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There is no way to separate the climate crisis from the history of global capitalism.

It is a symptom of the way in which global capitalism has developed over the past 500 or so years,

and also even more approximately than that very long-distance history.

It's a symptom of the modes of economic development, production and consumption that took off in the post-war era.

Because quite a lot of the environmental harm currently afflicting the earth and also the amount of carbon emissions in the air can be traced to this moment that scholars refer to as the Great Acceleration,

which was just an accelerated period of economic growth, again in the sort of post-war boom era.

So absolutely, we need to think of these as intertwined analytically, and we also need to think of them as intertwined in our political analysis and our strategy.

You are listening to upstream upstream upstream an interview and documentary series that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics.

I'm Dela Duncan and I'm Robert Raymond.

In this conversation, we spoke with Thea Ria Frankos, associate professor of political science at Providence College,

and co-author of a planet to win why we need a Green New Deal, published by Verso.

In this conversation, Thea gives us an update on where we are with climate change and what the Biden administration is proposing to do about it.

Spoiler alert, it's not nearly enough.

We also talked about the problems with neoliberal attempts to address climate change, how capitalism is at the heart of the climate crisis,

and why we need a Green New Deal and how we go about making sure we get one.

Welcome, Thea, to upstream, and I guess to start, can you just introduce yourself to our listeners and talk a bit about how you came to do the work you're doing?

Sure. My name's Thea Ria Frankos. I'm a political scientist, and my research focuses on renewable energy, green technologies, climate change, and also social movements and social change in general.

And that also intersects a lot with what my political work focuses on, which is primarily around the Green New Deal.

But the Green New Deal, as we're going to discuss a lot this hour, is a really big and capacious paradigm that a lot of different projects and policies and ideas fit into.

...