The Break Down

About The Break Down

The BREAK—DOWN is a not-for-profit media project publishing new writing and conversations on capitalism, nature and the climate. Our work is made possible by our listeners and readers—to support us, go to www.break-down.org/subscribe-now/

Publisher

The Break—Down

Category

society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

29 May 2024

Latest episode

15 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

38 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   15 Oct 2026

   Understanding China w/Tim Sahay, Li Shuo and Jeremy Wallace

   It is by now all but impossible to have a meaningful conversation about climate politics without including China. At the same time, misunderstandings and the astonishing pace of development with respect to China's role on the world stage mean that these conversations can easily collapse into a simplistic binary: China as the world's green energy saviour, or as its oppressive coal-burning bogeyman. How, instead, should those of us committed both to the climate and to justice relate to China? The answer is complex, as the panelists for this live episode make clear. Perhaps the strongest thread running through this conversation is a warning not to treat China as a monolith, overcoming both the uncritical optimism of “Chinamaxxers” and the equally shortsighted tendency among Western commentators and think tanks to fixate on China as a military and economic threat. To think through the climate crisis today and understand what is to come, we must try to see the country as it actually is, in all of its complexity and apparent contradiction. One thing is certain: for all of us, wherever we are, there is no route out of the climate crisis that does not run through China. This conversation was recorded live at the Verso Books offices in Manhattan on 23rd September 2026, in partnership with Phenomenal World (https://phenomenalworld.org/) and The Polycrisis (https://thepolycrisis.org/).

2. 

   17 Sept 2026

   A Crisis of Ideas w/Joel Wainwright

   "The Left is in a serious crisis of ideas." Those are the simple and fairly damning words with which our guest, Joel Wainwright, opened his interview with our Editor Adrienne Buller. In a wide-ranging conversation, Adrienne and Joel discuss his extensive work trying to make sense of the specific relationship between capitalism and the climate crisis—drawing this connection not in some general sense, but with attention to the very specific logics, institutions and processes through which capitalism model wreaks ecological havoc. They cover Marx, Darwin, the nuclear age, what "The Anthropocene" really means and, critically, where we go from here. Joel Wainwright is a Professor in the Department of Geography at Ohio State University, where he teaches about political economy, environmental change, and social theory. He is the author of Climate Leviathan (with Geoff Mann, 2018), Decolonizing Development (2008), and, most recently, The End: Marx, Darwin, and the Natural History of the Climate Crisis (2025).

3. 

   20 Aug 2026

   Latin America Turns Right – Guillaume Long on the Politics of Extraction and US imperialism in South America

   In April this year, the Colombian city of Santa Marta hosted the first Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels. The conference was a landmark gathering which sought to shift the terms of the international climate debate away from technocratic squabbling to the far more pointed question of “How can we end fossil fuel use?”. Much of the impetus for that conference was led by then-Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, who, on the campaign trail in 2022, had pledged to wean Colombia off what he called “suicidal” fossil capital. Yet, just a few months later, the Colombian left would lose a narrow presidential election to the far-right challenger, Abelardo de la Espriella. In this, Colombia is not alone. Latin America, once home to the Pink Tide of left-wing governments, has experienced a series of political defeats for the left alongside the rise of an emboldened political right, whose emblematic examples are the Trump-esque figures of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador and Javier Millei in Argentina. How do we account for this shift in the politics of Latin America? And what does it mean for the climate movement, not just in Latin America but across the globe? This week, we’re joined by Guillaume Long, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. He previously held several cabinet positions in the government of Ecuador and most recently served as Ecuador’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva. This episode was recorded in late June 2026 Our guest today is Laleh Khalili, a Professor of Gulf Studies at the University of Exeter and author of several books, including Sinews of War and Trade. In this episode, she breaks down the mess of the US-Israeli war on Iran, shifting relations among the region’s petro-states, the US as an empire in decline, and the future of global energy.

Who has been a guest on The Break Down

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Quinn Slobodian
• Geoff Mann
• Hans Stegeman
• James Meadway

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

60,392

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

8 ratings

Spotify

4.9 / 5

60 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 44 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

34

Social presence

0

YouTube

85

Engagement

51

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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