The concept of citizenship originally described inhabitants of (probably walled) towns. Some insistence on specificity of place certainly remains, although the concept today generally refers to nations rather than cities. But what are concerned citizens to do in the face of problems such as climate change, which cannot easily be contained by walls or borders, and to which we all contribute?
The forces arrayed against Donald Trump’s presidency in the US could soon encompass most of the world once Trump’s climate change threats meet resistance.
Interactions between regulators and the private sector at the federal and state levels typically are collegial, and that both sides work to build and maintain cooperative partnerships.
Stopping the pipeline in one spot, after all, won’t stop oil altogether. Climate change, however, is a threat most of all to Indigenous peoples around the world.
Some of Trumps efforts are literally to support and intensify environmental pollution, and some are efforts to make certain people disposable.
But people are fighting back. A lot of them are bureaucrats and techies.
Why negotiate with poor Indigenous communities sitting atop valuable oil, water, wood and ore if they can be pushed off their land with hidden criminal, political and misogynistic forces?
History suggests that it may be harder to make radical cuts at EPA than Trump and his advisors think. While many politicians have called for eliminating entire cabinet agencies, none has succeeded.
In 2013, India became the fourth country in the world (after Russia, the United States and the European Union) and the only emerging nation to launch a Mars probe into space. But it remains part of the group of 45 developing countries with less than 50% sanitation coverage, with many citizens practising open defecation, either due to lack of access to a toilet or because of personal preference.
What does that mean? As an affront to order, it means we are pollution. It means we must be aggressively ignored, ordered, or erased. We know this. This is part of why so many of us have been grieving since Wednesday.
South Australia’s Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission has recommended the state investigate an international storage site for intermediate and high-level (spent fuel) nuclear waste.
