Climate Attention Span 101 | World View |Axisoflogic.com

After reading the following headline, “’An Absolute Joke': Debate Moderators Condemned for Asking About Ellen and George Bush After Completely Ignoring Climate Crisis”[1], it dawned on me that there are two main industries: Extractive and Distractive. Extractive involves the obtaining of substances some of which are used to survive, yet of the more recent Industrial Era to run The Machine, for examples, oxymoronically-named “industrial plants,” car, computer, blender, the as if to mock climate chaos “ice-maker unit” in refrigerator, heating/cooling, and all the think-inside-the-big-box-stores and media-tech studios where all that stuff gets promoted from. As to where virtually all substances come from, more and more pre-teens – thanks to climate activism – are hip to the answer: Mother Earth.

Along with much of the by-the-book educational system and the aspect of religions that seek dominion over and/or ignore the Earth, the biggest Distractive mind-gamer is the global corporate media; am educated-guessing that worldwide approximately 90-98% of media is controlled by a greedy handful or so of corporate-state-dynasties; they are determined to dis-tract you in favor of their business as usual agenda with a smidgen of feel-good-you-too-can- succeed news thrown in to keep you playing their game.

There are umpteen examples of all that yet the words themselves explain the gist in the simplest fashion: “Ex” is “out of, from” and “Dis” is “away from”, plus “tract, the meaning 'stretch of land or water' is first recorded 1550s,” interestingly, about 60 years after Columbus sailed the ocean blue, dis-tracted while seeking ex-tractions.

The Ex-tractive Industry takes stuff out of the Land and out of the Water (think offshore oil rig) in ways that are harmful and dis-respectful of stretches of Land and Water, also Air. The Dis-tractive Industry is 24-7 trying to get you to not-think of stretches of Land and Water. “Stretches” is important to include because it conveys the sense of specific physical sectors (often sacred sites to Original Peoples) as well as emotional reach. Plus, I assume “stretches” would appeal to the huge yoga fitness demographic: think earthy rubber mat, water bottle and conscious breathing ― you can't get away from Land, Water, and Air except by being dis-tracted.

When I first learned of the root of “tract” I gave myself an exercise: How long could I keep my attention WITH Land and Water while going about my daily activities... It seemed rather easy for the first five minutes or so then something came up, the phone rang, someone said something and I got annoyed... Then a while later the realization that I had let myself get dis-tracted.

Ex-tractive and Dis-tractive are obviously connected or should I say dis-connected because the Dis-tractive Industry aims to have you clueless or not caring about the Ex-tractive Industry. Yummmm that hot cocoa or candy bar but is the tasty treat on the tip of the tongue an ex-tractive product of the monoculture looting machine, as is happening in Ghana?[2] Virtually every product requires at least a modicum of research so as to determine whether your pleasure is at the expense of someone else’s pain ― and that someone includes Land and Water, and Air.

Another angle is not so much about products rather basic necessities of Living. As example, this year's flooding and its drastic side-effects on the Yankton Sioux reservation are as much or more of a human-made problem than effect of “bomb cylcone” storms in March because “[Lake Andes] was flooded by the Army Corps of Engineers to build a hydroelectric dam in the 1950s. A series of dams were constructed under the Pick-Sloan Plan that selectively flooded and displaced Native American farmers and communities up and down the Missouri River.”[3]

The opposite of being dis-tracted is a kind of yoga with the elements, yoga being “yoking, union, joining”. Many youth climate activists worldwide are suddenly doing this 'yoga,' motivated by direct experiences or witnessing traumatic effects from various kinds of storms and weather patterns, exacerbated by the deliberate inaction of corporations and governments. Giving up school for climate strikes shows that the visceral awareness is superseding a theoretical education. Climate activists of all ages know that living-beings are hurting and that the future is uncertain for all, so the ongoing question being answered: What can we do to help now?!

What could be called a yoga of climate consciousness is actually age-old lifestyle for Original Peoples and the likes of farmers, herbalists, arborists, and more. Via somehow communing with Land, Water, Air, communing with endangered species and any species that will give you the time of day, we can find other-than-science ways for improving the quality of living.

Sustaining one's attention with “stretches of Land and Water” includes all of the beings living there. Sustaining one's attention with “stretches of Land and Water” is a form of exercise that tests one's ability to think-feel local-global, act local-global.

NOTES:
1] See here.

2] “Ghana’s cocoa farmers are trapped by the chocolate industry” & The Looting Machine: Warlords, Tycoons, Smugglers and the Systemic Theft of Africa's Wealth” - Tom Burgis

3] “A Letter From the Yankton Sioux Territory”

Mankh (Walter E. Harris III) is an essayist and resident poet at Axis of Logic. In addition to his work as a writer and small press publisher, he travels a holistic mystic pathway staying in touch with Turtle Island. See his new book of nonfiction with a poetic touch, “photo albums of the heart-mind”. 

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