Nature is always historical and capitalism (as all social relations of the past) is always in nature. There is no pristine, untouched nature to return to today (against neo-primitivisms), nor a non-human nature to serve as standard for our development (against all sustainable development). We live amidst a nature “contaminated” by our presence, from the macro to the micro-scale: we change geological cycles, as we tamper with the genetic and the molecular. Nature has become monstrous in our hands, and these, our children, we cannot simply abandon, or somehow shutdown, for they will simply not go away with a wave of the magic wand, anarchist or otherwise. (Consider an anarchist “revolution” inheriting nuclear or plastic waste, at current levels, to cite but two examples; what could it possibly mean to “return” to nature in such circumstances?) What is first necessary is to admit our maternity-paternity, and then to care for our monsters, to care for them in the sense of deciding collectively which are worthy of ongoing concern, and which should be quietly to sleep, in a euthanasia of technology. None of this is easy or obvious (what criteria for the choice of which technology to put to a good death? How are such decisions to be taken and by whom?), and the most that is desired here is to share modestly one of those monsters, the humble road …
From Charlie Hebdo (28/12/2016), a short article, in translation, “600,000 fragments of planet under wheels”, by Fabrice Nicolino …
Let’s try to make friends again. But let us nevertheless take this precaution: one can love the Kerouac of On the Road and hate these fucking roads and these filthy cars that destroy everything they approach. In the current newspeak, from one side to another of the spectrum of ideas, the road is progressive. According to political tastes, it unites men and women – the version of the left – or it opens up – the version of the right – territories forgotten by the economy.
No one thinks any further, which is nevertheless upsetting, for a solid study published by Science (science.sciencemag.org 16/12/2016) demonstrates that the hell of roads ravages real nature like few other kinds of aggression. According to the team lead by the German biologist Pierre Ibisch, roads have cut the planet into 600,000 patches of which half do not exceed 1km², that is, the ridiculous size of a square with sides adding up to a kilometre. And only 7% reach the already small dimension of 100km², a square of 10 kilometres by 10.
In other words, let us forget together a large part of Europe, North America, Japan, where the places apart from all tarred roads are found instead above 2,500 metres altitude. Dear reader, do you truly believe that you are more than one kilometre from any road? The few regions relatively spared are found unsurprisingly in the Amazon, where things nevertheless change, in the Congo basin on a more limited scale, in a few forgotten countries of South-East Asia and of course in the boreal forests of the great north, Siberia included.
The study emphasises in passing the limits of the data on roads. In many countries, they are incomplete, which means that the real situation is surely worse. And worse still, the map of the areas without roads don’t coincide with the most bio-diverse regions. The study shows that only 9.3% of the spaces without trails and roadways are in territories protected by law. Which leaves more than 90% of such areas at the mercy of new projects.
One will stupidly reassure oneself noting that two treasures are not included in the data studied: Antarctica, where motors are in any case rare, and Greenland. When at the heart of the matter is that if roads are such a disaster, it is because they deliriously fragment a natural territory essential to life, food, the genetic exchange between animal and vegetable populations. All barriers are an impoverishment, that leads more than once to the death of a local species.
All is a menace. A road changes the climate at its borders, beginning with the temperature. When a road pierces a tropical forest, light is allowed to enter which formerly was stopped at the canopy, which dries the soil and the surrounding trees, trees that then die more easily. Let us not forget, while we are on the matter, the role of hunting and contraband. Penetrating a place that is still savage invites on four wheels its slew of killers determined to exterminate everything that moves.
If all of this wasn’t enough, the number of roads may yet increase by 60% by 2050. What will remain? Esso or Total service stations, with their toilets cleaned every quarter hour. …
The Ibisch study and all the others come at the right time to tell [those responsible] to fuck off. Roads, there are already a hundred times too many. A single refrain: neither here, nor elsewhere, neither now, nor ever. Walking is the future of human beings.
On the road
Nature is always historical and capitalism (as all social relations of the past) is always in nature. There is no pristine, untouched nature to return to today (against neo-primitivisms), nor a non-human nature to serve as standard for our development (against all sustainable development). We live amidst a nature “contaminated” by our presence, from the macro to the micro-scale: we change geological cycles, as we tamper with the genetic and the molecular. Nature has become monstrous in our hands, and these, our children, we cannot simply abandon, or somehow shutdown, for they will simply not go away with a wave of the magic wand, anarchist or otherwise. (Consider an anarchist “revolution” inheriting nuclear or plastic waste, at current levels, to cite but two examples; what could it possibly mean to “return” to nature in such circumstances?) What is first necessary is to admit our maternity-paternity, and then to care for our monsters, to care for them in the sense of deciding collectively which are worthy of ongoing concern, and which should be quietly to sleep, in a euthanasia of technology. None of this is easy or obvious (what criteria for the choice of which technology to put to a good death? How are such decisions to be taken and by whom?), and the most that is desired here is to share modestly one of those monsters, the humble road …
From Charlie Hebdo (28/12/2016), a short article, in translation, “600,000 fragments of planet under wheels”, by Fabrice Nicolino …
Let’s try to make friends again. But let us nevertheless take this precaution: one can love the Kerouac of On the Road and hate these fucking roads and these filthy cars that destroy everything they approach. In the current newspeak, from one side to another of the spectrum of ideas, the road is progressive. According to political tastes, it unites men and women – the version of the left – or it opens up – the version of the right – territories forgotten by the economy.
No one thinks any further, which is nevertheless upsetting, for a solid study published by Science (science.sciencemag.org 16/12/2016) demonstrates that the hell of roads ravages real nature like few other kinds of aggression. According to the team lead by the German biologist Pierre Ibisch, roads have cut the planet into 600,000 patches of which half do not exceed 1km², that is, the ridiculous size of a square with sides adding up to a kilometre. And only 7% reach the already small dimension of 100km², a square of 10 kilometres by 10.
In other words, let us forget together a large part of Europe, North America, Japan, where the places apart from all tarred roads are found instead above 2,500 metres altitude. Dear reader, do you truly believe that you are more than one kilometre from any road? The few regions relatively spared are found unsurprisingly in the Amazon, where things nevertheless change, in the Congo basin on a more limited scale, in a few forgotten countries of South-East Asia and of course in the boreal forests of the great north, Siberia included.
The study emphasises in passing the limits of the data on roads. In many countries, they are incomplete, which means that the real situation is surely worse. And worse still, the map of the areas without roads don’t coincide with the most bio-diverse regions. The study shows that only 9.3% of the spaces without trails and roadways are in territories protected by law. Which leaves more than 90% of such areas at the mercy of new projects.
One will stupidly reassure oneself noting that two treasures are not included in the data studied: Antarctica, where motors are in any case rare, and Greenland. When at the heart of the matter is that if roads are such a disaster, it is because they deliriously fragment a natural territory essential to life, food, the genetic exchange between animal and vegetable populations. All barriers are an impoverishment, that leads more than once to the death of a local species.
All is a menace. A road changes the climate at its borders, beginning with the temperature. When a road pierces a tropical forest, light is allowed to enter which formerly was stopped at the canopy, which dries the soil and the surrounding trees, trees that then die more easily. Let us not forget, while we are on the matter, the role of hunting and contraband. Penetrating a place that is still savage invites on four wheels its slew of killers determined to exterminate everything that moves.
If all of this wasn’t enough, the number of roads may yet increase by 60% by 2050. What will remain? Esso or Total service stations, with their toilets cleaned every quarter hour. …
The Ibisch study and all the others come at the right time to tell [those responsible] to fuck off. Roads, there are already a hundred times too many. A single refrain: neither here, nor elsewhere, neither now, nor ever. Walking is the future of human beings.