Indigenous
Welcome to c/indigenous, a socialist decolonial community for news and discussion concerning Indigenous peoples.
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You should probably read a book about how uranium mining has historically devastated native communities, especially in the Southwest, but start here. And I don't know who gave you the authority to give "passes", I would probably avoid using that kind of language.
“They never told us uranium was dangerous. We washed our faces in it. We drank in it. We ate in it. It was sweet,” explained Cecilia Joe, an 85-year-old Navajo woman, in a recent interview. Joe’s experience illustrates the under-researched but extremely pervasive problem of environmental injustice on Native American reservations.
Due to decades of harmful environmental policy and exploitation by private companies, Native communities have been disproportionately subjected to toxic waste, pollution and other health risks — leading to what some activists describe as “environmental genocide.” Out of all the ethnic groups in the United States, Native Americans are the most at risk of toxic exposure, a fact that reflects broader realities about the continued oppression of Native communities and has galvanized Native activists into seeking justice.
While the word “reservation” may invoke ideas of protection or sanctuary, historically, Native American reservations have systematically been targeted as sites for toxic waste disposal, and the U.S. government has historically been indifferent towards this. Companies “hoping to take advantage of the devastating chronic unemployment, pervasive poverty, and sovereign status of Indian nations” offer millions of dollars to Native American tribes in exchange for the ability to dispose of toxic waste, according to Bradley Angel in a report for the environmental organization Greenpeace.
They still haven't even cleaned up the past Uranium mines they used and poisoned people and the land with.
more info: https://cleanupthemines.org/
two book options: Wastelanding: Legacies of Uranium Mining in Navajo Country, Yellow Dirt: An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed
that sucks and US uranium mining blows, but it's important to remember that it's a feature of white supremacist capitalism, not uranium. fossil fuel and rare earth extraction and development in the west has all the same stories of harm to the marginalized
It's not like there's an "indigenous-people-friendly" form of extraction. In Bolivia there has even been contention between indigenous groups and the indigenous-led (I think?) government over proposed resource extraction projects.
It's not like there's an "indigenous-people-friendly" form of extraction.
Eh this feels strongly like an 'easier to imagine the end of the world' take, there are better and worse forms of and places for extraction. And I'm sure that contention in Bolivia is preferable to the brutal conditions people faced under the short-lived western-backed christofash regime a few years back.
That doesn't mean it's perfect. Another example is succdem AMLO doing an extractive colonial rail infra project in Chiapas. Hopefully through pushback those slightly less shitty guvmints will do better, and if not be replaced by one that does.
I think it's naive to think you can do resource extraction without the negative effects of it. That just isn't something that exists. You have to tear up massive amounts of land using massive amounts of energy.
ok, but the alternative is anprim shit or some start trek sci fi shit so idk what to tell you. resource extraction will happen, and fighting it outright is tilting at windmills
De-growth
which is malthusian nonsense that's just a subgenre of either the anprim shit or star trek sci fi shit I mentioned, idk what to tell you
economic de growth isn't maluthsian lol, cope and consumer harder, when's the new iphone coming out?
The US's refusal to build and maintain infrastructure isn't indicative of the state of the rest of the world. Any conversion away from fossil fuels anywhere in the world benefits the whole world because we all live in the same greenhouse.
Renewables are better for sure, and that should be prioritized. But all avenues to save the climate must be followed.