.

Guests on Urgent Futures are experts across art, science, media, technology, philosophy, economics, mathematics, anthropology, and more. We live in complex times; these are the voices who will help you orient to emerging futures.

🎧 Audio versions of the podcast can be found Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you like what you hear, please subscribe on those channels!

Support Reality Studies

NOTE: Thank you for supporting my work by purchasing these products through the links provided. I will only ever share products I actually believe in.

Health & Wellness:

ZBiotics: Right now, get 10% off ZBiotics. Just head over to zbiotics.com and use code JESSEDAMIANI. If you have an evening with drinking and a morning you need to feel fresh, these are a great help.

Genetically engineered by a team of PhD microbiologists, ZBiotics is a probiotic drink that breaks down the byproduct of alcohol responsible for rough mornings after drinking (acetaldehyde).

MUD\WTR: Right now, get 30% off on starter packs using this link. There’s four different blends to choose from, but my current favorite is :rest. “This is our protest to hustle culture,” they say, and that resonates with me. Not only does it actually help me ramp down to sleep, but since I froth a little milk and make a latte with it, I get the warm cozy feeling of morning coffee at night. (For the evening tea drinkers out there: I’m not saying it’s better, just different!)

Mission Farms CBD: Right now, get a special extended Cyber Monday 50% discount sitewide using this link (code will be in top banner). Mission Farms CBD crafts full-spectrum CBD products for specific conditions like sleep, stress, and discomfort, using a combination of CBD and terpenes found in essential oils. I swear by this stuff: I take one of their Marionberry Lemon gummies to end each day.

There’s a lot of junk CBD on the market. All of Mission Farms’s CBD comes from a small farm in Bend, Oregon. They farm the hemp organically, tend every plant by hand, and test for purity four times: the soil, the hemp, the hemp-extract, and the final products. This CBD is designed for wellness and it shows. Go to this link and sign up for emails to get 25% off your first order.

Digital Hygiene:

NordVPN: For a limited time, get up to 72% off using this link. Some people tell me that “VPN” brings to mind ideas of hackers and the dark web, but honestly VPNs are just an extremely easy way to stay much safer online. I’ve used NordVPN for the past four years, and appreciate what they offer, including Threat Protection against malware, 24/7 customer support, fast speeds, and more. One account can protect up to 6 devices (phone and computer), and they don’t track or share what you do online. Another benefit: you can always access the content/apps you have at home, wherever in the world you are.

1Password: Listen, I know from personal experience that password managers don’t make for the most riveting dinner party conversation, but I need to express 3 things: 1) They make your life so much easier—it’s called “1Password” because once you get set up it’s the only password you’ll ever need to remember again. 2) They make your online life so much safer, ensuring that you use unique passwords for every account, stored with a high degree of encryption. 3) They are not nearly as complicated to set up as you think they are! Head over to 1Password using this link for a free trial, and individual plans for less than $3/mo after that.


CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.

Reality Studies is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Past conversations include Taylor Lorenz, Lisa Messeri, Legacy Russell, William E. Rees, Renée DiResta, and more. Here is another recent episode with California Communities Against Toxics Executive Director Jane Williams:

Discussion about this podcast