Hello a tout,

Thank you all for showing cognitive empathy towards one another
and expressing your concerns openly. It’s clear we share a common worry
about the crises affecting our world today.

We are all experiencing the global challenges of climate change and its
consequences—challenges rooted in decades of denial and overconsumption by
the wealthiest populations. When I say "the rich," I don’t mean only
billionaires but all of us in the global north, where even owning land in
Colorado, a flat in Amsterdam, or a farm in Serbia places us among the top
10% wealthiest people in the world.

Vanessa’s call for action reminds me of similar cries for help from people
in Eastern Serbia (but also elsewhere in Periphery). In late 2020, I became
deeply involved in raising awareness about Rio Tinto’s planned lithium
mining operations in Serbia. This project, promoted by Serbia’s Prime
Minister as a driver of economic growth, threatens to pollute fertile soil,
groundwater, and drinking water for millions
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-68072-9>—not just in Serbia but
in neighboring countries as well. The story reflects the stark reality of
how resource extraction in poorer regions serves the interests of wealthier
nations under the guise of "progress." Just to mention that there are much
bigger deposits of the precious mineral in Germany for example. Sounds
familiar? That's exactly the imperialism John mentioned in his honest
confession.

It’s easy to feel defeated in the face of such challenges. Let's keep in
mind the fact that it is not that easy to die (except if you are in Gaza).
There is a lot of suffering in the meantime. Growing up in Serbia, I
learned resilience while fighting a dictator and enduring NATO bombings
(due to the same dictator). The resilience—what my 6-year-old calls “having
grit”—is a mindset we need now more than ever.

History reminds us that crises can lead to unexpected solutions. One
example I love is the Great Manure Crisis of the late 19th century, when
cities worldwide from New York to Sydney, were overwhelmed by horse-dung
pollution. At the time, it seemed as if life on Earth would end, not due
to a collision with a meteor or other apocalyptic events — but under an
ever-rising pile of dung. But it didn't. Even though the problem seemed
unsolvable, the discovery of the internal combustion engine revolutionized
transportation. Although it seems that one problem was merely replaced by
another, as that 'solution' has led us to today’s climate crisis, it
highlights that the issue lies not only in technology but also in our
ideology, life philosophy, and, ultimately, the social system we cling to
so desperately.

Even as the apocalypse looms, we must remain anti-apocalyptic: resilient
and action-oriented. By renouncing at least some of our privilege—whether
by exposing injustice or resisting imperialism with collective altruism
rather than mere individualism—we affirm what it truly means to be human

We’ve done it before.

@Rob, I'm in for joking at the bricolab workshop :)
A guide to anti-apocalyptic dialogue? or
An anti-apocalyptic memo?


Have a great week Bricolabers!
Regards from Global South, Tunisia,
Maya




On Mon, Nov 18, 2024 at 8:52 AM natacha <natacha@???> wrote:

> Hi John,
>
> I am sure you intend to mean well but you probably do not realise the
> amount of domination carried in your message mainly by your language
> choices but not only.
>
> Thank you for coming out as a person who has worked in the extractive
> industry it is very useful to know we have those ressources around here,
> it would be good to know the level of risks you are willing to take
> nowadays as people are dying facing this industry.
> However, when you say: things are terrible we cannot do anything but be
> spiritual this is really hard to take from someone in such a privilege
> position. Please do remember that many people and mostly cuitures are
> currently threatened and dying, and if the planet turns out to be not
> sustainable anymore you will be among the ones surviving while many of
> them won't. I respect eachone's spirituality but this is really not the
> topic of this conversation. And if spirituality implies preserving
> existing privileges then it really does not interest me any more.
> Neither am I interested by the stories of you facing Sendaro Luminoso,
> it is only what happens when you enter in those realms
> You have been doing portrait of local people.... Really? How about doing
> portrait of local US people,
>
> You might not realise it but your message is really mansplannig and I do
> not feel you are in position to set morality particularly when you are
> speaking to someone facing current threats in their community.
>
> lots of love to you and I wish you a very wonderful time in your
> beautiful and huge Colorado property-
>
> Heart
>
> natacha
>
>
>
> On 11/17/24 18:07, John Hopkins wrote:
> > Hi Vanessa -
> >
> > Some of my random opinions follow:
> >
> > You might be a bit shocked to learn that I was involved in early
> > petroleum exploration just a couple hundred km northeast of
> > Mocoa—around Yopal and Paz de Ariporo—when I worked for Union Oil of
> > California, back in the early 1980s. I was an exploration geophysicist
> > and worked on projects in Kenya, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, the South
> > China Sea, Botswana, Alaska, and elsewhere. (I studied at the top US
> > engineering school for extractives, the Colorado School of Mines, 50
> > years ago.) I now call that period of my life as employed by the
> > "Imperialist Vanguard". I worked under the protection of the Colombian
> > military that was equipped by the US military. This because there were
> > active attacks on our work there. That was the period when
> > international extractives workers were under threat of kidnapping
> > (i.e., the Sendaro Luminoso in Peru), so I traveled as a periodisto
> > (journalist) when I was out and about. Although my Spanish wasn't very
> > good, I did meet some really wonderful people. I made many portraits
> > of the local people, and when I was giving a report to the senior
> > executives of the oil company, I would show those images. This
> > completely freaked the oil people out.
> >
> > Unfortunately, there can be no copper mining without oil, so they will
> > both have to continue together. And without both those and thousands
> > of other mining/extractive processes around the globe, we would not be
> > typing messages to each other here. I think a 'clean transition' is a
> > fabrication, based on what I have observed of collective human
> > behavior over the past decades, essentially no one will give up what
> > they have, and what they have is what got us to where we are now.
> >
> > What can we do about that except to admit that we are just part of a
> > moment in the cosmos where a Life-form evolved on a single planet and
> > existed for a short period of time, and then vanished.
> >
> > I've been silent on the list as I am busy preparing to sell an eight
> > hectare property in far western Colorado where I started a project to
> > re-wild the land that had been heavily abused with cattle/horse
> > raising and cleared of most natural vegetation. I've been doing this
> > for the past five years, since Covid, while working full-time remote
> > for the Colorado Geological Survey as an editor, writer, media
> > producer, and archivist. I am selling so that I can eventually leave
> > the US next year and move back to Iceland. This, given the continuing
> > destruction of the US system.
> >
> > There are no technological solutions to the problems facing the human
> > species. With a global population over 8 billion people, the world
> > cannot sustain 7 billion of those at all. It is my opinion that the
> > extractives industry will continue to do whatever it can to get to
> > any/all resources until there are no longer any left that can be
> > gotten. Or, with a catastrophic environmental collapse that takes the
> > human population down, there won't be the collective ability to
> > operate the very complex systems of extraction and processing—that is
> > a downward spiral of both technological and social system failure that
> > further compromises human life.
> >
> > I realize that me being alive in this moment is a direct result of
> > temporary technological control over the natural system. It is only
> > temporary. Nature will always win, which certainly means that homo
> > sapiens will join the other 99.9999% of life forms who have already
> > gone extinct in the 4.5-billion-year history of the planet.
> >
> > As for environmental problems related to extractives, consider that
> > there are more than 50,000 abandoned mining sites in the US state of
> > Colorado alone. Some of these affect surface and/or groundwater
> > supplies (which are otherwise dwindling from climate change).
> >
> > I think we need to manage our grief while being absolutely pragmatic
> > about what governments can do about any of this (nothing??!?!).
> > Working local, valuing what life we have in the moment, facilitating
> > awareness of the issues among younger folks.
> >
> > The psycho-spiritual dimensions of this suffering Life are beyond all
> > technologies to both help or damage.
> >
> > But what does it mean to even have a spiritual life these days? What
> > does it mean to be alive in this moment?
> >
> > etc. Sry, this is a brief morning tirade. I've got to get out and
> > continue to work on maintenance issues before winter really hits hard.
> >
> > cheers,
> > John
> >
> > On 11/15/24 6:46 AM, Vanessa Gocksch wrote:
> >> Hello Rob, thank you for considering my other perspective...When I
> >> say a cry for help, it specifically refers to people in the south
> >> (and or Mocoa where I am specifically) needing help with internet
> >> security and also more people / funding to support the environment
> >> issues in the South (example; against this mega mine for "clean
> >> transition") . Also having more living Europeans here serves to
> >> protect the local activists, such as is the example of Zapatistas in
> >> Chiapas where there is a constant flux of European activists that are
> >> present only as "observers" (which avoids people getting killed).
> >> Westerns working down here can also create more international
> >> awareness (as they are connected to network in the north) and bridges
> >> , bring PR / communication / promotion ideas and take a lot more
> >> risks with what they do in the south because they don't actually live
> >> here....
> >> If you are envisioning post oil as a democratically orchestrated move
> >> away from fossil fuels and into "the clean transition" with billions
> >> of solar panels and wind turbines adorning our planet, this big
> >> copper mine that is about to destroy a watershed of the amazon has
> >> everything to do with this particular post oil scenario.....But
> >> perhaps when you speak of post oil you are referring to post
> >> civilisational collapse? Or perhaps both post options...?
> >>
> >> Wishing you a fine day.
> >> Vanessa
> >
>
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