sacrifice zone

The Case For Returning Disaster-Prone Areas Back To Nature

September 29, 2024 Jonathan Rosenbloom, Next City. Create! climate crisis, Development, Rewilding, sacrifice zone

This week there were three wildfires burning within 100 miles of Los Angeles. Sadly, this isn’t breaking news; it’s the opening salvo of California’s new reality. Each year, wildfires trigger a predictable sequence of events: the fires burn, homeowners flee, firefighters battle the blazes often to catastrophic loss and, once the ash settles, people rush to rebuild grander homes, frequently in the exact same spots and typically directly or indirectly funded by taxpayer dollars. Despite the increase in frequency and intensity of wildfires and other natural disasters, people continue to be drawn to high-risk areas.

Mining Lithium In Europe’s (Semi) Periphery

July 14, 2024 Nina Djukanović, Lefteast. Strategize! Europe, Imperialism, Lithium, Mining, sacrifice zone, The Balkans

Perhaps more than any other material, lithium has, in recent years, been increasingly presented as the silver bullet for the so-called twin transition—the digital and the green transitions. Lithium is essential to most conventional batteries used in diverse technologies, from phones and laptops to increasingly and overwhelmingly so in electric vehicles. It has become the symbol of growth-based solutions to climate change where technological fixes, rather than more equitable and just structural changes, take the primary role. Escalating concerns within the EU regarding its material sovereignty and security have been intensified by the conflict in Ukraine and the growing awareness about China’s dominance of the battery supply chain, as well as other green technologies.

Deregulation Is Turning Oklahoma Into A Factory Farm Sacrifice Zone

January 2, 2024 Ben Felder, In These Times. Educate! Deregulation, Factory Farms, Food and Agriculture, Oklahoma, sacrifice zone

As Barbara Dozhier prepared a ham before the arrival of her great-grandchildren and the rest of her family last Christmas Eve, she prayed for a weather forecast with wind out of the south. A breeze in the opposite direction meant her home four miles outside the east Oklahoma town of Kansas would be overcome with the stench of chicken litter. Ever since a six-building poultry farm opened across the street in 2018 — where 336,000 birds are raised at a time — family gatherings at the Dozhier home have been forced inside. “Sometimes the wind is out of the north and you just hurry up, get in the house and shut your door,” Dozhier said. “At first I was upset all the time but after all these years there is nothing you can do.”

Victims Of The East Palestine Train Disaster Still Fighting For Their Lives

August 14, 2023 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast - Clearing The FOG Cancer, Derailment, East Palestine, EPA, health, Joe Biden, Norfolk Southern, Railroads, sacrifice zone

On February 3, 2023, a Norfolk Southern Railroad train carrying 150 cars, some containing toxic chemicals, derailed in the small town of East Palestine, Ohio on the border with Pennsylvania. The residents in the immediate area were evacuated but the 100,000 gallons of chemicals, including vinyl chloride, that spilled spread throughout the region. Now, over six months later, many residents still cannot return to their homes. Hilary Flint of Enon Valley, Pennsylvania, the vice president of the Unity Council for the East Palestine Train Derailment joined Clearing the FOG to describe what happened, the failures of the local, state and federal governments to provide what affected residents need and how they are organizing to pressure President Biden to grant Governor DeWine's request for an emergency declaration and more.

Sprinfielgd Anti-Pipeline March: ‘No More Sacrifice Zones’

May 22, 2023 Springfield Climate Justice Coalition. Resist! climate crisis, Massachusetts, Pipelines, sacrifice zone

Despite changing the date due to rain, a lively crowd of over 170 people rallied at Stearns Square on Sunday and marched from there to Bliss Street Regulator Station. A diverse and enthusiastic group, they joined Springfield residents and included representatives from the 153 organizations across Massachusetts that co-sponsored the action. The focus of this event was twofold: (1) to amplify the voices of the growing movement to stop the Eversource’s proposed pipeline in Springfield and Longmeadow and (2) to call on the Healey administration to put a halt to new gas system expansions until we have a concrete plan for a just and rapid transition to the clean energy future we need for a livable ecosystem.

How To Beat The ‘Fracking Frenzy’

March 18, 2023 Jamie Gorman, Waging Nonviolence. Strategize! Fossil Fuels, Fracking, Ireland, sacrifice zone

The reality of the climate crisis makes it clear that we must leave the “oil in the soil” and the “gas under the grass,” as the Oilwatch International slogan goes. The fossil fuel industry knew this before anyone else. Yet the industry continues to seek new extractive frontiers on all continents in what has been labeled a “fracking frenzy” by campaigners. In Australia, unconventional fossil gas exploration has been on the rise over the last two decades. Coal seam gas wells have been in production since 2013, while community resistance has so far prevented the threat of shale gas fracking.

Manifesto For An Ecosocial Energy Transition By People Of The South

February 11, 2023 Peoples Of The Global South, Resilience. Create! Ecosocialism, Global South, sacrifice zone, Transformation

More than two years after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic—and now alongside the catastrophic consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—a “new normal” has emerged. This new global status quo reflects a worsening of various crises: social, economic, political, ecological, bio-medical, and geopolitical. Environmental collapse approaches. Everyday life has become ever more militarized. Access to good food, clean water, and affordable health care has become even more restricted. More governments have turned autocratic. The wealthy have become wealthier, the powerful more powerful, and unregulated technology has only accelerated these trends. The engines of this unjust status quo—capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism, and various fundamentalisms—are making a bad situation worse.

Will Lithium Mining Turn Salton Sea Into A Green Energy Sacrifice Zone?

November 17, 2022 Paige Oamek, In These Times. Educate! California, Environment, Lithium, sacrifice zone

Salton Sea, California - An October storm of noxious dust sweeps across the desert, turning the sky sepia and choking out residents. Like water bodies across the West, the 340-square-mile saline lake known as the Salton Sea is drying up as drought, fueled by climate change, further dwindles its inflow from the Colorado River basin. As the lake evaporates, its solution of pesticides, chemicals and heavy metals grows more concentrated. Winds whip the hazardous lakebed dust into the air, and more children here than anywhere else in California visit emergency rooms or are hospitalized with asthma-related illnesses. It’s an environmental disaster with a decades-long history.

Walk For Appalachia’s Future Connects Struggles In The Region

June 6, 2022 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Appalachia, Extraction, Fossil Fuels, sacrifice zone

Activists just completed the "Walk for Appalachia's Future" through West Virginia, North Carolina and Virginia to highlight the impacts of fossil fuel extraction on communities and the land. At each stop, they held events with local activists to learn about their struggles and make broader connections. The Appalachian region is a sacrifice zone - rich in mineral wealth that is extracted by large corporations without benefit to the people. West Virginia is the fifth poorest state in the US with low education attainment and high rates of physical and mental diseases. Clearing the FOG speaks with two organizers of the walk, Maury Johnson and Melinda Tuhus, about the conditions that led to organizing the walk and what they have learned along the way as well as the people's vision for the region.

Stop Corporate Sacrifice Zones From Destroying Everything

August 25, 2015 Lee Camp, www.rt.com/redacted-tonight/ Resistance Report Environment, Food and Agriculture, sacrifice zone, TPP

By Lee Camp on Redacted Tonight. In his new book, Erik Loomis explains how corporations create "sacrifice zones" in which they often decimate the land and people. They do this in areas with poor minority populations because those are the people least likely to have the power to fight against it. We see this across the US but also around the world. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and other rigged corporate trade treaties will make every community into a potential sacrifice zone, unless we stop them. Here's how to protect your community: Step one is to keep the TPP from becoming law. Step two is to scream from the hills about the wrongdoing of major corporations To learn more, comedian Lee Camp breaks down both how this works and how to fight back against it on his show, Redacted Tonight.

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