The most insidious function
of power is to convince us that it must be this way, and that this is all there is. In this way, power covers its tracks. The crisis that we face is a crisis of #imagination, shaped by #power.
"Many of the worst chapters of this history result from scientism: the ideology that science is the only valid way to understand the world and solve social problems. Where science has expanded and liberated our sense of self, scientism has constrained it." nature.com/articles/d4158…
“While stroking an octopus, it is easy to fall into reverie. To share such a moment of deep tranquility with another being, especially one as different from us as the octopus, is a humbling privilege… an uplink to universal consciousness.” brainpickings.org/2015/12/14/the…
"Misplaced wonder at our own scientific and technological prowess, she worried, would isolate humanity from the realities of the world we share, not just with one another, but with all living creatures." aeon.co/amp/ideas/for-…
"Meanwhile, for those of us who learned to speak a dominant language like English, our tongues carry the legacy of #colonialism, the stripping of the land, and we are constrained within a #monocultural worldview of culture and land. forthewild.world/listen/the-bur…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Today is #Halfearthday2021, a plan to protect 50% of the earth, to stop #biodiversity loss & prevent #climate change. Wow, a plan to #restore the planet: that's hopeful!? Unfortunately, not. There is good science showing this is the wrong direction... 🧵 (1/5) #COP26#COP15
2/5. Every funder should know that if a Half Earth proposal lands on their desk, there will be social risks. Despite the cosy rhetoric, Fortress Conservation leads to #humanrights abuses. Protecting 50% of the globe could affect >1 billion ppl, per Schleicher et al., 2019
3/5. Ecologists, none the wiser, might consider this a price worth paying if species are protected from #extinction. It's a mistake made by Kim Stanley Robinson. The great myth is that people are bad for biodiversity, as shown by Ellis et al., 2021 👇 pnas.org/content/118/17…
"The recent radical ideas to save nature; namely ‘half earth’ (nature needs half) and ‘new conservation’ further threatens biodiversity conservation and community livelihoods" - Wilhelm Kiwango #pollen20
Challenging the mainstream narrative at this crucial time #rewilding
George Iordachescu highlights the long history of collective management of large forested and pasture areas. #Commons management goes back 1000 years, transcending nature-culture divide and drawing on local #knowledge. Conservation not the main goal (it's #livelihoods) #pollen20
Emmanuel Akanpurira unpacks some of the assumptinos Fortress Conservation is based upon.
He draws on Butler and Membe to deconstruct assumptions about human-wildlife conflict.
Work from Uganda shows conflict not inevitable but due to authority-grabs by conservation NGOs..
"Market based solutions dominate policy proposals but remain consisently marginal to actually addressing the problems" says @FoleyPfalzgraf, as part of her careful and revealing #POLLEN20 pres:
Foley places a carbon offsetting scheme in Vanuatu as part of a history marked by colonialism, deforestation and depopulation
Foley notes that since the introduction of customry forest management, deforestation has been reduced to virtually zero. Despite having zero responsibility for global emissions, Vanuatu's leaders have turned to tree growing as a mitigation strategy..
Reading Judith Butler's 'Bodies that Matter' and wondering why dominant strains of Green thinking are apparently happy to put up with 'Environment' (as a 'domain of abjection'), as the absence of something, and all that this it entails.. #environmentalhumanities
To clarify, Butler is here, if I understand correctly, talking about how the disciplinary category of sex (the material dimension of of gender) is key to emerging as a subject (becoming a conscious *somewhere* as a particular subject shaped through the recursive work of power)
So, I contend (and am not the first to do so) we can extend this into the environmental domain by understanding the human subjectification process as one in which categories like 'nature' and 'environment' are required to become conscious subjects.