by DGR News Service | Jul 19, 2020 | Repression at Home, The Problem: Civilization
In this article, Salonika and Max expose how the Covid-19 pandemic has enforced suppression of political dissent in the Philippines due to a bill known as the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 which places resistance movements in a pinch. You can also read this piece on the increased surveillance during the CoVid crisis.
Deep Green Resistance condemns draconian laws that stifle the political rights of citizens. We stand in solidarity with the resistance against this law.
By Salonika and Max Wilbert
Philippine’s Autocrat Passes Draconian “Anti-Terrorism” Law.
In an event unprecedented in the history of industrial civilization, most humans have been confined, for the past few months, to their homes battling their fear and desperation. Meanwhile, states have used this unexpected opportunity to move closer to their dream of authoritarianism. Victor Orban has usurped power to suspend and decree laws under the pretext of the pandemic. Narendra Modi has used a time when courts are suspended to persecute peaceful protesters under terrorism charges. We have, in an earlier article, highlighted the increase in surveillance during the last few months.
Repression under Duterte.
The government of the Philippines has been hellbent on repressing any and all opposition for many years. President Rodrigo Duterte announced a “War on Drugs” months after his election. This ‘war’ gave authorization to the police to kill any person involved in the drug trade without due process. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the span of four years, with near total impunity for the killers.
Irrespective of one’s loathing of the drug trade, an inherent flaw in this plan must be visible to anyone. Any law along these lines can and will be used to stifle any form of political dissent. This is precisely what has happened in Philippines.
Philippines Government Response to the Pandemic.
The government’s response to the pandemic has continuously reinforced the economic and political hierarchy in the country. A controversy arose in the first months of the pandemic: Duterte and his cronies were tested for the corona-virus in violation of the criteria set by Department of Health, while actual patients were not receiving access to the testing kits. Local Government Units have taken actions to ease the suffering of general people, some of which have been stunted by the central government.
The situation in the Philippines has been accompanied by a rising suppression of journalism. On June 15th, 2020, a Manila court convicted Rappler CEO Maria Ressa and former researcher Reynaldo Santos Jr. of cyber libel in a case widely decried as a political witch hunt. The persecution of journalists has always been a tool used by authoritarian regimes for repressing the democratic voices of dissent. Since this case is considered “the most high-profile case” against individual journalists, it is bound to set a precedence for similar persecutions in the future.
Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020
Now, Duterte is set to take another leap towards authoritarianism using the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 also known as Republic Act No. 11479. The bill cleared the Senate in February, passed the House of Representatives in June, and was signed by the president in early July.
The most contentious provisions include the warrant-less arrest and 14-day detentions of suspected “terrorists”, and the creation of an anti-terror council that would determine what is terrorism and order arrests without a warrant – a function usually reserved for the courts. –Al Jazeera report
The Act has broadened the definition of terrorism. Among other things, it includes any act intended to “destabilize or destroy the fundamental political, economic and social structures of the country.” The power lies with the anti-terrorism council to label any person inside or outside the Philippines a terrorist and arrest citizens at random.
The Act allows the Duterte regime to subject suspects to surveillance, warrant-less arrest and detention for up to 24 days. The Human Security Act of 2007 used to have a safeguard against wrongful detention in order to maintain accountability among the state actors. It monetarily compensated anyone who was imprisoned but later proven to be innocent. This protection has now been completely removed.
In short, the new law allows the state to target, pursue, anyone who poses a threat to the autocratic regime and to unfettered capitalist exploitation. The implications are clear; as one human rights activist commented, “even the mildest government critics can be labelled terrorists.” It is expected that government officials will use this law to chill free speech by suppressing speeches, proclamations, banners, and writings.
A member of House of Representatives has remarked that the act would not include activists and that safeguards prevent abuse of the act. Nonetheless, judging by the history of draconian laws (including the War on Drugs), it would be reasonable to estimate that the law will be used to suppress any form of political dissent, not only ‘terrorism’. Even the vice-president has remarked that the act gives the state the power to call anyone a terrorist.
Nationwide, protesters had moved to the streets to raise their voice against the bill. Duterte’s government has used the restrictive laws of the pandemic as an excuse to deploy armed police in the areas of protests. Opposition activists are disappearing. They are being thrown in jail. The violent crackdowns on resistance have already begun to escalate. Laws like this leave resistance movements with little choice but to become more clandestine.
Salonika is an organizer at DGR South Asia based in Nepal. She believes that the needs of the natural world should trump the needs of the industrial civilization.
Max Wilbert is an organizer, writer, and wilderness guide who grew up in Seattle’s post-WTO anti-globalization and undoing racism movement. He is a longtime member of Deep Green Resistance. Max is the author of two books: the forthcoming Bright Green Lies, and We Choose to Speak, a collection of essays released in 2018.
Featured image: via Unsplash
by DGR News Service | Jul 15, 2020 | Women & Radical Feminism
Originally published at DerrickJensen.org.
This letter was sent to a publisher with whom we signed a contract for our book Bright Green Lies. After the contract was signed by all parties the publisher unilaterally voided on the contract. The publisher voided the contract because we refuse to deny physical reality, that is, we refuse to say that male human beings can “identify” their way into becoming women. The book has nothing to do with that question, but is about how high technology will not stop global warming or the destruction of the planet.
This is the cult-like behavior of the postmodern left: if you disagree with any of the Holy Commandments of postmodernism/queer theory/transgender ideology, you must be silenced on not only that but on every other subject. Welcome to the death of discourse, brought to you by the postmodern left.
We are profoundly disappointed that you chose to void the contract. That’s not particularly professional or ethical. Nor is it what we expected from a press that bills itself as an alternative to the corporate model of publishing.
You asked for our views on “gender,” and then didn’t even bother to wait for an answer before voiding the contract. Again, not what we expected from a press that seems to pride itself on communication.
Here are our views on “gender.”
We are part of a global, multi-generational feminist struggle that is critical of gender. There are many aspects to this political tradition, one of which is criticism of modern gender identity politics.
To make clear our position:
- We believe that physical reality is real. This includes biological sex.
- We believe that women–adult human females–have been oppressed under patriarchy for several thousand years.
- We believe that sex stereotypes–aka gender–are social constructions. There is nothing biological that drives women to wear high heels and makeup, and drives men to fail to show emotions. Those are created by society to keep men on top and women subordinate. Sure, it’s perfectly fine if men want to wear makeup and high heels, but a desire to do so does not make them women.
- We believe that people should be allowed to dress however they want, love whomever they want, have whatever interests and personalities they want. And of course they shouldn’t be discriminated against or subjected to harassment or violence. But these fashion choices, sexual preferences, and personality characteristics do not change anyone’s sex. Insisting that they do is reactionary. The whole point of feminism was that both women and men have full human capacities and shouldn’t be constrained to half of our human potential. The catchphrase of the seventies “free to be you and me” has become its polar opposite, where a little girl who likes trucks must really be a boy and hence may be subject to profound and life-changing medical alteration.
- We believe that the modern gender identity movement is resulting in concrete and widespread harm, such as via dismantling hard-won protections like Title IX, private bathrooms, separate prisons, women’s sports, changing rooms, scholarship programs for women, women’s events and groups, etc. And of course it is causing harm through the destruction of discourse by the systematic silencing of anyone who disagrees with any portion of the gender identity movement.
- We believe, as did Andrea Dworkin, that “Those of us who love reading and writing believe that being a writer is a sacred trust. It means telling the truth. It means being incorruptible. It means not being afraid, and never lying.” We believe the same holds true for publishers. Or used to. Or should.
- We believe that there is a crisis in publishing and in public discourse, brought on by what has been named “the regressive left.” This movement bears no relation to the historic left that has spent decades fighting for a just and sustainable world. The historic left believed in the power of education and the free exchange of ideas as the foundations of democracy and as bulwarks against authoritarianism. The regressive left has instead based itself on harassing, threatening, deplatforming, and/or assaulting–that is, silencing–anyone who dares to disagree with any of its dogma. We are certainly not alone in noticing this. It has been remarked on by everyone from Noam Chomsky to Ricky Gervais. This regressive left has embraced authoritarianism, and has empowered both petty tyrants and smug cowards. It is not an exaggeration to say that we are deeply chilled by the regressive left’s rise to power. The values necessary for civic society to function and the institutions whose job is to embody and protect those ideals are eroding, and, with a few brave exceptions [for example, the above mentioned Chomsky, Gervais, various comedians, various old-school lefties like Chris Hedges; as well as The Committee on Freedom of Expression at the University of Chicago, FIRE, Heterodox Academy, and Bret Weinstein], not enough people seem willing to stand and fight. Probably because when we do, regressive lefties threaten our careers, our livelihoods, and our very lives. They deplatform us. They get us fired. They void our contracts. Many threaten to rape and kill the women, and to kill the men. This has become routine. The new orthodoxy is anti-intellectual, anti-democratic, and fundamentalist in its mindset. Its tactics of bullying, deplatforming, stalking, severe social censure, and violence will never create a just and sustainable world. It will only create autocrats, self-righteous quislings, and in the case of gender identity, a generation of children who have been sterilized and surgically altered. Children are already being harmed by this project. Some of those young people are speaking out, and we urge you to listen to them:
Pique Resilience Project
4thWaveNow
If no one is allowed to disagree with any one particular group of people–whether they be capitalists or Christians or Muslims or those who support (or oppose) Israel or those who identify as transgender–then there can be no reasonable discourse. Allowing any group to hold discourse hostage is the death knell for pluralistic society. It leads to fundamentalism. It is a fundamentalism. It’s a classic trick used by despots and pocket despots everywhere: to ensure agreement with your position, make certain that all other positions are literally unspeakable. For the religiously minded, the epithet of choice has often been blasphemy. For the patriot, it’s traitor. For the capitalist, it’s commie. And for the liberal regressive leftist, it’s oppressor, or in our case, transphobe.
Here are some questions. These questions aren’t rhetorical. If you’re going to break our contract and not publish us based on internet slander, on an issue that has nothing to do with the book at hand, and apparently without bothering to find out our actual positions, we think you owe us the courtesy of at least honestly considering these questions.
- Do you believe that a little boy who likes to dance and play with dolls should be put on puberty blockers and possibly have his genitals removed; or do you think that a little boy who loves to dance and play with dolls should be loved precisely for who he is, which is a little boy who loves to dance and play with dolls? Likewise, do you believe that a little girl who likes to play football and fix bicycles should be put on puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and then have her reproductive organs surgically removed; or do you think she should be loved precisely for who she is, which is a little girl who loves to play football and fix bicycles? If you think there is nothing wrong with these children, and they should not be put on dangerous drugs, then you will be called a bigot, and publishers will refuse to publish your book about stopping the murder of the planet.
- Do you believe that women, including those who have been sexually assaulted by men, should be forced to share their most vulnerable spaces with men? This has happened in spaces like homeless shelters, women’s prisons, and battered women’s shelters. As a result of unquestioning acceptance of the idea that men can simply identify as women, women have been raped. Women have been assaulted. We have spoken up about this. How many women have to be raped before it will be acceptable for someone who stands in solidarity with women to publish books on any other subject in the world, including stopping the murder of the planet? If you believe that women should not be forced to share their most vulnerable spaces with men, then many on the regressive left will call you a bigot, and publishers will break their contracts with you.
- Do you believe that women who have been sexually assaulted and call a rape crisis center should be forced to talk to a man? This has happened. The Vancouver Rape Relief Shelter operates a crisis hotline and was sued in Canadian courts by a trans-identified male who wanted to “man” the phone lines. The crisis center organizers fought back on the basis that a male voice answering the phone would create problems for women in crisis. They eventually won their case, but have since been under assault, including having funding taken away because they refuse to force women who have been raped to talk to men. If you believe that women who have been sexually assaulted by men should not be forced to speak with men when they call a rape crisis center, then those on the regressive left will call you a bigot, and publishers will break their contracts with you.
- Do you believe that women in prison should be forced to share their cells with male prisoners who have been found guilty of rape? This has happened numerous times, and has led to the rape of women by these men. See, for example, Karen White in the UK. See, for example, any number of cases in the US. If you believe that women in prison should not be forced to share their cells with men, then those on the regressive left will call you a bigot, and publishers will break their contracts with you.
- Do you believe that women should be allowed to compete in women-only sports leagues? Or do you believe that women should be forced to compete against males? Men who identify as transgender are already taking medals, money, and scholarships from girls and women, as, for example, in this case, in which a white male millionaire who identifies as transgender cost an indigenous Samoan woman who overcame childhood sexual abuse her gold medal. How can the regressive left rationalize supporting this? But they do. We are the ones called bigots for protesting this. This is an appalling statement of how demented, and regressive, the left has become. Women are being harmed by this–economically, socially, morally. If you believe in Title IX, and believe that women athletes should be allowed a level playing field, then you will be called a bigot and publishers will break their contracts with you.
- Do you believe that women should be compelled by law to touch men’s genitals, or risk being hauled before a human rights tribunal? This is happening right now, as a trans-identified male named “Jessica Yaniv” is suing poor immigrant women of color in British Columbia because they refuse to wax his genitals. Yaniv has already forced several of these women out of business. If you do not believe that women should be forced to handle his genitals, you will be labeled a bigot and publishers will refuse to publish your work.
- Do you believe that lesbians who do not want to have sex with men are bigots and should be shamed into having unwanted sex with men? This is common in modern lesbian communities. In fact it is happening right now to an entire generation of young lesbians. In any other circumstances, we would call this what it has always been called, which is “corrective rape.” But now the regressive left promotes it, and vilifies those who oppose it. If you do not believe that lesbians should be shamed into having sex with men, then you will be called a bigot and publishers will break their contracts with you.
If you don’t believe women should be forced to share their most vulnerable spaces with men, then we are baffled by your position. Our book is not about that issue, and our position on that issue has nothing to do with this book. Are you simply afraid of the backlash?
If, on the other hand, you do believe that women should be forced to share their most vulnerable spaces with men, then we are still baffled by your position. You publish lots of stuff we disagree with. Who cares? We came to you to publish a book on whether industrial wind and solar will save the planet. Your views on whether women should be forced to share their spaces with men are irrelevant to us and to that book. We are not fundamentalists, we are not afraid of open discourse, and we are not afraid of being somehow “contaminated” by contact with those who hold positions with which we disagree. But then again, we are not part of the new regressive left.
By the standards of our detractors, we have committed blasphemy and are now unclean. Our loyalty to women has rendered every other position we take on any subject to literally be unspeakable.
Welcome to the current state of discourse on the regressive left.
Instead of just breaking the contract because of online slander, you can read our actual positions on this issue, and read two articles written by Derrick about the crisis of cowardice in modern universities and publishing.
Sincerely,
Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert.
by DGR News Service | Jul 8, 2020 | The Problem: Civilization, The Solution: Resistance
By Max Wilbert
In medicine, shock refers to an extremely serious condition of inadequate blood perfusion. Shock is most often caused by heart problems, severe infections, allergic reaction, massive blood loss, overdose, or spinal cord injury.
Of the 1.2 million people who show up to U.S. emergency rooms with signs and symptoms of shock each year, between 20% and 50% of them die.
Shock can be understood to progress through two broad phases: compensatory (phase 1) and de-compensatory (phase 2). In compensatory shock, the body can “compensate” for the emergency by adjusting blood pressure, diverting resources from the extremities, and using other internal mechanisms.
Victims in compensatory shock may seem, at first glance, to be doing relatively well. They may be lucid and able to talk clearly. But medical professionals know that this is an illusion. Without treatment, they are likely to worsen quickly. Careful assessment of vital signs and mechanism of injury/history of present illness (MOI/HPI) will show that this person is in an extremely perilous situation.
If left untreated or if their injury is series, they will soon enter the second phase of shock: de-compensatory. In this stage, the body can no longer compensate for the underlying issue. As blood and oxygen circulation collapses, cellular metabolism begins to fail. Our bodies begin to die, cell by cell. Vital organs fail one after another. The damage becomes irreversible. Death is nearly certain.
Planetary Ecology and Shock
Like our own lives, life on this planet depends on a precarious balance: the stability of climate, oceanic pH, nitrogen cycles, soil erosion and formation, and populations of beings at the basis of the tropic cascade such as bacteria, plankton and other photosynthesizers, and insects provides the foundation on which the entire biosphere rests.
These major life-support systems of the biosphere function similarly to human organs, each fulfilling a different need for life to continue as we know it. Due to the predations of industrial civilization, these “planetary organs” are in a dire state.
Insect populations are collapsing. Plankton populations are collapsing. Bird populations are collapsing. Coral reefs are collapsing. Fish populations are collapsing. Most native forests have been destroyed and those who remain are at risk of dying due to drought and heat stress over the next 50 years.
Soil erosion due to agriculture and overgrazing has decimated carbon storage across large portions of the earth’s surface and released this to the atmosphere. The cryosphere (the portion of our planet’s water frozen in ice) is rapidly melting. Thawing permafrost in the far north is releasing methane emissions to the atmosphere. The assaults go on and on.
When a human being goes into shock, the body compensates by shunting blood from the extremities towards the more vital internal organs. The same process is playing out across this planet. Like a human being, the natural world attempts to maintain its own stability. As carbon pollution chokes the atmosphere, for example, plants increase their growth rate, which should capture carbon from the atmosphere and store it in soils and trees trunks, maintaining homeostasis. This is the delicate balance of geological and biological feedbacks that has made Earth an Eden for millions of species over millions of years.
That balance has been shattered by the explosion in agriculture, logging, and fossil fuel burning. Plants can no longer compensate, and “global greening” has been overwhelmed. Instead, we are entering a period of “global browning” as vast areas of vegetation begin to die from sustained drought and climatic changes.
The ecology of this planet is entering a state of de-compensatory shock.
Abundant Cheap Energy Allows Us To Ignore Reality
People living in wealthy nations are largely insulated from ecological collapse because of the availability of cheap energy.
They can ignore the collapse of fish populations since corporations send vast trawlers to remote oceans to vacuum up the last remaining reserves of wild fish. They can ignore the collapse of forests because energy-intensive industrial logging brings wood products from Oregon and Alaska and Indonesia to the world market. They can ignore water shortages because vast amounts of energy are used to pump entire rivers dry to feed growing cities.
Our ability to lie to ourselves, and to each other, is one of our society’s defining features. The urge to deny that anything is wrong is overwhelming. The scale of the immanent catastrophe, which has truly already arrived, is unthinkable. As with a patient in compensatory shock, so with the planet. Ignorance is bliss.
This won’t last. Ignorance is no protection against a burning planet, only against psychological wounds, and only in the short term. We are children of this living world. Our lungs are the oysters of this atmosphere, filtering out pollutants and capturing them inside our delicate tissues. We are permeable creatures, absorbing each chemical toxin industry produces. Like mites living on the surface of our skin, when the supraorganism begins to die, those who are dependent upon it are not long for this world.
What will a person do when they are confronted with the imminent death of themselves, of a loved one, of their civilization, of their biosphere? Deny that it is happening? Reject the science and the evidence of their own eyes? Lash out angrily against those who speak the truth? Try to bargain with reality? Retreat into depression?
These responses are all familiar to both the E.R. doctor and the Earth defender, and increasingly describe global politics. Denial and anger are the defining characteristics of the rising authoritarian tide. Modi, Putin, Trump, Erdoğan, and Bolsonaro are the figureheads of this death cult; there are hundreds of millions behind them.
Bargaining is the primary strategy of the liberals. As the biosphere bleeds from a million clearcuts and chokes on a toxic mixture of industrial chemicals and greenhouse gases, they promote so-called “solutions” that are no different from the status quo. Their fantasies of green energy, sustainable capitalism, and electric vehicles allow them to justify a lie that will kill the world: that they can have “normality”—modern, high-energy way of life—and a living planet at the same time.
Their plans are not even the equivalent of bandaging a bleeding planet. They are harmful in their own right—the equivalent of stabbing the victim elsewhere and claiming that since the wounds aren’t quite as deep, they are actually helping. This is the good-cop, bad-cop routine of modern politics.
That most people are simply depressed and apathetic, then, is no surprise. The normal functioning of industrial civilization is rapidly murdering life on this planet and destroying the capacity to support future life, and in the process immiserating billions of human beings. Anyone who is carefully watching the vital signs of this planet knows that the prognosis is not good.
Righteous anger is fitting response to this situation, but denial has no place now. Bargaining is worse than useless. And depression is understandable, but when paired with inaction it is not excusable. Only by accepting the reality of the situation can we begin to discuss meaningful action.
The reality is that the life support systems of our home, Earth, are failing. Without intervention, the organs of this planet will falter and die. Industrial civilization has shown itself to be incompatible with life. So the path forward is clear. Like open veins, the world’s pipelines must be closed off. The mining industry, opening great sores on the Earth’s surface, must be stopped and the land allowed to scab over. The abrasion that is industrial agriculture must be halted, and the soil bandaged with ecology’s first responders—those plants derisively called “weeds”—and eventually, replaced with forests and grasslands once again. The cancerous factories and toxic industry belching and circulating poisons around the planet must yield to the scalpel. The destruction must be halted, and the land must be allowed to heal.
And humans must find a way to live within the ecological limits of this planet, rather than constantly finding new ways to transgress them. If all you have ever known is how to live in a culture that is destroying the planet, this will take humility, and sacrifice, and a willingness to learn.
The process of ecological collapse has been accelerating for many years. It will not be reversed easily. Many wonders of the natural world are already gone—the billions of passenger pigeons, and the teeming flocks of Great auks. But there are many who remain: blue whales, redwood forests, loggerhead turtles, coral reefs.
Our task as a generation is to manage the coming collapse by accelerating the dismantling and destruction of the systems that must end (capitalism, industrial civilization, the fossil fuel and mining economy, industrial agriculture, etc.). At the same time, we most slow, halt, and reversing the collapse of forests, grasslands, soils, the carbon cycle, and the rest of the living world. And in the midst of all this, we must do our best to build human communities based in sustainability and human rights. Any of these elements in isolation leads to a bleak future. Only in combination do they represent some hope.
When we accept what is happening, the path forward becomes clear. Now we must gather our will and our community and get to work.
Max Wilbert is a third-generation dissident who came of age in post-WTO Seattle. He has been part of grassroots political work for nearly 20 years. His second book, Bright Green Lies, will be released in early 2021.
by DGR News Service | Jun 9, 2020 | The Problem: Civilization
Today we share an excerpt of the book Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet. This selection comes from Chapter 2: Civilization and other Hazards. In the preceding pages, various ecological crises were presented.
The media report on these crises as though they [ecological crises] are all separate issues. They are not. They are inextricably entangled with each other and with the culture that causes them. As such, all of these problems have important commonalities, with major implications for our strategy to resist them.
These problems are urgent, severe, and worsening, and the most worrisome hazards share certain characteristics:
1. They are progressive, not probabilistic.
These problems are getting worse. These problems are not hypothetical, projected, or “merely possible” like Y 2K, asteroid impacts, nuclear war, or super-volcanoes. These crises are not “possible” or “impending”-they are well underway and will continue to worsen. The only uncertainty is how fast, and thus how long our window of action is.
2. They are rapid, but not instant.
These crises arose rapidly, but often not so rapidly as to trigger a prompt response; people get used to them, a phenomenon called the “shifting baselines syndrome.” For example, wildlife populations are often compared to measures from fifty years ago, instead of measures from before civilization, which makes the damage seem much less severe than it actually is. Even trends which appear slow at first glance (like global warming) are extremely rapid when considered over longer timescales, such as the duration of the human race or even the duration of civilization.
3. They are nonlinear, and sometimes runaway or self-sustaining.
The hazards get worse over time, but often in unpredictable ways with sudden spikes or discontinuities. A 10 percent increase of greenhouse gases might produce 10 percent warming or it might cause far more. Also, the various crises interact to create cascading disasters far worse than any one alone.
Hurricanes (such as Katrina) may be worsened by global warming and by habitat destruction in their paths (Katrina’s impact was worsened by wetlands destruction). The human impact may then be worsened further by poverty and the use of the police, military, and hired mercenaries (like Blackwater) to impede the ability of those poor people to move freely or access basic and necessary supplies.
4. These crises have long lead or lag times.
The problems are often created long before they become a visible issue. They also grow or accelerate exponentially, such that action must be taken well in advance of the crisis to be effective. Although an alert minority is usually aware of the issue, the problem may have become very serious and entrenched before gaining the attention, let alone the action, of the majority.
Peak oil was predicted with a high degree of accuracy in 1956. The greenhouse effect was discovered in 1824, and industrially caused global warming was predicted by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius in 1867.
5. Hazards have deeply rooted momentum.
These crises are rooted in the most fundamental practices and infrastructure of civilization. Social convention, the concentration of power, and dominant economic systems all prevent the necessary changes. If I ran a corporation and tried to be genuinely sustainable, the company would soon be out-competed and go bankrupt.’ If I were a politician and I banned the majority of unsustainable practices, I would promptly be ejected from office (or more likely, assassinated).
6. They are industrially driven.
In virtually all cases, industry is the primary culprit, either because it consumes resources itself (e.g., oil and coal) or permits resource extraction and global trade that would otherwise be extremely difficult (e.g., bottom trawling) . Furthermore, industrial capitalism and industrial governments offer artificial subsidies for ecocidal practices that would not otherwise be economically tenable. Factors like overpopulation (as discussed shortly) are secondary or tertiary at best.
7. They provide benefits to the powerful and costs to the powerless.
The acts that cause these crises-all long-standing economic activities-offer short-term benefits to those who are already powerful. But these hazards are most dangerous and damaging to the people who are poorest and most powerless.
8. They facilitate temporary victories and permanent losses.
No successes we might have are guaranteed to last as long as industrial civilization stands. Conversely, most of our losses are effectively permanent. Extinct species cannot be resurrected. Overdrawn aquifers or clear-cut forests will not return to their original states on timescales meaningful to humans.
The destruction of land-based cultures, and the deliberate impoverishment of much of humanity, results in major loss and long-term social trauma. With sufficient action, it’s possible to solve many of the problems we face, but if that action doesn’t materialize in time, the effects are irreversible.
9. Proposed “solutions” often make things worse.
Because of all the qualities noted above, analysis of the hazards tends to be superficial and based on short-term thinking. Even though analysts who look at the big picture globally may use large amounts of data, they often refuse to ask deeper or more uncomfortable questions.
The hasty enthusiasm for industrial biofuels is one manifestation of this. Biofuels have been embraced by some as a perfect ecological replacement for petroleum. The problems with this are many, but chief among them is the simple fact that growing plants for vehicle fuel takes land the planet simply can’t spare. Soy, palm, and sugar cane plantations for oil and ethanol are now driving the destruction of tropical rainforest in the Amazon and Southeast Asia.
Critics like Jane Goodall and the Rainforest Action Network argue that the plantations on rainforest land destroy habitat and water cycles, worsen global warming, destroy and pollute the soil, and displace land-based peoples. This so-called solution to the catastrophe of petroleum ends up being just as bad-if not worse-than petroleum.
10. The hazards do not result from any single program.
They tend to result from the underlying structure and essential nature of civilization, not from any particular industry, technology, government, or social attitude. Even global warming, which is caused primarily by burning fossil fuels, is the result of many kinds of industries using many kinds of fossil fuels as well as deforestation and agriculture.
To learn more about the true environmental costs of renewable energy, read Bright Green Lies to be released in 2021.
Featured image depicts major floating garbage patches in the Pacific Ocean.
by DGR News Service | Jun 6, 2020 | The Solution: Resistance
After 31 years of resistance including contributions from Deep Green Resistance, Las Vegas has abandoned a water extraction project on indigenous lands in Nevada.
By Max Wilbert
On May 21st, after a series of legal defeats stretching over years, the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) began to withdraw its remaining federal and state applications to build a $10 billion water pipeline.
For three decades, SNWA (the water agency for the Las Vegas area) has worked towards building a 300-mile pipeline and dozens of wells to pump vast amounts of groundwater from Goshute, Paiute, and Shoshone indigenous land in eastern Nevada.
For thirty-one years, the community has fought this project, organizing public events, meetings, public comment, protests, lawsuits, hearings, and beyond. The Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation, the Ely Shoshone, and the Duckwater Shoshone played a key role in this resistance, as have the Great Basin Water Network and local government efforts to oppose the project.
Deep Green Resistance began fighting the SNWA water grab in 2013, organizing a series of annual ecology and resistance gatherings in Spring Valley that continued through 2018, participating in lawsuits, elevating voices of the land, and supporting community organizers on the ground. We cannot and will not take credit for this victory, but we are happy today to see this news.
When I first visited the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation in 2013, the building bore a stark message: “SNWA: Sucks Native’s Water Away.” The tribe has stated that “SNWA’s groundwater development application is the biggest threat to the Goshute way of life since European settlers first arrived on Goshute lands more than 150 years ago.”
Life in the Great Basin’s valleys, human and otherwise, depends on shallow groundwater, springs, and creeks, which in turn depend on groundwater flows from rain and snow in mountain ranges. Water is life.
There is a place on the floor of the “Sacred Water Valley” or Bahsahwahbee, more commonly known as Spring Valley, where there grows an ecologically unique grove of Rocky Mountain Juniper Trees, where violets bloom and springs bubbling pure water from the Earth.
My friend Delaine Spilsbury, a board member of the Great Basin Water Network and Newe indigenous elder, writes:
“Bahsahwahbee is not just a piece of tribal history. It is American history and a harbinger of the future of indigenous communities. Military officials and vigilantes murdered Newe people there during three massacres between 1850 and 1900. Victims included women, children and elders whose bodies were viciously mutilated. Because it was such a violent event, the spirits of those desecrated are believed to remain in the shallow-rooted Rocky Mountain Juniper trees, referred to as Swamp Cedars. We Shoshone people still visit this location to show our respect for our Elders. To this day, Bahsahwahbee remains a place of mourning for my people.
My grandmother, Laurene Mamie Swallow, survived the Bahsahwahbee massacre of 1897. Oral histories that she and other tribal elders shared, along with documentation from military officials, have served as the historical basis for what we know about the site today.
Despite that information, it is important to note that Bahsahwahbee is more than a place in history. The Swamp Cedars would be lost forever if large-scale pumping were to occur at the site. And, therefore, the ability for indigenous people to practice their spiritual beliefs would be gone too.”
Today, the spirits in the Swamp Cedars can, perhaps, rest a bit easier. But only for now. There still remain countless threats to the Great Basin. Mining is devastating the region. The destruction of Pinyon-Juniper forests continues. Urban sprawl continues to metastasize into the desert, and countless species are on the brink of extinction. Nuclear waste continues to impact indigenous communities. As global warming melts snowpack in the Rocky Mountains and the Colorado River shrinks, cities like Las Vegas will continue to hunt for water—potentially leading to new water grab projects.
The pure springs of these valleys are not safe, and nor are the Swamp Cedars. While land protectors focus on climate change and the Amazon rainforest, countless other parts of our living planet face destruction without appreciation. We must protect all of this world, and that means challenging every water extraction project, every logging plan, every new mine, every factory—even to the fundamental pillars of industrial civilization itself.
For life on this planet to continue, industrial civilization must come to an end. So rejoice, because the water grab is dead. And then get back to the struggle.
Prayer walk for sacred water in the Mojave desert, home to numerous indigenous nations, a wide array of biodiversity, springs, wildflowers, ungulates, tortoises, lizards, birds, and some of the more remote lands in North America. The Mojave’s most serious threats come from the military, urban sprawl, and industrial solar development.
Max Wilbert is a third-generation political dissident, writer, and wilderness guide. He has been involved in grassroots organizing for nearly 20 years. His essays have been published in Earth Island Journal, Counterpunch, DGR News Service, and elsewhere, and have been translated into at least 6 languages. His second book, Bright Green Lies: The False Promises of Mainstream Environmentalism, will be released soon. Photos by the author.
