Guatemala: first trial for systematic violations of indigenous women

Guatemala: first trial for systematic violations of indigenous women

Climate Change is Racist

Anthropogenic Climate Change is Racist

Introduction

The object of this paper is to shed light on the connection between racism and the ongoing, potentially catastrophic, destabilization of the climate. In order to fully illustrate the link an exploration of both subjects, their histories and theory will follow. Unfortunately the subject of sexism as pertains to climate change  cannot be given adequate treatment in this context, except where it is related to racism. In the Dafur region of Sudan cases of racially motivated rape of the black water bearers by Arabs is an example of such an intersection. The brutal gang rapes are a form of genocide. The old animosity between the two races stems from their territorial disputes over the water resources in the area. So, as water shortages force women (most water bearers are women) to walk further for water, their risk of rape increases.  Likewise, as the changing climate forces more cultures to abandon their ancestral homeland and become refugees, racial tensions and territorial disputes will proliferate. The IPCC has launched a study into this subject. Also of interest: ecofeminist theory.
While I may seem to cast judgment on certain parties disproportionately, most are complaisant to one or both atrocities unwittingly, so blame is assigned to a few egregious cases: those who benefit most from and perpetrate these crimes against nature.

Part 1; Racism

Race is an unscientific concept that is instilled in young minds in highly segregated institutions such as schools, and reinforced through the media and prisons. Unrecognized, it lurks in the subconscious until an opportunity to prevent rapport and understanding between people with different phenotypes arises. Segregation is commonplace, actively pursued by the architects of gentrification and unwittingly perpetuated by the reflexes of the segregated. The woman who clutches her purse closer because a different color person takes the bus seat next to her may not even realize she is racist. This unconscious form of racism is the type climate change is. It is the flip of a switch, or the crossing of a street, maintaining the status quo. For instance: while most of the middle and upper class take air conditioning for granted, the electricity used to power AC is generally derived from fossil fuels, and the coolants within the AC unit are potent green house gasses.

Institutional racism is the name given to the discriminatory practices of government and private organizations like banks. ‘Stop and Frisk’, allows police to conduct warrantless searches, used predominantly against people of African descent, or senate bill 1070 that targets dark-complected people (Chicanos and, ironically, Native Americans) for police scrutiny and possible deportation, are just two examples. Banks use practices like redlining, block busting, and loan denial to oppress minorities and flip their mortgages.i As in World War II, minorities are relegated to ghettos, and then the streets, while gentrification drives their cost of living up. Border militarization by neo-Nazi militias denies emigrants refuge from the ravages of climate change. The war on drugs has led to the incarceration of one in three black men.ⁱⁱ The minor possession of marijuana receives major penalties, yet farming cannabis could more than reverse the U.S. agricultural emissions.

Environmental racism is a form of institutional racism. In Houston 3 quarters of the landfills are in black hoods, although the African American population is only 25 percent of the city.ⁱⁱⁱ Or in Manchester, Houston, a predominantly Latino residential area, the tar sands from the Keystone XL pipeline will spark an increase in the air polluting oil refinement industry. Tar Sands development also impacts Native American fishing communities on the Athabasca River, downstream of the Alberta tar sands development. The immediate, local effects of polluting industries like mining, fracking, and toxic waste disposal and transportation have impacted many reservations.

In DC there is an attack on schools. Schools in Black and Latino neighborhoods are closed and sold to developers. For years, one such school fought against a coal burning power plant across the river. The district finally shut down the power plant, only to turn the school into expensive condominiums.

Byproducts of the fossil fuel extractive industry span from waste frack-water, decrepit infrastructure, poisoned water tables, ravaged ecosystems, health risks from living in a cancer alley, phthalates, e-waste, smog, and climate change-to Political marginalization, and war. The destruction doesn't stop at increased pollution in the ghetto. In addition to the environmental damages of the fossil fuel, and especially petroleum, industries, there are sociological damages. The societies afflicted with environmental racism suffer acute poverty exacerbation, which leads to criminality, suicide, drug, alcohol, and gambling addiction, teen pregnancy, prostitution, and venereal disease. Fossil fuel companies engage in genocide on a global scale.

Political manipulation by oil lobbyists, climate change denial groups, and technology suppression, is funded by fossil fuel interest fronts. This is textbook fascism, or corporatism, defined by Mussolini as the merger of state and corporate power. Royal Dutch Shell's founder was a close friend of Hitler's. The company has maintained a tradition of collaboration with fascist regimes. The Niger River delta, source of 40% of U.S. oil, (from Africa) leaks an amount of oil comparable to the blowout of B.P.'s Horizon Deepwater drilling platform every year.^iv Shell, then sole operator of the 40 year old infrastructure, claims all of the damages were caused by guerrilla militant factions, and that locals refused to allow cleanup crews to enter the areas because they wanted to profit from reparations. Meanwhile Shell pays both the guerrillas and the oppressive dictatorship to not harm their pipeline and violently suppress protests, respectively. Imagine how much money B.P. could have saved if it accused Louisiana fishermen of conspiracy to collect reparations. Oh, wait, they did. The success of these companies’ public relations teams in maintaining American belief in this falsehood hinges critically on the plausibility of their portrayal of the Nigerians and Louisianans as con artists, or, “welfare suckers.” In another example of Shell's racism, their racist price gouging practices cost them a million dollar settlement in Cleveland, most of which went to legal fees.^v

War and fear mongering in the media are essential to driving the divisiveness by which power is maintained. Keeping the victims in separate dehumanized categories is the age old propagandist model. This is how a war on terror was declared, by oil hungry Halliburton via ex CEO Dick Cheney via fucking moron George W. Bush. The myth that all people of color are lazy and live off of welfare was indispensable to British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, or any other racist, lawsuit dodging, company. Likewise, islamophobia facilitated the invasion of Iraq.

Islamophobia is a new name for an old animosity between Christendom and Islam. Since even before the crusades the ‘infidels’ and the ‘heathens’ have been at war. Today, the white savior complex platform is the one furthered by the corporate media and puppet government. As an excuse to invade it is simply the other side of the same islamophobic coin that was spent on the Iraq war. That, and the so called “Weapons of Mass Destruction” which did not exist then, and only exist in Syria now because (like a cop who kills an unarmed child) they were planted. In Iran's case, U.S. backed Israel threatening to initiate hostile action to thwart an Iranian nuclear program could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The irony of a nuclear power, the only country to ever drop a nuclear bomb, (or two) policing the atomic age could only to be surpassed if capitalist fueled islamophobic hysteria sparks a nuclear war. Nuclear holocaust or not, the constant villianization and drone bombing of Middle Eastern people is creating a generation bathed in blood, alienated and vengeful. The oil under the Middle East and Africa was a death sentence for millions of innocent lives. In order to have peace, there must first be justice.

Part 2; Institutions

The American Legislative Exchange Council, A.L.E.C., is a shady organization of politicians and corporate ‘persons’ that ghost writes legislation for Their/It's political pawns. They're/It’s behind the racist Prison Industrial Complex, “Stand Your Ground,” the law that got George Zimmerman off the hook for killing Trayvon Martin, voter suppression, school segregation, and much more. They/It recently re-approved the 'Interstate Research Commission on Climate Change Act,' which will call for a joint, industry controlled, scientific task force dedicated to discovering beneficial climatic changes.^vi

Schools in the U.S. are being re-segregated by A.L.E.C and the Koch (pronounced ‘kaak’ ) brothers, (These Kochs are the ones who brought the pet coke mountains, and ensuing blackblizzard, to Detroit, then Chicago.^vii Coming soon to a poor, black, neighborhood near you!) The targeted schools, in the ethnic ghetto, have their bus routes terminated through bribery. Once isolated by ethnicity they can be degraded in quality. Teachers are laid off or have to accept lower wages, while all grades are lumped together into one building. North of the border children are given Kool-Aid of a different color. Canada's Ministry of the Environment, which calls the Alberta tar sand sustainable, supports the circulation of 'educational' materials on the climate. One gem, entitled “Is Climate Change Good For Us?” recommends pairing students with opposed viewpoints, and then polling the class on their difference in opinion.^viii So, a) Canadians teach their children that climate change is a matter of opinion, and b) those opinions are divided into two roughly equal sized groups. The instances of racism being ingrained into our children differ in type and method (or lack thereof) but not nature. Whether intentional, as in the case of the math teacher who posed racist themed word problem on his quiz, or not, the end result is a maladjusted childhood and possibly trauma.^ix

The model of using schools for political or religious influence over the young minds is an old one; it was brought to America by conquistadors. They began by burning all of the Mayan books. Education empowers people who may rise up, which is why slaves in the south were forbidden to learn how to read. The tradition of indoctrination remains strong in the U.S. of A, where schools are run for profit, and thus teach free market capitalism, creationism, climate change skepticism, or anything else they can get funding for. They are also recruitment zones for the military, gangs, neo-Nazis, and other head hunters. The overcrowded, understaffed, oppressive learning environment is so bad it cannot sufficiently prepare anyone for a legitimate career. Faced with severe obstacles to learning, a counter culture of criminality arises in the school to prison pipelines. It's mostly white kids that can afford to go to college, and learn eugenics, gentrification, and Zionism. The higher the education, or more prestigious the institute, the whiter are its demographics. Inversely, the indigenous farmers, laborers and herdsman in places like rural Palestine or the Darfur region of Sudan have, as their highest level of education, elementary school. 

Technology suppression on the part of the carbon polluting industries is known to have happened in the past. Rockefeller lobbied for Prohibition in order not to have to compete with ethanol.x All EV-1, the general motors electric vehicle, were recalled and crushed after laws requiring their production were gutted.xi As with racism, this practice has not quietly died away. It just has a new face, greenwashing. as in, an automobile manufacturer might maintain a fuel cell program, not with any intention of launching a line of fuel cell powered EVs, but in order to keep the scientists devoted to renewable energy busy, and out of trouble. The promotional side helps dodge blame for exacerbating climate change. By funding the green technologies, the industry can keep tabs on its progress, and if need be, pull the plug. If by chance a game changing innovation crops up unexpectedly, or to soon, money laundering special interest groups will buy up the patents, the lab, all the research, and the researchers too. If their lucky. This is what happened to the M.I.T. fuel reformer program. After inventing an on-board, plasma based, hydrogen boosting fuel reformer that could significantly increase miles per gallon, a dummy corporation bought and shelved the patent. Another example of an emerging green technology under suppression is algal biofuels (see Part 3). The use of algae and other microbes in conjunction with power plants can sequester carbon from the plant, while producing ethanol, biodiesel, or methane feedstock for synthetic fuel.

Capitalism was designed by the slave owning aristocracy to perpetuate the status quo, and not, as it is touted, to improve efficiency. Rather than improving technology, capitalist interests suppress it. Rather than increasing economic and social equality, capitalism regresses them. Racist concepts are endemic to it, the competition that it promotes, the social Darwinism, is a breeding grounds for racist business practices. Dehumanization is the tool of systematic violence, and all systems of oppression are by nature, violent. The imposition of racist, sexist, elitist, phobic stereotypes promotes and even popularizes violence and hate. Like heating a solution accelerates a chemical reaction, acts of random violence generate more oppression. Paranoia sells. It has always sold. Racism stems from elitism/classism, the western version of which evolved from feudalism during the dark ages. Capitalism or, 'the western culture' is indoctrinated into ‘developing populations.’ The continued exploitation of any group of people requires their dehumanization. Based off of consumption levels, classism engenders disdain for the less affluent by the consumer base, or, constituents. Corporatist classes within first world nations dehumanize the second class citizens. Capitalism is classist, and classism is racist. By way of classism capitalism is racist. After all, slavery is just good business. The constant assault on sustainable science is actually collateral to a broader assault on all non-white, poor, and or indigenous people. Just as when Native American and African American women in the U.S. were forcibly sterilized by racist doctors, 'developed' nations in general, and the U.S.A. in particular, are committing multiple counts of genocide by allowing their carbon pollution to wreck the biosphere, weather patterns, and civilizations of Planet Earth.

Part 3, Climate Change Profiteers

Disaster Capitalism¹: Post-Apocalyptic movie star Kevin Costner had the patent on the type of pump used to 'clean up' (as in, reclaim some small portion thereof) oil from the B.P. spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Arcadis, Shell's creepy environmental engineering consultant, has the contract to do hydrological engineering for New Orleans. The Dutch engineers have an edge on pump technology. The addition of just a few airlifted Dutch pumps cut the time needed to pump out the Hurricane Katrina flood waters by several days. When boats equipped with Kevin Costner's centrifugal separation system pumped oil back into BP's tankers, capitalism came to the rescue. When the Army Corps of Engineers learned one-upsmanship from the literal 'Flying Dutchman' Arcadis, capitalism took an apparent altruistic turn.

The individual motives and ethics of each company would have to be assessed to draw the line between heroism and opportunism. A clear cut case of opportunism exists with Bill Gates investing in Monsanto, while donating seeds to Haitian earthquake victims. Monsanto's terminator seeds ensnare their consumers into an unsustainable debt trap. They claim their 'drought resistant, nutrition enhanced', (actually just crossed with with poisonous beetles) gene spliced products fight world hunger. What they really do is impose toxic spray, unsustainable monocropping, and poverty on farmers. These methods are very carbon intensive, so Monsanto guaranties their profits in more ways than one. Shell also profits from climate change, or hopes to: as the icecaps melt, their off shore drilling lease on Alaska's North Slope becomes more accessible. Arcadis stands to gain from working closely with Shell, since the rising sea levels are throwing more business their way.

Monsanto is the largest 'agricultural' company in the U.S.A. They started as a chemical company, with such stellar contributions to world health as Agent Orange and aspartame. After moving into biotechnology, they cornered the market on seeds with their patented terminator chimeras. The firm achieved this feet largely due to the success of their biofuel corn chimera, which was genetically modified to increase its oil content. Loath to give up their position as head in biofuel production for the U.S., they have co-opted some of the most promising algal biofuel companies by infiltrating their board of directors. They also have a revolving door between them, the USDA, and the Supreme Court. Monsanto has also enlisted the mercenary army formerly known as Blackwater.

Shell is the third largest oil company globally, largest in Europe. They have the largest ship in the ocean, a massive liquid natural gas plant. With 7% of LNG production, globally, Shell is one of the largest climate changers. Their increasing investment in the Alberta tar sands serves only to heighten that distinction. As the Arctic melts, the petroleum reserves that they have leased there become more accessible. 

International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are institutions created after WWII in order to stabilize the economies of countries in the grips of hyperinflation, such as Germany was during the rise of the Nazi Party. The theory was that inflation played a role in promoting fascism, so checking it where ever it arose could avert another world war. While that sentiment is nice, the practice is somewhat different: In classic Orwellian doublethink the lending institutions wage economic warfare on countries that have undergone some natural disaster or political upheaval. In order to receive emergancy loans these countries must first 'structurally adjust' their business laws to make them friendlier to multinational corporations. The multinational corporate fascists then strip the country of its resources and exploit the local laborers. As the IMF and World Bank are controlled by the developed nations, (those exacerbating climate change) and preys on the disaster stricken developing nations, (stricken by disasters which are becoming more and more frequent) they epitomize the position of climate change profiteer. 

The Military and Prison Industrial Complexes maintain the strict divisions of race and nationality, in order to protect the authority of the rich, white, and blatantly racist minority which is the ruling class. While slavery is officially outlawed in the United States, prison labor and the exploitation of illegal immigrants provides a workforce practically indistinguishable from slavery. Without the racist war on drugs, or border militarization, these people would be free to demand fair wages. Economic warfare imposed at the barrel of a gun on Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific Islands has enabled the assemblage of an ever greater workforce of slaves or near slaves. As the labor market grows sodden with workers, the value of wages decline, so it is in the best interests of the wealthy to leverage world poverty. Revolution is easily typecast as terrorism, so any resistance to the neo-colonial corporate coup can be met by the local military police, with weapons, training, and logistical support provided by the United States. The U.S. armed forces command a fleet that consumes more fossil fuel than any other financial enterprise. As things heat up climatically, shortages of resources drive more conflicts, heating things up politically. Consequently, the U.S. military industrial complex reaps the benefits in the form of an ever growing "cost plus" budget. 


Part 4; The Environment

In World War II having advanced knowledge of meteorological conditions was a tactical advantage. Weather stations became military targets. The idea was to cripple the enemies intel, to leave them in the dark about what storm fronts, or other weather patterns, were headed toward the home front, military installations, or troops on the field. If fog or high winds could be expected, major troop movements could be planned to take advantage of the grounded air force. Eisenhower had three meteorologists whom he consulted before he launched the D-day invasion, according to Smithsonian. Throughout history, subtle changes in the climate have led to the extinction of species, the rise, and the fall of civilizations. Now the civilization drives the climate change...but what civilization, and where is it driving it to? The weather patterns have been altered in the last few years, with tornadoes, fires, and droughts increasing in magnitude and frequency. The jet stream has slowed twenty percent, leading to more extreme winter weather conditions. Hurricanes and typhoons are becoming deadlier, with greater storm surges, and heavy mudslide and flashflood inducing rainfall.

For years the 'Neoconservatives' have been denying and downplaying climate change. They have been fighting a weather war via the Heartland Institute (which posted pictures of Hannibal Lector on bill boards, with the caption “I Believe in Climate Change”) and Industry funded lab rats. Now that the truth is becoming harder to suppress, the book cooking is giving way to a new spiel: Climate change is good.

The forecast is sunny for the climate. While The United States of America originates slightly less carbon dioxide than China, It demands the greatest share of carbon emission to meet its trade deficit. Much of the carbon dioxide emitted by developing countries is from manufacturing merchandise for Americans and Europeans. Taken into consideration with Canada, North American consumerism has every other continent beat for GHGs. Its geographic position at a temperate latitude tempers the local consequences. Americans and Canadians have a twofold incentive to be apathetic towered global warming; a sense of entitlement, and a lack of accountability. While other countries have taken steps to curb their emissions, North America is floundering and backsliding.

Climate Forcing, or, anthropogenic climate change, is a process that must be stopped before it’s too late. The technocrats may delude themselves into believing they can avert the worst of the damages through mad geoengineering schemes like artificial algae blooms, or airborne reflective nano particles, but they are listening to too much of their own propaganda. Exxon Mobile's CEO Rex Tillerson claims, “Changes to weather patterns that move crop production areas around, we’ll adapt to that. It’s an engineering problem and it has engineering solutions.i” After years of denial the oil executives have graduated to the best case scenario. The average of one half degree Celsius warming we have undergone in modern times may not seem like much in an equilateral climate, but that is the least of it. The regions hardest hit are those with more insolation: (amount of sunlight) the equatorial regions, and, in their summers, the Arctic and Antarctic circles. People native to these regions have evolved to have higher melanin levels to combat the increased radiation. Hence, dark skin. Also at risk in the U.S. are the urban homeless, who are predominantly minorities. Climate change will increase the severity of smog, and heatstroke.

The tropics support the majority of Earth´s population: not only are they home to billions, they produce a surplus of food for the rest of the world. Polar regions are more sparsely populated, yet they provide an invaluable service as well: the ice caps reflect sunlight into space during the hottest months of the year. This summer (2013) the North Pole was liquid water for the first time in recorded history. If the ice caps melt completely the poles will cease to increase the planet’s albedo, or, solar reflectivity. This is one example of a climate feedback loop: as the damages rack up it becomes harder for the climate to stabilize itself, and the changes accelerate. Others include the acidification of the oceans and soil, and failing biosphere. As carbon dioxide levels in the ocean and soil increases, the ability of these great carbon-sinks to sequester the greenhouse gas decreases. The droughts and high temperatures have led to failing forests, rainforests, and other vegetation. In times of drought many plants cease to photosynthesize, since it is a process that requires a large amount of water, and begin a process called photorespiration. In photorespiration carbon is emitted and oxygen is absorbed, just like with animal respiration. The presence or absence of these feedback loops makes climate prediction difficult and nonlinear. Rather than being able to plot a straight line equating a direct, empirical, link between carbon emissions and temperature, an exponential relation or relations must be considered. This is what climate scientist Michael Mann refers to as the ´hockey stick´, for it’s resemblance to the end of the piece of sports equipment. What this means off paper is that unexpected jumps in temperature are likely to occur very rapidly in the future.

Geological records of the last warming epoch, the Pliocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, indicate the ice caps melted completely and became swamps. The tropics became uninhabitable deserts with year round minimum temperatures of a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Ninety percent of all sea life perished, coral reefs were bleached, and the oceans were acidic. The average global temperature was 6 to 9 degrees Celsius higher than today. How this came to pass is not fully known, but sea floor sediment records indicate a gradual increase in carbon dioxide, followed by sudden spikes in methane. Temperatures that had been rising steadily jumped exponentially over these periods. They would take 100,000 years to fall. The best theory for why this happened is the Clathrate Gun Hypothesis. Clathrates are crystals of water that trap methane. The word clathrate comes from the Greek word for cage. The presence of methane alters the ordinary configuration of water crystals, into various other geometries that can hold one or more methane molecules. The pressure and temperature at which these formations are stable is a very narrow margin, and subject to minute changes. As the oceans warm, clathrates in the sea bed undergo a phase transition, releasing massive quantities of methane, a GHG many times more potent than carbon dioxide. The exact amount of methane frozen in the seafloor is unknown, but it is estimated to be comparable to the world’s fossil carbon (natural gas, coal, and oil combined). If we allow all the permafrost under the ocean to melt we will bring about another P-ETM scale 'hockey stick', with the sea level rising

Conclusion 

Anarchy is order. remember the Easter Islander's, who were obsessed with building stone statues, (like modern man builds bank accounts) and had to resort to cannibalism when they deforested Easter Island to support the trendy erection of giant stone hats. They weren't stupid, despite what you might think: the Easter Islander's had a written language and some excellent stone workers, but they reacted too late. The loss of all wood supply lead to a collapse of their fishing industry, and that in turn, led to the cannibalism. The cannibalism earned them no love from the white sailors that 'discovered' them. For a while the population subsisted on rat and human flesh. After  most of the cannibals died off archeologists started digging things up. They determined that there was a riot during which all the hats got knocked off, and many of the statues were knocked down. Too little, too late.

The End

1Disaster Capitalism; Term coined by Naomi Klein, in Shock Doctrine.

i Team Afro “Institutional Racism in America: The 21 Century Jim Crow”. Sun. April 8, 2012

iiResearch and Advocacy for Reform “Race and the Criminal Justice System in the United States of America” The Sentencing Project. August 2013

iiiBullard, Robert D. (1994) "The Legacy of American Apartheid and Environmental Racism," Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development: Vol. 9: Iss. 2, Article 3.

ivVidal, John. “Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it”

The Observer, Saturday 29 May 2010

vwww.alaskawild.org “Shell Oil, a record of Environmental and Corporate Malfeasance.” June, 2012.

viwww.alecexposed.org via www.alec.org 'Interstate Research Commission on Climate Change

Act'

viiVICE News “Petcoke: Toxic Waste in the Windy City” February 27, 2014

viii“Is Climate Change Good For Us?” BC Wild

ix“'Slavery' Math Problems Fallout Prompts Ga. Teacher to Resign” Huffington Post. Black Voices.

January 18, 2012

x

Tickle, Josh. “Fuel” Documentary. 2008 Taylor, Michael

xi   "Owners charged up over electric cars, but manufacturers have pulled the plug".

San Francisco Chronicle. April 24, 2005.

xii Hansen, James “Making Things Clear: Exaggeration, Jumping the Gun, and the Venus

Syndrome.” April 15, 2013 and the Criminal Justice System in the United States of America”

Cover Photo

Thanks, Eric