I’m back from my summer holidays. A splendid time was had by all.
I’m back to an enormous virtual pile of emails and a huge number of stories I’ve missed, so I’ll be trying to catch up over the next few weeks.
While we were away, the garden turned into a rewilding experiment and I spent most of today removing weeds from my vegetable plots.
It’s about six months since I moved REDD-Monitor over to Substack. This seems like a good point for reflection and a few thoughts about the direction that REDD-Monitor might move in over the coming weeks and months.
On Substack, REDD-Monitor now has about 750 subscribers. While that’s still significantly fewer than before the move to Substack, the number of subscribers is increasing steadily.
At some point in the next few weeks, I’ll turn on paid subscriptions. None of REDD-Monitor will go behind a paywall - all posts will remain free - but I will be asking for support of my work from those who can afford it.
Several people have already pledged to support REDD-Monitor for which I am extremely grateful.
I’m thoroughly enjoying writing on Substack. The fact I don’t have to worry about any of the behind the scenes problems with the website, is a huge advantage. I probably should have moved to Substack years ago.
Here are some of the features that you can look forward to on REDD-Monitor over the coming months. Any suggestions or feedback would be great!
More book reviews
I’ve recently read several books that I’d like to review on REDD-Monitor. I’ve read one of these books three times and have made detailed notes each time. It’s just possible that I’m overthinking this book review process….
I’ve also been sent books to review which I haven’t so far, because there’s a queue, with the book that I’ve read three times (so far) at the front of the queue.
Over the next few months I aim to put out regular book reviews - at least one per month.
And to feature interviews with some of the authors of the books.
Which brings me on to the next point.
More interviews
I’d like to increase the number of interviews I carry out. By this I don’t mean contacting people to ask them for a sound bite for example about nature-based offsets, or a particular company that I’m writing about.
The interviews will be long enough to give people the chance to go into detail on their work and their research. The interviews will be posted on REDD-Monitor in full, and will not be posted until the interviewees are happy with the interview.
The aim is not to catch people out, but to attempt to understand what they are doing and why.
(The interviews will probably not be as long as the interview I did a few years ago with Tom Younger at Forest Peoples Programme about Peru, which I ended up serialising as four posts.)
Moving completely to Substack
The beady-eyed among you will have noticed that the interview with Tom Younger linked above is still only available on redd-monitor.org. Transferring posts across to Substack is slow work. Each post has to be cut and pasted across.
I’ve transferred everything I’ve written since November 2021 and I’m working my way steadily backwards. I’m also archiving all the posts on redd-monitor.org.
The previous website (redd-monitor.org) will remain online for a while, but eventually the website will close. It already doesn’t appear in Google searches - the reason for this is a bit of a shaggy dog story, one that I nevertheless hope write up at some point. It involves a DDoS attack, an Indian company that I wrote about seven years ago, VAT carousel fraud running into hundreds of millions of Euros, and (of course) carbon credits.
More on addressing the climate and biodiversity crises
REDD-Monitor will continue to focus on the scam of carbon trading and the urgent need to address the climate crisis.
In recent months, mainstream media has been increasingly vocal about the problems with carbon trading. Major investigative reports have exposed serious problems, with REDD projects, with consulting firms like South Pole that develop carbon projects and sell carbon credits, and with Verra, the Washington DC-based “standards” setting organisation for the carbon trading industry.
Of course, at the same time, the carbon trading industry is doing everything it can to expand as rapidly as possible, regardless of the consequences.
But while eliminating the false solutions is crucial, so is actually addressing the problem.
At this stage, I’m not sure where exactly this will take me. For example, I recently read Mark Boyle’s book, “The Way Home: Tales from a life without technology”. I’m pretty sure that living without electricity, burning wood, and growing all my own food wouldn’t work for me. But Boyle raises a lot of interesting questions about where technology is taking us.
I think that degrowth is a more interesting and realistic approach than Boyle’s (almost) complete rejection of technology.
And from degrowth, it’s just a hop, skip, and a tiny little jump to overthrowing capitalism:
I’ve written a few posts critiquing capitalism’s obsession with endless growth. Of course REDD does nothing to even attempt to address overconsumption. REDD is dedicated to preserving the myth that we can continue never-ending capitalist growth and extractivism without the destruction that this has always entailed.
Chris- glad that you enjoyed some well-earned time off! Remember, a key step along the lines of "degrowth" is setting Limits to Progress! Can we really be forging ahead with space programs, hundreds of low-earth-orbit satellites, etc. and encouraging ever more energy consumption in the midst of a climate catastrophe? First step in controlling continuous expansion of the economy is curtailing "progress"; just as first step toward biodiversity is not one more sacrifice zone, anywhere, even to produce materials for EVs, solar panels, etc. Just stop it!
Hello Chris, thanks for your last post overthinking next steps on REDD-Monitor. You will get some pledge for your groundbreaking work (next week). Adressing endless growth on basis of criticising capitalism and the overconsumption is good idea. First sentence in "Capital" of Karl Marx reads: "The richness of Societies under capitalistic rule appears as big collection of goods." This is the deep fact. Together with competition between capitalists this turnt up to present situation in the world. Not meaning to go anti-technology. But theres a lot of bullshit-jobs and bullshit goods to throw away.