To survive, we are asked to forget that our lands and bodies are being violated, policed, ripped up, silenced, sacrificed
Igot the news naked in the New River, in the backwoods of Appalachia. Water slashed against my skin. The river was closed in by curtains of green, oak trees rippling on both sides of the bank. The messenger was naked too. She lay on a boulder that jutted out of the water, her hair willowing out in streams. She made her hands into a gun and aimed it at the sun.
‘Maybe we won’t even notice it.’ She cocked her hands back, as if preparing to fire. ‘Only part of the pipeline would hit North Carolina. The South Gate. The rest of it is in Virginia.’
But we both knew she was wrong – of course we’d notice it. These mountains, the oldest in North America, are deeply interconnected. State lines mean nothing to the rivers, the wind currents, the bats, the toads. Isolationist comfort would not protect us. We both knew this, belly-up in the river, under the twisting blue sky. Water pushed into my back, between my shoulder blades, carried here from somewhere else. The current tugged sweat and mud off my skin, and dragged it downriver.
It’s called the Mountain Valley Pipeline. There’s a lazy sheen to the name, as if the creators wanted it to sound idyllic. Like, it’s a pipeline, yes – and sure, we’ll need to clear the forests – poison the water – divide some communities – but just look at that view!
The Mountain Valley Pipeline is a 303-mile-long incision running from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia, with a proposed extension into central North Carolina. The pipe itself is 42 inches in diameter, and buried 3 feet underground. It was approved for construction in October 2017 and was expected to be finished in October 2020, but its progress was slowed by local opposition, operating both within and outside of the law. Not until June this year was the pipeline declared complete and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved it to begin service….
https://aeon.co/essays/the-body-has-a-trauma-response-to-climate-violence
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The world is burning. Who can convince the comfortable classes of the radical sacrifices needed?
Richard Smyth: Nature does not care
Karl Marx in the Anthropocene: the post-capitalist, green manifesto captivating Japan
After the truth-shower 