Issue #2 – FRONTIERS
Introducing Issue #2: Frontiers
In the trade-offs between decarbonization and human and ecological impact, how do we determine which costs are bearable, or inescapable, even necessary—and who gets to make these decisions?
Issue #2 – FRONTIERS
The idea of the frontier is contested: a border, a terra nullius, a site of struggle. In our second Issue, our writers approach the idea of frontiers in the climate crisis from many perspectives, sending reports from the frontlines of extractive industries, exploring new avenues of risk and resistance, and showing, in the words of contributor Thea Riofrancos, how frontiers are “never exhausted by the economic and political imperatives that designate them as such. They exceed them.”
Issue #2 – FRONTIERS
Where Capital and Nature Meet
Thea Riofrancos speaks to The BREAK—DOWN about the rise of the lithium industry, the geopolitics of extraction and the frontiers of green capitalism.
Issue #2 – FRONTIERS
Lula’s Dilemma
In Brazil, big agribusiness holds the reins of political power. Without confronting this head-on, Lula’s ecological promises will remain just that—promises.
Issue #2 – FRONTIERS
After the Thaw
As temperatures rise and the Arctic thaws, capital is eyeing new opportunities: for extraction, for shipping and for extending a lifeline to business as usual.
Issue #2 – FRONTIERS
Then Where Will We Live
In Indonesia, nickel mining is booming as global demand for batteries surges. Its impacts—on workers, on communities and on nature—are deeply felt.
Issue #2 – FRONTIERS
An Invisible Frontier
The greatest obstacle for the energy transition is not production or hard physical constraints—it is the skilled labour needed to transform our infrastructure and economy.
Issue #2 – FRONTIERS
Against the Fortress
“Climate migration” defies clear definition, but as the impacts of climate change mount and politicians stoke anti-migrant hostility, the climate movement must meet this challenge head-on.
Issue #2 – FRONTIERS
Merging to Survive
As the fossil fuel industry consolidates into an ever smaller number of vast firms, new strategic openings for disruption emerge.
Issue #2 – FRONTIERS
DISPATCH: The Desert and the Mine
The Lithium Triangle, spanning Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, contains over half the world’s lithium reserves, essential for the energy transition. But mining here is fraught with human, cultural, political and ecological questions.
Issue #2 – FRONTIERS
The Sunlight Managers
By deploying the language of objectivity while evading questions about the social relations that underlie the climate crisis, the science profession is granting legitimacy to a dangerous idea: solar geoengineering.
Issue #2 – FRONTIERS
DISPATCH: Resistance on the Attawapiskat
In northern Ontario, a region rich in mineral deposits has become a frontline in the fight for Indigenous sovereignty.
Issue #2 – FRONTIERS
Bog Communism
Ireland’s bogs were degraded by industrial exploitation. Today, they play host to a growing network of data centres. Can we reclaim them as commons, and restore their value—cultural, social and ecological—outside of capital’s logic?