Raj Patel

‘Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice’, a new book by Raj Patel and Rupa Marya, is a tour of the human body that reveals the links between our biology and political and economic injustices such as racism, poverty and colonialism.

As much of the world struggles to cope with the pandemic and its impacts, we begin today’s show with the authors of a new book that examines the social and environmental roots of poor health. “Your body is part of a society inflamed,” write the authors.

The Green New Deal’s success depends on refashioning this common sense. To rewrite common sense is to unpick the alliances that the current bloc works to maintain, to find the fault lines that can pry that bloc apart, and to develop the organizational links that can build a counter-hegemonic bloc.

Today’s human activity isn’t exterminating mammoths through centuries of overhunting. Some humans are currently killing everything, from megafauna to microbiota, at speeds one hundred times higher than the background rate. We argue that what changed is capitalism, that modern history has, since the 1400s, unfolded in what is better termed the Capitalocene.

Changing the food system is the most important thing humans can do to fix our broken carbon cycles. Meanwhile, food security is all about adaptation when you’re dealing with crazy weather and shifting growing zones. How can a world of 7 billion—and growing—feed itself? Here are 13 of the best ideas for a just and sustainable food system. 

Either we accept cheap food at the grocery store, and have people – invariably poor people – pay for environmental damage in health, social and economic costs incurred elsewhere. Or we have more expensive food that reflects the full costs of its production.