In this article, Robert Jensen shares a straight-forward view of Cancel Culture and how critique of a political position is not necessarily directed to mock the people who hold it but rather an invitation to become accountable to one’s obligation to participate in democratic dialogue.
In the current squabble on the liberal/progressive/left side of the fence over so-called “cancel culture,” in which one open letter in favor of freedom of expression led to a rebuttal open letter in favor of a different approach to freedom of expression, I can offer a report on the experience of being canceled.
Several times over the past few years I’ve been asked to speak by university or community groups, only to see those events canceled by organizers after someone complained that I am “transphobic.” At a couple of events that drew complaints but were not canceled, including one in a church, critics tried to disrupt my talk. None of the events was actually a talk on transgender issues. The complaint was that I should not be allowed to speak in progressive settings — about other feminist issues, the ecological crises, or anything else — because what I’ve written about the ideology of the transgender movement is said to be bigoted. A local radical bookstore that denounced me publicly went so far as to no longer carry my books, which I had given them free copies of for years.
If I were, in fact, a bigot, these cancellations would be easy to understand. I have never invited a bigot to speak in a class I taught or at an event I helped organize. I have invited people to speak who held some political views with which I did not agree (after all, if I only invited people who agreed with me on everything, I would be bored and lonely), but I have no interest in giving bigots a public platform.
The curious thing about these canceled/disrupted events is that no one ever pointed to anything I have written or said in public that is, in fact, bigoted. If transphobia is the fear or hatred of people who identify as transgender, nothing I have written or said is transphobic. Most of my critics simply assert that because I support the radical feminist critique of transgender ideology, I am by definition a bigot and transphobe.
For the Sake of Clarity
Let me be clear: I’m not whining or asking for sympathy. I am a white man and a retired university professor with a stable income and a network of friends and comrades who offer support. I continue to do political and intellectual work I find rewarding and can find places to publish my work. While I don’t enjoy being insulted, these verbal attacks don’t have much effect on my life. I’m not concerned about myself but about the progressive community’s capacity for critical thinking and respectful debate.
In that spirit, here is my contribution to that debate on transgenderism and the value of open discussion:
One of the basic points that feminists — along with many other writers — have made is that biological sex categories are real and exist outside of any particular cultural understanding of those categories. The terms “male” and “female” refer to those biological sex categories, while social norms about “masculinity” and “femininity” reflect how any particular society expects males and females to behave. That may seem obvious to many readers, but in some progressive and feminist circles it’s routine for people to say that those sex categories themselves are a “social construction.” I have been told that because I assert that biological sex categories are immutable, I am transphobic.
Is that claim defensible? Are sex categories a social construction?
About Reproduction & Respiration
Let’s think about reproduction. Some creatures reproduce asexually, through such processes as fission and budding, and some animals lay eggs. Most mammals, including all humans, reproduce sexually through the combination of a sperm and an egg (the two types of gamete cells) that leads to live birth.
Now, let’s think about respiration. Most aquatic creatures (whales and dolphins, which are mammals, are an exception) take in oxygen through gills. Mammals, including all humans, get oxygen by taking air into our lungs.
These descriptions of creatures’ reproduction and respiration are the result of a social process we call science, but they are not social constructions. We describe the world with human language, but what we describe doesn’t change just because we might change the language we use.
The term “social construction” implies that a reality can change through social processes. An example is marriage. What is a marriage? That depends on how a particular society constructs the concept. Change the definition — to include same-sex couples, for example — and the reality of who can get married changes.
Cannot Be Changed by Human Action
But again, at the risk of seeming simplistic, these descriptions of reproduction and respiration systems cannot be changed by human action. We cannot socially construct ourselves into reproducing asexually or by laying eggs instead of reproducing sexually through fertilization of egg by sperm, any more than we could socially construct ourselves into breathing through gills instead of lungs.
When it comes to respiration, no one suggests that “lung-based respiration is a social construction.” If someone made such a claim most of us would say, “I’m sorry, but that doesn’t make any sense to me.” Yet when it comes to reproduction, some people argue that “biological sex is a social construction,” which makes no more sense than claiming respiration is a social construction.
To be clear: Humans do create cultural meaning about sex differences. Humans who have a genetic makeup to produce sperm (males) and humans who have a genetic makeup to produce eggs (females) are treated differently in a variety of ways that go beyond roles in reproduction. [Note: A small percentage of the human population is born “intersex,” a term to mark those who do not fit clearly into male/female categories in terms of reproductive systems, secondary sexual characteristics, and chromosomal structure. But the existence of intersex people does not change the realities of sexual reproduction, and they are not a third sex.]
The Radical Change
In the struggle for women’s liberation, feminists in the 1970s began to use the term “gender” to describe the social construction of meaning around the differences in biological sex. When men would say, “Women are just not suited for political leadership,” for example, feminists would point out that this was not a biological fact to be accepted but a cultural norm to be resisted.
To state the obvious: Biological sex categories exist outside of human action. Social gender categories are a product of human action.
This observation leads to reasonable questions, which are not bigoted or transphobic: When those in the transgender movement assert that “trans women are women,” what do they mean? If they mean that a male human can somehow transform into a female human, the claim is incoherent because humans cannot change biological sex categories. If they mean that a male human can feel uncomfortable in the social gender category of “man” and prefer to live in a society’s gender category of “woman,” that is easy to understand. But it begs a question: Is the problem that one is assigned to the wrong category? Or is the problem that society has imposed gender categories that are rigid, repressive, and reactionary on everyone? And if the problem is in society’s gender categories, then is not the solution to analyze the system of patriarchy — institutionalized male dominance — that generates those rigid categories? Should we not seek to dismantle that system? Radical feminists argue for such a radical change in society.
These are the kinds of questions I have asked and the kinds of arguments I have made in writing and speaking. If I am wrong, then critics should point out mistakes and inaccuracies in my work. But if this radical feminist analysis is a strong one, then how can an accurate description of biological realities be evidence of bigotry or transphobia?
An Approach, Not An Attack
When I challenge the ideology of the transgender movement from a radical feminist perspective, which is sometimes referred to as “gender-critical” (critical of the way our culture socially constructs gender norms), I am not attacking people who identify as transgender. Instead, I am offering an alternative approach — one rooted in a collective struggle against patriarchal ideologies, institutions, and practices, rather than a medicalized approach rooted in liberal individualism.
That’s why the label “TERF” (trans-exclusionary radical feminism) is inaccurate. Radical feminists don’t exclude people who identify as transgender but rather offer what we believe is a more productive way to deal with the distress that people feel about gender norms that are rigid, repressive, and reactionary. That is not bigotry, but politics. Our arguments are relevant to the ongoing debate about public policies, such as who is granted access to female-only spaces or who can compete in girls’ and women’s sports. They are relevant to concerns about the safety of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical interventions. And radical feminism is grounded in compassion for those who experience gender dysphoria — instead of turning away from reality, we are suggesting ways to cope that we believe to be more productive for everyone.
Now, a final prediction. I expect that some people in the transgender movement will suggest that my reproduction/respiration analogy mocks people who identify as transgender by suggesting that they are ignorant. Let me state clearly: I do not think that. The analogy is offered to point out that an argument relevant to public policy doesn’t hold up. To critique a political position in good faith is not to mock the people who hold it but rather to take seriously one’s obligation to participate in democratic dialogue.
In a cancel culture, people who disagree with me may find it easy to ignore the argument and simply label me a bigot, on the reasoning that because I think the ideology of the transgender movement is open to critique, I obviously am transphobic.
But I want to make one final plea that people not do that, with two questions: If my argument is cogent — and there certainly are good reasons to reach that conclusion — why is it in the interests of anyone — including people who identify as transgender — to ignore such an argument? And how can people determine whether my argument is cogent if it is not part of the public conversation?
On 11th October, 2020, Indigenous peoples called a Day of Rage Against Colonialism. Main actions organized were against the forced assimilation of Indigenous peoples and for an alternative to Columbus Day. Colonial statues were felled across the United States.
In Arizona, O’odham Anti-Border Collective protested the construction of a border wall. Customs and Border Protection Agencies assaulted the Indigenous protestors with tear gas, rubber bullets, and arrests.
Joyce Echaquan, a 37 year old Indigenous woman, died in a hospital in Quebec. From her deathbed, she had live-streamed the racist and misogynist comments of her nurses. Vigils, rallies, and demonstrations were organized after the video went viral.
Disputes over fishing rights between Indigenous peoples and commercial fishers in Nova Scotia led to mob violence. The commercial fishers have threatened, abused, sabotaged against the Sipekne’katik First Nation group. Indigenous peoples across the nation are organizing solidarity actions.
Secwepemc people in Canada have demanded a halt in the construction of the Trans Mountain Pipeline. The pipeline threatens salmon population, on which both neighboring human and nonhuman communities depend upon. The protestors were assaulted by arrests.
Wet’suwet’en people have been protesting the Coastal Gas Link pipeline for over a decade. On February, the Wet’suwet’en launched a series of rail, port and highway blockades. More recently, calls for solidarity actions have begun to circulate as the Coastal GasLink pipeline is preparing to drill under the Morris river.
Check out the Facebook page of the Wet’suwet’en Access Point on Gidimt’en Territory.
In July, members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy occupied a proposed development site in Ontario. Community mobilization and highway blockades were organized as a response to the militarized raid on August 5th by the Ontario Provincial Police. The Ontario government has tried to isolate the encampment by criminalizing and arresting supporters. Resistance has been going strong since then.
by Mojtaba Sadegh (Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, Boise State University), Ata Akbari Asanjan (Research Scientist, Ames Research Center, NASA), and Mohammad Reza Alizadeh (Ph.D. Student, McGill University) / The Conversation
Two wildfires erupted on the outskirts of cities near Los Angeles, forcing more than 100,000 people to evacuate their homes Monday as powerful Santa Ana winds swept the flames through dry grasses and brush. With strong winds and extremely low humidity, large parts of California were under red flag warnings.
High fire risk days have been common this year as the 2020 wildfire season shatters records across the West.
What caused the 2020 fire season to become so extreme?
Fires thrive on three elements: heat, dryness and wind. The 2020 season was dry, but the Western U.S. has seen worse droughts in the recent decade. It had several record-breaking heat waves, but the fires did not necessarily follow the locations with the highest temperatures.
What 2020 did have was heat and dryness hitting simultaneously. When even a moderate drought and heat wave hit a region at the same time, along with wind to fan the flames, it becomes a powerful force that can fuel megafires.
That’s what we’ve been seeing in California, Colorado and Oregon this year. Research shows it’s happening more often with higher intensity, and affecting ever-increasing areas.
Climate change intensified dry-hot extremes
We are scientistsandengineers who study climate extremes, including wildfires. Our research shows that the probability of a drought and heat wave occurring at the same time in the U.S. has increased significantly over the past century.
The kind of dry and hot conditions that would have been expected to occur only once every 25 years on average have occurred five to 10 times in several regions of the U.S. over the past quarter-century. Even more alarming, we found that extreme dry-hot conditions that would have been expected only once every 75 years have occurred three to six times in many areas over the same period.
We also found that what triggers these simultaneous extremes appears to be changing.
During the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, the lack of rainfall allowed the air to become hotter, and that process fueled simultaneous dry and hot conditions. Today, excess heat is a larger driver of dry-hot conditions than lack of rain.
This has important implications for the future of dry-hot extremes.
Warmer air can hold more moisture, so as global temperatures rise, evaporation can suck more water from plants and soil, leading to drier conditions. Higher temperatures and drier conditions mean vegetation is more combustible. A study in 2016 calculated that the excess heat from human-caused climate change was responsible for nearly doubling the amount of Western U.S. forest that burned between 1979 and 2015.
Worryingly, we have also found that these dry-hot wildfire-fueling conditions can feed on one another and spread downwind.
When soil moisture is low, more solar radiation will turn into sensible heat – heat you can feel. That heat evaporates more water and further dries the environment. This cycle continues until a large-scale weather pattern breaks it. The heat can also trigger the same feedback loop in a neighboring region, extending the dry-hot conditions and raising the probability of dry-hot extremes across broad stretches of the country.
All of this translates into higher wildfire risk for the Western U.S.
In Southern California, for example, we found that the number of dry-hot-windy days has increased at a greater rate than dry, hot or windy days individually over the past four decades, tripling the number of megafire danger days in the region.
2020 wasn’t normal, but what is normal?
If 2020 has proved anything, it is to expect the unexpected.
Before this year, Colorado had not recorded a fire of over 10,000 acres starting in October. This year, the East Troublesome fire grew from about 20,000 acres to over 100,000 acres in less than 24 hours on Oct. 21, and it was nearly 200,000 acres by the time a snowstorm stopped its advance. Instead of going skiing, hundreds of Coloradans evacuated their homes and nervously watched whether that fire would merge with another giant blaze.
This is not “the new normal” – it’s the new abnormal. In a warming climate, looking at what happened in the past no longer offers a sense of what to expect in the future.
There are other drivers of the rise in fire damage. More people moving into wildland areas means there are more cars and power lines and other potential ignition sources. Historical efforts to control fires have also meant more undergrowth in areas that would have naturally burned periodically in smaller fires.
The question now is how to manage this “new abnormal” in the face of a warming climate.
In the U.S., one in three houses are built in the wildland-urban interface. Development plans, construction techniques and building codes can do more to account for wildfire risks, including avoiding flammable materials and potential sources of sparks. Importantly, citizens and policymakers need to tackle the problem at its root: That includes cutting the greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet.
This article was written by BYROBERT HUNZIKER and originally published in CounterPunch on OCTOBER 20, 2020. Robert offers the reader multiple sources of evidence regarding the nature of large-scale permafrost thawing including the impact of the release of greenhouse gases and the potential for a feedback loop.
Twenty-five percent (25%) of the Northern Hemisphere is permafrost. By all appearances, it is melting well beyond natural background rates, in fact, substantially!
Making matters much, much worse, new research has identified past warming events of large-scale permafrost thaw in the Arctic that may be analogous to today, thus spotting a parallel problem of large-scale thawing accompanied by massively excessive carbon emissions spewing into the atmosphere, like there’s no tomorrow.
Permafrost thawing is not, at all times, simply “thawing.”
Of course, as a standalone, the word “thawing” implies a rather evenly keeled methodical process without any specific definition of scale. But, there’s thawing, and then, there’s “large-scale thawing,” which is kinda like turning loose a behemoth. The results are never pretty.
As global warming powers up, like it’s doing now, it has a penchant for finding enormous spans of frozen mud and silt filled with iced-species in quasi-permanent frozen states known as permafrost. As it melts, it’s full of surprises, some interesting, as well as some that are horribly dangerous, for example, emitting huge quantities of carbon, thus kicking into high gear some level of runaway global warming that threatens to wipeout agriculture.
As a matter of fact, according to the research, no more than a few degrees of warming, only a few, can trigger abrupt thaws of vast frozen land thereby releasing vast quantities of greenhouse gases as a product of collapsing landscapes, and it feeds upon itself. Indeed, the research effort identified “surges in greenhouse gas emissions… on a massive scale,” Ibid.
The study suggests that massive permafrost ecosystem thawing is subject to indeterminate timing sequences, but it’s armed with a “sensitive trigger” abruptly altering the landscape in massive fashion.
In short, an event could arise out of the blue. It’s well known that Arctic permafrost holds considerably more carbon captured in a frozen state than has already been emitted into the atmosphere.
Already, over just the past two years, other field studies have shown instances where thawing permafrost is 70 years ahead of scientists’ models, prompting the thought that thawing may be cranking up even as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fails to anticipate it.
After all, permafrost is not included in the IPCC’s carbon budget, meaning signatories to the Paris accord of 2015 will need to recalculate their quest to save the world from too much carbon emitting too fast for any kind of smooth functionality of the planet’s climate system. In turn, it undoubtedly negatively impacts the support, or lack thereof, for food-growing regions, which could actually collapse, similar to cascading dominos. Poof!
In the Canadian High Arctic: “Observed maximum thaw depths at our sites are already exceeding those projected to occur by 2090.”
According to Susan Natali of Woods Hole Research Center (Massachusetts) the Arctic has already transformed from a carbon sink to a carbon emitter: “Given that the Arctic has been taking up carbon for tens of thousands of years, this shift to a carbon source is important because it highlights a new dynamic in the functioning of the Earth System.”
A 14-year study referenced by Dr. Natali shows annualized 1.66 gigatonnes CO2 emitted from the Arctic versus 1.03 gigatonnes absorbed, a major turning point in paleoclimate history.
A chilling turn for the worse that threatens 10,000 years of our wonderful Holocene era “not too hot, not too cold.” Alas, that spectacular Goldilocks life of perfection is rapidly becoming a remembrance of the past.
Additionally, according to Vladimir Romanovsky – Permafrost Laboratory, Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks (UAF) there are definitive geophysical signs of permafrost that survived thousands of years now starting to thaw. As stated by Romanovsky: “The new research is yet more evidence that the amplified warming in the Arctic can release carbon at a massive scale.”
Nobody knows how soon such an event will break loose in earnest, but global warming has already penetrated the upper permafrost layers, as cliffs of coastal permafrost are collapsing at an accelerating rate.
In short, the current news about thawing/collapsing permafrost is decidedly negative and a threat to life, as we know it.
The Martens’ study conclusively states: “The results from this study on large-scale OC remobilization from permafrost are consistent with a growing set of observational records from the Arctic Ocean and provide support for modeling studies that simulated large injections of CO2 into the atmosphere during deglaciation. This demonstrates that Arctic warming by only a few degrees may suffice to abruptly activate large-scale permafrost thawing, indicating a sensitive trigger for a threshold-like permafrost climate change feedback.”
Thus, as the Holocene era wanes right before humanity’s eyes, the Anthropocene, the age of humans, stands on the world stage all alone with its own shadow and with ever fewer, and fewer, and fewer vertebrates roaming amongst fields of scorched, blackened plant life. What, or who, will it eat?
According to the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and world-renowned biologist E.O. Wilson:
If we choose the path of destruction, the planet will continue to descend irreversibly into the Anthropocene Epoch, the biologically final age in which the planet exists almost exclusively by, for, and of ourselves.
You can access the full article in its original form here:
The article was written by Bong S. Sarmiento and published by Mongabay on 19 October 2020. Sarmiento describes the impact of a court decision to uphold a ban on a particularly destructive form of mining.
A court has upheld a ban on open-pit mining in the Philippine province of South Cotabato, home to the largest known untapped deposits of copper and gold in Southeast Asia.
The ruling is the latest setback for Sagittarius Mines, Inc. (SMI), which holds the mining permit, coming on the heels of the municipality where the deposits are located scrapping its development permit in August.
Supporters of SMI lodged a petition in January 2019 seeking an injunction against the mining ban that has been in place since 2010.
But the court ruled the ban is consistent with prevailing laws and regulations, including the Philippine Constitution, in a decision widely hailed by environmental, religious and Indigenous rights advocates.
SOUTH COTABATO, Philippines — A court in the Philippines has dealt another setback to the company looking to mine Southeast Asia’s largest untapped deposits of copper and gold, ruling to uphold a ban on the type of destructive mining being proposed.
In its Oct. 12 ruling, the court in South Cotabato province dismissed a petition for an injunction against the ban on open-pit mining that has been in effect in the province for the past 10 years. Sagittarius Mines, Inc. (SMI), the developer of the planned mine in the South Cotabato town of Tampakan, was not a petitioner in the case.
The ruling comes two months after councilors in Tampakan, where the deposits are located, terminated the town’s municipal principal agreement (MPA) with SMI. The agreement, governing the development of the proposed mine, laid out the rental rates for the land under the Indigenous Blaan communities, among the company’s other financial and social obligations.
In its Aug. 10 resolution, the municipal council announced it was no longer interested in reviewing or updating the 2009 MPA with the company, but was still open to creating or formulating a new agreement, which meant SMI could still pursue the $5.9 billion Tampakan project under a new municipal agreement.
But the recent court ruling makes that prospect less likely. It comes in response to a petition lodged in January 2019 by pro-mining groups seeking to rescind the ban on open-pit mining that’s been enshrined in South Cotabato’s environmental code since 2010. SMI had acknowledged before the ban was imposed that the most viable way to get at the copper and gold reserves in Tampakan would be through open-pit mining. Despite being awarded its permit in 1995, the company but has never begun operations.
The dismissed petition was filed by the original Tampakan concession holders from the 1980s, SouthCot Mining Corp. and Tampakan Mining Corp., along with the government-recognized “Indigenous cultural communities” of Bongmal, Danlag and Fulo Bato. The latter are not necessarily the formal leadership structures as recognized by the Indigenous communities. Another petitioner is Kiblawan CADT-26, the titled holder of a certificate of ancestral domain for part of the land that the project would occupy.
(Unceded Yintah / Secwepemcúĺecw Territories): Coastal Gaslink pipeline in Wet’suwet’en territory and Trans Mountain Pipeline in Secwepemc territory are both currently preparing to drill under our clear rivers, from which we have drawn sustenance since time immemorial. In the past few days we have seen Indigenous women interrupted during ceremonies in both territories, and arrests and incarcerations in Secwepemc territories, for enacting their sacred responsibilities.
The Trans Mountain Pipeline weaves through over 900 rivers and creeks, threatening both Secwepemcetkwe (Thompson) and Fraser River systems. The North Thompson is connected to the Adams River, a vital spawning habitat for chinook, coho, and pink salmon, and home to one of the most important sockeye runs in the world. Any leakage would immediately threaten the pacific salmon who spawn in the Secwepemcetkwe (Thompson) and Fraser River basins.
In an open letter to the Prime Minister dated November 26, 2016, our late Secwepemc leader Arthur Manuel wrote to Trudeau:
“The salmon and the rivers they inhabit have taken care of our people for centuries and we are obligated as Secwepemc people to protect the Thompson River system for future generations.”
In this the Secwepemc stand in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en people, who have been fighting to protect Wedzin Kwa (Morice River) from pipeline incursions for over a decade. Wetʼsuwetʼen means “People of the lower drainage” and Wet’suwet’en people’s lives are inseparable from the life of the Wedzin Kwa river, which we have protected for thousands of years, and which has in turn fed us and governed us through our hereditary leaders and knowledge-keepers.
Sleydo’ Molly Wickham, spokesperson of the Gidimt’en Checkpoint, states:
At this time our rivers, the lifeblood of our nations, are facing drills, toxins and invaders. Indigenous people are standing up to state violence, big industry and corporate greed for the future of all of humanity–of all life on our yintah. We stand with our Secwepemc relatives in their struggle and ask all Indigenous peoples and our allies to stand up for the salmon, the clean drinking water, the animals and our future generations. We will not let them kill us. We will always be here.
Over the last two decades we have witnessed the dramatic decline of our salmon as a result of toxic extractive and urban development on our territory, as well as fish farms, invasive species, and climate change. These pipeline expansions pose the most direct risk yet.
The drilling alone threatens not only salmon spawning habitat but the balance of the entire ecosystem and food chain they rely upon. The sockeye are tenacious, fighting their way thousands of kilometres upstream from the Pacific Ocean to reach their spawning beds in Secwepemc territory. Wedzin Kwa joins the Skeena and runs through the canyons out to the Pacific Ocean. We cannot risk putting any more obstacles in the salmons’ way.
Our traditional land users and stewards—those who exercise our right to hunt, fish, gather, and practice our culture—are the ones who truly understand the potential impacts of the pipeline. It is these members of our nations who will feel the effects of the pipeline on our rights and our food sovereignty most acutely. It is these members who have authority over our lands the government of Canada has failed most.
When we protect our rivers from invading industries, and insist on our rights to fish and hunt on our territories, we are criminalized, harassed and jailed. In Secwepemc territory, there were 5 arrests yesterday and 3 indigenous land defenders were sentenced to 28 days in Canadian jail.
By refusing to seek the free prior and informed consent of our people, and instead opting to sign deals and agreements with a few of our federal Indian bands, the government of Canada has undermined the authority of the proper rights and title holders of Secwepemcúl’ecw and the Wet’suwet’en yintah.
