#extraction #extractivism #mining #state #left #strategies
new book and talk w thea riofrancos
https://cenhs.libsyn.com/226-extraction-feat-thea-riofrancos
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#extraction
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we are living through an #ExtinctionCrisis unlike anything in human history—over a million #species are at risk of disappearing in the coming decades. #ecosystems that have taken millions of years to evolve are unravelling before our eyes, driven by #HabitatDestruction, #climate chaos, #pollution, and endless #extraction. every species lost is a thread pulled from the web of life, and sooner or later, that web collapses.
Brilliant cartoon by @schloriancartoon
#Aluminum is a ubiquitous material that promises ease and convenience. But the #extraction of its raw material, #bauxite, and its processing into aluminum destroy vast tracts of old-growth #forest. The energy-intensive production of aluminum typically relies on powerful #hydroelectric dams that often flood the lands of #Indigenous communities. Red mud, a #toxic waste product of aluminum refining, is a serious environmental hazard.
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‘Extraction’ TV Series Starring Omar Sy Ordered at Netflix From Glen Mazzara, Russo Brothers
#Variety #News #Extraction #GlenMazzara #Netflix #OmarSy
Variety · 'Extraction' TV Series Starring Omar Sy Ordered at Netflix
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@vickietorious What a bunch of self serving Capitalists seizing a gifted partisan, right wing opportunity.
Disgusting and completely against the interests of all their left wing base as usual.
BCNDP can mark their days left in office if they continue to act like vagabond anti-woke BC Conservatives and trample the ideals of all their left wing voters.
Fuck Eby’s BCNDP, fuck capitalism and fuck accelerated right wing environmental destruction in the face of their threat of a right wing coup.
Environmentalists are not the terrorists that gun toting #Diagonalists and #MapleMaga are, why does our BC NDP government continue to appease domestic terrorists while mocking our resolve to protect our majestic province as this earth continues it’s inevitable decline into chaos?
Exponentially increasing extraction is not the solution, for Pete’s sake. David Eby needs to wake up and see that he’s pissing all over those who have supported him.
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Exactly!
Don’t know if you’ve seen this in today’s Grauniad?
It’s absolutely horrrendous & heartbreaking what the plundering US neoliberal profiteers are doing to the Gulf of Mexico and in poor Gulf states like Louisiana & Mississippi!
“Trump has brought much-needed attention to a site of great tragedy: the Gulf of Mexico”
by Greg Grandin
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/03/trump-gulf-of-mexico?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
The Guardian · Trump has brought much-needed attention to a site of great tragedy: the Gulf of Mexico
Freshwater biodiversity and water extraction
Australia's waterbird populations almost halved in just one year.
>>
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-19/waterbird-population-almost-halved-survey/104814966
#birds #waterbirds #fish #wildlife #water #rivers #extraction #irrigation #dams #freshwater #biodiversity
ABC News · Australia's waterbird populations almost halved in just one year, survey finds
Pioneering research reveals growing dangers and repression of climate activism globally
Press release issued: 11 December 2024
"A new report has uncovered the many risks of participating in climate and environmental protests across the world – and how more countries are criminalising and repressing this activity in a bid to keep it in check.
"The report, led by the University of Bristol, is the first to examine global statistics on this form of protest and identify alarming trends. It reveals that more than 2,000 climate and environmental protesters have been killed over the past 12 years and that a raft of new anti-protest legislation has been enacted.
"It calls for governments, police forces and the legal system to help protect people’s right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression."
"Lead author Dr Oscar Berglund, Senior Lecturer in International Public and Social Policy at the University’s School for Policy Studies, said: “This research sheds important light on how the growing pursuit of climate and environmental protest is being handled globally. Our evidence clearly shows a global crackdown in liberal democracies as well as autocracies.
"'This is worrying because it focuses state policy on punishing dissent against inaction on climate and environmental change instead of taking adequate action on these issues. It also represents authoritarian moves that are inconsistent with the ideals of vibrant civil societies in liberal democracies.'
"The findings showed murders and disappearances of climate and environmental activists are common in many countries, with international non-governmental organisation (NGO) Global Witness reporting at least 2,106 killings between 2012 and 2023. Brazil had the highest number with 401 fatalities, followed by 298 in the Philippines, 86 in India, and 58 in Peru.
"A significant proportion of climate and environmental protests involved arrests, according to the research. The highest proportion, one in five, was found in Australia, followed by 17% in the UK – much higher than the international average of 6.3%.
"Non-violent protesters were also found to be given lengthy prison sentences to act as a deterrent. For example, this year in the UK many climate activists have been sent to prison, with the longest sentence being five years.
"The report defines environmental protests as being aimed at stopping specific environmentally destructive projects, such as fossil fuel exploration and #extraction, #deforestation, dam building or #mining. #ClimateProtests are described as more urban-based events, which tend to have broader policy demands, such as ending oil exploration, or more overarching political demands, for instance enacting a #GreenNewDeal.
"The researchers analysed data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) and Global Witness to gather global data and explore trends as well as new anti-protest legislation introduced in countries in different parts of the world.
"Four main ways were identified to criminalise and repress climate and environmental protests. Anti-protest laws are being introduced, criminalising groups, introducing new crimes, making punishment more severe for existing crimes, increasing police powers, and giving officers impunity when harming activists. Protest is also being criminalised through prosecution and courts.
"Dr Berglund explained: 'This involves using existing legislation, including anti-terror or anti-organised crime laws, to curb protest. Climate protest is being de-politicised in the courts, prohibiting mentions of climate change or environmental damage in proceedings, or otherwise changing court processes in order to increase the likelihood of activists being found guilty.'
"The third category is through policing, which is carried out not only by state actors like police or military, but also private security and military or organised crime groups. This sees a range of attempts to prevent protests through using stop and search, arrests, physical violence, and threats and intimidation of protesters.
"Dr Berglund said: “Perhaps most shockingly, we found killings and disappearances to be common in some countries. In many ways, these are an extension of policing as they are either carried out or permitted by the same authorities, often following death threats and other forms of intimidation.”
"The report makes numerous recommendations, including for public authorities to conduct regular evaluations and publish data demonstrating how their actions help safeguard the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression. It also calls for anti-terror and anti-organised crime legislation against climate and environmental activists to stop.
"Dr Berglund said: 'Human rights frameworks should be at the forefront of policing considerations and operations to ensure that the public can exercise their right to protest without impediment or fear.'
"'Climate and environmental protests are increasingly prevalent, for good reason as the climate crisis worsens, and responses to this activity are evolving at pace. Further research is needed to better understand the situation so suitable measures can be identified and implemented to protect human rights and keep protesters safe.'"
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2024/december/climate-activism.html
#CriminalizingDissent #ACAB #Autocracy #Corporatocracy #Fascism #CriminalizingDissentIsAutocracy #ClimateCrisis #GlobalBurning #CorporateFascism #HumanRights #CivilLiberties #ClimateActivists #Blackwater #NoDAPL #StandWithStandingRock #ClimateAction #PipelineProtests #WaterProtectors #BigOilAndGas #AntiProtestLaws #SLAPPs #ErikPrinceColonialism #Article20 #2023PublicOrderAct
#Project2025 #HR9495 #GlobalWitness #AntiTerrorLaws
www.bristol.ac.ukPioneering research reveals growing dangers and repression of climate activism globallyA new report has uncovered the many risks of participating in climate and environmental protests across the world – and how more countries are criminalising and repressing this activity in a bid to keep it in check.
#Degrowth and #Socialism: Notes on Some Critical Junctures
by Güney Işıkara and Özgür Narin
"Most degrowth thinkers agree that growth, as both a fact and a concept, is brought about by #capitalism. It is even acknowledged that growth is not the driver, but an outcome, the “surface appearance or ‘fetish’ of an underlying process: capital accumulation.” One would then expect that the challenge to it and the imaginary of an alternative society would be based on the negation of capitalism as a mode of production. Yet instead, growth remains the focal point of the discussion.
"The emphasis on growth as an aggregate phenomenon that emerged only with industrial capitalism and turned into an unquestionable economic paradigm following the Second World War is not trivial. It implies that growth as we know it is capitalist growth, or actually accumulation of capital, constituted in processes of exploitation and expropriation peculiar to capitalism, measured by indicators designed by and for capitalist societies. Why should we then be so concerned with growth as such from the viewpoint of a socialist (or #postcapitalist) society? The degrowth position is that it mesmerizes and captivates individual and social imaginaries, political movements, parties, and projects, including that of socialism: “Growth is the child of capitalism, but the child outdid the parent, with the pursuit of growth surviving the abolition of capitalist relations in socialist countries.”
"The transplantation of growth from its capitalist historical context into a socialist future, and thereby the problematization of growth as such—which supposedly transcends social relations upon which societies are founded—can be justified only under one condition: if all growth, regardless of the underlying relations of humans to both humans and nonhuman natures, can be seen as homogeneous, or at least alike to a significant degree. This is precisely what Giorgos Kallis puts forward: 'socialist growth cannot be sustainable, because no economic growth can be #ecologically #sustainable. Growth in the #material standard of living requires growth in the #extraction of materials. This is unavoidably damaging to the environment and ultimately undermines the conditions of production and reproduction.”
"The logical conclusion of this argument is that all human activity involving extraction, transformation, and use of materials—that is, all human reproduction—is in direct conflict with the environment as the former unavoidably damages the latter. This is a reversion to crude materialism founded on the oppositional binary of nature and society. According to Kallis, this conflict becomes #unsustainable if material living standards keep growing. Growth, however, is still understood in its meaning in the capitalist context, representing a process of accumulation.
"The qualitative difference between socialism and capitalism as two distinct modes of production is highly relevant here. The primary function of production under socialism is to provide all citizens with use values to satisfy a universal standard of basic needs (essentials), which determines the length of the necessary working day. This comprises not only shelter, basic food items, clean water supply, health care, education, and accessible public transport, but also child and elder care, parks and recreation, basic cultural and informational services, (possibly) ecological restoration activities, and the like."
Read more:
https://monthlyreview.org/2023/07/01/degrowth-and-socialism-notes-on-some-critical-junctures/
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(continued) 
The report offers "a number of policy options that would help to reduce and address pandemic risk. Among these are: […]
• Developing and incorporating pandemic and emerging disease risk health impact assessments in major development and land-use projects, while reforming financial aid for land-use so that benefits and risks to biodiversity and health are recognized and explicitly targeted.
• Ensuring that the economic cost of pandemics is factored into consumption, production, and government policies and budgets.
• Enabling changes to reduce the types of consumption, globalized agricultural expansion and trade that have led to pandemics – this could include taxes or levies on meat consumption, livestock production and other forms of high pandemic-risk activities."
Press release: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/escaping-era-pandemics-experts-warn-worse-crises-come-options
UN EnvironmentEscaping the ‘Era of Pandemics’: Experts warn worse crises to come options offered to reduce riskFuture pandemics will emerge more often, spread more rapidly, do more damage to the world economy and kill more people than COVID-19 unless there is a transformative change in the global approach to dealing with infectious diseases, warns a major new report on biodiversity and pandemics by 22 leading experts from around the world.
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C'est en 2020 qu'a eu lieu le premier confinement mondial. Cette année-là, la Plateforme intergouvernementale scientifique et politique sur la biodiversité et les services écosystémiques #IPBES a convoqué « un atelier virtuel urgent sur les liens entre la dégradation de la nature et l'augmentation des risques de pandémie [...] Les expert·es s'accordent à dire qu'il est possible d'échapper à l'ère des pandémies, mais que cela nécessitera un changement radical d'approche, pour passer de la réaction à la prévention. »
Les résultats décrits dans le rapport de l'atelier n'ont été ni discutés ni approuvés par la plénière de l'IPBES. [grr]
Communiqué de presse : https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/escaping-era-pandemics-experts-warn-worse-crises-come-options
(à suivre)
UN EnvironmentEscaping the ‘Era of Pandemics’: Experts warn worse crises to come options offered to reduce riskFuture pandemics will emerge more often, spread more rapidly, do more damage to the world economy and kill more people than COVID-19 unless there is a transformative change in the global approach to dealing with infectious diseases, warns a major new report on biodiversity and pandemics by 22 leading experts from around the world.
Continued thread
2020 saw the first global lockdown. That year the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services #IPBES convened of "an urgent virtual workshop about the links between degradation of nature and increasing pandemic risks[.] The experts agree that escaping the era of pandemics is possible, but that this will require a seismic shift in approach from reaction to prevention."
The outcomes outlined in the workshop report were neither discussed nor approved by the IPBES plenary. [grr]
Press release: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/escaping-era-pandemics-experts-warn-worse-crises-come-options
(to be followed)
UN EnvironmentEscaping the ‘Era of Pandemics’: Experts warn worse crises to come options offered to reduce riskFuture pandemics will emerge more often, spread more rapidly, do more damage to the world economy and kill more people than COVID-19 unless there is a transformative change in the global approach to dealing with infectious diseases, warns a major new report on biodiversity and pandemics by 22 leading experts from around the world.
Smallpox was eradicated in the 1970s. Vaccination campaigns ceased. So people under fifty are not immune to #mpox.
Rapid treatment reduces lethality from 10% to 1%.
Mining for electricity transition is particularly conducive to the creation and export of new diseases. #Syndemics can be defined as optimal social and ecological environment for generating and propelling epidemics.
Dr Camille Besombes: ‘There is an epidemic of epidemics. We've entered a new era, with a proliferation of emerging infectious diseases. […] Ebola emerged in the same economic and social context as Kivu.
(in fr) https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/france-culture-va-plus-loin-l-invite-e-des-matins/crises-sanitaires-mpox-sortir-du-traitement-d-urgence-9146038 
France Culture · Crises sanitaires, Mpox : sortir du traitement d’urgenceDepuis le début de l’année, les cas de “Mpox” se multiplient en Afrique centrale. Si la République Démocratique du Congo est au cœur de la flambée épidémique, la maladie déborde les frontières. De quoi inquiéter l’OMS, qui a décrété mercredi une urgence de santé publique de portée internationale.
La variole a été éradiquée dans les années septante. Les campagnes de vaccination ont alors cessé. Donc, les moins de cinquante ans ne sont pas immunisé·es contre le #mpox.
Des moyens rapides de traitement permettent de passer de 10% à 1% de létalité (propension à faire mourir, probabilité de mourir à l'échelle de la population).
L'extraction minière pour la transition électrique est particulièrement propice à la création et à l'exportation de nouvelles maladies. Une #syndémie peut être définie comme un environnement social et écologique optimal pour générer et propulser des épidémies.
Dr Camille Besombes : "Il y a une épidémie d'épidémies. On est rentré dans une nouvelle ère : il y a une multiplication des émergences infectieuses. […] Il y a eu une émergence d'Ebola dans ce même contexte économique et social, qu'est le Kivu."
France Culture · Crises sanitaires, Mpox : sortir du traitement d’urgenceDepuis le début de l’année, les cas de “Mpox” se multiplient en Afrique centrale. Si la République Démocratique du Congo est au cœur de la flambée épidémique, la maladie déborde les frontières. De quoi inquiéter l’OMS, qui a décrété mercredi une urgence de santé publique de portée internationale.
#IndigenousGeography could change how we relate to the #Earth
"#Geography can be maps. But it can also be something deeply personal, like how we interact with space."
by Taylar Dawn Stagner Indigenous Affairs Fellow
Jul 31, 2024
"#ClimateChange is a world-ending problem: #Flooding, #fires, #hurricanes, and #heat are threatening life and land, and could render parts of the planet #uninhabitable. But when #NiiyokamigaabawDeondreSmiles gives their students advice on what to do about it, one of the things they recommend is to simply go for a #walk. Smiles is an assistant professor of geography at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, and a leader in the field of Indigenous geography.
"They are a citizen of the #LeechLakeBand of #Ojibewe, and they research how #IndigenousPeople have cultivated relationships with the land that are #ceremonial, historic — and ever #evolving, including in the wake of climate change.
"As #colonial governments engage with #traditional #ecological knowledge more seriously, Smiles’ work is a timely reminder of how seemingly small changes to your routine can have a big impact on your point of view. Indigenous geography offers a stark contrast to a worldview based on #extraction and #exploitation.
"Many societies have cataloged the world around them to make maps and meaning out of the land, but colonial ways of contextualizing the world have also often utilized geography as a way to divide and sequester land from Indigenous peoples."
GristIndigenous geography could change how we relate to the Earth"Geography can be maps. But it can also be something deeply personal, like how we interact with space."
Report By Amy Corbin
Posted October 1, 2004
Updated April 1, 2010
"For more than two decades, the #Shoshone and #Paiute peoples, scientists, #environmentalists, the federal government, Nevada citizens and politicians have wrestled over the fate of Yucca Mountain. The federal government had selected the mountain to become the nation’s primary dumping ground for deadly, high-level #NuclearWaste, but the long-contested project is at last on its way to being closed. Meanwhile, the #WesternShoshone fight off federal efforts to sell their land in order to give multinational #corporations access to its #mineral resources. But the Western Shoshone stand firm. Raymond Yowell, Chief of the Western Shoshone National Council, said, 'Western Shoshone title is still intact… We’ve never accepted their money and never will — our land, the earth mother is not for sale and we will protect her and continue our responsibilities as caretakers under the Creator’s law.'
The Land and Its People
"Yucca Mountain is located within the Western Shoshone Nation and has long been a place of powerful spiritual energy for the Shoshone and the Paiute. To the Western Shoshone it is #SnakeMountain, a place with rock rings that transmit prayers to the Great Spirit and messages back to the people. The late Shoshone spiritual leader Corbin Harney told a traditional story that Snake Mountain will one day be awakened and split open, spewing out poison. This prophecy may predict the potential disaster of #volcanic activity and nuclear waste leakage. Shoshone ancestors are buried in the mountain and the water in the area is sacred, as it is with many desert peoples.
"The 60 million acres of Western Shoshone territory in Nevada, Idaho, Utah and California, which includes Yucca Mountain, was never deeded to the U.S. government. According to the 1863 #RubyValleyTreaty that the Shoshone signed with the government, most of the area now used by the U.S. military for #NuclearWeapons testing and the proposed waste storage site was explicitly recognized as Shoshone land. However, the U.S. government now claims 80 to 90 percent of it, meaning that the Shoshone are unable to control what happens on their ancestral land. Legislators continue to try to persuade the Shoshone to accept financial compensation for this land, which most view as a way to extinguish aboriginal title and preclude future land claims, easing the way for renewed nuclear weapons testing and waste storage, as well as resource #extraction.
"In the late 1970s government scientists began to study Yucca Mountain as a possible repository for nuclear waste, and since 1987 it has been the only site considered for 77,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste. While the Yucca Mountain Project has been debated, the amount of nuclear waste needing burial has already surpassed what the repository was designed to hold. In the meantime, nuclear waste continues to sit in steel-lined pools or casks near power plants throughout the country that produce 2,000 tons of high-level waste per year. The waste is lethal for 10,000 years and dangerous for 250,000 years."
[...]
"The Yucca Mountain Project calls for the highly radioactive nuclear waste to be encased in steel containers and buried deep in the mountain. Since the canisters will last for 1,000 years at most, the dryness of the mountain will have to guarantee against leakage and migration — an assumption that environmentalists and many scientists say is flawed and dangerous. Surface water percolating into the mountain will carry radioactive particles into the water table and render it toxic. This water table currently supplies water to local communities and farming regions that produce food products for the entire country.
"In 2005, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman confirmed that internal department e-mails allude to the #falsification of data on how quickly water flows through Yucca Mountain. This revelation caused a federal investigation, and condemnation from Congress triggered the Department of Energy to completely reorganize the project and lay off 500 employees. Robert Hager, attorney for the Western Shoshone, said that the Yucca site would have been disqualified years ago if the true nature of the subterranean water flow was known.
"With several local #FaultLines and a #volcano nearby, earthquakes make it likely that the mountain will fracture the repository and send even more water to the waste. There are also grave concerns about the safety of transporting nuclear waste over long distances through several U.S. states, particularly in an era of terrorist threats. During the later Bush years, as environmental concerns mounted and citizens from other states grew more leery, the project began to look more and more unlikely."
Read more:
https://sacredland.org/yucca-mountain-united-states/
In the category "the past isn't gone. it's not even past", here is a building that still says "hakalau plantation company", because Hawai'i was once covered by sugar plantations.
That past is literally still in the landscape... it's even clearly-labeled! (A lot of the rest of that history is less apparent in the landscape if you don't know which lands used to be sugar lands. but this one is just right there, sitting on the side of the road. I don't know if anyone uses it for anything.)
