savoy011

Cartoon sketch courtesy of  People and Nature . Racism; blindness to capitalism in science communities allows continued exposure and risk disparities A FAILURE TO CONFRONT RACISM and CAPITALIST CONTROL OF SCIENCE UNDERMINES TIES TO OTHER MOVEMENTS The quest for gold brought to light many useful inventions and advanced society in innumerable ways. -Sir Francis Bacon I consider myself an “ethno-scientist.” The methods and practices I follow in the fields of agroecology, ethnoecology, and related areas reflect my grounding in millennia of indigenous knowledge and study of ecological processes in the human-nature interrelationship. The two cultures divide that C. P. Snow lamented because it separates the humanities from the natural sciences remains a central concern for me as a practitioner of community-based collaborative and interdisciplinary research. Yet, I am not marching today. And it is not because I am anti-science. I am against continued widespread reductionism of and in scien...

Moderator’s Note: The environmental and food justice movements have a tradition of critical self-study among activists who collaborate on learning how to remain mindfully engaged through an examination of the connection between self and the world. It is well established that people of color suffer disparate harm from the discriminatory maldistribution of environmental risks and access to ecological amenities like open space, clean air and water; safe food and soil;  think: Flint, Michigan and Standing Rock. Our work to heal our bodies is therefore always also the work of restoring balance to lived environments unjustly rendered unsafe and hazardous. This lack of balance is more than a matter of individual choices; only a privileged person can safely make that assumption. The imbalance is instead the by-product of powerful political and ultimately capitalist economic and legal forces endlessly perpetrating acts of structural violence in the places where we live, work, play, eat, ...

Proposed S. 2609 by Roberts & Stabenow: Voluntary labeling discriminates against anyone  on the wrong side of the Digital Divide Moderator’s Note:  I want to make it clear: This is an Environmental Justice and Social Justice issue.  The Senate is considering passage of the latest version of the notorious DARK (Deny a Right to Know) Act, a.k.a. S. 2609 and found here . This legislation is NOT a mandatory labeling law nor is it designed to work in an equitable manner. For example, the proposed legislation exploits the “Digital Divide” by using a system in which consumers must scan a “QR Code” (like that pictured directly above) on the product with a smartphone or similar device. The scan will then allow the consumer to visit a website with whatever misleading information is found in the self-regulating corporate digital ether. Only 68 percent of Americans own smartphones and this is the Digital Divide we need to emphasize in our statements of opposition ( Center for Foo...