In 1915, General Electric released a silent promotional film titled The Home Electricaloffering a glimpse into a gleaming, frictionless future. The film walks viewers through a model electric home: lights flicked on at the wall, meals cooked without fire, laundry cleaned without soap and muscle. A young wife smiles as she moves effortlessly through her day, assisted by gadgets that promised to eliminate drudgery and dirt. This was not a documentary—it was a vision, a fantasy, a sales pitch. At the time, only a small fraction of American households had electricity at all, and nearly 90% of rural families still relied on oil lamps, wood stoves, hand pumps, and washboards. But the message was clear: to be modern was to be electric—and anything less was a kind of failure.
At the dawn of the 20th century, electricity was still a symbol of wealth, not a tool of survival. Most urban households that had it used it only for lighting; refrigeration, electric stoves, or washing machines were luxuries among luxuries. In rural America, most farms and small towns remained off-grid through the 1920s. The electric grid simply didn’t go there. Private utilities, driven by profit, had no interest in building costly infrastructure where it wouldn’t quickly pay off.
And yet, propaganda told a different story. In magazines, World’s Fairs, and promotional pamphlets, electricity was shown as the cornerstone of health, cleanliness, efficiency, and modern womanhood. Electric appliances promised to save time, reduce labor, and lift families—especially women—into the new century. But this future was just out of reach for most people. A growing divide opened up: between those who lived by the rhythms of sun and fire, and those whose lives were quietly reshaped by the flick of a switch.
To live without electricity meant pumping water by hand, chopping and hauling wood for heat and cooking, cleaning clothes with a washboard, and preserving food with salt, smoke, or ice if you had it. It meant darkness after sundown unless you had oil or candles. These were difficult, time-consuming tasks—but also deeply embedded in older, place-based ways of life. People were less dependent on centralized systems. They mended clothes instead of buying new ones, and their food came from the land, not refrigerated trucks.
Yet the narrative of “progress” didn’t tolerate this complexity. By the 1920s and ‘30s, utilities and appliance manufacturers framed non-electric life as backward, dirty, and even unpatriotic. Their message: to be modern was to be electric.
This vision of electrified modernity wasn’t just implicit; it was relentlessly promoted through the dazzling spectacles of world’s fairs and the persuasive language of print advertising. Electricity was framed not only as a technological advance but as a moral and social imperative—a step toward cleanliness, order, and even national progress. At places like the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, entire palaces were built to glorify electricity, their glowing facades and futuristic interiors turning utility into fantasy. Meanwhile, companies like Western Electric and General Electric saturated early 20th-century magazines with ads that equated electric appliances with a better life—especially for women. These messages didn’t merely advertise products; they manufactured desire, anxiety, and aspiration. To remain in the dark was no longer quaint—it was backward.
At the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, the Palace of Electricity was more than an exhibit—it was theater. Illuminated by thousands of electric bulbs, the building itself was proof of concept: a monument to the power and promise of electrification. Inside, visitors encountered displays of the latest electric appliances and power systems, all framed as marvels of human ingenuity. Nearby, the Edison Storage Battery Company showcased innovations in energy storage, while massive dynamos hummed behind glass. The fair suggested not just that electricity was useful, but that it was destiny.
Louisiana purchase exposition, St. Louis, 1904. The Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons.
This theatrical framing of electricity as progress carried into everyday life through print advertisements. A 1910 issue of Popular Electricity magazine illustrated a physician using electric light in surgery, suggesting that even health depended on electrification. In a 1920 ad for the Hughes Electric Range, a beaming housewife is pictured relaxing while dinner “cooks itself,” thanks to the miracle of electricity. Likewise, a Western Electric ad from the same year explained how to build an “electrical housekeeping” system—one that offered freedom from drudgery, but only if the right appliances were purchased.
These messages targeted emotions as much as reason. They played on fears of being left behind, of being an inadequate housewife, of missing out on modernity. Electricity was no longer merely about illumination—it became a symbol of transformation. The more it was portrayed as essential to health, domestic happiness, and national strength, the more it took on the aura of inevitability. A home without electricity was not simply unequipped; it was a failure to progress. Through ads, exhibits, and films, electricity was sold not just as a convenience, but as a moral good.
And so the groundwork was laid—not only for mass electrification, but for the idea that to live well, one must live electrically.
Before the Toaster: Industry was the First Beneficiary of Electrification
While early 20th-century advertisements showed electricity as a miracle for housewives, the truth is that industry was the first and most powerful customer of the electric age. Long before homes had refrigerators or lightbulbs, factories were wiring up to electric motors, electric lighting, and eventually, entire assembly lines driven by centralized power. Electricity made manufacturing more flexible, more scalable, and less tied to water or steam—especially important in urban areas where land was tight and labor plentiful.
By the 1890s, industries like textiles, metalworking, paper mills, and mining were early adopters of electricity, replacing steam engines with electric motors that could power individual machines more efficiently. Instead of a single massive steam engine turning shafts and belts throughout a factory, electric motors allowed decentralized control and faster adaptation to different tasks. Electric lighting also extended working hours and improved productivity, particularly in winter months.
Electrification offered not just operational efficiency but competitive advantage—and companies knew it. By the 1910s and 1920s, large industrial users began lobbying both utilities and governments for better access to power, lower rates, and more reliable service. Their political and economic influence helped shape early utility regulation and infrastructure investment. Many state utility commissions were lobbied heavily by industrial users, who often negotiated bulk discounts and prioritized service reliability over residential expansion.
This dynamic led to a kind of two-tiered system: electrification for factories was seen as economically essential, while electrification for homes was framed as aspirational—or even optional. In rural areas especially, private utilities refused to extend lines unless they could first serve a profitable industrial customer nearby, like a lumber mill or mine.
Meanwhile, companies that produced electrical equipment—like General Electric, Westinghouse, and Allis-Chalmers—stood to gain enormously. They pushed for industrial electrification through trade shows, engineering conferences, and direct lobbying. Publications like Electrical World and Power magazine ran glowing stories about new industrial applications, highlighting speed, productivity, and cost savings. GE and Westinghouse didn’t just sell light bulbs and home gadgets—they also built turbines, dynamos, and entire systems for industrial-scale customers.
And industry didn’t just demand electricity—industry helped finance it. Many early power plants, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast, were built explicitly to serve one or more large factories, and only later expanded to provide residential service. These plants often operated on a model of “load factor optimization”: power usage by factories during the day and homes at night ensured a steady demand curve, which maximized profits.
By the 1920s, the logic was clear: industry came first, homes came second—but both served the larger vision of an electrified economy. And this industrial-first expansion became one of the justifications for public electrification programs in the 1930s. If electricity had become so essential to national productivity, how could it remain out of reach for most rural Americans?
Niagara Falls Power Plant: Built for Industry
In 1895, the Niagara Falls Power Company, led by industrialist Edward Dean Adams and with technological help from Westinghouse Electric and Nikola Tesla, completed the Adams Power Plant Transformer House—one of the first large-scale hydroelectric plants in the world.
Eight of the ten 1,875 kW transformers at the Adams Power Plant Transformer House, 1904, public domain
This plant didn’t exist to power homes. Its primary purpose was to serve nearby industries: electrochemical, electrometallurgical, and manufacturing firms that required vast amounts of energy. The ability to harness hydropower made Niagara Falls a magnet for energy-intensive factories.
Founded in 1891, Carborundum relocated to Niagara Falls in 1895 to take advantage of the abundant hydroelectric power. They manufactured silicon carbide abrasives, known as “carborundum,” using electric furnaces that operated at high heat. The company was the second to contract with the Niagara Falls Power Company, underscoring the plant’s role in attracting energy-intensive industries.
The promise of abundant cheap power made Niagara Falls the world capital of electro-chemical and electro-metallurgical industries, which included such companies as the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA), Carborundum (which developed the world’s hardest abrasive as well as graphite), Union Carbide, American Cyanamid, Auto-Lite Battery, and Occidental Petroleum. These were enterprises that depended upon abundant cheap power. At its industrial peak, in 1929, Niagara Falls was the leading manufacturer in the world of products using abrasives, carbon, chlorine, and ferro-alloys.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Niagara Falls became a hub for industrial activity, primarily due to its abundant hydroelectric power. The establishment of the Niagara Falls Power Company in 1895 marked the beginning of large-scale electricity generation in the area. This readily available power attracted energy-intensive industries, including aluminum production, electrochemical manufacturing, and abrasives. Companies like the Pittsburgh Reduction Company (later Alcoa) and the Carborundum Company set up operations to capitalize on the cheap and plentiful electricity.
Even food companies jumped on the opportunity for abundant electricity. The founder of the Shredded Wheat Company (maker of both Shredded Wheat and Triscuit), Henry Perky, built a large factory directly at Niagara Falls, choosing the site precisely because of its access to cheap, abundant hydroelectric power. When the Triscuit cracker was first produced in 1903, the factory was powered entirely by electricity—a key marketing point. Early ads bragged that Triscuits were “Baked by Electricity,” which was a novel and futuristic idea at the time.
However, this rapid industrial growth came at a significant environmental cost. The freedom afforded to early industry in Niagara Falls meant that area waterways became dumps for chemicals and other toxic substances. By the 1920s, Niagara Falls was home to a dynamic and thriving chemical sector that produced vast amounts of industrial-grade chemicals via hydroelectric power. This included the production of chlorines, degreasers, explosives, pesticides, plastics, and myriad other chemical agents.
The success at Niagara set a precedent: electricity could fuel industrial expansion, and factories began lobbying for access to centralized electric power. States and cities recognized that electrification attracted investment, jobs, and tax revenue. This created political pressure to expand grids and build new generation capacity—not to homes first, but to industrial parks and cities with manufacturing bases.
The environmental impact was profound. In 1986, Canadian researchers discoveredthat the mist from the falls contained cancer-causing chemicals, leading both the U.S. and Canada to promise cleanup efforts. Moreover, the Love Canal neighborhood in Niagara Falls became infamous for being the site of one of the worst environmental disasters involving chemical wastes in U.S. history. The area was used as a dumping ground for nearly 22,000 tons of chemical waste, leading to severe health issues for residents and eventual evacuation of the area.
This historical example underscores the complex legacy of electrification—while it spurred industrial advancement and economic growth, it also led to environmental degradation and public health crises.
The Salesman of the Grid: Samuel Insull and the Corporate Vision of a Public Good
Even as electricity was still being marketed as a lifestyle upgrade—offering clean kitchens, lighted parlors, and “freedom from drudgery”—Samuel Insull was reshaping the electrical industry behind the scenes in ways that would bring electricity to both homes and factories on an unprecedented scale. A former secretary to Thomas Edison, Insull became the president of Chicago Edison (later Commonwealth Edison) and transformed the electric utility into a regional power empire. He championed centralized generation, long-distance transmission, and, most importantly, load diversity: the idea that combining industrial and residential customers would create a steadier, more profitable demand curve.
Industry, after all, consumed massive amounts of electricity during the day, while households peaked in the evenings. By blending these demands, utilities could justify larger power plants that ran closer to capacity around the clock—making electricity cheaper to produce per unit and more profitable to sell.
Insull’s holding companies and financial structures helped finance this expansion, often using consumer payments to support new infrastructure. This helped expand the grid outward—to serve not just wealthy homes and big factories, but small towns and middle-class neighborhoods. Electrification became a virtuous cycle: the more customers (especially industrial ones) you had, the more power you could afford to generate, which brought in more customers. The industrial appetite for power and the domestic aspiration for comfort were two sides of the same system.
By the early 20th century, Insull had consolidated dozens of smaller electric companies into massive holding corporations, effectively inventing the modern utility monopoly. His genius wasn’t technical but financial: he pioneered the use of long-term bonds and ratepayer-backed financing to build expansive infrastructure, including coal-fired power plants and transmission lines that could serve entire cities and suburbs.
Insull also understood that to secure profits, electricity had to become not a luxury, but a public necessity. He lobbied for—and helped shape—state-level utility commissions that regulated rates but guaranteed companies a return on investment. He promoted a pricing model in which larger customers subsidized smaller residential ones, making electricity seem affordable while expanding the customer base. In speeches and newspaper campaigns, Insull insisted that electricity was a public service best delivered by private enterprise—so long as that enterprise was shielded from competition and supported by the state.
But Insull’s vision had limits. His business model was urban, corporate, and capital-intensive. It thrived in cities where growth and profits were assured—but left rural America behind. Even by the late 1920s, nearly 90% of rural households still had no electricity, and private utilities had little interest in changing that. When Insull’s financial empire collapsed during the Great Depression—leaving thousands of investors penniless—it triggered a wave of backlash and set the stage for Roosevelt’s 1930s public electrification programs.
The failure of Insull’s empire didn’t just expose the risks of private monopolies; it also reframed electricity as too essential to be left entirely in corporate hands. If the promise of electrification was to reach beyond city limits, it would take more than advertising. It would take state power.
Electricity as a Public “Good”
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal ushered in that power—both literally and figuratively. Federal programs like the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) tackled electrification as a national mission. The TVA aimed to transform one of the poorest regions in the country through public power and flood control. The REA extended loans to rural cooperatives to build distribution lines where private utilities refused to go. The WPA, though more broadly focused on employment and infrastructure, supported the building of roads, dams, and even electric grids that tied into the new public utilities.
But these were not just engineering projects—they were nation-building efforts, wrapped in the language and imagery of progress. Government-sponsored films, posters, and exhibits cast electrification as a patriotic duty and a moral good. In The TVA at Work (1935), a TVA propaganda film, darkness and floods give way to light as electricity reaches the rural South, promising flood control, education, health, and hope.
Posters issued by the REA featured glowing farmhouses surrounded by darkness, their light a beacon of the federal government’s benevolence. Electrification was no longer a luxury product to be sold—it was a public right to be delivered. And propaganda helped recast the electric switch as not just a convenience, but a symbol of democratic progress.
In the early decades of the 20th century, the business of providing electricity was largely in private hands, dominated by powerful industrialists who operated in a fragmented and often exploitative landscape. Rates varied wildly, service was inconsistent, and rural areas were left behind entirely. Out of this chaos emerged a slow, contested movement to treat electricity not as a luxury good for profit but as a regulated public utility—something closer to a right.
Roosevelt’s electrification programs—especially the TVA and the REA—aimed to provide public benefits rather than private profit. But in reality, most rural Americans didn’t vote on where dams and coal-fired power plants would go, how the landscape would be transformed, or who would manage the power. The decision-making remained highly centralized, and the voice of the people was filtered through federal agencies, engineers, and bureaucrats. If this was democracy, it was a technocratic form—focused on distributing benefits, not sharing power.
Still, for many rural communities, the arrival of electricity felt like democratic inclusion: a recognition by the federal government that their lives mattered too. New Deal propaganda leaned into this feeling. Posters, pamphlets, and films portrayed electrification as a patriotic triumph—uniting the country, modernizing the nation, and bringing light to all Americans, not just the urban elite.
FDR fiercely criticized utility companies for their opposition to these efforts. In one speech, he called out their “selfish purposes,” accusing them of spreading propaganda and corrupting public education to protect their profits. His administration’s Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 was designed to break up massive utility holding companies, increase transparency, and limit the abusive practices that had flourished under Insull’s system.
By the end of the 1930s, electricity had changed in the eyes of the law and the public. It was no longer a commodity like soap or phonographs. It was essential—a regulated utility, under public scrutiny, increasingly expected to reach all people regardless of profit margins.
How Rural Communities Organized for Electricity
Reaching everyone required more than federal mandates; it required rural people—many of whom had never flipped a light switch—to believe electricity was not just possible, but necessary. New Deal propaganda didn’t just promote electrification; it made it feel like a patriotic obligation. In posters, films, and traveling exhibits, electricity was depicted as a force of national renewal, radiating from power plants and wires like sunlight over a darkened land. Farmers who had once relied on kerosene lanterns saw glowing visions of electric barns, modern kitchens, and clean, running water. The message was clear: this wasn’t charity—it was justice.
The REA offered low-interest loans to communities willing to organize themselves into cooperatives. But before wires could be strung, people had to organize—drawing maps, knocking on doors, pooling resources. That kind of coordination didn’t happen spontaneously. It was sparked, in large part, by persuasive media.
REA films like Power and the Land (1940) dramatized the transformation of farm life through electricity. Traveling REA agents brought these short films and illustrated pamphlets to town halls, church basements, and grange meetings, showing everyday people that their neighbors were already forming co-ops—and thriving. REA’s Rural Electrification News magazine featured testimonials from farm wives, who praised electric irons, cream separators, and the ability to read after sunset. Electrification wasn’t just about comfort; it was about dignity and opportunity.
A TVA poster from the period shows power lines bringing power for farm fields, homes, and factories. The subtext was unmistakable: electricity was the pulse of a modern democracy. You didn’t wait for it. You organized for it.
And people did. Between 1935 and 1940, rural electrification—driven by this blend of policy and persuasion—expanded rapidly. By 1940, more than 1.5 million rural homes had electricity, up from barely 300,000 just five years earlier. The wires came not just because the government built them, but because people demanded them, formed cooperatives, and rewired their lives around a new kind of infrastructure—one they now believed they deserved.
When FDR created the REA in 1935, fewer than 10% of rural homes had electricity. By 1953, just under two decades after the REA’s launch, over 90% of U.S. farms had electric service, much of it delivered through cooperatives that had become symbols of rural self-determination.
The Federal Power Act
In 1935, the same year Roosevelt signed executive orders establishing the Rural Electrification Administration, Congress passed the Federal Power Act—an often-overlooked but foundational shift in how electricity was governed in the United States. At the time, only about 60% of American homes had electricity, and the vast majority of rural households remained off the grid. Industry was rapidly becoming reliant on continuous, 24/7 electric power to run increasingly complex machinery and production lines, making reliable electricity essential not just for homes but for the nation’s economic engine.
The Act expanded the jurisdiction of the Federal Power Commission, granting it authority to regulate interstate transmission and wholesale sales of electricity. This marked a decisive move away from the era of laissez-faire monopolies toward public oversight. Industry players, eager for dependable and affordable power to sustain growth and competition, played a subtle but important role in pushing for federal regulation that would stabilize the market and ensure widespread, reliable access. The Act framed electricity not as a luxury commodity but as a vital service that required accountability and coordination. In tandem with the New Deal electrification programs, it laid the legal groundwork for treating electricity as a public good—setting the stage for how electricity would be mobilized, mythologized, and mass-produced during wartime.
Electricity as Patriotic Duty
By the end of the 1930s, electricity had changed in the eyes of the law and the public. It was no longer a commodity like soap or phonographs. It was essential—a regulated utility, under public scrutiny, increasingly expected to reach all people regardless of profit margins.
But as the nation edged closer to war, the story of electricity changed again. The gleaming kitchens and “eighth wonder of the world” dams of New Deal posters gave way to a new message: power meant patriotism. Electricity was no longer just a household convenience or symbol of rural uplift—it was fuel for victory.
Even before the U.S. formally entered World War II, government and industry launched campaigns urging Americans to think of their energy use as a form of service. Factories were electrified at full tilt to produce planes, tanks, and munitions. Wartime posters and advertisements called on citizens to “Do Your Part”—to conserve power at home so it could be redirected to the front. Lights left on unnecessarily weren’t just wasteful; they were unpatriotic.
One striking 1942 poster from the U.S. Office of War Information featured a light switch with the message: “Switch off that light! Less light—more planes.” Another encouraged energy conservation by asking people to switch lights off promptly because “coal is vital to victory” (at this time 56% total electricity on U.S. grids was generated by coal).
For women, especially, electricity was again positioned as a moral responsibility. Earlier ads had promised electric gadgets to free housewives from drudgery; now, propaganda reminded them that their efficient use of electric appliances was part of the national war strategy. The same infrastructure built by New Deal programs now helped turn the rural power grid into an engine of military supply.
Electricity had become inseparable from national identity and survival. To use it wisely was to serve the country. To waste it was to betray the war effort. This was no longer a story of gadgets and progress—it was a story of sacrifice, duty, and unity under the banner of light.
Nowhere was this message clearer than in the materials produced by the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), which managed the massive hydroelectric output of the Columbia River dams in the Pacific Northwest. In the early 1940s, the BPA commissioned a series of posters to dramatize the link between public power and wartime production. One of the most iconic, “Bonneville Fights Time,” shows a welder in a protective mask, sparks flying, framed by dynamic lines of electricity and stylized clock hands. The message: electric power enabled faster, more precise welding—crucial for shipbuilding, aircraft, and munitions production.
The poster’s bold composition connected modernist design with national urgency. Bonneville’s electricity wasn’t just flowing to light bulbs—it was flowing to the war factories of the Pacific coast, to the shipyards of Portland and Seattle, and to the aluminum plants that turned hydroelectric power into lightweight warplanes. These images promoted more than technical efficiency; they sold a vision of democratized power mobilized for total war.
Through such propaganda, the promise of public power was reimagined—not just as a civic good, but as a weapon that could help win World War II.
Electrifying the American Dream
When the war ended, the messaging around electricity shifted again—from sacrifice to surplus. Wartime rationing gave way to a marketing explosion, and the same electrified infrastructure that had powered victory was now poised to power prosperity. With factories retooled for peace-time commerce, and veterans returning with GI Bill benefits and dreams of suburban life, the home became the new front line of American identity—and electric gadgets were its weaponry.
The postwar boom fused electricity with consumption, convenience, and class mobility. Advertisements no longer asked families to conserve power for the troops; they encouraged them to buy electric dishwashers, toasters, vacuum cleaners, televisions. Owning a full suite of appliances became a marker of success, a tangible reward for patriotism and patience. Electricity was no longer just a utility—it was the lifeblood of modern living, sold with the same glamour and intensity once reserved for luxury cars or perfumes.
Utilities and manufacturers teamed up to keep the vision alive. The Live Better Electrically campaign, launched in 1956 and endorsed by celebrities like Ronald Reagan, urged Americans to “go all-electric”—not just for lighting and appliances, but for heating, cooking, and even air conditioning. The campaign painted a glowing picture of total electrification, backed by images of smiling housewives, sparkling kitchens, and obedient gadgets. In one ad, a mother proudly paints a heart on her electric range as her children and husband laugh and smile. The future, once uncertain, had been domesticated.
Nowhere was the all-electric ideal more vividly branded than in the Gold Medallion Home, a product of The Live Better Electrically campaign. These homes were awarded a literal gold medallion by utilities if they met a full checklist: electric heat, electric water heater, electric kitchen appliances, and sufficient wiring to support a future of plugged-in living. Promoted through glossy ads and celebrity endorsements, the Medallion Home symbolized upward mobility, domestic modernity, and patriotic participation in a high-energy future. It was a propaganda campaign that blurred the line between consumer aspiration and infrastructure planning. Today’s “electrify everything” efforts—encouraging heat pumps, EVs, induction stoves, and smart panels—echo this strategy. Once again, homes are being refashioned as sites of technological virtue and national progress, marketed through a familiar mix of lifestyle promise and utility coordination. The medallion has changed shape, but the message remains: the future lives here.
This was propaganda of abundance. And behind it was an unspoken truth: electrification had won. What had once been sold as fantasy—glimpsed in world’s fair palaces or GE films—was now embedded in daily life. The flick of a switch no longer symbolized hope. It had become habit.
Ruralite
Ruralite magazine serves as the flagship publication of Pioneer Utility Resources, a not-for-profit communications cooperative to serve the rural electric cooperatives (or co-ops) across the western United States. It was—and remains—a shared publication platform for dozens of small, locally owned utility co-ops that formed in the wake of the REA.
Each electric co-op—often based in small towns or rural counties—can customize part of the magazine with local news, board updates, outage reports, and community features. But the bulk of the magazine is centrally produced, offering ready-made content: stories about electric living, energy efficiency, co-op values, new technologies, and the benefits of belonging to a cooperative utility system.
In this sense, Ruralite functions as a kind of regional PR organ: a hybrid of lifestyle magazine, customer newsletter, and soft-sell propaganda tool. It is funded by and distributed through electric co-ops themselves, landing monthly in the homes of hundreds of thousands of rural residents.
Though it debuted in 1954—well after the apex of New Deal electrification programs—Ruralite can be seen as a direct descendant of that era’s propaganda infrastructure, repackaged for peacetime and consumer prosperity. The TVA had its posters, the REA had its pamphlets, and Ruralite had glossy photo spreads of farm wives with gleaming electric ranges.
Where New Deal propaganda had rallied Americans to support rural electrification as a national project of fairness and modernity, Ruralite shifted the tone toward comfort, aspiration, and consumer loyalty. It picked up the baton of electrification as cultural transformation, reinforcing the idea that electric living wasn’t just a right—it was the new rural ideal.
Clipped from “For the Curious Ruralite,” tips to encourage electricity use from the December 1954 edition of Ruralite Magazine
Ruralite framed rural electrification not as catching up to the cities, but as leading the way in a new era—one where rural values, ingenuity, and resourcefulness would power the country forward. In this way, co-ops and their members became symbols of progress, not just beneficiaries of it.
This was propaganda not by posters or patriotic slogans, but through community storytelling. Ruralite grounded its messaging in local personalities, recipes, and relatable anecdotes, while embedding calls to adopt more appliances, update homes, and trust in the local co-op as a benevolent, forward-looking institution.
The first Ruralite recipe, for which you need an electric refrigerator, published in Ruralite Magazine, June 1954. Clipped from this June 1, 2024 article.
Today, Ruralite remains rooted in local storytelling, but its tone aligns more with contemporary consumer lifestyle media. Sustainability, renewables, and energy efficiency now appear alongside nostalgic rural features and recipes. Yet despite the modern packaging, the core narrative remains consistent: electricity is integral to the good life. That through-line—from a beacon of modernization to a pillar of local identity—demonstrates how the publication has adapted without abandoning its propagandistic roots.
In the current energy landscape, Ruralite plays a quiet but significant role in advancing the “electrify everything” agenda—the 21st-century push to decarbonize buildings, transportation, and infrastructure by transitioning away from fossil fuels to electric systems.
While Ruralite doesn’t use overtly political language, it steadily normalizes new electric technologies like heat pumps, EVs, induction stoves, and solar arrays. Features on homeowners who upgraded to electric water heaters, profiles of co-ops launching EV charging stations, or DIY guides for energy audits all reinforce the idea that the electric future is practical, responsible, and here. The message is aspirational but grounded in small-town pragmatism: this isn’t Silicon Valley hype—it’s your neighbor electrifying their barn or replacing a propane furnace or reminiscing about life without electricity.
Ruralite continues the legacy of New Deal-era propaganda by promoting ever-greater electricity use—now through electric vehicles and heat pumps instead of fridges and space heaters—reinforcing the idea that progress always means more power, more consumption, and more infrastructure. Its storytelling still serves a strategic function—ensuring electricity remains not just accepted, but desired, in every American home.
Postwar Peak and Decline of Electrification Propaganda
By the 1960s, most American homes—urban and rural—had been electrified. The major battle to electrify the country was won. As a result, the overt electrification-as-progress propaganda that had dominated the New Deal era and postwar boom faded. Electricity became mundane: a background utility, no longer something that needed to be sold as revolutionary.
During the 1970s and early 1980s, the focus of public discourse shifted toward energy crises and conservation. Rather than expanding electrification, the government and utilities started encouraging Americans to use less, not more—a notable, if temporary, reversal. The 1973 oil shock, Three Mile Island (1979), and rising distrust in institutions tempered the earlier utopian energy messaging.
1970’s energy conservation poster, via Low Carbon Institute, in the personal collection of Russell Davies.
However, electrification propaganda never vanished entirely. It just narrowed. Publications like Ruralite and utility co-ops continued localized campaigns, pushing upgrades (like electric water heaters or electric stoves) in rural areas and maintaining a cultural narrative of electric life as modern and efficient.
The Renewables-Era Revival of Electrification Propaganda
In the late 1990s and especially the 2000s, a new wave of electrification propaganda began to emerge, but this time under the banner of climate action. Instead of promoting electricity as luxury or convenience, the new message was: electrify everything to save the planet.
This “green” electrification push encourages:
Electric vehicles (EVs) to replace gasoline cars
Heat pumps to replace fossil fuel heating systems
Induction stoves over gas ranges
Grid modernization and massive renewable build-outs (wind, solar, batteries)
Glossy, optimistic, uncritical propaganda pushing electricity from Ruralite Magazine, December 2023.
The messaging echoes earlier propaganda in tone—glossy, optimistic, often uncritical—but reframes the moral purpose: not modernization for its own sake, but decarbonization. The tools remain similar: media campaigns, federal incentives, public-private partnerships, and co-op publications like Ruralite, which has evolved to reflect this new narrative.
Typical imagery promoting “clean energy.” This image is used on a League of Conservation Voters initiative, Clean Energy for All.
Modern utility outreach events like co-op utility Orcas Power and Light Cooperative’s (OPALCO) EV Jamboree—where electric vehicles are showcased, test drives offered, and electrification is framed as exciting and inevitable—echo the strategies of the REA’s mid-century traveling circuses. Just as the REA brought portable demonstrations of electric appliances and farm equipment to rural fairs to sell the promise of a brighter, cleaner, more efficient life, today’s utilities stage events to generate enthusiasm for electric vehicles, heat pumps, and smart appliances. In both cases, the goal is not just education but persuasion—selling a future tied to deeper dependence on the electric grid.
Advertisement for an EV Jamboree, propaganda for electric vehicles, boats, bikes, etc.
One of the most striking revivals is the push for nuclear power, long dormant after public backlash in the 1980s. Once considered politically radioactive and dangerous, nuclear is now rebranded as a clean energy savior. The Biden administration has supported small modular reactor (SMR) development and extended funding for existing nuclear plants. More recently, President Donald Trump announced plans to reinvest in nuclear infrastructure, positioning it as a strategic national asset and imperative for national security and industry. The messaging is clear: nuclear is back, and it’s being sold not just as a technology, but as a patriotic imperative.
The Green Delusion and the Digital Demand: Modern Propaganda for an Electrified Future
In the 21st century, electrification propaganda has been reborn—not as a tool to bring light to rural homes or sell refrigerators, but as a moral and technological mandate. This time, it’s cloaked in the language of sustainability, innovation, and decarbonization. Utilities, tech giants, and government agencies now present an electrified future as inevitable and ethical. But beneath the rhetoric lies a powerful continuity with the past: electricity must still be sold to the public, and propaganda remains the vehicle of persuasion.
The contemporary campaign is driven by a potent mix of actors. Investor-owned utilities plaster their websites with wind turbines and solar panels, promoting the idea that they are leading the charge toward a cleaner future. Federal and state governments offer rebates and incentives for EVs, solar panels, heat pumps, and induction stoves, framing these changes not only as personal upgrades, but as civic duties. Corporate giants like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon amplify the message, touting their commitment to “100% renewable” operations—while quietly brokering deals for bespoke gas and nuclear plants to keep their operations online, and selling their digital services to fossil fuels companies.
Deceptive practices are proliferating alongside the expansion of renewable energy infrastructure. Companies developing utility-scale solar projects often mislead communities about the scale, impact, and permanence of proposed developments—if they engage with them at all. Local residents frequently report being excluded from the planning process, receiving vague or misleading information, or being outright lied to about how the projects will alter their environment. As Dunlap et al. document in their paper ‘A Dead Sea of Solar Panels:” Solar Enclosure, Extractivism and the Progressive Degradation of the California Desert, such tactics are not anomalies but part of a systemic pattern:
[W]e would flat out ask them [the company] questions and their answers were not honest … [it] led me to believe they really didn’t care about us. They had charts of where lines were going to be, and later, we found out that it wasn’t necessarily the truthful proposal. And you’re thinking: ‘why do you have to deceive us?’
— Desert Center resident, quoted in ‘A Dead Sea of Solar Panels:’ solar enclosure, extractivism and the progressive degradation of the California desert, by Dunlap et. al.
These projects, framed publicly as green progress, often mask an extractive logic—one that mirrors the practices of fossil fuel development, only cloaked in the language of sustainability.
At the heart of this new energy push lies a paradox: the renewable future requires more electricity than ever before. Electrifying transportation, heating, and industry demands a massive expansion of grid infrastructure—new transmission lines, more generation, and more raw materials. But increasingly, the driver of this expansion is data.
Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and cryptocurrency mining are extraordinarily power-hungry. Modern AI models require vast data centers, each consuming megawatts of electricity—often 24/7. In his May 2025 Executive Order promoting nuclear energy, President Donald Trump made this explicit: “Advanced nuclear reactors will power data centers, AI infrastructure, and critical defense operations.” Here, electricity isn’t just framed as a public good—it’s a strategic asset. The demand for clean, constant energy is now justified not by light bulbs or quality of life, but by national security and economic dominance in the digital age.
This shift has profound implications. The public is once again being asked to accept massive infrastructure projects—new power generation plants and transmission corridors, subsidies for private companies, and increased energy bills—as the price of progress. Utilities and politicians assure us that this growth is green, even as the material and ecological costs of building out renewables and data infrastructure are hidden from view. The new propaganda is sleeker, data-driven, and more morally charged—but at its core, it performs the same function as its 20th-century predecessors: to justify a massive increase in power use.
A particularly insidious thread in this new wave of propaganda is the claim that artificial intelligence will “solve” climate change. This narrative, repeated by CEOs, media outlets, and government officials, frames AI as a kind of techno-savior: capable of optimizing energy use, designing better renewables, and fixing broken supply chains. But while these applications are technically possible, they are marginal compared to the staggering energy footprint of building and running large-scale AI systems. Training a single frontier model can consume as much power as a small town.Once operational, the server farms that host these models run 24/7, devouring electricity and water—often in drought-prone areas—and prompting utilities to fire up old coal and gas plants to meet projected demand.
Under the guise of “solving” the climate crisis, the AI boom is accelerating it. And just like earlier propaganda campaigns, the messaging is carefully crafted: press releases about “green AI” and “green-by-AI” along with glossy reports touting efficiency gains distract from the physical realities of extraction, combustion, and carbon emissions. The promise of virtual solutions is being used to justify real-world expansion of energy-intensive infrastructure. If previous generations were sold the dream of electrified domestic bliss, today’s consumers are being sold a dream of digital salvation—packaged in clean fonts and cloud metaphors, but grounded in the same old logic of growth at all costs.
The Material Reality of “Electrify Everything”
While the language of “smart grids,” “clean energy,” and “electrify everything” suggests a sleek, seamless transition to a more sustainable future, the material realities tell a very different story. Every CPU chip, electric vehicle, solar panel, wind turbine, and smart meter is built from a global chain of extractive processes—mined lithium, cobalt, copper, rare earth elements, steel, silicon, and more—often sourced under environmentally destructive and socially exploitative conditions. Expanding the grid to support these technologies requires not just energy but immense physical infrastructure: transmission lines slicing through forests and deserts, substations and data centers devouring land and power, and constant maintenance of an aging, overstretched network.
Yet this reality is largely absent from public-facing narratives. Instead, we’re fed slogans like “energy humanism” and “clean electrification”—terms that obscure the industrial scale and catastrophic impacts of what’s being proposed. Like the early electrification propaganda that portrayed hydropower as endlessly abundant and benevolent (salmon and rivers be damned), today’s messaging continues to erase the costs of extraction, land use, and energy consumption, promoting technological salvation without acknowledging the planetary toll.
Propaganda for “green minerals” extraction in Zambia
The scale of extraction required to electrify everything is staggering. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), reaching global climate goals by 2040 could require a massive increase in demand for minerals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel. For lithium alone, the World Bank estimates production must at least quadruple by 2040 to meet EV and battery storage needs. Copper—essential for wiring and grid infrastructure—faces a predicted shortfall of 6 million metric tons per year by 2031, even as global demand continues to surge with data centers, EVs, and electrification programs.
If you just paint your mining equipment green and use more electricity to mine, somehow that will make mining “sustainable”? Illustration from the paper Advancing toward sustainability: The emergence of green mining technologies and practices published in Green and Smart Mining Engineering
Mining companies have seized the moment to rebrand themselves as climate heroes. Lithium Americas, which plans to operate the massive Thacker Pass lithium mine in Nevada, is described as “a cornerstone for the clean energy transition” and touts itself as a boon for local employment, even while the company destroys thousands of acres of critical habitat. The company promises jobs, school funding, and tax revenue—classic propaganda borrowed from 20th-century industrial playbooks. But local resistance, including from communities like the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe, underscores the deeper truth: these projects degrade ecosystems, threaten sacred sites, and deplete water resources in arid regions.
Another mining giant, Rio Tinto, has aggressively marketed its “green” copper and lithium projects in Serbia, Australia, and the U.S. as “supporting the green energy revolution,” while downplaying community opposition, pollution risks, and the company’s long history of environmental destruction. Their PR materials highlight “sustainable mining,” “low-carbon futures,” and “partnering with communities,” despite persistent local protests and growing global awareness of mining’s high environmental costs.
What’s missing from these narratives is any serious reckoning with the energy required to mine, transport, refine, and manufacture these materials, along with the energy needed to power the growing web of electrified infrastructure. As the demand for data centers, EV fleets, AI training clusters, and smart grids accelerates, we are rapidly expanding industrialization in the name of sustainability, substituting fossil extractivism with mineral extractivism rather than questioning the ever-increasing energy and material throughput of modern society.
Across the U.S., utilities are aggressively promoting electric vehicles, heat pumps, and “smart” appliances as part of their electrification campaigns—often framed as climate solutions. Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) in California, for example, offers rebates on EVs and encourages members to electrify their homes and transportation. Yet at the very same time, utilities like PG&E also warn that the electric grid is under strain and must expand dramatically to meet rising demand. This contradiction is rarely acknowledged. Instead, utilities position grid expansion as inevitable and green, framing it as “modernization” or “resilience.” What’s omitted is that electrifying everything doesn’t reduce energy use—it shifts and increases it, requiring vast new infrastructure, more centralized control, and continued extractivism.
The public is told that using more electricity will save the planet, while being asked to accept more pollution and destroyed environments along with new transmission lines, substations, and higher rates to pay for it all.
From Luxury to Necessity: Total Dependence on a Fragile Grid
The stability of the electricity grid requires electricity supply to constantly meet electricity demand, which in turn, requires numerous entities that operate different components of the grid to coordinate with each other.
Over the last century, electricity has shifted from a shimmering novelty to an unspoken necessity—so deeply embedded in daily life that its absence feels like a crisis. This transformation did not happen organically; it was engineered through decades of propaganda, from World’s Fairs and government-backed campaigns to glossy co-op magazines and modern “electrify everything” initiatives. What began as a promise of convenience became a system of total dependence.
OPALCO pushes EVs, electric appliances and heat pumps, while at the same time publishing articles about how the grid is under strain.
Today, every layer of modern life—communication, healthcare, finance, water delivery, food preservation, transportation, and farming—relies on a constant, invisible stream of electrons. Yet the grid that supplies them is increasingly strained and precarious. As utilities push electric vehicles, heat pumps, and AI-fueled growth, and states (like Washington State) offer tax incentives to electricity-hungry industries, they simultaneously warn that the grid must expand rapidly to avoid collapse. The public is told this expansion is progress. But the more electrified our lives become, the more vulnerable we are to its failures.
This was laid bare in March 2024, when a massive blackout in Spain left over two million people without power and seven dead. Train systems halted. ATMs stopped working. Hospitals ran on limited backup power. Food spoiled, water systems faltered, and thousands were stranded in elevators and subways. The cause? A chain of technical failures made worse by infrastructure stretched thin by new demands and the rapid expansion of renewables. Spanish officials called it a “wake-up call.” But for many, it was a terrifying glimpse into just how brittle the electric scaffolding of modern life has become.
Contrast that with life just 130 years ago, when the vast majority of Americans lived without electricity. Homes were lit by kerosene and heated by wood. Water was drawn from wells. Food was preserved with salt or root cellars. Communities were far more self-reliant, and daily life, while harder in some ways, was not exposed to the singular point of failure that defines today’s electrified society.
Before widespread electrification, communities were more tightly knit by necessity. Without the conveniences of refrigeration, electric heating, or instant communication, people relied on one another. Neighbors shared food, labor, stories, and tools. Social life centered around common spaces—markets, churches, schools, porches. Mutual aid was not a political slogan but a basic survival strategy. Electricity helped alleviate certain physical burdens, but it also enabled a more atomized existence: private appliances replace shared labor, television and now Netflix replace neighborhood gatherings, and online connection supplants physical community.
The electrification of everything, sold as liberation, has created a new form of total dependence. We have not simply added electricity to our lives—we have rewired life itself to require it. And as the grid stretches to accommodate AI servers, data centers, electric fleets, and “smart” everything, the question we must ask is no longer how much we can electrify—but how much failure we can endure.
It’s hard to imagine life today without electricity—yet just 130 years ago, almost no one had it, and communities thrived in very different ways. Our deepening dependence on the grid is not simply our choice; technologies like AI and massive data centers are being imposed upon us, often without real consent or public debate.
As we barrel toward ecological collapse—pervasive pollution, climate chaos, biodiversity loss, and the sixth mass extinction—our blind faith in endless electrification risks bringing us back to a state not unlike that distant past, but under far more desperate circumstances. Now more than ever, we must question the costs we ignore and face the difficult truth: the future we’re building may demand everything we take for granted, and then some.
Public Works Administration Project, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bonneville Power and Navigation Dam in Oregon, Columbia River, 40 miles East of Portland, “Downstream side of Blocks 7 and 8 of North Half of Spillway Dam and Piers 9 to 12. Inclusive of South Half of Dam”. Oct 24, 1936. National Archives and Records Administration.
Editor’s note: When a hurricane like Helene or Milton ravages coastal communities, already-strained first responders face a novel, and growing, threat: the lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles, store PV solar, e-bikes, and countless gadgets. When exposed to the salty water of a storm surge or extreme heat, they are at risk of bursting into flames — and taking an entire house with them.
“Anything that’s lithium-ion and exposed to salt water can have an issue,” said Bill Morelli, the fire chief in Seminole, Florida, and the bigger the battery, the greater the threat. That’s what makes EVs especially hazardous. “[The problem] has expanded as they continue to be more and more popular.”
Also petrochemical-based building materials and furnishings have replaced traditional wood, fabric and metal materials in homes worldwide. But plastics are more flammable and release persistent toxic chemicals when burned or exposed to high heat. Over the last 25 years, wildfires have multiplied and intensified due to global warming, and often now jump the wildland-urban interface, burning whole neighborhoods and leaving behind a dangerous toxic home legacy. After the Camp Fire razed Paradise, California, in 2018, water utilities found high levels of volatile organic compounds in drinking water. Similar issues have arisen in places like Boulder County, Colorado, where the Marshall Fire destroyed nearly 1,000 structures in 2021,
“The extreme heatwaves of 2023, which fueled huge wildfires, and severe droughts, also undermined the land’s capacity to soak up atmospheric carbon. This diminished carbon uptake drove atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to new highs, intensifying concerns about accelerating climate change. Widespread wildfires across Canada and droughts in the Amazon in 2023 released about the same amount of carbon to the atmosphere as North America’s total fossil fuel emissions, underscoring the severe impact of climate change on natural ecosystems.”
The following story talks about the Moss Landing fire but there was also a fire that erupted in southeast Missouri at one of world’s largest lithium-ion battery recycling facilities and also in Madison County, Illinois.
Batteries’ toxic gases can cause respiratory, skin and eye problems. Toxic gases from burning lithium-ion batteries can contaminate wildlife such as Monterey Bay’s unique tidal wetland.
This is the fourth fire at the Moss Landing battery storage facility.
Referring to last week’s explosive fire, County Supervisor Glenn Church said, “This is a wake-up call for the industry. If we’re going to move ahead with sustainable energy, we need a safe battery system in place. State of the art safety protocols did not work.”
County officials lifted evacuation orders Friday evening after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found “no threat to human health.” Still, Highway 1 remains closed, and health officials in Monterey, San Venito and Santa Cruz counties advise residents to stay indoors, turn off ventilation systems and limit outdoor exposure. Www.ksbw.com provides live updates.
WILDFIRES AND URBAN FIRES
When the Los Angeles fires started January 7, I learned about the differences between wild and urban fires. Wildfires occur in forests or grasslands, fueled by trees or other vegetation. More than 80% of wildfires start by human activities like abandoned cigarettes, campfires and barbeques. Wildfire smoke can penetrate deep into peoples’ lungs and aggravate heart and lung diseases.
Urban fires—conflagrations—are fueled by combustible construction materials including wood framing, plastics, metals, furniture fabric and solar panels (hazardous waste). Because of houses’ flammable contents, urban fires burn extremely hot and generate toxic emissions. High winds and insufficient water supply intensify urban fires. Burning houses emit chemical toxins and generate more heat than burning trees (which, if alive, hold fire-resistant moisture).
INCLUDING LITHIUM-ION BATTERIES IN FIRE RISK ASSESSMENTS
Here’s a question: How do lithium-ion batteries contribute to urban fires?
Like much of the world, Southern California is now dotted with lithium batteries at every telecom cell site (for backup in the event of a power outage); in every electric vehicle, e-bike and hoverboard; in every EV charger; in laptops, tablets and smartphones—and their chargers; in smart utility meters on grid-connected houses and buildings; in off-grid rooftop solar PV systems’ batteries; in battery energy storage systems (BESS) for large-scale solar facilities and wind facilities.
RECOGNIZING THE FIRE RISKS CAUSED BY DRY AND COVERED SOIL
LA has endured eight months without rain. Drought increases fire risk.
Do fire risks also increase when soil can’t absorb and hold water? Soil’s ability to absorb and hold water is one of the Earth’s main cooling mechanisms. How do we reconcile this when we’ve covered land with paved roads, houses, malls, parking lots, data centers and battery storage facilities?
When rebuilding, what policies will ensure that fire’s toxic emissions (to air, soil and groundwater) will not affect future residents and farmers? Given that Governor Newsom has suspended environmental reviews to speed rebuilding in wildfire zones, what will protect residents in rebuilt areas from toxic exposures?
What measures would prevent lithium-ion batteries (at cell sites, in electric vehicles, smart meters, laptops, tablets, smartphones, rooftop solar system batteries, etc.) from catching fire and exploding? Could we prohibit lithium-ion batteries until they’re proven safe and ecologically sound from cradle-to-grave? New Hampshire legislators have introduced an ACT that would allow towns to decline 5G cell sites.
How could rebuilding Los Angeles respect the Earth? To reduce fire risk, support healthy water cycling and increase locally-produced food, could rebuilding policies encourage healthy soil structure?
To provide much-needed affordable housing in LA and elsewhere, would any mansion-owners turn their homes into multiple-family units?
RECONSIDER “SUSTAINABILITY”
Many communities and corporations aim to sustain themselves by installing battery energy storage systems and solar facilities. According to the California Energy Commission, since 2020, battery storage in the state has increased sevenfold—from 1,474 megawatts in 2020 to 10,383 megawatts by mid-2024. One megawatt can power 750 homes.
In New Mexico, AES Corporation has proposed building a 96 MW, 700-acre solar facility with 45 MWs/39 battery containers in Santa Fe County. (Each battery is about 39’ x 10’ x 8’.) Santa Fe’s Green Chamber of Commerce, the Sierra Club’s Rio Grande Chapter, the Global Warming Express and 350 Santa Fe support AES’s project.
Opponents of AES’s facility include the San Marcos Association, the Clean Energy Coalition and Ashley Schannauer (formerly a hearing officer for the state’s Public Regulatory Commission).
I frequently hear people call battery storage, solar PVs, industrial wind and EVs “sustainable.” Looked at from their cradles to their graves, this is simply not true. Mining lithium ravages ecosystems. So does burning coal and trees to make solar panels’ silicon. Refining lithium and making silicon electrically-conductive takes millions of gallons of water, daily. At end-of-life, these technologies are hazardous waste.
Meanwhile, I have many friends with rooftop solar systems and EVs. I would welcome forums about reducing our overall use of energy, water, extractions and international supply chains. I would welcome learning how to live with less.
As survivors of the LA fires, battery fires, Hurricane Helene, Israel’s decimation of Gaza and other catastrophes rebuild, what would communities look like if we considered our technologies’ impacts to ecosystems and public health from their cradles to graves? What would our communities look like if we think, “Ecosystems and public health first?”
Banner Moss Landing battery plant fire, January 16-17, 2025.
MY MISTAKE While writing article I got help from a physicist of fire ignition, an electrical engineer, a forensic fire investigator and an electrician. I also went to the Internet, which informed me that in the event of an outage, cell sites’ power is backed up by lithium-ion batteries. This isn’t totally correct. While 5G small cells primarily use lithium ion batteries, larger cell towers usually backup with lead-acid batteries. I apologize for this error.
A tech lover recently told me that he and several colleagues have realized:
1. The Earth does not have enough energy, minerals or water to support AI, e-vehicles, solar PVs, industrial wind facilities and batteries. Not at the scale we dream to fulfill. Not with eight billion humans.
2. Expanding the Internet and AI ravages the Earth and wastes young brains.
I consider this man’s honesty excellent news. If more people acknowledge that our electronic tools take from the Earth faster than it can replenish and waste faster than the Earth can absorb, maybe we could take a collective pause. We could question which manufactured goods are necessary and which ones are not. We could stop ravaging ecosystems, reduce production and consumption. We could have truth and reconciliation parties about our relationship with nature and ask each other for help in living within our bioregion’s ecological limits. We could cultivate humility.
Meanwhile, reports about the technosphere’s harms continue to flood my inbox. I do also get some Good News. Thanks for taking a look:
See European Parliament resolutions regarding forced labor in China to make solar PVs. See the 2021 U.S. Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which expanded the mandate that all U.S. companies importing silicon from Xinjiang confirm supply chains free of forced labor. In June 2021, a US Withhold Release Order prevented imports containing silicon from Hoshine Silicon Industry Co. Ltd and its subsidiaries from entering the U.S. until importing companies could prove they were not made with forced labor.
Before buying solar PVs, require the manufacturer to trace its supply chains.
Read Tuco’s Child, a Substack written by a retired chemist who worked in nanomaterials, polymer chemistry, semi-conductor process engineering and the mining industry and treated wastewater from semiconductor effluent. See his photo essay, Fossil Fuels Create 1 Trillion Computer Chips per Year. Computer chips and solar panel wafers are both made from silicon. Making silicon is like working in a volcano. Every 50,000 tons of silicon produces 500,000 tons of CO2. (Solar PVs also use copper, aluminum, boron, phosphorous, PFAs and much more.) Since recycling solar panels is not feasible or economical, expect an avalanche of solar panels at the landfill near you (another fab photo essay from Tuco’s Child).
A 2022 California energy bill has households paying a fixed monthly charge in exchange for lower rates for each kilowatt hour used. Opponents call the legislation a financial gift to investor-owned utilities. Californians who use little electricity pay more, while people who use lots of electricity save money. The policy signals “that conservation doesn’t count,” said Environmental Working Group’s Ken Cook. The new law’s inspiration came from a 2021 paper written by UC/Berkeley’s Energy Institute (partly funded by utilities). The paper detailed how costs for building “renewable” energy plants, burying power lines to reduce wildfire risks, and compensating fire victims increased electric rates—and discouraged Californians from buying EVs and electric appliances.
Amy Luers, et al., “Will AI accelerate or delay the race to net-zero emissions?As AI transforms the global economy, researchers need to explore scenarios to assess how it can help, rather than harm, the climate.” Nature, April 2024. This article says that AI’s energy costs are a small percentage of global energy costs—but doesn’t count the energy (or mining, water, or indigenous community impacts) involved in manufacturing devices and operating AI’s infrastructure. The push is for standards—a long slow, industry-run process—not actions. Power grid outages are considered ‘local’ problems…without recognizing data centers’ global impacts.
Matteo Wong, “The AI Revolution is Crushing Thousands of Languages: English is the internet’s primary tongue—which may have unexpected consequences as generative AI becomes central to daily life,” The Atlantic, April, 2024.
by Kashmir Hill, The NY Times, April 23, 2024. When this privacy reporter bought a Chevrolet Bolt, two risk-profiling companies got detailed data about her driving. (Note: new, gas-powered vehicles also provide detailed data to profilers.)
Purdue University, the Indiana Dept. of Transportation and Cummins Inc. will build the U.S.’s first electric charging highway. Transmitter coils installed under pavement in dedicated lanes will send power to receiver coils attached to vehicles’ undersides. What if people with medical implants (deep brain stimulators, insulin pumps, cochlear implants, pacemakers) experience electronic interference?
In Finland, a daycare replaced its sandy playground with grass, dwarf heather, planter boxes and blueberries. The children tended them. After one month, the children had healthier microbiomes and stronger immune systems than their counterparts in other urban daycares. Researchers conclude that loss of biodiversity in urban areas can contribute to poorer health outcomes; and easy environmental changes can radically improve children’s health.
In Denmark, engineers, architects and manufacturers have written the Reduction Roadmap. They advocate for living on less space. Re-using building materials, elements and structures. Selecting low-carbon, biogenic and regional building materials. Applying life cycle thinking to reduce carbon emissions and building materials’ environmental impacts. Using renewable energy for heating, cooling and electricity. (I question this one.) Collaborate.
In the Washington Post, Joanna Slater reports “How a Connecticut middle school won the battle against cellphones,” A study shows that banning smartphones decreases bullying among both genders. Girls’ GPA improves, and their likelihood of attending an academic high school increases. Consider banning smartphones at school a low-cost policy to improve student outcomes.
Katie Singer writes about the energy, extractions, toxic waste and greenhouse gases involved in manufacturing computers, telecom infrastructure, electric vehicles and other electronic technologies. Visit OurWeb.tech and ElectronicSilentSpring.com.
A recent financial Webinar features Jindalee mining company executive Lindsay Dudfield selling the company’s plan for an immense lithium mining project that would tear apart the heart of irreplaceable Sage-grouse habitat at McDermitt Creek in southeast Oregon. Australian miner Jindalee has spun itself off as a US company, just as Lithium Americas did when it formed Lithium Nevada Corporation (LNC) to mine Thacker Pass further south in the McDermitt caldera. This positions the miners for federal loan largesse as they pursue mining destruction of the sagebrush sea. I wrote about the extraordinary McDermitt Creek values at stake, and the damage and habitat fragmentation already inflicted by 70 or so previous Jindalee exploration drilling sites here.
Distant view of scar from a new road and just one of Jindalee’s past McDermitt drill sites. Look at how wide open and unencumbered by hills this country is – maximizing the distance any mining disturbance sights and sounds will travel.
Jindalee drill hole sump. Drilling waste water left to seep into the ground, Wildlife “exclusion” fence fallen down.
This is a map of the ghastly 2023 Jindalee exploration plan to punch in 267 new drill hole and sump sites and construct 30 miles of new roads. It would fragment an area with a very high density of nesting sagebrush songbirds of all kinds. Birds like Sagebrush Sparrow require continuous blocks of dense mature or old growth big sagebrush. Jindalee boasts its consultant environmental and cultural studies have found “no show-stoppers” and “no red flags”. Industry gets the results it wants when it pays for mine consultant work. Federal and state agencies, after a bit of pro forma sniping, acquiesce to what the mine comes up with.
No red flags? Does the company really expect us to believe they or their consultants aren’t aware of the plight of Sage-grouse, and the importance of the stronghold habitat they would wipe out? The 2015 BLM Sage-grouse plan found the entire McDermitt Creek area and nearly all caldera lands were essential for the bird’s survival. BLM determined that a federal mineral withdrawal was necessary to protect this Focal habitat and to ensure Sage-grouse species survival. The withdrawal never happened, stopped first by mining and cattle industry litigation. BLM then began a stand-alone NEPA analysis for the withdrawal. Trump terminated that withdrawal analysis process. Then after a court ruled his action unlawful, BLM foot-dragging has stalled the most recent withdrawal process at the NEPA scoping stage and it appears merged with a cumbersome major plan revision.
Jindalee’s new exploration proposal – a prelude to a mine – would tragically rip apart the Basin heart. A full blown mine here would obliterate it. Mining noise and visual disturbance emanating outward would make the remaining sage ringing the mine site uninhabitable. The site is surrounded by dozens of leks.
The impossibility of mitigating a mega-mine at McDermitt Creek just blasted further into the stratosphere. Mounting scientific evidence shows how seriously the sight and sound disturbance footprint of industrial projects harms the birds. New research examined geothermal energy development impacts from Ormat plants at Tuscarora Nevada and McGinness Hills/Grass Valley near Austin. (I remember the Battle Mountain BLM manager extolling Ormat’s virtues when the McGinness project was pushed through and then later expanded to take a bigger bite out of sage habitat). New researchfound:
“… sage-grouse population numbers declined substantially in years following the development of a geothermal energy plant … sage-grouse abundance at leks [breeding sites] decreased within five kilometers of the infrastructure and leks were completely abandoned at significantly higher rates within about two kilometers. So, we looked at the mechanisms responsible for declines in numbers and lek abandonment, and we found adverse impacts to survival of female sage-grouse and their nests”.
This reinforces common sense: “Nests located farther from the plant tended to experience higher rates of survival. Interestingly, where hills were located between sage-grouse nests and infrastructure [high topographic impedance], we found the distance effect to be less important. Under those circumstances topography was compensating for the lack of distance and likely serving to reduce effects of light and sound”.
“The physical footprint of geothermal energy infrastructure is small relative to other renewable energy … but noise and light pollution emanating from these power plants likely cause larger adverse direct impacts to wildlife populations than infrastructure alone”.
There aren’t big hills to block a lithium mine’s 24 hour a day sight and sound impacts in the McDermitt bowl. The mined area would suffer outright sage obliteration. Surrounding sagebrush would be exposed to unimpeded straight line 24 hour a day mine operation visual impacts and noise of all kinds.
Jindalee must know of the indigenous opposition and resistance to the Thacker Pass lithium mine in the southern caldera, located in similarly unceded Paiute-Shoshone ancestral lands. Controversy and lawsuits over Thacker Pass have been in the headlines for years. It’s a pre-eminent example of an unjust transition to alternative energy and the green-washing of air and water polluting habitat wrecking dirty hard rock mining. Unfortunately, a District Court Judge’s ruling did not halt the Thacker Pass mine construction. However, the lawsuits by environmental groups, Tribes and a local rancher opposing the mine continue. The District Court decision was appealed to the Ninth Circuit, where a hearing is scheduled for June 26.
Thacker Pass mine development would destroy a Traditional Cultural Property, where Paiute-Shoshone ancestors were massacred. This spring, it’s been the site of the indigenous Ox Sam Women’s Camp, Newe Momokonee Nokotun, set up in protest. Descendants of Ox Sam, a survivor of a US cavalry massacre at Thacker Pass, helped establish it.
Jindalee Webinar statements also hint at efforts afoot to alter Oregon state mining processes. After lamenting the project wasn’t in Nevada, Jindalee said it was talking to politicians and the head of the state mining Department (DOGAMI).
The company’s braggadocio made me blow off deadlines and go once again to McDermitt Creek to document its great biodiversity values. I then went from the beauty of singing sagebrush songbirds, newly hatched Sage-grouse chicks and peaking rare plant blooms at McDermitt Creek (photos below) and down into the Montana Mountains by Thacker Pass.
Sagebrush Sparrows abound at McDermitt Creek. They’re great little birds and often sing throughout the day. And they’re vanishing from many places. A biologist just told me he thinks they may be extirpated in Morrow County Oregon where he’s long inventoried bird. No larger continuous blocks of lower elevation sage = no Sagebrush Sparrows.
Hymenoxys, an Oregon sensitive plant growing on clay soils.
Humboldt Mountains Milkweed, a medicinal plant, on clay soils.
Mountain Bluebird.
Sky drama all spring long.
Short-horned Lizard – a master of invisibility.
Gray Flycatcher. They nest in head high Basin big sagebrush, which is becoming as scarce as hen’s teeth.
Lark Sparrow. They’re exuberant singers and are dining on Mormon crickets at McDermitt Creek.
An indescribable Indian paintbrush hue.
We’re supposed to sit back and let all this beauty and biodiversity be destroyed for a lithium mine? No way.
Thacker Pass – Turmoil, Land Mutilation, Montana Mountains
I drove south to Orovada and headed west to the turn-off from the state highway into Pole Creek road, the main access to the Montana Mountains. Thacker Pass lies at the southern base of these mountains. A maroon Allied Security company truck squarely blocked the road. Chain link fencing with No Trespassing and No Drone Zone signs was placed off to both sides.
I stopped, got out and approached a security guard who appeared at the truck. He refused to let me pass. After several minutes of my insistent repetition that this was a public road, the BLM mine EIS said this road would always be open, and that blocking use of this road indicated the EIS, the BLM and Lithium Americas had lied, the security guard relented and said he would call the head of security.
The boss pulled up in a white truck as a sudden rain whirlwind bore down. His face was obscured, and identity concealed by a tan balaclava-like hood and dark sunglasses. When he first arrived, he got out of his truck and pointed a camera device at me. I thought WTF is this – a security firm mercenary decked out for Operation Iraqi Freedom? Abu Ghraib in Orovada? I again repeated repeatedly that this was a public access road, and I was going up into the Montana Mountains to camp. He retreated to his pickup, likely to run me and my license plates through some creepy database. Finally, I was allowed to pass through.
Just up the road was the Ox Sam Protest Camp site, located on a huge mine water pipeline gash that the lithium company had gouged into the earth. The pipeline gash runs right by the sacred Sentinel (or Nipple) Rock. The tents appeared lifeless, flaps blowing open in the rain squall as I drove by. With better cell phone service up in the mountains, I called Winnemucca BLM, asked to talk to a Manager, Assistant Manager, somebody, and told the receptionist that the mine was trying to block the public access road. She said there was no one to talk with. I asked for a Manager’s e-mall address. She refused to give me an address and shunted me to the general BLM mailbox where public comments go to be ignored. Winnemucca is the BLM outpost in charge of enforcing LNC’s compliance with EIS requirements. They’ll be sure to jump on enforcement actions when the public brings potential mining violations to their attention over the next 45-years.
Later I saw a Google alert for “Thacker Pass”, and read that the camp had been raided after an incident. Underscore News/Report for America writes: “On Wednesday, police from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office and private security for Lithium Nevada, a subsidiary of Lithium Americas, cleared the camp and arrested one protester.
When I left the next day, the chain link fence with No Trespassing signs was still up by the sides of the access route. The security truck was gone, and I drove on through. A local resident pulled up. We chatted, gazing up at the mountains that were witnessing the lithium mine destruction unfold. He knows the country like the back of his hand. He said you could see over 20 mountain ranges from the Montanas. Our presence generated the interest of security guards who came by to check us out as we stood by the state road right of way. A project worker came and moved the chain link fence with its No Trespassing signs away – at least for now.
Allied Security’s aggressive approach to security has gained notoriety. The Denver city council canceled their contract after two Allied guards beat a black man so hard they caused him permanent brain damage. In May, Time magazine profiled a long troubling history of Allied incidents.
How fitting. Lithium Americas came in claiming Thacker Pass was some kind of great “green” mine, as cover for plain old dirty open pit mining and a noxious lithium processing plant. Now they’ve hired a security firm prone to violence. I don’t know what went down with the Ox Sam camp. But I do know that having the security boss decked out in black ops head gear is an effort to intimidate, and an indication the security firm may have things to hide. Security personnel concealing their identity or playing gatekeeper on a public lands access road in this way have no place at a project on public lands. Months before the Ox Sam camp was set up, LNC had established a manned compound with a building and fencing and what looked like cameras right by the Pole Creek access road. Driving up into the mountains in April to trek across the snow to the Montana-10 lek had already felt like running a gauntlet. I wager that anyone going in or out that public road gets recorded.
LNC has many mining claims staked up in the mountains in Sage-grouse stronghold habitat including at the Montana 10 lek. This makes efforts to limit access or intimidate people so they don’t go up there more concerning. Back home, I consulted the Thacker Final EIS:
“SR 293, Pole Creek Road, Crowley Creek Road and Rock Creek Road are the main transportation routes in the Project area. Under Alternative A, LNC would not close, block, or limit in any manner access along these routes”. FEIS at 494-495. The EIS also constrained use of these access roads for certain types of mine activities.
Photos below from up in the Montana Mountains looking down on spring 2023 LNC scars from drilling and bulldozing in migratory bird nesting season. The drilling is creeping upslope. It’s hard to tell if some may be outside the project boundary. Nevada BLM uses in-front-of-the-bulldozer bird survey protocols that are deeply flawed with transects spaced 100 ft. apart – a distance far too wide to detect cryptic sagebrush birds that are experts at concealment. You practically have to step on or by a nest to detect it. The only way to avoid migratory bird “take” is for the mine to not destroy the bird habitat in spring.
LNC’s drill scarring is a mere prelude to the destruction that’s planned – 5,694 acres of outright destruction in a 17,933 acre project zone. The enormity and scale of the planned mine is mind boggling – a deep open pit, a waste rock pile, all types of infrastructure, a lithium smelter/sulfuric acid plant on-site using huge volumes of waste sulfur shipped into a new railroad off-loading site by the Winnemucca airport. The latter was just announced a few months ago, to the dismay of nearby residents who find themselves facing living by a hazardous materials zone. Hundreds of tons of off-loaded material will be trucked to Thacker Pass and burned every day in a plant whose air scrubber design wasn’t even finalized before the Thacker decision was signed by BLM. What stink and toxic pollution will this lithium processing generate? McDermitt caldera soils contain uranium and mercury. Mine water use is estimated to be 1.7 billion gallons annually. Enormous volumes of diesel fuel will be used throughout the mine’s operation. What’s green about all this?
Think of the volume of water that will be sucked through these pipes.
Beautiful dense big sagebrush full of Sage Thrashers, Brewer’s Sparrows, and Sage-grouse sign, up in the mountains where LNC has claims galore.
Sacrificing the Interior West for Corporate Energy Dominance While Energy Conservation Lags or Is Forgotten Altogether
Big Green environmental groups and outdoor interests who’ve been silent on the unfolding lithium mine destruction at Thacker Pass, or the tragic destruction of Mojave Desert Tortoise habitat for Big Solar and many other brewing “green” energy controversies better wake up. The lithium boom plague that’s descended on the West is hard rock mining at its worst. Thousands of acres at each mine site become essentially privatized (with security guards) for 40 or 50 years. Much of the land is reduced to waste rock rubble piles, gaping pits, infrastructure all over the place. Local water is used up for processing and for suppressing clouds of dust, and mine pollutants contaminate the air and ground water.
US taxpayers are helping finance these colonialist lithium mines. LNC received commitments for a $600 million dollar loan investment of US tax dollars. General Motors, while continuing to pump out gargantuan trucks and EV Hummers priced at $110,000, provided LNC with a $600 million dollar injection. In the Jindalee Webinar, executive Dudfield assured a questioner that their company will also be “in queue” for similar handouts. The miners are gobbling up funds for a battery technology that may soon be outdated. China is zooming past the US with its development of sodium batteries and is introducing them in low-end vehicles, a sane path forward. Why aren’t these funds going to research alternatives to lithium and safer less earth-wrecking technologies? Why isn’t Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto directing her attention to spurring new technologies and sustainability? Instead she’s using “critical minerals” mantra to justify introducing a bill to make the 1872 Mining Law even worse, and a wholesale giveaway to mining companies.
Jindalee’s Webinar talk said the company embraced “social license and responsibility”, then later emphasized that McDermitt Creek was “a long, long way” from Oregon population centers like Salem and Portland. This highlights how lithium mine pollution, cultural site desecration, community de-stabilization and ecological damage will be out of sight and out of mind of urban elites.
US government policy is now based on greatly accelerating energy colonialism of all types within our own borders, and especially on willy-nilly sacrifice of the public lands of the Interior West. This allows massively subsidized corporations (often tied to a foreign mothership) and billionaires to retain a chokehold on energy. Conservation is paid lip service. BLM’s Tracy Stone-Manning just announced a new proposed rule making it easier for BLM to hand over public lands to wind and solar developers, furthering de facto public lands privatization for half a human lifespan.
But people are catching on. A surprising thing recently happened in Idaho. The entire Idaho legislature (all the Republicans and the hand full of Democrats alike) voted in favor of a Resolution opposing the BLM Lava Ridge Wind Farm, with its 400 turbines standing 800 feet tall sprawling across 3 counties. Lava Ridge’s plan managed to offend or disgust everybody – from agricultural operations and home site impacts, to Golden Eagle and rare bat killing, to destroying the stark setting of the Minidoka Japanese Internment Camp Monument and marring the Dark Skies and wildness of Craters of the Moon.
The same Legislators, who in a normal year would be inviting Land Grab proponents from Utah to speak in the session, were pushing protection of public lands from this behemoth of LS Power’s subsidiary Magic Valley Energy. It’s facilitated by the planned new LS Power SWIP North renewables-focused transmission line. Idaho Power and PacifiCorp’sGateway “green” transmission line has also resulted in a stampede for more wind and solar
leases in south-central Idaho.
If you live in the West and love the outdoors, be very afraid of what the Biden administration’s breakneck push for many more of these “green” lines will do to public lands, and your access to areas beyond – once projects feeding energy into the line are built and the fencing goes up. It’s the sagebrush sea equivalent of building a road through the Amazon.
While there are no huge wind farms yet on public lands in Idaho, there are many smaller scale turbine arrays on private lands across the Snake River Plain. It’s become quite apparent that industrial wind is not benign. Above all else, folks realized how badly Idaho was getting screwed by the Lava Ridge project and its export of energy to benefit coastal populations. The Legislature said No to Lava Ridge exploitation of Idaho as an energy colony. Counties in the Mojave Desert are now starting to resist some industrial solar developments overrunning public lands. Remotely sited “renewable” energy or “critical minerals” projects amount to public land privatization. They cause profound losses of many kinds – scarring the land, sucking it dry, extinguishing the wildlife that’s managed to persist in the face of merciless domination since White settlement, trenching a massacre site.
I’m outraged at the ecocidal stupidity with which this “energy transition” is being carried out. Will we soon see Jindalee get US tax dollars to wipe out the McDermitt Creek Sage-grouse stronghold? How ironic that would be. Interior just announced funding for major sagebrush habitat restoration using Infrastructure Bill funds in High Priority sagebrush areas. It turns out one of the sites chosen is the Montana Mountains area. Mapping shows it includes the Thacker Pass mine area too, where nearly all the sage is on the verge of being destroyed by LNC. Close review of maps for Interior’s Montana “restoration” project shows it encompasses the McDermitt Creek watershed, hence the entire area coveted by Jindalee for massive new drilling followed by open pit mining. It would be absurd to greenlight Jindalee’s ghastly exploration plan in primo habitat, when the Interior Department has identified this very same landscapeto be among the highest priority for restoration – because so much sage has already been lost already. The caldera is also key for connectivity between Sheldon and Owyhee Sage-grouse populations and for biodiversity preservation.
How long before rejection of lithium and other “critical mineral” mines grips communities, especially as promised jobs evaporate with increased mine automation and robot technology, and as the environment goes to hell? But hey, as LNC is showing us, there’s always a bright future as a security guard– at least until the lithium company gets itself a pack of Robodogs.
Katie Fite is a biologist and Public Lands Director with WildLands Defense.
“The climate crisis for example, has been framed as an environment issue and a technology issue, when it is actually a crisis of the human consciousness and psyche. This criminally negligent misdiagnosis, reframing and distortion of major existential crises into simple practical problems to be solved by technology, demonstrates how superficial and corrupted our very approach to problem-solving is. We are trying to solve the disasters of capitalism with more capitalism. This has never worked, and it never will. The very desire to profit out of these solutions, to “create jobs” and prosperity through Green New Deals, only demonstrates the level of delusion and persistent lack of any seriousness in dealing with a problem which is of apocalyptic proportions…..There are thousands of “environmental” organisations who are nothing but shopfronts for extractive capitalism in the form of renewable technology. Their very organisation and operating principles emulate capitalist ventures.” – George Tsakraklides
“Now they worry and they hurry and they fuss and they fret
They waste your nights and days
Them, I will forget
You, I’ll remember always”
– Bob Dylan, from “Workingman’s Blues #2”
”Crazy Horse
We Hear what you say
One Earth, one Mother
One does not sell the Earth
The people walk upon
We are the land
How do we sell our Mother?
How do we sell the stars?
How do we sell the air?”
– John Trudell “Crazy Horse”
Adults, teens and some kids got duped. The slick, climate confidence tricksters distracted people by fixating on CO2 air quality and temperatures at the expense of the very land you’re standing with.
“The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” they shouted, hurling numbers, measurements, and projections at the dart board of your mind so they could usher in a trendy era greenwash cash cow – buy now and save the planet! Their rewrite of Henny Penny more like the fox guarding the hen-house for an ugly penny i.e. billions. Fixating on the sky while habitats being mined and destroyed beneath the very land you’re standing with, but are you, too, yearning for a piece of that pie in the sky?
There’s an African saying, “No one shows a child the sky.” I interpret that as: Children naturally look to the sky, there is an innate knowing and rapport, they don’t need to be told. Yet if overly instructed, children can miss out on the wonder of finding out and experiencing for themselves. If manipulated, children and adults can be misled.
My proof of how all that seeps into the mainstream everyday society is via web-searching for a few days to find a corded weed trimmer because I don’t enjoy the gas fumes or noise from the old one; virtually every trimmer and other such gadgets, including vacuums, now use lithium batteries.
“As of February 29, 2024 an estimated 21,897 active, filed, and submitted placer claims, have been located in Nevada, presumably for lithium or lithium brine in 18 different hydrographic basins,” not to mention the rest of the world, and already destruction of sacred Native lands at Thacker Pass/Peehee Mu’huh in so-called Nevada. A case of destroy the land out west so the suburban east and elsewhere can feel good about greenwashed tools that are helping to protect the environment by destroying it! By the way, the cost of trimmer and electric cord was much less expensive than the others.
The sky story (not to diminish actual air quality issues and other data) is a textbook distraction or dis-tract attention, the word meaning “dis-” “away from” and “tract” “tracts of land and water.” Yet “distract” is step three of a simplified three-stage “tract” pattern of colonialism and disaster capitalism.
First comes “abstract” from “ab-” “to draw away from” & “tracts of land and water.” Abstract so as to get your attention in your head and disregard the feet and heart and soul of things. A prime example comes from Dr. Tink Tinker (Osage – Wazhazhe); the conversion of land into “property” which “chopped up our Grandmother [Earth] into pieces.”
Fast-forward to bizness lingo:
“A tract of land is a well-defined piece of property with specific boundaries.
It plays a key role in real estate transactions, zoning regulations, and property disputes.
It can range from small residential lots to extensive commercial developments.
Knowing what constitutes a tract of land is essential for demarcating property lines.”
Yet not even a homeowner’s God’s little acre backyard is sacred. In the 1950s chemical companies turned the medicinal Dandelion Nation into an abstract noun, “weed,” then got brainwashed yard-gardeners to poison (a form of extraction) the dandelions; thus distracting people from the medicinal values available from the very land they were standing with.
Number 2 is “extract” — from “ex-” “draw out of” & ”tracts of land and water.” Abstracting consciousness – which is a cutting off of empathy and recognition of the very substances that nurture us — enables the extractive industry mechanism to proceed without a care. Most of the extraction has to do with mining minerals and pumping oils, yet chopping down trees for solar panel ‘fields’ or another Amazon “fulfillment center” warehouse is another form of extraction, especially if you’re a tree whose deep roots are ‘drawn out of the Earth.’
Number 3 is “distract” — so as to keep your consciousness away from Land and Water, so as to enable the extractive industry to continue as if it’s normal business as usual. Distractions run the gamut from the more immediate and in your face corporate media, tabloid news and mainstream so-called culture to longstanding institutionalized religions that dis-empower people by keeping them at a distance from their direct and personal relating with Mother Earth and Spirit. Plus there’s the educational system as Information Factory, or as Birgil Kills Straight (Oglala Lakota) summed up the systemic process, “They cut you off from your heart, stick you in your head, and manipulate you out of a book.” Yet: “No one shows a child the sky.”
Though not specifically included in the “tract” etymology, Air can be considered an extension of Land and Water since what is done to them often affects the Air.
All of Land and Water as Property
The two more recent, mostly hidden, insanities are:
1): deep-sea mining
“Deep sea mining is the extraction of minerals from the ocean floor at depths of 200 metres (660 ft) to 6,500 metres (21,300 ft). Deep-sea mining uses hydraulic pumps or bucket systems that carry deposits to the surface for processing.”
What could go wrong?
My investigative call to the Octopus has not been returned. I pray they are ok.
2): The NYSE valuing of all of Nature aka Mother Earth as an “asset class.” I read about that in 2021 but don’t recall hearing of anything else until an interview with Rebecca Adamson (Cherokee) on First Voices Radio (FVR), well-worth the listen.
“This new asset class on the NYSE will create a virtuous cycle of investment in nature that will help finance sustainable development for communities, companies and countries,” said Douglas Eger, CEO of IEG. “Together, IEG and the NYSE will enable investors to access nature’s store of wealth and transform our industrial economy into one that is more equitable.”
You have to have money to invest, so the “virtuous cycle of investment in nature” con game is rigged from the get-go. And, “more equitable” is an oxymoron because “equitable” is “just and fair, equal,” therefore ‘equal is equal’ and “more equal” is bullshit. Then again, the masters of fine print manipulation may be referring to another dictionary definition of “equitable” along the lines of the title of Peter d’Errico’s book Federal Anti-Indian Law: The Legal Entrapment of Indigenous Peoples – “of or relating to rights historically enforced in courts of equity.”
History 101 shows a progression:
– gold rush, gold
– black gold, oil
– white gold, lithium
But now the powers that do too much are going for the whole kit and caboodle: Nature/Mother Earth as gold. This should bring shudders to anyone with an ounce of empathy. Or else, another line from Trudell’s “Crazy Horse”: ”Mirrors gold, the people lose their minds.”
As highlighted by Rebecca Adamson in the FVR interview, also in on the deal is Bloom23, a slickly-worded website proclaiming “protecting nature” and working with “BIPOC” [Black, Indigenous, (and) People of Color], yet it’s all under the banner of business, or more accurately, as the website name attests to, GreenBiz.
Here’s a blurb from Theresa Lieb, Sr. Director, Nature and Food Systems:
“Biodiversity has quickly become a hot topic for companies and investors. At Bloom 23, the flourishing group of nature-focused business leaders will come together with policymakers, entrepreneurs, Indigenous groups and other key stakeholders to transform rising awareness into real progress.”
Sounds pretty good, right? But a FAQ spill$ the bean$:
”Who attends Bloom 23?
The majority of attendees will come from Fortune 500 companies, investment and insurance firms, service providers, leading nonprofits and government agencies. Experts from community organizations, academia and nature tech startups will also participate.”
Indigenous Peoples have been doing “nature tech” for thousands and thousands of years. For one in-depth example, read the book Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence by Gregory Cajete.
According to Rebecca Adamson’s article “Water + Indigenous Peoples Rights = Risk”, 3/8/2024:
“80% of the planet’s remaining biodiversity is within Indigenous territories along with 40% of the terrestrial areas, 33% of the intact forest landscapes and 70% of tropical forests.”
So there’s the not new battle line, as most at risk from such investments are Native/Indigenous Peoples on the front lines — and “nature focused” woke inclusivity won’t stop the destruction.
The least one can do is to de-abstract the thinking process so as to access the true nourishing energies; be wary of any and all extractive processes; and minimize being distracted from caring about Land and Water — and maximize actually caring for Land and Water by doing whatever you can to thwart those who see dollar signs instead of true gold: Sunlight amplifying Daffodil, Forsythia, Dandelions, Marigolds, Freesia, Black-Eyed Susan, Goldenrod . . . . .
This is a map of the ghastly 2023 Jindalee exploration plan to punch in 267 new drill hole and sump sites and construct 30 miles of new roads. It would fragment an area with a very high density of nesting sagebrush songbirds of all kinds. Birds like Sagebrush Sparrow require continuous blocks of dense mature or old growth big sagebrush. Jindalee boasts its consultant environmental and cultural studies have found “no show-stoppers” and “no red flags”. Industry gets the results it wants when it pays for mine consultant work. Federal and state agencies, after a bit of pro forma sniping, acquiesce to what the mine comes up with.
I stopped, got out and approached a security guard who appeared at the truck. He refused to let me pass. After several minutes of my insistent repetition that this was a public road, the BLM mine EIS said this road would always be open, and that blocking use of this road indicated the EIS, the BLM and Lithium Americas had lied, the security guard relented and said he would call the head of security.
The boss pulled up in a white truck as a sudden rain whirlwind bore down. His face was obscured, and identity concealed by a tan balaclava-like hood and dark sunglasses. When he first arrived, he got out of his truck and pointed a camera device at me. I thought WTF is this – a security firm mercenary decked out for Operation Iraqi Freedom? Abu Ghraib in Orovada? I again repeated repeatedly that this was a public access road, and I was going up into the Montana Mountains to camp. He retreated to his pickup, likely to run me and my license plates through some creepy database. Finally, I was allowed to pass through.
LNC’s drill scarring is a mere prelude to the destruction that’s planned – 5,694 acres of outright destruction in a 17,933 acre project zone. The enormity and scale of the planned mine is mind boggling – a deep open pit, a waste rock pile, all types of infrastructure, a lithium smelter/sulfuric acid plant on-site using huge volumes of waste sulfur shipped into a new railroad off-loading site by the Winnemucca airport. The latter was just announced a few months ago, to the dismay of nearby residents who find themselves facing living by a hazardous materials zone. Hundreds of tons of off-loaded material will be trucked to Thacker Pass and burned every day in a plant whose air scrubber design wasn’t even finalized before the Thacker decision was signed by BLM. What stink and toxic pollution will this lithium processing generate? McDermitt caldera soils contain uranium and mercury. Mine water use is estimated to be 1.7 billion gallons annually. Enormous volumes of diesel fuel will be used throughout the mine’s operation. What’s green about all this?
Sacrificing the Interior West for Corporate Energy Dominance While Energy Conservation Lags or Is Forgotten Altogether
I’m outraged at the ecocidal stupidity with which this “energy transition” is being carried out. Will we soon see Jindalee get US tax dollars to wipe out the McDermitt Creek Sage-grouse stronghold? How ironic that would be. Interior just announced funding for major sagebrush habitat restoration using Infrastructure Bill funds in High Priority sagebrush areas. It turns out one of the sites chosen is the Montana Mountains area. Mapping shows it includes the Thacker Pass mine area too, where nearly all the sage is on the verge of being destroyed by LNC. Close review of maps for Interior’s Montana “restoration” project shows it encompasses the McDermitt Creek watershed, hence the entire area coveted by Jindalee for massive new drilling followed by open pit mining. It would be absurd to greenlight Jindalee’s ghastly exploration plan in primo habitat, when the Interior Department has identified this very same landscapeto be among the highest priority for restoration – because so much sage has already been lost already. The caldera is also key for connectivity between Sheldon and Owyhee Sage-grouse populations and for biodiversity preservation.
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