The big voting rights legislation push by the Democratic Party, the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, predictably failed to pass in the Senate due to the filibuster, a ridiculous construct. The Right’s myriad state and local voter suppression and disenfranchisement efforts will carry on largely unabated, not to mention their increasing calls to outright overturn election results. The Senate is a fundamentally undemocratic, countermajoritarian body, and it is an enormous obstacle to passing even minor federal legislation to mitigate the climate and ecological crisis. It has to go.
This is an amazing article about infrastructure, the often-invisible technology that is so essential to our lives and well-being—if we are fortunate enough to have it. "Alone in my apartment, when I reach out my hand to flip a switch or turn on a tap, I am a continent-spanning colossus, tapping into vast systems that span thousands of miles to bring energy, atoms, and information to my household."
The climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis are deeply intertwined in both causes and effects. For example, a new study found that the massive decline in birds and mammals has a significant negative effect on the ability of plants to adapt to climate change. As the planet warms, plants will need to shift locations to stay in the type of climate they are adapted to, so the approximately half of plant species that depend on animals for seed dispersal will struggle to move.
All pipelines leak. All it takes is one spot of disrepair or one small accident and the contents come spewing out. This is huge problem of fragility for fossil fuel pipelines, particularly when run by corporations because corners are always cut on maintenance to increase short-term profits. In the latest example, a diesel fuel pipeline near New Orleans leaked 300,000 gallons of fuel into the surrounding area, killing thousands of animals and contanimating the water and the soil, after Collins Pipeline Co. delayed much-needed repairs.
The pyramid scheme of crypto-not-actually-currency has little socially useful function (if any) and comes with numerous costs, particularly devastating environmental consequences due to the massive energy footprint and material usage of the servers that power its “mining” and transactions. China already effectively banned Bitcoin mining, and now the EPA is starting to take action against some coal-powered operations here in the US.