The bald eagle could have easily gone extinct. But we did all sorts of "woke" things protecting it legally, ran conservation and study programs, banned DDT (that was good for other reasons too) and in 2007 they were removed from the endangered species list.
Likewise pine forests could be dead from acid rain.
The ozone could have a huge hole.
We CAN take care of nature when we want to. And the successes have been worth it.
I really wish the people complaining about the use of "woke" to describe environmental law would pay a little more attention to who is using (misusing) that word now... and consider that "tree hugger" used to be something of a nasty mocking term for anyone who dared to suggest that maybe driving animals into extinction was... bad and wrong...
@futurebird yes! I had a conversation the other day with someone about what exactly might be included in the term “animals.” My answer is anything in the kingdom of Animalia. This includes humans… and a whole lot of creatures we apparently don’t think much of since we spay lethal chemicals on them. We have killed so many insects that pollination is a problem now. Bees aren’t the only pollinators! And bird numbers are falling precipitously, too.
@futurebird Yes we've changed single industries world wide.
We haven't yet done it for all industries at the same time.
I'm not saying we can't, just that this is an issue at a scale humans haven't dealt with since the last ice age (and we didn't have industries back then)
@futurebird
I think each one needs a focused campaign with clear, fairly small objectives (what does success look like, how do we win?) and a profitable alternative to the current solution that can be switched out relatively easily. Then it needs to be well publicised and stay well publicised until it's done.
Often what we have today is too big and unfocused e.g. "net zero", too many requirements as it were, which makes them vunerable to PR sabotage and the low attention span of our time.
@futurebird So much this! Does anyone these days recall Rachel Carson and her seminal work, “Silent Spring”? It literally jump-started the environmental movement and brought attention to DDT and birds. #ClimateChange#Renewables
@futurebird@levampyre this war before the culture wars. if society would have been in the eighties, Sunscreen would be banned and children would have to drink leaded fuel before school.
@futurebird if I were a conspiracy theorist, it's almost as if there's some cabal of people who saw all the work you mentioned and went NEVER AGAIN, and proceeded to embark on campaigns that we were never and aren't under any environmental threat and that all this work was for The Man to enact control of the populace
@futurebird maybe, but i don't think you're going to change that. just like i can't change how dawkins's original conception of "meme" became co-opted to mean "cute cat gifs". i don't know of any other word that captures that sense of "absurdist virtue signaling" to even use in its place.
Humorous template images with text became a more relevant contribution to discourse than anything Richard Dawkins had to say, and we needed a word for them.
You don't really need a new word to express anti-intellectual scorn at careful thought, there have been plenty already. Even the phrase "virtue signalling" has a little life in it yet, I see.
@futurebird@petealexharris it is in fact what it means, empirically. chatGPT is just aggregating thousands of real world uses of the term and deriving that answer accordingly. trying to dismiss objective reality is certainly a take.
@futurebird Sorry, I'm genuinely confused about "woke" having a long history meaning "senseless". All I've ever heard is that it's meant something like "aware of racial persecution or oppression by white people against Black people". Is there a parallel history?
Or am I reading your comment way too literally and we're talking about the co-opting of the word by the right?
@CEvaN I’m admonishing someone for using it that way; it’s bad enough that people mine Black culture with impunity but to have a perfectly beautiful concept like “woke” trashed makes me livid and more solid in my resolve to use it correctly.
Wokeness is exactly what we are lacking and the ugly irony of the abuse of such a powerful concept isn’t lost on me.
@CEvaN Consider the impact of making young people worry that if they are “too political” or demand equal treatment they might be called “woke” and ooo nooo that is not a good thing— it’s cartoonish and scolding— it’s “shrill” it’s goofy black peoples stuff— or crazy trans stuff it’s “too much” not like saving bald eagles! (for now! don’t think those birds are safe!)
A lot of this is a recycling of anti "politically correct" rhetoric. I wonder what the terms were that were bashed before that, or whether political correctness bashing was a rhetorical innovation.
@futurebird@CEvaN
My question is, if bald eagles hadn't been the kind of thing a Gopnik would get detailed on their 4wd on a background of US flags would the conservation initiatives have worked as well?
Look at ospreys in the UK for example - not a national symbol, been endangered for decades and idiots still steal the eggs.
@MrInappropriate@futurebird@CEvaN When “intellectualism” is considered derogatory by the same folks, they’ll also figure out how to turn “enlightened” into a negative thing, too.
When I first heard "woke", was on the west side of Chicago, with a bunch of Black Identity brothers. They said - "woke" was a moment of enlightenment, rather like the Buddhist concept of immediate enlightnment, the Japanese call it 頓悟 == tongo.
When a Black child, or any other victim of racism, first learns of it, these men said, it's academic, as it is for White people.
But when that Black child becomes the victim of racism, it comes into focus. They hate me!
@futurebird The endangered species act was passed 92-0 in the senate, 390-12 in the house and signed by Nixon. The ban of DDT was by the EPA under Nixon and EPA administrator Ruckelshaus, a Republican. The Montreal Protocol banned CFCs in 1989. It was widely supported as it has been ratified by every country in the UN.
It is inspiring to see that people do come together when motivated.
@futurebird HMM…BECAUSE WE THE PEOPLE SAT SILENT IN 2016 AND DID NOT ASK FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION TO BE INVALIDATED. WE JUST SUCKED IT UP AND DID NOT QUESTION RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE, NOR DID WE CHALLENGE THE VOTES. OUR SILENCE AND THE MEDIAS COMPLICITY IN REPORTING POSITIVE THINGS ABOUT THE RAPIST AND NEGATIVE THINGS ABOUT THE SECRETARY OF STATE BROUGHT US TO THIS POINT.
@futurebird I agree, and intuitively I know that it's 'worth it'. Do you have concrete arguments for someone who challenges 'why' it's worth the effort?
How do you explain the fight for biodiversity and long-term survival to someone who doesn't want to engage either out of lazyness or because they struggle enough for their short term survival already...
On the Vermillion River in Minnesota he always visits my special place and watches me fish, moving a little further out on his perch when I catch a big one.
@futurebird My *congressman sued the US for a timber corridor preserved by the Obama administration. He aalao thinks wolves should be delisted and that the ESA ia burdensome the EPA redundant and an enemy of the Chambers of Commrce
Now ask people if they think it's really worth it to use AI, (killing professionals) buy cheap stuff online (suporting polution & forced labour) or keep using FB, Insta, Google, Netflix etc which financially supports investors who keep making this world a mess.