"Streams were no longer contained behind a series of ponds and dams. Water that had slowly seeped down to the aquifer now rushed into Lake Superior, carrying sediments, sands, and pollutants with it. Springs that had fed the #watershed dwindled and water tables dropped, encouraging succession from ponds to meadows and then to grasslands."

"Outwater writes: 'in a land full of beaver, the stillness of ponds and wetlands had allowed sendiment to settle, clearing the water and providing a large reserve of nutriants that stablized the #ecosystem... the beaver's wetland had been home to a rich diversity of creatures from the air, land, and water, and without the beavers the fertility of vast areas was subtly reduced.'"

Finished a chapter in "Sustaining Lake Superior" all about how 'cooperative pragmatism' in the first half of the 20th century meant regulators failed to get industry to limit their pollution. It was assumed that bodies of water, especially large bodies, had high 'assimilative capacity' and could process whatever pollution went in them.

Now reading a section that is... striking, to say the least. Post #WorldWar2 urban americans wanted to get into parks and wilderness areas.

"Because the public wanted water that looked and smelled clean, and because regulators couldn't regulate industry, they decided to use copper sulfate, arsenic, and #DDT to kill the by-products of industrial development, particularly algal blooms and the biting insects that loved them."

Thinking again of "Kiss the Ground" and how DDT was thought to be some sort of a miracle chemical. https://cdn.mastodon.technology/media_attachments/files/008/699/735/original/4611c0a75fbd62aa.jpg

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

Uptain Sinclair

Whether it be pollution of the Great Lakes or the pollution of fence line communities today, the rule is the same. Businesses don't decide to take policies to limit harmful externalities unless they believe that it will be better for them in the long run.

Arsenic dumped to dispose of "aquatic nuisances."

You can't make this stuff up.

#toxaphene

"In the late 1940s, after 'dead fish appeared in waterways adjacent to fields which had been sprayed or dusted with toxaphene,' some observant fisheries biologists recognized that it might be a useful chemical to kill unwanted fish."

😐

"Why did the aquatic nuisance program grow so quickly in the name of #conservation? In part, the 'better living through chemistry' enthusiasm shared by many North Americans explains the willingness to spray clean water. Nifty postwar chemicals were going to solve all or problems. Plastics such as bisphenol A would make happier, cleaner, shinier households; hormones such as DES would bigger, better babies; pesticides such as #DDT would create a cornucopia of shiny, perfect food."

"Judge Lord became particularly infuriated that the [polluting] company kept playing the 'you'll destroy jobs' card to justify continued #pollution. He stated: 'In essence, defendants are using the work force as hostages. In order to free the work force at Reserve, the court must permit the continued exposure of [the citizens of Lake Superior communities] to known human carcinogens. The court will have no part of this form of economic blackmail."

It seems obvious, but reading "Sustaining Lake Superior" underlines how much activism and legal effort #indigenous peoples have organized to protect the climate.

- In the 1980s, the Anishinaabe tribes worked with the EPA to set clean water standards (which the state and mining companies wanted to degrade).

- In 1997, tribal efforts passed a "mining moratorium" in Wisconsin, requiring companies to prove they had properly handled chemicals for at least 10 years.

(1/?)

- In '96, Anishinaabe tribal members blockaded railroad tracks crossing their reservation, preventing a mining company from receiving the 550 million gallons of sulphuric acid they were - and yes, this is true - planning to inject into the ground in order to extract the remaining copper in solution. They forced the #EPA to require an environmental assessment, and the mine shut down.

Page 159 details how in 2011 pro mining groups donated $15.6 million in campaign contributions and lobbying fees to candidates who supported mining. The balance of power in the state Senate flipped, and the Senate passed bills written with the help of mining lobbyists supporting mining and relaxing environmental regulation. The bill also stripped local and citizen powers to challenge state permits.

It pays to buy a legislature.

More on how #indigenous groups work to sustain and balance the #ecosystems under their jurisdiction.

Before that "Deus X" by Norman Spinrad was the read. I first read it in high school, dusted it off as a pallet cleanser. A cyberpunk novel musing on the soul of software while the global ecosystem collapses.

#currentlyreading "Mission Economy" by Mariana Mazzucato. A call for stakeholder, rather than shareholder #capitalism.

"Although the goverments of many countries have spent staggering sums to keep their economies on life support during both the financial crisis and, more recently, the health pandemic, the neo-liberal economics which took hold in the Thatcher –Reagan era continue heavily to influence thinking, which still portrays government as clunky, bureaucratic machines that suppress the animal spirits of the wealth-creating private sector – no matter how much the latter are bailed out crisis after crisis."

Mazzucato argues that big missions help to reverse the trend away from community obligations to individual advancement, "by involving citizens in solving grand societal challenges and creating wide civic excitement about the power of collective innovation".

"With the #Apollo mission, citizens were inspired, but were not involved in designing the mission itself. That makes sense... for purely technological missions. But for missions that are societal – linked to #green growth, healthy living, the future of mobility or solving the digital divide – it is essential that different voices participate from the start to help think through the mission's implications for ordinary people and modify it to involve and benefit citizens as much as possible."

#currentlyreading "The Word for World is Forest" by #ursulaleguin

#scifi

https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/6031af62-c833-455a-a0cb-efec553d4c86

"Wild Seed" by #OctaviaButler was amazing. I inhaled it in two days.

#scifi

I finally read "Ghost in the Shell" by Masamune Shirow. The manga basis for the classic 1996 film. Did you know the entire book is available on archive.org?

https://archive.org/details/manga_Ghost_in_the_Shell_1/GITS1/mode/2up

#manga #GhostInTheShell

I finished reading the Lord of the Rings again. This time around the anti-industrialist, naturalist themes really stood out to me. The evil done to the Shire is industrialization; to win, our heroes end up deconstructing a coal-fired mill and building back a water-powered one.

#lotr #lordoftherings #books #nature

"Upgrade Soul" by Ezra Clayton Daniels was a trip. https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/e4c3adef-b553-4176-8ff5-68f099c4205f

/panting

Just finished "Blackout / All Clear" by Connie Willis! What a monster.

Just finished Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre

Great #scifi fare.

New Read: "Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings" by Peter Kropotkin.

Apparently Kropotkin's writings inspired #ursulaleguin's "The Dispossessed". I've been on a Russian Revolution history binge of late, so I'm excited to add this to the mix.

Will the #fediverse #anarchist community come out of the woodwork? 😃

"Individualism, narrowly egoistic, is incapable of inspiring anybody. There is nothing great of gripping in it. Individuality can obtain its supreme development only in the highest common social element."

Is this accurate?

#anarchism #conservatism #liberalism #communism #libertarianism

"The very essence of the present economic system is that the worker can never enjoy the well-being he has produced and the number of people who live at his expense will always augment. The more a country is advanced in Industry, the more this number grows."

"Inevitably, industry is directed ... not toward what is needed to satisfy the needs of all, but toward that which at a given moment, brings the greatest temporary profit to a few."

"Of necessity, the abundance of something will be based on the poverty of others, and the straitened circumstances of the greater number will have to be maintained at all costs, that there may be hands to sell themselves for a part only of that which they are capable of producing; without which private accumulation of capital is impossible!"

@Argus a page from a book with a greyscale picture which shows a farmer spraying some sort of chemical. Above where are words which say:
"More cotton
More Profit with
TAXAPHENE
(HERCULES CHORINATED CAMPHENE)"

@Argus a graph showing a huge increase from 50000 units in 1950 to almost 250000 units in 1958. At the beginning the graph is quite flat but in the middle it begins to rise and right at the end it is very steep.

@Argus
Currently listening to her latest book

@cubicgarden mission economy?

@Argus Nope...
The value of everything - https://marianamazzucato.com/books/the-value-of-everything

@Argus I've read a somewhat related paper recently, which I think is very interesting. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2329401
And yes, at the Kropotkin's times, the anarchism was not just a regular political movement but a direct synonym for terrorism.

@sergey_m interesting; that seems to come through in this book's introduction. Kropotkin apparently thought Tolstoy's nonviolent philosophy was naive.

@Argus usually the individualism and collectivism are on the other sides. Also anarchism is individualism. lol

@JRLarsen I initially thought so too, but I've been reading Kropotkin and he stresses the importance of mutual aid. Its just that anarchists don't believe government should compel that aid.

"Individualism, narrowly egoistic, is incapable of inspiring anybody. There is nothing great of gripping in it. Individuality can obtain its supreme development only in the highest common social element."

Reminds me of a meme I saw on mastodon a while back.

@Argus Political compasses do two things: allow polysci majors to put historical figures into boxes and allow R*editors to construct their ideology piecemeal like trading cards. The abstractions make things seem tidy when they’re not. I especially love the “strong government” bit because it’s never specified what it’s strengths are. Is your government good at collecting taxes or at providing food or at committing genocide? What ideology would consider these equivalent?

@ScreamoBMO That's a fair point. I guess I mean "strong government" in the sense that government is able to coerce behavior. Kropotkin (who is the only anarchist I've read aside from flipping through Bookchin, so maybe he is not representative of anarchist thought as a whole) seems to favor people having strong social bonds, but not having government force people into action.

@Argus Oh yeah that’s pretty representative. I guess my point regarding the strong government thing comes across more for Marxist-Leninists (labeled communists in the graph) who agree with anarchists about the end goal but believe the state must be utilized during a transitionary period. I view this as fundamentally different from fascism where a strong government is the point. As an anarchist I’ll gladly align with an ML, but never a fascist.

@Argus No, not accurate.

where'd you get this?

mostly I'm concerned about the locating of strong government

but also conservatism is not at all anti-thetical to collectivism. in fact it is usually far closer to that than individualism throughout human history

what this is is really a bizarre, and vague oversimplification. What is the point of trying to construct such a chart?

.

@Argus ..trying to narrow down political and social theories and philosophies, as well as economic, into one dimensional "spectrums" or even two dimensional charts as this is fool hardy at best. Theories in their true essence are far more complicated to be so simply contrasted with another. They are multi faceted and multi - dimensional. A 3 dimensional fractal would be more appropriate. Have you studied Social Ecology?

@Argus re: "Individualism"

That's because individualism is a false hood. It is a deceptive lie. Humans are pack animals. No one can live entirely individually - providing food, clothing, shelter, and defense.

Humans live communally and collaboratively. How to manage this in the presence of the "modern" "post-wild" existence of human existence is the challenge

The idea of "individualism" is merely distorted to express "independence" - which wasn't necessary before Oppression,.

@Argus It is then distorted - economically - to assert non-existent selfish "entitlements" such as the right to massive amounts of private property. = value that no individual could "earn", and is then depriving others of - and future generations.

Have you studied Proudhon? I love it! :)

@Argus It's really hard to fit these discussions into 500 characters. Do you guys ever hang out on Diaspora? It's way easier to communicate on

@Argus Further, re: "...stresses the importance of mutual aid. Its just that anarchists don't believe government should compel that aid."

I don't know much Kropotkin but I disagree with a lot of what I've heard - it's just wrong.

To understand these things, you must understand: what is government?

The only legitimate government is democracy.

So, what is a democratic government?

.. It is the people. It is the manifestation of the people organizing.

tbc..

@Argus cont:

Why they must they organize? to what ends? what is good organizing?

The primary reason is mutual aide.

Coordinated, mutual defense.

Coordination of collaboration to provide functional co-existence, necessary cooperation, and working together - for mutual aide.

To say the government should not organize mutual aide - it should be "private"

is sheer idiocy.

Which brings back the point of the false dichotomy of individualism vs collectivism.

tbc

@Argus

cont.

Humans live communally - sharing one planet. There is no "away". When you throw something "away" it is a lie = it is still Here.

We do not Own Land. We BORROW it from previous generations, and future ones. We do not live "away" from others - we are downwind, downstream - sharing a climate, an atmosphere, a closed hydrological system, etc.

"individualism" is a lie. as is collectivism. The only time the "needs of the group" become a problem superseeding the ...

@Argus "needs of the individual" is NOT as a result of "collectivism" or any "communalism" or "mutualism" - it is the result of TYRANNY - which is a Minority Rule. See?