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The BREAK—DOWN

@the-breakdown.bsky.social

📖🎙️📺 New writing and conversations on capitalism, nature and the climate 🌎 Hosted by @cmmonwealth.bsky.social linktr.ee/breakdownradio

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The BREAK—DOWN@the-breakdown.bsky.social · last wk.

It's easy to think of silicosis as a disease of the past. But even today it is one of the great workplace killers, cutting sharply along class lines. 🌫️ ’Air Travels’ by SHRUTI IYER for our Issue #3: AIRBORNE is available on our website!

AIR TRAVELS by SHRUTI IYER It's easy to think of silicosis as a disease of the past. But even today it is one of the great workplace killers, cutting sharply along class lines.Beginning in 1927, a rural Appalachian town had been home to a vast hydroelectric project which saw the fast-flowing New River diverted through the Gauley Mountain, with the power generated used by a nearby metallurgical plant. Nearly 5000 workers were contracted to dig a tunnel through the mountain, whose rock was rich in silica, essential for the alloy used in the steel plant. To extract more of it, the tunnel was widened, becoming a mine.Under pressure to complete the tunnel within two years, and facing financial penalties if they failed to meet the deadline, the contractors, a company named Rinehart and Dennis, decided to save time and money by drilling through the mountain without the use of water to suppress the dust and without providing workers with protective respirators or ventilation. The consequences were devastating.Hundreds died from inhaling clouds of fine silica dust before the tunnel was even finished. We still do not know exactly how many workers died of silicosis due to their work on the Hawks Nest Tunnel, but contemporary estimates put the number at more than 750, with a further 1,500 afflicted by long-term lung disease.
Adrienne Buller@adriennebuller.bsky.social · 2w ago

One of the best things about working in print is building relationships with incredible radical bookshops around the world—we're thrilled to be stocked with all these lovely people from Vancouver to Seoul to Mexico City. Go find us in print! support your local book sellers! rejoice! 🫨📕

The BREAK—DOWN@the-breakdown.bsky.social · 2w ago

Want to get ahold of a copy of our latest issue? Subscribe online or visit one of our amazing stockists.

Icarus Complex Magazine@icaruscomplexmag.bsky.social · 2w ago

Checkout @the-breakdown.bsky.social‘s latest issue #Airborne A talented group of contributors exploring the broad connections between global issues, the need for strategic planning, and the disruptions caused by digital infrastructures! Support their work - LINK ⏬ www.break-down.org/issues/

The BREAK—DOWN@the-breakdown.bsky.social · 2w ago

Want to get ahold of a copy of our latest issue? Subscribe online or visit one of our amazing stockists.

The BREAK—DOWN@the-breakdown.bsky.social · 3w ago

Cars have long been synonymous with speed, progress and individual freedom. Perhaps this is why cars are getting ever bigger and heavier, in a process that activists have termed “carspreading”. 🚙 ’Driving Progress’ by John Merrick

Driving Progress by John MerrickCars have long been synonymous with speed, progress and individual freedom. To drive a car is to grasp hold of the potentials of individual choice: to close oneself off from the swarming crowds; to take to the open road in a giant, gleaming can of steel; to drive headlong into the sunset, pursuing the future at dizzying speed; to pursue self-fulfillment at the expense of the collective. To drive, in short, is to be the archetypical capitalist self-actualiser: individualist and forward moving, forever in search of the new. Perhaps this is why cars are getting ever bigger and heavier, in a process that activists have termed “carspreading”. Since 2000, new cars have grown each year an average of 1.2cm longer, 0.5cm taller and 0.5cm wider. If this trend continues, it will see cities like London and Berlin lose around 10 per cent of all their parking spaces by 2040, while also resulting in around 400 extra pedestrian deaths per year (as cars expand, the surface area for collisions with non-drivers grows, as does the driver's blindspots).
The BREAK—DOWN@the-breakdown.bsky.social · 3w ago

In our four-part series, CONTINENTAL SHIFT, @adriennebuller.bsky.social @uselessbouchi.bsky.social and guests explore the politics of critical minerals, the remaking of global supply chains, and how we can rectify the long-standing harms of extraction going forward. Episode 2 now live ⬇️

Adrienne Buller@adriennebuller.bsky.social · 3w ago

Weekend listening: Ep 2 of CONTINENTAL SHIFT features @triofrancos.bsky.social and Emily Iona-Stewart of @globalwitness.org in an incredibly insightful conversation on the politics of critical minerals—why the 'rush', who it serves, and where next www.break-down.org/episode-2-a-...

John Merrick@johnmerrick.bsky.social · 3w ago

ICYMI: For the @the-breakdown.bsky.social, urban planner Katie Mulkowsky rereads Marshall Berman's writing about Robert Moses in light of recent attempts to develop a new green urbanism – and asks: what could/should cities be for? www.break-down.org/reading-mars...

Marshall Berman's modernist vision for green urbanism

In his 1982 classic, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air, the late urbanist Marshall Berman rallied against car-centric cities and offered a radical vision for a better way to live together.

break-down.org

The BREAK—DOWN@the-breakdown.bsky.social · 3w ago

In our four-part series, CONTINENTAL SHIFT, @adriennebuller.bsky.social @uselessbouchi.bsky.social and guests explore the politics of critical minerals, the remaking of global supply chains, and how we can rectify the long-standing harms of extraction going forward. Episode 2 now live ⬇️

Adrienne Buller@adriennebuller.bsky.social · 3w ago

Weekend listening: Ep 2 of CONTINENTAL SHIFT features @triofrancos.bsky.social and Emily Iona-Stewart of @globalwitness.org in an incredibly insightful conversation on the politics of critical minerals—why the 'rush', who it serves, and where next www.break-down.org/episode-2-a-...

Adrienne Buller@adriennebuller.bsky.social · 3w ago

Weekend listening: Ep 2 of CONTINENTAL SHIFT features @triofrancos.bsky.social and Emily Iona-Stewart of @globalwitness.org in an incredibly insightful conversation on the politics of critical minerals—why the 'rush', who it serves, and where next www.break-down.org/episode-2-a-...

Episode 2: A (Not So) New Gold Rush

A four-part series on the global rush for critical minerals and what it means for the North American continent and beyond.

break-down.org

John Merrick@johnmerrick.bsky.social · 3w ago

A brilliant new essay published today, by Katie Mulkowsky, which rereads Marshall Berman for the climate crisis

The BREAK—DOWN@the-breakdown.bsky.social · 3w ago

While watching Moses raze his neighbourhood, Berman struggled to shake the feeling that Moses was “miles and years ahead of us”. Unlike him, “we never learned how to ‘think big’”; the “myth of construction” was something that all of us badly needed to rediscover. www.break-down.org/reading-mars...

The BREAK—DOWN@the-breakdown.bsky.social · 3w ago

While watching Moses raze his neighbourhood, Berman struggled to shake the feeling that Moses was “miles and years ahead of us”. Unlike him, “we never learned how to ‘think big’”; the “myth of construction” was something that all of us badly needed to rediscover. www.break-down.org/reading-mars...

Marshall Berman's modernist vision for green urbanism

In his 1982 classic, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air, the late urbanist Marshall Berman rallied against car-centric cities and offered a radical vision for a better way to live together.

break-down.org

John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋@wjpme.bsky.social · 3w ago

Great piece and a link to an interesting earlier piece by @irmorus.bsky.social from 2018 on Edison. No doubt one could say Bezos or Musk or Ford…https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/news/archive/2018/07/title-214814-en.html

The BREAK—DOWN@the-breakdown.bsky.social · last mo.

"According to German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, the environment was discovered at 6pm on 22 April 1915. This was the moment a German regiment launched the first full-scale chemical attack against French-Canadian troops at Ypres." Read Mae Losasso in AIRBORNE www.break-down.org/economies-of...

John Merrick@johnmerrick.bsky.social · 4w ago

We have a brand new podcast series out today looking at the global struggle for critical minerals. You can listen to episode 1 feat. @quinnslobodian.com and @isabelestevez.bsky.social wherever you get your podcasts: open.spotify.com/episode/0Xk1... More episodes out weekly –– big things to come!

open.spotify.com

The BREAK—DOWN@the-breakdown.bsky.social · 4w ago

The next global power struggle is for critical minerals. Resources like cobalt, copper, and lithium are reshaping geopolitics and the struggle to dominate critical minerals is a defining challenge of this political moment.

Adrienne Buller@adriennebuller.bsky.social · 4w ago

Excited to share our new podcast series in collab w/ Youssef Bouchi on the critical minerals rush and its effects on the North American continent Episode 1 out now feat. @quinnslobodian.com and @isabelestevez.bsky.social !! Listen wherever you get your podcasts open.spotify.com/episode/0Xk1...

The BREAK—DOWN@the-breakdown.bsky.social · 4w ago

The next global power struggle is for critical minerals. Resources like cobalt, copper, and lithium are reshaping geopolitics and the struggle to dominate critical minerals is a defining challenge of this political moment.

The BREAK—DOWN@the-breakdown.bsky.social · 4w ago

The next global power struggle is for critical minerals. Resources like cobalt, copper, and lithium are reshaping geopolitics and the struggle to dominate critical minerals is a defining challenge of this political moment.

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