liminalOyster » Thu Sep 13, 2018 12:27 am wrote:Elvis » Thu Sep 13, 2018 3:06 am wrote:How about Exxon's, umm, collusion with science writers and others to discredit fossil-fuelled global warming? Certainly done in the dark. Illegal? Would a law have stopped Exxon from paying writers to lie?
I'd call it a conspiracy, while acknowledging the mincability of that word. Even after the collusion was revealed, there was a second, somewhat successful conspiracy to "debunk" the first one.
But getting more to 8bit's point, I think, is the remark of a mineral company (I think?) executive who was questioned about the environmental impact of a company project (paraphrasing): "Oh, we just remove the environment."
(Anyone recall that?)
The problem, though, is that the very idea that a name can be given to "everything" is a Eurocentric magic trick. The "environment" is meaningless. I still care, of course, about conditions for life being maintained. But one of the big problems with environmentalism at large is, by detaching from human lives and outcomes in favor of this odd and imagined monism, it tries to take on capitalism without having to name it as the enemy.
I think I disagree with the first sentence, and maybe the second sentence, but I might misunderstand, feel free to expand on that. If environmentalism at large suggests Sierra Club or WWF (wildlife, not wrestling), I refer myself to your signature and agree; it forgets that humans are part of the environment. Ever since that asshole Francis Bacon came along. No really.