"""
The destruction of the planet isn't a mistake, isn't a misunderstanding, isn't an accident. It's largely a deliberate process driven by economics and the material reality of the society we live in. Everything that we produce and consume in an industrial civilization is dependent upon the destruction of the planet.
"""
-- Max Wilbert
Fifty years ago, a group of women from the villages of the Western Himalayas sparked Chipko, a green movement that remains relevant in the age of climate change. #women#activism#environmentalism
Been thinking about the atom, the arc of environmentalism, and my relationship to social media.
The tl;dr is that there's no ethical extraction under capitalism for any energy tech, I don't have all the answers on ethical extraction, but it wouldn't hurt to touch grass for a bit.
"Eight firefighters died and some 230,000 people were displaced from their homes during last year's worst-ever season... Linking the issue to climate change, a minister warned that this year could prove even more devastating."
Reminder: People who are pathologically in favor of BEVs over all other ideas, to the point where they deny they exist, are outright climate change deniers. It is impossible to be an environmentalism while having such narrow, and usually self-serving, viewpoint.
We must be aware that many people pretending to be environmentalists are in fact just trolls or stooges. The biggest peddlers of greenwashing over serious climate policies.
#Lefebvre#Marxism#Cities#Urbanism#Communism#Ecology#Environmentalism: "Describing Lefebvre as an ‘ecological thinker’, however anachronistic it may seem, is not absurd in the eyes of his daughter, quite the contrary. She reports that he was ‘very good friends’ with Bernard Charbonneau (1910-96), a precursor of radical ecology and author of the book Le Jardin de Babylone, published in 1969 and reissued by the post-Situationist publisher L’Encyclopédie des Nuisances in 2002. ‘They saw each other in the Pyrenees, where they lived 15 km apart. Charbonneau was a secondary school teacher and lived in a house with no electricity or any modern comforts,’ recalls Armelle Lefebvre, who sees in her father’s legacy the seeds of an ‘ecosocialism’.
Kristin Ross maintains that Lefebvre’s conceptualisation of the Marxist notion of ‘appropriation’ helps her to understand the strength of contemporary territorial struggles, ‘in particular this idea of reclaiming lived space and lived time’. ‘Lefebvre believed that individuals and groups could not constitute themselves as political subjects without generating a space – both physical and social – that they themselves appropriate, manage and “produce”,’ she explains. ‘This is a profoundly ecological idea, and one that is certainly at the heart of territorial movements and struggles for land restitution such as Notre-Dame-des-Landes, StopCopCity in Atlanta, Standing Rock and, of course, Earth Uprisings. Appropriation implies “use” rather than ownership.’
She adds that ‘Lefebvre wrote in a very visionary way in the 1970s about how struggles against land grabbing invariably created alliances between different kinds of people, who sometimes came together despite great ideological and identity differences – that was a process that the people of the ZAD experienced, lived and described as “composition”.’ Lefebvre’s work, long obscured in France, still deserves our full attention." https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/henri-lefebvre-dogmatism-in-reverse?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=verso_blog
"Cause all the dolphins and whales have gone
All good tidings and hopes have blown
All our nightmares are flying home
And it's too late to do anything but
Cry
Ohh, cry
Tears and stars collide, confide then die
Deep inside tears run dry
But I cry, cry and cry
Ohh, cry
Ohh, cry
Cry, cry, cry."
Plastic bottles take hundreds or even thousands of years to decompose. Many don't get recycled and end up in landfills, taking up valuable space, or worse, pollute our oceans harming marine life. Make the switch to reusable today! #environmentalism#climatechange#ecofriendly
The Narwhal snags 3 National Newspaper Awards nominations
The National Newspaper Awards celebrate some of the best journalism in Canada. This year, our work is in the running in three categories https://thenarwhal.ca/national-newspaper-awards-nominations-2024/
Its fascinating how powerful #animism was at protecting the environment for most of existence. I just learned recently that the #nymphs in #Greek#mythology really no different than local #Shinto deities, or animal spirits of the Americas. Every rock, stream and tree had a spirit attached to it, and if one wanted to change or use the land, they had to know how to appeal to these spirits and do it sparingly.
Even #polytheists had some variety of lesser animistic spirits that get lost among the big names. Of course, major roman brownies got upgraded to gods when they saw and liked the Greek #pantheon.
To this day even if they don't actually believe in it, Icelanders use the concepts of land #elves as kind of an extra layer of bureaucracy before changing the land. Animists have been looked down on, as the most primitive form of religion. As modern science shows us that the environment is one of the most important things to protect, perhaps it is the most important and advanced form of #religion .
Wanton destruction of the planet only happened when we switched to #monotheism and converted all those spirits into evil #demons in our minds. It opened up many new scientific and technological advances but wrecked the planet. Perhaps we need some form of applied animistic bureaucracy such as giving all things a certain level of rights and autonomy to ensure they survive for future generations to also enjoy. #environmentalism
The core of the radical environmental movement that developed in the 1960s-1990s largely embraced anarchist thought and practice. Radical environmentalists criticized Marxists for their support of rampant industrialization and their propensity to delay environmental action until “after the revolution.” Eco-anarchists like the Earth First!er Judi Bari argued that the environmentally destructive practices of socialist countries reflected both a failure of Marxism and the fact that all states privilege economic growth and stability above the health of the environment.
The theorization of eco-anarchism was a central component of the broader attempt to revise anarchist politics for the new era. Anarchism’s ecological focus also expanded its appeal to a new generation of environmental activists who saw the pressing need for radical change. As Marxists downplayed the importance of environmental struggle and even championed the industrial policy of socialist states, anarchists began to fight back against the catastrophic damage being done to the earth.
A variety of anarchist positions competed for leadership of the radical environmental movement. Beginning in the 1960s, Murray Bookchin theorized social ecology as a synthesis of social anarchism with ecological thought and advocated for decentralized political action to build an ecological society. Opposed to Bookchin’s social ecology was an ecologically motivated “anarcho-primitivism,” centered around the Fifth Estate newspaper, which went beyond the New Left’s anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism to critique industrial civilization itself. Both tendencies were influential in the anti-nuclear movement, as was anarcha-feminism. Later organizations like Earth First! and the Earth Liberation Front would take up aspects of the critique of industrial civilization in their growing commitment to Deep Ecology.
Many anarchists also embraced veganism and animal liberation in this era, in part for environmental reasons, and went on to develop an intersectional vision of “total liberation.” The eco-anarchist tendency took center stage in the 1990s in the actions of the Earth Liberation Front as well as the much-celebrated alliance of “Teamsters and Turtles” in the 1999 Seattle demonstration against the World Trade Organization. Anarchism’s ecological focus helps explain its increasing appeal in an era of growing environmental consciousness.
PSA: I asked #Twinings whether their #teabags contain #microplastics. They said, "The tea bags used to make our product are made from tea paper, a plant-based biodegradable material and this product is third-party certified as home compostable."
Also, "No plastics or glues are used in the tea bags." #tea#environmentalism#health
"...For Ellen, who liked to luxuriate in time, the end came quickly: two weeks after a dire diagnosis, one week after the publication of what is sure to be her masterwork — “Toward a Holy Ecology: Reading the Song of Songs in the Age of Climate Crisis.” The biblical love song, she writes, “could be understood as a mediation on our relationship with nature, animated by love.”
When the Song of Songs is read in synagogues around the world this Passover, Ellen’s earth-focused translation will breathe new life into the ancient, deeply sensual text..."
Environmentalism from Below How Global People's Movements Are Leading the Fight for Our Planet by Ashley Dawson
A global account of the grassroots environmental movements on the frontlines of the climate crisis.
Environmentalism from Below takes readers inside the popular struggles for environmental liberation in the Global South.
Climate change deniers are especially infuriating to me as someone who has experienced the effects of it firsthand.
The insanely high number of historic floods happening at a never before seen frequently and destroying people’s lives makes it very personal. #climatechange#environmentalism#pol#floods
One of the best-loved vehicles on the road here in #Malaysia seems to be the Toyota "Lite Ace GXL" minivan (which apparently can be fixed up forever, and pretty much never dies). They often have stylized 90's decalling on the side saying "Vanette".
It sort of makes my day when I see one.
A nice example of "Re-use" in "Reduce, re-use, recycle". #environmentalism
On a related note: hey friends, if you had to describe what #solarpunk is on the space of a single poster board, what would you write?
(I have my own plan for bulleted points, but want to know what you think is most important to get across to con-goers who maybe have never heard of solarpunk before.)
@arielkroon An interdisciplinary environmental movement seeking to build strong communities rooted in a sustainable, balanced relationship between humans and nature. What makes #Solarpunk unique is its celebration of people from all backgrounds, its positive or at least neutral relationship with technology, its adaptability to local circumstances and local knowledges, a general current of practical optimism. A realistic #environmentalism not for the elites but for everyone.
Anarchism and its green companion, radical environmentalism, have fallen on hard times, but we’re begining to see a wee peek of interest in alternate sources such as Substack.
Join me at Anarchism is Green for my memories of what once was, dreams for what might be, and thoughts on what we can do in the here and now.
Why an intention to conserve an area for only 25 years should not count for Australia’s target of protecting 30% of land (theconversation.com)
Proper biodiversity conservation requires long-term commitments to protect areas of land and water, as laid down in international guidelines.