Friday, August 26, 2016
Parody is extinct
Headline:
Tribe trucks totem pole 4,800 miles in fossil fuels protest
Can't make it up.
A Pacific Northwest tribe has begun a 4,800-mile road trip with a 22-foot-tall totem pole in tow. The Lummi Nation embarked on its fourth "totem journey" since 2012 to galvanize opposition to coal and crude oil projects it says could imperil native lands. The tribe took a similar totem trip last year to raise awareness about a massive coal export terminal being proposed in their ancestral homeland in northwest Washington state. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied a permit for the Cherry Point project earlier this year over concerns it would impact the Lummi Nation's treaty-protected fishing rights. This year, the focus is on the Millennium coal export terminal proposed for Longview, Washington along the Columbia River.However! I can't get properly het up about this, because THESE SPECIFIC PROJECTS are terrible ideas for all sorts of non-crazy non-Gaian non-Injun reasons. (1) Coal export was driven by China's infrastructure bubble, WHICH HAS ALREADY POPPED. The supposed reason for these ports was temporary and now it's GONE. (2) We shouldn't be exporting coal. We should be either using it ourselves or leaving it alone to save it for the future. Coal is patient, not perishable. Coal needs to be treated as a reserve. (3) These ports would drive a tremendous increase in railroad traffic. Result: Either a big filthy lethal mess, or a massive expense to build more railroads. Either way the project would incur nearly infinite debts and would ruin lots of NON-INJUN land.
Labels: Patient things
¶ 3:56 PM
