1. A moose was trying to swim across Lake Champlain from New York state to Vermont. Bystanders noticed the moose swimming and so they went to take pictures of it. It was an innocent decision by the bystanders, but it was a decision that was costly to the moose. Upon reaching land the moose wanted to rest, but felt threatened by the bystanders and went back into the water. Back in the water exhausted, the moose drowned.
Poor moose…
2. Trump has been recently bitching about the negative news coverage he gets when one searches his name. Does he think he think he deserves praise when he and the GOP have made healthcare unaffordable for people with bad health conditions? “Sick people can’t get healthcare, thank you President Trump!” The Trump administration and the GOP are making it more costly for people in poorer health, because they will allow people to buy “temporary” coverage outside of the exchanges in the Affordable Caret Act. The mandate raised the price for people in good health, but made it affordable for those in bad health.
This is a decision that is for the insurance companies. If they no longer have to allow people with pre-existing health conditions, and allowed to only pick healthy people to cover. The insurance companies get to make a profit, and they get to make a profit not having to do anything.
Another little secret about what the Trump administration is doing with healthcare costs. You’d be better off being poor enough to receive Medicaid, than be just above the poverty line, and have to pay the cost of healthcare.
3. Orca whales of the Pacific Northwest are facing the possibility of extinction as their main source of food is itself facing extinction. While other orca’s eat mammals, sharks, fish, etc. The Northwest orca’s main source of food is the Chinook salmon that use to thrive in the region, but itself has been decimated thanks to this culture. The orcas are mostly dying in winter and early spring, when they’re most dependent on Chinook for food. There were 98 orca’s in 1995, and today there are only 75.
It’s not just overfishing that this culture has done to harm orca whales. The whales are being poisoned from toxic chemicals, were it accumulates in the whales blubber. Noise from vessels interferes with the orcas echolocation that they use to catch praise.
The Canadian government is planning to increase oil tanker traffic through the Salish Sea, which could be seven times the amount of oil tankers right now. Pipelines like the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project is harming the orcas.
Our culture destroys the salmon, and then the whales. Instead of considering the consequences rationally, we irrationally increase the use of the very thing that is going to end us.
4. Here’s a common sense statement: injecting fracking fluid into the ground causes earthquakes. In the central and eastern United States, earthquakes have gone from roughly 25 earthquakes per year, to 362 per year in the last decade. Who would’ve thought that injecting water into the ground and breaking up faults would cause an increase in earthquakes?
5. Flint, Michigan, is not the only town in Michigan to have its water poisoned. 50,000 public school students in Detroit will be attending a school where the water fountains won’t be working. The reason being elevated levels of lead and copper have forced the water to be shut off in a Detroit school district.
Good news, bottled water and coolers will be provided for the kids. Trump has definitely made America great again…
6. It’s not just indigenous people inside the United States and Canada who are fighting resource extraction companies, but so too the indigenous of Australia. The Tjiwarl are one of Australia’s most remote Aboriginal nations, who live in Western Desert lands. Even though the Western Australian Environmental Protection Authority warned the ecological impact of uranium mining could pose. The government of Western Australia said who gives a shit, and approved four uranium projects. Two of which, belong to the Canadian mining company Cameco.
Never mind the lifespan of uranium waste, and it’s half-life that lasts at least 300,000 to 2 million years. Never mind the fact that their is a glut of nuclear energy in the market, coincides with the growing use of renewables. None of that matters, because our culture just has to consume, consume, consume.
I’ve heard conservatives say Keynesian economics is digging a hole and filling it back up. Maybe that’s true, but you could just say that about our culture writ-large. Consumption and growth, in the name of consumption and growth.
To fight for what’s left of the world as humanity moves closer to the cliff of a world that won’t have orcas and salmon in it. People from the Indigenous communities will be the leaders, and those from the culture of civilization will need to listen, and follow orders.
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