<![CDATA[The Green Fix]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.comhttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!mJGG!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7cd6f8c3-6da6-489d-96fa-2ef3e0be3ccf_493x493.pngThe Green Fixhttps://thegreenfix.substack.comSubstackSun, 19 Jul 2026 08:27:50 GMT<![CDATA[Personally I think it's fine to be less productive in a climate disaster ]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/july-heathttps://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/july-heatWed, 15 Jul 2026 06:10:48 GMTExtreme heat, the physical manifestation of oppression. The tangible product of humanity’s disregard for its own survival. I feel like I’m wearing an uncomfortably warm layer all the time, like a fossil fuel executive has me wrapped up in a crushing, violating embrace. A corporate-sponsored assault on our bodies, our rights, our future.

“It’s not that bad,” say some, mainly those from hot countries or those trying out what we do as people: deny, deny, deny.

Maybe they mean, it’s not that bad compared to what others are experiencing. I live near a hospital. I hear the ambulance sirens all day. Another heatstroke, another heart attack exacerbated by oil and gas.

For the chronically ill, the pregnant, the hospitalised and the elderly, for the low-income families stuck in tiny attic flats and the workers who must choose to burn outside to make a living, it is that bad. For much of the Global South, it has been that bad for far longer.

Heatwave
People cover themselves for protection against the heat wave on a hot summer day, in Prayagraj. (Photo: PTI)

Maybe they mean, not that bad yet. Don’t expend your energy on complaining now. The social media headlines say ‘This is the coldest summer for the rest of your lives!’ That’s not quite true either. But who can think in nuance when they haven’t slept a full night for weeks?

I got a surge of followers to this newsletter in the last month after posting the list of jobhunting resources, and the guest post for Grace Blakeley. I kept thinking I should write some big inspiring welcome, full of positivity, and then feeling stressed that my brain was not delivering the right words.

But of course my brain is slower right now. We’re all tired, and eco-anxious, and heat reduces your cognitive skills. When you’re feeling the violence of the fossil fuel economy in your own home, it’s hard to think about anything but making it stop now.

But it is very difficult to mobilise and get involved in system change when we’re exhausted. I, and I suspect many of you, are trying to push through our normal workdays with our normal level of output, and then scrolling headlines and social media posts about the apocalyptic heat and all its knock-on impacts. Maybe that 15th reel will make it all feel OK. Our nervous system is in overdrive before we’ve even begun. It drives fatalistic thinking.

Overwhelm is the tactic of the richest polluters and far-right, and they’ve even turned the weather against us. I would argue that climate disasters and extreme temperatures are an example of the ‘shock and awe’ tactic being used by fossil fuel companies and the governments that sustain them. They can’t control the weather, it’s true, but knowing about the environmental and health impacts of fossil fuels and continuing to do so is violent. And it serves the double purpose of keeping us so busy coping with the heatwaves, wildfires, floods and cost of living that we have less energy to tackle the root causes.

Those who have lived at the frontlines of the climate crisis do not have the privilege of fatalism or ‘giving up.’

To make change fast in these conditions, we have to slow down. We have to become more focused with our organising, and with the information we consume.

Government urged to legislate on maximum working temperature amid third heatwave - Canary
Heatstrike UK campaign for maximum workplace temperature regulation. Source: Canary

And remember that we do this for each other. It matters to the outdoor workers to call for workplace temperature regulations. It matters to the elderly and the sick to help them cool down this week. Everything matters. We are ecosystems and our survival relies on our interdependence.

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3 cool things we did recently:

1. We held a feminist rage & creativity session

In Brussels, we collaborated with independent vegan business Taylor’s Cafe to host a feminist rage session for ABCD (Anyone But Cis Dudes). Everyone shared their reasons for rage while making a collage. Here are some of the results, and we also shared our wrap-up on Instagram.

What do you think - will you join the next one?

2. We updated our job resource list

3. We held our third Brussels Climate Picnic

For the third year running, we held our climate picnic in Parc Royale in Brussels, and for the third year running, you showed up! Literally no agenda here, we just think this movement is more sustainable when we hang out in parks sometimes too. Photos and wrap-up on Instagram and LinkedIn.

What events shall we bring back for the autumn?

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]]><![CDATA[Massive list of resources for finding a job in the climate and social justice sector ]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/ngo-jobhunthttps://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/ngo-jobhuntThu, 02 Jul 2026 05:01:34 GMTWhen I first wrote this list of job-hunting resources four (!) years ago, I prefaced it by saying that having a positive impact is not exclusively a career choice. Regardless of our jobs, we always have the opportunity to reject the capitalist and neoliberal mentality that glorifies overwork, hustle culture, and sees others as competition.

Well, not to be repetitive but after another four years of working in the NGO sector, I stand by this. There are jobs out there, but don’t believe that you have to wait for a job offer before you can play a meaningful part in the climate and social justice movements.

Since the European Commission, the US and many European countries slashed their funding for NGOs as well as their aid budgets, the job market is hard right now for people seeking work in exactly this sector.

It’s not impossible. There are opportunities and you should not disqualify yourself before you’ve tried. But after years of education teaching us that all that matters is our CV and that what we wear to the job interview might make or break our chances, it might be difficult to unlearn the belief that struggling in this sector is a personal failing.

It’s tiring, it’s frustrating to upload your CV 20 times and then be asked to fill out the entire contents of it manually on the next page, and you’re not falling behind if you need a break sometimes.

Post Photo

I am sure, if you are skilled, you are networking, and you are staying up-to-date on the sector, that you are already pretty good.

Here’s my updated list of what I wish I knew when I was 20:

  • Full-time unpaid work experience is not necessary for an impact job. Getting paid is not something you have to earn with experience to ‘prove’ you’re worth it. It is a basic necessity and if an organisation doesn’t respect that, don’t stay.

  • If we accept exploitative and underpaid working conditions for the sake of a Really Great Opportunity, we reinforce those conditions. Advocate for better working practices within your organisation, be aware of signs of burnout in yourself or others, and learn explicit boundaries (this can be difficult when you’re new and wanting to fit in, but it pays off).

  • Your job doesn’t always come from a job website. Quite often organisations keep your CV on file for future opportunities, or recruit through word-of-mouth. Or you begin pursuing a passion (like me with this newsletter) and recruiters find you.

  • You don’t have to have a dream job. Most of us don’t dream of work.

  • Collaboration is more effective than competition. Don’t hoard job opportunities or contacts out of fear you’ll lose them, and network with other job-hunters, interns and students the same as you would the people in senior positions. One of these people may be interviewing you one day, and they will remember you.

  • The world doesn’t care about your timeline. Your first paid job might not perfectly align with your graduation or the end of your internship. These things take time. It is not ‘failing’ to take temporary work while you continue to look.

  • ‘Hustling’ is not impressive or necessary. We need you. Don’t burn out. Slow down.

  • Interviews are a conversation not a test. If you are not in a desperate financial situation, take the time to also evaluate whether the workplace actually fits you, or if you’re accepting it because you’re afraid of not finding anything else.

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Focus On: Resources to find a job in the impact sector

An updated list since our last edition in 2022. We are not affiliated with any of these organisations. Use your best judgement on what tools apply in your situation.

International / Remote

Mainly US-focused with occasional remote positions:

EU Bubble

UK

People posting job roundups on LinkedIn:

LinkedIn Groups

People who share tips & experiences about working in impact sectors

List of Lists

Articles / Guides:

Make an impact in your current work:

Places to learn new skills online

What would you add to this list for jobseekers?

Leave a comment

Relevant previous editions:

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]]><![CDATA[How elitism and privilege hijack climate research and education]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/climate-academiahttps://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/climate-academiaWed, 17 Jun 2026 05:01:29 GMTNever did I imagine that I find myself defending people labelled as terrorists by the UK courts, but here we are.

The Filton4 - Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio and Fatema Rajwani - are four activists who took part in an action to disrupt Elbit Systems, a factory that manufactures weapons that Israel used for its genocide against Palestinian people in Gaza.

British Palestine solidarity movement hails “monumental victory” as jury fails to convict activists : Peoples Dispatch
Filton6 in 2024. Source: The Electronic Intifada/Filton24 Defence Committee

Having already spent 18 months in prison for criminal damage, the judge sent the jury home and then held a new closed-doors trial, this time for alleged terrorist connections. Last week, they were sentenced to a collective 25 years.

Peace ‘terrorists.’ Anti-genocide ‘terrorists.’

I suspect the judge thought this verdict would teach us a lesson, and silence potential protestors - like the hundreds of nurses, priests, students and pensioners arrested for holding signs protesting genocide outside the UK High courts.

They have taught us a lesson. They have taught us that direct action works, in every way. The activists disrupted the factory operations, potentially saving lives. The protests have not stopped. The media have covered the UK’s slide away from democracy, as it plummets down the human rights rankings.

When power feels threatened, it digs its claws in and lashes out. The repressive crackdowns on protestors and anti-genocide movements like Palestine Action must be taken as a sign that it poses a credible force.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop saying this. Verdicts like this are part of the strategy to shock, exhaust and disillusion us into compliance. I haven’t really thought about anything else since the news broke, and it is exhausting. Perhaps it hits closer because it’s my home country. But I want to turn that exhaustion to energy, not despair.

When you’re being attacked, they tell you to shout and bring attention to it. Use your rights and your voice, before they take them away.

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Focus On: How inequality shapes climate education and academia

Written by . Edited by and .

One of the most crucial ways of navigating the climate crisis is through education. But from childhood through to academia and research, our access to climate education is limited to the most privileged, creating a disparity in both who learns and who teaches environmental justice.

Geographical location significantly influences how often children engage with green spaces, a key entrance point to fostering a lifelong love of nature and the environment. The Children’s People and Nature Survey for England in 2023 noted that ‘over half of children and young people surveyed reported feeling highly connected to nature (52%)’. While this has increased from 44% in 2021, that leaves a significant portion of children disconnected from the joys of nature and the outdoors, with the risk that their understanding of environmental breakdown would not elicit strong concern.

Children from lower-income and racialised households, particularly those residing in urban areas, are significantly less likely to have safe and accessible green spaces nearby. In London, 21% of households have no access to private green space (gardens), compared to 12% of the rest of the UK. This pattern is replicated in the Netherlands, Germany and Portugal.

In the UK, private school students enjoy 10 times more green space than their state-educated counterparts. If only the most privileged of children have the opportunity to develop an affinity to nature, how can we expect intersectional and equitable climate justice in the future?

Access to green space in childhood not only strengthens our appreciation of the environment, but it also shapes who feels entitled to enter academic paths that focus on environmental issues. In other words, those who grow up without frequent and positive interactions with nature are less likely to see the environmental movement as relevant to their own lives, and therefore less likely to enter the field that actively works to protect and advance it.

Environmental academia risks becoming an echo-chamber of class privilege, and not an intersectional community of voices.

Even attending university in the first place is impacted by structural inequality – particularly within the UK. Continually rising tuition fees [Editor’s Note: Tuition fees in the UK average 10,989 EUR per year for a domestic student] and the catastrophic cost-of-living crisis put many students in a position where they must sacrifice valuable study time for working to afford their degree, or not attend at all.

Source: Cost of Living and University Students, Sutton Trust 2023 [UK]

Meanwhile, more affluent students can dedicate themselves to their studies and relevant extracurriculars, as well as complete unpaid internships to gain valuable experience in their chosen field.

This dynamic may be particularly clear within the UK, but environmental education across the world is shaped by economic inequality, and reproduces the very structural inequalities that it demands to change. University remains a space of privilege for those who have the means to afford it – and as academia is deeply influential in nurturing climate advocacy and environmentalism, it sets a precedent for research to be completed by the privileged for the privileged. While we sit idly by writing our thesis statements on climate breakdown, we do so in the comfort of our studies, and not on the frontlines of actual catastrophe.

When I studied at Exeter University, I was fortunate to learn about diverse and global perspectives on climate change, from Ken Saro Wiwa’s fight for the Ogoni people in Nigeria, to the Israeli government’s abhorrent attempt at becoming global sustainability leaders, while forcibly displacing Palestinians from their land. And while I attempted to write radical and passionate arguments for intersectional environmentalism, I would often ruminate on how I got to this position: with hard work, yes, but also with immense privilege and opportunity.

Having the financial backing and geographical access to world-class institutional education and the opportunity to return home to recharge – all of these tenets provide me with the best possible opportunities to succeed academically. And while I grapple with my cystic fibrosis and neurodiversity, I do so with a solid support system; one that allows me to thrive.

I feel deeply that academia remains a hugely elitist enterprise at its core – with working-class students comprising around 20% of undergraduates at the 24 Russell Group universities.

[Russell Group: 24 high-ranking UK public research universities that receive the majority of national research grants.]

These academics who later go on to get published, write detached from the material realities of climate breakdown, reporting on the horrors that so many face across the world. From climate refugees in Tuvalu to farmers losing their livelihoods in the Sundarbans, Bangladesh, to garment workers battling ferocious temperatures in factories in Pakistan – what gives Western academics the right to use these stories as examples of crisis in their essays?

Billal in Bangladesh salvages bricks from his home as water encroaches. Credit: Moniruzzaman Sazal / Climate Visuals Countdown

Conversely, is it better to avoid utilising these stories? For the millions suffering from the direct impacts of climate change, surely we have a duty to report and educate the world on their plight, from a space where we have the capacity to write and research.

I am reminded of the words of sahibzada mayed on the ethics of academia: “the urge to (over)research is often just the underlying desire to control and extract”. How much are we satisfying the interests of the researcher over doing justice to the issues that we write about? Can this research be an unselfish endeavour, one that is entirely detached from the researcher and instead accurately depicts the plight of marginalised people across the world? This challenging hierarchy is one that academics must continually face, and act upon. As the world falls further into chaos and disarray, this question of lived experience as research, and, therefore, consumable content, becomes all the more crucial.

The production and dissemination of environmental research remains exclusionary at its crux. We must continue to highlight not only the existence of these inequalities, but methods and opportunities to dismantle them.

Environmental education is a space of constant contradiction, but it is a necessary minefield to traverse. Without it, we cannot hope to support people in making more sustainable decisions, connecting their everyday lives to climate breakdown, or, crucially, to hold governments and corporations accountable for their unashamed contribution to environmental destruction. So, with my loudest and most passionate voice, I shall continue to advocate for a climate justice and environmental education that is intersectional to the core, in the hope of a better future for us all.

Emily Pink (she/her) is a disabled climate communicator and lover of literature. Having spent much of her schooling in hospital, she feels deeply about the transformational power education can have for people and planet. Learning is how we can connect with one another, and develop empathy for realities that are not our own. She loves nothing more than spending time in nature and, of course, learning as much as she can.

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]]><![CDATA[A Rough Idea: The left need to get more confident at communicating solutions]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/communicating-hopehttps://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/communicating-hopeWed, 10 Jun 2026 05:01:11 GMTA Rough Idea is a series of personal essays for paid subscribers. To access this content, please upgrade your subscription via the link below.

And for those who don’t have the means to afford paid subscription, just email us at wearethegreenfix@gmail.com with ‘Gift subscription’ in the headline (we won’t ask you to prove it).

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I didn’t meet anyone else working in communications at the World Inequality Conference last week.

OK, maybe this space wasn’t meant for media folks. It is an economics conference, after all. Organised by the World Inequality Lab and featuring high-profile speakers like Lucas Chancel, Gabriel Zucman and , the three days of panels marked the launch of the ambitious Global Justice Report.

May be an image of map and text that says 'May r29.) 税回四 Environment 'An equal and habitable world is possible': academics set out sweeping vision for planetary survival Global Globalrepor report provides an alternative to climate breakdown, political extremism and economic tensions'
Source: Guardian, June 2026

The Global Justice Report lays out a plan for how to limit global heating, tackle wealth inequality, and build a socially and ecologically sustainable world by 2100. Some key proposals include:

  • Wealth redistribution so that income inequality is on a 1:5 ratio (so the richest person can only earn 5 times more than the poorest, and wealth inequality is 1:10. (Current income inequality is 1:50,0000 - the richest person earns roughly 50,000 times more than the poorest. Wealth inequality is more extreme, with the richest 10% owning three quarters of the world’s assets).

  • Sufficiency principles: Reducing working hours and material production and shifting to an ‘immaterial’-first economy where some of the main sectors are healthcare, education and leisure.

  • Rapid decarbonisation of energy systems to limit global heating to 1.8 C by 2100.

  • All this would be paid for through a Global Justice Fund that spends 10.3% of global GDP each year. This Fund would be filled through a wealth tax on billionaires, and a progressive income tax.

The report is not perfect, but it’s doing what many climate organisations and leftist movements fail at: it’s creating a utopia. It presents something for us to aspire towards, rather than a series of terrifying projections, and offers credibility to the idea that tackling inequality and avoiding the most catastrophic climate pathways are technically feasible..

And of course, the armchair internet critics immediately dismiss it as unrealistic. Can’t be done. The political will is lacking, the ‘public’ (which seemingly doesn’t include us?) will not get on board, and there are no clear leaders to pioneer these transformations.

The cynicism and doomism of the left, while understandable, is not really helping our cause. If we have so little faith in our own vision of a positive future, how can we persuade others to join our movement?

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Heatwaves & warfare: How the EU is prioritising military spending over protecting lives]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/militarisationhttps://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/militarisationWed, 03 Jun 2026 05:02:20 GMTThe EU and wealthy governments are not geared up to save lives. Sometimes I wonder why NGOs spend so much time explaining the deadly human cost of government legislation (or lack of) on climate change, income inequality, injustice and defence and security.

I’m sitting in a sweltering heatwave in an airless room, editing this Q&A on the devastating impact of EU militarisation. It’s difficult to focus in the heat and I keep googling lifehacks for cooling down that I don’t have the resources or landlord permissions to implement.

I test the air outside my window. Still too warm to keep them open. I close the curtains and tell myself to stop obsessing. Thousands are being killed in hotter countries than this, caught in the crossfire of political games between the US, Israel, Russia, Iran and more.

Gaza, 2025. ©Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto

Did you know that extreme heat reduces your empathy? As well as the thousands that have died from heat stress, and the exacerbated physical health conditions, it impacts your mental health and makes you more unstable, more irritable and less able to regulate our emotions.

Focus. We need to talk about the war. The stupid unnecessary wars that sweep up and spit out families and cities into an unrecognisable mess. The US/Israel war has killed 3,000 in Iran and the Russian invasion has killed 15,000 Ukrainian civilians. And now the EU talks about military spending as a ‘protection’?

Reminds me of the rich boys that assault women and then get let off because they have promising careers ahead of them. They plead victimhood. Near my hometown, two 14-year rapists were let off to avoid ‘unnecessary criminalisation.’

Don’t tell me these governments give a shit about our lives, let alone the lives of people stuck outside the borders of the EU. The fortress we never asked to be in.

I take a cold shower. I’m using so much water. I sweat again when I go back to the laptop.

Apparently 65% of heat-related deaths are the result of climate change. More specifically, the result of decades of fossil fuel corporations’ polluting and being subsidised to do so. And the EU is diverting funds away from climate spending. For ‘defence.’

🚨BREAKING: tomorrow is set to be the UK's hottest day of the year. A Met Office weather warning is expected. Make sure you're prepared:

The people killed in conflict are dead as a result of military spending, but the EU claims to protect us. Is it really protection if it kills us faster? Were any of these policies ever about us at all?

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Focus On: Europe’s militarisation

We spoke to Emilie Tricarico from the European Environmental Bureau about why the EU is militarising and its climate impacts.

My name is Emilie Tricarico, I am an ecological economist and I work at the European Environmental Bureau. Together with the REAL Project, we published a policy brief looking at Europe’s militarisation, its structural drivers and its impacts across society and the environment. The idea was to place this militarisation trend within its political economy context.

We keep hearing that the EU is investing in defence. But what does this mean in practice?

Defence is up to each Member State, and until recently the EU could only subsidise defence investment through research & development. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the EU adopted two emergency instruments to support defence industrial capacity and joint procurement. This contributed to a shift towards using public money to fund defence procurement and capability.

In 2025, NATO raised defence targets for its members from 2% to 5%, following pressure by the US. Only Spain opted out. Around the same time, the European Commission released its European Defence Readiness 2030 (initially ReArm Europe), a package of 800 billion euros worth of defence-related investment.

The EU’s recent deregulation drive is also clear in defence spending, which aims to remove social and environmental safeguards, redirect existing EU funds towards defence spending and enable international arms transfers.

On top of this, the new multi-annual EU budget sets out to increase defence and space investment to 131 billion euros. Racial justice organisation Equinox aptly named this a “war budget” stressing that it is paired with greater spending on border control and surveillance technology to target migrants and workers.

Migrants stand in front of Belarusian servicemen as they gather in a camp near the Belarusian-Polish border in the Grodno region. Photo by OKSANA MANCHUK/BELTA/AFP via Getty Images.

Where is the EU getting its military funding from?

There is no common European defence project but 27 national armies. Given that the European Commission has made defence and security one of its priorities, European states are required to invest in defence by redirecting public spending towards the military.

Under EU rules, Member States must make sure their debt and deficit don’t go over or under a certain threshold. The Commission decided to relax the rules when it comes to defence spending (unlike for other priorities like the green and just transition).

However, the New Economics Foundation warned that even under relaxed fiscal rules, EU member states will struggle to meet their 3.5% NATO targets without cutting into other budgets, raising taxes or changing fiscal rules altogether. The new social spending cuts we are seeing across Belgium (18 billion euros), and several other European countries, signals a huge redirection of public spending towards the military, including through purchases of offensive weapons like F-35 bomber jets that Israel uses in its genocidal war in Gaza.

Source: TRT World

Why is the EU re-arming now? Are we under attack?

This is a crucial question and we must differentiate defence from militarisation. The Commission claims that these new measures are about safeguarding Europe’s security and creating Europe’s own independent defence capacity. In reality, the EU is going down the path of militarisation which is about a complete restructuring of our societies and economies around the logic of military strength and war preparedness. All sectors will be concerned (school curricula is being changed, academic research is being funded by the military, etc.)

The US, which has been the unique global hegemon since the end of WWII, is under intense competition from rising powerhouses like China. The illegal wars the US is waging together with Israel are its attempt to secure access to critical resources and keep its position of power. Europe has long been a vassal to the US empire and still remains subservient to US interests via NATO and our dependence on US military firms, tech and digital giants.

While claiming to build its own military-industrial complex, the EU is in fact following the US in its imperialist pursuits to maintain global dominance and competitiveness in a world where economic growth becomes increasingly constrained.

How does militarisation impact the climate and environment?

Globally, the military sector is responsible for around 5.5% of global carbon emissions (the US being the largest polluter). Research found that the new NATO defence spending targets would add an extra 132 million tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere over the next decade. The sector is a huge consumer of fossil fuels and therefore should comply with carbon emissions reduction targets. However, military emissions are still not accounted for within UN climate protocols, thanks to successful lobbying by the US military.

The overall environmental impact from wars, military bases and training grounds is unprecedented. From water and soil pollution to environmental damage caused by explosives, ammunition, heavy machinery, heavy metals, chemicals and other toxins. US journalist Abby Martin looked at this impact at the US-level in her recent documentary The Earth’s Greatest Enemy which illustrates the enormous scale of the environmental and public health damage caused by this institutional polluter.

The military is also driving the push towards resource extractivism. The EU’s list of strategic raw materials listed under the Critical Raw Materials Acts maps almost precisely onto NATO’s own list (except for one mineral). Under the guise of green transition objectives, the EU is securing its access to critical minerals to benefit powerful military and corporate lobbies.

How can the EU better balance security, the climate and public wellbeing?

Security cannot be separated from safeguarding our planet and societies’ wellbeing. The climate and nature crises indeed pose the largest security threat to our societies. Something that the military lobby has understood well through its adoption of this climate securitisation messaging and by promoting itself as an essential actor in the face of climate breakdown.

But any extra spending on the military adds more carbon emissions and environmental damage. Different solutions must be found so that defence doesn’t come at the expense of our planetary and human health. Lithuania for instance is restoring its peat bogs, which not only trap carbon emissions but also acts as a barrier against military tanks.

Post-growth research provides evidence that the capitalist growth engine is responsible for our present overlapping crises, including the unprecedented surge in global conflicts which is bound to trigger global economic crises. We must therefore reconsider the entire organisation of our economies.

In the brief, we put forward some key recommendations to reform European trade to economic governance and industrial policy, as well as demands to reduce military budgets and limit the use of conventional weapons and new military technologies. These recommendations include, amongst others, a complete fossil fuel phase-out, green industrial planning and public ownership of essential sectors, a wealth and windfall profit tax, diplomatic tools and orienting foreign policy towards peace and cooperation.

What can readers do to speak out against militarisation?

We have seen with the genocide in Gaza and now with militarisation, that much of European civil society is staying silent. Peace groups, some trade unions and the more progressive organisations, on the other hand, have been organising through the European platform StopReArm Europe.

On Sunday 14th June, they are organising a demonstration in Brussels under the banner Welfare, not Warfare. Through the NGO workers’ collective FairCSOs, we are ramping up our mobilisation efforts for this action. As a worker, you can add your name to our open letter and join us on the demo (we will have our own NGO bloc!)

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]]><![CDATA[Unpaid labour is keeping Brussels grassroots events alive. We need community to keep it sustainable.]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/brussels-event-manifestohttps://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/brussels-event-manifestoWed, 27 May 2026 06:30:59 GMTThis article is co-authored by 11 event organisers in Brussels. Full list of signatories below. We take new signatures, just reply to this email if you’re interested.

People want to meet people. And it’s hard. Particularly in Brussels, and particularly now. The possibilities to build community are being eroded by the increasing economic instability and cost of living crisis, the persistent phenomenon of burnout and stress, and a geopolitical climate threatening to throw our futures into uncertain straits.

Most of us who organise grassroots events - meaning volunteer-led, largely unfunded community events that don’t constitute our day job - are familiar with the struggle to pull off events under increasingly challenging circumstances.

We feel the need to highlight how organising these events has always depended on both a tremendous amount of unpaid labour and time of the volunteers who organise them, and on the engagement and enthusiasm of those who attend - and that without that engagement, we struggle to sustain this level of work.

We organise because we know these spaces matter and we know people value them. Connection is an antidote to burnout, a tonic for individualism and a source of potential collaborations, friendships and new ideas. In the polycrisis, we need these spaces.

We organise around our full-time jobs, studies, personal commitments, travel for work, and around mental and physical health conditions. We often work through language barriers, as many of us are not native French or Dutch speakers, and while working in low-paid and stretched sectors. We often work alone or with one or two volunteers.

Despite this, because we are motivated and we care, we run events, often free or with an affordable ticket price. We contact venues, make space in our calendars two or three months ahead, organise volunteer meetings, source catering options, stay up late finalising graphic designs for promotional posters and social media, create the event pages, manage tickets and donations, field questions from potential attendees, find volunteer photographers or videographers, make posts every day or every other day on social media to promote attendance, pin posters up in our office buildings and distribute them in cafes.

We arrive early to set up the venue, we buy the necessary equipment and snacks and drinks - often out of our own pocket - host and facilitate the event, and stay at the end to help clean and thank the venues. We go home at midnight, exhausted, and get up at 7am for work the next day. Then we send follow-up emails with feedback surveys, invitations to follow more of our work, and requests to share photos on social media. Then start it all again for the next event.

We see that people are enthusiastic and think it’s a good idea but often don’t show up. Then they say When is the next one? And often don’t show up to that either.

We want to do more. We do. But it’s getting harder for us to sustain these events and spaces.

It’s hard economically, firstly. We as event organisers know the extreme struggle of finding funding or even 5 EUR donations at the door, and how quickly a token pricetag can drive away potential attendees. Venues that were free now charge hundreds just for the space, not including drinks or food. Third spaces are vanishing.

We pay for the volunteer travel costs and drinks ourselves, and cover the costs for low-income attendees.

Advice to look for ‘sponsors’ results in more work to email potential organisations that either don’t reply, or don’t see sufficient profit in sponsoring our activities. Community building is crucial, but it is not profitable, and our hyper-capitalist and neoliberal economic system is shrinking available funding sources and free spaces.

It’s also hard emotionally and psychologically. Free organising drives uncertainty. Average attendance is about 50% or less of those who register - and even less if the venue isn’t directly in the EU bubble, or the weather looks bad (or good), or it’s too close to the holidays or too close to deadline season. The time and capacity of volunteers is unpredictable and it is common to suddenly take on another person’s work last-minute.

We do this unpaid labour regardless, because we want to and because we believe it’s important and valued. And people ask again When is the next one?

The answer, of course, is that the next one depends on you, not just on us.

Free of cost does not mean free of commitment.

When an event is free, the only thing holding it together is mutual care. That means everyone who benefits from it should participate in some way: not just attend, but help, communicate, and take some shared responsibility. If we all show up, even in small ways, the work becomes sustainable. If we don’t, it burns out the few who are carrying everything.

Part of that commitment is communication. If you can’t come, tell us why. Not because we want to guilt you, but because silence erodes community fast. A quick message “can’t make it, here’s why” helps us plan, adjust, and trust that people actually care. Transparency and vulnerability keep community alive. If you can’t come, you can help us spread the word to your friends and online.

Everyone is a potential organiser, everyone is a potential villager. Building community is inherently reciprocal. In order to protect free events and free communities in Brussels, we need you to see yourself as co-creators, not just audience members.

Free events will not continue to exist if you don’t show up. What we need and crave as organisers is consistent, enthusiastic participation and involvement in initiatives that you think matter.

That means showing up, offering to volunteer, proposing collaborations (not just telling us what we should organise next!), inviting others to join the events, donating, sharing our events on social media, letting us know what you thought, posting about it afterwards, filling out feedback forms, asking if we need help with photos/videos/finding venues/promotion online, advocating for better funding for third spaces in Brussels, and ultimately offering to share resources, time and energy in whatever way you can.

We know you want community. We do too. Let’s start creating it.

SIGNED BY

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]]><![CDATA[Gentrification is threatening the biggest self-organised community in Greece - but they're resisting.]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/prosfygikahttps://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/prosfygikaWed, 20 May 2026 05:01:23 GMTCall for support for self-organised community threatened by eviction in Greece

Statement by the international team of Prosfygika.

Crowd outside a building in Greece with a massive banner with Greek hanging down it
March against forced eviction in Prosgygika. Photos: Romanos Lioutas.

For 16 years, the Community of Squatted Prosfygika exists as one of the biggest self-organised and liberated neighbourhoods in Europe. In these 8 building blocks in the heart of Athens, 400 inhabitants, from 27 different countries speaking 20 different languages, with different religions, ideologies, ages and backgrounds live, struggle and organise together.

Grounded in communal ownership, solidarity, mutual aid and horizontality, the community has not only hosted, housed, fed and supported thousands of individuals in the past 15 years - it also shows how collective self-organization and communal life is possible, even in increasingly precarious times.

Prosfygika has succeeded in building a politically united neighbourhood with numerous occupied apartments and over 20 different autonomous structures answering the basic needs of the inhabitants. To name some of them: The Children’s house and Self-Education Structure and the Self-Organized Kindergarten; the Health Structure and Social Pharmacy’ the Hosting Structure for Patients and their Companions from the Cancer Hospital ‘St. Savvas’; The Collective Bakery Structure; The Women’s Structure.

The community is getting stronger, but so is our repression. In summer 2025, the local government secretly initiated the plan to evict four buildings of the community and renovate them as part of the advancing gentrification of the area, starting in July 2026. The official goals outlined in the contract - the repurposing of the buildings into apartments for visitors of a nearby clinic, and social housing - must be debunked for what they are: ignorance towards the reality that these buildings are already inhabited, that the community is consisting of people from below, and that the community already opened a guest house for the relatives of the patients of the nearby cancer hospital.

It is propaganda that legitimises the violent displacement of its current inhabitants and the attack on a self-organised community.

On February 5th, one resident of the community (Aristotelis Chantzis) began a hunger strike to the death, demanding that the local government cancel the contract, guarantee the residents’ right to stay in their homes, and the transfer of the renovation rights of the buildings to a legal entity in the hands of the Community.

My name is Aristotelis Chantzis, as a member and resident of the Community of Squatted Prosfygika.. I am going on a hunger strike to the death, recognising this action as a means of struggle to highlight a collective struggle aimed at preserving Prosfygika as social housing and as a structure of solidarity for vulnerable social groups…

The attack we are facing is part of the holistic attack by the state and capitalism on the world of community, self-organization, solidarity, and social resistance. Aristotelis Chantzis

On the 1st May, fellow resident and member, Suzon Doppagne originally from Belgium, joined the hunger strike. At the time of writing, both hunger strikers were experiencing serious health complications and neither intend to stop their strike.

The Community of Squatted Prosfygika is a living example that another way of life is possible - in rupture with the dominant capitalist and patriarchal system. In a time of global crisis and a world war, the only way for our societies to survive and create a different paradigm is through building the world of the Community, of self-organization and solidarity. Suzon Doppagne

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20th June: Activists go for a walk in nature

Join us for a Sunday walk in the woods outside Brussels with like-minded people. The route is 7km and accessible to all levels of walking experience. Please find details here and register so we know how many people to expect.

24th June: Feminist rage and creative expression

Graphic that says: 25/6. Special edition. Feminist rage & creativity. From 6.30pm in Taylor's Cafe, Rue Haute 221

Angry at the patriarchy and looking for a space to vent with people who get it? So are we. Join us for a hot drink and some arts and crafts with other angry feminists. This is intended for women and ABCD (Anyone But Cis Dudes). Venue has limited space so please register early to get a spot.

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]]><![CDATA[The climate movement has a class issue and it's holding us back]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/working-classhttps://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/working-classWed, 06 May 2026 05:02:13 GMTWhen I was growing up, I believed that I was one of the most privileged people around. White, middle-class British woman from a quiet leafy town with a good free education and a family who could pay for my school trips.

I wasn’t wrong. I am privileged. But I was wrong about how close the gap between classes was. See I grew up next to a private school for boys. I believed that physical proximity was the same as social and financial proximity.

There were signs I was wrong - like when I took a first job washing dishes in the boarding school kitchens on the street I grew up on. An upper-class teacher asked me, while handing me her used mugs, “Where are you from? You don’t sound like you’re from here.”

Anyone else would have called my accent posh. But the real posh people, they knew I wasn’t one of them.

r/DowntonAbbey - The Dowager Countess 🥰
Downton Abbey

Or when I moved to Belgium and was talking to a university student who lived alone in a two-bedroom flat on the street of his campus. He had no part-time job. I asked how he could afford to live there and he shrugged. “Well my parents bought the flat to help me during my studies.” As if it was the most obvious answer in the world.

Then I started working on wealth inequality. Billionaires earning $2,500 per second in 2025. The rich, 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than any regular person.

I wasn’t wrong about my privilege. But the ceiling was so much higher than I thought. The chasm between classes was unfathomably large.

And even if we are not part of the 0.1% flying around by private jets, in progressive movements we reinforce the class divides by failing to recognise them. We’re more comfortable speaking abstractly about the importance of including the marginalised and the working class, than including them. I have often wondered, when in the European Parliament or a progressive conference, why we don’t just ask the cleaner or the caterer for their opinion.

We deliberately set up parameters for how and when different groups in society can have a place in political advocacy, we establish unspoken etiquette rules, we idealise or stigmatise the working class and the racialised working class far more easily than we talk to them.

The upper class, particularly the white male 0.1%, have dominated the narrative over how our society works for too long. I do not want to afford them more space. We should be building ties with the working class, the true experts of what it means to live in a destructively oppressive capitalist system.

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Cover image credit: Rose Zehner at a Citroen workers’ strike (1938)

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Focus On: Working Class Climate Activism

Cass Hebron speaks to Emma River-Roberts on how to better include working class activists in climate movements.

Source Illustration: Tribalium / Shutterstock.com. Edit: DF/Public Seminar

I’m Emma River-Roberts, Founder and Director of the Working Class Climate Alliance (WCCA). The WCCA is an international advocacy and education non-profit dedicated to raising awareness about working class forms of environmentalism and working class needs, making the case for greater inclusion of working class people in the climate movement and in environmental decision making.

What inspired you to start the Working Class Climate Alliance?

I started it after several years in the environmental movement and in academia, where I encountered a great deal of regressive attitudes about working class people. It is still common, for example, to use the term “working class” as shorthand for white men in industrial professions, erasing the diversity of working class experience. There was also a widespread assumption that working class people are ignorant or uninformed about climate change, despite their long history of campaigning for social and environmental justice.

I also met significant resistance when I raised the topics of class privilege and classism. Many people were willing to discuss social class in the abstract sense, but were unwilling to engage when it required confronting on their own biases or changing their behaviour.

A group of people demonstrating for climate and worker justice. They are holding signs with various slogans, such as ‘Trade unions for just transition’ and ‘Climate justice worker justice now’.
Transport workers campaigning for a just transition in the road transport industry during COP28, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 9 December 2023. © Getty Images

I also realised there were no organisations in the UK focused specifically on working class environmentalism, class, and classism. Given my experiences, I felt there was nowhere I could do this work, even though it was clearly needed. So I decided to start the WCCA and see where it goes!

The climate crisis has always disproportionately impacted lower-income groups. But how does elitism and class privilege show up in climate justice movements?

It shows up in ways that are sometimes overt but often quite subtle. One of the most common is the assumption that working class people need to be educated about climate change, rather than recognised as people who already have relevant knowledge and experience.

There’s also the question of who gets to set the agenda. Climate justice movements tend to be led by people from more privileged backgrounds, which shapes everything from the language used to the strategies pursued. When working class people do engage, they’re often brought in as case studies or consulted rather than treated as equal participants with decision-making power.

Things like unpaid volunteering, expectation of availability during working hours, jargon-heavy communications, and networking cultures that favour certain social backgrounds all create barriers that are rarely acknowledged, let alone addressed. All of which determines who can maintain involvement over time and who gets worn out and pushed out.

In many EU countries, the working class are increasingly voting right-wing or far-right. How can progressive movements regain the trust of working-class voters?

I think progressive movements need to start by being honest about why that trust was lost in the first place. A lot of working class people don’t feel seen or heard in these spaces. When their concerns are dismissed as ignorance, or when class is treated as less important than other forms of oppression, it sends a clear message about whose experiences actually matter.

Regaining trust also means engaging with the material conditions of people’s lives. Climate policy, for instance, has to be credible on questions of cost, jobs, and economic security if it’s going to land with working class communities. People aren’t going to back a green transition that feels like it’s being done to them rather than with them.

Are there any examples of political parties, campaigns or initiatives that you find effective in listening to & representing the working class?

Three examples stand out for me. The first is the Right to Roam. Many people don’t realise that we have the working class to thank for our ability to walk freely in the countryside. Between 1760-1820, a wave of Enclosure Acts enabled landowners to enclose six million acres of land in England, removing the public’s right of access.

In the 1930s, Manchester factory workers (who became known as ramblers) organised mass trespasses in the Peak District, asserting their inherited right to use the country’s highways. Their lobbying of political parties eventually led to Right to Roam legislation coming into effect across England and Wales in 2005.

Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 30th April 1932

The second is the GKN Factory Occupation in Florence, Italy. When the factory’s owners shut down production in 2021 and fired all 422 workers, the workforce occupied the building and launched an international solidarity campaign. Rather than simply resisting the closure, the workers developed a plan in collaboration with academics and scientists, to transform the factory into a co-operative producing socially and ecologically beneficial goods such as cargo bikes. The occupation is still ongoing – making it the longest occupation in Italian history.

The third is RISE St. James, a grassroots organisation in Louisiana that campaigns against the concentration of petrochemical plants in their community, which is situated on a stretch of land nicknamed Cancer Alley due to the significantly higher rates of cancer and respiratory disease amongst its residents compared to the rest of the US.

In this June 19, 2020 photo, members of RISE St. James pray over the graves of what are believed to be formerly enslaved Black people buried on the site of the former Buena Vista plantation
Members of RISE St. James pray over the graves of what are believed to be formerly enslaved Black people buried on the site of the former Buena Vista plantation. Formosa Plastics planned to build a manufacturing complex on the property. (Photo courtesy Louisiana Bucket Brigade)

When Formosa Plastics Group proposed a chemical plant that would have doubled air pollution levels in the area, RISE St. James launched a legal challenge and built local support through door-to-door campaigning, collaborating with legal professionals, town hall meetings and marches. In 2025, they won the lawsuit.

How can readers support the work of the WCCA?

Read about social class, working class histories, and the lived experiences of working class people – particularly from working class voices themselves. So much of the disconnect between progressive movements and working class communities comes down to a failure of understanding. We can’t effectively connect with, or advocate alongside people whose lives we haven’t made the effort to understand. That includes addressing classism within progressive movements themselves, which is often an uncomfortable conversation but a necessary one.

Staying connected is another simple step. Signing up to our newsletter keeps you up to date with our work, campaigns, and events, and following and sharing our content helps us reach people beyond our existing networks.

If you’re in a position to contribute financially, the WCCA runs entirely on limited resources, and donations through our website go directly towards sustaining and growing this work.

If you’re looking to better understand working class communities, address classism, or make your climate work more inclusive, we offer consultancy, skills training and public speaking services.

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]]><![CDATA[A Rough Idea: “I want to work in an NGO but nobody will hire me!” It's (probably) not you.]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/working-for-ngohttps://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/working-for-ngoWed, 29 Apr 2026 05:01:45 GMTA Rough Idea is a series of personal essays for paid subscribers. To access this content, please upgrade your subscription via the link below.

And for students, interns and those who don’t have the means to afford paid subscription, just email us at wearethegreenfix@gmail.com with ‘Gift subscription’ in the headline (we won’t ask you to prove it).

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“I want to work in an NGO but it’s so hard to find anything!”

At least once a month, usually more, I hear a variation of this from a graduate, intern or jobhunter in Brussels. They’re usually the picture of an ideal candidate: more degrees than I have, in relevant fields, volunteer experience, and conversational skills in at least three languages. They often have the privilege of EU citizenship and the financial ability to support another underpaid internship.

And sometimes they ask me for tips. And since I’m sick of parroting the network, keep at it and volunteer in the meantime! advice that implies that there are enough NGO jobs for everyone who tries hard enough, here’s what I want to tell them.

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]]><![CDATA[IKEA is lying about being sustainable. Meet the team exposing them.]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/ikeahttps://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/ikeaWed, 22 Apr 2026 05:00:52 GMTYou’re invited! Brussels Climate Drinks
The Green Fix presents: Climate Drinks from 6pm at Mazette, Pl. du Jeu de Balle 50, Brussels

🗓️ 29 April from 18h CEST

📍Mazette, Brussels

Join us on the 29th April for another round of Brussels Climate Drinks! Anyone interested in climate justice is welcome. Networking optional. Fossil fuel lobbyists not invited. Info and free RSVP here.

Convenience has never really interested me.

One time I went to a guy’s place for drinks and it looked like a showroom: white walls, white bed, white tables, no soul. It was full but it was empty.

“Oh yeah,” he said, “I just got everything from IKEA in one shop. It’s super convenient.”

He worked for the private sector, by the way. They paid for it. He was so proud and I was so bored, so uninspired.

I furnished my apartment almost completely second-hand, without a car. Sounds like a flex but when you’re begging friends to drag a sofa up two flights of stairs with you, or taking up all the space on the bus because you’re holding an entire table, it feels anything but cool.

Picture of two legs in black jeans and brown boots next to a vaccuum cleaner on a grey pavement
Picking up a free hoover via metro

“Wouldn’t it be more convenient to just order some things online? Like just the essentials. You can replace them later,” more than one person told me.

Yes, yes it would. It would be more convenient to order fast furniture online, to spend 250 EUR for a two-hour Eurostar home rather than a 30 EUR bus ride of 7 hours and sit at home staring at a screen four hours early. It would be more convenient to order all food delivered, to buy my own tools rather than suffer the awkwardness of asking neighbours who look at me like I’ve lost the plot. It would be more convenient to stay at home and talk to nobody and spend, consume, and skip all the awkward, exhausting, interesting, unpredictable elements in life that make our stories unique.

I can sense the binary counterarguments with all the exceptions to this. Let me stop you there. Picking convenience as a necessity out of accessibility, limited time or money is at times inevitable for all of us.

But convenience as a first priority sucks. It sucks the soul out of our homes - black-and-white minimalist grey becoming the norm in a homogenised corporate-imposed image of home. It sucks the soul out of our relationships as we retreat from discomfort and place boundaries that feel more like a cage.

Photo from an art installation of white IKEA-style chairs, bins and closets surrounded by balls of paper, in a totally white room.
Look how convenient

And it kills - the cost of convenient consumerism is a planet that dies faster too. And for what? For us to have the same nightstand as everyone else on the street?

Just a little effort to escape the convenience trap unleashes far greater rewards. No IKEA fast-built and fast-dismantled life for me.

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Focus On: IKEA’s sustainability lies

Cass Hebron spoke to Maia Wikler from the team producing Wild East, a documentary exposing IKEA’s links to deforestation in Romania’s forests.

My name is Maia Wikler, I’m the director of the short documentary Wild East. I’m also a writer and Ph.D. candidate in Political Ecology at the University of Victoria. My research focuses on memory as a tool of resistance in the face of corporate abuse, specifically deforestation and the climate crisis.

I met producer Audrey Popa in my Ph.D. graduate program - when Audrey told me about the environmental crisis unfolding in Romania, where her family is from, I felt a responsibility to make this film together. We made this film to expose the reality that old-growth forests are being turned into flatpack furniture for companies like IKEA.

This film follows Gabi Paun, a Romanian environmental activist who risks his life to expose this story and protect what little remains of these forests.

How is IKEA linked to deforestation in Romania and the ‘timber mafia’?

IKEA is linked to deforestation in Romania through its sourcing of wood from illegally logged forests by the timber mafia. Investigations by environmental organizations, including Agent Green, the Bruno Manser Fonds, and Greenpeace Romania, found evidence that IKEA has sourced timber from Romania’s national forests and even from EU-protected Natura 2000 biodiversity sites.

Picture of a tree stump from a logged tree in an open field under the sun
Credit: Wild East team

Agent Green’s 2024 report concluded that forests rich in biodiversity have been fragmented, degraded, and in some cases reduced to barren landscapes, with wood from these areas entering IKEA’s supply chain. IKEA is well aware of the volatility of the region and supply chain; our film’s key characters have met with IKEA representatives in person to explain firsthand what is happening on the ground in Romania.

The issue is a result of corruption in Romania’s forestry sector. Since the fall of communism in 1989 and Romania’s entry into the EU in 2007, the country’s forests have become increasingly vulnerable to land grabs and commercial exploitation. During this period, large tracts of forest were acquired by private interests, and IKEA became the largest private forest owner in Romania.

The term “timber mafia” refers to the powerful networks involved in illegal logging, corruption, and violence surrounding the timber trade. In Romania, these groups have been linked to threats and attacks against forest rangers, activists, and investigators, with multiple reported deaths and hundreds of violent incidents.

What are the impacts of this illegal logging on local communities and the environment?

It has contributed to the degradation and fragmentation of old-growth forests in the Carpathian region, including some of Europe’s last remaining intact forest ecosystems. This has led to biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, soil erosion, and reduced carbon sequestration capacity. In many cases, forest landscapes have been replaced by clear-cut or heavily degraded areas.

“I just remember the places where I used to grow up in the Carpathians, where there were intact forest landscapes. Suddenly, after 2000, the companies came and started to cut… [Now] I can’t recognize the places. I immediately get disoriented.” Gabi Paun

The impacts on local communities and those working in forest protection are also significant. Individuals involved in monitoring, documenting, or opposing illegal logging activities face serious risks. According to Silva Trade Union Federation, Romania’s forestry union, at least six patrolmen from Romania’s Forest Guard have been killed in recent years, and more than 650 violent incidents, including assaults, shootings, and other attacks, have been registered in connection with forestry-related conflicts.

Picture of logs on the back of a truck, taken through a car window
Source: Wild East team

Public officials have also been targeted. Doina Pana, a former Romanian minister, resigned due to health issues after she stated she survived mercury poisoning, which she believes was linked to her efforts to address illegal logging. Gabriel Paun has also been the target of multiple attacks and threats related to his investigations into deforestation and illegal timber networks.

How has IKEA managed to develop a reputation for sustainability, despite this illegal logging?

IKEA has been very effective at building a global reputation as a sustainability leader through branding and strategic philanthropy. IKEA benefits from operating in places where forest deforestation often receives limited international scrutiny, particularly in Eastern Europe and Russia, allowing these issues to remain less visible to global audiences (see other examples in Ukraine and Russia).

IKEA’s public-facing sustainability campaigns and the work of the IKEA Foundation, which supports environmental initiatives and storytelling projects worldwide, reinforce IKEA’s positive public reputation.

IKEA claims compliance with national and EU regulations, as well as its certification through the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). However, environmental groups, including Agent Green and Greenpeace, have alleged that IKEA’s logging practices in high-conservation-value forests undermine biodiversity protections. FSC has also faced criticism over potential conflicts of interest related to IKEA’s historical role in its founding.

What have local activists been doing to expose this? What is the response like?

Local activists and environmental organizations in Romania have been working for years to expose illegal logging, corruption, and the destruction of old-growth forests.

Campaign image of IKEA adverts attached to trees in Romanian forests with price tags
© Greenpeace

For more than a decade, Gabi and his team at Agent Green have been investigating illegal logging networks, exposing links between the timber mafia and major corporate supply chains, and advocating for stronger protections for Romania’s remaining forests. Their efforts have included traditional protests/sit-ins, formal reports documenting illegal logging, and media outreach both in the country and internationally.

What are the challenges you face developing this documentary, and how can our readers support you?

The biggest challenge we face right now is completing the final stages of post-production so that the film can be shared with audiences around the world. While editing is now complete, there are still several essential costs that need to be finished before we can share this film further, including: colour grading, graphics, legal fees, music licensing, insurance, and film festival submissions.

We want this film to be seen by as many people as possible, to bring international attention to the destruction of Romania’s old-growth forests and the people risking their lives to protect them. If you are in the position to donate, every little bit goes a long way.

And if financial support isn’t possible, sharing our campaign within your network would be a huge help. It just takes a few people in everyone’s network who might be in the position to support the project that will get us across the finish line. Like the film-making process, fundraising is a collective effort and together we can do it!

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Volunteer with us!

We’re looking for a community engagement volunteer in The Green Fix team who can help us build a community with our readers and increase how interactive we are. We are Europe-based but volunteers can be based anywhere. For more information and expression of interest, please email wearethegreenfix@gmail.com.

Inclusive translations for non-profits and ethical businesses

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Marina of Aire Translations is a translator and subtitler providing inclusive translations from English and Japanese into her native Spanish and Catalan, as well as other language services such as subtitling, editing and sensitivity reading.

She helps NGOs, ethical businesses and audiovisual creators tackle climate change and social inequalities and tell stories that change the world.

Check out her website for information, and get in touch to discuss a project!

Book your sponsored slot by emailing wearethegreenfix@gmail.com.

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]]><![CDATA[A Rough Idea: What's on my calendar for climate justice events this month ]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/ari-april2026https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/ari-april2026Thu, 16 Apr 2026 05:01:42 GMTA Rough Idea is a series of personal essays for paid subscribers. To access this content, please upgrade your subscription via the link below.

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The newsletter is late, for my own self-imposed deadline. Late because I’ve spent a lot of time the last few days staring at a blank notebook attempting have some original ‘take’ on current affairs, without success.

I’ve been working at my Official Job on the historic global aid cuts, where rich countries have slashed 23% of development funding whilst funding militarisation, conflict and exploitation. And now on the Santa Marta conference, a gathering in Colombia at the end of this month of 45 countries hoping to develop a roadmap away from fossil fuels.

My brain this week is pretty fried. And my calendar is full of events and reminders. But I guess a lot of you reading this can relate, as deadline season is upon us. Maybe the last thing you want is another perspective or new issue we ‘need to be talking about.’

So here’s a very incomplete list of the events & resources in my bookmarks relating to climate justice on my calendar for the rest of this month - additions welcome.

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]]><![CDATA[Community building is about the people who show up]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/showing-uphttps://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/showing-upWed, 08 Apr 2026 05:01:32 GMTYou’re invited! Brussels Climate Drinks
The Green Fix presents: Climate Drinks from 6pm at Mazette, Pl. du Jeu de Balle 50, Brussels

🗓️ 29 April from 18h CEST

📍Mazette, Brussels

Join us on the 29th April for another round of Brussels Climate Drinks! Anyone interested in climate justice is welcome. Networking optional. Fossil fuel lobbyists not invited. Info and free RSVP here.

Last week we held the second edition of Speed Dating for Activists 💘

I love organising events. I have to, otherwise I wouldn’t put myself and the team through the weeks of stress, venue hunting, graphic designs and promotion and jumping through hoops to keep the events free.

But even with years of practise, each event provides a strong reminder of two things:

1. People want human connection. I mean really want it.

Particularly in progressive movements, where the work can be relentless, isolating and overwhelming. Particularly now, where geopolitics throws our futures into precarity and uncertainty and we are confronted by the horrors of US imperialism, Israeli genocidal aggression and a disintegrating ecosystem.

It’s exhausting, by design. It’s so easy to decide we can’t be bothered to join that event, meet up with that friend, go to the neighbourhood meeting, in the urge to take a break from the onslaught of the outside world. But persistent isolation is the tool of authoritarianism and neoliberalism - a driver for our burnout and despair being presented as the cure.

Informal spaces to meet people, like normal people, not personalities on LinkedIn, are a tonic and we need to protect them.

2. Free events in the Brussels activist scene are providing that antidote to isolation - but creating these events for free is increasingly challenging & tiring too.

I and other grassroots event organisers in my network talk often about the struggle to manage the organisation alone or with a handful of volunteers, with little to no budget, around full-time jobs and other commitments.

Venues that were free begin to charge hundreds just for the space (one place started charging 500 EUR, not including drinks), collaborators pull out with no warning, volunteers wake up ill on the day of, people who swore they would be there then cancel at the last minute because they’re not feeling it, or because their managers are demanding a deadline by the end of the day and they’re swamped, but could we organise another?

I don’t say that to be petty. I know life happens. It happens to me too. We do this unpaid labour regardless, because we want to and because we believe it’s important and valued.

But building community is inherently reciprocal, and I have a never-ending appreciation and awe for the people who consistently show up. Even better, those who show up and say - how can I help? We have a venue you could use for the next one. I have invited all my friends tonight. I had an idea for an event I’d like to organise together with you, if you’re interested. You are the ones making this sustainable - financially, logistically, emotionally. See you at the next one.

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In case you missed it…

EU Fundraising Academy: ‘Fundraising in a time of disruption’

A group of people stand in Place Luxembourg in front of the European Parliament dressed in black and holding pieces of paper with crosses on them and the text 'Mourning the death of EU-wide civil liability'

🗓️ June 12, 2026, Brussels

Register now for the EU Fundraising Academy and learn what effective fundraising looks like for public interest organisations amid shrinking civic space and volatile funding landscapes. Find out more.

Book your sponsored slot by emailing wearethegreenfix@gmail.com.

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]]><![CDATA[A Rough Idea: The progressive movement needs to learn how to have fun]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/ari-funhttps://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/ari-funWed, 01 Apr 2026 05:01:53 GMTA Rough Idea is a series of personal essays for paid subscribers. To access this content, please upgrade your subscription via the link below.

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I hear a lot about joy and fun as necessary forms of resistance, but I don’t always think we mean it. The most enthusiastic proponents often seem to be privileged white people who are using these slogans to justify their own continued inaction. Getting coffee with friends because joy is a form of resistance!

Picture of a white woman in a hat and blue denim dress sitting on steps with the headline 'Joy is an act of resistance!' says white woman who engages in no other forms of resistance'

Among activist friends, joy is an abstract concept. It sounds good, but just like all the concepts we intellectualise, we struggle to put it into practise. Me too.

When I talk about what I do with The Green Fix events, I feel awkward, like it’s wrong to call it a form of climate activism. “We do… uh… drinks. And… speed dating,” I say, wondering how I can possibly be taken seriously after that.

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]]><![CDATA[Help! What if my therapist is a coloniser?]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/help-what-if-my-therapist-is-a-coloniserhttps://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/help-what-if-my-therapist-is-a-coloniserWed, 25 Mar 2026 06:02:01 GMTWhen I was diagnosed with ADHD, one of the key assessment criteria was whether my symptoms disrupted my ability to function in a typical workplace or education system.

The entire diagnostic system we use is reliant on a baseline idea of what it means to ‘function.’ We treat the exhausting, individualistic, 9-5 hyper-capitalist economy as the Normal. Those who do not fit into the structures designed by and for male hormonal rhythms and Western ideology are abnormalised.

Screenshot of an instagram post graphic that says 'I don't want my neurodiversity celebration if it's all about my contribution to capitalism'

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t buy into the take that ADHD only exists under capitalism. There are clear neurological differences in how our brains are wired.

But I have never sought to adapt to an economic and social structure that doesn't suit the Global Majority of people, neurodivergent or not.

And so my ability to ‘thrive’ in those structures tells you nothing about whether I can function as a fulfilled human being, or whether I’m a good friend, or give back to the community.

I would argue that my ability to blend in even tells you little about my neurodivergence and more about my gender, culture, and my whiteness. For much of my young adult years, men rebranded my chaos into a Manic Pixie DreamGirl, and my impulsivity was somehow endearing, or exciting, rather than disruptive. Would I be able to mask so well if I hadn’t been raised in the UK, home of passive aggression and obsessive etiquette rules?

I doubt a black woman, person with physical disabilities, or non-binary person with ADHD would be afforded the same positive spin.

Today this edition covers an interview with decolonial psychotherapist Talha AlAli, he reminded me that neurodivergence is an automatic disruption to the machine. Our existence questions the ‘normality’ of one neurotype, one way of being, one ‘normality.’

ADHD is not a superpower. But neither is being neurotypical, and so I do not aspire to it. Divergence simply is, and by spending more time adapting workplaces and societies to accommodate difference rather than erase it, we can begin to imagine a different world outside the confines of this patriarchal 9-5.

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Focus On: Decolonising Therapy

speaks with Talha AlAli, a decolonial psychotherapist based in Ireland.

Photo of Talha, a middle-aged man with brown hair tied up and a wearing keffiyeh. He is standing at a podium in a lecture theatre in front of a presentation slide that reads 'Status of mental health in Gaza and decolonising mental health'
Talha AlAli at Health Care Workers for Palestine. Source: LinkedIn

My name is Talha AlAli. I am a psychotherapist from Palestine. I started my practice in Palestine in 2009. Throughout the years I’ve worked with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Jordan as a paediatric counselor in a hospital for survivors of war trauma coming from Iraq, Yemen, Palestine, Syria, and so on. I’ve worked in Libya in the detention centers in Tripoli where they try to lock in people who try to cross the sea to come to Europe. Then I moved with them to Ukraine.

I did my undergraduate studies and my Masters in Palestine, [where] we’ve been taught [psychological] models that all developed and formed in the Western part of the world and have been transferred to us. They’re assuming safety, stability, and individual freedom at the starting point, and that wasn’t my reality, and it wasn’t the reality of many of other people I was working with, like refugees, migrants, racialized clients, and people carrying intergenerational traumas.

Reading the writings of Frantz Fanon and Edward Said and others helped me understand that colonial violence did not just occupy land, it occupied the psyche. In the therapy room, people from the Global South or indigenous people are often misunderstood through the Western gaze. Their traditions, knowledge and ways of being were erased because they’re not in line with the Western values.

Quotegraphic by Franz Fanon: The oppressed will always believe the worst about themselves
Source: @yilinhi88

So they broke us and wanted us to mend as they please. Decolonised therapy emerged for me as a way of closing that gap of lived experience and psychological care. For example, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs doesn’t make sense in the context of Palestine where people go on hunger strike, “I don’t want my physical needs. My pride comes first, my self-actualization,” and so on.

Are there examples of colonial dynamics playing out in Western psychotherapy?

Western psychotherapy often treats this stress as something happens inside the individual, disconnected from the communal aspects of life for this individual. And it disconnects the individual from the history and power, reflecting a very specific world view shaped by white Western middle-class contexts.

When someone has anxiety because of racism, border control, state violence, being marginalised, Western therapy often asks them to regulate their response rather than question the conditions producing it.

Even Western writers like Michel Foucault wrote about how institutions defined what was normal, healthy, and acceptable. And psychotherapy is one of these institutions. And if you take it farther, Western psychotherapy evolved hand-in-hand with the Industrial Revolution. So the healthy person was the functional person who can produce.

Outside Western psychotherapy, in other cultures, the functional person is the person who navigates social contexts, who’s in touch with their values, with the spirit, not the person who produces.

I’m a privileged western European diagnosed with ADHD. But when I look at the diagnostic framework, it’s so dependent on your ability to function as a worker in the economic system.

And in my experience, it’s more acceptable socially when I say I have ADHD because I’m already in these different levels of privilege that shield me from the stigma that marginalised groups would receive.

That’s an important point, and it can branch to two things. The first one, for you as a white person, you being diagnosed with ADHD disrupts the machine because you don’t function according to the Protestant work ethics. I see someone with ADHD or autism as a variation of the human being rather than as something needs to be fixed and medicalized and flattened into the box of working nine-to-five.

As a non-white [person], Edward Said showed how the West has historically constructed non-Western people as irrational, emotional, deficient. So white children in school, for example, who are aggressive, are more likely to be labeled as assertive compared to brown children who would be labeled as defiant. So with two people with ADHD, their race will decide how they will be perceived by power, and power always favors the white.

Western psychotherapy has this idea about the therapist being neutral, and this can reproduce harm. When a client names racism or colonial violence and the therapist stays silent in the name of professionalism or the systems, the systems are being protected, not the person.

How do we begin to decolonise our minds?

One part is decolonising the colonisers. If you look at the UK, Winston Churchill is on five pound bills. Winston Churchill described Indians as people who are “breeding like rats“. [People like Churchill] managed to colonise British people’s mentality into believing the colonisers are the superiors. And white supremacy stems from there. So we need to decolonise the Western mentality first to understand that your knowledge is not universal. You’re not superior. All people are equal.

Photo of a person in a mask and black clothes in front of a statue of winston churchill, which has been graffiti'd to read 'Winston was a racist'
Protesters gather around the Winston Churchill statue in Parliament Square during a Black Lives Matter rally in London, Sunday, June 7, 2020. Frank Augstein/AP

And then go into social justice, which is the redistribution of power, resources and the reparation of what you’ve damaged. Because if you stab someone and pull the knife out, you don’t say, “Okay, I’m good now. I pulled my knife. It’s fine.” You have to heal this person and attend to these wounds.

In the colonised, colonisation has instilled a lot of self-doubt, a lot of shame, and feeling like our lives are not equal to other people’s life in the West. So we need to decolonise that and get rid of these thoughts that we have been fed for generations.

The pluralistic approach by MacLeod and Kubler is an amazing first step towards decolonising the work. Another is to change visibility into transformation. A lot of places now will bring a brown or black person to speak in a panel discussion, but they will hold no power, no position, no way of changing power. So there are ways of bringing more people to speak for themselves.

How do you approach decolonised therapy in practise?

I would describe my approach as decolonial, trauma-informed social justice, liberation psychology, and pluralistic. I don’t believe in one answer to the same question by two people. I try to draw from the people’s experience and view of life.

Therapy is a meaning-making process. And with white people, decolonisation works differently, because it involves them needing to recognise how they benefit from systems that harm others. When I come to the person who’s harmed by these systems, we acknowledge together how these systems are set to benefit other people. Even if you’re white, working class, these systems are set there for other people.

I draw a lot on Kimberlee Crenshaw’s work on intersectionality because it shows how power operates differently depending on where you stand. And why a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work.

Intersectionality graphic design that lists all the variations of privilege (race, gender, class, ability, etc.) above the quote 'Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it locks and intersects. It is the acknowledgement that everyone has their own unique experiences of discrimination and privilege.'

A lot of people that we work with have lived through displacement, racism, political violence, and it begins with the belief that it’s not your fault. And we start working on how can the therapy can help you. How can you regulate your emotions? How can you connect with your identity? How can you connect with the communal self of yours that usually Western life wouldn’t allow you to?

For many people, the danger hasn’t ended yet. When I work with people from Gaza who’ve been displaced, they might be safer physically, but mentally, emotionally, they’re still vulnerable. A siren outside the room would send them into a panic attack. I leave the definition of safety to my clients, not to the dominant group. If I need to use parts of the CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy), I use it. If I need something from a solution-focused therapy, Gestalt, humanistic, logotherapy, etc.

Some clients would say, “This is how my grandparents would heal,” especially when I speak about humanistic approaches and logotherapy. So these practices already exist, but the Western ways extracted a lot from other indigenous knowledge and called it theirs. Healing becomes about meaning, about agency, about restoring a sense of self that hasn’t been reduced to diagnosis through a Western tool.

Western psychotherapy has come up with context-free interventions to apply them to context-situated suffering. In the therapy room, it doesn’t make sense.

When Western psychotherapy diagnoses, it describes a pattern. But in the therapy room when we decolonise, we tell the story underneath this pattern.

Talha recently published a book called “Decolonised Minds: When Radical Becomes Rational”. Get your copy here. You can follow their practise on Instagram and LinkedIn.

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EU Advocacy Academy: ‘Public interest vs populism: holding EU decision-makers accountable’

Two photos side-by-side. One of people holding a banner outside the European Parliament. One arrow reads 'Far-right' and the other reads 'Future.' The other photo is of Ursula von der Leyen at a podium.

🗓️May 27th and 28th, 2026 in Brussels

Join the EU Advocacy Academy and deepen your understanding of EU decision-making. Build the skills to influence policy and legislation with confidence. Register now to strengthen your impact at the European level.

EU Fundraising Academy: ‘Fundraising in a time of disruption’

A group of people stand in Place Luxembourg in front of the European Parliament dressed in black and holding pieces of paper with crosses on them and the text 'Mourning the death of EU-wide civil liability'

🗓️ June 12, 2026, Brussels

Register now for the EU Fundraising Academy and learn what effective fundraising looks like for public interest organisations amid shrinking civic space and volatile funding landscapes. Find out more.

Book your sponsored slot by emailing wearethegreenfix@gmail.com.

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]]><![CDATA[Polyamory and capitalism #2: On living & loving differently]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/polyamory-part2https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/polyamory-part2Wed, 18 Mar 2026 06:01:44 GMTThis email is unlocked for all subscribers. Usually, A Rough Idea is a series of personal essays for paid subscribers only. To access all our paid content, please become a paid subscriber.

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I asked both monogamous and polyamorous friends and acquaintances for their anecdotal experiences of the same questions on relationships: 1. What relationship ideas have you had to change over your life? 2. Do you think you’re mono/polyamorous by choice or by identity? 3. Have you faced any stigma for being monogamous/polyamorous? Some names have been changed.

Definition of polyamory: Engaging in multiple romantic relationships at the same time, with the consent of everyone involved.

Do you remember how your last relationship ended? Of course you do. Did it feel like a failure? Did you worry about being alone forever? Or was it a relief?

In part 1 of this essay-meets-massive-overshare, I talked about how monogamy and the nuclear family became embedded in our Western societies as the default, the end goal, the proof of success of being a Person In Today’s Society.

But it’s easy to critique the status quo. (Other than the part where I post these articles on LinkedIn and Substack). It’s harder to consciously choose a different path, or to intentionally choose monogamy and more traditional routes. Especially if you don’t really know or understand that you can make the choice at all.

GIF from the Peep Show of a therapist saying 'Maybe we should try something else'
Peep Show

Nothing has shaped my ability to make autonomous relationship choices and dispel myths fed to me by Hollywood and society as much as dating and befriending people in a range of different relationship structures. Polyamorous people, people in open relationships, people who stay single by choice, people who want to have a child alone, or raise it in a shared house with their friends.

People who are, at the end of the day, just trying to live their lives, but in doing so present a necessary challenge to the hegemony of patriarchal, neoliberal and conservative beliefs that unconsciously shape our ideas of what love and connection must look like.

By addressing these entrenched myths, and opening ourselves to alternative attitudes and approaches, we hopefully can begin to sift through the propaganda to our true preferences and desires.

Do relationships really ‘fail’?

There are many critiques of polyamory. The one I hear most often - usually by people who have neither experienced nor met anyone polyamorous but have read some horror stories online - is oh but that never works.

If we mean ‘works’ in the sense of lasting forever, then yes, most polyamorous relationships ‘fail.’ Most monogamous relationships also end. Because most relationships end.

I couldn’t find data on how many romantic relationships in a lifetime are the average (which perhaps says something about how we still value marriage more than romance). But in the UK, 41% of marriages end in divorce. In Finland, Norway and France, that goes up to over half of marriages.

For me marriage, which is a commitment to try to stay together, while recognising that that is certainly not a given, maybe not even natural, is absurd. But that makes it all the more valuable to me. But I have to admit, it would be intellectually more honest to say: we agree on this marriage contract for five years and let’s see where we stand then…. Jonathan, monogamous

The fixation on relationships lasting forever to be ‘successful’ is often paired with a strong social stigma against being single. A study by Match in 2022 of 1,000 single people found that over half of them had recently experienced ‘single-shaming’, regardless of whether they were happy single or not. I’m sure many of us when single have heard people reassure us that it’s ‘OK’ or ‘there’s still time!’ when that was not a question we were asking.

Just like in polyamorous structures, single people find themselves facing the age-old socially prescribed myth that fulfilment must come from a two-person romantic relationship. The relationship that a capitalist neoliberal economy promotes (partnered people frequently find that they gain financial and legal benefits from a traditional marriage) and that history has required (when women were property and needed marriage for any chance of financial stability and security).

The flipside of the ‘happily ever after’ socially-prescribed goal is a long history of singleness - particularly in women - being stigmatised, framed as a failure, a deficiency or a sign of loose morality.

No wonder breakups are maligned. But let’s flip the script. What if breakups are a success story?

Before I met my first poly friends, I never questioned seeing a breakup as a failure. But after her breakups with her boyfriend and girlfriend, one friend said that it hurt like hell, but it was worth it. She had the privilege to love and be loved by so many people - whether for a short time or a long time.

Of course it still hurts. In a culture that tells us that pain and discomfort is always bad, something as visceral as a breakup can feel like a betrayal from the world that promised a happily ever after.

Screenshot of an Instagram post by @polyphiliablog that says 'We would do so much better as a society if we let go of the idea that relationships have to last forever to be meaningful, and that romantic partners are the only way to fulfiling relationships'
Source: @polyphiliablog on Instagram

But our fear of discomfort may be the problem, more than the discomfort itself. The poet Khalil Gibran once said, “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” Some people grow together in their relationship, sometimes they grow apart - but as long as you’re growing, isn’t that a success?

Think back to your last relationship. Maybe it was a shitty relationship and he got angry if you weren’t constantly texting him, or she made fun of you in front of her friends. Maybe it was abusive. Getting out was the best thing you could do. That’s a victory.

Maybe it was a good relationship. I have some exes I can’t say much bad about except that we grew apart as we changed. Yet I learned things from each of them. Those good memories and new knowledge aren’t erased by the relationship ending. Leaving on good terms is surely a victory too.

The typical indicator for “successful” marriage, from what I learned during my upbringing, would be if the relationship had ended with one or both of our deaths. This was the first idea I unlearned. When I look back on my first marriage, the overwhelming emotion I feel is gratitude; that experience prepared me to be the person who was ready to meet my soulmate. Sara, polyamorous

I mentioned in the first part, that I once dated a polyamorous man who wanted to get more serious. That relationship ended, but it had nothing to do with polyamory. He cast some of these social scripts into the light for me, and he is one of the people I asked for quotes for these articles. He, along with others, fundamentally reshaped how I approach relationships.

Sometimes relationships don’t fail or end, they just transform.

The fear of scarcity

But Cass, you might be saying, I can’t believe I wasted so much time in that relationship. That’s years of my life I’m never getting back. I get it. And yes I would be better off if I had spent less time begging men to do the bare minimum.

But the fear of ‘running out’ of time to find a partner to me always echoed an underlying social script rooted in a scarcity-based economy. Under neoliberal economies, we’re taught that every resource is scarce. We must fight for jobs, save up our time and money, and compete with everyone else to be The Best and hoard the most income.

The result is a hyper-capitalist hyper-competitive society that is simultaneously obsessed with having more, being more, owning more, and convinced they will never have enough, be enough. A generation of anxious and overworked people are unlikely to lead a revolution. Hell, Gen Z are having less sex than Boomers and now say they would prefer one good night’s sleep.

GIF of a man saying 'I'd rather get some much-needed sleep' to Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette, 2006

And now we tell them they must find The Best Partner, the Soulmate, fast, before anyone else ‘gets’ them. And then be perfect in order to keep them. This plays out in our relationships, where we are taught to ‘own’ our partners.

Women’s magazines warn us of the perils of ‘micro-cheating’ (including sharing memes with a friend of the opposite sex before you), and ‘emotional cheating’ (being inappropriately emotionally close with someone else). Other opportunities for connection are instantly a threat to your investment, a competition to beat.

These guardrails and limitations we place on our partner’s connections often aim to assuage a deep-rooted anxiety that they have a quota for love and care that must be hoarded, for fear of not having enough for yourself.

Ever since starting non-monogamy, I’ve been confronted by this idea that I couldn’t really fall in love with two different people at the same time. And it’s one I used to share as well before learning about it. I knew I could have a crush on someone even if I was in a relationship with another person. But the idea was that if I acted on it, it would mean I didn’t love the first one. Louis, polyamorous

Love with an abundance mindset

Polyamory embraces abundance in a way that I find very anticapitalist. While there are boundaries (as I noted before, UN negotiators have got nothing on polyamorous people), it has a much more generous approach in our capacity to love.

As is often pointed out, we don’t expect to be someone’s only friend or ban them from being close to other friends. (With the exception of my ex who didn’t want to make new friends because he was afraid it would interfere with his time to chill, but frequently complained he was isolated).

Each friend brings something different to our lives. I have my friend that I can rely on for advice when organising an event, and another one I’d meet up with for their energy and enthusiasm, and another for their calm down-to-earth demeanour. Friends for a short time, friends for life. They each offered something that only they, a whole unique and irreplaceable person, could.

Photo of two older black women in regency era dresses sitting and having tea. They are playing Lady Danbury and Queen Charlotte, two characters who are close friends in Bridgerton
Lady Danbury and Queen Charlotte in Bridgerton, 2026

How can we expect one person to be all of these people and fulfill all these roles? In monogamous structures too, taking time to nurture our friendships and social ties outside of our romantic relationship is vital for our mental health and fulfilment.

By the way, I think the reason that we are not made to limit our friendships is because the patriarchal, marriage-obsessed Western culture we live in has never seen friendship as a significant or useful part of our life. Individualism disregards the power of collective action and strong networks. Indeed, they are even framed as frivolous or less important. This is wrong - I wrote about this in an earlier article.

The patriarchy has taught men that they should not need or want a social network, or build meaningful and emotionally intimate relationships with others, instead heaping all the responsibility at the feet of their often-exhausted female partner. And she had better not seek comfort or emotional closeness in anyone who may pose a ‘threat’ to the relationship. How will she, in that situation, find the time, energy or freedom to love others or be part of a community?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a recent study found that single women are happier than single men,

[I had to unlearn] the sneakily ingrained idea of “ownership” in a relationship. When my partner started dating someone new early in our poly experience I felt that jealousy of “someone else is fucking MY partner!” As I was sole owner of them and their sexual experiences. I wasn’t treating them like an actual full individual, thinking about it in those terms takes away someone’s agency. Wolfgang, polyamorous

Quote from an interview with Cher where she says 'A man is not a necessity. He is a luxury, like dessert. My mom said I should find a rich man and settle down. I said mom, I am a rich man.
Cher, 1996

What if we all took a more polyamorous, resource-abundant approach, regardless of how many romantic partners we want to have? If we imagined that there was an abundance of people out there that we can form meaningful, reciprocal and fulfilling connections with.

That there is not one soulmate that is fixed throughout our lives but people that suit us for a short time, some for a long time. And so so many people that have the capacity and willingness to love us, help us, reveal a new way of seeing the world, and that we have the capacity to love, help, and experience life together. That we can also have love stories with friends, neighbours and people we met for just a day.

On top of that, imagine we had an abundance of time. I’m well aware that many feel the tick of a biological clock. Aside from the fact that opportunities for parenthood without a traditional relationship have expanded over the decades, it is surely still better to act as if we had the time to make intelligent, intentional relationship choices, than stay in a sinking ship out of fear of running out of time to find a lifeboat.

I have seen friends - intelligent, feminist friends - continually sacrifice their boundaries, comfort and critical thinking to salvage a relationship with people that never bother to even come to their place because it’s too much effort.

I’ve seen coworkers stay in marriages where they carry all the domestic and economic weight in the hope that their partner will eventually ‘learn’ how to step up.

I’ve heard friends complain that their friend will no longer spend time with them because their boyfriend isn’t comfortable with it.

And at some point all these conversations boil down to the hope that all this work and dissatisfaction must be worth it, because we’ve been told that being in a long-term monogamous relationship is the end goal, and so all the pains that come with it must be borne, and that that is a greater ‘success’ than breaking up. And these friends and coworkers end up spending so much time working on the relationship that their other social ties begin to disintegrate, as they try to make themselves fit into a structure that isn’t working.

Love is not rare or more special if it is artificially treated as a restricted resource. Marie, polyamorous

Again, a patriarchal and neoliberal social structure stigmatises the formation of strong social networks and communities, by placing a quota on what kinds of relationships we can have, creating the idea of scarcity of love and assigning a huge pressure to stay in and ‘fix’ socially accepted romantic relationships.

How different would our relationship stories be if we embraced an anti-capitalist mindset and imagined that there was an abundance of capacity for care, connection and meaning with or without our romantic relationships?

Part 3 coming soon (?? This is getting so long so I hope you all like reading this)

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]]><![CDATA[Defending human rights is care work - no wonder women are left carrying the load]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/carehttps://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/careWed, 11 Mar 2026 06:01:29 GMTEvent: Speed Dating for Activists is back!

Back by popular demand, Speed Dating for Activists will return to Brussels on the 2nd April! (Yes real dating, holding-hands dating). Open to all genders and orientations. Numbers are limited, sign up to get a spot.

Defending human rights is care work - no wonder women are left carrying the load

Trigger warnings: Discusses gender violence and discrimination. Some imagery.

Caring is keeping the world afloat. But the patriarchy doesn’t want men to care. And I’m not sure it really wants women to care either.

Care, they say, is feminine. They say that must be why women are spending an extra 2.3 hours a day globally on unpaid work at home: laundry and childcare and putting away his empty beer-cans and marking the calendar and then putting it in his phone so he remembers too.

Graphic that shows that women carry out at least 2.5 times more unpaid care work than men, around the world.
Source: UN Women

They say this is because we are women, that it is a fact of our biology, that a desire to clean counters must be wound into our DNA, our ‘purpose.’ Domestic goddess - the only modern religion where women can be a deity, apparently. Your ex probably told you we were just better at this sort of thing (buying binliners and reminding him to wash his hands).

The patriarchal rhetoric tells us women stay home and men sort the economy out - that’s why it’s doing so well. Women’s unpaid work provides more value to the economy than the entire tech industry combined, 10.8 trillion dollars a year.

But don’t worry, men, I know you don’t care. I know some of you are shrugging it off. Your mum wanted to stay at home. You split things evenly with your partner. You once had a female housemate who never cleaned. The stats must be skewed by Global South countries. I know you want to tell me that I am generalising, that it’s not all men, that specifically it’s not you.

But there you go again. Not caring about the right issue. How is it, men, that none of you have ever exploited or abused women, you don’t know anyone who would, yet every women has a story of being exploited, abused, harassed, managing your temper or organising your appointments and your social commitments? Perhaps it’s difficult to notice when you grew up that way.

An interesting dichotomy in the patriarchy: there are two sides to caring, and the patriarchy only wants one.

Stock image of a close-up of a hoover that a woman is using on a carpet by a sofa. A man is on the phone on the sofa with his feet up.

The first meaning of care is what we already speak about. Doing the dishes, raising the children, keeping the house in order. Women make up the vast majority of the workforce for paid care roles like nursing, education and childcare - in some roles, up to 90%. Not coincidentally, these are some of the lowest-paid occupations.

The right-wing will leap on this stat to flip the cause-effect and say that women choose to go for the low-paid roles, because we must enjoy being overworked for the sake of Caring About People. But the data shows the opposite: as sectors become women-dominated, the average wages fall for all employees.

Add in structural recruitment bias, gender pay gaps and sexism in the workplace: The economic structure is designed to limit women’s ability to be financially independent and contribute meaningfully to the workforce.

Anyway. The conservative approach tells the story backwards, makes a new false narrative: we do the care work because we “care more”.

But they don’t talk about the second part of caring. The part that can’t be dressed up as a ‘soft feminine’ skill. Caring for people and our homes doesn’t end with hoovering and cooking.

We face a global geopolitical assault on human rights. The Epstein Files shows the utter disregard for the lives and bodies of women and children by the people in power. Gen Z men are holding more extreme sexist views than Boomers. Transgender people are being limited from holding valid driver’s licences. Development aid is being slashed worldwide. The US war machine and Israel is killing girls, babies, families, to ‘liberate’ them. Pollution, oil spills and wildfires destroy even the most cared-for of homesteads.

Alleged birthday card from Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, 2003. Source: PBS

How do we continue to look after each other in this context? We raise hell.

To defend human rights is to care a great deal about the people around us and reject the pressure to become divided, polarised, scapegoat minorities and follow business as usual. That is the approach suggested to us by patriarchal powers.

Caring means showing up to protest meetings, signing petitions, emailing local politicians, amplifying marginalised groups on social media, rejecting Big Tech, learning to repair, learning to grow seeds. It means setting fire to the things that don’t serve us and our future.

Ahou Daryaei, an Iranian protestor against the strict hijab laws. She was violently arrested and has not been seen since. Source: @yasemin_goksu_official

But because caring is a woman’s thing, women are disproportionately taking on this work too. Women are more likely to recycle, women leaders are more likely to ratify environmental treaties and have stricter climate policies. They are far more likely to participate in initiatives for gender equality, in every country in Europe.

But for this kind of care, women risk being penalised, arrested or killed for it by the state. They didn’t mean care like this.

If this is sounding familiar, it’s not the first time I’ve talked about it. The response to my White Guy Chill article - calling out men who are seemingly too busy to be active allies or activists (but not too busy for their videogames or online hate comments) - drove home for me how pervasive the patriarchal ideas sit in our society.

It’s not always men who refuse to engage, refuse to care and show up, but the patriarchy was never about protecting men. It was about protecting power, ultimately in the hands of the 0.1%, and setting society against itself to leave the power structures untouched. It promised men that they too could one day win in this oppressive system, that the threat was [hysterical feminists / woke feminazis / transgender people in bathrooms / children and families seeking refuge in other countries / a secret underground cabal of communists / etc.].

Male passivity kills. Patriarchal passivity, you can call it, if that offends you less. Because you have to give a shit in order to keep other people alive. Women are 14 times more likely to die in a natural disaster because they have fewer means to escape. Even without a weather crisis: a woman dies every 10 minutes at the hands of a partner.

Meanwhile, 61% of Gen Z men think that efforts for gender equality have gone far enough.

This is the narrative peddled by far-right political parties, corporations and thinktanks - the ones driving the widespread social disillusionment, male identity crises and climate crises now place the blame elsewhere. They teach men from childhood, through violent pornography, stereotyped media portrayals, social media algorithms and podcasts, not to care about women. That we have no personhood. That we will clean and smile and if we ask for more, they should kill us or worse.

And then we act shocked at the Epstein Files? When we have seen that half a village will rape an unconscious woman, that thousands of men join Whatsapp groups to discuss tips on violating women, that nearly 50% of men have watched deepfake pornography, and two thirds of them don’t feel guilty about it.

Screenshot of a graphic from My Voice, My Choice Instagram. It says '75% of men don't feel guilty about watching deepfake porn, despite 96% of deepfakes being created without women's consent.
Statistic source: Security Hero, 2023

This is not my most coherent article but I don’t care. Women are dying. I am tired. I am reading news every day about women, transgender and non-binary people being stripped of their rights, their lives.

And I feel like I speak into a chamber of other women who are already doing as much as possible to change things and demand change, and still do the laundry at the end of the day. And men who think it’s Great That I Do This but system change isn’t their thing. They wonder if I realise I made a typo in one of the paragraphs. They wonder if I’m a bit hysterical.

Men, I want you to speak to other men. I want you to try being as radical as the feminists you passively support. Talk to other men about women’s rights, call out their sexist joke. Risk losing the status of a chill guy - you could be so many better cooler things. Listen to women, support our work. Swallow the defensiveness, it was never about you or me, it was about the 0.1%. Care. Give a shit.

Women and non-binary and genderqueer folks, I want you to care in all the ways that the state fears. Particularly those of us with privilege. You can be both the oppressor and oppressed and it takes more than a #FutureIsFemale T-shirt (made by a poorer woman) to make ourselves heard. I want angry women, radical women, annoying women, women I disagree with, women who refuse to be dragged into judging and belittling other women. After all, we’re the descendants of the women they tried to burn as witches, the suffragettes, civil rights activists and countless ancestors who didn’t back down.

We are not a monolith but I believe each of us carries a little spark of rage that we think makes us uniquely unstable, that we worry will one day take over. I think we should let it.

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]]><![CDATA[The Tesla is everything wrong with capitalist climate 'solutions']]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/teslahttps://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/teslaWed, 25 Feb 2026 06:00:24 GMTDespite everything, there was a full house at our speed dating event last week. And a waiting list.

Despite everything - I mean, despite the chronic disillusionment with the political elite and with men who find it too much effort to text back and the death wails of the US imperial empire in our phones and the rising cost of a beer after work and the tiredness that makes us cancel and stay home to eat/sleep/work/repeat - despite that, people showed up.

And keep showing up, at all our events. And the events I’ve attended. We need and want human connection. Particularly with people who give a shit rather than another crypto bro or privileged person who doesn’t vote because ‘every political party sucks’ but they continue to turn a blind eye when the corruption grants them benefits).

Last week I wrote about polyamory, monogamy and the way that capitalism and the patriarchy has hijacked our love lives and continues to try to control and restrict how we relate to people around us. And then I swallowed the extreme awkwardness and shared it on LinkedIn too, the last place I would normally go to talk about dating.

The public engagement on the post was low. But then many people started messaging me privately to share their own thoughts and experiences with alternative ways to love and connect.

Writing about relationships on LinkedIn so you don’t have to.

How can it be that talking about love and relationship structures is more awkward than another post about outrage and shock that [insert evil corporation/government] have [done evil thing]? Perhaps because the second sits nicely in the imperial framework of our society. We have the scripts to frame these horrors. The comfort zone of outrage and reactive messaging.

Love, polyamory, the private life are taboo topics yet they are the core of resistance. Western capitalism is anti-love, anti-care and anti-revolution.

Not ‘some forms’ of Western capitalism, not ‘extreme’ capitalism. Economic structures rooted in individualism and ‘competitiveness’ will never generate conditions for fruitful community-building, development of healthy relationships and freedom to choose how and who to love, without shame and without apology.

We will generate those conditions. We build those structures. We resist and we show up.

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Electric SUVs are a counter-revolutionary ‘solution’ on a burning planet

A Tesla with anti-Musk bumper stickers.
Source: Heatmap Illustrations

A guest piece by British activist . Edited by .

Are things getting worse or am I just paying more attention? This is the age-old question of anyone relatively locked into the livestreamed horror movie that is otherwise known as the news.

One thing I am certain of, is that cars are getting bigger, louder and more terrifying.

The old ‘Chelsea Tractor’ trope - that inner-city upper-class Londoners buy 4x4 SUVs to get around - is overdue for an upgrade. Suburban Tank seems more appropriate. Even that, though, is far too subtle for the CIA-adjacent vehicles now roaming quiet neighbourhoods.

With their blacked-out windows and clumsy, rectangular frames, I have seen many of these militaristic machines swarm the most unsuspecting streets, pulling up to the grocery store with car-boots large enough to deploy a small army and seize every sandwich in the land. I almost got bumped by one earlier this week, my eyes rolling as it blasted some cacophony, filling my lungs with its diesel fumes.

This inflation is not just my imagination though. Described as ‘Carspreading’, conventional passenger vehicles are getting bigger and SUVs sales are rising - making up nearly half 46% of global car sales in 2022. Data from the International Council for Clean Transportation shows that the length of vehicles has increased by more than 19cm (7.4in) from 2001 to 2020.

Graph from Transport & Environment showing how the average car width is 180cm and the average width of an SUV is 200cm, leaving insufficient space for cyclists and other cars.
Source: Transport & Environment, 2024

Not that size matters, obviously, but when size equates to more global heating, emissions and preventing children playing outside - it matters - a lot.

The growth of SUVs is taking place alongside the so-called electric vehicle revolution - which is all too often communicated as a silver bullet for reducing transport emissions.

The environmental and climate impact from cars is vast and urgently requires rapid reduction. Our World in Data reports that transport accounts for around one-fifth of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and road travel accounts for three-quarters of transport emissions, mostly coming from passenger vehicles.

Despite having lower overall tailpipe emissions, EV markets are mirroring trends toward larger vehicles, with SUVs making up over 55% of electric car sales. The greater weight of SUVs increases energy use, amplifying their environmental footprint as they require more critical raw materials such as lithium, nickel, and cobalt, with most of these materials being extracted from the Global South in a way that replicates colonial dynamics.

À la the late cultural theorist Mark Fisher, this electric vehicle/SUV dichotomy shows how quasi counter-revolutionary impulses are engulfed by capitalism. As electric cars once gained popularity as a greener solution to reducing the exponential emissions driven by capitalism, electric SUVs have emerged, capturing and entrenching this green capitalist market with tank-like vehicles that reduce tailpipe emissions but fail to challenge the fundamental over-consumption problem and obscure the extractive realities behind the ‘green’ technology.

I saw this contradiction play out on TV in the dystopian hellscape of Gilead (although, perhaps I was paying too much attention to the intricacies and potential symbolic meanings of cars). In the televised series of The Handmaid’s Tale, restricting access to transportation is a key mechanism of population control.

A screenshot from Handmaid's Tale showing Commander Waterford, a tall white man in a suit and dark coat, and Serena Joy, a middle-aged white woman in a blue coat, walking in front of a car with blacked-out windows
Commander Waterford and Serena Joy, authoritarian family in Handmaid’s Tale

SUVs, with their blacked-out windows and authoritative presence, are driven by powerful figures and Guardians, denoting power and status within the strict patriarchal order. The model of SUV used is a Mercedes-Benz - a brand with a sinister history associated with Nazi Germany - functioning as a visual association with historical authoritarianism.

In what I see as an attempt to function as a contrast to the domineering SUV, the Tesla, a brand associated with popularising the modern EV, appears in the series. Driven primarily by Commander Lawrence, a high-ranking but rebellious figure who laments his role in Gilead, the Tesla is used as an escape car by those on the fringes of the regime.

Screenshot from Handmaid's Tale TV show with Commander Lawrence, a middle-aged white man in a suit, and two women dressed as handmaids, one holding a baby. They are in a tunnel with a Tesla with its lights on
Commander Lawrence, June and another handmaid and baby, in Handmaid’s Tale

While presented with somewhat more amenable connections to environmentalism, I see the Tesla as demonstrative of the symbolic inability to escape the clutches of Gilead, also reflective of our present reality. In a world designed around cars, it can feel inescapable, or at least, uncomfortable to use alternative modes of transport.

Especially for those of us already navigating disability or marginalisation, the electric car promises an allure of sustainability, while not requiring any real fundamental change.

In the real world of course, the Tesla is only a slightly greener version of the inherently damaging child of neo-liberalism, the passenger vehicle. Not to mention its inescapable ties to its founder Elon Musk’s deepening neo-fascistic tendencies. Ultimately, the SUV and electric car are both products of the same regime.

Rather than a genuine alternative to the system, electric cars only further entrench us within individualism, demonstrating the menacing successes of green capitalism. As campaigners and activists, it may become easy to become complacent with these easier, comforting solutions marketed to us as an alternative. But they are only adding fuel to the fire.

Transcending the binary options afforded to us by the limited horizons of the current system is where we can step in. As Bayo Akomolafe describes in relation to climate solutions, ‘we can’t think outside the ‘box’. The dream to think outside the box is exactly how boxes think’. Rather than handing over the power of climate solutions to the imaginations of those profiting from the climate crisis, we can continue to learn, organise and advocate for radical transformations.

Whether it is taking direct action or campaigning locally for better public transport infrastructure, we can all play our small role in challenging polluting regimes of power.

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]]><![CDATA[Polyamory and anti-capitalism: On living & loving differently]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/polyamory-part1https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/polyamory-part1Wed, 18 Feb 2026 07:02:32 GMTThis email is unlocked for all subscribers. Usually, A Rough Idea is a series of personal essays for paid subscribers only. To access all our paid content, please become a paid subscriber.

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I asked both monogamous and polyamorous friends and acquaintances for their anecdotal experiences of the same questions on relationships: 1. What relationship ideas have you had to change over your life? 2. Do you think you’re mono/polyamorous by choice or by identity? 3. Have you faced any stigma for being monogamous/polyamorous? Some names have been changed.

Definition of polyamory: Engaging in multiple romantic relationships at the same time, with the consent of everyone involved.

I once dated a man who had a long-term, serious girlfriend. She knew all about me, and I knew all about her. He shared their ups and downs as we grabbed a drink in dark late-night bars in the cold Belgian winters. I could hear in his voice how their love had been long, fought-for, navigated and sustained.

I felt mainly indifferent to his polyamory. At the time I didn’t need or want, particularly, a ‘boyfriend,’ but I enjoyed his company. Just like I enjoyed swapping Instas with the cute barista at the cafe I would cycle to each morning with my laptop. And meeting with my friend for late-night coffees. She was ‘just’ a friend but I definitely never met my friends this often and texted back so fast.

All of them were polyamorous, a fact I registered as a curiosity - must be something in the water in this town. They talked to me about the highs and the lows of their relationships and I learnt all the jargon: couple’s privilege, meta, polycule, and I learnt that an open relationship is not the same as polyamory, obviously.

It all sounded very complicated. Honestly, I just wanted to have fun meeting people. (Oh yeah, I was that person. Keeping it casual. No labels. Let’s just see where it goes. Avoidant. You’ve probably had to go to therapy to get over people like me).

I didn’t want the weight of an Official Relationship, something I associated with a man collapsing the roles of a whole social network into one and thrusting it on me: friend, girlfriend, therapist, mother, travel partner, cleaner, source of all his woes and the person responsible for fixing them.

Stanford researchers even came up for a word for this phenomenon of filling in all the gaps in a man’s social circle for him: mankeeping.

There’s a lot pressure with being a partner sometimes, especially if you bring some neurodivergence into the mix. Not only are you a lover, you are also a friend, support and caretaker. If it takes a village to raise a child, what does it take to support an adult? Wolfgang, polyamorous

I assumed that eventually I’d return to that, as all of us must, to secure the coveted status of a Settled Stable Relationship, with the approval of our families, society and the government, who will note down our status for legal purposes.

Polyamory, I surmised, was not a sustainable long-term situation. It seemed to involve too many Google Calendar logistics and conversations about boundaries and preferences that rivalled UN high-level conferences in their complexity.

As well as a multiplied risk of heartbreak. One day my friend messaged that both her girlfriend and her boyfriend had broken up with her, and we sat in a crowded hipster cafe as I tried to console her with my insufficient, Westernised views on relationships.

“At least you don’t have to choose which one to go on holiday with?” I offered. She cried.

After a while of me coasting along in my various no-labels keeping-it-casual situations, the guy I was seeing asked me to meet his girlfriend. Maybe we would hit it off. Maybe this could be something more.

I dealt with this as I dealt with all personal issues at that age: terribly.

I rushed to my friends, panicking that it was ‘suddenly’ getting real. (Curious that I often see polyamorous people cast as non-committal when all I encountered was people ready to tackle a mountain of complexity in order to date someone they liked, and I was the one running away).

“Oh yeah, that sounds so complicated,” one monogamous friend said. “Poly is so messy.”

“It’s not that,” I said. “I just don’t know if I want something serious right now and a serious poly relationship is like…. extra serious. Like a part-time job.”

Another friend said, “Well he already has a girlfriend, so I don’t think he’ll mind if you end it.”

And I said, “Well I have more than one good friend but it still would hurt if one cut me off because she didn’t like me enough. There is no ceiling or quota for love.”

Over time, I met other non-monogamous people and I could put theory into practice. I learnt that my partners falling in love with others, really did not mean that I was less loved. Love is not rare or more special if it is artificially treated as a restricted resource. Lydia, polyamorous

Mainly people said, wow I could never do that. They listened to my (rather tame) stories and my overthinking with the expressions of people who are confident that their monogamous situationships with manchildren and jealous girlfriends and people who don’t text back are Better. The Right Way.

Only one problematic person at a time is the way to go. Just like Hollywood taught us, along with unrealistic body standards, the belief that life will fall into place when you meet someone. No, not someone. The One.

When I was young, I was under the illusion of perfect soulmate romantic love. This love on the one side requires the other to choose you freely, but on the other side to transform this choice into a necessity (the other cannot not choose you). That’s a paradox. I think overcoming this is necessary to form healthy relationships. Jonathan, monogamous

The Good Place (2016-2020)

I found myself getting irritated with my friends who didn’t help, but were keen to hear more about how the decision-making was going, like they were subscribing to a crazy drama, a soap to relish from the safety of socially acceptable relationships. I felt like a sudden unwitting spokesperson for, and defender of, a relationship structure I was essentially observing from the periphery.

And then on the other side, some of my particularly activist-y friends despaired that they ‘should’ embrace polyamory because it would, in their view, be the left-wing thing to ignore their own boundaries and dismiss their own happiness, for the Cause. Discussions on relationship styles quickly devolved into ideological posturing.

The cultural fixation on the nuclear family

I understand it. How many conservative polyamorous people have you met? Any alternative to the state-approved status quo is usually treated as radical by default. But do we believe that, or are we just repeating what we’re told?

Poly instead of monogamous just means that the limits are not set up by pre-determined social norms, but by a continuous conversation with the people I’m romantically connected to on the love, time and attention we desire from each other and the freedom we give each other. Julie, polyamorous

After centuries of patriarchy, religion and the capitalist and downright disturbing right-wing fixation on reproduction that sustains the worker supply, the hegemony of the nuclear family has become unquestioned. It’s even experiencing a revival in the form of the manosphere and ‘tradwife’ content. It harks to a fictional past where women were content to submit to their husbands in sourdough-making child-rearing no-voting-rights bliss.

In reality, Gen Z men are currently more conversative than Boomers in their views on gender roles in relationships.

Pursuit of the nuclear family is framed not as a choice but as a moral imperative, a safety net and the end goal. And when alternatives to the monogamous heterosexual married-house-kids prescription are presented, the existing structure aims to drag them under its umbrella. And so gay relationships were seen as legitimate only when gay people could legally marry in a church. Indeed, the backlash against gay marriage frequently devolves into debate about whether it’s a ‘real’ marriage, reality itself now being decided by the government and society rather than existence of the thing in question.

A victory for LGBTQ+ rights, no question, but a victory within the channels of a system that does not embrace newcomers so much as assimilate them.

Our culture has taught us to assign hierarchy and superiority to relationships that are recognised by the state. As put it, “The nuclear family is a relatively new social construct that benefits wealth and power and capitalism but does not benefit children or families or parents or non-parents or communities or the planet.”

Monogamy as an economic strategy

We often speak of marriage as an institution that was once rooted in economic and social strategy - providing women with opportunity and access through their husbands - but has now become a celebration of love. But in many ways, the monogamous marriage or civil partnership is still primarily an economic proposition.

It is easier to get tax breaks, it is easier to get a visa or green card with a state-approved marriage to a citizen of that country. It is easier to be monogamous. Not easy, but easier. The state legitimises it. Hollywood tells us that we are only half a person, seeking our other half, our soulmate, who we should devote our time and money to finding.

The people with the most money seem deeply concerned with pushing a dependency on romance and True Love for fulfilment (rather than seeking it through, say, a liveable salary or access to healthcare or green spaces). Monogamy predates capitalism, but capitalism has turned it into a profitable commodity.

For me the issue stands on the myth that romantic love is the superior one that completes us. So we’re taught that we need to give it all of our time. Aside from the fact that we should toss our friends to the side to give more time to “Love”, it also puts out this idea of this superior force that will solve all our problems if and when we find the One True Love. Louis, polyamorous

Patriarchy and monogamy

On top of that, religious social roots and its embedded misogyny teach us that our bodies are temples and prize the virginal and innocent women - a trend that continues in the form of a popular porn category for men. Men continue to prefer us untouched and defenseless until they choose otherwise. describes this as a tension between fraternity culture which sees women as sex objects to be used, and purity culture that sees women as sex objects to be avoided.

By establishing fixed rules about how, when and with who a woman can enter into a relationship and reproduce, men in power continue to tell us what and who we should want, rather than reflect the messy, complex reality of our lived experiences.

The result? Aside from a long trail of abusive and rushed marriages, the normalisation of mankeeping and the commercialisation of romance, we are taught to ditch the community and crave copendency. We say I’m yours / I only need you / I can’t live without you as if they are romantic - and turn ourselves into objects, incomplete humans. 50% of a person.

Monogamy then, even unwittingly, risks becomes a tool for gatekeeping women’s sex and love lives that plays into the idea that women are objects that ‘belong’ to (one) man.

I used to be in a very monogamous relationship for six years that came with all the negative traits associated to it (unreasonable jealousy and posessiveness, etc) and it made me feel very claustrophobic and made me long for a non-monogamous relationship, which I had in my current relationship for the first half year and afterwards we closed it.

I think those experiences taught me that I didn’t actually long for a non-monogamous relationship, but to connect more deeply and intimately with my friends within a monogamous relationship, to not constrict myself in playfulness and curiosity with people that are not my partner. Joren, monogamous

My partner has two other partners, and I’m blessed with knowing them both as beautiful human beings. What does this also bring? When times are tough, the person I love has 3 dedicated people to rely on. Wolfgang, polyamorous

I have to warn you - once you start reading about these things, you can’t unsee it. Now when I watch TV shows where the main character agonises about which man to choose (usually a Boring Decent Guy vs Rebellious Bad Boy), I wonder - why not both? And people laugh as if I’m telling a great joke.

Never Have I Ever (2020-2023)

I’m not here to make a case for or against polyamory. It’s not useful to discuss which relationship style ‘works best.’ Evidence shows that levels of fulfilment in consensual and healthy monogamous and polyamorous relationships are around the same. I want to confront and highlight how many of our beliefs about the way the world works come from the social scripts we grew up with. And the way we unintentionally defend ideas that aren’t even our own. It’s easy to sleepwalk according to the script and never realise that our beliefs and preferences could be different.

Do you really prefer the stresses and the work of relying on one partner, or are you just afraid of trying anything else? Do you really want to fuck multiple people, or do you want to fuck the system?

And importantly - how could all our relationships improve by shedding the Hollywood bullshit that prescribes what our love should look like?

Part 2 coming soon.

Cover art by Emily J Moore: Hands

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]]><![CDATA[Love (but make it revolutionary, please)]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/lovehttps://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/loveWed, 11 Feb 2026 06:00:47 GMTThis month I’m writing about love.

Feels odd, given that we’re experiencing a mass disenchantment with the political and economic status quo. Not that we didn’t already know that eight billionaire men ruling everything was unlikely to end well.

But the carefully-constructed veil between the 0.1% and the rest of the world, that attempts to pretend that this grossly unequal and patriarchal system is working, is shattering. The dark underbelly of the rich elite is revealed in the form of civilian executions, requests to join child sex rings, and total rejection of international diplomacy. As put it, it’s the end of an illusion.

Screenshot of a graphic with a quote by adrienne maree brown that says 'Things are not getting worse. They are getting unveiled. We must hold each other tight as we pull back the curtain.'

It feels like a difficult time to talk about love. Feels simple, naive even, to talk about it like a Disney cure to unspeakable evil, a necessary treatment for this grief and outrage.

But rather than yet another commentary on what is happening in the US, I’ve found myself typing away ever-growing drafts about the ways we relate to each other. How centering love and care - and examining how we love - is not less important or a juvenile topic, but the foundation of finding different ways to live.

Last week I wrote about decentering romance and loving your friends to a strong positive reception (reply to this email for unpaywalled access). Our speed dating for activists event booked out in around a week. Our desire to connect, and to love, is untarnished and perhaps even strengthened in the face of rising authoritarian power.

Before the patriarchy, colonialism and hyper-capitalist economies hijacked our democracy, they hijacked our minds. They make us see each other as competitors, commercialise romance, enforce and mandate sexualities and relationship styles that fit into the status quo, shame women’s desires, and seed fear of change.

Now we are learning that we can’t fight this without communities, and without rethinking the ways we connect to each other. Friendships, romance, community and love are not political, but they are politicised. Every new way to live and love - from queer relationships to polyamory to the 4B movement rejecting marriage - has been stigmatised, mocked and faced significant backlash - but why? Who gains from this backlash?

It’s surely not us. It’s surely that power is terrified of our ability to love and care, and that is exactly why we must strip away the taboos and the myths and talk about it.

I’ll be addressing these topics in A Rough Idea, the paywalled version of the newsletter. You can upgrade your subscription here and choose to make a gift subscription if you like. We will offer a free subscription to students, trainees and low-income readers. Just reply to this email with ‘Gift subscription’.

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Share your own updates and recent wins (reports, campaign launches, protests) in the comments!

Join the 100,000 people calling for the EU to keep their #HandsOffNature

Right now, powerful polluting industries - backed by political allies - are pushing to weaken Europe’s environmental laws, trading our health, clean water, food, air and nature for profit.

A weaker EU water law would mean dirtier drinking water, weaker protection for nature, and more pollution linked to cancer and respiratory diseases. This is not hypothetical: similar rollbacks have already happened to our forests and wild animals, and more laws protecting nature reserves and wildlife are now on the table.

The #HandsOffNature campaign, launched by the , ClientEarth, WWF and BirdLife, has gathered over 100,000 signatures in the first week since its launch.

You can sign here, and download their communications pack here.

Romantically available activists are in high demand - so we organised an event for you

Graphic for the speed dating event that reads: The Green Fix presents Speed dating for Activists on the 18th February at 19h in Brussels

After launching our speed dating event in the last edition, our event booked out in record time! There may not be many fish in the sea but there are plenty of romantically available activists in Brussels ;)

You can still join our waiting list in case spots open up, and to hear about future events (this is looking like something we’ll do again!) - so you don’t miss out on opportunities to meet your next activist friend, situationship or even Reliable Stable Partner 💘

Belgian trade unions announce new set of strikes

Graphic of a fist and the text 'Plus qu'assez.. des mesures Arizona'. Manifestacion national 12 mars

📌12th March: National strike in Belgium

Whether you’re in Belgium or not, we can all take notes from how the Belgian trade unions are organising. Confronted with the prospect of the ‘Arizona’ government coalition that threatens to slash essential social welfare & workers’ rights, Belgian workers across sectors have organised huge national marches, NGO picket lines, and 3-day public sector strikes. We interviewed two of the people striking last year here.

If you’re working in an NGO based in Belgium - including international NGOs - you can get involved with the #FairCSOs campaign by joining the Whatsapp group.

(PS - if you’re in London, check out the Workers Against the Far Right Conference on the 21st February to take action locally!).

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]]><![CDATA[A Rough Idea: On decentering romance and loving your friends]]>https://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/friendshiphttps://thegreenfix.substack.com/p/friendshipWed, 04 Feb 2026 06:00:15 GMTA Rough Idea is a series of personal essays for paid subscribers. To access this content, please upgrade your subscription via the link below.

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“Who are your best friends?”

I used to ask my dates this. One of them told me that was ‘such a random question.’ Another talked about his friend from school who lives in another country. They catch up twice a year.

Most often they just shrugged, seemed to find the idea of friendship almost juvenile. They guessed maybe their coworkers or their roommates or their ex would be their closest friends.

I was always the first person who had asked them that. In our TV shows, songs, books and cultural zeitgeist, we never stop hearing that romantic relationships are the end goal. The Best Kind of Relationship. That will make us complete and solve all other issues: our lack of support system, our childhood traumas, probably the climate crisis and world hunger. And the most important scam of all: romance will make us whole.

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