Interplace

Hello Interactors,

This is the first of a series of posts where I wrangle, disentangle, and find an angle on an alternative sustainable economy. My starting point is circular economy. It’s a seemingly straight forward concept — reduce, reuse, recycle, and repair. If only it was that easy.

As interactors, you’re special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You’re also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.

Please leave your comments below or email me directly.

Now let’s go…

ESG DISHARMONY

It’s been a confusing week for the green economy. The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, was the source of some of the biggest news. BlackRock has made strides in recent years to be a world leader in environmental, social, and corporate governance, or as it’s commonly called – ESG. ESG is a framework of metrics companies pledge to follow intended to identify, assess, and manage environmentally and socially sustainable, but still profitable, risks and opportunities through investments, corporate culture, and practices. This can typically, or ultimately, lead to divestments in the fossil fuel industry as more and more investors, customers, and employees desire and demand reductions in CO2 emissions.

But the state of Louisiana isn’t having it. They announced this week they’re pulling $749 million from BlackRock funds. Their state treasurer said BlackRock has “blatantly anti-fossil fuel policies” that damage the state’s energy industry and thus state revenue. It’s not just fossil-fuel fans who are unhappy with ESG. Elon Musk famously quipped that ESG’s are “an outrageous sham.” Tesla was initially praised for their leadership on the environment, “E”, but were removed from the S&P500 ESG index because of their lackluster reputation for “S” and “G”. Last April a judge and jury found Tesla to be liable for promoting a racially hostile environment at Tesla's factory in Fremont, California.

Dust ups like these have caused many companies, investors, and independent ESG rating firms to soften their language, add or subtract certain metrics, change the parameters, or rebrand their rating schemes. As a result, ESG, a segment of worldwide investment accounting for 1/3 of total assets worth around $35 trillion, has become extremely murky. In July, The Economist wrote,

“As it is, measurement of the size of the ESG market is confusing, the ratings are too subjective, and the industry over-promises and under-delivers.”

They went on to cite research that found

“ESG rating agencies are the veritable acme of inconsistency. A study of six of them found that they used 709 different metrics across 64 categories. Only ten categories were common to all—and they do not include such basics as greenhouse-gas emissions.”

In September, Dilbert predictably joined in the chorus of criticism.

Sadly, the concept of a ‘circular economy’ is following a similar path. Circular economies take limited raw materials used to make goods and loops them back into the economy instead of throwing them away – reduce, reuse, recycle, and repair. But the term ‘circular economy’, like ESG, has also become diffuse and trendy. The occurrence of these two words together, ‘circular economy’, doesn’t show up in the books Google has scanned until around 1990. It grew steadily until a dip leading up to the financial crisis in 2008. But since 2014, it has skyrocketed.

Even Wall Street now has funds popping up branded ‘Circular Economy’. In 2019 BlackRock launched a fund called “BlackRock Global Funds Circular Economy”. Its top holdings include two waste management companies, a Coca-Cola subsidiary, a water filtration company, and…wait for it…Microsoft? I guess that’s because of their public commitment to negative CO2 emissions. Not sure. If so, I’m suspicious of their noble, and needed, effort. Having watched the over-produced press announcement in person, I left feeling it was one part a greenwashing PR stunt and one part Microsoft seeing dollars signs selling cloud services to companies running toward their own vague, but earnest, ESG goals.

For example, running complicated AI models in the cloud to determine emission reductions, simulating breakthrough renewable energy technologies, or simply using Microsoft Teams so companies can cut their travel budgets while reducing CO2 emissions. In other words, to hit ESG goals – or attempt a circular economy – requires new technology; new technologies need software; and increasingly that software is run on Microsoft servers in the cloud…or in local data centers. Going green yields greenbacks.

Two other companies on that BlackRock list also give me pause. Both Republic Services and Waste Management profit from collecting, processing, and recycling industrial and consumer waste. More waste equals more money. One of the basic principles of sustainable and environmentally conscious business practices is reducing consumption and thus waste.

Are these companies ok with their customers cutting back on their garbage? Probably not. But they, like Microsoft, see opportunity in building ‘green’ processing plants, creating a market for recycled materials, and then reaping the profits. All of which would welcome – possibly even encourage – even more consumption. And that would yield more resource extraction and more garbage to process – resulting in more profits. That doesn’t sound very sustainable or ‘green’, unless you’re a chief financial officer.

MIND THE GAPS OF MIND TRAPS

In a 2021 paper titled Critique of the Circular Economy three researchers in the field of industrial ecology offer a critical look at the current state of the theories and practices of circular economies.  Industrial ecologists track the physical resource flows of industrial and consumer systems at different spatial scales. They aim to reduce environmental impacts while enabling human well-being through more circular flows of resources instead of the more traditional linear flow of extract, produce, and dump. They write,

“In seeking to maintain a growth-based economy, critics argue, the circular economy ‘tinkers with the current modus operandi’ of “consumerism, extractivism and (liberal) capitalism, while bearing the unrealistic expectation that the individual consumer will be able to mobilize largescale change. The circular economy is considered to encourage a reboot for capitalism that requires no radical change to institutions, infrastructures, and markets.”

In this regard, they conclude,

“Without this transition, the new economy will simply maintain the current status quo.”

These researchers, writing in the Journal of Industrial Ecology, believe,

“Circular economy is based on an ideological agenda dominated by technical and economic accounts, which brings uncertain contributions to sustainability and depoliticizes sustainable growth. Bringing together these critiques demonstrates that the circular economy is far from being as promising as its advocates claim it to be.”

This begs the question, what do advocates promise? In 2020, another group of researchers writing in the journal, Resources, Conservation & Recycling write,

“While there were only 116 academic articles published on the topic [of circular economy] from 2001 to 2008, this number has grown exponentially to over 4900. Nevertheless, most of the [circular economy] discourse has actually been developed by actors in the government and private sectors, which have specific political and economic agendas, and have often used the [circular economy] as a narrative device for greenwashing.”

In their paper they seek to identify research gaps while also developing a classification scheme for the different beliefs and approaches to describing and articulating circular economies. In doing so, they hope to avoid the disillusion the ESG movement is witnessing by identifying shared beliefs, approaches, and missteps and their deficiencies.

In the set of research papers they evaluated, these five gaps were identified:

1. Systemic thinking on entropy, growth, capitalism, and decoupling

They found no coherent systemic economic or social theory underlying the circular economy. This makes for fertile ground to establish one, but it also leads to fuzzy thinking, confusion, disarray, and skepticism. There is seemingly no agreement on the physics of entropy given laws of thermodynamics. Materials degrade over time through recycling processes which means they can’t be recycled indefinitely. There is no ‘perpetual recycling machine’. New raw materials must then be extracted and injected into recycled materials to boost their value.

They note the ‘biggest elephant in the room’ is how to decouple growth and capitalism from the circular economy. Capitalism only works with growthism. Because the circular economy is a degrowth strategy, is it incompatible with capitalism or does the idea of capitalism need to adapt to the limits of earth’s resources?

2. The materials, energy, and biodiversity [interconnections]

The promise of the circular economy is to recover materials which requires less energy, find nature-based solutions that contribute to increased biodiversity, and thus reduce the overall demand on raw materials while bettering our ecosystem and quality of life. This is the essence of the metaphorical circle in a circular economy. However, we still need material and energy to build a renewable energy infrastructure. Waste incinerators, as one example, keeps garbage out of the earth while generating energy but at a cost to air quality.

An abundance of energy is also needed to run all the recycling and processing plants intended to feed reused materials back into the economy. In addition, when done at scale, a circular economy could become so efficient that it encourages more pollution, energy demand, and renewable resources. Increased energy production, say through biofuels, could lead to further biodiversity loss, which is needed to improve soil health, reduce erosion, and improve air and water quality. Raw materials, energy, and biodiversity are interconnected and can’t be addressed in isolation or in a linear flow on the path toward a circular economy.

3. Evaluating and assessing the full impacts of a circular economy

We’re not always as clever as we think, so we need ways to evaluate, assess, and adjust as we go. This is especially true given a common misnomer that increased efficiencies lead to reductions in resource consumption. Imagine all the inventions throughout history that promised more leisure time at home when in fact they often led to more to more production and consumption. For example, laundry machines led to more laundry.

This is known as the Jevons paradox. Increased efficiencies lead to falling costs which increases demand leading to more consumption. Circular economies that promote eco-efficiency run the risk of creating rebound effects. That’s the paradox. Attempts to slow down and reduce leads to the opposite — accelerated extraction, consumption, and destruction. Cost reductions from cheap renewable energy, for example, could increase demand for it. Meanwhile, that cheap energy may allow a cheaper widget to be made increasing demand and consumption of the widget. Humans need self-regulating evaluative safeguards on our ingenuity if we want us, and our circular economy, to thrive and survive.

YOU CAN’T FLEE ESG

4. Governance, social justice, and cultural change

A 2017 study looked at 114 different definitions of circular economy and only 18-20% considered social equity. Looking at nearly 5000 academic papers, researchers found just 804 from the fields of social sciences and humanities. Most were from environmental science, engineering, and energy sciences. Yet, as researchers found in 2018, those attempting to put the circular economy into practice identified the main barrier to adoption is cultural acceptance and changes to consumer beliefs and behaviors. Technology was the least of their concerns.

They concluded that “circular economy is a niche discussion among sustainable development professionals.” There’s also the issue of power. In the race toward energy and economic transition, once again dominant states will forcibly instill technocratic top-down governmental and corporate agendas. Meanwhile, historically marginalized stakeholders will continue fighting for social, environmental, and economic justice. Sounds like ESG won’t be going away any time soon…or ever.

5. Alternative visions of circularity

The lack of attention on cultural and social dimensions could be addressed by including likeminded visions and existing practice. The concept of circularity and ecological reciprocity is fundamental to Indigenous cultures around the world. Many have extended, modified, and adapted sustainable ancestral hunter-gatherer, agrarian, and pastoral ways of living — and some still do. They also tend to adopt pluralistic ideals that enable and foster mutual coexistence and largely avoid ethnocentric economic and environmental agendas. And they don’t seek global dominance of resources and cultural assimilation.

For centuries Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism have also promoted harmonious societies complete with ecologically sound philosophies and practices. Some of those philosophies are alive today. Since 2000 Japan has adopted a “Fundamental Plan for Establishing a Sound Material-Cycle Society” which tracks

“how effectively materials are used in industrial activities and people’s daily lives, in terms of creating more wealth using fewer resources.”

There are many alternative ways to reduce, reuse, recycle, and repair that all include elements of circularity, reduced consumption, and measures of growth. And it’s likely our diverse planet will need more than one flavor of circular economy.

These five gaps illustrate both the diversity and complexity surrounding conceptions and implementations of the circular economy. The Economist magazine highlighted how the subjectivity and size of ESG not only leads to confusion but a tendency to over-promise and under-deliver. It seems the circular economy suffers the same risk. And yet, human history shows examples of how plurality of thought, belief, and culture when coupled with eco-efficient circularity and reciprocity fueled centuries of coexistence with each other and the planet’s complex web of nested systems.

Circularity is not new, and it’s not a trend. Examples are found at all levels of ecologies, and societies, on which we depend. Understanding, situating, and articulating past and existing circular concepts in nature and societies – representing diverse interpretations from all corners of the world – is what is needed to enable a socially just, economically sound, and environmentally sustainable path forward.

ESG is an attempt to lead us there under the current economic model. And while the ‘E’ in emissions should be the key to ESG, we need all three for the circular economy.

Tune in next time as I unpack the history of modern articulations of a circular economy. I’ll map socio-economic, environmental, and political approaches against a range of technological utopias and dystopias.

Hello Interactors,

Fall is upon us and so Interplace transitions to economics. I’ll be writing about how location, distribution, and the spatial organization of economic activities interacts with and affects humanity. The current dominant economic model insists on persistent and endless growth despite acknowledgement of its role in climate change, income inequality, and disappearing limited stocks of natural resources. There’s got to be a better way, and I’m on the hunt to find alternatives.

As interactors, you’re special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You’re also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.

Please leave your comments below or email me directly.

Now let’s go…

FLIGHTS OF NASTY

I attended a panel discussion last Friday on environmental justice. One panel member represented a nearby Seattle community called Beacon Hill. It’s a 6.5 mile long stretch just north of the SeaTac airport putting it on a flight path. Roughly 65% of flights land over Beacon Hill when the wind is out of the south. During busy times, a plane descends over their homes nearly every 90 seconds to two minutes. And because it’s on a hill, they’re 300 feet closer to the noise and pollution.

FAA guidelines require a 65-decibel limit, and Sea-Tac claims they comply, but Beacon Hill is beyond the boundary for which they monitor. Even the U.S. Bureau of Transportation and Statistics reported in 2017 levels in this area were between 40-75 decibels. When residents organized and measured noise themselves, they never recorded any plane below 50 decibels and some hit 80. That’s about as loud as a kitchen blender and too loud to hear the person next to you.

But what this panel member shared, sometimes through tears, is it’s not just the noise but the repetition. With each passing plane the stress mounts in anticipation of the next one. It’s hard to concentrate or hold a conversation. She worries about her son. How much does this environmental stress contribute to his ADHD? His trouble at school. Her husband, who rides his bike most places, suffered from esophageal cancer. How much did the air pollution contribute to his condition?

In the time between planes, the ultrafine particles (UFPs) from the last plane have already mixed with the air they breathe. Jet engines uniquely expel plumes of ultrafine particle pollution. A recent University of Washington (UW) study confirms similar studies in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Boston, New York, and Amsterdam. Flight paths are home to high concentrations of ultrafine particles raining down over unsuspecting victims. In Los Angeles, 90% of school children in the flight path are exposed to these particulates one hour out of every school day.

These particulates are smaller than the PM2.5 typically found from fossil fuel combustion and tire and brake dust. They’re also not as widely studied. Nobody really knows what kind of long-term effects they may have on the human body. However, there is animal evidence showing long-term exposure to ultrafine particles leads to adverse health effects, including neurological. A 2019 study published by the Washington State Department of Health reports,

“UFPs have many unique qualities that make them possibly more harmful to human health than larger particles. UFPs are able to travel deeper into the lung than larger particles. They are also small enough to avoid the body’s attempts to clear particles from the lungs, allowing them to stay in the body longer, to build up, and to cause damage. They can also move from the lungs to the bloodstream and to other organs.”

Evidence of short-term effects on human health are conclusive. The study warns,

“Certain groups of people are more sensitive to UFP exposure. These groups include people with pre-existing heart and lung disease, infants, older adults, people with diabetes, communities with a lower socio-economic status, and pregnant women.”  

Beacon Hill is a place where 70% of residents identify as Black, Indigenous, multiracial, or persons of color. More than half speak a language other than English. They’re also flanked by two major interstates and have another smaller airport, King County International Airport (KCIA) (aka Boeing Field), between them and Sea-Tac. The UW study showed anyone living within 150 meters of the freeway would also be exposed to ultrafine particles from passing vehicles, especially semi-trucks on their way to and from Sea-Tac.

In 2021, the Puget Sound Regional Council published a Regional Aviation Baseline Study. There are 27 public-use airports in Western Washington’s Puget Sound region, and the three biggest are Sea-Tac, King County International Airport, and Paine Field just north of Seattle. Scheduled passenger service is only available at Sea-Tac and Paine Field. In 2018 these two airports served 24 million enplanements. One enplanement is a single passenger per airplane. By 2027 they project this number will grow to 29 million. By 2050 it will double, 49 million at the low end and 56 million at the high end.

That’s just commercial passenger traffic. What about cargo? In 2017 540 thousand metric tons of cargo flew through Western Washington. Eighty-five percent goes through Sea-Tac. By 2050, it too is projected to double to 1.5 million metric tons. However, these peak loads are seasonal. During harvest time, Washington State’s value crops, like cherries, increase cargo demands. So how is this increased demand to be met?

FLYING TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN

To assess solutions to growing demand, the 2019 Washington State Legislature formed the Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission (CACC). Their objective is to recommend a new primary commercial aviation facility and additional ways to add capacity to six existing airports across the state to accommodate future demand.

To get an idea for how governments intend to shape outcomes of commissions they assemble, it’s good to look at the backgrounds of invited commissioners. In an era of increased awareness and needs for environmental, economic, and social justice, a good commission should be comprised of a diverse set of points of view and expertise. Especially given the current and historical economic, social, and environmental injustices existing power structures have created.

Through this lens, the list of commissioners is disappointing. Of the fourteen voting members, there are just two women, one person of color, and only one has a background in environmental law. The rest are white men, with one of Asian decent raised in England. Their bios read like a who’s-who of business leaders, economic development advisors, aviation enthusiasts, airport directors and developers, military leaders, and even representatives from Southwest and American Airlines.  One member offered no bio at all and seemingly has no presence on the internet.

The remaining twelve non-voting members must then balance this majority of aviation zealots geared toward economic development. Nope. More of the same – former senators, regional transportation directors, air cargo specialists, a member of the Civil Air Patrol, an aviation officer…the list goes on. They do have a state senator, Tina Orwall, who has “20 years of experience working in the public mental health system.”

So, two people out of 26, an environmental lawyer and a left-leaning woman senator, may offer a voice for environmental justice and sustainable economic development. The rest will be fighting for state and federal dollars for airport and economic expansion. While public documents give lip service to ‘community engagement’ and ‘the environment’ history shows there is little likelihood this collection of people will have environmental justice as a top priority.

Every level of government wants the number of flights to increase, despite having goals to reduce carbon emissions. With increased flight traffic comes increased ground traffic, despite also having goals to reduce congestion. If this weren’t so tragic, it would be a comedy.

This is the essence of environmental justice; the unfair exposure of poor and marginalized people and places to harms associated with an economy these people and places are least responsible for – an economy which disproportionately benefits the prosperous and mainstream members of society. It’s an economic model, to which we’re addicted, requiring unlimited growth despite relying on the extraction of natural resources which are limited.

The environmental scientist, complex systems icon, and author of Limits of Growth, Donella Meadows, offers a series of questions these commissioners and elected leaders should ask whenever arguments for economic growth are put forth. She said,

“Growth is one of stupidest purposes ever invented by any culture. We’ve got to have enough. Always ask: growth of what and why, and for whom, and who pays the cost, and how long can it last, and what’s the cost to the planet, and how much is enough?”

Meadows, and many environmental justice activists and scholars, are calling for system change in the fight against climate change.

Reading Washington State’s plans for addressing its aviation woes, it’s clear system change is not on their radar. If Washington’s economy were a plane, elected leaders and assigned commissioners believe this plane can climb to infinite heights.

Imagine a plane gradually ascending beyond its physical limits and the bodily limits of its passengers. Now imagine cries to pilots to please level-off from suffering passengers first and most impacted. They’d be met with quizzical looks and ignored while most passengers would gleefully encourage the plane to climb faster and higher. That’s what it’s like when individuals in impacted communities cry and call for limits on the pain, suffering, and pollution at the hands of our economy.

Apart from a few local elected officials, they mostly are ignored. Most are too busy trying to grow the economy. Which in turn will increase the number of flights to Sea-Tac, the area’s economy, suffering, and the number of premature deaths due to air and noise pollution. Meanwhile, many Beacon Hill residents are too busy holding multiple jobs, too weary from the fight for justice, and too disempowered or discouraged to speak up.

The assembled aviation and business experts no doubt have good intentions, but it’s clear they’re tasked with one thing: tip the nose of the economic plane upwards while steadily increasing the throttle. After all, the model dictates that the state must remain competitive in a national and international race upwards toward a misleadingly infinite extractive consumer economy. This assumes there is no limit to growth despite empirical planetary evidence to the contrary. What’s the worse that could happen? Evidently, so far, nothing bad enough to prompt leaders to change the system.

To be fair, this commission and the Puget Sound Regional Council, do consider the air quality studies out of the University of Washington. They also consider another UW study exploring alternative ground transportation, including high-speed rail. There are other ‘sustainable’ elements the state is exploring, including biofuel and electric planes. However, creating a pipeline of biofuel to Sea-Tac they admit has its own challenges. Though, they pale in comparison to the struggles sourcing enough biofuel to meet demand. So that leaves electric planes, like electric cars, as the great savior.

ANOTHER INLAND LOGISTICS EMPIRE

Just this week, the dream of electric flight made one stride toward reality. A prototype of an electric nine-seater passenger plane successfully took off, circled the airport, and landed. A Washington first and a necessary first step toward certification. The plane was assembled in Washington state, made of engines and parts largely made in Washington state, and by a Washington state company called Eviation. Their CEO, Greg Davis, said “What we’ve just done is made aviation history. This is about changing the way that we fly. It’s about connecting communities in a sustainable way…ushering in a new era of aviation.” He may be right. But when?

When asked if this flying equivalent of a large Tesla, with 21,500 battery cells accounting for half of the plane’s weight of over 4 tons, is ready for passenger flights, he quipped, “The answer is no, absolutely not.” At least he’s honest. I optimistically believe some of our regional transportation problems can be solved by sustainably leveraging the thousands of municipal airports under-utilized across America. But it’s decades away.

Meanwhile, I believe this flight was mostly a PR stunt. The airport chosen for this historic flight was the Grant County International Airport at Moses Lake. Until this flight, most of Washington state didn’t know there was even an airport at Moses Lake. But it’s one of the top choices by the commission for expansion and they’ll need public support to pay for it.

Back in 2016 a group of senators formed a ‘roundtable’ to examine the growing air cargo industry. This is what eventually became the Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission. They noted, “The top five air cargo commodities through Sea-Tac are cherries, seafood, footwear parts, aerospace components, and aluminum alloy and graphite.” All of these serve the Washington economy except for footwear parts which likely serves Nike and the footwear economy in Portland.

Knowing back then Sea-Tac had reached capacity, the attention turned to Eastern Washington. A Spokane roundtable member offered they had “Plenty of capacity and land reserved…to be developed for cargo…”, but then asked “How do we make strategic corrections?” There was a recognized need to make Eastern Washington attractive to air cargo carriers. Building or expanding alone doesn’t lead to success, you need private companies to believe it will succeed. Enter Moses Lake and the Grant County International Airport.

Ideas were thrown out. “Cold storage [for locally grown produce…like cherries and apples]…may be an incentive.” They imagined cargo planes could “Park in Moses Lake then” rail and trucks could “go back and get cargo.” They imagined “This would help open the runways in Sea-Tac,” but wondered “Would this financially work?” Before concluding the ‘roundtable’ they agreed they needed “to hear from businesses and companies.”

So, they commissioned the ‘Joint Transportation Committee’ to conduct a “study of air cargo movement at Washington airports” with a 2018 deadline. In that 2018 report seven airports were identified as targets for expansion, including the Grant County International Airport at Moses Lake which is right smack between Spokane and Seattle…and close to nearby produce.

In 2018, a “Washington State Air Cargo Movement Study” offered this as a recommendation:

“To attract the logistics/distribution market, the State of Washington should promote to individual airports the “inland port” or airport logistics park model…branding themselves ‘Global Logistics Centers.’”

This reminds me of a piece I wrote last year about Southern California’s ‘One Click Buy’ Empire. Moreno Valley, California is building out a World Logistics Center. Forty-five percent of the nation’s imports are already trained, trucked, or flown into this “Inland Empire”, unpacked, sorted, and reloaded onto trains, trucks, and planes then fanned out again across the nation. California’s South Coast Air Quality District estimates the new logistics center will add an additional 30,000 heavy-duty trucks to area roads per day.

Heavy-duty diesel trucks emit 24 times more fine particulate matter than regular gasoline engines. Those living closer to the freeways will be affected more. And we all know who lives next to freeways…predominantly poor and people of color. Just like in Beacon Hill.

This last August the state conducted a survey across six counties in Western Washington seeking input on potential expansion and brand-new airports around the Puget Sound region. From 56-77% of participants, depending on county, said ‘No’ to new airports. Only Paine Field received support for expansion averaging 58% in favor.

Environmental concerns are the overwhelming reason for why people oppose more airports or airport expansion. It seems everyone who can afford it wants cheap and available flights, next day deliveries, and fresh Washington cherries. And those lucky enough to have a 401K or stock portfolio want the market and the economy to grow, grow, grow. But nobody wants more flights or more pollution. That’s particularly true for those already suffering from environmental injustices – like those in Beacon Hill and countless other homes in the path of jets jettisoning plumes of particulate pollution. Far flung fumes consumed by our lungs triggering affects unknown.

How do we change this system so we all can prosper under economic vitality while minimizing the negative environmental and socio-economic impacts? If we’re going to grow, what are we growing and why? For whom? Who pays the cost? How long can it last? What’s the cost to the planet? How much is enough?

This is what I intend to explore throughout this fall as I unpack what I believe to be the front runner for a new economic model: the circular economy. I’ll look at not just the theory but attempts to put it into practice. Perhaps our economy can be like the journey of an airplane after all – take off, level off, land, take off, level off, land – an infinite circle flown within the limits of the plane, the earth, and its occupants.

Hello Interactors,

Last week my daughter showed us a glimpse of the Empire State Building from her friend’s dorm room. Every time I see that building, I think of the original black and white movie, King Kong. The image of that poor animal atop what was then world’s tallest structure getting pummeled by machine gun fire sticks with me for some reason. Maybe it’s because it was unfair. That creature was captured from his homeland and brought to America only to be gunned down? What kind of society does this?

As interactors, you’re special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You’re also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.

Please leave your comments below or email me directly.

Now let’s go…

FAREWELL TO THE KING

Merian C. Cooper got the idea of King Kong from the French-American explorer and anthropologist, Paul Du Chaillu. He was the first of European origin to confirm the existence of Central African gorillas in 1860. This made him a much sought-after speaker in the late 1800s, and his books were immensely popular. Cooper’s uncle gifted the then six-year-old nephew with one, Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa. It tells of one gorilla locals noted for its “extraordinary size”:

“They believe, in all this country, that there is a kind of gorilla — known to the initiated by certain mysterious signs, but chiefly by being of extraordinary size — which is the residence of certain spirits of departed natives. Such gorillas, the natives believe, can never be caught or killed.”

And then, while Du Chaillu was out hunting with locals, an encounter occurred. As Du Chaillu recalls,

“When he saw our party he erected himself and looked us boldly in the face . . . with immense body, huge chest, and great muscular arms, with fiercely-glaring large deep gray eyes, and a hellish expression of face, which seemed to me like some nightmare vision: thus stood before us this king of the African forest.”

And so, they did what they believed to be impossible but predictable. Du Chaillu continues,

“[The gorilla] advanced a few steps— then stopped to utter that hideous roar again- advanced again, and finally stopped when at a distance of about six yards from us. And here, just as he began another of his roars, beating his breast in rage, we fired, and killed him.”

Cooper went on to call this creature King Kong and made a movie about him. He wanted King Kong to be portrayed as being 50-60 feet tall. After all, he was kidnapped from a fictional small island that was also home to dinosaurs.

It turns out a gorilla that size is biologically impossible. For every doubling of height comes a tripling of weight. The joints and bones of a creature of this size simply could not bear his weight. King Kong was also impossible to portray on the big screen. Animators and cinematographers had difficulties portraying an animal of that size in the 1930s. Consequently, King Kong ends up appearing much smaller. Instead of weighing a couple hundred tons, let’s assume this mythical beast was shorter and weighed something more like 15 tons.

Still huge, that would be about two times the mass of an elephant requiring about 12,000 watts of metabolism to survive. And that is just the energy required to keep the organs running and nothing else. Around the time the original King Kong was being released, a biologist named Max Kleiber was plotting various animals’ metabolic rate and mass on a graph. To his surprise, the dots on the graph loosely aligned along a straight line sloping upwards with a mouse near the origin and an elephant to the upper right.

Kleiber had discovered a scaling law in nature known now as Kleiber’s law. For most animals, their metabolic rate scales to the 3⁄4 power of the animal's mass. Put another way, for every doubling of size the energy needed to survive decreases by ¼. Theoretical physicist and former President of the Santa Fe Institute, Geoffrey West, and his colleagues, believe ¾ scaling occurs due to the nutrient distribution through the efficiency seeking fractal-like structures of the circulatory system. The ‘3’ in ¾ comes about, it is believed, because the particles needed to arrange these mechanisms exists in a three-dimensional geometric universe.

 Animals observed in the wild maximize their energy to survive. Every bit of energy spent above and beyond what is required for their body to function only pushes their caloric needs into debt. GPS tracked tigers, for example, reveal highly optimized search strategies over space and time in their hunt for prey. A lounging cat may appear lazy to us, but their maximizing their energy.

Early human hunter-gatherers were seemingly not that different. For similar reasons, they had to be deliberate about the energy they used. However, as their cultures evolved, along with their brain, they became increasingly effective at harnessing that energy. They used some of their energy to fashion spears, arrows, and hooks out of wood, bones, and rocks. They also used wood to make fire for heating, cooking, and controlled grassland burns to promote plant harvest renewal. In doing so, they were not only expending their own energy, but also the energy stored in that wood and other forms of biomass.

The appropriation of elements of the ecosystem for energy to support biological and social well-being, like plant harvesting, animal domestication, or consumption of biomass like wood and coal, is called social metabolism or sociometabolism. The social metabolism of these early societies sometimes had small effects on the ecosystem, but other times catastrophic. For example, the misuse of fire could lead to imbalances in ecosystems with detrimental cascading effects on plant and animal populations.

The arrival of North America’s first homo sapiens, as another example, coincided with the extinction of 33 species of large animals. Similar extinctions occurred upon the arrival of humans in South America and Australia. It turns out even the earliest human colonizers had detrimental impacts on the environment.

PLOTTING THE PLODDING AND MARAUDING

By studying existing hunter-gatherer societies, scientists can estimate the social metabolism of ancient hunter-gatherers. Geographer Yadvinder Malhi analyzed this data and determined,

“The energy use per capita of a hunter-gatherer is about 300 W, and this is almost entirely in the process of acquiring food for consumption, and to a much lesser extent other materials and the use of fire. This sociometabolism is greater than the 80–120 W required for human physiological metabolism, because of the inefficiencies in both acquiring foodstuffs, and in human conversion of food into metabolic energy, and also in the use of biomass energy sources for fuel.”

Malhi then plotted where a hunter-gatherer would sit on a Kleiber plot relative to the biological metabolism of other animals. A typical hunter-gatherer’s combined biological and social metabolism puts them just between a human and a bull.

The social metabolism of homo sapiens continued to grow steadily, and along with it their capacity to harness nature for their lifestyle. And then, 5,000-10,000 years ago, during the Neolithic revolution, a simultaneous innovation occurred around the world – farming. The start of the Holocene witnessed the emergence of agriculture in Mesopotamia and Anatolia, the Yangtze valley, New Guinea, West Africa, Meso-America, and the Andes. The end of the ice age softened the earth, human language and communication had evolved and spread, and coincidently the colonization and exploitation of ecosystems.

Agriculture, the colonization of plants, allowed for geographically condensed energy to be grown which could support larger populations of people. This put a huge dependency on area of land needed to support and grow plants and animals. But these new densities of biomass reduced the amount energy required to roam large distances hunting and gathering. As a result, many hunter-gatherer societies could not compete, and Iron Age plant and animal farmers came to dominate. These clusters of agrarian societies grew around the world and with them languages and cultures. Soon the age of the agrarian came to dominate human existence. Using data from a well documented 18th century Austrian agrarian society, Malhi went to work to plot where a typical ‘agriculturist’ may fit on the Kleiber plot. He surmises:

“Compared to the hunter-gatherer sociometabolic regime, by the 18th century human sociometabolism per capita had increased by one to two orders of magnitude.” Given the population density such a society could support, the “per unit area energy consumption” grew “three to four orders of magnitude greater than that of a hunter-gatherer society.”

This plops the typical human agriculturalist below a rhino on the Kleiber plot. In other words, an active member of an 18th century agrarian society would have consumed as much energy as a resting animal nearly 10 times their mass. It seems over-consumptive human habits started early in our evolution.

Agrarian societies and hunter-gather societies were both constrained by land area. While agriculturalists were more efficient with land use than hunter-gatherers, they were nonetheless constrained by land. This is especially true for their primary source of fuel for heating and cooking – trees. That all changed with the birth of the Industrial age and the discovery of coal.

The potential energy in trees is stored solar energy from the relatively recent past. Coal is solar energy stored in biomass that accumulated and fossilized over millions of years in the deep layers of the earth’s outer crust, the lithosphere. For the first time in history, humans could exploit energy stored in deep time. Coal could more easily be transported over great distances. In theory, this would reduce the need to further exploit land and wood, but instead their destruction increased.

The Industrial age brought new forms of locomotion and transportation networks accelerated the expansion of colonization, land development, and the destruction of grasslands, swamps, and wooded areas. Healthy, thriving ecosystems were sacrificed for new and expanding cities and farms. Coal powered machines extracted elements from nature to make fertilizers, sawed, split, and planed trees into lumber, and stamped, squeezed, and shipped goods around the world feeding growing economies and their consumers. Fossil fuels accelerated and intensified the destruction of the biosphere and continue to do so to this day. The energy use of the biomass past to support today’s social metabolism puts in question the biomass of the future, including its human consumers.

CAPITALIZING ON A MONSTER APPETITE

Malhi identifies two key factors of industrial social metabolism:

* The amount of biomass needed for biological metabolic survival (i.e. food) is small compared to fossil fuels and other high-density energy sources.

* Fossil fuels used for building transportation networks meant population centers need not be co-located with food and energy production.

So where does the typical ‘industrialist’ sit on the Kleiber plot? Just above an elephant. That is, the amount of metabolic energy needed for a human to lead a typical industrialized lifestyle today is the equivalent of a resting elephant. Imagine the streets of the most populated cities being roamed by humans the size and weight of an elephant. Streams of cars on the freeway being driven by a five-ton mammal with an insatiable appetite. That’s us. Well, many of us, anyway.

Those numbers are for the average ‘industrialist’ in the UK where Malhi teaches. American’s stereotypically love our exceptionalism, and we are certainly exceptional in this regard. Sorry, Canadians, you’re implicated too. North American’s are the King Kong’s of energy consumption. Our dot on the Kleiber plot sits where a mythical 15-ton mammal would sit. The typical human in the United States and Canada consumes energy like King Kong. That’s well over 100 times the mass and energy needed for basic survival and 10 times more than agriculturalists that existed just 200 years ago.

When Du Chaillu and his native guides shot the king of the forest, Du Chaillu did not exploit the energy of that innocent animal as food. He instead chose to eat the deer they also killed. But the local hunters, who allegedly had long pursued the so-called king of the jungle, did. Including his brain. Eating the brain from the skull of a gorilla, Du Chaillu reported, was believed to bring “a strong hand for the hunt…and success with the women.”

Perhaps this played into Cooper’s storyline in King Kong. After all, it was a native tribal king on Skull Island who offered to trade six tribal women for the attractive American blonde woman, Ann Darrow, accompanying the crew on their expedition. She is then captured by a band of natives and offered up to King Kong as a sacrifice. But King Kong is felled by a gas bomb by American explorers and shipped back to New York to be put on display. King Kong then breaks from his chains and hunts down Ann. That’s what leads to the iconic scene of King Kong getting massacred atop the Empire State Building. War pilots fire machine guns from their planes as King Kong swats at them like flies while intermittently fondling the captive heroin, Ann.

King Kong, the movie, has since been interpreted as a story of race (King Kong as a metaphor for a Black man stolen from his homeland in bondage), sex (a white blonde woman who, fetishized as a sexual object pursued by Indigenous and Black men, must be saved), and rebellion (King Kong, as a Black man, breaks from his shackles and must be violently subdued). He has rebelled and therefore must be killed.

But before this interpretation, King Kong was said to represent FDR’s ‘New Deal’. Cooper was a devote anti-communist and conservatives like him regarded the New Deal as a menace – an imprisoned import of a policy from a faraway land unleashed on society. Just like King Kong. It must be killed.

I’ll offer my own interpretation:

King Kong is an outsized mythical beast so absurdly huge that it can’t bear its own weight. When it does manage to move, it destroys the environment in its path. What is erected before us, since the dawn of the Anthropocene (or is it the Capitalocene), is an over exploitive and consumptive way of life that is off the charts. It has ‘an immense body, huge chest, and great muscular arms.’ It has ‘fiercely-glaring large deep gray eyes, and a hellish expression of face.’  It ‘seems to me like some nightmare vision.’ What stands before us is this king of environmental destruction. And it must be killed.

Hello Interactors,

I was interviewed!

Big thanks to my friend and former Wavefront colleague, Mark Sylvester, who is now the Curator, Host, and Executive Producer at TEDx Santa Barbara.

Check it out!

https://tedxsantabarbara.com/.../brad-weed-we-need.../

The unedited version that was streamed live is here on FB:

https://fb.watch/fz9nyudo5r/

Last week I left off Part I introducing a new science proposed by two scientists affiliated with my favorite multidisciplinary institution, and leader in studying complexity adaptive systems, The Santa Fe Institute. Today I draw from their paper published in August that includes links to a recent book that has shook the scientific academy. Science is adapting to a new world, a new climate, and new future. This proposed new scientific field aims to accelerate that adaptation.

As interactors, you’re special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You’re also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.

Please leave your comments below or email me directly.

Now let’s go…

EVOLVING FAST AND SLOW

“What until now has passed for ‘civilization’ might in fact be nothing more than a gendered appropriation – by men, etching their claims in stone – of some earlier system of knowledge that had women at its centre.”

These are the words of David Graeber and David Wengrow from their recent epic myth-busting book, The Dawn of Everything: a New History of Humanity. They paint a picture of human history that debunks many assumptions underlying the contributions of theoretical ‘great men’ that dominate recollections of history, scientific discovery, and human evolution. But two great women stepped forward in August to offer a new center for systems of knowledge that complements Graeber and Wengrow’s theories.

Recent technological and collaborative advances in anthropology, archeology, ecology, geography, and related disciplines are sketching new patterns of interactions of people and place. Complex webs of far-flung and slow growing networks of social interactions, spanning large swaths of the globe over millennia, are coming into focus.

Graeber and Wengrow claim “the world of hunter-gatherers as it existed before the coming of agriculture was one of bold social experiments, resembling a carnival parade of political forms.” This interpretation offers a radical counter to existing “drab abstractions of evolutionary theory.” Contrary to popular belief, they offer that

“Agriculture, in turn, did not mean the inception of private property, nor did it mark an irreversible step towards inequality. In fact, many of the first farming communities were relatively free of ranks and hierarchies. And far from setting class differences in stone, a surprising number of the world’s earliest cities were organized on robustly egalitarian lines, with no need for authoritarian rulers, ambitious warrior-politicians, or even bossy administrators.”

Graeber and Wengrow’s analysis offer an alternative understanding of the nearly 300,000 years of homo sapiens’ existence. And Stefani Crabtree and Jennifer Dunne, both affiliated with the Santa Fe Institute, wrote a recent opinion piece that builds on their position. “Towards a science of archeaoecology”, published in the journal, Trends in Ecology & Evolution, calls for integrating elements of archeology and ecology under the term archeaoecology to further understand these pasts.

By sharing approaches and data of related fields they hope to form a more complete picture of the unfolding of humanity and ecosystems so that both may continue to unfold into the future. They hope to intertwine two interrelated trends that emerged over the last 60,000 years of humanity. Some findings of which, were also highlighted by Graeber and Wengrow. These two trends are:

* The slow evident far-flung dispersal of homo sapiens across regions and around the globe.

* The increasingly rapid development of tools and technologies that enabled it.

Together these contributed to the gradual and pervasive spread of complex social networks fueled by the interaction of people and place – and other animal species. However, as Crabtree and Dunne remind us, “As humans spread to new places and their populations grew…their impacts on ecosystems grew commensurately.”

ARTIFACTS, ECOFACTS, AND SCALING MATH

The subfield of archeology that studies these impacts is environmental archeology. While much of this research focuses on a reconstruction of past climates, it doesn’t always consider the larger ecological context. But the combined fields of paleontology (the study of fossilized plants and animals) and ecology does, under the name of paleoecology. However, it misses human elements of archeology just as environmental archeology sometimes ignores aspects of ecology.

But new sensing technologies, increased computing power, advances in ecological modelling, and a growing corpus of digitized archeological records is providing bridges between these disciplines.  Now scientists can construct integrated understandings of how people interacted with place through deep time. Instead of fragments of artifacts, ecofacts, and trash deposits uncovered through disparate stages of time amidst localized climatic conditions, a more thorough and dynamic representation emerges.

How do the interactions of people and place impact ecosystems and cultures and in turn influence their respective evolutions? It’s questions like this that led Crabtree and Dunne to call on earth and human researchers to “confront pressing questions about the sustainability of current and future coupled natural-human systems” under the banner of archeoecology.

It was archaeologists and paleoecologists who first coined this term. It described scientists or studies that relied on varieties of data, like geological morphology or climatology, to form interpretations of the archeological past. But they weren’t intent on necessarily forming a systematic understanding of historic dynamic interactions of natural-human systems. Moreover, they weren’t, as Crabtree and Dunne propose, providing an “intellectual home” for a new integrative science bridging these three disciplines:

* Archaeology: the study of past societies by reconstructing physical non-biological environments.

* Palaeoecology: the reconstruction of past ecosystems based on fossil remains but often excluding humans.

* Ecology: considerations of the living and nonliving interactions among organisms, mostly non-human, in existing ecosystems.

The new home they suggest is filled with a growing assortment of tools and technologies which can be shared among them. They range in scale from the microscopic analysis of plants, animals, and tree rings to vast ecological and social networks through the distribution of species amidst cascading patterns of extinction. Computer models can represent everything from cellular structures that mimic behavior of biology to modelling individual and group behaviors based on quantitative data found across a range of space and time.

In May I wrote about how this kind of modeling, led by another Santa Fe affiliate, Scott Ortman, uncovered new findings regarding the Scaling of Hunter-Gatherer Camp Size and Human Sociality in my Interplace essay called City Maps and Scaling Math.

This array of interdependent tools conspires to generate the Crabtree and Dunne definition of archeocecology:

“The branch of science that employs archaeological, ecological, and environmental records to reconstruct past complex ecosystems including human roles and impacts, leveraging advances in ecological analysis, modeling, and theory for studying the earth’s human past.”

NATURE OR NURTURE

The aim of this new science is to reconstruct interdependent networks of human mediated systems that mutually depend on each other for survival. This offers clues, for example, into just how many plants and animals may have migrated and propagated on their own through earth’s natural systems versus being transported and nurtured by highly mobile, creative humans amidst networks of seemingly egalitarian bands. Crabtree and Dunne offer one such example from Cyprus where scientists used archeoecological approaches to discover how that area’s current ecosystem came to be.

Using species distribution models and food webs the research showed how settlers in the later part of the Stone Age (Neolithic period)

“brought with them several nondomesticated animals and plants, including fox (Vulpes vulpes indutus), deer (Dama dama), pistachios (Pistacia vera), flax (Linum sp.), and figs (Ficus carica), to alter the Cyprian ecosystem to meet their needs. These were supplemented with domestic einkorn [early forms of wheat] (Triticum monococcum) and barley (Hordeum vulgare), as well as domesticated pigs (Sus scrofa), sheep (Ovis sp.), goat (Capra sp.), and cattle (Bos sp.).”

The coincidental dating of these human settlers, plants, and animals suggests not only the introduction of new species to the area, but the intention to create a niche ecosystem on which they could survive. Elements of that Neolithic ecosystem are alive in Cyprus to this day. Crabtree’s own research into the ecological impacts of the removal of Aboriginal populations in Australia corroborates these theories.

Her work highlights the need to marry the high-tech scientific approaches of archeoecology with Traditional Ecological Knowledge…otherwise known as Indigenous Knowledge or Indigenous Science. As I wrote last week in Part I, stitching together past and present Western science requires collaborations with Indigenous people, their knowledge, culture, and traditions.

To strategize the survival of the natural world, of which we humans are linked – amidst a changing and increasingly volatile climate – requires honoring, respecting, and collaborating with people and cultures as varied and complex as the ecosystems on which we coexist.

Crabtree and Dunne show how archeoecology can reveal “how humans altered, and were shaped by, ecosystems across deep time.” By collaborating, sharing, and synthesizing diverse bodies of knowledge across artificial academic and cultural boundaries and beliefs we can “explore implications for the future sustainability of anthropogenically modified landscapes.” This is particularly imperative “given scenarios such as changing climate, land-use intensification, and species extinctions.”

This treatise on archeoecology by Crabtree and Dunne offers a set of tools necessary to present “a new history of humankind.” Much like Graeber and Wengrow set out to do, it also encourages “a new science of history, one that restores our ancestors to their full humanity.”

Collaborative science, like collaborative music and sports, spawns unexpected, serendipitous discovery through systems of human tension, tolerance, intimacy, and cumulative joy and sorrow, setbacks, and steps forward. This is the nature of unbridled egalitarian play observed among young people unaltered by prejudice, politics, fright, and might.

It’s felt in us all through lifetime acts of negotiation and negation, rejoice and reproach, exaltation and anguish, or creation and destruction. It is the nature of humankind. And it is, like our ecosystems, in constant mutualistic flux.

As is the work of Crabtree, Dunne, Graeber (RIP), Wengrow, and others like them. But as they have already shown,

“The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful possibilities, than we tend to assume.”  

Hello Interactors,

I’m back from planting our kids at college. Now we watch our not-so-little Weed’s grow from a distance. I had a recent visit from a plant scientist friend last week that inspired me to dig into the blending of traditional Western science and Indigenous knowledge. Each have a lot to offer human adaptation strategies to the effects of climate change, but to do so will require new approaches and increased sensitivities to generations of abuse, neglect, and disrespect. This is part one of a two-part series that starts with a grounding in what integration exists today and why it’s important.

As interactors, you’re special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You’re also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.

Please leave your comments below or email me directly.

Now let’s go…

TEARS OF JOY AND SORROW

It was cause for celebration, but hers were not tears of joy. It was the ten-year anniversary of the largest dam removal in United States history. The Elwha Dam was completed in 1921 to dam the 45-mile-long Elwha River for electricity generation under the settler colonial banner of “Power and Progress.” A second larger dam was built in 1927. The Elwha is the fourth largest river on the Olympic Peninsula that sits on the western most Pacific coast of Washington State. It was once home to the country’s second largest salmon run behind Alaska. After the dams were built, they robbed these fish of 40 miles of habitat.

They also robbed the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe - ʔéʔɬx̣ʷaʔ nəxʷsƛ̕áy̕əm̕ – “The Strong People” of their food source and economy while submerging their spiritual land and identity in 21 million cubic yards of sediment. That’s over one million dumpsters full of rocks and sand. If you stacked them, they’d reach over 700 miles into the air. Placed end to end they’d stretch over 3000 miles across America coast to coast.

And now, ten years later, the salmon are running again, habitat is getting restored, and the sediment is redistributing. So why the tears? For scientists to accurately measure the successes of dam removal – and further justify the removal of more dams worldwide – the federal, state, and tribal governments agreed to a moratorium on fishing the returning salmon. It seemed a worthwhile compromise to the tribal community, but after over one hundred years of suffering their losses – and seeing the fish run as their elders had once seen – their yearning for a return to their cultural heritage has intensified over the last decade. Recent years of healthy salmon runs have tested their patience with colonial powers continuing to dictate their way of life – even as they simultaneously celebrate their joint successes.

It was the U.S. Congress who passed the Elwha River Ecosystem and Fisheries Restoration Act in 1992 to restore dwindling salmon populations, but it was the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe who had fought to have those dams removed even as they were being built. They also helped fund the research necessary for successful removal. And now they want to live as they once did – in a self-determined and self-sustaining autonomous but integrated coexistence with their neighbors.

A friend of mine is a plant scientist for the project who attended the celebration event in Port Angeles, Washington last week. The early economic growth of this city depended on the electricity generated by those dams. He told me the words and subsequent tears by the woman representing the tribe was the most gripping and poignant moment of the event. It left many scientists conflicted about the proper path forward.

Continued research will help with planning of future dam removal projects, including what would displace the Elwha project as the largest dam removal effort in history on the Klamath River. This project involves the removal of four dams that stretch across the Oregon and California border.

But what is more important? More data collection and academic papers supporting future dam removals or resuming the human rights of an abused and afflicted Klallam community? The answer won’t come from the scientists, but from deliberations between multiple levels of governments, agencies, and departments strewn across many jurisdictions.

BRIDGING BARRIERS

The Elwha dams are representative of countless ecological discontinuities brought on by colonial expansion and attempted erasure and conversion of Indigenous cultures and populations around the world. The Elwha dam removal indeed created a precedent that inspired ecological restoration projects worldwide. And while the collaboration between members of the Klallam people and U.S. government officials, volunteers, and scientists has largely been healthy, the tension that spawned the removal in the first place still remains – competition for fishing rights.

These dams posed an immediate threat to the Klallam people and their way of living, as they still do for the Klamath people and others like them. But a greater compounding threat grows more imminent every day – the effects of climate change. Despite minimal contributions to causes of climate change, Indigenous populations suffer the greatest risks of the effects. This is most apparent and acute right now in Pakistan as one third of that country remains flooded.

Pakistanis are indeed in need of outside help. But too often Western aid swoops in with relief and then disappears leaving them with little support for how to survive the next disaster. Just as profit seeking colonists left the Klallam people with little support for survival. But instead of resorting to fatalistic language and traditional paternalistic hero mentalities that portray Indigenous communities as helpless and hopeless, some scientists and activists are shifting toward community-based adaptation strategies. These efforts start by first experiencing and understanding how these communities are affected, but then recognizing many of them also have deep ancestral knowledge and history of how to adapt to a changing climate.

To strike a healthy balance between Western government aid and scientific knowledge and local needs and culture will require increased sensitivities to historical traumas inflicted by colonization, extreme capitalism, and forced acculturation. There is a myriad of language, linguistic, and cultural gaps that challenge the documentation, translation, and integration of Western scientific approaches with Indigenous ecological and cultural knowledge so that it is accurate, complete, and fair. Meanwhile, the planet is warming, the environment is shifting, and the pressure for adaptation systems and mechanisms is mounting.

To bridge these knowledge gaps requires a concerted effort around the globe to establish consistent approaches to Indigenous knowledge integration in scientific literature. In 2020 a group of researchers started by asking this fundamental question:

“How is evidence of indigenous knowledge on climate change adaptation geographically and thematically distributed in the peer-reviewed literature?”

What they found is the number of publications per year focusing on Indigenous knowledge and climate change adaptation has grown considerably over the last ten or so years. Between 1994 and 2008 their search yielded just six scientific publications that included evidence of Indigenous knowledge. There were that many in 2009 alone. Ten years later, in 2019, the number grew sevenfold to 42.

The majority, 133 of the 236 sampled, came from the field of Environmental Science. Social Sciences (97) and Earth and Planetary Sciences (50) had the second and third most publications respectively. Then came Agriculture and Biological Sciences (36), Medicine (22), and Health Professions (14). The word-cloud they generated from the corpus ranked these as the most common words: ‘vulnerability’, ‘resilience’, ‘drought’, ‘community’, ‘perception’, ‘impact’, ‘food security’, ‘agriculture’, and ‘adaptive capacity’. Given the most repeated words all relate to health and survival, researchers in the health and human services academy and industry have some work to do.

In terms of geographic distribution, a large proportion of publications study regions in Africa and Asia. The most studied countries are India, Zimbabwe, and Canada. There is no worldwide count of Indigenous populations and most studies don’t mention tribal names, so it’s hard to determine fair distribution. However, based on the data available, the authors suggest the biggest gaps may be in central Africa, northern Asia, Greenland, Australia, parts of South America and Polynesia.

Of the attributes of Indigenous knowledge represented, most publications (170) included “Factual knowledge about the environment and environmental changes” like precipitation, temperature, ice thickness, and wind speed. Two of the least represented attributes were:

* “Cultural values and worldviews (61) like relationship to land, stewardship, values of reciprocity, collectiveness, equilibrium, and solidarity.

* “Governance and social capital” (61) like food sharing and social networks as well as informal social safety nets.

These seem to me to be valuable sets of knowledge in the face of worldwide human ‘vulnerability’, ‘resilience’, and ‘capacity to adapt’ to the effects of climate change. Some scientists are shifting from describing the facts of climate change toward better understanding of human mitigation, migration, and adaptation.

BLENDING BARRIERS

One of the reasons Indigenous communities are so helpful is their cultural lineage and oral history traditions include solutions, strategies, and innovations of past human adaptations to a changing climate. This all despite past attempts by evil colonizers to suppress and destroy their knowledge, traditions, and even their existence. But these people and civilizations gained and sustained through generations of ecological experimentation. They benefited from innovations in grassland growth, fire management, and crop alteration.

Over decades and centuries, they evolved countless trials of seed germination, hybridization, and dispersal to achieve maximal crop yields. (e.g., symbiotic ‘Three Sisters’ crop clustering). They also developed predator management schemes enabling them, and their crops, to survive and thrive. Their mediation of the environment provided a mutualistic food web rooted in natural forms of ecological reciprocity. But this knowledge was not and is not static.

They had to endure and adapt to environmental dynamism at varying scales of time and space. Change occurred at a local level with daily shifts in the weather but also at a regional level from sudden climatic and geological perturbations like earthquakes, floods, droughts, and volcanoes. All of which had effects lasting decades and centuries.

These events led some populations to hunker down and innovate new methods of survival amidst a changed but familiar environment, while others migrated near and far to survive. For those who didn’t make it, their knowledge is lost. However, some traces of their existence, their paths of migration, shelter, and food habits do, and we rely on archeologists to bring those facts and interpretations to light.

But even in the best of situations, as evidenced with the Elwha project, balancing hard quantitative science with qualitative humanitarianism while in search of adaptation and survival strategies poses a host of challenges. Not the least of which is the fact that within these works exist many gaps in human and environmental knowledge across the spectrum of global space and time.

But a new approach in archaeology and ecology is emerging called ‘archaeoecology. It strives for a more robust intellectual understanding of the interaction of people and place that spans the globe and the past 60,000 years of existence. It’s a proposed blending of ecological and archaeological research that, when augmented with Traditional Ecological Knowledge, can fill gaps of the past so that plans can be made now for how humans can survive in the future. And as the Klallam people have reminded us, regardless of the past, the time for healthy adaptation to a changed environment needs to start now.

Hello Interactors,

The next couple episodes will be a little off beat as I’m coming to you from the east coast of the United States. It’s time to deliver our little birdies from the nest so they may build their own. Dorm room nesting is a common sight this time of year among many young human adults seeking knowledge and independence. It can be observed in the towering cities of New York City and the smallest lowland wooded enclaves of Waltham, Massachusetts.

For this momentous trip I’m listening to a book about a young man who launched to places further away than this. It’s a book I wish I had consumed long before now – The Invention of Nature by historian Andrea Wulf. It tells the tale of a man few have heard of but have most likely have heard the name – Humboldt. Alexander von Humboldt. His name graces more geographic places, plants, and animals around the world than any other. That’s because he was the first person to travel the world scientifically articulating what traditional Indigenous knowledge keepers have known for millennia – that all of nature is connected by an intricate web we now call an ecosystem.

Born in Germany in 1769, he was the most celebrated scientist of his time. Upon his most famous and influential trip to South America, in his twenties, he observed how Spanish colonialism had ravaged the land. Acres of native vegetation had been cut and burned to make way for monoculture cash crops like sugar cane, wheat, and corn where all profits were then sent to the Spanish monarchy. Streams and rivers had been diverted to water these thirsty crops leaving lakes, ponds, and subterranean reservoirs dry. Local plants and animals, including Indigenous populations, were suffering as a result.

The local Spaniards and Creoles believed there must be a leak in the earth causing these conditions, but it was Humboldt, through meticulous geographic, geological, and meteorological observation, who determined it was the crops that had caused the devastation. He surmised that between the increased temperatures caused by the loss of trees and vegetation (that naturally cool and release moisture into the air) and the drying up and hardening of the soil (thus depleting the earth of groundwater) that significant damage was being done to the area.

He posited that such destruction at larger scales around the world may alter climatic patterns. He introduced the idea of human induced climate change in 1800. He further observed that these negative effects originated with infective colonialism of European and American profit seeking imperialist machines that relied heavily on the abduction and trade of human slaves from Africa and local Indigenous populations to work the fields of these monocultural crops.

Governments and corporations didn’t just ignore Humboldt’s warnings, they accelerated the pace of production and destruction. That insistence continues to this day as countries and corporations fight for access to natural resources and cheap labor – far out of the reaches of complicit eyes and ears – to feed the beast of rampant worldwide consumerism. As Humboldt warned, over 200 years ago, at the peril of earth’s resources and their interconnected web of life. You can’t say we weren’t warned.

Alexander von Humboldt remained a harsh critic of colonialism, capitalism, and slavery until the day he died. He witnessed firsthand the early devastating impact greed was having on the planet and its inhabitants – most especially Black and Indigenous people. Humboldt was a heartfelt man, but his true love was science. He abhorred politics and politicians though remained popular among them all, except Napoleon.

Thomas Jefferson was particularly enamored with Humboldt. They shared a common affinity and thirst for botanical, astronomical, and geographical knowledge. Humboldt shared with Jefferson all he knew of South America and Mexico who was starved by the Spanish of any information at all. While he shared in the spirit of two science loving naturalist friends, that knowledge turned out to be instrumental in helping Jefferson, and the United States, increase their imperial standing in the world and its widespread ecologically damaging capitalistic dominance. Humboldt endeared himself to Jefferson mostly because he was impressed with Jefferson’s commitment to liberty.

Though he disapproved of Jefferson’s adherence to slavery, he was wary of criticizing Jefferson directly for fear of disenfranchising their friendship. However, his diary, and the diary of others, reveals he did so in private to Jefferson’s friends and colleagues. Some history scholars criticize Humboldt for not using these opportunities to sway the opinions of these powerful men, but Humboldt believed science should rise above politics and the best way to share science was to share it with everyone who would listen regardless of their political or governmental affiliation.

Humboldt worked tirelessly, day and night, wherever he happened to be living. Scientific luminaries and academics could not understand how a single man could be so well versed in so many subjects, be seen in so many places on a given day or night, while continuing to discover new insights about the world – all with boundless energy. He spoke so fast and on so many topics, in three languages, that people said one could learn in two hours of listening to Humboldt what would take months to master on their own.

He was a slight and nimble man with thin delicate hands. These attributes served him well squeezing into caverns and mines and placing sensitive miniscule blossoms into tiny glass vials. But he also had the strength and determination to endure extreme altitudes climbing rocky trails with shoes ripped to shreds. Upon total failure, he would hike barefoot. With his feet sometimes bleeding, he would stop every few hundred meters to take measurements with his barometer, altimeter, and sextant while collecting rock and plant specimens, drawing diagrams, and illustrating landscapes. It was he who first speculated on plate tectonics two hundred years before their full understanding by observing common plant species and geology between, say, a western coast of one continental land mass and the eastern coast of another.

It's unfortunate that one of the most intriguing, intelligent, and ecologically committed scientists to have ever lived, who inspired everyone from Charles Darwin to Henry David Thoreau, eventually succumbed to the realities of endless European wars and political turmoil. These ordeals limited his travels to other lands he desperately wanted to visit, explore, and further connect his web of knowledge and the web of life.

Given his broad and groundbreaking studies, travel, and international fame makes one wonder why Humboldt is not a household name today as it once was in the 1800s despite being in countless scientific books, journals, and maps. Is it that the complex connections and relationships that make life possible and sustainable are too difficult to teach or comprehend? That can’t explain why Newton or Einstein are so popular. Maybe it is just easier to teach the memorization of the scientific facts of biology and physics and the strict classification schemes of rocks, plants, and animals, than the rich interdependent interactions on which each of them relies.

Or perhaps we’ve grown ambivalent. Have we grown too comfortable to care about the workings of the world? Maybe Humboldt’s ideas are too threatening to the very institutions of colonialism, unbridled capitalism, and the over exploitation of natural and human resources he warned everyone of. Has overt capitalism made us too comfortable, complacent, and complicit? Perhaps those in power think it best not to perpetuate the ideas of a man critical of those systems that maintain the power of few, the comfort for some, and the education of many.

Napoleon thought so. He tried to have Humboldt banished from Paris, the heartbeat of scientific discovery and individual liberties at the time, suspecting him a subversive threat to Napoleonic domination. After all, it was politics and power struggles by the Napoleonic Wars that interrupted Humboldt’s continued quest to document, communicate, and share the scientific knowledge of ecosystems; the roots of which exist in traditional indigenous knowledge colonists squelched, shunned, or stole. Perhaps the same power and politics that held Humboldt back continue to hold us back today.

But we’ve had over 200 years to adjust course and have done nothing. Is it too late? I think not. Besides, there’s too much at stake for us all to remain ambivalent. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend this book. May it mark the beginning of your own journey. Let’s all follow in the footsteps of Alexander von Humboldt and share with our web of connections the ecological web connecting all of life.  

Hello Interactors,

Quite a week in political news. The United States, the second biggest CO2 emitter behind China and 12th per capita, is finally making progress on climate change legislation. It’s not perfect, but it’s cause for celebration if you care about healthy air and water, the survival of life on this planet…or getting a rebate on a brand new car! Don’t get me wrong, these laws are important and necessary achievements AND they will likely fill American roads with even more cars. Yippee!

As interactors, you’re special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You’re also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.

Please leave your comments below or email me directly.

Now let’s go…

LET’S MAKE A DEAL

“We on the Left are very good at criticizing people”, Washington Senator Pramila Jayapal once said, “but we need to build the base to pull people to the Left.”

As the leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and chief drafter of the Inflation Reduction Act, she did just that. President Biden is set to sign it into law. It’s the country’s largest climate legislation ever. Jayapal worked with a cadre of climate experts who have been waiting for this moment for decades. The law is expected to drive down inflation while dropping U.S. CO2 emissions 40% by 2030. It’s more modest than hoped, but is a HUGE first step. No surprise, not a single Republican voted for it

However, 41 Republicans did vote to fight climate change, they just won’t admit it. The bi-partisan CHIPS and Science Act (CHIPS) was signed it into law last week. It includes a $280 billion investment in American semiconductor research and development, but nearly one quarter ($67 billion) is for zero-carbon industries and climate change research. Between last year’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Law, CHIPS, and the Inflation Reduction Act, the United States has made serious strides to fight climate change. It’s not enough, but it’s more than ever before achieved. By investing in clean energy and renewables they not only become increasingly affordable, but they also reduce demand for fossil fuels.

Republicans also continue to vote for clean energy in their home states. Between 2010 and 2019, six of the top ten states with the largest increase in wind electricity generation were red states. Including Texas. Nearly one quarter of their energy comes from wind. This saves Texans $20 million dollars a year in energy costs. Reducing carbon, saves money. Including cars. Charging an electric vehicle (EV) today costs the equivalent of filling a gas tank with $1 per gallon gas. EVs, like traditional cars, also need safe and reliable roads.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed into law last November includes $110 billion in new spending for highways, roads, and bridges, compared to $39 billion on public transit. This is a HUGE investment in public transit and our roads and bridges need repaired, but the ratio of spending on roads relative to transit is roughly the same as it’s always been. Policy makers continue to believe adding more roads will ease congestion. Adding road capacity to ease traffic is like loosening your belt so you can eat more. But Americans do tend to overeat and most like their cars.

One of the big drivers of the CHIPs law were automakers. There are still hurting from supply chain snafus strangling their supply of semi-conductor chips needed to make cars. Automotive News reported, since the start of 2021, 13.5 million vehicles were cut from factory schedules due to chip shortages. Nearly 4.3 million of those were to be assembled in North America. Increasingly more chips are needed in cars as they strive for advances in autonomous driving. Bosch, a German supplier of car technology, says chips account for about $200 of value in a car sold today, but by 2030 it’s expected to grow to $800 per vehicle. Carmakers need more chips, and they need onshore guarantees they can get them. Hence the CHIPS law.

Electric vehicles are like giant phones on wheels. And like phone makers, automakers hope to one day make money on software subscriptions and services. Until then, the only way to make money is to sell large volumes of cars. Increased volumes drive prices down. Lower EV prices mean even more people can afford a car. Electric vehicles are also more affordable to own due to low energy rates and fewer repairs. But they’re still expensive. Norway, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, has the highest EV per capita of any country. But owners admit that is largely due to government incentives. Hence the U.S. focus on EV rebates and automaker deals found in the Inflation Reduction Act.

CARS CAN BE EXHAUSTING

EVs charged with clean energy not only reduce CO2 emissions, they also reduce Nitrogen Oxides (NOx). These are gases produced when fossil fuels explode. They then float into the air and become smog and acid rain. Floating in the ambient air they can trigger or compound asthma, lung disease, heart disease, and diabetes. They not only reduce birth rates they also increase death rates.

Noxious gases are only part of the air quality problem. So are particulates. Especially those measuring 10 and 2.5 micrometers or smaller. For comparison, fine beach sand is 90 micrometers in diameter, human hair is 50-80, and dust or pollen particles are about 10 (PM10). Like Nitrogen Oxides, Particulate matter at 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) or less can also come from exploding fossil fuels.

PM2.5 is the number one environmental contributor to human mortality with disparities along racial-ethnic and socio-economic lines. One recent study took data from 2014 and found four out of the top six sources of PM2.5 are the same for POC, Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. Those are: industry, light-duty gasoline passenger vehicles, construction sites, and heavy-duty diesel vehicles. The only sector where Whites were disproportionately exposed to PM2.5 were coal mining and agriculture. Getting to clean energy powered EVs will reduce exposure from passenger EVs, but construction equipment and heavy-duty vehicles are destined to be diesel for decades.

While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports a national downward trend in PM2.5, exposure rates vary by region. One recent study divided the nation into 8.6 million gridded cells to get a more accurate account of the spatial distribution of PM2.5. Looking at data over the last 36 years, they found the national average has indeed gone down. However, those areas with the least PM2.5 and those with the most are unchanged since 1981. This suggests the transition to EVs will most benefit those areas where PM2.5 is already low – predominantly White sparsely populated suburbs and exurbs. Meanwhile, those areas where construction and heavy-duty diesel vehicles are most concentrated – predominantly poor, ethnically, and racially diverse urban areas will continue to be disproportionately exposed to PM2.5.

But another source of PM2.5 and PM10 is non-exhaust related. It comes from dust made from car brakes, tire wear, and decomposed concrete. The heavier the vehicle, the more dust is created. Unfortunately, EVs are heavier than traditional cars due to a chassis full of weighty battery packs. However, EVs also come with optional regenerative braking. Letting off the accelerator triggers a generator that charges the battery while also slowing the car. Hitting the brakes on an EV can also engage the generator which further reduces dust accumulation. Some automakers also have ways to collect the dust as it’s generated so it doesn’t hit the pavement or fly into the air. But it’s not standard and some drivers choose to turn off regenerative braking because they don’t like how it ‘feels. But when used, it can help reduce particulate matter.

One study out of the UK shows that for urban driving, with the right amount of regenerative braking, EVs can reduce PM10 by ~26%. But on the freeway, they found “no level of regenerative braking can mitigate against the increase in PM10 due to increased vehicle weight.” Some of that increase in PM10 comes from increased tire dust from heavy passenger EVs. Vehicle weight would have to drop 22% for PM10 improvements like those found in urban environments. And while a reduction of ~27% was estimated for PM2.5 across all road types, those figures assume 90% of braking comes from regenerative brakes.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume EVs are cleaner and healthier. And through the magic of innovation, competition, and incentives more people can afford a car than ever before. Let’s also optimistically assume income disparities will lessen worldwide, more people will rise out of poverty, move to the city, and one day even own a car (many associate higher social status with car ownership). In addition, urban populations are growing exponentially – a trend expected to continue until 2050. The promise of an EV future – as aided by the passing of three new U.S. laws – will then result in increasingly more cars on the road. If you like sitting in traffic, you’re going to love the EV future. If you survive.

The United Nations reported last month nearly 1.3 million people a year die in road traffic crashes. It’s the leading cause of death among children and young adults. While interior car safety technologies reduce motorist deaths over time, they do nothing for pedestrians, cyclists, or motorcyclists. And the poorer you are the greater the chance of death. And probably worse than we know. Little data is collected in the poorest countries, and many don’t bother reporting them anyway.

While these three relatively green U.S. laws will indeed reduce CO2 emissions, they will also increase car related injuries and deaths. Worse yet, investments in an EV future only strengthens car dependency locking in perpetually more traffic, traffic related fatalities, and continued poor air and water quality. It’s a system of car dependency embedded in our culture, technology, and governments.

AUTOS MAKE THE WORLD GO ‘ROUND

Here's how this self-sustaining systems works. Car companies need a ton of capital to make the steel, plastics, and chips comprising a car. To offset these costs, they must sell large volumes of cars. When the economy is growing, they sell more cars because car dependent societies require more vehicles to meet the demands of economic growth. When there is a downturn, there always is, carmakers suffer because they can no longer cover the cost of production. So, what do car companies do when they’re in financial trouble? They ask their governments to bail them out and/or provide incentives to spur more people to buy more cars. Both the CHIPS act and the Inflation Reduction Act do this. And remember when Obama saved GM from bankruptcy after the 2008 financial crisis?

Democrats and Republicans both routinely save the auto industry. Why? There are many factors, but here are two. Democrats want to support union jobs that feed factory labor and Republicans want to perpetuate the rugged-individualist mystique and lifestyle that comes with private car ownership. Car addicts on both sides of the aisle believe there are two kinds of people: those who own cars and those who wish they could. Both parties also insist on a mythical infinite economic growth curve despite being limited by the natural resources and ecosystems to achieve it.

Once there are cars, roads are needed. Roads are presented as an economically easy and obvious answer to transportation efficiency. The only requirement is they be mostly free of cars. Roads with no cars is a waste of money, but roads full of cars is a waste of time. Time is money, so society accepts efforts made to ease congestion. Part of that acceptance is to prioritize the use of public roads for the movement of cars. As roads fill up, society demands more of them, and governments and road construction companies happily oblige; more union jobs for the Democrats and more space allocated to the rugged Republican individualist. Private vehicle ownership lifestyles propped up by union jobs and taxpayer dollars.

But public road space is constrained by private property. The only apparent way to make room for more cars is to take space away from others. For example, pedestrians and cyclists. Politicians, policy makers, and civil engineers (all steeped in, educated by, and benefactors of car culture) characterize this social demotion as ‘pedestrian safety’. The more cars there are on the road, and the more space they demand, the more ‘safety measures’ are put in place for pedestrians. i.e. more crosswalk paint for peds and bike lane paint for bikes. These are smart people, but an eight-year-old can tell you paint is not only a weak safety measure, it’s unjust. This paternalistic pandering signals to poor little pedalers and pedestrians that the best way to keep them safe is to relegate them to the gutter. ‘Pedalers’, ‘peddlers’, and ‘pedestrians’ – what unpleasant peasantry. Evidently, these well-intentioned people missed that day in kindergarten when most of us learned ‘sharing is caring’. To show they care, cities sometimes provide park benches at select corners and sidewalks so one can marvel at the safe roads made for those marvelous machines while breathing deathly fumes and particulate matter in dreary anticipation of witnessing a car accident. An endless stream of drivers solemnly staring through the glass of a windshield – or their phone.

It's enough to scare you into taking the bus. Good idea. Where do I catch one? Good question. How long do I have to wait? Who knows? Are they clean? Sometimes. Are they safe? Mostly. How about we just take a car? Ok. This is precisely the line of reasoning car culture conspirators have engineered. Because public dollars are transparently spent on enabling mass transit (which some argue should be a public utility…like providing safe, reliable, and clean water), it’s easy for public officials and the ‘road gang’ to point out just how expensive it is to operate. Less evident, intentionally hidden, and ridiculously complex is the public finance calculus behind the myriad of finance schemes, tax havens, kickbacks, rebates, incentives, and old-fashioned back-room dealings between hundreds of members of the ‘road gang’ and every level of government. All messaged and sold to society as an economically rational ‘public good.’ Private vehicle, good. Public transit, bad. Got it?

And when economic times turn bad, the interconnected and interdependent ‘road gang’ schemes for more financial complexity which ultimately includes more money from a government who is incented to keep them afloat. More jobs lead to more consumer spending which increases GDP which leads to more votes. But where in the budget does one find more money? The ‘road gang’ has ideas. How about pulling from an obvious expenditure they’ve already convinced the public is a bad investment by underfunding it – public transit. Especially if that money can be spent to create jobs in the auto and road construction industry. There’s a reason the infrastructure legislation is called the ‘Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.’ Yes, this law increased spending on transit, but it also boosted spending for the ‘road gang’. The rich get richer – more tax dollars funding more cars and more roads – and the poor stay poor – busses stuck in traffic, bus stops inconveniently placed, timetables unpredictable, busses uncomfortable, and sometimes unsafe. It not only locks in car culture, but it also locks in where people live.

Land use policies are also intent on perpetuating car dependency. Real estate companies seek land to be converted into car-oriented neighborhoods, city planners and lawmakers arrange for plenty of parking, and gas stations are strategically plopped in prized plots. TV shows, movies, books, cartoons, brochures, and advertising promote images of bucolic suburban lifestyles coupled with messages of wealth and status. The more land is developed this way, the more attractive it becomes to own a car. Sprawling and sparsely populated areas make mass transit inefficient, and cash strapped transit agencies are forced to cut service to better serve the needs of the urban carless. This makes car ownership in these areas not only a luxury, but the only viable option. That is, if you’re able to buy, own, or drive one in the first place. Those unable or willing to own a car are relegated to lower social status with little to no alternatives. Peasantry. Just as intended.

I’m sure nobody in the Progressive Caucus set out to intentionally perpetuate car culture when crafting this recent legislation, it’s just how our society has evolved. These new laws are intended to create local jobs, lower costs of living, and cut CO2 emissions. They’re not intended to dislodge a hegemonic, human slaughtering, car cabal. In fact, these laws are feeding the car beast with trendy green technology. These laws are also not intended to significantly alter how public land and road space is allocated. In fact, twelve new highways are already slated to be built.

And while transportation equity advocates were finally at the bargaining table with progressive Democrats, these laws are not intended to shift our urban areas toward equitable public space for all. Yes, the air in cities will be cleaner, but they won’t be free of harmful particulates. And the streets will most assuredly become more congested and dangerous. It seems we are sacrificing fewer lives to air pollution, more lives to traffic fatalities, so that ultimately all life on this planet has a future. It can be hard to see human sacrifice as progress, but I suspect members of the Progressive Caucus are intent on reversing this. The language in the Inflation Reduction Act begins to expose the inequities and unfairness stemming from decades of dominant car-oriented economic, societal, governmental, and physical systems. It could be the ‘road gang’ is in their sites and they’re using the widespread electrification transition as a gateway to a new possible future.

Perhaps, if given a chance in the next six years, they not only can continue transitioning to green energy, but also regreening cities. This will require the reversal of inequitable, dangerous, and unhealthy car-dependent patterns of public and private land use. The sure-fire way to slow cars in urban areas is to skinny the streets. This frees space for protected bike lanes and wider sidewalks, so wheels and feet of all sizes feel safe sharing public roadways. The more people are pulled from their cars, the more space is created for those who must drive.

Damaged ecosystems must also be reestablished, and urban landscapes and neighborhoods must be reconnected with paths that connect people with each other and their regreened city. Every human life is best lived when connected to nature, but car culture, EV or otherwise, not only isolates people from each other but from their natural environment. It’s time to make concrete jungles actual jungles.

Whether we like it not, the damaging effects of climate change are forcing human connections with nature. Floods, droughts, high winds, and heat are all natural phenomena that are best mitigated with systems of integrated nature-based solutions. Nature is our best teacher. Infrastructure funding and chips and EVs incentives will help us all to go green, but it doesn’t stop there. To ‘go green’ also means to regreen cities, and to do that requires fewer cars. The best public good a government can provide are those for the common good. Those goods are uncommon today, but Pramila Jayapal and the Progressive Caucus eased their criticality, compromised, pulled centrists Left, and made good progress on the common good. Let’s hope they set a good example and can continue to make progress.

Otherwise, 2024 could send these three steps forward two steps back. Although, when it comes to energy, red states look blue. Meanwhile more and more members of the ‘road gang’ are increasingly all-in on electrification and renewables. Who knows, maybe automaker’s next private vehicle for the rugged individualists will be a sporty electric two-seater convertible skinny enough to fit in a bike lane. If so, you can bet they’ll lobby to have that lane protected. Safety measures, and all. They’ll insist on protection from the peasantry in their old bloated, road-hogging cars and trucks.

Hello Interactors,

Unexpected extreme meteorological events on Biblical scales are happening all around the globe. Their intensity and frequency is only going to increase. Who will survive and who will die may come down to who chooses the right path.

As interactors, you’re special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You’re also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.

Please leave your comments below or email me directly.

Now let’s go…

ONE IN A THOUSAND

“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left.Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.”

Matthew 24:37-42

At 2 a.m. their Lord came. And then the flood. A woman, Amber, and a man, Riley, rushed to wake two boys and two girls: Madison, Riley Jr., Nevaeh, and Chance. Ages eight, six, four, and two. The water was filling their trailer home like a bathtub. But this was not just any flood.

Civil engineers plan for floods like this. Flash floods. They mold networks of linear concrete channels directing water to rush into cavernous catchments…sometimes at blistering speeds. Civil engineers take great pride in trying to control nature. The British civil engineer credited with birthing the discipline, Thomas Tredgold, once said, “Engineering is the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man.” The power of these floods could not be directed. The cleverly engineered network of pipes, culverts, and catchments were eviscerated. Useless. Inconvenient to man.

Seeing the water rise around them, gushing from all directions, the family of four headed for higher ground – their roof. But it wasn’t high enough, so onto a dangling limb they climbed. The water followed. Chunks of their home ripped from its frame as they clung to the tree. They watched as their home rose from its footings and swirled in the torrent.

Have you ever submerged a rubber ball to the bottom of a pool, released it, and watch as it rushes to the surface with a pop? That’s the work of buoyancy force. It’s the same force that works against you swimming to the bottom to release it. It takes just two feet of flood water to exert 1500 pounds of buoyancy force. Imagine the force of 20 feet of rushing water? This flood was tossing SUVs like pool toys. Those four kids didn’t stand a chance. Only mom and dad survived.

The U.S. Southeastern state of Kentucky was hit with a series of sudden thunderstorms last week. The death toll has climbed to 37. The town of Jackson, just west of Lexington, saw their entire average August rainfall of four inches pour down in just 12 hours. The National Weather Service estimated a storm like this may occur just once in 1000 years.

They said that in 2015 about a rainstorm in South Carolina. Two regions there saw 10 and 26 inches of rain fall over four days. Twenty people died. Another “once in 1000 year” event happened in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 2016. Thirteen people died. Over ten times more houses in that area had major flooding (18 inches or more) than the last storm of this magnitude in 1983. That’s 33 years ago, not 1000. Suffice it say, the Southeast United States will have ‘once in 1000 year’ flood events at least once every five years, if not every year. What are the odds experts will stop calling them ‘once in 1000 year’ weather events? One in 1000?

In 2015 Pope Francis sent a letter to all Catholic churches titled, Laudato si' (Praise Be to You). The subtitle read, “on care for our common home”. It was a seething critique on consumerism, globalism, addiction to continual economic growth, and the social and environmental degradation it has caused. He doesn’t mince words when he writes that it is,

“easy to accept the idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology. It is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth’s goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed dry beyond every limit.”

He observes it’s resulted in a form of “reductionism which affects every aspect of human and social life.” Especially those who are poor. He says, “the poor and the earth are crying out.” Imagine the sound of cacophonous rushing floodwaters, the clap of angry water-logged thunder clouds, punctuated with screams of terror from a family of four left with two. They clung to an equally terrified tree as their sole possessions rushed away in a gushing deluge. Deranged droplets running scared from the canyons, crevices, and creeks of the battered and bewildered hills of Appalachia.

Kentucky is home to perennially poor people. The first Europeans to settle there most likely lived like resident Cherokees. For millennia Indigenous communities hunted and fished in and around the streams and rivers that carved grassy areas amidst hickory-oak forests. They hallowed out poplar trees to make canoes traversing vast networks of rivers and streams to hunt, travel, and trade. Cherokee women were expert horticulturists. They cultivated seeds using slow-burning fires to clear underbrush and germinate seeds, experimented with seed alterations to improve yields, farmed strawberries, and harvested North American native onions, called ramps. Their mountain plateaus were rich with rows of ‘Three Sisters’; beans, corn, and squash grown in clumps of biological reciprocity.

Europeans and enslaved Africans then brought sweet potatoes and peaches which Cherokees also adopted. They did all this, as history professor Gregory Smithers learned,

“not to commodify and claim possession over the landscape and rivers, but to constantly renew their commitment to living in balance and harmony with local ecosystems.”

However, living in harmony with nature ended when European imperialists started competing for land and natural resources in the 17th and 18th centuries. As Europeans immigrant populations grew in the 19th century, so did commodification. By the late 1800s fresh-water mussels of Tennessee and southwest Virginia fed a burgeoning international pearl market. Within a few decades Tennessee was leader in marketing and selling pearls.

After the Civil War and the formation of the New South, dams were built, roads were constructed, and timber became easier to extract. Corporations from the North bought large swaths of land. By 1930, over 60 percent of Kentucky land was owned by European, Canadian, and Northern United States companies. Families were forced to sell their land. Companies arranged sophisticated legal schemes in Washington D.C. forcing private land foreclosures they quickly then swooped up.

The domination and oppression these Kentuckians experienced is what all Indigenous people had already endured, and continue to endure, across the continent. The taking of land and resources was dehumanizing and starved them of their dignity. Corporations played into these visceral emotions labeling and portraying people of the South, just as they did Indigenous, African, and lower-class European slaves and servants, as backwards, dirty, uneducated, lazy, and violent. The stereotype stuck and is alive to this day. The Pope is right, poor people of Appalachia are crying out alright. But many are crying in anger directed at another stereotype who hear mother earth crying: ‘environmentalists’.

DISSONANCE DIFFUSED

Kentucky is a deeply red state. Most love Trump and members of the Trump Republican party who gleefully dismantle environmental regulations. As Trump pulled from the Paris Peace Accords many Kentuckians cheered when he trumpeted that he represents the people of “Pittsburgh not Paris”. These people what their land back from corporations but vote for the party who hands land over to those very corporations. They want to farm, fish, and hunt in clean mountains and streams and for their houses to not float away, but many deny climate change and despise environmentalism. To enact revenge on the ’coastal elites’ of ‘the North’ they are inflicting material damage on their own soil and air, their livelihoods, and their mental and physical health. But when identities are threatened, so is reason.

And it turns out, distraught, individualist, conservative cisgender male Christians who value patriarchy and masculinized manual labor (like logging and mining) have an especially hard time accepting this essential fact: addressing the effects of climate change will require communal collective action across global, socio-political, cultural, and gender boundaries. This approach is antithetical to their identity, and they feel threatened by it. So how does one teach such a person the hard realities of climate change contributing to their destruction?

Scholars working at the intersection of learning sciences and social psychology find it starts with diffusing the dissonance. They advise avoiding threats to identity or attempts to ‘win them over’ through argumentation or value judgement. Researchers also found an educational path into conservative homes may best be through children. One study showed daughters educated on aspects of climate change were particularly effective in educating their fathers.

A group of educators in conservative Oklahoma manage to subvert laws restricting the teaching of aspects of climate change by talking openly in the class about its social controversy. This problem-based approach to learning has shown embracing controversy in meaningful dialog opens the door to collective problem solving among conservative students.

Professor David Long at Moorehead University in Kentucky takes this approach in his introductory physics class for non-physics majors. He also does research on how political and religious ideology can be used to mediate science education. His class is called “Modern Issues and Problems in the Physical Sciences”. Being in coal country, he focuses on the carbon costs of energy production. Using project-based learning techniques students grapple with the science behind energy production, consumption, and CO2 atmospheric outputs – both the opportunities and the threats.

He says

“a small number of (always) white male Morehead State students present themselves in class adorned with various types of neo-facist para-military and white supremacist shirts, hats, and other coded iconography that have burgeoned among the political right in recent years.”

To diffuse dissonance, he starts the class by identifying as the son of a father who worked in the coal-fired energy industry on the eastern Appalachian slopes of Pennsylvania.

He wraps up the course by having the class write up an ‘official’ news release on a future energy policy based on what they learned. To encourage unbiased writing, he exposes them to the realities of media bias by using the ‘ad fontes media’ bias chart. This indirectly teaches them to be more critical of their own personal information choices on climate change. He says that so far only three people “have chosen energy policies which retain high CO2 emissions, and even in these cases, the students have chosen natural gas as part of a larger suite of energy choices in what they describe as a pragmatic stopgap as we move away from carbon.”

FROM REDNECK TO RED’S NEXT

“People look down on Appalachians, and some people are saying the hillbillies got what they deserved…But it’s not like that. These were good people, God-fearing people that loved their neighbors and looked out for each other. People don’t realize how much has been lost.”

Those are the words of Tonya Gibson, a nurse practitioner in Knott County, Kentucky. She’s been dealing with people mourning the loss of those rescued but not saved from the flood. She spoke to the stereotypes that plague people living in this region as a form of her own crying.

These are the same God-fearing people Pope Francis knows suffer most from the effects of climate change. Effects due to a fossil-fueled exploitive form of capitalism the Pope is critical of. For his next memo, perhaps the Pope should reflect on the role Catholicism and Christianity played in the unfolding of overly extractive capitalism. He should contemplate the exploitation of Indigenous and African people in pursuit of gold for centuries of Pope’s like him and the nation-states they, and other Christian churches, controlled.

The origins of the complete dominion over natural resources in pursuit of prosperity for Kings and their Christian enablers is rooted in interpretations of the Bible. The English Standard Version of Genesis 1:26. reads:

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’”

Other versions say ‘rule’ instead of ‘dominion’. And rule they did. Many still do and authoritative rule has become a part of their identity. But Christians who follow principles of ecotheology believe this is a misinterpretation or poor translation of the original Hebrew text. They contend for humans to be granted ‘dominion’ does not mean they have permission to gluttonously exploit, defile, or destroy it – just the opposite. Ecotheologians believe their God gave humans the gift of nature and they are obligated to apply the abilities God instilled in their big brain to creatively maintain, care, and sustain the gifts of nature.

The word ‘dominion’ appears elsewhere in the Bible in plural form. ‘Dominions’ are Christian angels tasked with keeping the natural order of the universe as their God designed it, by enforcing universal laws of nature. Curiously, atheist environmentalists are in fact, in Christian terms, Dominion Angels doing what God told them to do. But getting ‘rednecks’ to listen to these ‘whackos’ won’t be easy. But not impossible.

In 2003, two researchers published a paper studying faith-based environmentalism in 20 churches in Appalachia. They found these churches successfully promoted “a transformation of personal values, attitudes, and conduct in support of an environmental ethic of care.” Further, they were able to convince traditional Christians that beliefs surrounding ‘dominion as domination’ are “key reasons for continued environmental degradation.” Other efforts like the ‘Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology’ continue to foster faith-based communities “where religious and spiritual traditions join together for the shared wellbeing of ecosystems.”

Whether you’re a secular civil engineer who believes we just need more concrete to control nature or an evangelical God-fearing Christian ruling over your God-given domain, the forces of nature don’t care. That is a cognitive dissonance that needs diffused. The Cherokees have never been confused; they know what needs to happen. Cherokee historical knowledge teaches the importance of gudugi – working together for the good of all. This is done with reverence for all living things while walking the right path – duyvkta.

Many scoff at Indigenous knowledge and science. They write it off as primitive and that to embrace their principles somehow would throw us back centuries. But these people survived by adapting to ebbs and flows of nature. They were quick to adopt new technologies, knowledge, and tales and then harmonized them with nature with reverence and reciprocity. They walked the right path so that others after them could too.

Before the Cherokees were forced off their land in the 1830s, a knowledge keeper named Thomas Nutsawi (Deer in the Water) would share some of their creation stories with missionaries who were there to share theirs. Reciprocity. As 1830 approached it’s reported he warned them of a time “when the world became ‘full of people who were very wicked. They disregarded all good instructions and would not listen to any thing [sic] good that was said to them’.”

Recall the Biblical story of Naoh’s Ark. It was the wicked people, sinners, that led God to flood their land. Nutsawi continued,

“an old man was instructed by ‘a certain dog’ to place ‘all kinds of animals’ into a vessel. The old man obeyed, and shortly after closing the door on his vessel ‘rain commenced, and continued forty days and forty nights, while the water at the same time gushed out of the ground, so that as much water came up, as fell down from the clouds. The wicked people could swim but little before they would sink and drown’.”

Cherokees didn’t just synthesize European fruits and vegetables into their diet, they syncretized missionary Christian tales into their knowledge transfer. Nutsawi was integrating the Biblical stories with Cherokee concepts of ecological cooperation between man, animal, and nature as a lesson to European missionaries and his people. As we all face what even the Pope sees as undeniable and unmanageable meteorological forces stemming from wicked people and their sinful ways, Nutsawi’s words offered what may be a prescient ending to his story. He said,

‘the family saved in the ark were Red…the Red people are the real people…’ Nutsawi made his point by reminding us all that their forebearers, the original inhabitants of the land, survived harsh and intense climatological and geological upheaval, both sudden and enduring, because they rejected selfishness. But Europeans, he observed, were ugasalesgi – greedy. And for that, they drowned.

Thank you for reading Interplace. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Hello Interactors,

EVs made headlines this week as members of the U.S. Congress continue to chase their tail in search of remnants of the Green New Deal. I talked about cobalt last week as a key ingredient for lithium-ion batteries, but a new bill offered by congress this week has implications for another, more obvious, mineral — lithium. The biggest source is in an environmentally sensitive area of Bolivia, and U.S.-Bolivian relations are equally sensitive.

As interactors, you’re special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You’re also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.

Please leave your comments below or email me directly.

Now let’s go…

THE PARADOX OF NATURAL STOCKS

Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. These words appeared on a ceramic plaque in the shape of a tea kettle that hung in the kitchen of my grandma’s house. Why do we worry about tomorrow? Is it because we don’t know what it brings? No way to control it? We wake up every day in a past tomorrow living in a future yesterday. Today’s tomorrows are becoming increasingly worrisome on a warming planet that needed help yesterday.

Democrats in Washington DC worried about tomorrow focused their action, in part, on Electric Vehicles (EV) this week. As part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, they hope to expand EV tax credits and invent $10 billion in investment tax credits to build clean-technology manufacturing facilities.

There’s a provision on the EV tax credit regarding the sourcing and processing of the minerals needed to make the lithium-ion batteries found in EVs. It says, “with respect to the battery from which the electric motor of such vehicle draws electricity,” a certain percentage of the “critical minerals contained in such battery” must be ‘‘(i) extracted or processed in any country with which the United States has a free trade agreement in effect, or (ii) recycled in North America.”

This might explain why Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called for more ‘friend-shoring’ while in Seoul South Korea earlier this week. That’s a term she uses to woo countries into trade practices agreeable to the U.S. She chose South Korea because we need their lithium-ion battery production. In April, LG announced plans for a $1.4 billion battery plant in Queen Creek, Arizona. They are the number two battery producer in the world behind China.

The provision isn’t just about the source of the battery, but the source of the materials in the battery. Their key ingredient – lithium – will most likely come from one or more of three countries in Latin America. They’ll need to be ‘Friend-shored’ if America wants to dominate the EV market. The country with the largest and most accessible source, Bolivia, has no shore and recently have not been friendly with the United States.

The world’s largest lithium reserves sit in the Atacama Desert which forms a triangulated region known as the “Lithium Triangle”. It sits within the geopolitical boundaries of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile which were drawn in the 19th century. Bolivia, now home to the largest population of Indigenous people, became land locked when Chile crushed them in the War of the Pacific from 1879-1884. They took away land that gained Bolivia access to the Pacific Ocean. Bolivia lost even more land in the Gran Chaco region to Paraguay after the Chaco War from 1932–35

Much of the international law that governs these disputes were written to advantage American and European colonist expansion. They were part of a neoliberal agenda by the global North to ensure the rights of these borders and those legally living within them, but also to exploit their natural and human resources. Latin American countries rich with natural resources were eager to participate in the global economy. Many in these Latin American countries viewed their natural resources as an economic blessing – a way to secure and grow their new nation’s economic prosperity amidst a burgeoning global economy.

But for most, it was a curse that invited environmental degradation and poverty at the hands of outsiders. This paradox was observed as early as 1711 in a British publication, The Spectator, "It is generally observed, that in countries of the greatest plenty there is the poorest living." In 1995 economist Richard Auty saw this geographical pattern occurring in East Asia, Africa, and Latin America and gave it a name: ‘Resource Curse’.

Auty observes the curse is often explained away by neoliberals as a factor of work ethic; they are simply too lazy to keep up with ‘advanced’ economies or lack the necessary resources. But he says politics are blamed as well. The U.S. has spent centuries of time, energy, and money backing Latin American neoliberal regimes and schemes toward their globalist agenda. Both overtly and covertly and always rhetorically. Authoritatively from the right, ‘Peace through Strength’, or diplomatically from the left, ‘Friend-shoring.’

The United States has long envisioned an American continent that mimics the United States. University of Iowa international law professor, Christopher Rossi, writes,

“Latin Americanism emerged from a deeply circumspect nineteenth century regard for hegemonic foreign policy intentions of the United States, which had weaponized the defensive construct of its Monroe Doctrine (1823) with the annexation of Texas (1845), the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), and an assortment of turn of-the-century interventions and power plays in the Caribbean and Central America over future control of the Panama Canal.”

One of the most recent power plays came with the suspected ousting of one of only two elected Indigenous leaders in the history of colonized America, in a country rich with lithium, Bolivia’s 65th president, Evo Morales.

REAGAN BIRTHS A POLITICIAN

Evo Morales was born in western Bolivia in a small Indigenous Aymara village to farmers in 1959. As a young boy he helped his dad grow coca and trade it in the markets of Cochabamba, Bolivia’s third largest city. It took two weeks by foot to get there. Coca is an Aymaran word, “Khoka” – ‘the tree’. It is most associated with cocaine, but the leaf has been central to Andean culture for thousands of years. It’s one of the oldest cultivated plants in South America and has been used as currency, tea, and was even the original ingredient in Coca-Cola. (Kola is a caffeinated African nut) Coca is also commonly chewed by Andeans. Saliva breaks down the leaf to release alkaloids; none of which produce the euphoric effects of processed coca for cocaine but are believed to have health benefits.

Growing up, Evo Morales learned Spanish and attended the Agrarian Humanistic Technical Institute of Orinoca (ITAHO), but never finished. After his military service, he became a coca grower. As cocaine gained popularity in America in the 70s, the price of coca increased and farming coca became popular. Morales soon joined a farmers union protecting Indigenous rights to farm coca for traditional Andean purposes in the face of competition among many, and hostilities toward some, coca growers.

In 1980 a far-right, anti-union, military dictator, Luis García Meza, became displeased with Bolivia’s turn toward a more pro-civilian communitarian government. He also sensed the decline of the Carter administration in the U.S. and gambled on the country swinging to the right in line with his beliefs. So, as Reagan entered the White House Meza took military control of Bolivia. A year later soldiers kidnapped a coca farmer accusing him of trafficking cocaine, beat him up, and burned him to death. This event is what spurred the young Evo Morales into politics.

Reagan distanced himself from Meza, who was eventually pressured to resign. His replacement was a leftist moderate, Hernán Siles Zuazo, who had served previously as president in the 1950s. Amid widespread poverty he came to the U.S. for aid. They agreed under the condition Bolivia would adopt their neoliberal economic plan. That plan involved the privatization of Bolivia’s natural resources – including the coca plant.

With Siles back in office in the 1980s, Reagan had a neoliberal ally and a partner in his infamous War on Drugs. Reagan pressured Siles to use military force to suppress coca growers. The U.S. sent troops to help burn coca fields. There were reports of beatings should owners resist. Farmers were offered $2500 an acre to voluntarily eradicate their crops. Morales was one of them and he refused. In that moment, the coca plant became a symbol of Bolivian natural resources, and his Indigenous Andean ancestral heritage, and he didn’t like U.S. imperialists threatening to control it. Activists protested chanting, “Long live coca! Death to the Yankees!"

Evo Morales organized similar protests throughout the 1980s and 90s and rose through the ranks of various union groups. He took leadership of MAS (Movement for Socialism) – “an indigenous-based political party that calls for the nationalization of industry, legalization of the coca leaf ... and fairer distribution of national resources." By the 2002 elections MAS became Bolivia’s second largest party gaining 20% of the popular vote.

In 2003, more protest erupted after a U.S. company offered to buy a nationalized natural gas pipeline for below market value. Activists took to the street resulting in 80 people dead. Morales called for President Sánchez de Lozada to resign. Lozada fled to Miami, Florida and was replaced by Carlos Mesa who had ties to U.S. In 2004 he resigned fearing a civil war between the upper-class White Bolivian elites concentrated in major cities and the rural working and middle class. In 2005, 85% of Bolivians turned out to vote. Evo Morales earned 54% of the total. This was the first victory by absolute majority in Bolivia in 40 years and the highest national vote percentage of any presidential candidate in Latin American history.

President Morales maintained focus on state sovereignty over natural resources. His administration nationalized Bolivian oil and natural gas, telecommunications, electricity, and restructured a state-owned mining company. Thanks to high international commodity prices, for the first time since its borders had been ratified, Bolivia experienced a continuous economic public-sector surplus between 2006-2013.

Because of his extractive agenda, Morales is sometimes regarded as capitalist; but a communitarian one. Instead of the profits going to privately held companies and select shareholders, they fund social programs. Morales is also regarded as an environmentalist and a voice for climate justice. His philosophy links to Andean Indigenous heritage and a widely held Amerindian belief in natural rights called “Buen Vivir” or “Living Well”. He ensconced many of these philosophies into the Bolivian constitution. His actions made Bolivia a world leader in encoding Indigenous and natural rights into law.

His ‘Living Well’ Bolivian laws, were simply following international law. The Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth is part of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. It was this ratification that declared April 22 as International Earth Day. The Declaration is intended to spur every country in the world to enact laws and practices that recognize

“Mother Earth is the source of life, nourishment and learning and provides everything we need to live well.” (my italics)

There is a difference between ‘living well’ and ‘living better’. The current dominant economic philosophy encourages competition between individuals to live better then another, but Morales, and the UN are asking, what if we all could live well?

BATTERY POWERED COUP

The aim to for all to live well is why Morales included laws like:

“The State and any individual or collective person must respect, protect, and guarantee the rights of Mother Earth for the well-being of current and future generations”

There are 58 articles intended to help countries regulate ‘Living Well’, including:

“non-commercialization of the environmental functions of Mother Earth; integrality; precautionary action; guarantee to restore Mother Earth; guarantee to regenerate Mother Earth; historical responsibility; priority of prevention; plural participation; water for life; solidarity among human beings; harmonious relation; social justice; climate justice; plural economy; complementarity and equilibrium; and dialogue of traditional knowledges and science.”

It also includes a ‘Right to Development’ that Morales was following with his extractive economic policy.

“the right to development [as] an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.”

The Organization of American States (OAS), an organization largely funded by the U.S. government and headquartered in Washington D.C., helped draft these declarations which Morales inserted into the Bolivian constitution. It’s derived from the 2007 United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that

“provides a shared framework for improving temporary situations where two opposed interests collide, that is, the rights of indigenous peoples and State politics.”

There are 148 countries who ratified this declaration in 2016, but the United States, Canada, Colombia, and Brazil are not among them. They have issues with ideas of “free determination, consultation, and consent, collective rights, and natural resources, land, and territories.” Which is why the United States may have had issues with Morales.

Seeing Bolivia’s lithium stores were the next natural resource to be exploited by the United States, Morales turned his attention to developing lithium according to his ‘Living Well’ constitutional articles. But some Indigenous separatists, and Indigenous people most impacted by lithium extraction, became critical of Evo Morales and his eagerness to capitalize on this economic opportunity.

The first attempts at extraction were privatized, but seeking to avoid the ‘resource curse’, Morales formed the state-owned YLB, Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos, for the sole purpose of lithium development. However, seeing Venezuela’s failure to effectively drill oil without outside investment or expertise, he decided to ease his stance on sole state-ownership and sought public-private partnerships. In 2014 and 2017 he invited a French and a Chinese company to build battery plants. In 2018, he signed on a German company, ACI Systems. And in 2019, the Chinese Xinjiang TBEA Group became a strategic partner to explore new extraction opportunities.

In October of that same year, 2019, came the national elections and with it another Morales victory. But he was accused of election fraud. (It’s still disputed, but findings fall along political, ethnic, and cultural lines) Around election time protests erupted in the city where the German plant was built. Locals claimed to unhappy with the ACI deal. In November, Morales cancelled it. A week later the military ousted Morales in what is widely believed to be a far-right coup not unlike the one that spurred Morales to political action in the 80s. Morales escaped in exile to Mexico and then Argentina. He also claims his life had been threatened by U.S. CIA operatives.

Predictably, the interim government was led by an opposition senator named Jeanine Áñez. The Catholic pink bible carrying former news anchor not only put lithium projects on hold, but criminal liability for police brutality against protesters enraged by the coup. She also cut off ties to Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba and became cozy with the United States. A year later, October 2020, elections were held again and Morales’s former Minister of Economy, MAS candidate Luis Arce, won in a landslide.

Arce is viewed as a pragmatist but also an adherent the principles Morales instilled in the constitution. Including upholding his 2006 implementation of the Productive Community Social Economic Model which distributes economic surpluses to all Bolivian people so they may ‘live well’.

Arce said in a recent interview, “Parallel to the economic growth achieved, we managed to reduce moderate poverty from 60.6 percent in 2005 to 37.2 percent in 2019; extreme poverty from 38.2 percent to 12.9 percent and inequality," And just this week Bolivia micro-mobility startup, Quantum, said they hope Arce’s plans to build Bolivian batteries plays out soon, they want to put them in their tiny electric urban micro-cars and motorcycles. They operate out of Cochabamba where Morales traded coca for corn with his dad in public markets decades ago. Bolivian elections come in just three years but even Arce’s allies don’t believe their facilities can bring Bolivian batteries to market before 2030.

In the meantime, outside investors continue to court Bolivia, including the United States. But the U.S. hasn’t had an ambassador in Bolivia since Morales kicked Rob Goldberg out in 2008 on counts of espionage. And I’m sure American companies won’t want to legally adhere to the ‘Living Well’ laws of the Bolivian constitution; just as the American government doesn’t want to ratify the UN’s versions into international law. It may be hard for the U.S. to ‘Friend-shore’ Bolivia. Especially when their shore was taken by Chile. Meanwhile environmentalists worry the state’s ambition to curb poverty through extractive mining will continue to harm the environment.

Massive amounts of water are needed to lure lithium from their salty beds. Mining operations can use as much water in one day that a single family would use in twenty-two years. Alpine runoff is the only source of water in the ‘Lithium Triangle’ and La Niña can bring extended periods of drought. Furthermore, this area is home to three of the world’s six species of flamingos. Both plants and animals in this rich avifauna area are sensitive to ecological extremes risking further depletion of biodiversity.

Little attention is given to the environmental impacts of lithium mining. The largest number of scholarly research on the subject overwhelming comes from the three countries who seek to exploit and consume it the most for the worldwide lithium-ion battery market: The United States, China, and Germany.

But if Arce keeps to the laws of his own constitution, as ensconced by his friend and colleague Evo Morales, he must balance “precautionary action”, “guarantees to restore Mother Earth”, “guarantees to regenerate Mother Earth”, and respect “water for life” with “economic, social, cultural and political development” so that “all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.”  

There’s a mind twisting saying associated with ‘Living Well’ that reminds me of that plaque in my grandma’s kitchen. It says, “that which already is, is that which will be, without yet being what it already is.” Today, that which already is, is the tomorrow, that which will be, that you worried about yesterday, yet being what it already is. We may worry what tomorrow brings on the horizon of life, but this much is for sure: it depends on the recognition, and lawful ratification, of Mother Earth as the source of life, nourishment, and learning because it provides everything we need to live well.

Podcast Music:

1.      Loca de Remate: Ronny Lovy.

2.      Queremos Saya: Los Kjarkas.

3.      Huellas de Mi Llamita - Grupo Aymara.

4.      Tarpuricusum Sarata - Captain Planet Remix: Luzmila Carpio, Captain Planet.

Hello Interactors,

It’s easy to be seduced by the rise of the electric vehicle. I admit I’m a fan. But amidst the glimmer and sheen ugly truths go unseen. Most people pat themselves on the back for switching to an EV, and they should. But don’t pat too hard, there are some evil goblins lurking in those battery cells.

As interactors, you’re special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You’re also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.

Please leave your comments below or email me directly.

Now let’s go…

BLUE FAIRY DUST

It was 91℉ degrees (32℃), the asphalt 140℉ (60℃), and body temperatures were hitting 104℉ (40℃). The wind was blowing toxic hot smoke in their face. As if a grueling three weeklong Tour de France isn’t hard enough, riders had to contend with record heat and a nearby forest fire this week. The fire had been blazing for two weeks in a southwestern region of France. It had destroyed an area the size of 35 football fields and displaced 34,000 people. And like football fields, these forests are man-made.

These pine plantations, nearly one million hectares in all, the largest on the continent, are used to make paper, lumber, and other wood products and chemical biproducts. But they are also carbon stores. Stores so big that when they’re ignited, they become what experts call a ‘carbon bomb’. Because these trees are the same variety, fires spread faster. This makes them not just carbon bombs, but carbon carpet bombs.

Carbon stored in these trees are also used to make a liquid bomb, biodiesel. The production of biofuels in Europe, of which Germany and France are the biggest producers, is more commonly derived from used cooking oil and animal fats than plant material. France was already at capacity for growing plants for biofuels. The EU limits the percentage of available land to grow biofuels to protect land for food production and preserve natural habitats. Besides, most believe electric vehicles will be the most and practical way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while displacing internal combustion engines. Biofuel is likely to make contributions to renewable energy, but it will be small relative to batteries. Of course, batteries have their own issues. And they’re not just environmental.

One of the necessary ingredients in lithium-ion batteries that power our devices and cars is cobalt. Cobalt takes its name from Germanic fairytales. A kobald, also a goblin or hobgoblin, are little mythical fairies or sprites. German miners believed they lived in the earth and formed a blue streak when they flew away. Others wore blue striped shirts and some a blue hat. These were called blue caps. When German miners came across blue minerals, they would call them goblin ore or kobald. Today we call it cobalt.

This metal is mostly produced through the process of copper and nickel mining. The largest quantities in the world are found in central Africa on the border of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in a string of copper mines called the Copperbelt. An estimated 50-70% of the world’s cobalt comes from the DRC. Over the last ten years global demand has tripled and is expected to double again in the next decade. It’s currently the safest, best performing, and efficient ingredient for powering electric vehicles (EV). But extracting this metal is no fairytale.

There are two ways to extract cobalt from the earth’s crust. One is through industrial mining and the other by hand. Artisanal or Small-scale Mining accounts for 20-30% of total DRC cobalt extractions. Cobalt is so close to the earth’s surface it can be easily discovered. In 2014, one man was said to have discovered cobalt digging a hole for his water cistern. Once discovered, it’s not long before others are digging for this blue gold.

But handling this mineral is dangerous. And its high market value and availability can lead to human exploitation. In 2015, Amnesty International and Afrewatch conducted interviews with artisanal miners in southern DRC. What they found should give anyone pause reading this on a device with a lithium-ion battery or is a proud of their ‘sustainable’ EV. One woman talked of dragging 110-pound bags (50kg) of cobalt ore up rickety stairs of makeshift mines 32 feet (10m) deep or more – all prone to collapse. Between 2014 and 2015 the UN reported 80 artisanal mining fatalities in the former province of Katanga. They wore no helmets, gloves, or masks – no protective equipment at all. The woman said,

“We all have problems with our lungs and pain all over our bodies.”

Paul, aged 14, said in 2015 that he started working in the mines at age 12. He said he’d “spend 24 hours down in the tunnels. I arrived in the morning and would leave the following morning.” Some children reported working 12-hour days. If kids did go to school, many would work before and after school and then 12-hours on Saturday and Sunday. One 15-year-old, Dany, said “There is lots of dust, it is very easy to catch colds, and we hurt all over.” For some, that pain comes from being beaten.

Children reported being beaten, or witnessing beatings, by mining company security guards accusing kids of trespassing on their mining territory. They would also demand payment. Kids made to collect, sort, wash, crush, and haul cobalt ore had no way to weigh their bags. Traders would pay them whatever they wished, if at all. These kids said they usually earn $1000 or $2000 Congolese Francs or $1-$2 U.S. Dollars a day.

A 2018 study revealed high concentrations of cobalt in the blood and urine of child miners compared to area kids who were not involved in mining. They also found exposure-related DNA damage which makes them more prone to cancer. Children the world over are more prone to environmental pollutant exposure due to physiological characteristics, like high gastrointestinal absorption. Playing in toxic dirt and then bringing their hands to their mouth could make them sick or kill them. Children’s lung molecules are also uniquely susceptible to asthma from air pollution.

CORPORATE VICTIM BLAMING

This is not a good look for the auto industry who is desperately trying to cast EVs as sustainable. It’s also not good for their “Environment, Social, and Corporate Governance” (ESG) ratings or any company in their supply chain. The same could be said for electric grid energy storage companies using lithium-ion batteries. So, the energy extraction industry has taken a two-pronged approach toward what they claim to be a more ethical and reputable path toward a renewable energy transition.

The first approach comes on the advice of the World Bank. The World Bank was formed in 1944 to bring economic order to the West after WWII. The United States invited Western delegations and Japan to a luxury hotel in the woods of New Hampshire to hash out a scheme. The group wanted a way to establish global monetary order among friends while also providing the United States global access to its free trade ambitions. Their stated and current goal is to make loans to struggling countries, like the DRC, in hopes of reducing poverty. However, they’ve been criticized for exploiting and damaging the natural and human resources of these countries and their local communities. They’re accused of contributing to destabilizing their political order and perpetuating income disparity between the global North and the global South.

The World Bank recommends the extraction industry ‘formalize’ these artisanal miners. They claim bad actors are involved in trading corporate dollars for cobalt mined by artisanal miners. They would rather see energy extraction companies themselves engage with artisanal and small-scale miners. This puts these corporations on the hook for upholding the ethical and moral ESG values their shareholders increasingly demand of them.

This leads to the second prong of the two-pronged approach. It’s what some researchers call “corporate outsourcing of responsibility”. Knowing they’ll inevitably face legal risk for directly funding cancer inflicted kids peeing cobalt, they are shifting cobalt extraction risks away from themselves onto the men, women, and children they’re enabling.

These two shifts by extraction companies have indeed resulted in opportunities for safer mining conditions. But researchers visiting ‘model mines’ see lax enforcement of protective equipment and practice. They write,

“In mining shafts where basic safety regulations are rarely enforced, the sight of gloves, uniforms, hard-hats, safety glasses or steel toed boots is a welcome, but largely symbolic improvement.” They observed “some workers not wearing the equipment properly or failing to wear it at all.”

As these companies clear the land and provide access to safer mining conditions it attracts more informal artisanal miners to the area. This pits ‘legal’ against ‘illegal’ miners living and working in the same community. But only one has legal protection. To enforce legal extraction, companies’ hire security guards, or fund local authorities, which can result in more beatings, exploitation, and dispossession. Meanwhile, corporations are legally exonerated. They outsourced their responsibility.

The presence of both artisanal and industrial miners makes it difficult to know the true source of cobalt in a battery. Researchers heard from one local NGO,

“model mine is just a name (…) At the end of the day, all minerals are bought [by the companies], irrespective of their origin.”

This means only a subset of the overall artisanal mining population receive access to corporate benefits – including legal protection.

Filipe Calvão, a socio-cultural anthropologist specializing in culture and capital in postcolonial Africa, and his colleagues, conclude, “Though in response to increased corporate scrutiny and as part of responsible mining initiatives, these formalization strategies in the DRC risk exacerbating the vulnerability and insecurity of these populations in a context of outsourced corporate responsibility.”

In a 2019 World Economic Forum report, “A Vision for a Sustainable Battery Value Chain in 2030”, they say “between 10 and 12 million [DRC] people depend directly or indirectly on mining and 80% of exports are mining products.” While they acknowledge most cobalt comes from large industrial mines, they also admit “an estimated 40.5 million people globally were directly engaged in artisanal mining, compared to 7 million in industrial mining.” They warn these miner’s internationally recognized human rights are being violated. Including kids. Of the 250,000 people estimated to be working in dangerous mining conditions, 35,000 are children. But an estimated one million children are affected one way or another by the DRC’s mining industry. The World Economic Forum calls for action at every stage of the value chain, but also at every level of government

.

There’s an accepted view among human rights and environmental scholars and activists that corporations, and their national governments, intent on formalizing artisanal mining must move away from their legalist attempts to outsource their ethical and moral responsibility. They advocate for a bottoms-up approach that focuses on the interaction of people and place. They call for attention on the local workforce, their workplace, and the myriad of practical arrangements among and between workers, traders, and corporate and governmental stakeholders.

As early as 2010 the U.S. Congress appeared to be listening. That’s when they passed the Dodd-Frank Act which issues “rules requiring certain companies to disclose their use of conflict minerals if those minerals are ‘necessary to the functionality or production of a product’ manufactured by those companies.” It came about due to “concerns that the exploitation and trade of conflict minerals by armed groups is helping to finance conflict in the DRC region and is contributing to an emergency humanitarian crisis.” It identifies these minerals: tantalum, tin, gold, or tungsten. But there is not a single mention of cobalt. The supply chain of copper and uranium also remain largely unregulated. Where you find copper mines, you often find cobalt mines.

It's not just EVs in the crosshairs. Batteries are also needed to buffer and store renewable energy generated from wind and solar. The World Economic Forum estimated in 2017 that 850 million people worldwide lack access to electricity and could benefit from off-grid solar electricity augmented with battery storage. A majority, 67%, of these nearly 1 billion people live in Africa. The cobalt these people are mining in the DRC could better their own lives and the lives of millions of other Africans. But not until their human rights are respected by far flung corporations.

DOPAMINE WEANING

Both off-grid energy storage and electric vehicles are core components of the Paris Agreement. Transportation and the power sector account for 40% of all GHG emissions. We’re talking about a lot of EVs. The World Economic Forum estimates over 250 million electric passenger cars will be on roads by 2030. They also believe the only way to hit those Paris Agreement targets is to move battery production to a circular economy model. Raw mineral extraction could be greatly reduced by creating markets for component recycling and reuse throughout the battery value chain. They believe it will save money too. They estimate, with the right circular economic levers, vehicle manufacturers legally required to adhere to end-of-life management of EV batteries could save an estimated $7 billion a year.

This all sounds promising, and I fully support moves to circular economies. I also admit EVs can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and I even think they’re fun to drive! But they’re only ‘green’ when their charged with clean, ethical electricity; when their parts are made and shipped with clean electricity; assembled with clean electricity; and shipped to dealers with clean electric ships, trains, and trucks. Even then, they will still clog our roads and tire particulates will pollute the water. Meanwhile, cobalt extraction will continue to be done by kids in the DRC so long as money can be found by digging a hole in the ground in search of blue dust. Meanwhile, corporations legally shame and blame them, and their parents, for putting cobalt in their pee. There’s no getting around the ugly fact that any consumer participating in this modern technological society are part of the problem. Including me. I’m reminded of a U.S. Marine’s response to the question, “Did you ever kill anyone?” His response: “If I did, you paid me for it.”

Here's an idea, what if we also reduce the reliance on, and cure the addiction to, cars? Yes, we need batteries and renewable energy to wean us off fossil fuels – and it must be done ethically – but what will it take to wean over-consumers off over-consumption?

We humans have but one reward system – dopamine. It’s a little chemical reaction in our brain that triggers us, among other things, to seek food when we’re hungry. Without it, we’d starve to death. These reactions reinforce the behavior that produce them. The greater the reward the more dopamine is needed for our brains to be satisfied. Eat a donut and you get a dopamine spike. And then a crash as it falls to a baseline. But that baseline has inched higher than before the brain was introduced to the pleasure of a donut. So, not only does the craving increase but it may take two donuts to achieve the same reward next time.

This is how addiction works. Amphetamines and cocaine are dopamine super boosters that progressively raise the baseline. Soon addicts are free basing. Buying things is also a dopamine booster, albeit much milder. Consuming goods, or feeding on social media, can also be addictive. The more we consume the more prone we are to desire it more. It’s the hedonic treadmill on which capitalism relies. Unchecked, it leads to disaster. Just like drug and alcohol addiction.

Exercise can release dopamine too, but not for everyone. For some, it’s more pleasurable to sit and store energy, than to exercise and burn it. Even if they try to workout, the brain won’t be satisfied until the more pleasurable action is taken. In this case, inaction. Those who enjoy getting exercise, the opposite is true. Going for a walk releases more dopamine than sitting on the couch. But those habits get reinforced as well. Sometimes it takes more exercise to get the same dopamine high – even if it hurts. No pain, no gain. To make the pain pleasurable, one must tell the brain that the pain is not necessarily inane. Staying fit is fun, so get off your butt and walk, bike, or run.

For those athletes in the Tour de France to achieve their super-human feats, they have conditioned their brain to believe climbing 15% mountain grades in sweltering heat, on melting asphalt roads, with a fever is fun. It not only takes a special physical body to achieve this, but a disciplined mind. However, in the end, despite what the brain thinks, their bodies have limits.

So does our earth, no matter what our brains think. Our brains are as miraculous as they are mysterious. They can invent biofuels and batteries so they can then seek addictive and reinforcing pleasures. One of which is the pleasure of acceleration, power, and domination that comes with driving a car (especially an EV). But for most, getting stuck in traffic, going slow, driving a wimpy compact car does not release dopamine and so people crave the opposite. Another strange paradox: The more pleasure-seeking motorists there are the less satisfying driving is. Until everyone stuck in traffic starts telling themselves ‘this is fun’, motorist brains will not be releasing dopamine. Until walking, rolling, or riding is pleasurable, or we con our brains into believing it is, car owner’s brains will tell the hands to grab the car keys. Even if that dopamine hit only comes from flooring it on a freeway on-ramp on the way to a traffic jam or an accident…the ultimate dopamine crash.

Those addicted to cars may have to convince their brain that being inconvenienced by a walk and wait for a bus is a good thing. I, for one, take pleasure in reading and writing on the bus. And I feel more connected to my people and my place. Sure, I get a dopamine hit with sudden acceleration of my car, but it’s so infrequent my baseline keeps dropping. I get more pleasure telling my brain that my choice to walk or bike may save a life, reduce the odds of inducing childhood asthma, or even save the planet. Even if some believe those are all myths, my dopamine dealer doesn’t need to know that. It can believe anything. Like the blue dust of the earth that powers an EV comes from the exhaust of a blue-capped magical mining sprite.

References:

Cobalt mining and the corporate outsourcing of responsibility in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Filipe Calvao, Catherine Erica Alexina Mcdonald, Matthieu Bolay. The Extractive Industries and Society. 2021.

Sustainability of artisanal mining of cobalt in DR Congo. Célestin Banza Lubaba Nkulu, et al. Nature Sustainability | VOL 1 | SEPTEMBER 2018.

A Vision for a Sustainable Battery Value Chain in 2030. World Economic Forum. 2019.