The canary in the coal mine

Ewald Engelen and Marianne Thieme warn against the unsustainability of today’s politics and financial choices. Like a canary in a coal mine, they identify the dangers that jeopardise our future. Such as the fossil perspective, which has led to the near-complete depletion of the collected reserves of fossil fuels. Or the fact that famine is not the result of insufficient food production, but predominantly due to food distribution and waste issues. And that conflicts over water are not a thing of the distant future, but are already manifest in the present. The majority of politicians and scientists opt for marginal changes within the status quo, focused on more economic growth and increased free trade. Ewald Engelen and Marianne Thieme advocate a radical change of direction. Engelen from an economic perspective, Thieme from an ecological standpoint. They reach a common conclusion: the financial system and the political structure are rotten to the core. Plan B is unavoidable. Ewald Engelen (1963) is professor of financial geography at the University of Amsterdam, where he studies the global financial system. As a publicist and activist, he is well-known for his criticism of the euro and TTIP, the trade agreement between the United States and the European Union. Marianne Thieme (1972) is group leader for the Party for the Animals in the House of Representatives in the Netherlands, lawyer, animal rights and environmental activist and publicist. In 2002 she was one of the co-founders of the Party for the Animals.