Rare Earth Minerals, Murder by Technology

The continuing tidal wave of ripping stuff out of the earth keeps on rolling. This time, under the Pacific Ocean. Rare earth minerals, tons of them, have been "discovered" by Japanese "explorers". 

"Rare earth metals have emerged as one of the most sought after resources in [the] commodities boom. Minerals present in the mud include gadolinium, lutetium, terbium and dysprosium." Some of these are used in the manufacture of those eco-friendly hybrid cars. Here is a handy image with notes about which minerals are used in the Prius, created by Lee Allison, state geologist and Director of the Arizona Geological Survey. Gadolinium is used in x-ray systems, CDs, and nuclear medicine.

The "commodities boom." Does that include frac sand? The excitement and anticipation of profits by scooping tons of mud off the ocean floor makes me sick. To what lengths will we continue our pillaging of the very body that bears us and makes us human? We are all complicit, here in the privileged West. I am sick to death of new solutions and technologies that are really assassination attempts. While we consume the death of the oceans and the forests and the ecological systems that continue to get in the way of our lifestyles, we lose more and more of our humanity.

It all seems part of the end of Empire and it's a long way down yet.

The Cost of Information

Tonight the owner of the sale and lease of land being negotiated with the mining corporation will be hosting an informational meeting to discuss local ramifications and who knows what else. Isn't it interesting that the owner - not the mining company - is being so helpful to the corporation? What a sweet gesture of compliance and sharing she has shown to the Company. What a helper! What a community member!

I may be pissed, but it's true; the mining companies don't need to do PR when the locals will take - and generate - all the heat for them.

In 5 years, when the landowner has been screwed by they mining company (a very common thing, evidently), I wonder what kind of regrets won't be discussed in an informational meeting. When the wells dry up, and the air is filled with carcinogenic particulate that gives my children and the children attending school in town asthma and increased risk for lung cancer, what kind of info meeting will she be hosting? When the trucks have wrecked the county roads and cracked the foundations of old farmhouses and killed dogs and cats and many other mammals haplessly crossing roads that used to be deserted, what kind of info meeting will we attend then? When the relatively toxic farming practices used to monocrop GM corn and soy are exchanged for hundreds of known carcinogens leaching into the groundwater after the sand processing plant is finished, and we are all drinking unknown and untested chemicals in our water, what kind of info meeting will be hosted then? And when all the farming families and folks I know don't move because we can't afford to, and we have to work outside in a toxic stew to grow our food, what kind of info meeting will I be attending?

The cost of civilization and colonization is not information. It is destruction and risk and suffering. Only human-scale community will endure because only we can ask the questions that remind everyone else of our shared humanity and the connections to our individual webs of life and living. I'm rooting for life, but in the mean time I'm fighting as best I can against destruction.

Right to Life

It seems the indigenous Andean population in Bolivia has helped craft a new law (which is about to pass, apparently) that gives Mother Earth equal rights with humans. As reported by the Guardian UK, there are 11 rights explicitly given in this draft, including:
the right to life and exist
the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; 
the right to pure water and clean air; 
the right to balance; 
the right not to be polluted; 
the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered
and the right "to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities"


It also gives local municipalities more control over regulating industry. What is there not to love about this? I am not actually a law-loving kind of person, but in a world where corporations can and do have personhood, where the owners of industry take what they want no matter the cost, this kind of movement is one way to start real change for people's health, both spiritual and physical. It in some ways seems limiting to declare the personhood of Mother Earth; but without it, legal systems don't and perhaps can't act against destruction. 

This nicely backs what other writers and environmental activists have long asserted: that there can be no human rights without protection of the earth and other non-human species. If humans destroy our land base, the very stuff of life itself for us, how can we have clean water to drink? Uncontaminated and adequate food? Adequate shelter? What then supports our connection with others?

And for those of us who are disturbed by the principle of religious or spiritual views controlling the government and justice systems, I ask you this: what part of this law actually harms any person who is not harming the earth, a "resource" shared by everyone? Really, as things go now, industry and globalization harm many. If you live by the belief of living freely and responsibly, harming none, enforcing protections on our environment that give nature actual legal rights gives people harmed by industry and corporations power to help themselves. No one is enforcing religious beliefs on non-believers, but rather environmental protections of the most fundamental kind.

I would support a move in the US that gave the environment equal rights with people. Not rights which exclude people - since people are part of ecosystems, too. There would be lots of legal wrangling about what "nature" really means, of course. And no industry would ever support it, but isn't that the point? There could be no nuclear power, no fracking, no strip mining, no uranium mining, no clear cuts, no genetically altered seeds, no Monsanto thugs. Toxic dumps could no longer be placed in poor communities, and indigenous populations and rural communities would have recourse to stop activities that pollute their lands and water. In fact, it's possible that companies may actually have to prove their practices cause no harm. Not a bad start.