ABSTRACT In his Oceans Rise, Empires Fall , Gerard Toal reformulates Critical Geopolitics in order to better address our planetary ecological crisis. A renewed attention to some of the classic texts of geopolitics, particularly those of Halford Mackinder, recuperates themes somewhat neglected in readings that focus upon the racist and imperialist framings of those works. This comment suggests that Marx rather than Mackinder might be the better point of departure for considering the themes of culture, geo‐ecology and geopolitical strategy that Toal excavates from Mackinder.