[-empyre-] AMAZON IS BURNING

Tue Sep 24 04:36:45 AEST 2019

It took a lot of epidemiological sleuthing to figure that out at a time
when the main priority was (and still is) saving people from dying.
Wikipedia has a good introduction to the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus
jumping hosts to become HIV. Viruses are much more adaptable than humans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simian_immunodeficiency_virus

Also, for those of you who can pull scientific papers via their institutions

On Mon, Sep 23, 2019 at 12:35 PM Dean Wilson <dean at sundialforum.org> wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
> Thanks for this razor sharp contribution to the slowly expanding awareness
> of what living beings innately understand. Hasn’t the rich biodiversity of
> primary forests been resisting in unanticipated and catastrophic ways for
> centuries? Are we not witnessing accelerated and conflated natural
> disasters? Not long from today, the word Sargassum, for example, may refer
> to phenomena that presently have no explicit meaning in the mode of
> empirical observation:
>
>
> DW
>
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 23, 2019 at 10:36 AM Oliver Kellhammer <okellhammer at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> The multispecies resistance can cut both ways once primary ecosystems are
>> parsed up with roads and exposed to globalized trade flows. Freed from
>> their predators or other ecologies of containment, some of the more protean
>> species will take this as an opportunity to explore new habitats, and with
>> viruses and microbes, that can be super bad news.
>> When the rainforest of equatorial Africa started getting fragmented by
>> resource extraction,  there arose the set of perfect conditions to allow
>> HIV to jump from its simian to human hosts - the bushmeat trade,
>> long-distance trucking, roadside sex trade workers, systemic poverty and
>> displacement. The result was an epidemic for which the world was completely
>> unprepared. I remember in the '80s (along with many others) trying to piece
>> together the epidemiology of how it was that friends in Toronto were dying
>> by the score of illness completely unknown a few years before. Who would
>> have guessed that it stemmed from roadbuilding, mining and logging in the
>> vast watersheds of the Congo?
>> The rich biodiversity of primary forests might start resisting in
>> completely unanticipated and catastrophic ways.
>>
>> O.
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 1:38 PM margaretha haughwout <
>> margaretha.anne.haughwout at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>> Good morning -empyre-,
>>>
>>> And yes thank you so much Lucio for this insight, and for the link. It
>>> is very important. I believe I found the English version:
>>> https://theintercept.com/2019/09/20/amazon-brazil-army-bolsanaro/
>>>
>>> It does seem like it all starts with the roads. The roads introduce new
>>> species in the area as they get made, possibilities for logging come about.
>>> New edge effects are created and microclimates emerge that allow for a
>>> greater chance of fires, ultimately directing the landscape away from
>>> rainforest and toward savannah where the plantationocene can take hold --
>>> radically depleting species diversity and introducing new species that also
>>> exhaust the soil (cattle deplete nutrients in the pastures). The roads are
>>> resource frontiers, and also involve the process of 'making cheap' -- a
>>> process Jason Moore describes (and who is referenced by Escher in another
>>> thread). Perhaps we can pick up the epistemological question again in the
>>> future -- the question of distance, speed, and totalizing views (yes,
>>> creating the 'we' vision).
>>>
>>> On the ground, I am so interested in the foreign species that travel
>>> along these roads -- how invasive plant species *sometimes* give big ag
>>> grief and can often remediate the landscape, reintroducing nutrients and re
>>> texturing the soil, sometimes so the more native species can move back in
>>> (Oliver has many examples of this happening in North America) . I'd love to
>>> learn what plants could do such things along these new roads in Brazil.
>>> Also interested in species that help fight big ag in alliance with humans.
>>> In Argentina for example anti gmo activists throw amaranth into fields (a
>>> superweed, a spinach, a grain): PDF:
>>> https://read.dukeupress.edu/environmental-humanities/article-pdf/9/2/204/517303/204beilin.pdf
>>> (also see
>>> https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/rethinking-a-weed-the-truth-about-amaranth)
>>> A big shout out to multispecies resistance.
>>>
>>> -M
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> beforebefore.net
>>> --
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 2:19 PM Sergio Basbaum <sbasbaum at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>>> Thank you Lucio, for this account
>>>>
>>>> s
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 1:24 PM Lucio Agra <lucioagra at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>>>> Hi, everybody.
>>>>> I've been lurking until now, following the discussion and
>>>>> preferably trying to do not interfere.  Margaretha, though, has put a good
>>>>> point here.
>>>>>
>>>>> Today I waked up with a message sent by a colleague  through Whats Up,
>>>>> with a link to The Intercept ,where a young brazilian journalist, from
>>>>> their crew, grabbed some information about the plans that the Govern - and
>>>>> particularly the Army - have been preparing concerning Amazon area. The
>>>>> militaries basically reedited an ancient doctrine about security on the
>>>>> Amazon frontier. Among several conspiration theories involving the
>>>>> construction of an independent country for Yanomoanis in collaboration with
>>>>> Venezuela, and other klind of misconception there is an intention to get
>>>>> around ancient plans of roads construction in the region. There is already
>>>>> a road that connects Cuiabá (in the middle of the country) to Santarem. Up
>>>>> to this place, there begins the region known as Calha Norte, which was
>>>>> involved in disputes and projects since Military Dictatorship in the 70s
>>>>> and 80s. It gave raise to a rumorous situation that involved, in the past,
>>>>> some militaires and empresarios. Well, here they come again, projecting the
>>>>> occupation of Indigenous areas with mining and people brought from other
>>>>> parts of the country, with the aim to avoid a supposed "invasion" of
>>>>> Chinese immigrants that also supposedly have benn growing in Suriname.
>>>>> Several detais, including a presentation with maps and some audio
>>>>> registering the meetings done in the state of Pará, were disclosed by
>>>>> Intercept. The material is astonishing even to those of us who were born
>>>>> and in Brazil and to all that live here.
>>>>> Now I  arrive to the important point Margaretha sustained in her
>>>>> commentaries. The roads we see in the map, part of it, probably represent
>>>>> these efforts to open ways up to North Amazon, a place, as an specialst
>>>>> heard by Intercept says, so isolated that does not demand concerns on
>>>>> fronteer security. There is indeed a plan to occupy Amazon with roads and
>>>>> it is really important for some *tactical* reasons: first, because it
>>>>> increases petrol and cars lobby, second because it was one of the main
>>>>> politics of Dictatorship in the 70s, through the absurd project of
>>>>> TransAmazonica road. Nowaday it seems to be a reedition of ancient
>>>>> positions susteinad by  some falcons from the Army.
>>>>> If, from one side, says Margaretha, perhaps the world get information
>>>>> that constructs a "we vision" (from the standpoint of the ones who did not
>>>>> suffer colonization directly - "seeing from afar") , on the other there is
>>>>> an analogous situation concerning people that live in  in  southwest or
>>>>> south parts of the Country, which means also "seeing from afar".
>>>>> Nevertheless, the same network has been making it possible to have fast
>>>>> access to such an information as it was disclosed by journalist Tatiana
>>>>> Dias through Intercept today. Intercept uses the same Network that can
>>>>> either reinforce distances, either eliminate them. To use a cliché,
>>>>> information is a crucial tool to this very moment.
>>>>> Link to the story (I'm afraid it is only in Portuguese):
>>>>> https://theintercept.com/2019/09/19/plano-bolsonaro-paranoia-amazonia/
>>>>>
>>>>> Best
>>>>> Lucio Agra
>>>>>
>>>>> Em sex, 20 de set de 2019 às 11:13, margaretha haughwout <
>>>>> margaretha.anne.haughwout at gmail.com> escreveu:
>>>>>
>>>>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>>>>> Dear All,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hope your day of CLIMATE STRIKE! brings new energy and fresh
>>>>>> beginnings to the struggle.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Fabi thank you for your posts so full of energy and for a vision of
>>>>>> agroecology. I share your inspiration for this set of cultivation
>>>>>> practices, and worry deeply about the ways it can be taken up by
>>>>>> capital.... But perhaps as you suggest it is a way out, a tear on the edges
>>>>>> of modernity (Eduardo Gudynas argues the way out of modernity will be
>>>>>> determined by Latin America....)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have another question for you Fabi and for Dan. One of the striking
>>>>>> things about the arial images of the Amazon, are the fishbone patterns we
>>>>>> see as roads get developed. We can actually see the metabolic pathways of
>>>>>> capitalism in these patterns. But I'm wondering about the ways 'we' see the
>>>>>> Amazon from afar -- the technologies we use, and how they themselves are
>>>>>> implicated in colonial histories and colonial futures that have us leaving
>>>>>> earth -- could you comment. How do you use these mapping and satellite
>>>>>> technologies in your own practice?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In solidarity,
>>>>>> -M
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> beforebefore.net
>>>>>> --
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 1:21 PM Dean Wilson <dean at sundialforum.org>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> A lurker here ... thanks for the thread. "A thousand years ago"
>>>>>>> indeed. Even an eight year interval under the present exploding plastic
>>>>>>> inevitable airborne toxic event is a lost slave ship of failure. Pankaj
>>>>>>> Mishra's book review of David French scraped the bulbous lard of privilege
>>>>>>> and rummaged around thusly back in the day (2011):
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/a-curzon-without-an-empire/270145
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "Even stranger gaps exist in *India*, which, though subtitled *An
>>>>>>> Intimate Biography of 1.2 Billion People*, finds no place for the
>>>>>>> nearly 800 million Indians who still depend on agriculture for a living.
>>>>>>> The quiet catastrophe in rural areas—the collapse of water tables,
>>>>>>> spiralling debt, the poisoning of cultivable land, and tens of thousands of
>>>>>>> farmer suicides—is absent from *India*. French does talk to one man
>>>>>>> with a farming background at length; but the latter turns out to be an
>>>>>>> upwardly mobile adivasi at a Californian-style vineyard owned by Sula
>>>>>>> Wines. Claiming that Mahadev Kolis “normally prefer” Chenin Blanc and
>>>>>>> Madeira, he leads French into upbeat speculation about the “democratisation
>>>>>>> of wine-drinking” in India."
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Parasamgate bodhi svaha.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> DW
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> empyre forum
>>>>>> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>>>>>> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> *Lucio Agra*
>>>>> Prof. Adjunto • CECULT/UFRB
>>>>> Centro de Cultura Linguagens e Tecnologias Aplicadas
>>>>> <https://ufrb.edu.br/cecult/>
>>>>> http://contemporaryperformance.org/profile/LucioAgra
>>>>> Se vc tem urgência de falar comigo, me ligue no celular! É mais rápido!
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> empyre forum
>>>>> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>>>>> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> -- Prof. Dr. Sérgio Roclaw Basbaum
>>>> -- Pós-Graduação Tec.da Inteligência e Design Digital - TIDD (PUC-SP)
>>>> -- Coordenador Pós-Graduação em Música e Imagem (FASM)
>>>>
>>>> -- http://soundcloud.com/sergiobasbaum
>>>> -- http://soundcloud.com/pantharei <https://soundcloud.com/pantharei>
>>>> -- [:a.cinema:] <http://acinemaperformance.blogspot.com.br/>
>>>> ...sai dessa fila, vem pra roda festejar..
>>>> <http://soundcloud.com/sergiobasbaum/choror-bye-bye>
>>>> -- a.cinema <http://acinemaperformance.blogspot.com>
>>>> -- pantharei_tube
>>>> <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXlPdYtxV5bj5uAQwXC-M_Q>
>>>>
>>>> B'H'
>>>>
>>>> "Do mesmo modo como a percepção da coisa me abre ao ser, realizando a
>>>> síntese paradoxal de uma infinidade de aspectos perspectivos, a percepção
>>>> do outro funda a moralidade (...)"
>>>> Maurice Merleau-Ponty
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> empyre forum
>>>> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>>>> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre forum
>>> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>>> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> http://www.oliverk.org
>> twitter: @okellhammer
>> mobile: 917-743-0126
>> skype: okellhammer
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>
> --
> Dean Wilson, PhD
> 1(609) 772-2719
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu

-- 
http://www.oliverk.org
twitter: @okellhammer
mobile: 917-743-0126
skype: okellhammer
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