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Trees and forests

A whinge about the inequality of climate change etc:

What do we owe each other in the face of an existential crisis like the climate emergency? That’s one big question at the heart of The Ants and the Grasshopper, a recently released documentary exploring how power and privilege shape climate justice and food justice from Africa to America – and how we might move forward together.

The film, co-directed by Raj Patel, an author and expert on global food systems, centers on Anita Chitaya, a small farmer and local leader in the village of Bwabwa, Malawi. Like many others in developing countries, she is living in the grip of the climate crisis. The rains, she says, have dwindled to three times a year, and the crops can’t survive. All that remains of the nearby Rukuru river is a ribbon of sand snaking across dry land. Every day, women draw water from boreholes that take longer and longer to replenish.

Blah, blah.

Across the US, they meet farmers and activists that illustrate American intransigence on climate action, the promise of a more just food system and the complexities and constraints that lie in between.

There’s the Goodmans in Wisconsin who run an organic dairy farm and advocate for sustainable farming, but their son flatly denies the realities of climate change saying: “It’s in the Lord’s hands.” Then there’s the Jacksons, a conservative Christian family who switched from conventional to organic farming after their son was born with a heart defect, potentially linked by in-vitro exposure to agricultural chemicals. But their farm isn’t profitable and the father works at a coal-fired power plant for extra money and health insurance. They chalk up shifting weather patterns to normal cyclical changes and view climate change as an “agenda”.

Bastard Christians, eh?

Entirely, wholly and completely missing that proverbial elephant:

On her one-acre farm

Trying to scrape a living from an acre of land is always going to be shit. That’s the thing that has to change. Everything else they’re talking about – while ignoring this central truth – is just ignorant ecowankery.

12 thoughts on “Trees and forests”

  1. “What do we owe each other in the face of an existential crisis like the climate emergency? ”

    Due diligence. Actual proof that there is an emergency. Before you come and take all my stuff and make my life miserable.

  2. Rhoda, that is their whole raison d’etre.

    “Every day, women draw water from boreholes that take longer and longer to replenish”.
    Perhaps the problem isn’t too little water, it’s too many people.

  3. Addolff: ’ Perhaps the problem isn’t too little water, it’s too many people.’

    How can the problem possibly be too little water, since if you catch daytime tv, the continent must be covered in wells everywhere, put in by charities..?

  4. “They chalk up shifting weather patterns to normal cyclical changes and view climate change as an ‘agenda’. ”

    Ditto.

  5. Can’t write, so ignore (CW:SI)

    You may not be interested in the Gleichschaltung but the Gleichschaltung is interested in you.

  6. The Meissen Bison

    PJF: the Gleichschaltung is interested in you

    Fair enough. Don’t ignore but mock, deride and lampoon.

  7. in-vitro exposure to agricultural chemicals

    Seriously? Agricultural chemicals affecting a test-tube baby – there’s a helluva negligence claim against the docs there.

    In-utero perhaps but even so far-fetched unless she was mainlining fertiliser

  8. The supposed 3rd world horror will be deceitful bullshit. Enough money has gone into Africa to make it a good place to live save for the large numbers of two-legged turds who live there.

    Then a grifter comes to USA to ask Americans to impoverish themselves so African mugs can have more handouts to waste. They should have beaten her up and made her work her passage home on a crappy tramp steamer–if there are any left.

  9. You’re tempting me to get religion Tim.

    But when it comes to expressing my general sentiments, Ecks says it best.

  10. Prices of Bordeaux estates are still selling for huge money despite the fact that its going to be too hot and dry to produce great wine *soon*

    Beachfront houses in the Seychelles are selling for $2-3 million even though they’re going to be underwater *soon*.

    Does anyone have a piece of data that shows capitalist greed pigs (so not government or corporate subsidy chasers) acting like climate change is a thing?

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