|
TUESDAYS — YOUR INBOX — ASSUREDLY
______________________________________________________________________
CURATED ECOLOGICAL NEWS
Wendell Berry – ‘What I stand for is what I stand on”
“[by Barbara Kingsolver] Wendell and I grew up a generation apart but joined in a culture that puts great stock in neighborly civility. We rural folk are mostly polite. It helps us to get along, get invited back, and sometimes sneak mutiny in the door. Even in the fanciest company.
“It’s a well-beaten path for rural kids: Go out and seek your fortune. I followed it myself, lured away from Kentucky by some combination of embarrassment for the homely and the shine of what’s generally called opportunity.
“People who live and work in land-based economies are well accustomed to being called backward by the more urbane, and Berry’s work has sometimes borne this slight. But he was the opposite of backward; he was prescient. ‘What I stand for is what I stand on’, he said, and spent the rest of his life proving it.
“Most of all, he had the rare vision to see a thing, any thing, not just at the moment of acquisition but through its whole passage from mineral extraction, the mess of manufacture and transport to the consumer and beyond, to the desecration we call ‘landfill’. He didn’t say do, or don’t. He just said to look.” [click the links for the full articles]
Habitat loss — the main driver of climate disruption
“I suddenly notice the freight trains. Though miles away, across the farmlands, I can feel and faintly hear the ground-rumbling thud of iron on iron.
“Headed north, they haul coal and liquid natural gas (LNG). Coming back south, the coal cars and LNG tanks are empty, but flatcars are stacked with fresh 2X4’s and plywood, wrapped like Lego blocks in bright white plastic.
“It’s all right there, I realize, racing back and forth, the two main human causes of climate change — land damage and industrial carbon emissions. The story of my own thinking about climate and fires has changed. Though complexified would be a better word.
“Years ago I was a classic climate activist. My attention focused fervently on CO2 as the sole cause of anthropogenic climate change. One smoky day, held up at a railroad crossing, white bar down, my eyes followed the grim passage of the coal and oil cars.
“What’s interesting to me now, 12 years later, is that I didn’t even notice the timber flatcars going by, ready to pick up fresh loads. I didn’t think to consider how logging might be contributing to the fires.
“Now I see both, the carbon going up, the trees coming down, carbon blankets thickening and water cycles crumbling. Both are causing climate change and both are contributing to the fires.
“I don’t think that way anymore. Now I know that habitat destruction was and remains the main driver of extinction.” [click the links for the full articles]
Livestock’s disparate impact on climate and extinction
“Moving towards plant-based diets will not, by itself, solve the climate problem. We still need to end our reliance on fossil fuels. Long before it becomes physically impossible to raise more cattle, we encounter increasingly unpleasant consequences, such as soil erosion, and groundwater depletion.
“Let’s focus on one particularly nasty consequence of livestock production: climate change. A key reason that livestock’s impact on the climate is hotly debated is that it is difficult to assess land-use impact.
“The main human use of land is for agriculture. Agriculture dwarfs urban development, roads, and buildings in the sheer area of land involved. And of that land, about 80% is for livestock production. So if we’re talking about land use, for the most part we’re talking about livestock.
“Methane is another complex and contentious factor. Agriculture is the single largest anthropogenic source of methane, and most of that is from livestock. Methane has a much greater impact than CO2 in terms of its warming potential, but it also breaks down fairly quickly in the atmosphere.
“Finally…politics. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations is influenced, if not effectively controlled, by the livestock industry. In 2012 they announced an official partnership with the meat and dairy industries.” [click the link for the full article]
Irrationally clinging to the myth of modernity
“GutAlaune, our co-living and commoning space near Halle, Germany, is a ‘real utopia’, as sociologist Erik Olin Wright might say: one of those places — usually on the margins of society — where tomorrow’s solutions are already being lived today.
“Ten years ago, a group of friends bought a piece of land in Eastern Germany at a bargain price, later adding several circus wagons and yurts. In the forest garden on the hillside, green kale and winter onions grow under chestnut and lime trees — trees that will hopefully still hold water and produce edible fruit in the next eighty years.
“For coauthor Gerriet Schwen, GutAlaune became the starting point for research into the challenges facing self-organized groups. After several years of utopian research, Gerriet became disillusioned. ‘At some point, I no longer believed myself that the solutions we are trying out here will grow faster than the [climate] disasters will catch up’.
“A scan of headlines across German-speaking countries offers little acknowledgment of our clear trajectory toward collapse, and instead remains irrationally optimistic.
“German-speaking climate discourse remains so optimistic because we have distorted basic assumptions about how we talk about crisis. We have not learned how to feel. And we have not learned how to fail.” [click the link for the full article]
To build a hot compost pile
“Ordinary composting has some disadvantages that every gardener knows well. One can’t simply add bones or meat for fear of attracting vermin. Plants that have gone to seed cannot be added. You can’t add diseased plants, or the diseases might remain in the resulting soil.
“Imagine, then, composting that avoids all these problems. Imagine being able to compost almost everything, and keep the majority of the biomass. Imagine, finally, that it only takes a matter of weeks and not months.
“What makes hot composting work is the kind of bacteria it uses. Hot composters find the right balance of materials to attract aerobic, heat-generating bacteria. The bacteria generate heat just as your body does, enough to kill any weed seeds and diseases.
“To do this yourself, you need the right balance of materials to compost. The desired ratio sits between 25 and 30 parts carbon-rich waste to one part nitrogen-rich waste, proportioned by weight. Carbon-rich materials are typically dry and brown, like sawdust, cardboard, paper, dried leaves, straw and other, similar things. Nitrogen-rich materials are typically moist and fresh, like kitchen waste, fresh lawn clippings and vegetable scraps.” [click the link for the full article]
Extinction of migratory birds caused mainly by humans
“One in nine migratory birds are threatened with extinction, and 45% of migratory species such as cuckoos, turtle doves and Arctic terns are in decline, according to a global report. Seabirds and shorebirds are faring particularly badly.
“The threats to migratory birds, which are overwhelmingly caused by humans and include the intensification of farming, unsustainable hunting, pollution, invasive species and global heating, were revealed in the State of the World’s Birds report.
“Threats to migratory birds include persecution, with an estimated 13.1 million to 42.7 million migratory birds illegally killed or taken every year in Europe, the Mediterranean, the Caucasus and the Arabian peninsula.” [click the link for the full article]
Colonization of Global South’s minerals
“When Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in South America this week, he carried a familiar message: The United States wants access to minerals and an expanded military presence in the region.
“On the ground in the Amazon, other forests, high-altitude páramos grasslands, and additional areas targeted for mining, those policies are sparking fears of worsening violence. Mining has repeatedly been ranked as the sector most linked to the killings of environmental defenders.
“The Trump administration has repeatedly framed mining — and the acquisition of minerals it designates as ‘critical’, such as silver and copper — as a national security imperative. A spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether the agreement includes commitments to respect human rights, including Indigenous peoples’ internationally recognized right to free, prior, and informed consent.” [click the link for the full article]
Batteries, rare earth minerals, data centers
“Battery installations hit a new record in the US in the second quarter of 20266, a 20% increase over last year. In total, 20.2 gigawatt-hours of new capacity came online. That’s enough to supply the daily electricity needs of about 700,000 homes.
“Massive, utility-scale systems are responsible for most of the record-setting quarter. Seven new gigascale battery installations came online during the three-month stretch. But there was also growth in the category of so-called behind-the-meter batteries. In the behind-the-meter category, data centers led the way, making up about three-quarters of new batteries in the commercial sector.
“Overall, batteries are a bright spot in energy right now. ‘This is one of the strong sectors in the US’, says Isshu Kikuma, an energy storage analyst at BloombergNEF.” [click the link for the full article]
Indigenous women’s exclusion symptomatic of climate and biodiversity crisis
“When Hillary Semeyan Lenantoiye was growing up in northern Kenya’s Samburu County, the rain became less and less frequent. For the Samburu, cycles of drought, which have intensified with climate change, drive food scarcity and foster conflict and violence as people struggle with fewer economic resources.
“Lenantoiye realized that while Indigenous peoples were often researched, they were not included in sharing possible solutions. This led Lenantoiye to found the Inclusive Culture Action Network, or ICAN. ‘Indigenous communities already have the solutions’, she wrote. ‘They just need to be trusted, empowered and included’.
“Karen Bailón, an Ecuadorian climate and gender justice activist, came to climate activism via feminism. Her studying of environmental defenders revealed how protecting nature and protecting people are one and the same struggle.
“One thing Bailón has taken from Ecuador’s Indigenous communities is the importance of centering intergenerational conversation. Despite references to ‘intergenerational equity’ in official documents, young people, much like women and Indigenous peoples, continued to be excluded from spaces where binding decisions are made.
“As an Indigenous woman and a survivor of gender-based violence and forced displacement, Daniela Alba’s vision of climate justice has not only been shaped by indigeneity and ancestral knowledge, but also by the ‘deeply wrapped and intertwined’ scars of both personal trauma and colonial violence.
“For the Indigenous Muisca, she explained, Mother Earth and Bachué, the creator of water, are the first spirits you encounter in life. ‘It is not that the land belongs to us’, she said. ‘It is that we belong to her’.” [click the link for the full article]
|
