Toxins or Toxicants? Why the difference matters
When we accidentally call toxicants “toxins,” we are also accidentally naturalizing industrially-produced chemicals and their politics.
Tag: environment
Pollution is Colonialism
Colonialism in Canada is an ongoing structure whereby settler society and government assert sovereignty over lands already occupied by Indigenous peoples.
The Struggle to Protect a Tree at the Heart of Hopi Culture
To Hopi traditionalists—Hopis who practice traditional culture—the humble one-seed juniper tree has deep cultural meaning. Mark Sykes A rumbling, low boom unfurled over the land like a cu…
As the summer winds down…GET OFF MY LAWN!!
At the beginning of the summer, Krystal D’Costa wrote an intriguing piece about The American Obsession with Lawns. Don’t think you’re interested in green, gardening? This post has…
The forgotten story of how a toxic spill and a book launched Britain’s environmental movement
When in 1963 some farm animals in the parish of Smarden in Kent became sick and died, suspicions fell on a nearby pesticide factory run by a division…
Cooking Up an International Market for Quinoa
The bright-red cuchi wila quinoa has a bitter-tasting outer coating, called saponin, that protects the plant from predators and houses a black seed. This heritage variety of quinoa…
How we discovered pollution-poisoned crustaceans in the Mariana Trench
A trench amphipod, Hirondellea gigas, from the deepest place on Earth: Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench (10,890m). Alan Jamieson, Newcastle University, Author provided Alan Jamieson, Newcastle Un…
Your city could be exporting deadly air pollution – here’s why
Goods and services produced in one region for use by another region are responsible for 22% (762,400) of air pollution-related deaths worldwide.
Cleaning up toxic sites shouldn’t clear out the neighbors
Notions of “sustainability” and “urban greening” ought to include values of justice and equity. Otherwise, important projects like the Blue Greenway will build sustainable waterfronts for the urban…
We can’t recycle our way to ‘zero waste’
Why is recycling low on the waste hierarchy?
Pristine paradise to rubbish dump: the same Pacific island, 23 years apart
Remember, this is not waste that was dumped directly by human hands. It was washed here on ocean currents, meaning that this is not just about one beach…
Bibliography on critical approaches to toxics and toxicity
Toxicity, toxins, and toxicants are areas of critical concern because controversies over what they mean, how they act, how they come into being and where, and what counts as…
Human Contamination: The Infectious Border Crossings of Jeff VanderMeer’s Area X by Sophia Booth Magnone
“What if an infection was a message, a brightness a kind of symphony? As a defense? An odd form of communication? If so, the message had not been…
Is the Developed World We’ve Created Giving Us Cancer?
The toxins in cigarettes are known to cause lung cancer, which is depicted here in CT scans. But determining what other toxins cause cancer is less clear-cut and…
God or Geology? The Genesis of Ram’s Bridge
An army of monkey warriors helps construct a bridge from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu to Sri Lanka, as depicted in the Ramayana. Dinodia Photos/Alamy Stock Photo This…
Community Responses to Toxic Hazards: A Reading List
A reading list of the David and Goliath story of communities versus industries, governments, and polluting infrastructures.
Uncovering Ancient Clues to Humanity’s First Fires
Although researchers don’t agree on when humans first gained control over the use of fire, they do not dispute the fact that fire played an important role in…
Recycling Reconsidered: A must-read text for discard studies
If I could only recommend one text in discard studies, it would be Recycling Reconsidered by Samantha MacBride (2011, MIT Press).
Indigenous fire management
Indigenous knowledge and practices are increasingly recognized and incorporated by non-Indigenous governments, businesses, and others into their own projects. While these engagements may often take th…
Indigenous fire management
Indigenous knowledge and practices are increasingly recognized and incorporated by non-Indigenous governments, businesses, and others into their own projects. While these engagements may often take th…
Honey, I love you: our 40,000-year relationship with the humble bee
Humans have always had a special relationship with bees. And while the archaeological evidence is sparse, what does exist shows the richness of ancient human activities Earlier this…
The American Obsession with Lawns
Lawns are the most grown crop in the U.S.—and they’re not one that anyone can eat; their primary purpose is to make us look and feel good about ourselves —…
The Making of a Community Activist
The construction of a proposed natural gas pipeline in Puerto Rico’s Jobos Bay would threaten one of the island’s largest estuaries and the people who depend on it.…
The American Obsession with Lawns
Lawns are the most grown crop in the U.S.—and they’re not one that anyone can eat; their primary purpose is to make us look and feel good about ourselves —…