Toban Black

Steven Freeland (in this article) -

“[Throughout human history there have been] many deliberate acts to destroy or exploit the natural environment to achieve military goals. In the 5th century BC the retreating Scythians poisoned the water wells in an effort to slow the advancing Persian army. Roman troops razed the city of Carthage in 146 BC and poisoned the surrounding soil with salt to prevent its future cultivation. The American Civil War saw the widespread implementation of ’scorched earth’ policies.

In August 1945 the United States detonated atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in massive loss of life and environmental destruction. During the Vietnam War, the US implemented Operation Ranch Hand, to devastating effect, to destroy vegetation used by its enemy for cover and sustenance, using chemicals such as Agent Orange.

More recently still, who can forget the haunting images of more than 700 burning Kuwaiti oil well-heads which had been deliberately ignited by retreating Iraqi forces during the Gulf War in 1991 a scene that was likened to Dante’s Inferno. Over the following 10 years the Saddam regime built barriers and levees to drain the al-Hawizeh and al-Hammar marshes in southern Iraq.” “This effectively destroyed the livelihood of the 500,000 Marsh Arabs who had inhabited this unique ecosystem.

Acts of significant and deliberate environmental destruction, exploitation and contamination during armed conflict have continued in more recent times, including the use of cluster bombs and weapons containing depleted uranium by US and British forces in Iraq.

[Read more →]

A post at Sociological Images -
Palin and Obama on bikes

The post is about how gender (and nationalism) relate to the forms of cycling in these images of Palin and Obama -

I posted a couple of comments there (as “T B”).  Here’s a touched-up version of what I said
(to give you indications of why I think that Sociological Images blog post is significant) -

—

As at least a couple of writers (Carolyn Merchant and Helen Caldicott) have noted in their books, alternative energy has been associated with feminine language. There’s a common distinction between “hard energy” (e.g. coal plants) and “soft energy” (e.g. wind turbines).

[Read more →]

Joshua Muldavin in The Boston Globe - “China’s Not Alone in Environmental Crisis”

Exerpts -

China is a “country choking on its own ’success,’ now producing over 20 percent of global greenhouse gases”

“The West has worked long and hard to transform China into what it is today: an industrial platform for the world where some of the most noxious, occupationally hazardous production processes are concentrated. Western governments and corporations have not only benefited, but have helped lead China down this road of energy-intensive, environmentally destructive development with resulting rapid increases in greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, Western consumers have directly profited from the inexpensive products that pour from China’s factories. Fundamental to the rise of China’s emissions is the rapacious growth of consumption, and the championing of it - especially in the West. The carbon dioxide embedded in China’s exports to the United States in 2004 alone is estimated at 1.8 billion tons, equivalent to 30 percent of the US total.

[Read more →]

by Stephanie McMillan