I've just read a very interesting — but disturbing — essay about the direct connection of historical colonialism to deforestation, desertification, pollution, and loss of biodiversity. Ugh.
My first reaction is to be appalled and disgusted (once again) with the incredibly poor "stewardship" shown by European conquerors of indigenous peoples. Time and time again, these "civilized" invaders proved far less capable of effectively managing precious natural environments and resources than had the original inhabitants. Damn them!
And my second reaction is to be fascinated by the suggestion that "Anthropocene" may not in fact be a suitable name for the geological epoch we entered at some point in the past few hundred years. This is because the prefix "anthro" suggests that ALL humans are responsible for the changes wrought by global industrialization, when in truth it was, and is, only a mere sliver of the population, that good old 1%, who are behind the drive to dominate nature and exploit the environment at whatever cost, so long as they can profit from it and solidify their positions at the top.
Here's a short excerpt which amplifies this point...
While the scientific community has been debating over which year the Anthropocene Epoch began, several Indigenous and Black scholars have shot back against the term.
The problem, some scholars say, is that the term assumes the climate crisis is caused by universal human nature, rather than the actions of a minority of colonialists, capitalists, and patriarchs. And the implication that the Earth was stable until around 1950, when the ‘Anthropocene’ supposedly began, denies the history of people who have been exploited by those systems for centuries.
Indigenous scholars have further addressed how the term stands for colonialist ideologies that sever the deep ties and interconnections between humans, plants, animals, and the soil.
“Instead of treating the Earth like a precious entity that gives us life, Western colonial legacies operate within a paradigm that assumes they can extract its natural resources as much as they want, and the Earth will regenerate itself,” said Hadeel Assali, a lecturer and postdoctoral scholar.
I hope you'll read the full essay, and then let me know what you think about its message.
When OPEC+ & #KochNetwork fund a global extinction level event, they don't do it timidly. It's all in.
According to Greenpeace, they've spent over $145 million on climate denialism, over a billion on a Supreme Court weakening the EPA, and billions on climate denying members of Congress.
The text of Justice Roberts's response displays his disdain for democracy in the most obvious way.
As a purportedly public servant paid for by taxpayer dollars, Roberts appears to genuinely believe he enjoys the same impunity from the law as the billionaires who bought him his sinecure.
Take caution based on the source of this reporting.
Murdoch owns WSJ, and like other Republican billionaires, is funding narratives of divisive controversy in hopes that all African-American American history teaching becomes too difficult to do.
Censoring African-American history to create "lies by omission" and "vague to the point of uselessness" works too, for Republican billionaire donors.
Republican billionaire donors & Putin share the same nostalgia.
They miss their serfs & slaves.
They miss that master/slave gangrene from days of yore.
In their heart of hearts, they harbor "the peculiar institution" still.
"...But slavery is another matter -- the most vicious habit humans fall into and the hardest to break. It starts up in every new land and it's terribly hard to root out. After a culture falls ill of it, it gets rooted in the economic system...
...and laws, in men's habits and attitudes. You abolish it; you drive it underground -- there it lurks, ready to spring up again, in the minds of people who think it is their 'natural' right to own other people. You can't reason with them; you can kill them but you can't change their minds."
Heinlein
Too many Republicans buy into the "natural law" nonsense of Leo Strauss & Harry Jaffa.
Steve Gose
Dennis Washington
Summerfield Baldridge
Patrick & Theresa Ryan
Timothy Barnard
William Morean
Greg Gianforte
Carter Stewart
Sam Baldridge
Corey Stapleton
Today is the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
It is not over. Chernobyl spread radioactive particles across Europe and beyond. The fire in reactor #4 burned for over a month, releasing massive amounts of radionuclides which then would fallout and embed into the #ecosystem.
37 years later we still find food contaminated with Chernobyl fallout every year. Often with cesium-137 which is very adept at transporting in an ecosystem once the particle has deposited from the fallout cloud.
Just because you, as an individual, appear to have escaped harm, does not mean that your individual experience is equivalent to a scientific study.
Detecting the existence of genetic damage from radiation exposure in wild animal populations is difficult. Most present as stillbirths or mutations that never survive to adulthood & go unobserved.
Similarly radiation exposure in humans may trigger higher ...
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The presence of animal life near Chernobyl is not necessarily conclusive evidence of a lack of harm from radiation exposure. Long term radiation damage in wild animal populations is hard to track.
Radiation exposure in Russian soldiers deployed around Ukraine's radioactive sites has not been reported independently of Russian state officials. Their data is suspect.
I remain skeptical of narratives minimizing the dangers of radiation contamination. Especially if they come from Russia.
While the probability of cancer, sterility, etc may decline over time, that's not how humans evaluate risk. No one wants to be that 1 in 100 case of cancer.
Moreover, too many disinformation narratives originate from the media misreading scientific studies, and I'm very reluctant to add to existing malign influence campaigns saying ...
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#Palantir already sells its #domestic#surveillance services to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, so it should come as no surprise that the company founded by billionaire #Peter#Thiel is working to make inroads into the #Pentagon as well.
On Tuesday, the company released a video demo of its latest offering, the Palantir Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP). While the system itself is simply designed to integrate large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI's GPT-4 or Google's BERT into privately-operated networks, the very first thing they did was apply it to the modern battlefield.
Thiel, like many other billionaires, shops for tax evasion havens based on citizenship.
Biden initiated tax treaties for corporations, now that foundation needs to build on it for more multi-lateral tax reforms.
@pluralistic and @ProPublica recently described how billionaires evade taxes using many tactics, including "wash sales" then use the proceeds to subvert democracy.
#Ohio officials cast wary eye on new owner at former Beckjord site after local farmer purchases 1/3rd of the site.
The W.C. Beckjord Station, a closed Duke Energy #coal power plant located 20 miles east of #Cincinnati, contains more than 10 billion pounds of toxins that are packed into ponds along the banks of the #OhioRiver
Amazing how the corporate entities involved in this can shutter their responsibility to a farmer after raking in billions of dollars
This doesn't include the costs for climate refugees, asylum seekers fleeing wars & famines, farm bankruptcy from wildfires, floods, & droughts, & collapsed democracies.
In case you haven't heard, Red Hat is laying off people today, and I'm one of them. My 'career' as a Hatter lasted just over 15 months, much less time than I had planned or expected.
Many of you know me well, and know that I have extensive background in open source software, project management, open source business, and lots of related activities. If you're aware of any opportunities which may be of interest, feel free to send them my way via any channel you like.
Boosts much appreciated, of course, and thanks in advance!
