Weekly Grounding #73
News, links, writing
Weekly Groundings are published every Friday to highlight the most interesting news, links, and writing I investigated during the past week. They are designed to ground your thinking in the midst of media overload and contribute to Handful of Earth’s broader framework. Please subscribe if you’d like to receive these posts directly in your inbox.
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“Musk Says He Wants to Save the Planet. Tesla’s Factories Are Making It Dirtier.”
The Wall Street Journal investigates Elon Musk’s repeated violations of environmental regulations across his multiple business ventures: “Tesla…dumped toxic pollutants into the environment near Austin for months…in violation of state guidelines. Former employees said they feared they might lose their job if they drew attention internally to potential environmental hazards, because senior managers didn’t consider such issues to be mission critical. As head of the company, Musk set the tone, these people said, pushing employees to move fast and complaining frequently in public statements that unnecessary regulations are strangling the U.S.”
The report continues: “Musk is considered a champion of the environment for his role in pioneering the electric car industry. He has said the mission of Tesla, which is the largest maker of electric cars in the U.S., is to ‘protect life on Earth.’ Yet across his business empire, Musk’s companies show a pattern of breaking environmental rules again and again, federal and state government filings and documents show. Tesla’s Fremont, Calif., facility has accumulated more warnings for violations of air pollution rules over the past five years than almost any other company’s plant in California, according to a Journal analysis of informal enforcement actions in the EPA’s compliance database. It is second only to a refinery owned by oil-and-gas behemoth Chevron, which is in nearby Richmond.”
“The Rise of Green MAGA”
Musk’s right-wing progressivism poses an existential threat to ecology and health in America given his outsized influence in the incoming Trump administration. At the same time, the MAGA movement (itself a deeply divided strategic alliance against liberal elites) also includes factions that oppose many aspects of the ideology advanced by Musk and his fellow technocratic travelers.
At Compact, Holly Jean Buck describes the rise of “green MAGA” as “para-environmentalism.” She writes that “Like other para-phenomena, such as paramilitaries or the paranormal, para-environmentalism exists outside of the realm of official institutions and structures—at least for now. It may end up eating the environmental movement. Simply dismissing the ideas that comprise it as ‘misinformation,’ as the media have been doing and will continue to do, fails to offer any insight into why they have gained traction…”
While Buck engages in her own fair share of para-patronizing (if you will) commentary directed at para-environmentalists, she productively notes that “Using algorithms to deplatform ‘climate denial’ or ‘misinformation’ is a misguided response. People aren’t empty vessels infected by misinformation. They may entertain para-environmental beliefs in response to real concerns and legitimate criticisms of elites—some of them quite similar to those of environmentalists. Para-environmentalists are not ‘anti-science.’ On the contrary, they often attempt to draw upon science to support their claims, but they are also wary when scientists act in ways that appear religious or ideologically partisan. This was a core critique of public health during the pandemic: that rather than being rigorous with data, scientists were being manipulative for political and ideological reasons.”
“Philadelphia Welcomed Them. But Not Everyone Is Ready for ‘Africatown.’”
The Washington Post reports on efforts to turn the neighborhood of Southwest Philadelphia into “Africatown”: “While New York City remains the top destination, several thousand [African immigrants] have also settled in Philadelphia, where an effort is underway to rebrand one pocket of the city as ‘Africatown.’ Looking to New York’s Little Italy or Chinatown in Los Angeles, community organizers here want to make a 50-square-block area into a showcase for African food and culture—offering a home away from home for immigrants, and a window into Africa for everyone.”
The article notes that “African immigrants to the United States tend to be more highly educated than other incoming groups or even the U.S. population at large.” The influx of highly educated African migrants into Southwest Philadelphia has been met with resistance from many local working-class black American residents: “‘This is not Africa,’ said Terri Powell, 69, who is Black and has lived in the area for three decades. ‘They moved into this area. But Africatown? No, this is Southwest Philadelphia, and we were here first.’” Another resident, Louis Graham, “said immigration is changing the character of the neighborhood too rapidly. Graham, who is also Black, said he’s upset that some African immigrants ‘cut’ in front of him when he goes shopping. Other neighbors complain about immigrants double-parking when they go to mosque or not conversing with them because some don’t speak English. ‘We was here first and it seems to me some of them come in and want to take over,’ Graham said. ‘Some foreign people have no respect.’”
For more on the cultural politics of migration, see my recent essay, “I’m One of You Now.”
“AOC Trump Voters Sound Off on Immigration, Gaza”
Breaking Points interviews working-class black and Latino women voters in New York City who voted for both Donald Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the 2024 election. These women respected the candidness of both candidates despite their ideological differences and did not see their split tickets as a contradiction. Most expressed concern with mass immigration to the United States as well as with the United States government’s funding of the Israeli war on Gaza. The interviews between timestamps 4:00 and 9:00 in the video are well worth a listen.
“U.S. Officials Who Hated ‘Woke’ Investing Won't Stop Buying Israel Bonds”
reports on the Israel Bonds racket for : “Since 2020, states and municipalities across the country have amassed a portfolio of $1.7 billion in Israel Bonds—securities sold by the state of Israel to ‘strengthen every aspect of Israel's economy, enabling national infrastructure development.’ Since October 7th, 2023, $580 million of state and municipal investments have been invested in Israeli bonds…Israel Bonds are advertised and marketed in the U.S. through an extensive sales operation, which includes a network of sales offices in the U.S. Documents obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy show a close relationship between SFOF [State Financial Officers Foundation] members and Israeli government officials. A flyer for a virtual event list several state financial officials as the headliners of an ‘exclusive economic briefing’ by Yali Rothenberg, a high-ranking official in Israel’s finance ministry.”Burbank notes that “In some cases, the state treasurers and comptrollers that purchased Israeli bonds are the very same officials who pushed for laws in their states against investing in firms that embrace environmental social governance (ESG), or investments based, at least superficially, on diversity, climate change, or any other criteria they deem ‘woke.’ Their argument: If a firm makes politically motivated investment decisions in accordance with ESG, then the firm has compromised its fiduciary duty to be a good steward of dollars and maximize returns for investors.”
For more analysis of the contradictions in the anti-woke movement, see “The ‘Free Speech’ Right Embraces Cancel Culture” and “In Defense of Woke Zoomers” here on Handful of Earth.
“I Said No to $20,000 Because Writers Must Take a Moral Stand on AI”
At
, tells the story of how he turned down the offer to sell “the AI-girlfriend experience of a book club” in exchange for $20,000: “I know many people will say they don't care if I sell an AI-likeness or support AI-rewrites of classics; they may even think me prudish at the refusal. That’s fine. I had to make a choice that I could stand behind, and one way to reason about ethics is to imagine the kind of world that you'd like to exist, and the world that I want to exist has more grounded notions of authenticity and more careful use of such a powerful technology.”Hoel continues: “As with any new technology, we all have to take a stand, and mine is that I will never feed you AI content slop under my name, be it via a chatbot-wrapper with my photo on it on some other platform, nor here on Substack, nor in my books. My writing will always be the authentic me, the one that is sometimes wrong, the one that occasionally fucks up links, the one who makes mistakes, the one who once wrote ‘yolk’ when he meant ‘yoke’ and everyone got in a pedantic huff, the one that never manages to write a post under 1,500 words; but the one that is trying, really trying, to produce stuff that’s authentic and artistically and intellectually worth your time. I believe the broadcast-based connection between the consciousness of the writer and the reader is a sacred trust, I’m honored it exists between me and so many people, and I don’t plan on swapping it out with an artificial replacement.”
What grounded your thinking this week? Feel free to share in the comments.
Pot calling kettle black by Far Left Woke WSJ who punishes us for Net Zero nonsense. They blame Musk for violations that pale compared to Chinas use of dirty coal to sell cheap crap to Americas woke Corps to meet WSJ plan for the world and net zero energy genocide.