Next read is "Concrete Economics" by Stephen S. Cohen and J. Bradford DeLong.
First book from the #NewConsensus reading list.
"Inspired", by Marty Cagan. Gonna read me a book on product management.
Also reading up on Fast Forwards' #tech #nonprofit playbook. https://www.ffwd.org/playbook/
I finished "The Power" by Naomi Alderman today.
I didn't enjoy the read, but it was thought provoking. The central thesis of the book seemed to be, "our society is based on power, and if women were stronger than men we would see the same oppressive dynamics we see now, reversed."
That's a grim thought.
Next book is The Entrepreneurial State, by Mariana Mazzucato.
I'm going to try not to overdo it with the social notes. It's a library book due back soon, and I'm not sure writing down everything helps me absorb the content.
Still, I'm excited to dive into another #NewConsensus book.
I didn't realize when i bought it that the book was written 2006, but I'm still pretty interested to read "Producing Open Source Software," by Karl Fogel.
I just joined an #opensource software company and I have a lot to learn.
Next read: I've got the audiobook of Margaret Atwood's "The Testaments". Figured I'd intersperse the heavy stuff with *some* fiction.
Next (current) read: if Beale Street Could Talk, by James Baldwin
Just finished the Tombs of Atuan by #UrsulaKLeGuin. The whole thing, cover to cover, on #archiveorg. The Internet rules.
"Design Justice" by Sasha Costanza-Chock
Next book is "City at World's End" by Edmond Hamilton, a 1950s #scifi book hosted on #Librivox.
Thus far, it's classic 1950s fare. A square-jawed team of white man scientists are flung into the far future along with their town. The local government is weak, the women are frail and must be protected.
For all that the premise is interesting - reminds me of "The Night Land" and "The City and the Stars" - post post post apocalypse cities surviving on doomed worlds.
Next read is "The Buried Giant," by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Post-Aurthurian legend where nobody can form long term memories.
Next read is Andrew Krivak's "The Bear". A father- daughter post-apocalypse tale.
Next Read is "Kiss The Ground" by Josh Tickell.
I started a job in October trying to help farmers (and other people living on the land) practice #RegenerativeAgriculture. We've got to store that #carbon and save the world.
More of an essay than a book, but my next read is "Making Kin with the Machines" by Jason Edward Lewis, Noelani Arista, Archer Pechawis, and Suzanne Kite. https://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/lewis-arista-pechawis-kite/release/1
Next book is "Let It Rot!: The Gardener's Guide to Composting" by Stu Campbell.
SO excited to read some mother-effing #solarpunk fiction!
#KimStanleyRobinson's "Ministry for the Future".
Yay! Excited to get into "All We Can Save" by @ayanaeliza and Katherine K. Wilkinson
Next read, this time with the kiddo. "We Are The Water Protectors"
Beautiful illustrations. The right story.
The #Equity, #Diversity, and #Inclusion Working Group (EDIWG) at #NASA, published a white paper called "Ethical Exploration and the Role of Planetary Protection in Disrupting Colonial Practices" and it calls for incorporating #anticolonial practices as we explore other worlds. https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.08344
Next Read? The Murray Bookchin Reader
https://archive.org/details/TheMurrayBookchinReaderMurrayBookchin/page/n13/mode/2up
#ecology- focused #anarchism is about the furthest thing I can think of from #AynRand; maybe there will be similarities to #TheDispossessed.
I'm going to give this a shot! "Sustaining Lake Superior" by Nancy Langston is about a mass effort of #conservation and #recovery in a time of #ClimateChange.
"More than 10 percent of the U.S. land area, according to ecologist Alice Outwater, may have been #beaver-constructed wetlands when [Piere-Esprit] Radisson showed up [in 1658], which amounts to more than 300,000 square miles. When the beaver were rapidly pulled from the #LakeSuperior #watershed and their furs sent to Europe, their old dams collapsed."
"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.
"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.
Image caption
@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)"
"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."
😐