VERY IMPORTANT GOVERNMENT MEMOS
VERY IMPORTANT GOVERNMENT MEMOS
On the last day of 2019, I sat at a café barstool in the back of an herb shop in a hippie town I didn’t recognize, eating a huckleberry scone. I wasn’t sure what a huckleberry was, but they’re a big deal around here. The barista leaned over the counter next to me, chatting to their friend about their New Year’s Eve plans. I didn’t have any. Hours later, on the last evening of 2019, I sat in an empty apartment eating boxed vegan mac and cheese, then went to bed at 10. This was my second day in Montana…
There are many ways to know a place, and when your place is 147,000 square miles, there’s at least a million ways. There’s humility in discovering new crevices in a place constantly. The space now feels supportive in its own, hands-off way, and trusting of its inhabitants to keep it safe. Bison, mule deer, ponderosa pine, and sage all know what feeds this land, and what doesn’t.
By Emily Auld
Gnawed and torn, the remains of a being once tall and proud are reduced to a gaping wound of green flesh fluttering in the wind. The sweet aroma of spring wafts into my nose belying the wicked and unspeakable violence that pervades the garden. That morning, a denizen of the deep with beady black eyes and teeth long as knives had paid us a visit. Moby Click, the woodchuck that haunts my dreams and reality like a ghostly specter, struck again.
When I first arrived at this small outpost in the sun-drenched prairies of central Wisconsin, I could not have imagined a more idyllic existence. Wildflowers grew in abundance, cranes trumpeted their majestic song, peace reigned, and my young, innocent heart rejoiced. It was Eden before the fall - absolute harmony amongst organisms. But as the spring of my soul and the season ripened to summer, whispers of evil-doings began to reach my ears. There was a beast out there they said. A beast with an insatiable desire, a mind corrupted with greed, and an all-encompassing hunger. Slowly, little signs began to appear in the garden, more brazen each day. A sampled squash, a poached pepper, and a munched melon belied a shifting in the delicate balance of natural law.
Imagine walking through a forest in rural South Carolina. Your hiking boots squelch in the mud as you walk along the path hoping for a rare sighting of the forest’s most famous residents. Whoosh! You look up. What is that? Is it a red-cockaded woodpecker? NO! It’s British Petroleum’s CEO Murray Auchincloss of course! And he’s building a nest in the trees made out of 100-dollar bills!!
Any person with a brain knows that creating sacrifice zones is bad ecology. Everything is interconnected! However, oil companies are using voluntary carbon sequestration projects like the Brosnan Forest in South Carolina to “offset” and economically and rhetorically justify their continued pollution.
This project is the perfection of the newest business model created by oil companies like BP. Create the problem (drill oil unsustainably), profit off the problem, create a false solution (plant more trees), and profit off the false solution.
By Makio Yamamoto
What is progress? Is progress more convenience and efficiency? Is it an AI bot that will write website content for you? Is it a bigger tractor to plow more land with? Is it the new electric pepper grinder that my mom sent me so I don’t have to physically grind pepper myself anymore (thanks Mom!)? Or is it something else?
Sometimes we need a reminder that progress is a man-made measuring stick, not an objective measure. So ultimately we define what progress is. And I think that progress is making friends with turtles and ferns.
I often hear the argument that we should not anthropomorphize plants, animals, rocks etc. But narratives are how we understand the world. We experience the world through stories. And if we create stories about other members of our ecological community, they gain intrinsic worth.
After all, if we all had friends who were turtles and ferns, maybe we would put a little more effort into protecting the communities that they (and we) are part of.
Read more about making friends with turtles, cranes, bodies of water, and ferns here.
By Jackson Newman
Right now, the Southern border is in crisis. Both political parties can’t pass the buck quick enough. Texas is even talking about seceeding (honestly brisket and Whataburger are super overrated so let em go). But what if instead of giving in to that tiny part of our caveman brains that tells us to build a wall, we actually looked for solutions?
Modeling shows that climate-caused migration is only going to increase exponentially in the coming years. And lots of those folks are sustenance farmers who can no longer support themselves. Up here in the US, we are rapidly losing our small family farms and ranchers. We think we need more people taking care of the land, not less! So let’s put them to work healing the land and healing our relationship to our North American neighbors.
Read more about our diabolic plan to solve the border crisis and aid American land stewardship.
By Makio Yamamoto