Carbon Gardening: A Podcast at Growing Greener

Environmental activist and poet Esther Phillips reflects on grief and anti-natalism in this poem, which explores the choice not to have children as an act of love in an age of collapse.

Imagine what a financial system would do if it behaved like a headwaters system. There would be continual arrival of flows from elsewhere. Resources would pool into local places. Actions would converge in the same direction. And all of it would support the continual emergence and maintenance of life.

The impression that we can eat what we want fits neatly with a neoliberal story that treats capitalism as democratic, where people “vote with their wallets”. But this is an illusion. Rather than putting our faith in green consumerism to rebuild food systems, we should strive to de‑commodify food.