Most people today are experiencing ecological trauma.

Whether it’s attached to anxiety about catastrophes like global warming and species extinction, toxic pollution, or to seeing beloved places destroyed, these experiences are ubiquitous.

🧵 1/ Activists are first responders to ecological catastrophe, and because of this front-line role we experience similar trauma to firefighters and other first responders.

My latest Substack essay explores this topic, starting with a tool called the responder stress continuum.

2/

Little known fact: many Native American Tribes on the West Coast have passed resolutions opposing all offshore wind energy projects.

Let's discuss why. (1/11) This includes the Yurok, Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria, Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community, Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw, and the Tolowi Dee-ni’ Nation.

The National Congress of American Indians has called for a moratorium.

(2/11)

Sustainability is illegal.

For example, in most jurisdictions, building codes make it illegal or extremely difficult to:

- Use construction methods like cob or strawbale
- Use composting toilets
- Not be connected to the electric grid
- collect rainwater

1/ Meanwhile, these codes subsidize the most unsustainable industries by essentially requiring all builders to purchase from logging, concrete, asphalt/tar sands, mining/smelting, and energy corporations, & by prioritizing scale & growth.

Insurance penalizes green building too.

2/

Anytime I mention degrowth or (god forbid) population, people lose their minds & understanding of biology.

This is one of the worst trends on the internet: automatically assuming the worst.

Let's look at this in more detail.

All people eventually die. I will. So will you.

🧵 When birth rate is higher than death rate, population rises. When birth rate is lower than death rate, it falls.

Two variables.

There are two ways to reduce population that we probably agree are morally bad: increasing the death rate, or autocratic control of birth rates.

2/

This 🧵is about a chemical found in tires — 6PPD-quinone — which is now “recognized as one of the most toxic chemicals ever seen in the the aquatic environment.”

It kills coho salmon, brook trout, rainbow trout, & white-spotted char.

Their deaths are not pretty.

It's torture. The chemical 6PPD is used to tires to increase their durability by bonding to ozone and slowing rubber oxidation.

It is converted to 6PPD-quinone via ozone exposure.

This is a terrible example of the synergistic effects of pollution.

2/

We in the environmental movement are failing to stop the *growth* of the fossil fuel industry, let alone roll back the existing infrastructure and fuel usage.

Things are worse right now than they've ever been.

🧵 Many people see this failure as a sign to redouble our efforts.

But as the great Jane Anne Morris said, "We [activists] are stuck in a feedback loop where our failures are interpreted as signs that we should repeat our failed tactics, but simply try harder."

2/

I'm sick of people acting like recycling is a solution to the ecological crisis.

Here's why:

1) Metals recycling is extremely toxic. Scrapyards are the most polluted places in many cities.

(Sources are in my book "Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It).

Thread ⬇️ 2) Recycling has mostly been adopted as a cost saving measure for industry and to make money ($23 billion a year in 2015) — not for the planet.

Profits are often reinvested in more mining and smelting (except in rare cases where laws force corps to recycle).
#JevonsParadox

On February 25, the State of Nevada issued three permits to Canadian mining co. Lithium Nevada, legally authorizing them to pollute air, water, & soil with toxic & dangerous substances including arsenic, antimony, uranium, sulfuric acid, and millions of tons of GHGs.
Thread ➡️ These permits protect the corporation from legal liability for polluting and other destructive actions that are morally reprehensible and would be punishable by law if committed by an individual.

Over the past 14 months that Will Falk and I have been fighting the Thacker Pass lithium mine, one of the most common questions we're asked by journalists has been "So if you oppose electric cars, what is your solution?"
Thread ➡️ At first, the question seems to be asking "how can we save the planet?" But that's not actually what most people are asking, as becomes clear when we answer that question.

📢🔥 WEEK OF PRESSURE, DAY 5 🔥📢

🌎 Protect #PeeheeMmhuh / #ProtectThackerPass 🌎

📞 TODAY'S TARGETS: hit everyone you missed this week 📞

TUESDAY: 11am phone banking to Deb Harland, Secretary of the Interior. Stay tuned for more details!
______________ --Nada Wolff Culver, Acting BLM Director--
202-208-3801
nculver@blm.gov, BLM_Press@blm.gov

--Jackie Rosen, U.S. Senator for Nevada--
202-224-6244
rosen.senate.gov/contact_jacky