Showing posts with label Environmentalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Environmentalism. Show all posts
Saturday, August 3, 2024
Friday, June 7, 2024
Saturday, June 7, 1924. Signing bills.
Interestingly related to something we recently posted, photographs of Boy Scouts participating in contests on this day in 1924.
The Clarke-McNary Act went into effect, making it easier for the Federal Government to purchase land to expand the National Forest System.
President Coolidge signed the Cameron Bill authorizing Coolidge Dam.
President Coolidge signed the Anti Heroin Act of 1924 prohibiting the importation and possession of opium for the chemical synthesis of the addictive narcotic known as diamorphine, i.e, heroin.
President Coolidge signed the Oil Pollution Act of 1924 concerning the discharge of petroleum from ships.
It was Saturday and the weekend magazines were out. The Country Gentleman featured a June Bride.
The Saturday Evening Post featured a daydreaming accountant.
Last prior edition:
Monday, April 22, 2024
Earth Day, 2024. Native to this place.
We have become a more juvenile culture. We have become a childish "me, me, me" culture with fifteen-second attention spans. The global village that television was supposed to bring is less a village than a playground...Little attempt is made to pass on our cultural inheritance, and our moral and religious traditions are neglected except in the shallow "family values" arguments.
Wes Jackson, Becoming Native to This Place
Today is Earth Day, 2024.
In "Red State", which now means more than it used to as the Reds in the Red States are supporting the Russian effort to conquer Ukraine, and hence are aligned with what the old Reds would have wanted, it's not going to mean all that much. I don't expect there to be much in the way of civil observances.
I saw a quote by somebody whose comments I wouldn't normally consider, that being Noam Chomsky, in which he asserted that a certain class of people who are perceived (not necessarily accurately) as something beyond evil, as they're putting all of humanity in jeopardy for a "few dollars" when they already have far more than they need. That is almost certainly unfair. Rather, like so much else in human nature, mobilizing people to act contrary to their habits is just very hard. And some people will resist any concept that those habits are harmful in any fashion.
Perhaps, therefore, a bitter argument is on what people love. People will sacrifice for that, and here such sacrifices as may be needed on various issues are likely temporary ones.
Of course, a lot of that gets back to education, and in this highly polarized time in which we live, which is in part because we're hearing that changes are coming, and we don't like them, and we've been joined by people here locally recently who have a concept of the local formed by too many hours in front of the television and too few in reality. We'll have to tackle that. That'll be tough, right now, but a lot of that just involves speaking the truth.
While it has that beating a horse aspect to it, another thing we can't help but noting, and have before, is that an incredible amount of resistance to things that would help overall society are opposed by those who are lashed to their employments in nearly irrevocable ways. In this fashion, the society that's actually the one most likely to be able to preserver on changed in some fashions are localist and distributist ones. Chomsky may think that what he is noting is somehow uniquely tied to certain large industries, but in reality the entire corporate capitalist one, which of course he is no fan of, as well as socialist ones, which he is, are driven by concepts of absolute scale and growth. That's a systematic culture that's very hard to overcome and on a local scale, when people are confronted with it, they'll rarely acknowledge that their opposition is based on something that's overall contrary to what they otherwise espouse. We see that locally right now, where there are many residents opposed to a local gravel pit, who otherwise no doubt make their livings from the extractive industries.
But I'd note that this hasn't always been the case here. It was much less so before the influx of outsiders who stayed after the most recent booms. And that too gives us some hope, as the people who are of here and from here, like people of and from anywhere they're actually from, will in fact act for the place.
Related threads:
Saturday, March 23, 2024
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 63d Edition. Strange Bedfellows.
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
William Shakespeare, The Tempest
The environmental populists?
Politics, as they say, makes for strange bedfellows. But how strange, nonetheless still surprises.
Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray, who rose to that position by pitching to the populist far right, which dominates the politics of the GOP right now, and which appears to be on the verge of bringing the party down nationally, has tacked in the wind in a very surprising direction. He appeared this past week at a meeting in Natrona County to oppose a proposed gravel pit project at the foot of Casper Mountain. He actually pitched for the upset residents in the area to mobilize and take their fight to Cheyenne, stating:
We have a very delicate ecosystem, the fragility up there, the fragility of the flows … the proximity to domestic water uses. All of those things should have led to a distinct treatment by the Office of State Lands, and that did not happen.
I am, frankly, stunned.
I frankly never really expected Mr. Gray to darken visage of the Pole Stripper monument on the east side of Casper's gateway, which you pass by on the road in from Cheyenne again, as he's not from here and doesn't really have a very strong connection to the state, although in fairness that connection would have been to Casper, where he was employed by his father's radio station and where he apparently spent the summers growing up (in an unhappy state of mind, according to one interview of somebody who knew him then). Gray pretty obviously always had a political career in mind and campaigned from the hard populist right from day one, attempting at first to displace a conservative house member unsuccessfully.
We have a post coming up which deals with the nature of populism, and how it in fact isn't conservatism. Gray was part of the populist rise in the GOP, even though his background would more naturally have put him in the conservative camp, not the populist one. But opportunity was found with populists, who now control the GOP state organization. The hallmark of populism, as we'll explore elsewhere, is a belief in the "wisdom of the people", which is its major failing, and why it tends to be heavily anti-scientific and very strongly vested in occupations that people are used to, but which are undergoing massive stress. In Wyoming that's expressed itself with a diehard attitude that nothing is going on with the climate and that fossil fuels will be, must have, and are going to dominate the state's economy forever. The months leading up to the recent legislative session, and the legislative session itself, demonstrated this with Governor Gordon taking criticism for supporting anything to address carbon concerns. Put fairly bluntly, because a large percentage of Wyoming's rank and file workers depend on the oil and gas industry, and things related to it, any questioning on anything tends to be taken as an attack on "the people".
Natrona County has had a gravel supply problem for quite a while and what the potential miner seeks to do here is basically, through the way our economy works, address it. There would be every reason to suspect that all of the state's politicians who ran to the far right would support this, and strongly. But they aren't.
The fact that Gray is not, and is citing environmental concerns, comes as a huge surprise. But as noted, given his background, he's probably considerably more conservative than populist, but has acted as politicians do, and taken aid and comfort where it was offered. Tara Nethercott ran as a conservative and lost for the same office.
But here's the thing.
That gravel is exactly the sort of thing that populists, if they're true to what they maintain they stand for, ought to support. It's good for industry, and the only reason to oppose the mining is that 1) it's in a bad place in terms of the neighbors and 2) legitimate environmental concerns, if there are any. But that's exactly the point. You really can't demand that the old ways carry on, until they're in your backyard.
Truth be known, given their nature, a lot of big environmental concerns are in everyone's backyard right now.
The old GOP would have recognized that nationally, and wouldn't be spending all sorts of time back in DC complaining about electric vehicles. And if people are comfortable with things being destructive elsewhere, they ought to be comfortable with them being destructive right here. If we aren't, we ought to be pretty careful about it everywhere.
There actually is some precedent for this, FWIW. A hallmark of Appalachian populism was the lamenting of what had happened to their region due to coal mining. John Prine's "Paradise" in some ways could be an environmental populist anthem.
Hard to feel sorry.
Far right goofball Candace Owens was fired from the Daily Wire. She stated that she "cannot be silenced", but frankly the gadfly has gone from sort of being a token black populist to a has been already.
That no doubt sounds extremely harsh, but frankly it's true. Owens went from being sort of a snarky populist commenter to writing some real wack job stuff, at which time her popularity dropped off. Part of her popularity was because she was black, and we don't think of populists being African American, although some are. Once again, black conservatives and black populists are not the same thing. Her status as a rare black populist, and a highly attractive woman at that, didn't hurt in her getting attention.
I don't know what her fan base is, but this is all a sort of tragedy. Always abrasive and controversial, her early commentary was not completely without merit. She's really dropped off in the recent year or years and probably won't really revive. She's sort of like Tucker Carlson that way, being a person of obvious high intelligence who really went down a rabbit hole. Carlson looked like a complete fool with his recent trip to Russia. We hope that Owens has a legitimate conservative revival, or at least isn't touring North Korea to get a one up on Carlson.
The Dead Elephants.
There was an Irish street gang in New York at one time that bore the name The Dead Rabbits. The House GOP is rapidly becoming The Dead Elephants.
Something is really going on.
Filled with disgust, some Republicans in the House are abandoning the House well before their terms are up. In doing that, they're setting themselves free from something. That something might just be failure, but at this rate, it suggests something else. They almost seem set on sabotaging their party, except their party isn't a party.
In 1944 when it became obvious to those who cared to see, and many simply did not, that Germany was going down in defeat, not only did conservative German army officers but a few, albeit very few, members of the SS began to plot against him. It's notable that the cover the July 20 bombing was given was that it was an attempted assassination by the SS. At least one member of the SS was actually part of the plot, and the head of the Berlin police was far from a liberal democrat. Right at the end of the war Himmler was conspiring against Hitler and notably didn't take a place among the suicides at the bunker.
The point is that when people who have been part of a movement begin bailing out, they sense defeat and don't want to be associated with it.
An added point is that with Donald Trump the effective Speaker of the House, and Marjorie Taylor Green acting as the Howler Monkey Sergeant at Arms, Trump's destructiveness has reached a new level. Republicans lost the Oval Office in 2020 and the Senate in 2022. Their House representation declined to perilous levels in the same time period. They were supposed to do well throughout it. Now, not only is Trump causing the GOP to lose at the ballot box, he's causing Republicans to abandon their posts.
In only one more Republicans leaves, the House will be deadlocked and Mike Johnson out the door. If two leave, the Democrats are in control. There will be replacements, but there's no guarantee that they'll be Republicans.
The Conservatives v. The Populists
While, once again, we'll have more on this later, we'll note here that the primary race in the state this year is really shaping up to be a fight between two parties, the Conservatives and the Populists, all of whom register as Republicans.
Some Conservatives have registered to try to displace Populists, and some Populists are doing the same in regard to Conservatives. Of note, the importation of out of state Populists is becoming really obvious, that having been a barely noticed aspect of it until very recently.
Populists are going to be howling that their Republican contenders are "RINO"s in short order, when in fact it's really the other way around, and the Populists are a sort of Neo Dixiecrat. Republicans are late in rising to their challenge, but they are doing it.
The primary may be quite interesting.
Last prior edition:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 62nd Edition. The trowel and musket edition.
Saturday, March 9, 2024
Missing the point: Blog Mirror; Dennis Sun: Biden's Climate Change Actions Will Be & How They Affect Agriculture
From the Cowboy State Daily:
Dennis Sun: Biden's Climate Change Actions Will Be & How They Affect Agriculture
The real thing that will affect agriculture, particularly the beef industry, is in failing to attempt to arrest climate change.
I've long been utterly baffled by; 1) grazers failure to get a clue over climate change, and 2) ongoing agricultural admiration for the Republican Party.
More than anyone, those who graze ought to be able to freakin' wake up and notice that the climate ain't what it used to be. I'll hear ranchers talk about it, but they seem incapable of closing the circle. Gee, it's been warm. Gee, it's been dry. Gee, we have no grass.
D'uh.
But climate change? Nope, not happening.
Now there are some exceptions. The late Pat O'Toole, who married into a Carbon County ranching family, was one. But by and large ranchers simply refuse to believe that something is happening, even while worrying about what is happening.
Hmmm. . .
And ironically, practices in the industry which gave it a larger carbon footprint are quite recently Older ranchers can easily look back on an industry that wasn't diesel powered.
On the GOP, ranchers seem to have a really dedicated belief that the Republican Party protects their ability to do what they want. In reality, the Democrats have preserved ranch lands themselves. The GOP is more of the development party, which never ends up actually benefitting ranchers. I'll them complain about this too, but not close the circle. Why is this oil company in my pasture? Why are squatters trailers showing up all over. Why are out of state rich buying this up and not doing anything about it?
Why indeed?
Maybe because of how we vote and whose support we choose to ignore.
Saturday, March 2, 2024
Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Greens and Guns
Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Greens and Guns: Ted William's recent article in Audobon lambastes hunters, anglers, and environmental activists for failing to make common cause. In ...
Interesting comment.
I have long thought this very thing.
Monday, February 19, 2024
Soap Blindness. Being careful about what you are wishing for.
Independent truck drivers, whom share nothing in common with Donald Trump whatsoever, are claiming they'll boycott New York State today due to the judgment against the serially indicted former President.
In the Gene Shepherd classic A Christmas Story, Ralphie imagines that he'll get "soap blindness" and live on the streets, to the regret of his parents, for having his mouth washed out with soap. No such thing exists, of course, but in reality, if it did, it'd be worse than the remorse the parents would feel for the person enduring it.
In other words, a person needs to be careful for what they wish for.
Truck drivers, or at least American independent truck drivers, are heavily invested in the belief that "America needs us". They're also heavily invested in a myth of manly, rugged independence. The reality of the situation is quite different, however.
The United States went to a semi tractor supply distribution system through the short sightedness of Dwight Eisenhower, who backed the massive Federally funded expansion of the US highway system during his administration. Eisenhower, impressed with the Autobahn, which he'd seen while the Supreme Commander of Allied Expedition Force in Europe, wanted them here. It was really an example of the American System at work, and while I'm generally a proponent of the American System, it shouldn't have happened in this example.
Coming right at the same time that the American love of automobiles really took off, it caused a massive ongoing subsidy of the highway system, and by extension, the expansion of over the road trucking, at the detriment of the railroads. I've posted on that here before, stating:
It's doing that fairly inefficiently compared to rail. Rail is incredibly cheap on a cost per mile basis, and it's actually incredibly "green" as well. It's efficient. Trucks are nowhere near as efficient in any fashion. Not even in employment of human resources. Trains have, anymore, one or two men crews, the same as semi trucks, but they're hauling a lot more per mile than trucks are with just two men.
And, as we also stated:
One semi truck does as much damage to the highways as 2,000 passenger cars, or some I'm told. I was told that by the owner of a company that has semi trucks.
On top of it, truck driving isn't something Americans want to do anymore, something the independents who are protesting seem to be missing. As we earlier noted:
And laborers are also demanding better wages and benefits in order to do the work they're doing.
I can blame the nation for putting itself in this situation, however.
Drivers can make a lot of money, for sure, but their paychecks often go towards paying for their trucks and the like. Modern trucks are automatic transmission vehicles and the days of really highly skilled teamsters who knew how to double clutch and shift two gear shifts at once (which I've seen done), are long gone. The job has become one where temporary immigrants and immigrants from the Third World are incredibly common.
So sure, while there are Trump loving independent teamsters out there, there are a lot of drivers from India, Somalia, Russia or Mexico who no doubt have little Trump love.
And motorists have little truck love. That's part of the reason that teamsters feel compelled to attempt to remind people that things move by truck. The problem is, they don't have to.
Had the Defense Highway System not been built, things would move by rail, except locally. There's no reason that couldn't happen again, and if the Federal Government suddenly decided, for whatever reason (and expense would be a good one) to end the funding system, the result would be just like what happened when it quite subsidizing housing the mentally ill back in Reagan's day. States wouldn't pick it back up. It'd take awhile, but not as long as supposed, before rail picked its old role back up, but it could and would.
Beyond that, rail transportation is already very "green", as noted above, compared to truck transportation. It could be made much more so by electrifying the system, which is a proven system. Trains engines are also more capable of readily being made in alternative fuels than semi trucks are. Short haul trucks, from rail to consumer, are also relatively easy to make the conversion to electricity.
Up until after World War Two, most things moved by rail, and trucking was local. The highway system, while the Federal Government was already in it, was much more local.
So, want to show how valuable you are to the economy? Going on strike or into a boycott may do it. Perhaps you are like the railroader of World War One and World War Two and can't be ignored. Perhaps you are an economic Lysistrata and people won't want to ignore you.
Or perhaps people figure they're better off without you and they don't want to be taxed to support your industry anymore and they'll look forward to not seeing trucks in their rear view mirror.
Related Threads:
Supply Chain Disruption and Other Economic Problems
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
Pope Francis addresses a lot of topics, but is quoted on only one.
In an example of how things are badly and oddly reported, Pope Francis gave a wide ranging speech, touching on many topics, on January 8, but only his comments on surrogacy (which I fully agree with) were reported on.
In his speech, he stated:
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am pleased to welcome you this morning and to extend my personal greetings and good wishes for the New Year. In a special way, I thank His Excellency Ambassador George Poulides, Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, for his kind words, which eloquently expressed the concerns of the international community at the beginning of a year that we hope to be one of peace, but has instead dawned amid conflicts and divisions.
Our meeting is a fitting occasion for me to thank you for your efforts to foster good relations between the Holy See and your respective countries. Last year, our “diplomatic family” became even larger, thanks to the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Sultanate of Oman and the appointment of its first Ambassador, here present.
Here I would note that the Holy See has now appointed a resident Papal Representative in Hanoi, following last July’s conclusion of the relative agreement on the status of the Papal Representative. This is a sign of the intent to pursue the process already initiated in a spirit of reciprocal respect and trust, thanks also to frequent contacts on the institutional level and to cooperation with the local Church.
2023 also saw the ratification of the Supplementary Agreement to the 24 September 1998 Agreement between the Holy See and Kazakhstan on mutual relations, which facilitated the presence and work of pastoral agents in that country. The past year also marked the celebration of significant anniversaries: the hundredth anniversary of diplomatic relations with the Republic of Panama, the seventieth anniversary of those with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the sixtieth of those with the Republic of Korea, and the fiftieth of those with Australia.
Dear Ambassadors,
One word in particular resounds in the two principal Christian feasts. We hear it in the song of the angels who proclaimed in the night of the birth of the Saviour, and we hear it again in the greeting of the risen Jesus. That word is “peace”. Peace is primarily a gift of God, for it is he who has left us his peace (cf. Jn 14:27). Yet it is also a responsibility incumbent upon all of us: “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Mt 5:9). To strive for peace. A word so simple, yet so demanding and rich in meaning. Today I would like to concentrate our reflections on peace, at a moment in history when it is increasingly threatened, weakened and in part lost. For that matter, it is the responsibility of the Holy See within the international community to be a prophetic voice and to appeal to consciences.
On Christmas Eve 1944, Pope Pius XII delivered a memorable Radio Message to the peoples of the world. The Second World War was drawing to a close after more than five years of conflict and humanity sensed – in the Pope’s words – “an ever more clear and firm will: to make of this world war, this universal upheaval, the starting point for a new era marked by profound renewal”. [1] Some eighty years later, the impetus for that “profound renewal”, appears to have receded, and our world is witnessing a growing number of conflicts that are slowly turning what I have often called “a third world war fought piecemeal” into a genuine global conflict.
Here, in your presence, I cannot fail to reiterate my deep concern regarding the events taking place in Palestine and Israel. All of us remain shocked by the October 7 attack on the Israeli people, in which great numbers of innocent persons were horribly wounded, tortured, and murdered, and many taken hostage. I renew my condemnation of this act and of every instance of terrorism and extremism. This is not the way to resolve disputes between peoples; those disputes are only aggravated and cause suffering for everyone. Indeed, the attack provoked a strong Israeli military response in Gaza that has led to the death of tens of thousands of Palestinians, mainly civilians, including many young people and children, and has caused an exceptionally grave humanitarian crisis and inconceivable suffering.
To all the parties involved I renew my appeal for a cease-fire on every front, including Lebanon, and the immediate liberation of all the hostages held in Gaza. I ask that the Palestinian people receive humanitarian aid, and that hospitals, schools and places of worship receive all necessary protection.
It is my hope that the international community will pursue with determination the solution of two states, one Israeli and one Palestinian, as well as an internationally guaranteed special status for the City of Jerusalem, so that Israelis and Palestinians may finally live in peace and security.
The present conflict in Gaza further destabilizes a fragile and tension-filled region. In particular, we cannot forget the Syrian people, living in a situation of economic and political instability aggravated by last February’s earthquake. May the international community encourage the parties involved to undertake a constructive and serious dialogue and to seek new solutions, so that the Syrian people need no longer suffer as a result of international sanctions. In addition, I express my profound distress for the millions of Syrian refugees still present in neighbouring countries like Jordan and Lebanon.
I think in a special way of the beloved Lebanese people, and I express my concern for the social and economic situation that they are experiencing. It is my hope that the institutional stalemate that has even further burdened them will be resolved and that the Land of Cedars will soon have a President.
Remaining on the Asian continent, I would also call the attention of the international community to Myanmar, and plead that every effort be made to offer hope to that land and a dignified future to its young, while at the same time not neglecting the humanitarian emergency that the Rohingya continue to experience.
Alongside these complex situations, there are also signs of hope, as I was able to experience in the course of my Journey to Mongolia, to whose authorities I once more express my gratitude for their welcome. I also wish to thank the Hungarian authorities for the hospitality I received during my visit to that country last April. It was a journey into the heart of Europe, rich in history and culture, where I felt the affection of many people, yet sensed the proximity of a conflict that we would have considered unimaginable in the Europe of the twenty-first century.
Sadly, after nearly two years of large-scale war waged by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, the greatly desired peace has not yet managed to take root in minds and hearts, despite the great numbers of victims and the massive destruction. One cannot allow the persistence of a conflict that continues to metastasize, to the detriment of millions of persons; it is necessary to put an end to the present tragedy through negotiations, in respect for international law.
I also express my concern for the tense situation in the South Caucasus between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and I urge the parties to arrive at the signing of a peace treaty. It is urgent that a solution be found to the dramatic humanitarian situation of those living in that region, while favouring the return of refugees to their own homes in legality and security and with respect for the places of worship of the different religious confessions present there. These steps will help contribute to the building of a climate of trust between the two countries, in view of the greatly desired peace.
Turning our gaze to Africa, we are witnessing the suffering of millions of persons as a result of the numerous humanitarian crises that various sub-Saharan countries experience due to international terrorism, complex social political problems, and the devastating effects caused by climate change. Added to these are the effects of the military coups d’état that have occurred in several countries and certain electoral processes marked by corruption, intimidation and violence.
At the same time, I renew my appeal for serious efforts on the part of all engaged in the application of the November 2022 Pretoria Agreement, which put an end to the hostilities in Tigray. Likewise, for the pursuit of specific solutions to the tensions and violence that assail Ethiopia, and for dialogue, peace and stability among the countries of the Horn of Africa.
I would also like to bring up the tragic events in Sudan where sadly after months of civil war no way out is in sight, and the plight of the refugees in Cameroon, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan. I had the joy of visiting the latter two countries at the beginning of last year, as a sign of my closeness to their people who are suffering, albeit in different contexts and situations. I express my heartfelt gratitude to the authorities of both countries for their efforts in organizing these visits and for their hospitality. My Journey to South Sudan also had an ecumenical flavour, since I was joined by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, as a sign of the shared commitment of our ecclesial communities to peace and reconciliation.
Although there are no open wars in the Americas, serious tensions exist between several countries, for example Venezuela and Guyana, while in others, such as Peru, we see signs of a polarization that compromises social harmony and weakens democratic institutions.
The situation in Nicaragua remains troubling: a protracted crisis with painful consequences for Nicaraguan society as a whole, and in particular for the Catholic Church. The Holy See continues to encourage a respectful diplomatic dialogue for the benefit of Catholics and the entire population.
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Against this backdrop that I have sketched without any pretension to completeness, we find an increasingly lacerated world, but even more, millions of persons – men, women, fathers, mothers, children – whose faces are for the most part unknown to us, and frequently overlooked.
Moreover, modern wars no longer take place only on clearly defined battlefields, nor do they involve soldiers alone. In a context where it appears that the distinction between military and civil targets is no longer respected, there is no conflict that does not end up in some way indiscriminately striking the civilian population. The events in Ukraine and Gaza are clear proof of this. We must not forget that grave violations of international humanitarian law are war crimes, and that it is not sufficient to point them out, but also necessary to prevent them. Consequently, there is a need for greater effort on the part of the international community to defend and implement humanitarian law, which seems to be the only way to ensure the defence of human dignity in situations of warfare.
At the beginning of this year, the exhortation of the Second Vatican Council in Gaudium et Spes seems especially timely: “On the question of warfare, there are various international conventions, signed by many countries, aimed at rendering military action and its consequences less inhuman… These agreements must be honoured; indeed public authorities and specialists in these matters must do all in their power to improve these conventions and thus bring about a better and more effective curbing of the savagery of war”. [2] Even when exercising the right of legitimate defence, it is essential to adhere to a proportionate use of force.
Perhaps we need to realize more clearly that civilian victims are not “collateral damage”, but men and woman, with names and surnames, who lose their lives. They are children who are orphaned and deprived of their future. They are individuals who suffer from hunger, thirst and cold, or are mutilated as an effect of the power of modern explosives. Were we to be able to look each of them in the eye, call them by name, and learn something of their personal history, we would see war for what it is: nothing other than an immense tragedy, a “useless slaughter”, [3] one that offends the dignity of every person on this earth.
Wars, nonetheless, are able to continue thanks to the enormous stock of available weapons. There is need to pursue a policy of disarmament, since it is illusory to think that weapons have deterrent value. The contrary is true: the availability of weapons encourages their use and increases their production. Weapons create mistrust and divert resources. How many lives could be saved with the resources that today are misdirected to weaponry? Would it not be better to invest those resources in the pursuit of genuine global security? The challenges of our time transcend borders, as we see from the variety of crises – of food, the environment, the economy and health care – that have marked the beginning of the century. Here I reiterate my proposal that a global fund be established to finally eliminate hunger [4] and to promote a sustainable development of the entire planet.
Among the threats caused by these instruments of death, I cannot fail to mention those produced by nuclear arsenals and the development of increasingly sophisticated and destructive weapons. Here, I once more affirm the immorality of manufacturing and possessing nuclear weapons. In this regard, I express my hope for the resumption, at the earliest date possible, of negotiations for the restart of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the “Iran Nuclear Deal,” to ensure a safer future for all.
To pursue peace, however, it is not enough simply to eliminate the implements of war; its root causes must be eradicated. Foremost among these is hunger, a scourge that continues to afflict entire areas of our world while others are marked by massive waste of food. Then there is the exploitation of natural resources, which enriches a few while leaving entire populations, the natural beneficiaries of these resources, in a state of destitution and poverty. Connected to this is the exploitation of people forced to work for low wages and lacking real prospects for professional growth.
The causes of conflict also include natural and environmental disasters. To be sure, there are disasters that human beings cannot control. I think of the recent earthquakes in Morocco and China that resulted in hundreds of victims, as well as the severe earthquake that struck Türkiye and part of Syria, and took a terrible toll of death and destruction. I think too of the flood that struck Derna in Libya, effectively destroying the city, not least because of the simultaneous collapse of two dams.
Yet there are also disasters that are attributable to human activity or neglect and contribute seriously to the current climate crisis, such as the deforestation of the Amazon, the “green lung” of the earth.
The climate and environmental crisis was the topic of the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) held last month in Dubai. I regret that I was unable to participate personally. The Conference began in conjunction with the World Meteorological Organization’s announcement that 2023 was the warmest year on record in comparison with the 174 years previous. The climate crisis demands an increasingly urgent response and full involvement on the part of all, including the international community as a whole. [5]
The adoption of the final document at COP28 represents an encouraging step forward; it shows that, in the face of today’s many crises, multilateralism can be renewed through the management of the global climate issue in a world where environmental, social and political problems are closely connected. At COP28, it became clear that the present decade is critical for dealing with climate change. Care for creation and peace “are the most urgent issues and they are closely linked”. [6] For this reason, I express my hope that what was adopted in Dubai will lead to “a decisive acceleration of the ecological transition, through means… [to be] achieved in four sectors: energy efficiency; renewable sources; the elimination of fossil fuels; and education in lifestyles that are less dependent on the latter”. [7]
Wars, poverty, the mistreatment of our common home and the ongoing exploitation of its resources, which lead to natural disasters, also drive thousands of people to leave their homelands in search of a future of peace and security. In journeying, they risk their lives along dangerous routes, like those through the Sahara desert, in the Darién forest on the border between Colombia and Panama in Central America, in the north of Mexico at the border with the United States, and above all on the Mediterranean Sea. Sadly, in the last ten years the Mediterranean has turned into a great cemetery, as tragedies continue to unfold, due also to unscrupulous human traffickers. Let us not forget that the great number of victims include many unaccompanied minors.
The Mediterranean should instead be a laboratory of peace, “a place where different countries and realities can encounter each other on the basis of the humanity we all share”. [8] I wished to emphasize this in Marseille, during my Apostolic Journey for the Rencontres Méditerranéennes, and I am grateful to the organizers and the French authorities for having made that Journey possible. Faced with such an immense tragedy, we can easily end up closing our hearts, entrenching ourselves behind fears of an “invasion.” We are quick to forget that we are dealing with people with faces and names, and we overlook the specific vocation of this, “our sea” ( mare nostrum), to be not a tomb but a place of encounter and mutual enrichment between individuals, peoples and cultures. This does not detract from the fact that migration should be regulated, in order to accept, promote, accompany and integrate migrants, while at the same time respecting the culture, sensitivities and security of the peoples that accept responsibility for such acceptance and integration. We need likewise to insist on the right of people to remain in their homeland and the corresponding need to create the conditions for the effective exercise of this right.
In confronting this challenge, no country should be left alone, nor can any country think of addressing the issue in isolation, through more restrictive and repressive legislation adopted at times under pressure of fear or in pursuit of electoral consensus. In this regard, I welcome the commitment of the European Union to seek a common solution through the adoption of the new Pact on Migration and Asylum, while at the same time noting some of its limitations, especially concerning the recognition of the right to asylum and the danger of arbitrary detention.
Dear Ambassadors,
The path to peace calls for respect for life, for every human life, starting with the life of the unborn child in the mother’s womb, which cannot be suppressed or turned into an object of trafficking. In this regard, I deem deplorable the practice of so-called surrogate motherhood, which represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based on the exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs. A child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract. Consequently, I express my hope for an effort by the international community to prohibit this practice universally. At every moment of its existence, human life must be preserved and defended; yet I note with regret, especially in the West, the continued spread of a culture of death, which in the name of a false compassion discards children, the elderly and the sick.
The path to peace calls for respect for human rights, in accordance with the simple yet clear formulation contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whose seventy-fifth anniversary we recently celebrated. These principles are self-evident and commonly accepted. Regrettably, in recent decades attempts have been made to introduce new rights that are neither fully consistent with those originally defined nor always acceptable. They have led to instances of ideological colonization, in which gender theory plays a central role; the latter is extremely dangerous since it cancels differences in its claim to make everyone equal. These instances of ideological colonization prove injurious and create divisions between states, rather than fostering peace.
Dialogue, on the other hand, must be the soul of the international community. The current situation is also the result of the weakening of structures of multilateral diplomacy that arose after the Second World War. Organizations established to foster security, peace and cooperation are no longer capable of uniting all their members around one table. There is the risk of a “monadology” and of splitting into “clubs” that only admit states deemed ideologically compatible. Even agencies devoted to the common good and to technical questions, which have thus far proved effective, risk paralysis due to ideological polarization and exploitation by individual states.
In order to relaunch a shared commitment to the service of peace, there is a need to recover the roots, the spirit and the values that gave rise to those organizations, while at the same time taking into account the changed context and showing regard for those who do not feel adequately represented by the structures of international organizations.
To be sure, dialogue requires patience, perseverance and an ability to listen, yet when sincere attempts are made to put an end to disagreements, significant results can be achieved. One example that comes to mind is the Belfast Agreement, also known as the Good Friday Agreement, signed by the British and Irish governments, whose twenty-fifth anniversary was commemorated last year. Putting an end to thirty years of violent conflict, it can serve as an example to motivate and encourage authorities to trust in peace processes, whatever the hardships and sacrifices they entail.
The way to peace is through political and social dialogue, since it is the basis for civil coexistence in a modern political community. 2024 will witness elections being held in many nations. Elections are an essential moment in the life of any country, since they allow all citizens responsibly to choose their leaders. The words of Pope Pius XII remain as timely as ever: “To express one’s own view of the duties and sacrifices imposed on him or her; not to be compelled to obey without first being heard – these are two rights of the citizen which find expression in democracy, as its very name implies. From the stability, harmony and good fruits produced by this contact between the citizens and the government of the state, one may recognize whether a democracy is truly sound and well balanced, and perceive the vigour of its life and development”. [9]
It is important, then, that citizens, especially young people who will be voting for the first time, consider it one of their primary duties to contribute to the advancement of the common good through a free and informed participation in elections. Politics, for its part, should always be understood not as an appropriation of power, but as the “highest form of charity”, [10] and thus of service to one’s neighbour within a local or national community.
The path to peace also passes through interreligious dialogue, which before all else requires the protection of religious freedom and respect for minorities. It is painful to note, for example, that an increasing number of countries are adopting models of centralized control over religious freedom, especially by the massive use of technology. In other places, minority religious communities often find themselves in increasingly precarious situations. In some cases, they risk extinction due to a combination of terrorism, attacks on their cultural heritage and more subtle measures such as the proliferation of anti-conversion laws, the manipulation of electoral rules and financial restrictions.
Of particular concern is the rise in acts of anti-Semitism in recent months. Once again, I would reiterate that this scourge must be eliminated from society, especially through education in fraternity and acceptance of others.
Equally troubling is the increase in persecution and discrimination against Christians, especially over the last ten years. At times, this involves nonviolent but socially significant cases of gradual marginalization and exclusion from political and social life and from the exercise of certain professions, even in traditionally Christian lands. Altogether, more than 360 million Christians around the world are experiencing a high level of discrimination and persecution because of their faith, with more and more of them being forced to flee their homelands.
Finally, the path to peace passes through education, which is the principal means of investing in the future and in young people. I have vivid memories of the celebration of World Youth Day in Portugal last August. As I renew my gratitude to the Portuguese authorities, civil and religious, for their hard work in organizing the event, I continue to treasure that encounter with more than a million young people from all over the world, brimming with enthusiasm and zest for life. Their presence was a great hymn to peace and a testimony to the fact that “unity is greater than conflict” [11] and that it is “possible to build communion amid disagreement”. [12]
In recent times, the challenges faced by educators have come to include the ethical use of new technologies. The latter can easily become a means of spreading division or lies, “fake news”, yet they also serve as a source of encounter and mutual exchange, and an important vehicle for peace. “The remarkable advances in new information technologies, particularly in the digital sphere, thus offer exciting opportunities and grave risks, with serious implications for the pursuit of justice and harmony among peoples”. [13] For this reason, I thought it important to devote this year’s Message for the World Day of Peace to the subject of artificial intelligence, one of the most significant challenges for the years to come.
It is essential that technological development take place in an ethical and responsible way, respecting the centrality of the human person, whose place can never be taken by an algorithm or a machine. “The inherent dignity of each human being and the fraternity that binds us together as members of the one human family must undergird the development of new technologies and serve as indisputable criteria for evaluating them before they are employed, so that digital progress can occur with due respect for justice and contribute to the cause of peace”. [14]
Consequently, careful reflection is required at every level, national and international, political and social, to ensure that the development of artificial intelligence remains at the service of men and women, fostering and not obstructing – especially in the case of young people – interpersonal relations, a healthy spirit of fraternity, critical thinking and a capacity for discernment.
In this regard, the two Diplomatic Conferences of the World Intellectual Property Organization, which will take place in 2024 with the participation of the Holy See as a Member State, will prove particularly important. In the view of the Holy See, intellectual property is essentially directed to the promotion of the common good and cannot be detached from ethical requirements, lest situations of injustice and undue exploitation arise. Special concern must also be shown for the protection of the human genetic patrimony, by prohibiting practices contrary to human dignity, such as the patenting of human biological material and the cloning of human beings.
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
This year the Church is preparing for the Holy Year that will begin next Christmas. In a particular way, I express my gratitude to the Italian authorities, national and local, for their efforts in preparing the City of Rome to welcome great numbers of pilgrims and to enable them to draw spiritual fruit from their experience of the Jubilee.
Today, perhaps more than ever, we need a Holy Year. Amid many causes of suffering that lead to a sense of hopelessness not only in those directly affected but throughout our societies; amid the difficulties experienced by our young people, who instead of dreaming of a better future often feel helpless and frustrated; and amid the gloom of this world that seems to be spreading rather than receding, the Jubilee is a proclamation that God never abandons his people and constantly keeps open the doors to his Kingdom. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Jubilee is a season of grace that enables us to experience God’s mercy and the gift of his peace. It is also a season of righteousness, in which sins are forgiven, reconciliation prevails over injustice, and the earth can be at rest. For everyone – Christians and non-Christians – the Jubilee can be a time when swords are beaten into ploughshares, a time when one nation will no longer lift up sword against another, nor learn war any more (cf. Is 2:4).
Dear brothers and sisters, this is my heartfelt wish for each of you, dear Ambassadors, for your families and colleagues, and for the peoples you represent.
Thank you and a Happy New Year to all of you!
And yet the news is just on surrogacy.
Monday, December 4, 2023
Messed Up Animal Ecology. Why you can't separate out your favorite animal, and demonize your least favorite, and make a lick of sense.
The other night on the local news, some guy from some environmental outfit was yapping about "wild horses", equating them "with other wild animals like deer and elk", and suggesting that cattle need to be removed from the range.
One of the things he brought up about cattle were their numbers, in comparison to "wild" horses.
His argument was intellectually bereft, but then arguments in this area often are.
Winslow Homer painting of a (fairly thin looking) plow horse. Lots of "chunks" were let go in the 30s when their owners droughted out, their descendants still roaming the range today.
There are no wild horses in North America at all.
None, nada, zippo, "0".
There are a little over 64,000 feral horses, all in the West, in the Western United States. If we include burros, which at least nobody pretends are a wild animal, there are 82,000 feral equines.
All wild equines stem, at the very oldest, from animals that were brought on to the continent in 1519. Quite a few probably don't really have any Spanish blood in their veins at all, and hail from horses much more recently brought in. There's fairly good evidence that in the upper West horses came down out of Canada, not up from Mexico.
Some poor coureur des bois awakened one morning, in other words, and thought "Chu dans marde! Mon cheval est parti!"
"Bourgeois" W---r, and His Squaw" by Alfred Jacob Miller, depicting a coureur des bois and his Native American spouse. This is a famous painting, but we're not supposed to like it now. One art museum notes about it: "These words, which shaped how Miller's contemporaries viewed the watercolors, reveal the racism and sexism embedded in 19th-century exploration and colonization of the western part of what is today the United States." Oh, horse crap. Most trappers were culturally French, and the French had intermixed with the native population from day one. This could just as easily be "guy and his wife." The comment itself imposed an Anglo-American view on a Franco-American and Native American landscape.
Moreover, the introduction date to the Native Americans, at least on the Northern Plains, is much more recent than supposed, and even then, they didn't take them right up. Indeed, among the Shoshone it produced a big argument, with the arguers, mostly young men, taking off and acquiring the name "The Arguers", i.e., Comanche.
In the 1930s, a lot of farmers in the West droughted out and simply let their horses go, including stocky draft horses, i.e., "chunks". Then again, in the 1970s the numbers of wild horses expanded as recent imports abandoned pasture pets out on the range and went back to their homes in Port Arthur, or wherever, and even now some of that happens. The majestic broom tail of the range today may have been Little Becky's 4H project before she left for UW, died her hair purple, and started protesting for Hamas.
Okay, so what about cows?
Long horn in a herd of Angus or Black Baldies. I'm not really sure how this bovine ended up in this herd.
They came in at just about the same time, or earlier. Cattle were brought to the Caribbean as early as 1493 by Columbus, which is really early. "In 1492 Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue", but in 1493 the livestock truck, basically, pulled up to the dock. Cows can and do go wild, but nobody gets very romantic about it, and there isn't a Wild and Free Ranging Cow Act. Nobody goes by the moniker "Wild Cow Annie". A wild cow we had went rogue and recruited other cows to her rogue wild cow band, which shows how wild they can get. A neighboring rancher, caught her and shipped her as a menace. We got the check, and were happy for that end.
There are about 90,000,000 head of cattle in the United States as of this past summer, down from 100,000,000 in 1998.
Okay, that's a lot of cows.
Which bring back our ignorant protagonist's point. Before Columbus came and said "let's stock this range and lose some horses doing it", he seems to argue, the rangeland was empty of large ungulates.
Um, nope.
There were something like 50,000,0000 to 75,000,000 buffalo.
But, gee, Yeoman, that would mean that the entire ungulate supporting range of North America has always had a lot of large ungulates on it. . .
Yep, that's what it means.
Currently, there are about 20,500 Plains bison in wild herds and an additional 420,000 in commercial herds, which we are supposed to pretend are wild herds.
Given our inability to accurately state how many head of anything were on the Pre Columbian landmass, what this basically tells you is the ungulate population hasn't changed very much. Overall populations of large wild animals, i.e., "big game" are way up, however, due to water projects and farmed fields.
So the entire Cow Bad/Horse Good argument is pretty flawed.
Now, the line of last defense on this is that cows cause global warming. That's because cows fart.
Buffalo don't.
Umm. . .
Well, buffalo do, but only Febreeze.
Well, no, they fart methane too.
In reality, all mammals fart, but some fart more than they otherwise would due to diet. You already know this due to your coworker who has, every day, the Lumberjack Special at Hefty Portions for breakfast, followed by the Ejército del Norte special at El Grande Conquistador for lunch, a quart of scotch around 2:00 p.m., and goes home and has his spouse's Roast Wildebeest Surprise for dinner (all Keto approved, of course). The only real argument here, therefore, is that maybe cattle ought not to be finished off on corn, which they probably wouldn't normally do unless somebody left a gate down. That likely makes them gassy.
Lascaux painting of aurochs, approximately 36,000 years ago. Note also the deer/roebucks and horse depicted.
Taking this out worldwide, I'd note, cattle are native to the entire rest of the planet in some form, save for Australia. Wild cattle ranged Europe, Asia and Africa. They aren't new here, and they've been wondering around chewing their cuts and farting for longer than we've been a species.
So back to environmental destruction.
The first real notable example of it was Cottonwood bottoms in the American West. During the winter, buffalo hang out in them. Feral horses took it up. And mounted Native Americans, who previously had a pretty limited impact on the environment, did too.
But you can't really say anything about that.
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