Recently, the Finnish Green Party has been leading the way among green movements in embracing nuclear energy. Tea and Marco tell us why that came to be and how it could be the future for the rest of Europe. The trio also discuss how human demography has and will shape energy consumption, and the question of degrowth-oriented environmental solutions that seem to prioritize “punishing” humanity more than redeeming it.

Tea Törmänen is a Finland-based biologist and member of Finland’s Green Party. She is the International Coordinator of RePlanet.

Marco Visscher is a Netherlands-based journalist and author of Waarom we niet bang hoeven te zijn voor kernenergie (Why We Need Not Fear Nuclear Energy).

Recent energy crises in Europe have helped to put nuclear energy back on a strong footing. But does that mean that powers like Iran will be able to build them? How will industrializing nations vulnerable to climate change like India balance economic growth with ecological stability? What will mass “climate migration” look like, and what will be the political structures needed to address it? These are all questions that Jesse and Ash take on in this episode.

Jesse Velay-Vitow is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto Department of Physics, researching paleoclimate and ice-ocean interactions. He tweets @JesseVelay, and his article “Climate Change Is Inevitable” is available in print in PALLADIUM 07: Garden Planet. Palladium members receive our quarterly print edition and invitations to exclusive events.

When Kim Il-Sung, the founder of North Korea, was fighting against Japanese occupiers, environmentalism and folk mythology were interwoven parts of his legend—it was rumored he could turn pine tree cones into flaming bullets, preventing the Japanese from harvesting the pine forests for their imperial wars. It was only one part of a much wider “ecotheology” that characterizes North Korean environmentalist policies even today.

Wolf and Dylan also discuss the recent history of Japanese whaling—how global initiatives, beginning in the 1970s, aimed to curtail the practice with mixed results. The Japanese still continue to hunt whales, but argue that is done so on sustainable terms. Ecosovereignty and ecotheology are concepts that will define a world that is now beginning a long climactic and geopolitical shift.

Dylan Levi King is a Tokyo-based translator of modern Chinese literature and a writer on contemporary online culture. You can follow him on Twitter @dylanleviking. His article “Environmentalism in One Country” can be read here, and it is currently available in print in PALLADIUM 07: Garden Planet.

Henri Gregoire is a mysterious figure. Both revolutionary and clerical, universalistic and patriotic, he embodies many of the contradictions of the Revolution. Walking us through his biography and elite-level political life during the Enlightenment, Ash makes a case for how Henri Gregoire’s beliefs anticipated those of future revolutionaries around the world.

Ash Milton is the Managing Editor of Palladium Magazine.

As computing technology has become more widespread, the possibilities it offers the user have been narrowed. DRM restrictions, software bloat, and “appification” have made tinkering more difficult. Attempts at fixing this, such as the open-source software movement, have not been able to halt the trend. How can it be done differently?

Eron Wolf is the Software Author at FUTO, an organization dedicated to improving tech sovereignty for the user. He founded Yahoo! Games and was a seed investor for Whatsapp. He tweets @eron_wolf.

France occupies a unique position among the Western powers. With public spending at two thirds of its GDP, the French bureaucratic state has historically required a powerful executive. Charles de Gaulle refounded the state after the end of World War II and built a system that ensured the French executive is representative of the people’s will, able to instantly reorganize the government when needed, and an embodiment the nation’s traditions.

Roger Bitton is a student of political theory at Yale University. His writing focuses on liberalism and institutional development.

Socialist Chile centrally planned its economy using Project Cybersyn, which used computerized feedback loops to give production managers live updates on changes in demand and other production indicators. This helped solved the “bullwhip” problem, where producers belatedly learned of changes in demand that originate further down the supply chain.

Capitalist supergiants like Amazon and Walmart use similar systems to maintain efficiency. But ultimately the workers are made to work at the tempo of an automated feedback system that leads to injury and exhaustion. Nicolas and Ash also discuss how industrial rationalization and efficiency can lead to worker organization. Nicolas’s article “How Capitalist Giants Use Socialist Cybernetic Planning” is featured in PALLADIUM 05: Centralizing Society.

Nicolas Villarreal works as an analyst for a government contractor and formerly worked in federal banking regulation. He is a graduate of the College of William and Mary, and author of the novel Caeruleus. He tweets @NicolasDVillar1. 

Join Alex and Charles as they discuss how posthuman societies resemble those of the past, where legitimacy comes from, and the unutilized power of digital communities.

Charles Smith is an entrepreneur in the web3 space and the Co-Founder of Nifty Island, a social game world for online communities. You can find him at @charl3svii.

Erik Hoel is a research assistant professor at Tufts University. He recently published his debut novel, and his other writing can be found at his Substack.

Since then things have changed. China has become no less susceptible to demographic change, financialization, and reliance on opinion polling than its Western counterparts. But there will always be potential for experimentation on China’s frontiers—something that Dylan will go on to capture in his latest article, Empire of The Golden Triangle.

Dylan Levi King is a writer living in Tokyo. His Twitter handle is @dylanleviking.

One recent example of this influence occurred in Kazakhstan during its widespread protests and riots in January 2022. A Russian-led intervention by the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) quelled these protests and secured the position of its new president against his own predecessor. Fin reported on these events for Palladium.

Fin has left Kharkiv since this podcast was recorded. The city has come under escalated assault. Follow on Twitter and Instagram for ongoing updates and for his other work.

Richard Hanania is President of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology (CSPI) and a research fellow at Defense Priorities. He also writes via Substack.

Palladium 04 is our latest quarterly print edition, including an anthology of work and original art. To receive this and future copies, subscribe now.

Palladium 04 is our latest quarterly print edition, including an anthology of work and original art. To receive this and future copies, subscribe now.

Palladium 04 is our latest quarterly print edition, including an anthology of work and original art. To receive this and future copies, subscribe now.

This special episode is available to all listeners. To sign up and receive copies of Palladium 04 and other print editions, subscribe here.

Members also receive the full editions of regular episodes, in addition to other benefits.

The first half of the show is available to all our listeners. The full discussion is available to Palladium Members. Members also get to participate in the Palladium Community Salons, which the editorial podcasts are often based on, as well as other benefits like the community chat.

To become a Palladium Member, subscribe here.

Geremie is an Australian sinologist and author. He currently edits China Heritage and is founder of The Wairarapa Academy for New Sinology.

The first half of the show is available to all our listeners. The full discussion is available to Palladium Members. Members also get to participate in the Palladium Community Salons, which the editorial podcasts are often based on, as well as other benefits like the community chat.

To become a Palladium Member, subscribe here.