Berkeley: Rooftop Solar All-In For All Incomes
Solar is only for the rich, goes the usual complaint in defense of a status quo that has led directly to our climate crisis.
That’s a no.
CLI-FI
Pearl Jam’s Destabilized Gigaton
The iconography of cli-fi sets Pearl Jam’s latest effort afire, as our exponential climate crisis fractures the prism between the personal and the political.
Zoonosis: Climate Crisis and Coronavirus
Zoonoses are infectious diseases that fatally strike back after humanity extracts too deeply from their non-human environments, which are under repeated siege from capitalism and worse.
The Cli-Fi Wonderland Of Kipo And The Age Of Wonderbeasts
Astounding post-apocalyptic animation with both humor and heart is hard to come by these days, as our burning world exponentially slides deeper into climate crisis. Thank our Mother Earth that Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts is here to soothe that burn.
Cli-Fi: Merry Christmas, Peace On Earth
Harman’s animated anti-war masterpiece is both a harrowing and instructive climate fiction about what happens when humanity pushes itself and its planet (and that planet’s myriad species) to the brink of extinction.
The (Blessed) Return Of El-P
Correcting an historical injustice, El-P’s singular, relevant back catalogue will finally return to the land of material and digital reality.
DJ Shadow Chronicles Our Pathetic Age
Givng thanks on Thanksgiving for the letters DJ Shadow has been sending, explaining why and where and how the music from his latest, perhaps greatest effort, Our Pathetic Age, was born.
Legend of Korra, Reanimated
Once upon a time, The Legend Of Korra’s feminist, elemental superhero was one of the most powerful on television. Male, or female, or other, and/or another.
Ten Years After: Cli-Fi
A decade ago, I helped give birth to a movement. It doesn’t matter if anyone knows. All that matters is the movement.
Miyazaki’s Rewarding, Rebellious Ronja
Miyazaki is a name, and a legend, not to be taken lightly. This historical truth alone is worth a viewing of Goro Miyazaki’s Ronja, The Robber’s Daughter, a rewarding animated adaptation of Astrid Lindgren’s fantastic coming-of-age cli-fi.
Happy Birthday, The Iron Giant!
Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, director Brad Bird’s masterpiece of war and peace has only grown in legend and influence
Cli-Fi: Honeyland’s Beekeeping Dystopia
As colonies collapse and the climate crisis accelerates, bees come into deeper focus in the acclaimed chronicle of a remote space and tradition
Watching The Watchmen (Again)
Elite powers cashing in on actual historical crises whose failures literally led us to where we are today.
Ten Years After: Extinction
Captivated by global warming and shortly before I called it cli-fi, I researched and reported the myriad ways life on Earth could die. Few were more terrifying than hydrogen sulfide.
Cli-Fi: Miyazaki’s Mission Critical
Princess Mononoke meets The Never-Ending Man, as Hayao Miyazaki’s blessed return inches closer to the cli-fi future he chronicled, as it happened.
Unhappy Earth Day: The Seas Still Rise
A decade ago, I talked to the Pacific Institute about their report predicting that the coastal metropolis of California, the world’s fifth largest economy, would be swallowed by global warming.
Free Energy, Courtesy of Tesla
Matthew Rankin’s surreal, synesthesic short film The Tesla World Light is finally free for all to see. Let us hope Nikola Tesla’s utopian hope for free energy isn’t far behind.
I’m Sorry, Kurt Cobain
A quarter of a century ago, I turned my back on our revolution. As the reprogramming accelerated, I slowed time by pursuing love. But it was not enough.
Ten Years After: Grant Morrison
It’s amazing to think I’ve been interviewing Grant Morrison for over a decade now, having read his experimental comics masterpieces for much longer than that. It’s been deep.
Masaaki Yuasa’s Elastic, Fantastic Anime
The animation of Masaaki Yuasa is singular in the sense that we have seen nothing truly like it, yet it would not exist without its anxiety of influences.
Isao Takahata: 1935-2018
A towering influence.
And yet he still left so much to be discovered.
I watch his art each night before dreaming.
Rest in peace, dear influential.
Birdboy’s Interconnected Pollution
Writing about animation provides me the opportunity to probe the minds of brave filmmakers working against stereotype and industry. That struggle found an apotheosis in the surreal fever dream of Birdboy.
Fox And The Whale’s Metafictional Immersion
Earth is inspiring, even in the midst of failure. This is an important lesson I learned after interviewing director Robin Joseph about his stunning animated short, Fox and the Whale, a homemade, hand-drawn cli-fi fable debuting, to Oscar acclaim, in a world on fire.
The Breadwinner’s Ultimate Expression Of Hope: Interview With Nora Twomey and Saara Chaudry
I’ve been looking forward to interviewing Nora Twomey, especially now that her empowering adaptation of The Breadwinner has arrived, with the aid of Angelina Jolie, to shine a light back on Afghanistan, still in the crosshairs of the longest war in American history.
We Can’t Separate Food From Politics
One of our most persistent fictions of climate change is that the food industry, whose waste and emissions must be brought under immediate control if we are to survive the Anthropocene, can live without immigrants, whose existence puts the lie to nations and nationalism.