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Novara Media is an independent media organisation addressing the issues—from a crisis of capitalism to racism and climate change—that are set to define the 21st century.
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Downstream: Ex-Accountant Whistleblower: The System Is About to Break w/ Richard Murphy
In 2007, Richard Murphy, a chartered accountant of 42 years, accurately foresaw the global financial crisis. Today, in 2026, he believes we are heading for an even greater crash. And if the AI bubble bursting …
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In 2007, Richard Murphy, a chartered accountant of 42 years, accurately foresaw the global financial crisis. Today, in 2026, he believes we are heading for an even greater crash. And if the AI bubble bursting coincides with escalating war in West Asia, and the impacts of climate change turbocharged by El Niño, he warns the results could be ‘cataclysmic’.
On Downstream this week, Aaron Bastani sits down with the rogue accountant, tax justice campaigner, university professor and financial whistleblower, to discuss the coming polycrisis.
Will the AI bubble bursting be more like the dot com bubble or the 2008 crash? Why are governments including Britain’s telling us to stock up on water and food supplies? And are the Treasury’s claims that there are limits to spending based in truth, or just an excuse for cowardly leadership?
Tickets for the next Downstream IRL at EartH Hackney with Ash Sarkar and Owen Jones on November 16th are available here: https://dice.fm/event/g5v25a-novara-medias-downstream-irl-the-fall-of-the-west-16th-nov-earth-london-tickets?lng=en-US
Do Your Own Research: Inside China’s Biotech Revolution w/ Ruby Wang
In the Mao era, ‘barefoot doctors’ got just a few months of training before being sent out to straighten broken bones and administer vaccines. Now China’s researchers make world-class cancer drugs, cheap …
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In the Mao era, ‘barefoot doctors’ got just a few months of training before being sent out to straighten broken bones and administer vaccines.
Now China’s researchers make world-class cancer drugs, cheap surgical robots and cutting edge brain-computer interfaces. Its doctors make AI-powered avatars of themselves to deal with ever more patients.
But China is growing old before it grows rich. Cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular problems are ballooning. And its aging crisis is coming on faster because of the legacy of its one-child policy. How will China adapt?
Ruby Wang worked on the NHS Covid frontline before becoming Head of Health at the British Embassy in Beijing. And now she’s written The China Cure: The Rise of Biotech, AI Medicine and a Global Health Superpower.
She tells Richard Hames how China got from barefoot doctors to high-tech hospitals, what it learned from Covid, and what the NHS could learn from China.
0:00 Intro
02:48 China’s Medical Transformation
9:31 China’s Zero-Covid Response and the Barefoot Doctors
22:32 Bone Glue, Artemisinin and Traditional Chinese Medicine
34:42 Covid QR Codes vs UK Track and Trace, and AI in Chinese Healthcare
45:16 NHS vs China: Digital Health Records and Drug Development
55:40 Chinese Surgical Robots and Brain-Computer Interfaces
1:06:50 China’s Ageing Population, Falling Birth Rate and Who Pays for HealthcareDownstream: See My Movies Then Go On Strike w/ Boots Riley
You’ve probably heard of Boots Riley’s work – Sorry To Bother You starring LaKeith Stanfield was a surprise hit, and his series I’m A Virgo got picked up by Amazon Prime. But the Oakland-raised …
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You’ve probably heard of Boots Riley’s work – Sorry To Bother You starring LaKeith Stanfield was a surprise hit, and his series I’m A Virgo got picked up by Amazon Prime. But the Oakland-raised rapper-turned-director doesn’t just want you to leave the cinema having had a good time: he wants you to start a revolution. His new film I Love Boosters – starring the incredibly charming Keke Palmer – is about three women who shoplift from high end boutiques, and sell the clothes at a cut price in the hood. But it wouldn’t be a Boots Riley film if it stopped there. What starts as a paean to shoplifters turns into a story of working class shop floor organisation – and international communist action. Is all art propaganda? Is shoplifting a revolutionary act? What role does style play in the revolution? And what’s it like being the most high profile communist in Hollywood, in Trump’s America? Spoilers Warning: Information about the plot is disclosed at 17:50 – 19:20, 26:40 – 27:50, and 54:10 – 54:50. 00:00 Introduction 00:53 What’s It Like Being a Communist in Hollywood? 02:24 The Contradictions of Having Radical Politics Under Capitalism 03:23 “Suits for Rage”: The Contradictions We All Embody 08:27 How Boots Riley Became Communist 09:03 Exposing Injustice Isn’t Enough: Action is Needed 11:24 What Actually Makes People Join Movements? 13:08 Hollywood’s Problem With Radical Politics 20:10 On Craft, Creativity and Alienation 23:08 Boots Riley’s Superhero Origin Story 31:00 General Strike Now! 35:02 Every Film Is Political 42:28 Is the Right Better at Propaganda? 48:05 How the Cops Manufactured a Shoplifting Panic 53:08 It’s All Propaganda Support our work Buy Novara Media merchACFM Trip 64: Confidence
Ever felt like an imposter? Jem, Nadia and Keir offer a weird-left analysis of confidence – from market dynamics and private school to the power of positive thinking – with ideas from Barbara Ehrenreich, Dale …
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Ever felt like an imposter? Jem, Nadia and Keir offer a weird-left analysis of confidence – from market dynamics and private school to the power of positive thinking – with ideas from Barbara Ehrenreich, Dale Carnegie and Foucault.
For the musical version of this episode – featuring Wiley, Dolly Parton and Gloria Gaynor – head to our SoundCloud:
Find the books mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm
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Follow our playlist on Spotify by searching ‘ACFM’.Become a Novara Media supporter: https://novara.media/support
Do Your Own Research: How China Defied The End of History w/ Kaiser Kuo
Through the 1990s and the 2000s, the West told itself a story: let China get rich, and it’ll become like us. But then China got rich – and it become less and less like the West. Kaiser Kuo – host of the Sinica …
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Through the 1990s and the 2000s, the West told itself a story: let China get rich, and it’ll become like us. But then China got rich – and it become less and less like the West.
Kaiser Kuo – host of the Sinica Podcast, former Baidu executive, and founding guitarist of China’s first heavy metal band, Tang Dynasty – thinks we need to reckon with this fact: that China has not only now caught up, but is making its own path in modernity.
China has replaced liberal democracy with a strange alloy of Confucianism, Leninism, technocracy, state capitalism and markets – and that combination is outperforming the West. What liberals assumed was the triumphant end of history might turn out to have been a historical cul-de-sac.
Kaiser and Richard Hames talk Francis Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington, Wang Huning and the late Qing Dynasty, solar panels and performance legitimacy, and discuss what happens when the future stops looking Western.
Explore the map of everything in the world that has ever mattered.
00:00 Intro
03:35 Is Chinese Tech The Best?
10:42 The Great Reckoning: Why the West Must Rethink China
21:56 Confucianism, Leninism and Technocracy
31:03 Confucianism and Modern China
41:44 Can China’s State Control Capitalism?
52:04 Many Kinds of Modernity: China as a Model and China Shock 2.0
1:02:53 Green Energy, Industrial Policy and US-China Convergence
1:16:20 Fukuyama, Huntington and Wang Huning: Visions of the FutureDownstream: The New Right Is Obsessed With AI, Israel & the Apocalypse w/ Naomi Klein & Astra Taylor
In Brighton, for a special recording of Downstream IRL, Ash Sarkar sat down with Naomi Klein, and organiser, writer and co-founder of the Debt Collective, Astra Taylor. They gathered to discuss their new book …
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In Brighton, for a special recording of Downstream IRL, Ash Sarkar sat down with Naomi Klein, and organiser, writer and co-founder of the Debt Collective, Astra Taylor. They gathered to discuss their new book, End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World.
An apocalyptic alliance of religious fundamentalists, billionaire Silicon Valley tech kings and ethno-nationalists is gathering momentum. They aren’t just exploiting collapse, they’re provoking and accelerating it, whilst protecting themselves from the fallout. The world’s fate is increasingly in the hands of men who are ambivalent about its survival and betting money on the end.
Already, anger at the building of data centres is cutting across left and right, in a way that climate politics rarely has – but how do we make sure that anger is heard? How do we separate necessary alarm from fatalism? And what can we prepare for the impending AI crash?
End Times Fascism (2026) by Naomi Klein & Astra Taylor: https://shop.novaramedia.com/products/end-times-fascism
Do Your Own Research: The Mao Era – Catastrophe or Necessity? w/ Rebecca Karl
No one is disputed like Mao. Was he a mass murderer, a Communist hero, a charlatan, or a great poet? The saviour of the peasants, or the man who extracted from them all that he could? Mao’s biography is a nest …
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No one is disputed like Mao. Was he a mass murderer, a Communist hero, a charlatan, or a great poet? The saviour of the peasants, or the man who extracted from them all that he could?
Mao’s biography is a nest of contradictions. He led the largest revolution in world history, then presided over its largest famine – and even then, life expectancy rose 20 years over the course of his rule. He launched rebellions – against a government he already controlled. He purged his enemies and friends alike.
Some 50 years after his death, he remains a central figure in Chinese politics. The Communist Party of China posthumously declared him to be 70% right and 30% wrong, but his face still hangs over Tiananmen Square.
In this second episode on China’s history, Rebecca Karl – author of China’s Revolutions in the Modern World – returns to tell Richard Hames about the Mao era, with all its promises, contradictions and catastrophes.
Watch the previous episode with Rebecca, on China’s century of revolutions.
Explore the map we’re making throughout this series of DYOR, of all the people, events and ideas of the Mao era.
00:00 Intro
4:00 Who Was Mao?
10:52 The 1950s: Land Reform & Early Socialism
24:27 Gender, Class Divides & Welfare
38:37 The Hundred Flowers Campaign Explained
50:15 Famine & The Great Leap Forward
1:03:09 Was the Famine the End of Socialism? Cold War & the Third Front
1:15:02 The Cultural Revolution Explained
1:28:57 How the Cultural Revolution Ended
1:37:30 Jiang Qing, the Gang of Four & Deng Xiaoping’s Return
1:47:49 Mao’s Legacy: Is China Socialist Today?Downstream: Gaza Has Exposed the Hypocrisy of the West w/ Omar El Akkad
Three years ago, just weeks after the genocide began, writer Omar El Akkad posted a tweet, attached to some footage showing the extent of the ruin that Israel had already visited on Gaza. The compelling …
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Three years ago, just weeks after the genocide began, writer Omar El Akkad posted a tweet, attached to some footage showing the extent of the ruin that Israel had already visited on Gaza. The compelling thought, crystallised in that viral tweet, would go on to become the name of his bestselling book: One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.
Steven Methven, editor of Novara Live, steps in for Aaron Bastani while he is on parental leave. He sat down with Omar to try to make sense of three years of horror.
Why did Omar write his book focusing on the West’s role in the violence, rather than centring Palestine? What would meaningful accountability and justice for Palestinians look like? How does he think Hamas will be remembered? And has he found any source of hope amid the events he describes?
Do Your Own Research: 150 Years of Constant Revolution w/ Rebecca Karl
For a century, China underwent a series of invasions, revolutions and counter-revolutions. In China, it’s known as the Century of Humiliation. It was a time of immense upheavals: from the Opium Wars of 1839 …
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For a century, China underwent a series of invasions, revolutions and counter-revolutions. In China, it’s known as the Century of Humiliation.
It was a time of immense upheavals: from the Opium Wars of 1839, through the Taiping Rebellion, the Xinhai Republican Revolution, a Civil War, an invasion by the Japanese which merged into the Second World War; the resumption of the Civil War and, eventually coming to an end with the Communist Revolution of 1949.
Each one transformed the country more comprehensively than seemed possible beforehand.
Rebecca Karl is the author of China’s Revolutions in the Modern World, which tells us not only what happened, but how its participants tried to make sense of it all, and why that still matters for understanding China now – after all, the Chinese Communist Party haven’t forgotten any of it.
She joined Richard Hames to discuss the century that destroyed imperial China and set the stage for the largest revolution in history.
There is much more to explore on the map we’re making for this series, which shows all the people, ideas and event that define China’s history, present, and future. Get it here.
Support our work: novaramedia.com/support
0:00 Intro
4:37 Opium Wars
12:58 The Man Who Claimed to Be Jesus’s Brother
21:30 The Taiping Rebellion
30:16 1911 Revolution
42:47 The May Fourth Movement
52:10 How the Chinese Communist Party Began
1:01:38 Shanghai Massacre, Mao and the Long March
1:13:22 Japanese Invasion and World War II in China
1:24:30 Chinese Civil War and the 1949 Revolution
Downstream: Former Scottish Leader: How My Family Escaped Gaza & Why I Can’t Forgive Starmer w/ Humza Yousaf
This week marked three years since the Hamas attack of October 7th, and the beginning of the Israeli state’s genocidal onslaught against the Palestinian people. In that time, Western leaders from Joe Biden and …
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This week marked three years since the Hamas attack of October 7th, and the beginning of the Israeli state’s genocidal onslaught against the Palestinian people. In that time, Western leaders from Joe Biden and Donald Trump to Keir Starmer and now Andy Burnham have refused to call the genocide what it is, despite the consensus of genocide scholars. One outlier among Western leaders during this period has been Humza Yousaf.
The former first minister of Scotland, and first Muslim leader of a Western nation, has written a book about his time in government, ‘Under Fire: My Family’s Escape from Gaza and the Cost of Leadership’. On Downstream this week, Aaron Bastani sat down with him to hear first-hand what it was like governing Scotland, while his family were trapped in Gaza.
How did he and his family manage the first few days and weeks of the genocide, while balancing his responsibilities as Scotland’s leader? What kind of pressures did he face internally, and externally, to support Israel? How did he make decisions in government, and how did he take the decision to stand down? What does good leadership require? And what does he think about the fate of the union, and the direction of travel in Britain today?
Do Your Own Research: The Chinese Company That Terrifies the West w/ Eva Dou
Huawei makes the pipes and cables that power the Chinese internet. Its global reach has made China into a superpower. Huawei is often accused of spying for China. But how was the US so sure that Huawei’s …
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Huawei makes the pipes and cables that power the Chinese internet. Its global reach has made China into a superpower.
Huawei is often accused of spying for China. But how was the US so sure that Huawei’s technology could be used for spying? Because the US had already hacked Huawei’s technology and were using it to spy themselves.
That’s not even the strangest episode in the company’s history. Its installations in Iraq were bombed by the UK and US before 9/11. In 2018, its infrastructure allegedly pinged back the secrets of the Africa Union to China overnight. And it now stands accused of doing business in Iran.
Eva Dou is the author of the deeply researched House of Huawei: The Secret History of China’s Most Powerful Company.
She spoke to Richard Hames about the geopolitics of telecommunications, how Huawei made China into a global superpower, and whether or not Huawei is, in fact, a wing of the Chinese state.
And we’ll be making our map of everything that has ever mattered and ever will: this new edition focused on China, available here: novaramedia.com/dyor
0:00 Intro
3:57 Huawei’s Current Legal Battle
14:14 Huawei & Espionage
24:34 Huawei in Africa and Iraq
33:07 The Great Firewall and Tech Rivalry
46:40 The Mysterious CEO: Ren Zhengfei and Shenzhen
55:04 Who Owns Huawei?
1:03:09 How Tiananmen Square Changed Chinese Tech
1:11:19 AI and Microchips
1:19:46 Sanctions, the UK and Huawei’s futureSupport our work: https://novaramedia.com/support
Downstream: Trauma Farming and the Politics of Public Suffering w/ Catherine Liu
Are we in the era of trauma Top Trumps? ‘Lived Experience’ has become a byword for standpoint authority and progressive politics. It has allowed people from marginalised groups to speak and be heard, and forced …
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Are we in the era of trauma Top Trumps? ‘Lived Experience’ has become a byword for standpoint authority and progressive politics. It has allowed people from marginalised groups to speak and be heard, and forced us to confront how power plays out in interpersonal dynamics. But it has also become a way for people to brand themselves online, and excuse antisocial or even downright nasty behaviours. Has ‘lived experience’ helped the left, or turned us into self-obsessed therapy-speakers, incapable of communicating with the majority of people?
At the latest Downstream IRL, Ash Sarkar sat down with Catherine Liu – cultural theorist, professor and author of Virtue Hoarders – to discuss her new book, Traumatized: The New Politics of Public Suffering. Liu argues that as class politics has declined, the language of psychology has stepped in to explain problems rooted in capitalism. But what happens when trauma becomes content and politics gives way to what Liu calls the ‘gentrification of pain’? Is ‘lived experience’ a prerequisite for legitimate political analysis? Why do movements so often end up policing each other rather than confronting power? And if politics becomes about who’s hurting most, who benefits?
Do Your Own Research: Secrets of the Chinese Internet w/ Tianyu Fang
Welcome to Series 2 of Do Your Own Research. Until the end of the year, I will be focusing on the most important and interesting country in the world: China. We’re starting with Tianyu Fang, an editor of …
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Welcome to Series 2 of Do Your Own Research. Until the end of the year, I will be focusing on the most important and interesting country in the world: China.
We’re starting with Tianyu Fang, an editor of Chaoyang Trap, a newsletter all about the Chinese internet.
We’re starting with the internet because that’s so much of what we see of China: fragments of life online. What’s the reality behind them, and how do we square these beguiling, details with the vast story of China’s rise?
What is happening online in China is often reduced to a few memes or movements. We see the dazzling skyline and we stop thinking, and start gawping: that’s what I call the gawp-zone. How do we get out of it?
In this conversation, we go deep into the circuits and technology of the Chinese internet, from its earliest utopian moments to the hemisphere-spanning computing stack we see today.
And we’ll be making our map of everything that has ever mattered and ever will: this new edition focused on China, available here: novaramedia.com/dyor
Downstream: Porn Addiction Defines Our Political Age. Here’s How w/ Ash Sarkar
The effect of pornography on the people who consume it is often moralised about, generally due to its influence over the nascent sexuality of young men. But the business model, technological innovations and …
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The effect of pornography on the people who consume it is often moralised about, generally due to its influence over the nascent sexuality of young men. But the business model, technological innovations and broader, parasexual, cultural effects go crucially underexamined.
This week’s guest, investigative reporter for the Financial Times, Patricia Nilsson, has written a new book unearthing exactly the ways in which these underexamined forces emerged and how they continue to exert influence on society.
She spoke to Ash about pioneering camgirl entrepreneurs, the sado-masochistic-inflected rise of Andrew Tate, and how algorithms have entered the bedroom.
Support our work: https://novara.media/support
ACFM Microdose: Reading The Society of the Spectacle
Following their recent Trip episode on Situationism, the gang offer a close reading of The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord, first published in France in 1967. Nadia, Jem and Keir explore the layered …
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Following their recent Trip episode on Situationism, the gang offer a close reading of The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord, first published in France in 1967. Nadia, Jem and Keir explore the layered references and subversions throughout Debord’s extremely quotable aphorisms, focusing on the first three chapters of the book.
Find a PDF of the book at Libcom.org
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters
Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/supportDownstream: AI Will Destroy Liberal Democracy w/ Daron Acemoglu
When and why did liberal democracy stop working for the many? On Downstream this week is Daron Acemoglu, joint recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, whose 2012 book Why Nations Fail has sold …
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When and why did liberal democracy stop working for the many? On Downstream this week is Daron Acemoglu, joint recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, whose 2012 book Why Nations Fail has sold over a million copies.
He talks to Aaron Bastani about his data-packed new book, What Happened to Liberal Democracy?, which seeks to diagnose and remedy democracy before it’s too late. They talk about the transition to a post-industrial economy, the loss of community, how progressive politics became overrun by middle-class interests, and how AI further threatens our capacity to self-govern and lead flourishing lives.
Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support
Downstream: The Next Big Shock Is Coming. Green Energy Is the Only Way Out w/ Tessa Khan
This summer’s extreme heat, wildfires and thousands of excess deaths have shown that the climate is destabilising faster than predicted. In the face of this undeniable crisis, what should be done? Tessa Khan is …
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This summer’s extreme heat, wildfires and thousands of excess deaths have shown that the climate is destabilising faster than predicted. In the face of this undeniable crisis, what should be done?
Tessa Khan is the founder of Uplift, an organisation working to decarbonise our energy system before it’s too late. The former human rights lawyer realised a decade ago that none of the other social questions matter if we don’t address the climate crisis.
Tessa talks to Aaron Bastani about the calls to keep drilling in the North Sea, whether renewables are susceptible to economic shocks, and how an ageing population impacts climate politics.
Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support
ACFM Trip 63: Situationism
What did the Situationists actually achieve? Nadia, Jem and Keir look back on the antics and manifestos of the socialist revolutionaries who gathered under the banner of the Situationist International. With …
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What did the Situationists actually achieve? Nadia, Jem and Keir look back on the antics and manifestos of the socialist revolutionaries who gathered under the banner of the Situationist International.
With ideas from Debord and Khayati, the gang chart the SI’s influence on politics and media theory, from the central concept of the Spectacle to their lingering influence on pop music, psychogeography and political organising.
Find the books mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters
Follow our playlist on Spotify by searching ‘ACFM’.Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support
Downstream: The Big AI Lie w/ Cory Doctorow
AI is set to take all of our jobs. It will irrevocably transform our relationships – and it might even kill us all. These are some of the big claims made about artificial intelligence today. And they are claims …
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AI is set to take all of our jobs. It will irrevocably transform our relationships – and it might even kill us all. These are some of the big claims made about artificial intelligence today. And they are claims that on Novara, we take seriously. This week’s Downstream guest thinks that giving weight to those grand concerns is a mistake. He believes that by talking up the possibility that AI could replace significant amounts of labour – or develop an agency of its own – only serves to exaggerate the capacity of AI – and therefore just helps tech CEOs drive more investors to buy their already overpriced stocks.
Cory Doctorow is a writer and activist – who’s written 36 books – spanning non-fiction and science fiction. He famously coined the term “ensh*ttification” to describe the modern trajectory of the internet. And he has a new book on AI – it’s called the “The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI”. As Aaron Bastani takes time off on paternity leave, Michael Walker, host of Novara Live, sat down with Cory to ask one of the world’s leading tech writers his burning questions about AI.
Is Cory surprised at the speed of AI’s so-called “evolution”? What does the latest AI “Hugging Face” tell us about AI? Does the AI presented to us in 2026 present a threat to life on Earth, or is that just hype? Is it really intelligent, or just a simulacrum of intelligence? Does it matter?
Downstream: Multiculturalism Will Save the Working Class w/ Jonas Patrick Marvin
We live in a moment when the working class is fractured along a great many lines. Gone are the days of solidarity built around a shared experience of factory work that formed the bedrock of Karl Marx’s analysis …
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We live in a moment when the working class is fractured along a great many lines. Gone are the days of solidarity built around a shared experience of factory work that formed the bedrock of Karl Marx’s analysis of class struggle – and his vision of emancipation. Meanwhile in the halls of power, elites in our politics have failed for decades now to really grasp what people in Britain care about and need – resorting to lame stand-ins such as ‘Mondeo man’ and ‘Stevenage woman’, Farage’s new favourite: ‘alarm clock Britain’.
What are they missing? Lived experience, apart from anything else. On Downstream this week, Ash Sarkar sat down with campaigner and author Jonas Patrick Marvin to discuss his new book ‘The Breaking of the English Working Class’. Weaving autobiographical detail with political theory, Marvin tackles head-on the class forces that have shaped his own life.
Why can’t people born in London afford to stay and build lives there? Who gets to define themselves as working class, and on what grounds? How should the left respond to rising anti-immigration politics? Why has the working class become so fragmented, and what can be done to repair it?
Downstream: Elites Have No Plan for Climate Change w/ Bill McGuire
The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 2026 is roughly the same as when, in the very, very distant past, the Earth was between 6 and 8 degrees warmer. If the Earth were to reach those temperatures …
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The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 2026 is roughly the same as when, in the very, very distant past, the Earth was between 6 and 8 degrees warmer. If the Earth were to reach those temperatures again, the majority of mammals would go extinct.
While we’re not at those temperatures now, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could cause the climate to accelerate towards planetary conditions that pre-date the dinosaurs. This is the stark warning of this week’s guest, Bill McGuire.
A geologist and volcanologist by training, he has spent time as an expert and government advisor on extreme weather events, before becoming an author. According to him, there is no plan for the extreme climactic upheaval that is to come.
Downstream: The Journalist Who Terrifies Corporate America w/ Amy Goodman
The genocide of Palestinians, carried out by the Israeli army with backing from the US and the British state, has lead to an almighty breakdown in public trust in the West. Now more than ever, citizens are …
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The genocide of Palestinians, carried out by the Israeli army with backing from the US and the British state, has lead to an almighty breakdown in public trust in the West. Now more than ever, citizens are turning away from establishment media sources in search of journalism that more closely resembles the world as we see it.
This week on Downstream, Ash Sarkar sits down with Amy Goodman, veteran journalist and founder of Democracy Now!, one of the leading independent media organisations in the US. Goodman is the subject of a new film, Steal This Story, Please!, which documents her storied career covering some of the most consequential moments in American living history. She has confronted sitting presidents, bore firsthand witness to 9/11, survived a firing squad in East Timor and exposed major corporate crime in the Niger Delta.
What drives Amy to do the work she does – shining light on humanity’s darkness, decade after decade? How did her Jewish upbringing in Brooklyn inform her work? What does good journalism look like to her? Why does she believe we all need to re-learn the lost art of disagreement? And does she think American democracy can survive?
ACFM Microdose: How Britain’s Coastal Communities are Reclaiming Power w/ Hazel Sheffield
Nadia visits reporter and author Hazel Sheffield in her Hastings beach hut to talk about the coastal communities that are reimagining their economies in the face of government neglect and climate breakdown …
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Nadia visits reporter and author Hazel Sheffield in her Hastings beach hut to talk about the coastal communities that are reimagining their economies in the face of government neglect and climate breakdown.
They talk about the Hastings Commons project, a constellation of community-owned buildings in a deprived part of the town, and the seaside village in Somerset that built itself a £7m art gallery.
Hazel’s book, Frontierlands: Britain’s Survival in the Making, is available now.
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters
Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/supportDownstream: Ex-Oil Engineer Turned Climate Whistleblower: “We Face Collapse” w/ Kevin Anderson
The summer of 2026 will go down in history books as the hottest, driest and most deadly set of heatwaves Britain has ever experienced. This weather isn’t normal – but it is predictable according to a global …
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The summer of 2026 will go down in history books as the hottest, driest and most deadly set of heatwaves Britain has ever experienced. This weather isn’t normal – but it is predictable according to a global consensus of scientists. And yet this summer, according to the science, will be one of the coolest summers we ever have again. Things will only get hotter from here.
Beginning his career as an oil-rig engineer before retraining as a climate scientist, Kevin Anderson’s career has been an extraordinary journey. On Downstream this week, Aaron Bastani sat down with him to discuss what has become his life’s work: sounding the alarm on man-made climate change, and on the fossil fuel industry that gave him his start.
Just how much has the planet heated, and why? Is the Paris Agreement’s aim of keeping heating to beneath 1.5°C still achievable, or delusional cope? What are the political obstacles to tackling the issue? Having worked with Andy Burnham in Manchester, what does Kevin think he will do on climate, as PM? Is avoiding catastrophe still possible, and if so, how much time have we got to act, before it’s too late?
ACFM 62: The Beach
Nadia, Keir and Jem wonder why humans are drawn to the beach in a weird-left conversation that spans geological deep-time, the birth of surf culture, the politics of faded seaside towns and more, plus music …
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Nadia, Keir and Jem wonder why humans are drawn to the beach in a weird-left conversation that spans geological deep-time, the birth of surf culture, the politics of faded seaside towns and more, plus music from 808 State and The B-52’s.
Find the music and books mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters
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Downstream: The West is Over. Here’s Why w/ Pankaj Mishra
In the years since October 7th, the world has been bitterly polarised over how to make sense of the violence. While polling shows that a majority of people do believe Israel’s actions amount to genocide …
Shownotes
In the years since October 7th, the world has been bitterly polarised over how to make sense of the violence. While polling shows that a majority of people do believe Israel’s actions amount to genocide – having witnessed it with their own eyes via their smartphones – it has been woefully hard to find mainstream media outlets in the West prepared to use this language.
On Downstream this week, Aaron Bastani sat down with Indian essayist and novelist Pankaj Mishra. His most recent book, ‘The World After Gaza’ takes stock of a world order shattered by the genocide, and a media class unprepared to recognise the truth. In response to these crises, Mishra and colleagues have just launched Equator magazine, pulling together leading writers from across the globe who are unafraid to tell the truth.
When did the so-called West first begin to lose standing in the eyes of the rest of the world? Why is the British media class positioned so uniquely close to power, so delusional, and so compromised over Gaza? Will China replace America, in the coming century, as the new hegemonic power? Has it already?
Do Your Own Research: Is This Podcast the Problem? w/ Joshua Citarella
Joshua Citarella built his reputation by mapping synthetic e-deologies of terminally online politics, expressed in memes, micro-disputes and merch drops. Now the artist, Doomscroll host and Do Not Research …
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Joshua Citarella built his reputation by mapping synthetic e-deologies of terminally online politics, expressed in memes, micro-disputes and merch drops.
Now the artist, Doomscroll host and Do Not Research founder has come to a blunter conclusion: it’s time to lock in.
Behind the seeming diversity of online politics, one ideology has already won: the technolibertarianism of the platforms and supply chains that actually make it all run.
So maybe it’s time to get serious, tune out the noise, and get back to basics: workers versus capital.
This episode is the finale of Do Your Own Research Series 1. We’ll be back soon.
Get the map: novaramedia.com/dyor
Music by Iglooghost.
Downstream: Who Profits From Genocide? w/ Andrew Feinstein
A new consensus has emerged in Westminster, seemingly overnight: we need more defence spending, and we need it now. But the Ministry of Defence has a record for waste that would put Tony Soprano to shame. £13 …
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A new consensus has emerged in Westminster, seemingly overnight: we need more defence spending, and we need it now. But the Ministry of Defence has a record for waste that would put Tony Soprano to shame. £13 billion down the drain, since 2010, at the very least. Aircraft carriers that come in late, overbudget, and beset by mechanical failures. IT systems that cost millions, and are wildly out of date. No other government department could get away with it. But the arms trade spends billions of dollars on greasing the wheels of political consent. They employ armies of lobbyists, print reams of analysis, and bribe politicians the world over to keep the war machine funded. The result isn’t just a crisis of corruption. It’s a threat to our survival as a species.
Andrew Feinstein is a former-minister in the South African government, turned investigative reporter. He is the executive director of Shadow World Investigations, and serves on the board of Declassified UK. And in 2024, he stood against Keir Starmer in Holborn and St Pancras. He joins Ash Sarkar on Downstream to lift the lid on how the arms industry really works, and tell us about his political journey.
Do Your Own Research: What JD Vance and Tucker Carlson Actually Believe w/ James Pogue
The American empire is in crisis – and there is a new generation of more vocal critics coming from the right. So what do JD Vance and Tucker Carlson actually believe about American power? James Pogue has …
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The American empire is in crisis – and there is a new generation of more vocal critics coming from the right.
So what do JD Vance and Tucker Carlson actually believe about American power?
James Pogue has reported on empires and their decline for years, from West and Central Africa, where Wagner Group picked over the corpse of French neo-colonialism, to California’s secessionist fringe and the absurdities of Washington.
He also happens to be one of the closest observers of JD Vance, who is just a heartbeat from one of the most powerful positions in the world.
The president’s real job is keeping the machine running: asset prices up, markets juiced, the war economy fed. Can anyone actually change that? And would we even want them to try, if it’s as ideologically peculiar and dangerous as Vance?
Get the map: novaramedia.com/dyor
Music by Iglooghost.
Downstream: You Will Rent Forever. Here’s Why. w/ Peter Apps
We live in times of crisis. But perhaps none of the crises affect so many people in the here and now, as the housing crisis. Solving it could provide the skeleton key to unlocking so many of society’s problems …
Shownotes
We live in times of crisis. But perhaps none of the crises affect so many people in the here and now, as the housing crisis. Solving it could provide the skeleton key to unlocking so many of society’s problems. Despite this, decades of successive governments in the UK have failed to bring housing under control. The social contract which told us that if we worked hard all our lives, we can own a home and be secure in retirement, has been completely broken.
To discuss the crisis in Britain and beyond, Aaron Bastani sat down with Peter Apps. He is an award-winning journalist who knows the field of housing – its failures and its potential fixes – better than almost anyone. He wrote an article about the threat of flammable cladding a month before Grenfell caught fire.
How has housing policy shaped Britain in the last 50 years? Who did more to damage the housing system, Labour or the Tories? Is more housing supply always the solution? And why is no one talking about the crisis facing our ageing population, one million of whom will be in housing insecurity and poverty by 2030?
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