Category: Interviews /

Ian Angus’ “Metabolic Rifts”

September 8, 2026

Featured review: "Severed Universal Metabolism and Predatory Logic: Groundwork for an Ecosocialist Critique of Capitalism" by Varun Wigmal (INSEE Journal); "The bulk of the book is an attempt to explain the core concepts of ecological Marxism and political ecology by detailing the metabolic processes vital to Earth’s systems. In Chapter 10, Angus discusses the carbon cycle’s breakdown—which is driving climate change—and in Chapter 11, he describes how industrial agriculture is pumping nitrogen into Earth’s systems faster than any natural process through fertilizers, disrupting the nitrogen cycle. Angus proposes a radical reduction in the use of nitrogen and chemical fertilizers as a solution to environmental damage, and envisions a time when it will be possible to feed people without them. These chapters are the strength of Angus’ book. They demonstrate how Marxists should use science to understand the complexity of the damage inflicted by capitalism on the Earth’s systems and develop viable solutions based on the idea of hope without optimism, i.e., confronting adversity rather than denying it