• A new space race could turn our atmosphere into a ‘crematorium for satellites’
    https://theconversation.com/a-new-space-race-could-turn-our-atmosphere-into-a-crematorium-for-s

    When we look up at the night sky and see a satellite glide past, we might not consider climate change or the ozone layer.

    #Space may feel separate from the environmental systems that sustain life on Earth. But increasingly, the way we build, launch and dispose of satellites is starting to change that.

    Over the past few years, the number of #satellite launches has skyrocketed. There are now nearly 15,000 active satellites in orbit around the #Earth, most of them part of “#mega-constellations” in which each satellite has a service life of only a few years.

    #spacex #starlink #boeing #falcon9 #ozone #fcc

    • Le mois dernier, SpaceX a déposé une demande auprès de la Commission fédérale des communications (FCC) des États-Unis afin d’obtenir l’autorisation de lancer un million de satellites supplémentaires destinés à des « centres de données IA » qui n’ont pas encore fait leurs preuves.

      Ce nombre impressionnant n’est pas le seul problème. Les « mini » satellites Starlink V2 de SpaceX pèsent environ 800 kilogrammes (kg) – soit à peu près le poids d’une petite voiture – et les versions ultérieures devraient atteindre environ 1 250 kg. Les satellites V3 prévus sont encore plus grands, d’une taille comparable à celle d’un avion de ligne Boeing 737.

      Les lancements de fusées contribuent déjà au changement climatique et à l’appauvrissement de la couche d’ozone. Les multiplier pour déployer un million de satellites de la taille d’un avion aggraverait le réchauffement de la haute atmosphère et la perte d’ozone bien au-delà des estimations précédentes, la combustion continue des satellites hors service venant aggraver ces impacts.

      Cette situation intervient alors que l’on trouve déjà de la poussière de satellites brûlés dans l’atmosphère. En 2023, des scientifiques étudiant les aérosols dans la haute atmosphère ont découvert des métaux provenant de la rentrée atmosphérique de vaisseaux spatiaux. Tout récemment, du lithium a été détecté suite à la rentrée incontrôlée d’une fusée Falcon 9.

      Ce n’est qu’une fraction de ce qui nous attend si les mégaconstellations prévues voient le jour – et SpaceX est loin d’être le seul acteur. D’autres opérateurs à travers le monde ont déjà demandé l’autorisation de lancer au total plus d’un million de satellites.

      Traduit avec DeepL.com (version gratuite)

  • Palestine Space Institute

    The Palestine Space Institute (PSI) is a pioneering and visionary think tank that stands at the forefront of space ethics and the responsible use of outer space. Established with a mission to advocate for the peaceful and ethical exploration of space, PSI is committed to decoupling defense from space, safeguarding space technologies and applications, promoting the demilitarization of space, and using space to advocate for social justice and the Palestinian cause.

    At the heart of PSI’s mission is a dedication to the principles of peace, cooperation, and sustainability in space exploration. This innovative institute seeks to reshape the narrative surrounding space, striving to ensure that outer space remains a domain for the betterment of all humanity rather than a perpetuation of conflict and militarization.

    Through research, policy development, advocacy, and international partnerships, PSI strives to shape a future where space serves as a beacon of hope and global unity. By championing ethical practices and fostering a shared commitment to the peaceful use of outer space, PSI is dedicated to creating a sustainable and peaceful future for humanity, both on Earth and beyond.

    https://www.palestinespace.org
    #Palestine #espace
    ping @reka @isskein @fil

    • Earth Observation for Justice in Gaza: Ethical and Legal Implications

      #Earth_Observation (EO) has the potential to play a transformative role in documenting genocide in Gaza, supporting accountability efforts, and advancing justice. However, access to satellite imagery and the ability to analyze it remains highly unequal. The communities most affected often lack the resources, funding, and political leverage needed to obtain and utilize EO data effectively. As a result, systematic destruction and human rights violations risk remaining underreported or invisible, limiting the ability of local actors to advocate for justice and recognition. Despite the availability of EO technologies, significant barriers exist in applying this data for humanitarian and legal purposes. High-resolution satellite imagery is often restricted, leaving affected populations reliant on lower-resolution or outdated datasets. By highlighting these barriers, this research underscores the urgent need for ethical frameworks that ensure EO is used for justice rather than reinforcing existing power asymmetries. Furthermore, this study explores the legal applications of satellite imagery as evidence in international accountability mechanisms, including its potential role in supporting cases at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Satellite data has increasingly been used as evidence in genocide investigations, and its integration into justice frameworks could strengthen efforts to hold responsible parties accountable. However, geopolitical control over EO data raises ethical concerns about whose experiences are validated and whose remain obscured. Beyond legal applications, EO can empower local communities by providing scientific evidence of atrocities and destruction, supporting advocacy and accountability initiatives. This work examines the ethical and legal dimensions through a case study focusing on Gaza. It calls for a decolonial approach to space technologies, where EO is leveraged not as a tool of surveillance and geopolitical control, but as an instrument of justice and accountability for those most impacted by genocide. By addressing both the ethical and legal challenges of EO for justice in Gaza, this research advocates for a more inclusive and ethical use of space technology, ensuring satellite data is mobilized to document genocide and actively support accountability efforts.

      https://zenodo.org/records/17449136
      #Gaza #satellites #images_satellitaires #images_satellites

    • #Sahba_El-Shawa. Il genocidio visto dallo spazio

      L’ingegnera palestinese-giordana ha deciso di utilizzare l’osservazione della Terra come strumento per documentare che cosa è rimasto di Gaza. Saperlo non è abbastanza. Serve attribuire le responsabilità della distruzione a Israele.

      La ricercatrice palestinese-giordana Sahba El-Shawa si occupa di spazio e sostenibilità. Nel suo lavoro coniuga ingegneria, etica e politiche pubbliche per ripensare il modo in cui l’esplorazione spaziale può essere messa al servizio della giustizia, delle persone e del Pianeta.

      Laureata in Ingegneria meccanica alla University of British Columbia ha conseguito un master in Space studies presso la International space University e un dottorato di ricerca in Sviluppo sostenibile e cambiamento climatico all’Istituto universitario di studi superiori (Iuss) di Pavia. Nel 2020 ha fondato la Jordan space research initiative (Jsri) e tre anni dopo il Palestine space institute (Psi), think tank pionieristico e visionario che si colloca all’avanguardia nell’ambito dell’etica spaziale e dell’uso responsabile dello spazio extra-atmosferico.

      All’interno del Psi, El-Shawa guida progetti e iniziative volte ad affrontare le intersezioni tra spazio, colonialismo e militarizzazione attraverso attività di ricerca, advocacy e formazione.

      El-Shawa, può ripercorrere i suoi primi passi nell’industria spaziale?
      SES I primi tempi ero mossa da un entusiasmo profondo e, con il senno di poi, piuttosto ingenuo. Ero convinta che lo spazio fosse un ambito aperto a tutti, simbolo del progresso umano e della scoperta dell’ignoto. Provenendo dalla Giordania, dove non esiste un’agenzia spaziale né un percorso formativo per entrare nel settore, ho scelto di studiare ingegneria meccatronica con l’obiettivo di lavorare nella robotica spaziale. Il mio interesse, dunque, era esclusivamente tecnico.

      Quando ha maturato la necessità di un approccio diverso alla materia?
      SES Dopo il trasferimento in Canada ho partecipato a progetti studenteschi legati allo spazio -un nanosatellite CubeSat e un razzo suborbitale- e ho lavorato per anni per costruire una rete che mi permettesse di entrare nell’industria spaziale. Quando mi sono laureata e mi è stata prospettata un’assunzione, però, ho scoperto che non avrei ottenuto l’autorizzazione di sicurezza necessaria, perché non vivevo nel Paese da abbastanza tempo e non ne ero ancora una cittadina. È stato il primo momento in cui ho iniziato a chiedermi seriamente perché serviva un’autorizzazione di sicurezza per attività di ricerca e sviluppo o in che modo la mia nazionalità rappresentasse un ostacolo. Ho cominciato così a intravedere il legame strutturale tra spazio e Difesa, qualcosa che fino ad allora non avevo pienamente compreso. Qualche anno dopo, alla International space University in Francia, ho avuto una presa di coscienza più profonda. Durante una cerimonia ufficiale davanti ai vertici delle agenzie spaziali, la persona che parlava prima di me si è presentata con la bandiera israeliana. Io, invece, temevo persino che dire apertamente di essere palestinese potesse compromettere il mio futuro professionale. Ho realizzato definitivamente quanto identità e politica fossero intrecciate all’industria spaziale.

      Esiste una narrazione secondo cui lo spazio è neutrale. È davvero così?
      SES Questa idea è molto diffusa nel settore, nei media e nella cultura popolare. Tuttavia, questa narrazione è una bugia che spesso occulta ciò che le tecnologie spaziali e le loro applicazioni possono realmente rilevare e nasconde i danni che l’industria spaziale provoca a causa dei suoi legami con il settore militare. Ritengo che la ricerca non possa essere separata dal mondo reale né dalle strutture di potere in cui si inserisce. Per questo ho deciso di utilizzare l’osservazione della Terra come strumento per documentare direttamente che cosa sta accadendo a Gaza, attraverso un approccio che unisce tecnologia ed etica, ingegneria e giustizia.

      E con questa postura ha fondato il Palestine space institute. Come si declina il vostro lavoro?
      SES Siamo un team di quattro persone, tutte volontarie, e ci concentriamo su quattro aree di intervento: separazione tra spazio e Difesa; controllo delle tecnologie per prevenirne l’uso militare; demilitarizzazione dello spazio; e infine il programma Space for Palestine, che mira a utilizzare le tecnologie spaziali per sostenere la causa palestinese. Per raggiungere questi obiettivi abbiamo istituito un programma di fellowship che coinvolge altri ricercatori per un periodo di sei mesi con cui gestiamo un database che traccia i legami tra aziende spaziali e industria militare e, naturalmente, conduciamo ricerca attraverso l’osservazione della Terra. Da un lato ci concentriamo sull’analisi tecnica della distruzione a Gaza mediante rilevazioni satellitari; dall’altro esploriamo gli aspetti giuridici e politici, cercando di far emergere responsabilità legali attraverso i nostri risultati.

      Quali sono stati i risultati dell’osservazione di Gaza?
      SES Analizzando i dati del satellite Sentinel-2 del programma europeo Copernicus nel corso del mio dottorato, abbiamo potuto documentare la distruzione operata dall’esercito israeliano a Gaza durante il primo anno di genocidio. Circa l’80% della vegetazione e delle infrastrutture -dalle risorse idriche e agricole agli ospedali e interi quartieri- era già stato annientato. Un dato sconvolgente, confermato da altri studi analoghi. È importante precisare che il nostro lavoro non vuole sostituire le testimonianze dei sopravvissuti, ma piuttosto intendiamo rafforzarle attraverso le evidenze emerse dalle nostre analisi.

      Avete subito pressioni e tentativi di silenziamento?
      SES Sì, abbiamo subito forti pressioni fin dalle prime presentazioni dei nostri articoli, nei quali mettevamo in discussione la narrativa coloniale e militarista dell’industria spaziale. Durante una delle prime conferenze a cui abbiamo partecipato siamo stati minacciati da alcuni partecipanti e da istituzioni israeliane. Inoltre quando presento i dati delle nostre ricerche, vengo spesso accusata di essere “di parte”. Poiché i dati sono incontrovertibili, si tenta di screditarmi semplicemente in quanto palestinese. Molti mi invitano al cosiddetto“dialogo” e alla “neutralità”, ma dopo due anni e mezzo di genocidio non c’è più nulla di cui discutere. Naturalmente, un po’ di paura ci accompagna sempre, visto che al Psi siamo un team di volontari e non godiamo di finanziamenti stabili. Ma questo è nulla rispetto a ciò che affrontano le persone a Gaza. Se non siamo disposti a rischiare il nostro lavoro, allora che cosa stiamo facendo?

      Un aspetto che sottolinea durante i suoi interventi pubblici è la necessità di passare dalla visibilità alla responsabilità. Che cosa intende?
      SES Ciò che sta accadendo nella Striscia è ampiamente noto. Il mondo sa perché le prove -immagini satellitari, video, dati- sono ovunque e accessibili a tutti. Ciò che manca, però, è l’attribuzione di responsabilità. A Gaza il diritto internazionale viene sistematicamente ignorato. Restando al mio ambito di competenza, quando la Russia ha invaso l’Ucraina, l’Agenzia spaziale europea ha interrotto i progetti con Roscosmos, l’Agenzia spaziale russa. Ma nel momento in cui si chiede di chiudere i rapporti con il governo e le istituzioni israeliane, l’appello resta inascoltato. È anche questo doppio standard che svuota di senso le istituzioni internazionali

      È questa, oggi, la sfida principale?
      SES Sì, senza dubbio. Gli strumenti per intervenire esistono -sanzioni, boicottaggi, pressioni istituzionali-, ma la forte resistenza all’azione permette che il genocidio continui. Nonostante mandati di arresto internazionali, rapporti ufficiali e, ripeto, prove indiscutibili, l’orrore prosegue come se nulla fosse. Credo che se più persone, cittadini e opinione pubblica, rifiutassero questa falsa neutralità, allora sì, qualcosa potrebbe davvero cambiare.

      In questo senso qual è il suo messaggio per chi sostiene la causa palestinese?
      SES Ai palestinesi della diaspora, come me, voglio dire che la nostra voce è fondamentale per preservare la nostra cultura, la nostra identità e i nostri valori. Agli alleati chiedo di portare l’impegno politico in ogni azione e in ogni contesto. La distruzione di Gaza riguarda tutti e ogni aspetto della vita. Clima, ambiente, diritti: tutto è interconnesso e ogni gesto può contribuire a costruire una forza collettiva. E questa partecipazione consapevole può incrinare l’ordine delle cose.

      https://altreconomia.it/sahba-el-shawa-il-genocidio-visto-dallo-spazio

      #responsabilité #preuves

    • Today on the program in the first segment: Marketing Mars. Zara Zimbardo deconstructs the mythologies of American #Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny as they apply to settler #colonialism in space, and the billionaire tech bro infatuation with our closest planetary neighbor, Mars. Looking through several analytical frames, Zimbardo debunks any notion that there is a Planet B to escape to, remarking “we’re encouraged to believe that human ingenuity and industry can turn uninhabitable #Mars into a habitable Earth. This fantasy is a distraction from the reality that #Earth is being rapidly turned into Mars.”

      In the second segment today (34:20) , we are rejoined by investigative journalist Peter Byrne. We look at his latest installments for Military #AI Watch. We’ll look at the Stargate Fiasco, World War 3 will be fought inside data centers, and his most recent, AI Battle Space: Weaponizing the 5G Internet of Things.

      Notes:

      Zara Zimbardo coined the neologism Marsification in collaboration with the Bureau of Linguistical Reality, and co-created the concept album audio artwork Marsification: A Tale of Planetary Grief. She is an Interdisciplinary Studies faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Zara is a member of the curriculum design and facilitation team of Partners for Collaborative Change, with a focus on the interdependence of social justice and the environment, and community-driven climate resilience planning.

      Peter Byrne is an award-winning investigative reporter and science writer, author of the ongoing series for Project Censored, Military AI Watch.

      https://2023projectcensoredshows.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Project+Censored+zara+peter+byrne_ONLINE.mp3

      (1 h)

    • Below is a Rough Transcript of the Interview with Zara Zimbardo

      Mickey Huff: Welcome to the Project Censored Show on Pacifica Radio. I’m Mickey Huff with Eleanor Goldfield. Today we have a great treat for you all. We welcome back to the program Zara Zimbardo, to talk about a recent dispatch she wrote for us at Project Censored, Marketing, Mars. If Mars is the answer, what was the question? We’re going to find out in this segment.

      And I must remark as well that this is a rare occasion when both Eleanor and I are co-hosting at the same time. And we are both again honored to welcome Zara Zimbardo back to the program. Zimbardo coined the neologism Marsification in collaboration with the Bureau of Linguistical Reality and co-created the concept album audio artwork, Marsification: a Tale of Planetary Grief.

      She is an interdisciplinary studies faculty at the California Institute of Studies in California. Zara is a member of the curriculum design and facilitation team of Partners for Collaborative Change with a focus on the interdependence of social justice and the environment and community driven climate resilience planning.

      Zara also contributed to Censored 2015. Hard to believe that that was a decade ago, but she wrote a stellar chapter for us called, It’s Easier to Imagine the Zombie Apocalypse Than to Imagine the End of Capitalism. Zara Zimbardo, welcome back to the Project Censored Show. Here we are at the imagining the end of capitalism as it’s manifest through Marsification.

      So let’s talk about your new piece, up at projectcensored.org: Marketing Mars. Impetus and what’s the thesis?

      Zara Zimbardo: Thank you both for having me on. So Marketing Mars is a piece that, you know, in our time right now where there is accelerating an intensification of messaging saying that humanity’s future is in space and that human humans can and should expand to Mars.

      And the 2030s are being heavily hyped as the decade of human landing and initial settlement both on the moon and on Mars, as well as luxury space tourism and the untold riches of asteroid mining, right? So we’re at this so-called dawn of the age of space colonization. And so it’s important to slow down and look at the ways that we are being sold certain fantasies and dreams of our relationship with the red planet, and to unpack and kind of like break the spell of some of these frames and messages that contain different worldviews and ideologies that are really nothing new.

      And so in this piece, I look at five dominant frames in the US context, right, that are selling the Mars pitch: species survival, seeing Mars as a backup planet, as Planet B, Mars as Wild West frontier, right, the new rugged horizon, next evolutionary step, the space race, of course, exploration and discovery, and then transcendence. And freedom. And so looking at some of the roots and some of the ideologies within these different messages that you see in all kinds of ways coming from all different kinds of actors, notably from tech billionaires who are selling science fiction fantasies to distract from nonfiction on earth, that it’s valuable to unpack, right, and have public discussion.

      Mickey Huff: Zara, many of these people too are say, maybe taking the wrong messages from dystopic science, science fiction warnings. And you mentioned, you know, the billionaire Tech bros, led at least in public by Elon Musk, although I think it’s more Curtis Jarvin and Peter Thiel pulling the strings behind the scenes that we ought be more concerned about. Not that there aren’t plenty of people to be concerned about for various reasons.

      But Musk has certainly popularized the Occupy Mars slogan and shirt, which I think is a horrible take on Occupy Wall Street. He’s not gonna occupy Mars to improve it in any real way. But that certainly has, as you’ve mentioned, that’s really entered the lexicon, entered the public imagination.

      And of course it’s often cloaked in the species survival, as you mentioned. Maybe you can talk a little bit about this. Somehow we figured that if we’ve done soiled this planet, maybe the next one will be better. I mean, I don’t follow the logic there, but maybe you can walk us through.

      Zara Zimbardo: Yeah. So Musk is obviously one of the most visible and influential evangelists for Making Mars Great Again. And that is very much sold as essential for the guarantee of the human species into the future, that there are all kinds of calamities that could befall us on earth, right? Extinction level events. He likes to bring up asteroid strikes quite a bit.

      And so that, saying that this is imperative for humans to cease being a single planetary civilization, and this is not his original idea. This has been around for decades, coming from a number of different people, but saying that this is our guarantee for species survival. And so his plans, I’m using quotes here, right, is to beginning next decade to start ferrying people to Mars. And over the course of decades, to have a city of a million people on Mars, which will preserve the light of consciousness and you know, create a new society where we’ll be able to do all the things, overcome all the problems we weren’t able to here.

      So that there would be, I mean it’s laughable in terms of, you know, he says there’ll be direct democracy, right? As he’s taking a wrecking ball to democracy here, that there’ll be different egalitarianism, right? And that Mars is also very much looms in the libertarian imagination that this would be freedom from pesky regulations, from constraints, from limitations.

      The frontier thesis. And actually, Robert Zubrin, who has been one of the strongest Mars colonization cheerleaders for a long time, who’s the head of Mars Society, he directly cites Frederick Turner’s Frontier thesis saying that humanity needs this space frontier to show us a tougher, better, freer way, and that that will be the catalyst for the next evolutionary step.

      And, you know, Musk as well as a number of others, you know, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson. There’s a number of these billionauts who have been, who are raised on different science fiction, beloved visions and a number of these science fiction authors are calling them out directly. Cory Doctorow saying, I feel some personal responsibility with people like Musk who have read our dystopias and mistaken them for business plans.

      A couple years ago, Kim Stanley Robinsonr who was very much a zeitgeist shaper of with his Mars Trilogy, Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars, which really laid out this foundational template for terraforming Mars, you know, recently was saying this is a moral hazard, right, these sci-fi dreams right now. Only if we were all flourishing on Earth, then and only then would undertaking some kind of grand adventure like this make sense. But given the state of our world, you know, he said, which I think was probably a shock to many people, Mars is irrelevant and worse than useless to us, right? It’s distracting us from building a better society on earth.

      Mickey Huff: Interestingly, just real quick, ’cause you mentioned a couple things that got me thinking. One was Frederick Jackson Turner. The historiographic flip side is that Turner was also calling the Frontier of the West closed, which spurred an interesting period in the early 20th century that did spark conservation for better or worse, with Teddy Roosevelt. Maybe there’s an underside there that we’re not seeing, that could be played out as you were just indicating.

      It’s time to, in fact, not look at Mars. But what can we fix here? And the terraformation business. I know we’ll get into William Shatner and Captain Kirk later, but apparently these folks haven’t seen Star Trek 3, the Search for Spock, with the Genesis project, because that ended very terribly with the planet being rebirthed and dissolved and destroyed all within the period of a day or something. So in other words, another example of how big tech blows up in our faces.

      Zara Zimbardo: Yeah. What could go wrong? And I mean, throughout the Marketing Mars piece, it’s really looking at these, tracing these deep colonial roots that keep replaying, and that we’re gonna, you know, reboot civilization on the blank red slate of this new planet. And so, so much of this mythology of this space cowboy, I mean, it’s no accident that, you know, Branson, Bezos Musk, all wear cowboy hats as they’re popping champagne in low earth orbit.

      But that Mars, you know, it’s talking about as the language of, you know, pristine wilderness, untrammeled, and exporting a toxic worldview, which is really talking about how we treat earth, right? And so it’s this worldview of seeing the world as dead, which enables it to be ruthlessly and relentlessly extracted from, right?

      And so it’s exporting these ideologies unaltered into space, you know, along with these romanticized notions of the settler, frontier, and some kind of, you know, simpler time as we’re living underground in Mars to not get cancer from radiation on the surface, right? I mean, we’re talking about toxic skies, poisonous landscape, amazingly inhospitable to say the least, to humans.

      But the fact that this mythology gains so much uncritical traction, like just unselfconscious ideologies, as if the history of settler colonialism has not been and is not today marked by tremendous violence dispossession, theft and subjugation.

      Eleanor Goldfield: Well, and I think there’s something there too ’cause when I was reading your piece, these concept of dystopia and distraction were kind of these buzzwords that kept buzzing at me. And I think there’s something about this where there’s this idea, well, we didn’t quite get it right here, you know, Manifest Destiny didn’t work out exactly the way we wanted it to, but, like Musk says, we’ll create this Utopia Mars, so we’ll get it right there. And it’s just like you have people that think the earth is flat or that climate change is not caused by humans. It’s this desperate need to unload all of these facts into a myth that will make everything okay again.

      And we are myth makers, as human beings. We’ve been making myths since we started creating stories and we’re recreating them, as you said, on Mars. And I’m also curious where you think then that this role of imagination, because we’ve also created myths that don’t involve settler colonialism. And we’ve also created realities, not we personally, but we, the humans have created realities that are more egalitarian, that don’t speak to these oppressive hierarchies.

      And so I’m curious, is there another space that you think, no pun intended, is there another space that you think that we, where there’s room for these kind of imaginative ways of thinking? Not really about Mars necessarily, but also just about our space here and how that could then translate into how we view not just Mars, but indeed maybe Earth.

      Zara Zimbardo: Yeah. I love that question. One of the questions that I ask in this piece is like, whose imaginations are we inhabiting, right? And so by focusing on these dominant narrative frames in a US context, it’s not saying, oh, these are the only ones, but these are the funded ones. These are the ones that are really trying to make this happen imminently. Right?

      And it’s so important, as you say, like with regards to our sibling planet, humans have been imagining and projecting and ascribing meanings onto Mars for millennia, right? In all kinds of different cultures, right? There are so many different sky traditions, different relationships with the cosmos as ancestral global commons. And so there’s so many voices, and within fields of astrophysics and cosmology that are saying like, we need space for different imaginations to imagine ourselves, our relationship with the cosmos, relationship with other planets, and notably with ours, right?

      And so, something that is compelling to me is to think that, you know, to say like, let’s go to Mars without leaving the planet. We all have images of the surface, courtesy of rovers and flybys. Like let’s go to Mars in our imaginations. Or in literature, in media, using VR headsets, you know, whatever. So that we can keep returning to and landing on earth, right? And really imagining what that first human colony would be like, how desperately lonely it would be to be a single species without all of our outrageous, more than human kin.

      What it would be like to not feel the breeze on your face while you’re experiencing all kinds of transcendent quote, freedom, right? You know, all of this to keep coming back home, right? To see, renew our sense of wonder and fierce commitment to keep open a livable, habitable window right here on earth.

      Probably some listeners are familiar with the phenomenon of the overview effect, which was coined by Frank White, space philosopher, to name experiences of transformative awe when astronauts have left the earth, and then look back and see our home planet in the context of space, and often just feeling overcome with emotion, appreciation, longing, sorrow, beauty, which happens for William Shatner, Captain Kirk, when he went up with Blue Origin in 2021, and wrote so powerfully saying, you know, my trip to space was supposed to be a celebration. Instead, it felt like a funeral, that it was among the deepest, most intense feelings of grief he’d ever, ever experienced.

      To see our earth in its fragile, miraculous life containing atmosphere, species that took billions of years to evolve, that we are destroying, you know, and to see this warm nurturing oasis within the vicious coldness of space. And so that’s an example. It’s like we don’t need to hop on a rocket to get that perspective, right? This perspective from here below has always offered transcendent awareness of our reality as earthlings in the wonder of this place.

      Eleanor Goldfield: I think, I mean, something that you’re talking about is something that we talk about often on the show, which is framing, and you’re very literally talking about it, like looking out of a window and seeing the planet earth. Like what must that do? But again, as you pointed out, that’s something that we can imagine. And we just have to shift our framing. We just have to be aware of the framing that we have, which again, you know, the fish is not the one to recognize the water. We have been steeped in this kind of manifest destiny, this frontier, wild west, White supremacist colonialist paradigm. So we don’t see the frame around everything that we’re looking at. So this just seems like the natural way to approach Mars because that’s how we approach Earth.

      And I think the other facet here that I think is really important to highlight, which also connects to something that we talk about frequently, is this rise of anti-intellectualism that sees it as a point of pride to be anti-intellectual and to not care about other species, to not even acknowledge the fact that climate change is a thing, to not acknowledge the destruction of our paradigms, of our framing. And so I see that as another thread in your piece about that, that framing and this rise of anti-intellectualism and this pride in anti-intellectualism is really problematic for the way that we look at everything, whether that be down at our feet or indeed up, up to space.

      Zara Zimbardo: I so appreciate everything you just said and want to note, with Manifest Destiny in the neologism that we created, Marsification, right, which is about naming this time that we’re in of the drive to make Mars habitable while the Earth is becoming being rendered increasingly uninhabitable.

      And it’s the expansion of colonial fantasy beyond the atmosphere of the earth, manifest destiny to the stars. So to hear, and I’m sorry to go back there, to inauguration day where Trump said in his speech, vowing to pursue our manifest destiny into the stars. I nearly fell out of my chair.

      Mickey Huff: Yeah.

      Zara Zimbardo: The, how explicit that is, right. And then saying we are going to plant the stars and stripes on Mars, right? And to name like, my piece is US focused, but this is a global enterprise, right? Pouring money into Mars and moon missions, and just to say, NASA has its new Artemis program, the Artemis Generation, which is the Moon to Mars program.

      And so this is to return to the moon after five decades and to create a base in the South Pole with continuous human presence. And a big part of that is to then be a stepping stone to get to Mars. This is also China’s plan to have a base in the South Pole of the moon. And so as we’re also thinking about imagination and all of our diverse relationships with looking up at the night sky, right? Seeing something as familiar as the moon, sometimes I look at the full moon and I’m like, wow, what would that be like to know that there’s humans there or open pit mines?

      You know? And so, it’s so important to both, as you’re saying, keep the imaginative space open, hear from very different voices who are holding up very different visions for our future as well as to, you know, unpack and look critically at some of the toxic world views in these dominant frames that are, you know, constantly bombarding us with these messages.

      Mickey Huff: This is an old message, American exceptionalism. I mean, it’s essentially projecting into space, onto Mars, wherever. And as you point out in the article, it’s as if we wanna forget all about. You said here, you were quoting Linda Billings from NASA called this frontier pioneering continual progress, manifest destiny, free enterprise, rugged individualism, and a right to life without limits.

      You know, again, it’s the United States of Amnesia, Gore Vidal style. We like to conveniently pretend and forget how catastrophic the American exceptionalist ideology has been for a majority of people and species around the world. The idea that we’re gonna transplant that somewhere else is hardly celebratory, unless it was to mean we were purging it. Right? And rebirthing ourselves here.

      Eleanor Goldfield: I just have to quote Gil Scott Heron here: I can’t pay my doctor bills, but whitey’s on the moon.

      Mickey Huff: Yeah. Which you quote, you cite in here, Zara.

      Zara Zimbardo: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, from Gil Scott Heron’s Whitey on the Moon right, is as relevant today as it was then.

      Mickey Huff: Yeah. 50 years later, 55 years later.

      Zara Zimbardo: Yeah. Which, which brings up just some of the moral questions of funding these fantasies, but indeed, as you say, right, Musk and others talk about bringing millions of tons of cargo to Mars, right? So that may be less weighty than the cultural baggage that we would be transporting with us, and something as spectacular and difficult, a feat of planetary engineering, right? The vision of terraforming, right, which would be transforming Mars with orbital reflectors to heat up the surface to nuke the ice caps, which Musk is fond of talking about, to seed the surface with photosynthetic plants and genetically engineered microbes to try to, you know, build an atmosphere, right?

      That it is a much harder task for us to confront and really reckon with our past right, and our presence and to imagine different futures. And so for all of the imagination, right within this, the sci-fi is becoming science nonfiction, there is a real impoverishment of worldview because it is Mars as a mirror or as a Rorschach test, right?

      It’s all about how we view Earth, right? And so some of these dominant corporate colonial capitalist views that, see again, yeah, earth as just an inert resource or that look at somewhat barren areas of the earth as worthless and needing to be geo-engineered into productivity such as our deserts, which are lush compared to Mars.

      Or Antarctica or the deep ocean, right? We are profoundly entangled with all of these places, right? And so a worldview of these places as both as worthless and seeing it as inhospitable. Those are all places that are, like deep ocean and Antarctica, they’re far more hospitable than Mars and no one lives there.

      Mickey Huff: Yeah, and the ocean is mostly unexplored. I mean, Kennedy was saying that year, eight decades ago.

      Zara Zimbardo: Yeah. More people have been to the moon than to the deep paddle zone of the ocean, which is astounding to consider.

      Mickey Huff: The historian in me has a hard time getting off of how cheaply these narratives are recycled, without much analysis. But, you know, for all the talk of Trump channeling William McKinley, the right wing business leader, Republican of the late 19th century, who was adopting many of the imperialist strategies of Alfred Mahan, you know, at the time about building canals and moving out into the ocean instead of space, right? Again, riffing again later in the sixties with Gene Roddenberry, the final frontier, et cetera. Right?

      Interestingly, in many ways, Trump’s channeling James K. Polk and the Continentalists of the Mexican American war. That’s where the phrase Manifest Destiny came from, from the journalist John O’Sullivan, that it was our manifest destiny by divine providence, our right to occupy, which meant improve, which meant eradicate, which meant commit genocide against Indigenous peoples and the environment at any cost, at all cost.

      And you know, to suggest that we’ve been marginally victorious. I say the royal, it’s not we, you and I and us here, but to suggest that that was victorious, I think really helps blind us to exactly the cost of our ignorance, and that fuels our anti-intellectualism in a vicious cycle such that we can’t even fathom what we are not appreciating about what we’re losing about the only planet we have.

      Back to your planet B. Right? I think it’s really pretty riveting and I think that when you get through your piece further, you talk about, we mentioned already China, the space race, the new space race. You also have narratives of exploration and discovery and transcendence, and maybe we can spend a few minutes shifting into those, into some of those realms, even though I was just guilty of keeping this in the past. So anyway, Zara.

      Zara Zimbardo: Yeah, absolutely. You know, and just to say that space race is of course not only nation states, but is a privatized space race, right. Different billionaires.

      Mickey Huff: Yeah. And chauvinism and the next red state, right. Mars is the 51st red state.

      Zara Zimbardo: Yeah, absolutely. And, just to name when we talk about Planet B, that has been a slogan at climate protests around the world for a long time, saying there is no Planet B to drive attention, urgency, and to act like this is our only planet because it is, right? And so to say that there is a planet B, what does that do in terms of priority with planet A?

      And thank you for naming the religious dimension around manifest destiny, that this is divinely ordained. And so when we look at the ways of different, the transcendence narrative frame, this very much functions as secularized version of the Christian rapture. That a select few will ascend and leave this world seen as doomed, or as a death trap or undesirable. So that’s very much functioning, which is something that Naomi Klein draws a lot of attention to.

      And there’s this messianic language and fervor coming from Silicon Valley right, about Mars and space colonization, as well about transhumanism. Long-termism. All of these different ideologies that are, that technology will save us. These are techno salvationist ideologies.

      And the Mars will save us narrative is part of that, that it will enable freedom from the constraints and suffering of the human body, from our biology, from mortality of disrupting death. Right. Immortality. From immortality and crowd preservation startups, right? All of this, and to get free from the biological limits and of the planet itself. And so it’s really important to question these visions of freedom.

      Mickey Huff: Which with Oregon Trail on Mars, you’re gonna have more than dysentery to worry about.

      Zara Zimbardo: Indeed. And that’ll, you know, when I think about the dazzling vastness of space, I often think about pooing in space. It is challenging. Right? In zero gravity. It is. I encourage people to check it out and just to consider what daily life may be like for our human physiology that’s co-evolved with this planet. Being off of it, all activities of daily life and functioning are challenging.

      But so this vision that we would get free from, we, that some people would get free and cut the tether from really so much of what has the potential to make us wise, right? Of learning from this planet and its cycles, learning from what it means to inhabit a human body with all of its experience, the preciousness and finiteness of life reflected in the mirror of death, right? They’re wanting an escape hatch out of all of this. And so it may be easier to imagine something like terraforming Mars, right, than to imagine what it would take, and to direct every possible resource to our one and only home.

      Eleanor Goldfield: I mean, it’s interesting because, and Mickey, you already mentioned that they clearly haven’t seen Star Trek, but I guess they haven’t seen Nosferatu either, because the whole point there is like, you should pity this being for having to live forever. So actually death is a good thing, and it’s important because you don’t wanna be this blood sucker. But then of course, there’s another metaphor there with the blood suckers. I mean, it’s really, it does sometimes feel like we’re living in, as comedian Lee Camp put it, a remedial matrix where I just feel like this can’t be happening.

      But it’s also interesting because, Mickey mentioned Peter Byrne. There’s also this kind of creationist with the AI, making it in its own image, and of course, we’re going to Marsificate in our, in the image of these, quote unquote the gods, the creators, these billionauts, they’re making it in their image. Of course, again, not in our image, not in the image of the people, but in the image of what they perceive as themselves as these demigods who, you know, pull from Lord of the Rings. And it’s all very, very creepy, very techno fascist.

      Mickey Huff: Well, and it’s this billionaire class that’s been, you know, they’re the ones that are at late stage capitalism that are treating the planet as a garbage can, and it’s the exact same thing they’ve already done to space.

      Good luck getting to Mars and not wrecking into the garbage that’s surrounding the planet right now. Right. And I don’t just mean satellites. I mean, they’re using space as the next dumping ground.

      You know, I mean, and that’s something that gets very little attention, unless something just happens to fall from space and gee, we hope it falls in the ocean because we don’t care about the ocean either, even though without it, we’re doomed.

      I mean, I hate to say that, you know, get into the doom loop cycle here, but this billionaire class, they’re just projecting the same flawed kind of programs wherever they are, whether it’s on here on earth, on space. They could be in any paradigm, and they’d have the same sort a really myopic, narcissistic and self-destructive kind of ethos. That just, it seems like a non-starter from a humanist perspective.

      Zara Zimbardo: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean creating, you know, gilded bunkers to survive a world whose demise they’re hastening, right? Yeah. It’s the apocalyptic vision more invested in there, whether that is bunkers, whether that is in space, whether that is on Mars, whether that is more concern with long, the ideology of long-termism that humans will become, upload digital consciousness or however you know, or colonize space or live in the immense rotating cylinders that Jeff Bezos wants to create off world, keep the earth as a nature preserve for the elite to visit, right? But that this would ensure us to live for billions and billions of years. And so that is obviously so dangerous in terms of directing concern to abstract human flourishing elsewhere and in the far future than in the here and now.

      Mickey Huff: More messianic tendencies. I mean, we were just mentioning with Providence and Religion behind the Manifest Destiny and. I don’t know.

      Eleanor Goldfield: Also this aspect that Gods don’t ever have to clean up after themselves. Like all of the stories, whether it’s Zeus or Christianity. No one, no God ever has to clean up their mess. And so it’s that same paradigm that we are just going to keep messing things up and then we can just go to a different planet and we’ll be fine and we don’t care about you because we’ll get out of it and we don’t ever have to clean up our own mess. It’s this very, very twisted deification of this like capitalist colonialist paradigm.

      Zara Zimbardo: Yeah, absolutely. And the extreme wealth that enables that God-like detached view of themselves. And now folks are talking about that space industry will create the first trillionaires.

      Mickey Huff: Mm-hmm. Wow. Can’t wait.

      Zara Zimbardo: Yeah. It’s very much, Eleanor with what you’re bringing up. There really is a huge battle of the imagination and of different mythologies. And so it’s more important than ever to be like, we have a lot of mythological warnings, you know, and stories to wake us up and think about just unrestrained hubris and arrogance and ignorance and narcissism and where that gets us as these mythologies are being wielded so heavily today, backed by incredible capital.

      Mickey Huff: Yeah. Battlestar Apocalyptica.

      Anyway, you end the piece, we have a few minutes left, and you end your piece, you have a great quote from Carl Sagan: “what shall we do with Mars? There are so many examples of human misuse of the earth that even phrasing this question chills me.”

      And then you have another, you go into a segment that you call touch grass. And you have a really wonderful quote that says “humanity needed a moon landing to realize that the much more exciting thing is the earth itself, but landing on it is not so easy.”

      Zara Zimbardo: Yeah. I love that quote from Bruno Letour. Yeah. And the recent public spectacle of the Blue Origin, all female space trip of folks being in space for 11 minutes. And when they came back, pop star Katie Perry knelt down and kissed the ground. You don’t need to leave the planet to kiss the ground. We don’t need to leave the planet to kiss the ground and to be overcome with awe and reverence and also just heartbreaking devastation of what is going on right on our world here.

      And so that, I am curious about the ways that the image of Mars, that Mars itself can aid us in coming home in different ways and shifting our perception, in terms of how we view, like literal worldview, planet view, and how we treat the earth.

      Mickey Huff: Yeah, pretty extraordinary. And, you know, Zara, the conclusion, something that Eleanor riffed on earlier and one of the images in the piece, when you’re talking about us being distracted from this fantasy about how human ingenuity and industry can turn uninhabitable Mars into a habitable Earth. And you finish by saying, this fantasy is a distraction from the reality that Earth is being rapidly turned into Mars.

      Well that’s a dour place to end on, but I think that the warning is pretty clear. I think that it’s a very clear conclusion that we have enough in front of us and we should be really spending time appreciating more of what we have and what we’re losing and trying to preserve it for future generations of people that we are all in some small way, some of us bigger than others, contributing to the unfortunate reality that future generations won’t even get to experience that, which we now are.

      So, Zara, thanks so much for joining us on the program today. Do you have anything you’d like to share with the audience? Places they can get in touch with you or follow your work or see other things? They can read your article that we just discussed right now, Marketing Mars at projectcensored.org under our dispatches. But anything else, Zara?

      Zara Zimbardo: Yeah, certainly. I would suggest that folks check out the website, marsification.com, which has not just our concept album, but has all kinds of fascinating resources that we have curated, that are looking at different discourses and perspectives on space, as well as like decolonial and feminist and queer and Afro futurists and Indigenous futurist views of space, as well as critiques. And so there’s a treasure trove there of resources to check out, and folks can find me on social media.

      Mickey Huff: Great. Well, Zara Zimbardo, thanks so much for joining us.

      Your piece is called Marketing Mars. It’s available at projectcensored.org. We look forward to having you back on the program sometime in the future on Earth, not in Mars.

      Zara Zimbardo: Thanks so much.

  • Comment TikTok a changé la manière de concevoir des clips de musique
    https://www.ladn.eu/media-mutants/comment-tiktok-a-change-la-maniere-de-concevoir-des-clips-de-musique

    Exit les clips sur MTV... TikTok a forcé les artistes à changer la manière de faire des images.

    « Si je n’avais pas TikTok, je ne découvrirais jamais de musiques. Mon algorithme connaît mes goûts mieux que moi et plus besoin de clip à 2 millions d’euros pour me donner envie d’écouter. Ce qui marche, c’est que l’artiste me fasse sentir qu’il est humain, comme moi quoi… »

    C’est ce qu’explique Nicolas, 25 ans, à la sortie d’un concert de Eartheater qu’il a découverte sur TikTok. Mi-artiste de musique électronique, mi-créature extraterrestre, Eartheater n’est pas franchement « comme nous ». Mais ce qui plaît à Nicolas, c’est cette nouvelle forme d’art instantanée qu’elle met en scène sur la plateforme vidéo. Cette force, qu’elle partage avec d’autres artistes, est de créer une iconographie visuelle avec les moyens du bord et une intimité avec le public. Et ce, 7 fois par semaine, à travers des vidéos en 16:9.

    @iameartheater

    ‘Lucky’ out today w me and Varg #eartheater #draingang #lucky #trinityvigorsky #crazyates #covergirl #metal #doom #trinity #earth #tears #behemoth #messenoire
    ♬ original sound - Eartheater

    TikTok kills the clip star

    En août 1981, la chaîne MTV diffusait sa première vidéo sur le câble : The Buggles, Video Killed the Radio Star. L’ère des vidéos musicales commençait et nous passions d’auditeurs à spectateurs de musique. Aujourd’hui, le clip de cinq minutes à l’esthétique léchée et aux budgets faramineux (7 millions de dollars pour Scream de Michael Jackson) est devenu anachronique. Cette pièce maîtresse de l’industrie musicale laisse la place aux micro-contenus musicaux sur TikTok et Instagram, qui définissent les contours de la promotion par l’image

    #Musique #Vidéo #Clip #TikTok

  • #Analyse : a-t-on observé un effondrement des #puits_de_carbone_terrestres en #2023 ?

    https://bonpote.com/analyse-a-t-on-observe-un-effondrement-des-puits-de-carbone-terrestres-en-2

    “Un #effondrement des puits de carbone terrestres en 2023”.

    "Je ne dis pas cela méchamment, mais j’espère vraiment que ce document est tout simplement erroné. Une détérioration rapide du puits de carbone terrestre dans un avenir proche pourrait avoir des conséquences vraiment terribles." Voici ce qu’a déclaré Robert Rohde, directeur scientifique au Berkeley Earth, le jour de la sortie de l’étude.

    En effet, il y a de quoi être inquiet. Si cela se confirmait, ce serait de très loin la pire nouvelle climatique depuis plusieurs années. C’est l’été, il y existe semble-t-il une “trêve politique” pendant les Jeux Olympiques 2024, mais s’il y a une chose qui ne prend pas de vacances, c’est bien le #changement_climatique.

    #Incendies, #sécheresses… et un possible emballement du climat si un tel déclin persistait. Rien que ça. Dans cet article, nous reviendrons sur ce que sont les puits de carbone, ce que nous dit l’étude et les conséquences que cela pourrait avoir.

    #Trees and #land absorbed almost no CO2 last year. Is nature’s carbon sink failing? | Oceans | #The_Guardian

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/14/nature-carbon-sink-collapse-global-heating-models-emissions-targets-evi

    Only one major tropical rainforest – the #Congo_basin – remains a strong #carbon_sink that removes more than it releases into the atmosphere. Exacerbated by #El_Niño #weather patterns, deforestation and global heating, the Amazon basin is experiencing a record-breaking drought, with rivers at an all-time low. Expansion of #agriculture has turned #tropical_rainforests in south-east Asia into a net source of #emissions in recent years.

    Emissions from soil – which is the second-largest active carbon store after the oceans – are expected to increase by as much as 40% by the end of the century if they continue at the current rate, as soils become drier and microbes break them down faster.

    Tim Lenton, professor of #climate_change and #Earth_system_science at Exeter University, says: “We are seeing in the biosphere some surprising responses that are not what got predicted, just as we are in the #climate.

    “You have to question: to what degree can we rely on them as carbon sinks or carbon stores?” he says.

    A paper published in July found that while the total amount of carbon absorbed by forests between 1990 and 2019 was steady, it varied substantially by region. The boreal forests – home to about a third of all carbon found on land, which stretch across Russia, Scandinavia, Canada and Alaska – have seen a sharp fall in the amount of carbon they absorb, down more than a third due to climate crisis-related beetle outbreaks, fire and clearing for timber.

  • A neglected burial ground for migrants on Greek island of Lesbos has been given a drastic overhaul

    Most drowned making the hazardous sea crossing from nearby Turkey, while others died of natural causes in migrant camps on the Greek island of Lesbos.

    After years of neglect, a makeshift burial ground for migrants on the island has been cleaned up and landscaped to provide a dignified resting place for the dead, and for their relatives to visit.

    Earth Medicine, the Lesbos-based charity that handled the project near the village of Kato Tritos, formally handed over the redesigned cemetery to municipal officials on Wednesday.

    “We wanted it to be clear that this was a burial ground, (mostly) for people who died at sea — some of whom have been identified while others have not,” Earth Medicine spokesman Dimitris Patounis said. “It used to be just a field.”

    For years, Lesbos has been a major destination for people seeking a better life in the European Union. They leave Turkish shores crammed into small, unseaworthy vessels provided by smuggling gangs. About 3,800 people have made the journey so far this year.

    Before the intervention, the weed-choked graves were marked by a simple stone with a number written on it by marker, or, in the rare cases when it was available, a name. Currently, about 200 neat, uniform gray slabs filled with white gravel cover each grave, clearly listing whatever is known of the occupant.

    https://apnews.com/article/migrants-lesbos-cemetery-greece-charity-burial-4bc55fcb32b6f2bec9acc69dbb20f

    #mourir_aux_frontières #migrations #décès #cimetière #Lesbos #Grèce #dignité #morts_aux_frontières #enterrement #unknown #tombes #Kato_Tritos #Earth_Medicine

  • Sans titre
    https://anarchism.space/@gorekhaa/113090826920641547

    #ACRACY PLEASE SPREAD THIS !This is what happens when authoritarism and corruption are ruling the ecological game in #france... Defending the Earth against ecocides might kill you !#EarthFirst #Emergency #GAMEOVERVIDÉOS. Autoroute A69 : deux opposants hospitalisés après une chute suite à l’intervention des gendarmeshttps://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/occitanie/tarn/albi/videos-autoroute-castres-toulouse-deux-ecureuils-hospit

    ##ACRACY ##EarthFirst ##GAMEOVER

  • Il cotone “sporco e insostenibile” di #Zara ed #H&M e la distruzione del #Cerrado

    La Ong inglese #Earthsight ha condotto un’inchiesta per un anno lungo la filiera di questa fibra tessile: i due marchi della fast fashion avrebbero immesso sul mercato 800mila tonnellate di cotone coltivato su terreni disboscati illegalmente nella savana tropicale che copre un terzo del Brasile. “Il sistema di filiera ‘etica’ su cui si basano questi colossi è fondamentalmente difettoso”

    Se negli ultimi anni avete acquistato vestiti di cotone, asciugamani o lenzuola di H&M o Zara “probabilmente sono macchiati del saccheggio del Cerrado”, un’area ricchissima di biodiversità che copre quasi un quarto della superficie del Brasile. Sam Lawson, direttore della Ong britannica Earthsight, non usa mezzi termini per commentare l’esito dell’inchiesta “Fashion crimes. The European retail giants linked to dirty Brazilian cotton”, pubblicata l’11 aprile, che analizza la lunga e insostenibile filiera di questa fibra dalla produzione (in Brasile) alla lavorazione (in Paesi come Indonesia e Bangladesh), fino alla commercializzazione in Europa (Italia compresa) dove, secondo le stime di Earthsight, i due brand avrebbero messo in commercio prodotti realizzati con 800mila tonnellate di cotone coltivato su terreni disboscati illegalmente nel Cerrado.

    Ma andiamo con ordine. L’inchiesta di Earthsigh prende le mosse proprio dal grande Paese latinoamericano che, negli ultimi dieci anni, ha guadagnato crescente importanza nel mercato globale del cotone, di cui oggi è il secondo esportatore mondiale “e si prevede che entro il 2030 supererà gli Stati Uniti”. Il cuore di questa produzione si concentra in uno degli ecosistemi più fragili e preziosi del mondo: il Cerrado, una grande savana tropicale che ospita una delle più importanti aree di biodiversità al mondo, dove vivono oltre seimila specie di alberi così come centinaia di rettili, mammiferi, anfibi e uccelli.

    La sopravvivenza di questo inestimabile patrimonio è minacciata dalla deforestazione illegale che nel 2023 ha raggiunto livelli record, con un aumento del 43% rispetto al 2022. “Circa la metà della vegetazione nativa del Cerrado è già andata perduta, soprattutto per far posto all’espansione dell’agrobusiness”, evidenzia il report. Milioni di litri d’acqua vengono prelevati regolarmente dai fiumi e dalle falde per irrigare i campi di cotone, la cui coltivazione richiede l’utilizzo di 600 milioni di litri di pesticidi ogni anno.

    L’inchiesta di Earthsight analizza in particolare il ruolo di due dei principali produttori di cotone brasiliani: il gruppo Horita e SLC Agrícola che controllano enormi aziende e centinaia di migliaia di ettari di terreno. “Nel 2014 l’agenzia ambientale dello Stato di Bahia ha rilevato 25mila ettari deforestati illegalmente nelle aziende agricole di Horita a Estrondo -si legge nel report-. Nel 2020 la stessa agenzia ha dichiarato di non essere riuscita a trovare i permessi per altri 11.700 ettari deforestati dall’azienda tra il 2010 e il 2018”. Tra il 2010 e il 2019 l’azienda è stata multata complessivamente più di venti volte, per un totale di 4,5 milioni di dollari, per violazioni ambientali.

    Altrettanto gravi, le denunce rivolte a SLC Agrícola: tre aziende, tutte coltivate a cotone, hanno cancellato per sempre 40mila ettari di Cerrado nativo negli ultimi 12 anni. E, sebbene l’azienda abbia adottato una politica “zero deforestazione” nel 2021, è accusata di aver distrutto altri 1.356 ettari di vegetazione nel 2022. Accuse che hanno spinto il fondo pensionistico pubblico della Norvegia a ritirare i propri investimenti nella società brasiliana.

    Al termine di un lavoro d’inchiesta di un anno -durante il quale hanno analizzato migliaia di registri di spedizione, relazioni aziendali, elenchi di fornitori e siti web– i ricercatori di Earthsight hanno ricostruito la filiera che porta il cotone coltivato illegalmente nel Cerrado nei negozi di Zara ed H&M e poi negli armadi di milioni di persone. I ricercatori hanno identificato otto produttori di abbigliamento asiatici che utilizzano il cotone Horita e SLC e che allo stesso tempo forniscono alle due società di fast fashion milioni di capi di cotone finiti. Tra questi figura l’indonesiana PT Kahatex “il più grande acquirente di cotone contaminato Horita e SLC che abbiamo trovato”. H&M è il secondo cliente dell’azienda indonesiana, da cui ha acquistato milioni di paia di calzini, pantaloncini e pantaloni che sono poi stati messi in vendita nei negozi del gruppo negli Stati Uniti, in Germania, nel Regno Unito, in Svezia, nei Paesi Bassi, in Belgio, in Spagna, in Francia, in Polonia, in Irlanda, in Italia.

    Il cotone sporco del Cerrado è finito anche negli stabilimenti di Jamuna Group, uno dei maggiori conglomerati industriali del Bangladesh: “Nei negozi Zara in Europa, fino ad agosto 2023, sono stati venduti per 235 milioni di euro jeans e altri capi in denim confezionati da Jamuna, circa 21.500 paia al giorno -si legge nel report-. Inditex importa i capi prodotti da Jamuna in Spagna e nei Paesi Bassi, da dove li distribuisce ai suoi negozi Zara, Bershka e Pull&Bear in tutta Europa”. Complessivamente, secondo le stime che i ricercatori hanno elaborato consultando i registri delle spedizioni il Gruppo Horita e SLC Agrícola hanno esportato direttamente almeno 816mila tonnellate di cotone da Bahia verso i mercati esteri tra il 2014 e il 2023. Una quantità di materia prima sufficiente a produrre dieci milioni di capi d’abbigliamento e prodotti per la casa tra lenzuola, tovaglie e tende.

    Ma come è stato possibile, si sono chiesti i ricercatori, che le catene di approvvigionamento dei due marchi di moda siano state “contaminate” da cotone brasiliano legato a deforestazione e land grabbing? “Parte della risposta sta nel fatto che le loro politiche etiche sono piene di falle. Ma soprattutto, il sistema di filiera etica su cui si basano è fondamentalmente difettoso”.

    Il riferimento è al fatto che, nel tentativo di presentarsi come sostenibili e responsabili, i due brand si sono affidati a un sistema di certificazione denominato Better Cotton (BC). “Il cotone che abbiamo collegato agli abusi ambientali a Bahia ne riportava il marchio di qualità. Questo non dovrebbe sorprendere dal momento che Better Cotton è stata ripetutamente accusata di greenwashing e criticata per non aver garantito la piena tracciabilità delle catene di approvvigionamento”, scrivono i ricercatori di Earthsight nel rapporto. Evidenziando come, sebbene dal primo marzo 2024 le regole di BC siano state aggiornate, rimangano comunque una serie di criticità e di punti deboli. A partire dal fatto che il cotone proveniente da terreni disboscati illegalmente prima del 2020 venga ancora certificato.

    “È ormai molto chiaro che i crimini legati ai beni che consumiamo devono essere affrontati attraverso la regolamentazione, non attraverso le scelte dei consumatori -conclude Sam Lawson, direttore di Earthsignt-. Ciò significa che i legislatori dei Paesi consumatori dovrebbero mettere in atto leggi forti con un’applicazione rigorosa. Nel frattempo, gli acquirenti dovrebbero pensarci due volte prima di acquistare il prossimo capo di abbigliamento in cotone”.

    https://altreconomia.it/il-cotone-sporco-e-insostenibile-di-zara-ed-hm-e-la-distruzione-del-cer
    #industrie_textile #coton #mode #déforestation #Brésil #rapport #chiffres #statistiques #SLC_Agrícola #Horita #SLC #fast-fashion #land_grabbing #accaparement_de_terres #Better_Cotton #greenwashing #green-washing

    • Fashion Crimes: The European Retail Giants Linked to Dirty Brazilian Cotton


      Key Findings:

      - The world’s largest fashion brands, H&M and Zara, use cotton linked to land grabbing, illegal deforestation, violence, human rights violations and corruption in Brazil.
      - The cotton is grown by two of Brazil’s largest agribusinesses – SLC Agrícola and the Horita Group – in western Bahia state, a part of the precious Cerrado biome, which has been heavily deforested in recent decades to make way for industrial-scale agriculture.
      - Unlike in the Amazon, deforestation in the Cerrado is getting worse. The biome is home to five per cent of the world’s species. Many face extinction due to habitat loss if current deforestation trends are not reversed.
      - For centuries, traditional communities have lived in harmony with nature. These communities have seen their lands stolen and suffered attacks by greedy agribusinesses serving global cotton markets.
      - The tainted cotton in H&M and Zara’s supply chains is certified as ethical by the world’s largest cotton certification scheme, Better Cotton, which has failed to detect the illegalities committed by SLC and Horita. Better Cotton’s deep flaws will not be addressed by a recent update to its standards.
      - Failure by the fashion sector to monitor and ensure sustainability and legality in its cotton supply chains means governments in wealthy consumer markets must regulate them. Once in place, rules must be strictly enforced.

      https://www.earthsight.org.uk/fashion-crimes

  • The Danger of Anti-Immigrant Extremism Posing as Environmentalism—and Who Funds It

    With President Joe Biden in the White House and Vice President Kamala Harris providing the deciding vote in the Senate, a range of long-sought Democratic policy goals are back in play, albeit just barely. That includes ambitious agendas on immigration and the environment.

    Could this be the administration that pushes through comprehensive immigration reform after decades of failed attempts? Will youth activists and the burgeoning movement for a Green New Deal provide a pathway to major climate legislation? If so, advocates and their funders alike face a tough road ahead, including an obstructionist congressional minority and opponents on both fronts that will look to appeal to the public’s darkest impulses to build opposition.

    At this inflection point, a report this month from the Center for American Progress, “The Extremist Campaign to Blame Immigrants for U.S. Environmental Problems,” offers a timely overview of the history of how opponents of immigration falsely portray it as a threat to the natural world—a strategy we’re likely to see more of in the months ahead. The report offers a valuable review of these efforts, ranging from the past anti-immigrant stances of some of the nation’s best-known environmental groups to the funders that have bankrolled the nation’s largest anti-immigration groups.

    Four years of an administration defined by its opposition to immigration, plus growing attention to climate change, breathed new life into the toxic and racist narrative of immigrants as a cause of environmental degradation. As the report lays out, this argument—often part of a right-wing, white supremacist ideology known as ecofascism, though CAP’s report does not use the term—found allies in the top echelons of government and media, including a former head of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and conservative commentators like Ann Coulter and Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

    In contemporary politics, this strategy is mainly seen as a right-wing phenomenon or an artifact of the racist and Eurocentric early history of conservation. Yet the fact that anti-immigrant sentiment found a home within top environmental groups, including Earthfirst! and the Sierra Club, which had a major faction in support of these ideas as late as 2004, is a reminder that it has found fertile soil in a variety of political camps. That makes the narrative all the more dangerous, and one against which funders working in both immigration and the environment ought to take a firm and vocal stance.

    Who’s funding anti-immigration work in the name of the environment?

    Although not comprehensive, the report highlights three funders as key backers of anti-immigration groups: Colcom Foundation, Weeden Foundation and Foundation for the Carolinas. The first two are, in their branding and language, environmental funders—and make those grants in the name of preventing further damage to the natural world.

    Colcom, founded by Mellon Bank heir Cordelia Scaife May, is far and away the largest funder. With a roughly $500 million endowment, it has provided a large share of the support for a network of groups founded by John Tanton, a Sierra Club official in the 1980s, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) calls “the racist architect of the modern anti-immigrant movement.”

    Recipients include NumbersUSA, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), and the Center for Immigration Studies, which we once called “Trump’s favorite immigration think tank.” The latter two are classified as hate groups by the SPLC, a designation the organizations reject.

    In keeping with the bending of reflexive political categories, it’s worth noting that May—who died in 2005—was also a substantial funder of Planned Parenthood due to her prioritization of “population control” as a means of achieving conservation. In 2019, the New York Times documented May’s dark journey to becoming a leading funder of the modern anti-immigrant movement, and the millions her foundation continued to move, long after her death, in support of ideas that gained a receptive audience in a nativist Trump administration. May’s wealth came from the Mellon-Scaife family fortune, which yielded several philanthropists, including another prominent conservative donor, Richard Mellon Scaife.

    Weeden, led by Don Weeden, has funded a similar who’s who of top anti-immigration groups, as well as lower-profile or regional groups like Californians for Population Stabilization, Progressives for Immigration Reform—which CAP calls the “most central organization in the anti-immigrant greenwashing universe”—and the Rewilding Institute.

    Both Weeden and Colcom, as well as the groups they fund, generally say they are neither anti-immigrant nor anti-immigration. Aside from restrictionist policy positions and racist comments by former leaders, it is revealing that the groups they fund are the favored information sources for some of the most virulently anti-immigrant politicians, both historically and among those who rose prominence during the Trump administration. For a deeper dive on Weeden and Colcom, see my colleague Philip Rojc’s excellent 2019 piece on these grantmakers.

    Finally, there is the Foundation for the Carolinas, which in many ways is a typical community foundation, with initiatives on topics from COVID-19 relief to local arts. But it also hosts a donor-advised fund that has supported several anti-immigration groups, including Center for Immigration Studies, FAIR and NumbersUSA. That fund channeled nearly $21 million to nine such groups between 2006 and 2018, according to the report.

    There’s a connection here to a larger problem of private foundations and DAFs, some of which are housed at community foundations, supporting 501(c)(3) nonprofits identified as hate groups, according to a recent analysis from the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Foundation for the Carolinas also made its list of top donors to these groups.

    An ideology funders must fight against

    As the debates over both immigration and climate policies move forward under this new administration, and the opposition marshals efforts to defeat them, this report offers a helpful guide to this enduring and noxious myth. It’s also an important reminder that if these ideas are not called actively combated, they can take root within well-intentioned efforts. Though it seems only a small number of foundations directly fund groups advancing these ideas, anti-immigrant sentiment is insidious.

    For example, while some commentators are suggesting that acceding to Trump-fueled demands for a border wall is how Congress could reach bipartisan action on immigration reform, the report notes how the existing sections of wall are ineffective against furtive crossings, disruptive to species migration, and in violation of Indigenous sacred sites. These facts—and more broadly, the connection to white supremacist and fascist movements—should put foundations on guard, whether they support grantees pushing for immigration reform, action on climate or both.

    With the United States and other nations facing greater and greater pressures from climate change—particularly as it forces migration from regions like Latin America and the Middle East—philanthropy would do well to be proactive now and draw a bright line in countering this ideology’s propagation.

    https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2021/2/24/anti-immigrant-environmentalism-is-resurgent-new-report-looks-at
    #extrême_droite #anti-migrants #USA #Etats-Unis #environnementalisme #environnement #migrations #nature #dégradation_environnementale #écofascisme #éco-fascisme #suprématisme_blanc #extrême_droite #Ann_Coulte #Tucker_Carlson #racisme #Earthfirst #Sierra_Club #deep_ecology #fondations #Colcom_Foundation #Weeden_Foundation #Foundation_for_the_Carolinas #Mellon_Bank #Cordelia_Scaife_May #mécénat #John_Tanton #NumbersUSA #Federation_for_American_Immigration_Reform (#FAIR) #Center_for_Immigration_Studies #Planned_Parenthood #démographie #contrôle_démographique #néo-malthusianisme #néomalthusianisme #protection_de_l'environnement #philanthropie #Richard_Mellon_Scaife #Weeden #Don_Weeden #Californians_for_Population_Stabilization #Progressives_for_Immigration_Reform #Rewilding_Institute

    • The Extremist Campaign to Blame Immigrants for U.S. Environmental Problems

      With growing frequency over the past four years, right-wing pundits, policymakers, and political operatives have fiercely and furiously blamed immigrants for the degradation and decline of nature in the United States. William Perry Pendley, who temporarily ran the U.S. Bureau of Land Management under former President Donald Trump, saw “immigration as one of the biggest threats to public lands,” according to an agency spokesperson.1 A handful of right-wing anti-immigration zealots, including Joe Guzzardi, have repeatedly misused data published by the Center for American Progress on nature loss to make xenophobic arguments for anti-immigration policies.2 This so-called “greening of hate”—a term explored by Guardian reporter Susie Cagle—is a common refrain in a wide range of conservative and white supremacist arguments, including those of Ann Coulter, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, and the manifestos of more than one mass shooter.3

      The claim that immigration is to blame for America’s environmental problems is so absurd, racist, and out of the mainstream that it is easily debunked and tempting to ignore. The scientific community, and the little research that has been conducted in this area, resoundingly refutes the premise. Consider, for example, the environmental damage caused by weak and inadequate regulation of polluting industries; the destruction of wildlife habitat to accommodate wealthy exurbs and second homes; the design and propagation of policies that concentrate toxic poisons and environmental destruction near communities of color and low-income communities; the continued subsidization of fossil fuel extraction and trampling of Indigenous rights to accommodate drilling and mining projects; and the propagation of a throw-away culture by industrial powerhouses. All of these factors and others cause exponentially more severe environmental harm than a family that is fleeing violence, poverty, or suffering to seek a new life in the United States.

      The extremist effort to blame immigrants for the nation’s environmental problems deserves scrutiny—and not merely for the purpose of disproving its xenophobic and outlandish claims. The contours, origins, funding sources, and goals of this right-wing effort must be understood in order to effectively combat it and ensure that the extremists pushing it have no place in the conservation movement. The individuals and organizations that are most fervently propagating this argument come largely from well-funded hate groups that are abusing discredited ideologies that were prevalent in the 19th-century American conservation movement in an attempt to make their racist rhetoric more palatable to a public concerned about the health of their environment.

      While leaders of the contemporary, mainstream environmental movement in the United States have disavowed this strain of thought and are working to confront the legacies of colonialism and racism in environmental organizations and policies, a small set of right-wing political operatives are trying to magnify overtly xenophobic and false environmental arguments to achieve specific political objectives. In particular, these right-wing political operatives and their deep-pocketed funders are seeking to broaden the appeal of their anti-immigration zealotry by greenwashing their movement and supplying their right-wing base with alternative explanations for environmental decline that sidestep the culpability of the conservative anti-regulatory agenda. In their refusal to confront the true reasons for environmental decline, they are hurting the people—immigrants, Indigenous peoples, and people of color—who bear a disproportionate burden of environmental consequences and are increasingly the base of the climate justice and conservation movements.

      (...)

      https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/reports/2021/02/01/495228/extremist-campaign-blame-immigrants-u-s-environmental-problems

  • Energy from solar wind favours the north (https://www.esa.int/Appli...
    https://diasp.eu/p/12279803

    https://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/images/2021/01/energy_from_solar_wind_favours_the_north/22412064-1-eng-GB/Energy_from_solar_wind_favours_the_north_card_full.jpg

    Energy from solar wind favours the north

    Using information from ESA’s Swarm satellite constellation, scientists have made a discovery about how energy generated by electrically-charged particles in the solar wind flows into Earth’s atmosphere – surprisingly, more of it heads towards the magnetic north pole than towards the magnetic south pole.

    #earth #science #space #esa #europeanspaceagency posted by pod_feeder_v2

  • #Earthquake_Tourism by #Left_Hand_Rotation_Collective

    On 1 November 1755 an earthquake destroyed the city of Lisbon.
    Its impact was such that it displaced man from the center of creation. Its ruins legitimized Enlightened Despotism.
    Lisbon today is trembling again, shaken by a tourist earthquake that transforms the city at cruising speed.
    Its impact displaces the inhabitant of the center of the city. What new absolutisms will find their alibi here?
    As the right to the city collapses, drowned by the discourse of identity and the authentic, the city creaks announcing the collapse and the urgency of a new way of looking at us, of reacting to a transformation, this time predictable, that the despair of the Capitalism pretends inevitable.

    Left Hand Rotation is a collective based in Lisbon since 2011.
    #Terremotourism is a subjective portrait of a city and its transformation during the last 6 years.

    –—

    Pour voir le #film :
    https://vimeo.com/195599779

    J’ai découvert ce film par une affiche qui annonçait sa projection à Athènes, en juillet 2019 :

    #Lisbonne #Portugal #tourisme #tremblement_de_terre #droit_à_la_ville #urban_matter #villes #géographie_urbaine #transformation #documentaire #film_documentaire #capitalisme

  • #Planet_of_the_Humans

    Michael Moore presents Planet of the Humans, a documentary that dares to say what no one else will this Earth Day — that we are losing the battle to stop climate change on planet earth because we are following leaders who have taken us down the wrong road — selling out the green movement to wealthy interests and corporate America. This film is the wake-up call to the reality we are afraid to face: that in the midst of a human-caused extinction event, the environmental movement’s answer is to push for techno-fixes and band-aids. It’s too little, too late.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE

    https://planetofthehumans.com

    #changement_climatique #effondrement #climat #environnement #Rachel_Carson #Earth_Day #environnementalisme #énergie #Barack_Obama #USA #Etats-Unis #énergie_verte
    #Jeff_Gibbs #film #film_documentaire

  • Snow grain size – it matters (http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Obs...
    https://diasp.eu/p/9126880

    Snow grain size – it matters

    Most of us probably wouldn’t think of describing snow in terms of its grain size. However, grain size is fundamental to the amount of sunlight that snow reflects back into space – its albedo. With both snow and albedo part of the climate system, scientists are applying a novel analytical theory to Copernicus Sentinel-3 data and shedding new light on Greenland’s changing albedo.

    #earth #science #space #esa #europeanspaceagency posted by pod_feeder_v2

  • Public Citizen sur Twitter :

    “-A coal lobbyist runs the EPA

    –An oil lobbyist runs the DOI

    –A Monsanto exec runs US Fish & Wildlife

    –A BP oil attorney is the nation’s top enviro lawyer -

    –A fossil fuel lobbyist is the EPA’s air pollution chief

    –A big energy insider regulates our power grid

    Happy #EarthDay” / Twitter
    https://twitter.com/Public_Citizen/status/1120372073816260610

    #Etats-Unis #Leadership #intérêts_privés #protection #intérêt_général #lobbying

  • Satellite Project Draws Airbus, SoftBank, Bill Gates as Investors
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/satellite-project-draws-airbus-softbank-bill-gates-as-investors-1524043058

    EarthNow plans to launch some 500 small satellites to offer video coverage of the world Airbus SE EADSY 0.05% and two of the world’s most recognizable tech billionaires, Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and SoftBank Group Corp. Chief Executive Masayoshi Son, propose to build and launch some 500 small satellites intended to provide unmatched video coverage of the globe. The EarthNow LLC project, unveiled Wednesday, is still in its formative stage without a firm price tag, launch schedule (...)

    #Microsoft #aérien #CCTV #surveillance #vidéo-surveillance #satellite #EarthNow

  • EarthNow : un projet fou de surveillance video en direct depuis l’espace soutenu par Bill Gates
    https://www.presse-citron.net/earthnow-surveillance-video-direct-espace

    EarthNow est une nouvelle société dont le projet (fou) est de proposer la surveillance vidéo de toute la planète en direct. Les plans mentionnent un réseau de satellites suffisamment étendu et puissant ayant la capacité de surveiller n’importe quelle zone de la planète à la seconde près. Si une telle idée parait toute aussi irréalisable qu’inquiétante, il semblerait que le projet soit en passe de devenir une réalité. En effet, la startup a réussi a obtenir la participation et le soutien financier de (...)

    #EarthNow #Microsoft #algorithme #CCTV #géolocalisation #aérien #surveillance #vidéo-surveillance

  • Birds can see Earth’s magnetic fields because of cryptochromes in t...
    https://diasp.eu/p/7008535

    Birds can see Earth’s magnetic fields because of cryptochromes in their eyes

    HN link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16823201 Posted by startupflix (karma: 282) Post stats: Points: 175 - Comments: 59 - 2018-04-12T17:44:55Z

    #HackerNews #because #birds #can #cryptochromes #earths #eyes #fields #magnetic #see #their HackerNewsBot debug: Calculated post rank: 136 - Loop: 374 - Rank min: 100 - Author rank: 37

  • Eclipses paths of totality (1961-2099)
    https://visionscarto.net/eclipses-paths-of-totality

    Title: Eclipses paths of totality (1961-2099) Keywords: #eclipses #space #Earth Sources: Solar Eclipses data collected by Xavier Jubier and converted to the GeoJSON format by Luke Stanke. Authors: Initial idea by Robert Crocker; implementation and rotation of the globe with #d3.js by Philippe Rivière. Date: 7 November 2017 Code: https://bl.ocks.org/Fil Eclipses paths of totality Paths of totality of solar eclipses between 1961 and 2099. (Colors are arbitrary.) (...)

    #Map_collection