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Category: environment

  • Clark warns in new Pacific book renewed nuclear tensions pose ‘existential threat to humanity’

    Asia Pacific Report

    Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark has warned the country needs to maintain its nuclear-free policy as a “fundamental tenet” of its independent foreign policy in the face of gathering global storm clouds.

    Writing in a new book being published next week, she says “nuclear war is an existential threat to humanity. Far from receding, the threat of use of nuclear weapons is ever present.

    “The Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists now sits at 89 seconds to midnight,” she says in the prologue to journalist and media academic David Robie’s book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior.

    Writing before the US surprise attack with B-2 stealth bombers and “bunker-buster” bombs on three Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22, Clark says “the Middle East is a tinder box with the failure of the Iran nuclear deal and with Israel widely believed to possess nuclear weapons”.

    The Doomsday Clock references the Ukraine war theatre where “use of nuclear weapons has been floated by Russia”.

    Also, the arms control architecture for Europe is unravelling, leaving the continent much less secure. India and Pakistan both have nuclear arsenals, she says.

    “North Korea continues to develop its nuclear weapons capacity.”

    ‘Serious ramifications’
    Clark, who was also United Nations Development Programme administrator from 2009 to 2017, a member of The Elders group of global leaders founded by Nelson Mandela in 2007, and is an advocate for multilateralism and nuclear disarmament, says an outright military conflict between China and the United States “would be one between two nuclear powers with serious ramifications for East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and far beyond.”

    She advises New Zealand to be wary of Australia’s decision to enter a nuclear submarine purchase programme with the United States.

    “There has been much speculation about a potential Pillar Two of the AUKUS agreement which would see others in the region become partners in the development of advanced weaponry,” Clark says.

    “This is occurring in the context of rising tensions between the United States and China.

    “Many of us share the view that New Zealand should be a voice for de-escalation, not for enthusiastic expansion of nuclear submarine fleets in the Pacific and the development
    of more lethal weaponry.”

    Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior . . . publication July 2025. Image: Little Island Press

    In the face of the “current global turbulence, New Zealand needs to reemphasise the principles and values which drove its nuclear-free legislation and its advocacy for a nuclear-free South Pacific and global nuclear disarmament.

    Clark says that the years 1985 – the Rainbow Warrior was bombed by French secret agents on 10 July 1985 — and 1986 were critical years in the lead up to New Zealand’s nuclear-free legislation in 1987.

    “New Zealanders were clear – we did not want to be defended by nuclear weapons. We wanted our country to be a force for diplomacy and for dialogue, not for warmongering.”

    Chronicles humanitarian voyage
    The book Eyes of Fire chronicles the humanitarian voyage by the Greenpeace flagship to the Marshall Islands to relocate 320 Rongelap Islanders who were suffering serious community health consequences from the US nuclear tests in the 1950s.

    The author, Dr David Robie, founder of the Pacific Media Centre at Auckland University of Technology, was the only journalist on board the Rainbow Warrior in the weeks leading up to the bombing.

    His book recounts the voyage and nuclear colonialism, and the transition to climate justice as the major challenge facing the Pacific, although the “Indo-Pacific” rivalries between the US, France and China mean that geopolitical tensions are recalling the Cold War era in the Pacific.

    Dr Robie is also critical of Indonesian colonialism in the Melanesian region of the Pacific, arguing that a just-outcome for Jakarta-ruled West Papua and also the French territories of Kanaky New Caledonia and “French” Polynesia are vital for peace and stability in the region.

    Eyes of Fire is being published by Little Island Press, which also produced one of his earlier books, Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Gutting the Forest Service Will cause Irreparable Damage to Wilderness Character and Natural Resources

    The author patrolling the Alpine-Lakes Wilderness.

    The U.S. Forest Service is headed for obsolescence due to recent personnel reductions, proposed budget cuts, and re-organization plans. The ability of the Forest Service to meet its legislatively mandated multiple-use mission to the American public is being systematically dismantled.

    I, and many Americans, welcome thoughtful strategic reform of federal agencies, but what we have seen occur over the last several months to the Forest Service is nothing like that. We’ve seen an agency systematically and deliberately dismantled by indiscriminate firings, forced retirements, and coerced resignations. And the chaos is not over with a reduction in force and drastic structural reorganization planned and looming in the future, but currently on hold by a federal judge and awaiting a ruling by the supreme court.

    The large number of personnel leaving the federal government has been widely reported in the news media. What has not been daylighted, however, and specifically in the case of the Forest Service, is that since firefighter and law enforcement positions were not eligible for the various incentives offered to encourage employees to leave, nearly all the employee reductions have come from the far-less-than 50 percent of the remaining agency workforce. That includes personnel that serve as wilderness managers, recreation specialists, fisheries and wildlife biologists, botanists, archeologists, research scientists, and the many varieties of forestry technicians doing work on the ground.

    The short-term impact of personnel reductions will be seen this summer when all remaining employees and resources are devoted to responding to wildland fire upon reaching national preparedness level 3 (we’re currently at level 2). This is after thousands of qualified call-as-needed firefighters and fire operations support personnel have lost their jobs. This will come at the expense of the many other mission-critical responsibilities of those remaining employees.

    We’ll also see the impact when recreational access, information and education, and infrastructure maintenance is reduced or absent while summer public visitation to national forests surges. Not unlike 2020 in the first year of the COVID pandemic, agency personnel are again directed by their leadership to keep open all recreational access and facilities regardless of whether they can safely and responsibly operate those sites and facilities to established standards. Instead, we will see unmitigated damage to nature from unchecked visitation to sensitive landscapes due to unmanaged recreation. We’ll see impacts to wilderness character, water quality, wildlife, and vegetation that in the most fragile and heavily used areas will never recover.

    An especially acute example of reduced staffing with the potential for irreparable damage is on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in Washington state. The cherished Enchantments area of the Alpine Lakes is one of the busiest wildland destinations in Washington state for outdoor recreation with more than 100,000 people hiking there each year. There are usually ten to twelve Wilderness Rangers on rotational patrols that care for the Enchantments each summer. Due to staffing reductions, the Wenatchee River Ranger District has one Wilderness Ranger on duty this summer to patrol not only the Enchantments but also the other 150,000 plus acres of designated Wilderness on the district. Additionally, the district now has one trail crew leader and no trail crew.

    This is a situation that will result in not only irreparable damage to wilderness character and natural resources but will lead to unsafe and unsanitary conditions for visitors as unmitigated human waste, trash, parking congestion, and search and rescue operations are widespread. This is an entirely self-made crisis by the current administration due to implementing a poorly planned and executed deliberately destructive take down of the ability of the Forest Service to deliver services to the American public.

    The gutting of the Forest Service is just one example of a national crisis that will take years or decades to recover from once we, as a society, choose to stop the damage to our federal system of governance. We must individually and collectively speak out to all our elected officials and demand a stop to the out-of-control damage being done. We need to begin to rebuild a federal government that we can rely on to deliver critical services to the American public, including the Forest Service, and protect our wild landscapes from destruction.

    The post Gutting the Forest Service Will cause Irreparable Damage to Wilderness Character and Natural Resources appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • Why We Meed the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act Now More Than Ever

    Beartooth Range, Greater Yellowstone. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

    Brooke Rollins, Trump’s Secretary of Agriculture, recently announced the administration’s plan to repeal the 2001 Roadless Rule and open an estimated 58 million acres of public Forest Service land to road-building, resource extraction, and development.

    The Roadless Rule resulted from extensive inventories of the nation’s remaining roadless public lands beginning in 1967 after the historic enactment of the Wilderness Act of 1964. The first Roadless Area Review and Evaluation was issued in 1972, which the courts found deficient, resulting in the 1977 RARE II inventory — but no action was taken to protect those roadless lands.

    Finally, after extensive effort including an Environmental Impact Statement and the opportunity for nationwide public review and comment, the 2001 Roadless Rule was issued in the closing days of the Clinton administration.

    Americans overwhelmingly approved the Roadless Rule with more than a million comments in support because they value the solitude, secure wildlife habitat, and pristine watersheds that unlogged and unroaded forests provide. Despite its loopholes, the Roadless Rule delivered a more secure level of protection for the nation’s remaining — and dwindling — roadless areas since it restrained road-building by the Forest Service, which already has more miles of roads than the Interstate Highway System.

    Now, however, because administrative rules are much easier to change than laws, the Trump administration intends to repeal the Roadless Rule without environmental analysis or the opportunity for public review and comment.

    If Americans want to give our last wild and unroaded lands lasting protection in law, we have to do it through Congress with bills like the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act, which is now pending as S. 1198 in the Senate and H.R. 2420 in the House.

    The Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act would designate all of the Inventoried Roadless Areas in the Northern Rockies as full Wilderness, protecting approximately 23 million acres of vital ecosystems and watersheds in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Eastern Washington, and Oregon.

    Wilderness designation provides the highest level of protection available for the last of America’s wilderness-quality lands. For instance, the Act designates 1,800 miles of rivers and streams as Wild and Scenic Rivers. Water is the lifeblood of the West, and protecting the forests that accumulate snow and provide shade to slow melting keeps water available for downstream uses until later in the season when it is most needed, providing significant social and economic benefits.

    By protecting the remaining habitat for native species in the Northern Rockies the Act will help recover threatened and endangered species including bull trout, lynx, wolverines, and grizzly bears as well as pinyon jays, fisher and many other species currently facing extinction due habitat destruction and the lack of secure connecting corridors to prevent inbreeding in isolated populations. Passing the Act would give us one of the best opportunities to halt or stop what has been termed the Earth’s “sixth great extinction event” in the Northern Rockies, which are still home to most of the native species that were here when the Lewis and Clark Expedition passed through 200 years ago.

    Facing the increasing wildfires caused by our overheated climate, the Act provides significant benefits. It’s a proven fact that untouched wilderness lands tend to have far fewer and much smaller wildfires than lands which have been logged and roaded. Why? Because unlogged forests keep the land moist, shaded from the sun, and protected from the wind, which is the main driver of large, uncontrollable wildfires.

    Our national forests are also one of the most effective tools to combat climate change because they capture carbon from the atmosphere. National Forests absorb an astounding 12 percent of our nation’s carbon emissions, with unlogged and old-growth forests absorbing the most. And they do it for free, saving the federal government millions of taxpayer dollars annually by reducing wasteful subsidies to the logging industry.

    The Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act protects the environment, fights climate change, and saves taxpayers millions of dollars in logging subsidies simply by designating existing roadless areas as Wilderness.

    The post Why We Meed the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act Now More Than Ever appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • Toxic dependency: fossil fuels undermine global food security, experts warn

    Despite consuming 40% of all petrochemicals and 15% of the world’s fossil fuel, global food systems remain largely absent from global climate discussions. This oversight obscures a critical reality: without rethinking how we produce, process, and consume food, meaningful progress on climate goals will remain out of reach.

    As oil prices increase in the wake of escalating global conflicts, a new report from the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) delivers a stark warning: the world’s food systems are dangerously dependent on fossil fuels, and this addiction is driving both climate chaos and food insecurity.

    Fossil fuels in our food systems

    The report, Fuel to Fork: What will it take to get fossil fuels out of our food systems?, reveals that food systems have become Big Oil’s next big target. A staggering 40% of global petrochemicals and 15% of all fossil fuels are now funnelled into agriculture and food supply chains through synthetic fertilisers, pesticides, plastic packaging, ultra-processed foods, cold storage, and transport.

    IPES-Food expert Errol Schweizer said:

    Fossil fuels are, disturbingly, the lifeblood of the food industry.

    From chemical fertilisers to ultra-processed junk food, to plastic packaging, every step is fossil-fuel based. The industrial food system consumes 40% of petrochemicals – it is now Big Oil’s key growth frontier. Yet somehow it stays off the climate radar.

    For years, the climate impact of our food systems has been clear, and today, it can no longer be overlooked. Food production now contributes nearly one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, with agriculture and land-use change driving much of the damage. Forests are cleared for cattle, and vast areas are transformed into chemically intensive, resource-heavy crop systems.

    Global conflicts driving food prices up

    With Israel-Iran tensions pushing oil prices higher, the knock-on effects on food are becoming more acute. Food and energy markets are deeply linked, the report emphasises, and when oil prices spike, food prices quickly follow, worsening hunger and economic instability worldwide.

    IPES-Food expert Raj Patel warned that:

    Tethering food to fossil fuels means tying dinner plates to oil rigs and conflict zones. When oil prices rise, so does hunger – that’s the peril of a food system addicted to fossil fuels. Delinking food from fossil fuels has never been more critical to stabilise food prices and ensure people can access food.

    The invisible engine of Big Oil’s expansion

    Global subsidies for coal, oil, and gas, both direct and hidden, have surged to a staggering $7tn, equivalent to 7.1% of the world’s GDP. This massive sum surpasses total annual government spending on education and amounts to nearly two-thirds of global healthcare expenditures.

    In 2024 alone, $2tn was funnelled directly into fossil fuel industries, while an additional $5tn demonstrates the devastating societal costs, from toxic air pollution, to oil spills, and widespread environmental destruction.

    At the same time, nearly 90% of the $540bn in annual agriculture subsidies is driving harm, to both people and the planet. These funds overwhelmingly support chemical-intensive commodity crop production, entrenching destructive practices. Most of this money flow through price protections and input-linked payments. In turn, that locks farmers into unsustainable systems that degrade ecosystems, threaten health, and undermine long-term food security.

    Fossil fuels in every bite: how pesticides and plastics feed Big Oil

    As industries around the world start the slow shift toward decarbonisation, the global food system is quietly doing the opposite, pushing fossil fuel demand even higher. Major food corporations routinely deploy aggressive tactics to undermine or obstruct public health and environmental policies, replicating the same playbook fossil fuel giants have used for decades to stall climate progress.

    According to the report an astonishing 99% of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides are made from fossil fuels. Fertiliser production alone eats up a third of the world’s petrochemicals, making agriculture a major profit driver for oil and gas companies.

    Global pesticide use continues to grow, having risen by 13% over the past decade, and doubling since 1990, particularly in countries like China, the United States, Brazil, Thailand, and Argentina. China stands out as the world’s largest pesticide producer, responsible for one-third of global output.

    Pesticides have emerged as one of the leading global drivers of biodiversity loss. Their toll on human health is just as alarming. Every year, over 385 million people suffer from unintentional pesticide poisonings, resulting in 11,000 deaths and impacting nearly 44% of the world’s farming population.

    Moreover, the extensive use of plastics, over 10% of global plastic production for food and beverage packaging, and an additional 3.5% for agriculture, reveals a stark reality: the food system is a powerful but overlooked driver of Big Oil’s continued growth.

    Yet, despite this heavy footprint, food systems are still largely ignored in national climate strategies and global negotiations, a dangerous blind spot that experts warn can no longer be overlooked.

    Tech fixes are a false solution

    The report is highly critical of so-called ‘climate-smart’ innovations such as ‘blue ammonia‘ fertilisers, synthetic biology, and high-tech digital agriculture. These approaches, the authors argue, are energy-intensive, costly, and risk locking in fossil fuel use and agrochemicals under the guise of climate progress.

    IPES-Food expert Molly Anderson argued:

    From farm to fork, we need bold action to redesign food and farming, and sever the ties to oil, gas, and coal. As COP30 approaches, the world must finally face up to this fossil fuel blind spot.

    Food systems are the major driver of oil expansion – but also a major opportunity for climate action. That starts by phasing out harmful chemicals in agriculture and investing in agroecological farming and local food supply chains – not doubling down on corporate-led tech fixes that delay real change.

    A clear path forward

    However, there is hope, and there are already alternatives. Agroecology, Indigenous foodways, regenerative farming, and local supply chains offer viable, fossil-free models for nourishing people and the planet.

    IPES-Food expert Georgina Catacora-Vargas said:

    Fossil fuel-free food systems are not only possible – they already exist, as the world’s Indigenous people teach us. By shifting from ultra-processed diets to locally sourced, diverse foods; by helping farmers step off the chemical treadmill and rebuild biological relationships; by redignifying peasant farming and care work – we can feed the world without fossil fuels.

    With COP30 in Brazil on the horizon, IPES-Food is calling on governments to phase out fossil fuel and agrochemical subsidies, cut fossil fuels from food systems, and prioritise agroecological, healthy, and resilient food systems.

    The takeaway is clear: continuing to power our food system with fossil fuels is driving us toward climate chaos, economic upheaval, and deepening world hunger. We must break free from this destructive cycle. The future of our planet depends on the choices we make now.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Monica Piccinini

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • It’s not just the Global South. The climate crisis is already having a deadly impact in the UK.

    The climate crisis is already having a profound impact here in the UK. Scientists projected the deaths of almost 600 people due to the heatwave in England and Wales between 19 June and 22 June, and that such dangerous weather is 100 times more likely because of climate change caused by human activity.

    The time is now

    It’s true that the people with the lowest incomes in the world bear the brunt of the negative consequences of the climate crisis, while bearing the least responsibility for creating this situation. But that definitely doesn’t mean people in Britain escape the consequences completely.

    Researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Imperial College London warned that people of any age are at risk because of the heat, but the vast majority of deaths predicted are those over 65.

    Saturday’s heat would only have been expected once every 2,500 years if not for the fossil fuel-powered system.

    The adverse weather follows 2024, which was the hottest year on record globally and around 1.55C above pre-industrial levels. Last year, 1,311 people died because of heat in England – more than anticipated. And Europe faces a 40% drop in food production this century unless we change course.

    Prof Antonio Gasparrini, lead of the EHM-Lab at LSHTM, said:

    Increases of just a degree or two can be the difference between life and death. When temperatures push past the limits populations are acclimatised to, excess deaths can increase very rapidly. A large number of the excess deaths wouldn’t have likely happened without climate change. To give an estimate, more research will be required. Clearly, a hotter climate is a more dangerous climate. Every fraction of a degree of warming will cause more hospital admissions and heat deaths, putting more strain on the NHS.

    Getting worse

    According to research published in Nature, climate change resulting from human activity caused roughly 56% of Europe’s 68,000 heat-related deaths in 2022. And if we continue to power the economy through fossil fuels, there will be more than 10,000 heat-related deaths per year in the UK by 2050, according to the Climate Change Committee, which advises the government.

    The committee recently warned that Labour are continuing the agenda of the Conservatives when it comes to climate change:

    There is now unequivocal evidence that climate change is making extreme weather in the UK more likely and more extreme. Across the UK, this looks like heatwaves, heavy rainfall, and wildfire-conducive conditions. The UK is not appropriately prepared for this. Notably, there has been no change in addressing this risk with the change in Government.

    Baroness Brown, chair of the Adaptation Committee, said:

    We have seen in the last couple of years that the country is not prepared for the impacts of climate change. We know there is worse to come, and we are not ready – indeed in many areas we are not even planning to be ready. The threat is greatest for the most vulnerable: we do not have resilient hospitals, schools, or care homes. Public and private institutions alike are unprepared.

    We can see our country changing before our eyes. People are having to cope with more regular extreme weather impacts. People are experiencing increasing food prices. People are worried about vulnerable family members during heatwaves.

    Ineffective and outdated ways of working within Government are holding back the country’s ability to be future-fit. Is this Government going to face up to the reality of our situation? Failing to act will impact every family and every person in the country.

    According to the Adaption Committee, the UK government is doing no better in adapting to climate change in 2025 than in 2023.

    Whether it’s issues like austerity or privatiastion, Keir Starmer is as bad or worse than the Tories. And the climate crisis is no exception.

    By James Wright

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Beyond the Cloud: What’s AI’s True Environmental Cost?

    This blog was written by Alex Walker, Program Manager, Climate Finance and Aliénor Rougeot, Senior Program Manager, Climate and Energy

    Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data centres have quietly grown into the invisible super-engine powering our daily lives. Every Google search, email sent, photo posted, show streamed and online purchase involves a data centre. Equally, every Netflix suggestion, map re-route, “Okay, Google” or “Alexa”, or Face-ID phone unlock uses AI. 

    For all of these conveniences, very few of us know what it takes to make these seemingly small interactions possible. Through this three-part blog series, we’ll examine the hidden environmental consequences of AI and data centres, and what we, at Environmental Defence, think our government should do about it. 

    What is Artificial Intelligence?

    AI refers to computer systems designed to perform tasks that would typically require human intelligence. Unlike traditional software that follows predetermined instructions, AI systems can learn from data, identify patterns, and make decisions with varying degrees of autonomy.

    ChatGPT, Google Gemini or DALL-E have all introduced AI to the broader public. 

    For every AI model, there are two phases: training and inference. Training involves building a computer algorithm, and inputting vast amounts of data to show the algorithm how to perform its task. Inference involves presenting a trained AI algorithm with a problem and receiving an answer. Both stages require significant energy use.

    Data Centres: The Physical Infrastructure Behind AI

    Although we often refer to digital interactions as taking place in “the cloud”, AI runs on very physical infrastructure called data centres. Data centres house rows and rows of servers. A server is a computer program or device that provides a service to another computer program and its users. Your computer at home connects to a server via the Internet, and everything that you access on the internet is stored on a server somewhere in a data centre, including Netflix shows and your emails. Video and image based applications have historically been the largest driver of data centre computational usage, until the boom of AI.

    Hyperscale data centres operated by companies like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure can span millions of square feet and house thousands of servers. These facilities operate 24/7, consuming vast amounts of electricity and require extensive cooling systems to prevent overheating.

    Canada’s AI Landscape

    Although Canada is not a global AI superpower, it still is an important site of research, development and infrastructure. Currently, there are 239 data centres across the country, with major concentrations in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Québec City.

    This footprint is rapidly expanding. It is estimated that if all data centre projects currently under regulatory review in Canada proceed, they could account for a staggering 14 per cent of Canada’s total power needs by 2030. This growth is being actively encouraged by some provincial governments seeing economic development opportunities.

    Alberta has been particularly aggressive in this pursuit, releasing a comprehensive data centre strategy in 2024 designed to attract facilities to the province. The most ambitious proposal is a $2.8 billion data centre park in Grande Prairie. Championed by businessman “Mr Wonderful” aka Kevin O’Leary, the proposed “Wonder Valley AI Data Centre” would become the world’s largest AI data centre park, with an initial phase featuring 1.4GW of capacity powered by a combination of geothermal energy and natural gas.

    Canada has begun to make some early attempts at AI regulation. The federal government began to study Bill C-27 in 2022, which included the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act, but it did not pass before Parliament was prorogued in early 2025. This bill did not address any of the environmental issues associated with AI and data centres. Ontario passed Bill 194 in 2024, which focuses on the use of AI in the public sector, though again it did not address the environment. 

    In Part 2 of our series, we’ll examine the specific environmental impacts of data centre infrastructure: its water consumption, energy demand, and material footprint. Stay tuned for the next installment in our series as we continue to explore the hidden environmental footprint of AI and what it means for Canadians and our environment.

    The post Beyond the Cloud: What’s AI’s True Environmental Cost? appeared first on Environmental Defence.

    This post was originally published on Environmental Defence.

  • Lessons from Vieques: Resisting U.S. Militarism, Building Unity


    Around two years ago, I watched a puppet show, created by a group of eight to 16-year-olds at the summer camp where I worked, about the eviction of the U.S. Navy from the island of Vieques. After I conducted a few brief workshops reviewing the island’s history of military occupation and contamination, the campers immediately grasped the importance of the decades long struggle to evict the U.S. Navy, which they represented with a puppet of a venomous snake; on the other hand, they used the iconic native Puerto Rican frog, the coquí, to depict participants in the popular uprising against the U.S. military.

    This May marked 22 years since the US Navy was evicted from the island of Vieques. The story of Vieques should be understood by us organizers, just as it was by these campers through their puppet show, as we seek to build an anti-militarist climate movement that breaks down silos between supposedly separate organizing spaces. As we seek to build an anti-militarist climate movement and shape the global narratives in upcoming events, looking at Vieques’ past and present history is crucial.

    Vieques is an island off the coast of mainland Puerto Rico, a U.S. colony since 1898, in a state of limbo where Boricuas (Puerto Ricans) have U.S. citizenship but cannot vote, and at the same time, are unable to pursue self-determination through independence. Vieques was long exploited by wealthy landowners and the U.S. mainland’s economy for sugar production. In 1941, the Navy seized Vieques, with the goal of creating a colonial outpost in the Atlantic Ocean to mirror its base occupying Hawai’i, Pearl Harbor, in the Pacific. The island’s population of 10,000 was then forced to relocate to a small area of the island. Some wealthy landowners sold their land, while the U.S. government confiscated other plots of land for “public” use.

    For over 60 years, the U.S. Navy used Vieques as a bomb testing site, scorching the crust of the island by dropping around three million pounds of napalm, depleted uranium, and other toxic chemicals onto the land. Many of these bombs would then go on to be used on the people and soil of Palestine, itself a deadly testing ground for the U.S. war machine. Despite the extraordinary levels of chemical pollution, there was no hospital on the island. Additionally, the 1920 Jones Act restricted Puerto Rico to importing only U.S.-built, U.S.-owned, U.S.-operated, and U.S.-crewed cargo. This stranglehold continues to make any resources for the island extremely expensive.

    These were clear-cut conditions. The U.S. empire was poisoning the island and cutting it off from necessary goods, demonstrating Puerto Rico’s broader colonial status. In 1999, Daniel Sanes Rodriguez, a civilian employee of the naval base, was killed by an accidental off-target bomb. This was the spark of a protest movement made up of tens of thousands of people demanding the U.S. military leave the island. Protest tactics included encampments in the bomb range, graffiti, destruction of military property, and marches that included every sector of society, including religious leaders, fishers, environmental activists, students, and labor leaders. It also included leaders who were independence activists, statehood advocates, and advocates for commonwealth status.

    In 2001, President George Bush announced that the naval base would be closed. In May 2003, the U.S. Navy left the island and, ironically, converted the former base into a nature reserve. While the U.S. government has stalled for two decades in its promises of clean-up, this was a moment of victory. This monumental achievement was brought about by as wide an array of groups as the base impacted. By uniting in a popular struggle against U.S. militarism, the people of Vieques showed the world that the naval base had absolutely no business continuing to occupy their land. This moment was also considered a massive touchstone in the fight for a free and independent Puerto Rico.

    This isn’t to say that these tactics, this moment, or this rubric for what constitutes victory can be applied to every situation. But we can learn a lot about movement building and breaking out of what can appear to be separate organizing spaces. This was a win for independence, environmentalists, survival, and sovereignty. It’s pretty simple: wherever the U.S. war machine is active, the fight against it and for sovereignty is the fight for the land.

    So why isn’t this mirrored within the belly of the beast? Sometimes it is, in the examples of protests to stop the building of Cop City in Atlanta and in protests against the construction of new prisons. But when we discuss “the climate movement” and “the anti-war movement,” we must address why they’re institutionally separated through organizations, slogans, and targets. It’s no mystery – we can go down the list: funding, “pragmatism,” societal conditioning, greenwashing, internalized racism.

    With COP, the U.N. Climate Conference, less than six months away, it’s time to clarify our targets and identify the flashpoints of struggle. However toothless, co-opted, and irredeemable the annual “diplomatic” event is, with countries around the world cyclically refusing to take any meaningful action to address the climate crisis, it is also an event where the world’s climate movement plays a large role in shaping narratives, either in the conference itself or in people’s counter-conferences.

    We must call attention to  Puerto Rico – how it has been used for NATO training to continue escalation in the environmentally catastrophic Ukraine war, and how it has served the U.S.’s claim of Latin America and the Caribbean as its so-called backyard through its role in the U.S. Southern Command. Just as U.S. militarism in Hawai’i and the Philippines has been used to claim the Asia-Pacific in its escalation against China. We must trace the deadly supply chain of the bombs tested on Vieques, which have since been used to decimate entire communities in  Palestine, destroying the local and global environment. And we must highlight the poisoning of the soil in Vieques, where residents are 27% more likely to be fighting cancer than the rest of Puerto Rico, and 280% more likely to be fighting lung cancer specifically. The same empire that poisoned Vieques now strangles Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela with sanctions, blocking their ability to address the climate crisis effectively. These sites of struggle for national sovereignty are just as much about our collective survival.

    This year, at COP and in every climate space, our only hope is to learn from and center the past and present struggle in Vieques and everywhere else bearing the brunt of U.S. militarism, to clearly understand where our enemies converge, and to act accordingly because one thing that we can learn from Vieques and from the eight to 16-year-old campers telling Vieques’ story is that it’s clear when something is a venomous snake.

    The post Lessons from Vieques: Resisting U.S. Militarism, Building Unity first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Swiss Re SONAR 2025 Report: Global Heat Kills 480,000/Yr

    Extreme heat is one of the world’s leading killers, outdistancing worldwide conflicts of 233,000 deaths in 2024 by more than double the count at 480,000 people dead from extreme heat. All indications suggest the death count via extreme heat is headed much higher because global warming is not appreciably slowing down as global CO2 emissions in the atmosphere increase every year like clockwork, setting new record levels every year, blanketing/retaining more heat every year. It’s stifling.

    Current CO2 readings at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii, as of June 15, 2025: 430.07 ppm, which is the highest daily average on record. Excessive atmospheric CO2 is the primary source of extreme heat. One needs to go back millions of years to find higher levels. In 2016, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) a global body of climate scientists stated: “CO2 at 430 ppm would push the world beyond its target for avoiding dangerous climate change.” We are there!

    No business or government on Earth is impacted by climate change more so than the insurance industry. It’s the biggest canary in the coal mine. Swiss Re Ltd (founded 1863) is one of the world’s largest reinsurers. The company’s 2025 SONAR Report essentially puts the world on notice that global warming has become one of the world’s biggest killers.

    Swiss Re says “extreme heat,” is the designated killer, to wit: “Extreme heat events can have a large impact on human health. Recent data show that around 480, 000 deaths per year can be attributed to extreme heat events.” (“Extreme Heat More Deadly Than Floods, Earthquakes and Hurricanes Combined, Finds Swiss Re’s SONAR Report,” Swiss Re Group, Media, Press Release, June 12, 2025)

    According to Jérôme Haegeli, Swiss Re Group Chief Economist: “Extreme heat used to be considered the ‘invisible peril’ because the impacts are not as obvious as other natural perils… With a clear trend to longer, hotter heatwaves, it is important we shine a light on the true cost to human life, our economy, infrastructure, agriculture and healthcare system,” Ibid.

    The SONAR 2025 Report claims extreme heat threatens industry as well as human life. For example, “the telecommunications industry faces significant risks from failing cooling systems in data centers or damage to terrestrial cables.”

    Trump Administration re Extreme Heat

    According to Time magazine: “What’s At Stake This Summer As Trump Targets Heat and Climate Experts,” June 16, 2025:  “Heat experts at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS) were told in early April that their positions would be eliminated as part of the cuts made by the Trump Administration’s Department of Governmental Efficiency. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) entire environmental health unit was cut, though some jobs were restored … What was lost there is just a giant value to communities, according to V. Kelly Turner, associate professor of urban planning at University of California, Los Angeles.”

    Trump does not recognize climate change as a threat to humanity, dropping out of the Paris Agreement of 2015, cutting $4 billion in prior pledges, no longer submitting carbon-cutting plans to the UN, removing electric vehicle mandates, and destroying Biden administration climate change mitigation plans while over-emphasizing and directing national attention to burning fossil fuels. These are sure-fire ways to increase the global warming hazard, in turn, leading to more severe extreme heat, thus, putting Trump in opposition to Swiss Re’s warnings about the death count of “extreme heat.”

    According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center, the entire country will see above-normal temperatures—with the only difference being in severity. Across the contiguous United States, average temperatures have already risen about 60% more than the global average since 1970 (US EPA). In due course, the American South and Southeast will feel like the Persian Gulf countries of today, where it is currently too hot to safely work outside during the day for much of the summer.

    On a global basis, America’s extraordinary push for fossil fuel emissions contributes to atmospheric CO2 build up, thus impacting the world climate system by trapping more planetary heat. This direct relationship between increasing CO2 emissions and increased global warming is established scientific fact. According to WMO (World Meteorological Organization) Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett: “We have just experienced the ten warmest years on record. Unfortunately, this WMO report provides no sign of respite over the coming years, and this means that there will be a growing negative impact on our economies, our daily lives, our ecosystems and our planet.”

    Richard Betts, head of Climate Impacts Research at the UK Met Office and a professor at the University of Exeter, May 28, 2025, informed the Associated Press. “With the next five years forecast to be more than 1.5 degrees C warmer than preindustrial levels on average, this will put more people than ever at risk of severe heat waves, bringing more deaths and severe health impacts unless people can be better protected from the effects of heat. Also, we can expect more severe wildfires as the hotter atmosphere dries out the landscape.”

    Swiss Re’s SONAR Report warns the world of existential dangers of climate change by focusing, in part, on deaths caused by extreme heat, but the report goes on to suggest a threat to the entire infrastructure of economies. Swiss Re endorses policies to limit climate change, which are diametrically opposite Trump policies, to wit: Swiss Re suggests a multi-pronged approach to climate change mitigation: (1) reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (2) investing in carbon removal technologies (3) increasing climate resilience through adaptation measures (4) emphasize the importance of the Paris-aligned carbon reduction path (5) complemented by carbon removal strategies, and (6) advocate for collaboration and knowledge sharing to accelerate action.

    Trump’s policies don’t jive with any, not even one, of the six suggestions by one of the world’s oldest most prestigious insurance companies. If his administration is not listening to one of the world’s leading providers of insurance coverage that’s on the front line of climate change, then who?

    It’s shameful that the US government fails to recognize the most rapidly developing threat to existence, especially in the face of alarms set off by the staid insurance industry, as premiums go sky-high with claims choking the biggest players. The economy can’t handle it; homeowners can’t handle it; businesses can’t handle it. Solution: Stop burning fossil fuels oil, gas, and coal.

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  • Enbridge Line 5: A Clear and Present Danger

    Photograph Source: USEPA Environmental-Protection-Agency – Public Domain

    Canadian energy company Enbridge’s Line 5 traverses an extremely sensitive ecological area across northern Wisconsin, 400 rivers and streams as well as a myriad of wetlands, in addition to a path under the Mackinac Straights between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, all the while skirting the southern shore of Lake Superior. Such close proximity to the Great Lakes, lakes that hold over 20% of the world’s fresh surface water, lakes that supply drinking water to nearly 40 million people, yes, that does indeed make Line 5 a ticking time bomb.

    Northern Wisconsin is also a very culturally sensitive area, home to the Bad River Reservation. The Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa were guaranteed rights to their lands by an 1854 treaty with the U.S. government. The easements for Line 5 across the reservation, granted to Enbridge by the Chippewa, expired in 2013 and the Bad River Band chose not to renew them. Enbridge continues to operate the line, illegally and in direct violation of the Bad River Band’s right to sovereignty over their land.

    The Bad River Band has a guaranteed legal right to their land. They also have a right to Food Sovereignty, the internationally recognized right of food providers to have control over their land, seeds and water while rejecting the privatization of natural resources. Line 5 clearly impinges on the Band’s right to hunt, fish, harvest wild rice, to farm and have access to safe drinking water.

    A federal court ruled that Enbridge has been trespassing on lands of the Bad River Band since 2013 and ordered the company to cease operations of Line 5 by June of 2026 (seems that immediate cessation would make more sense), but rather than shut down the aging line, Enbridge plans to build a diversion around the Bad River Reservation. They plan to move the pipeline out of the Bad River Band’s front yard into their back yard, leaving 100% of the threats to people and the environment in place.

    Liquid petroleum (crude oil, natural gas and petroleum product) pipelines are big business in the U.S. With 2.6 million miles of oil and gas pipelines, the U.S. network is the largest in the world. If we continue our heavy and growing dependence on liquid fossil fuels, we must realize that we will continue to negatively impact the climate and the lives of everyone on the planet.

    Instead of moving to a just transition away from fossil fuels, liquid or otherwise, the government continues to subsidize the industry through direct payments and tax breaks, refusing to acknowledge the cost of pollution-related health problems and environmental damage, a cost which is of course, incalculable.

    There are nearly 20,000 miles of pipelines planned or currently under construction in the U.S., thus it would appear that government and private industry are in no hurry to break that addiction, much less make a just transition. While no previous administration was in any hurry to break with the fossil fuel industry, they at least gave the illusion of championing a transition to cleaner energy.

    The current administration is abundantly clear. Their strategy is having no strategy. They don’t like wind and solar and they plan to end any support for renewable energy. They don’t care if they upend global markets, banking, energy companies or certainly any efforts to help developing countries transition away from fossil fuels.

    Pipelines are everywhere across the U.S., a spiderweb connecting wells, refineries, transportation and distribution centers. The vast majority of pipelines are buried and many, if not all, at some point cross streams, rivers, lakes and run over aquifers. Pipeline ruptures and other assorted failures will continue and spillage will find its way into the bodies of water they skirt around or pass under. It’s not a question if they will leak, but when.

    Enbridge controls the largest network of petroleum pipelines in the Great Lakes states, and they are hardly immune to spills. Between 1999 and 2013 it was reported that Enbridge had over 1,000 spills dumping a reported 7.4 million gallons of oil.

    In 2010  Enbridge’s Line 6B ruptured and contaminated the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history. Over 1.2 million gallons of oil were recovered from the river between 2010 and 2014. How much went downstream or was buried in sediment, we’ll never know.

    In 2024 a fault in Enbridge Line 6 caused a spill of 70 thousand gallons near Cambridge Wisconsin. And Enbridge’s most infamous pipeline, the 71-year-old Line 5 from Superior Wisconsin to Sarnia Ontario, has had 29 spills in the last 50 years, loosing over 1 million gallons of oil.

    Some consider Line 5 to be a “public good” because, as Enbridge argues, shutting the line down will shut down the U.S. economy and people will not be able to afford to heat their homes — claims they have never supported with any evidence. A public good is one that everyone can use, that everyone can benefit from. A public good is not, as Enbridge apparently believes, a mechanism for corporate profit.

    Line 5 is a privately owned property, existing only to generate profits for Enbridge. If it were a public good, Enbridge would certainly be giving more attention to the rights of the Bad River Band, the well-being of all the people who depend on the clean waters of the Great Lakes and to protecting the sensitive environment of northern Wisconsin and Michigan. They are not. Their trespassing, their disregard for the environment, their continuing legal efforts to protect their bottom line above all else, only points to their self-serving avarice.

    The Bad River Band wants Enbridge out, and in their eyes, it is not a case of “not in my backyard.” They do not want Line 5 in anyone’s backyard.

    The post Enbridge Line 5: A Clear and Present Danger appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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  • Wildfire: Government Shell Game

    Photo by Issy Bailey

    Are we all fools? Apparently, the US Forest Service and our politicians think so as we see exploding budgets for addressing wildfire that result in taxpayers subsidizing logging our National Forests in remote wild places. I call it wildfire hysteria because it certainly is not a logical thought process as politicians and agencies rely on an uninformed public that can be manipulated by fear into supporting deforestation and destruction of our most important wildlife habitats. This is the Shell Game, deceiving the public.

    The work of our team on Canada lynx habitat in the Rocky Mountains and litigating timber projects that fragment and destroy that habitat drove me to explore in detail the underlying data and justification for these projects. A common thread is they are based on being within the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI). What is this WUI?

    FEMA has defined the WUI as the “zone of transition between unoccupied land and human development. It is the line, area or zone where structures and other human development meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland or vegetative fuels.” FEMA states that more than 60,000 communities in the US are at risk for WUI fires, that between 2002 and 2016 an average of over 3,000 structures per year were lost to WUI fires. Finally, they say, “The WUI area continues to grow by approximately 2 million acres per year.”

    Why the growth in the WUI? Are the Forests moving into town? No, of course not, people are moving into forested or other vegetated areas that can burn, creating an untenable situation. This is the problem as local governments approve subdivisions, resorts and individual homes in areas adjacent to our National Forests or other wildlands. The map shows states such as Montana have a high percentage of homes and structures in this WUI.

    Where’s the Shell Game?

    According to a recent article, the Forest Service is using the threat of fire to meet timber targets while “The agency has sought to minimize environmental oversight and used authorities critics say incentivize the logging of older trees”.

    One of those authorities is the Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA). This was enacted under GW Bush and is an Orwellian title that disguises habitat Destruction as Restoration. Under HFRA, agencies such as the Forest Service can use exclusions from doing environmental analysis based on the area being in the Wildland Urban Interface, or at risk of insects and disease. What we as ecologists or naturalists would call a healthy forest is now redefined as in need of manipulation and ultimately, logging.

    Natural disturbances such as fire, insects or disease, which reset succession and create diverse habitats, are to be prevented by the current congressional and agency cure. The cure is called fuel treatments or fuel reduction. These are used as the rationale to clearcut, thin, chain, and burn large swaths of our public lands and forests, thereby eliminating functional ecosystems and secure habitat for wildlife such as Grizzly bears, Canada lynx, deer, elk and myriad small mammals and birds. Millions of acres are at risk, not from wildfire, which is natural, but from agenda-driven extraction and destruction.

    I recall one of my first projects of this sort was in the North Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho. I looked at the maps and aerial images provided by the Forest Service and could not find any evidence of anything “urban” other than a house here or there and a ski area on the National Forest in mostly open terrain. Yet miles of the watershed were to be logged to protect this so-called urban place, like it was Central Park or some place in a city. Where were the fire hydrants? Did Lemhi County require anything other than handing out permits to build with no requirements, no government oversight, no personal responsibility, no fire protection? But as sure as a fire happens, they will be there with their hands out for Federal dollars and more fire suppression.

    My classic example of this western hypocrisy is illustrated by the late Senator Jake Garn of Utah. Senator Garn wanted to pave the Burr Trail through what is now the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. He said the Federal Government needed to get out of the way so the road could be paved, but “we sure could use $50 million to pay for it”. I paraphrase, but you get the gist, its Manifest Destiny, private property rights, exploitation for private profit with no constraints and at the expense of the taxpayers, watersheds, rivers and streams, forests, and wildlife.

    What about Fuel Treatments and Wildfires

    There has been much written about the ineffectiveness of these fuel treatments due to drought and wind-driven fires either not encountering treated areas or burning right through them. For example, one paper points out that “wildlands cannot be fireproofed”, that residual biomass can still burn, and that these fuel treatments are transient, needing repeating at intervals. It’s a “futile and counter-productive” endeavor. The US Forest Service Fire Sciences Lab concluded from analyzing fuel treatments that the “net effect of all treatments…averaged a 7% reduction in burned area”. Another analysis found that the probability of fuel treatments encountering a fire within a period of 20 years of reduced fuels is 2 – 7.9% .

    Then there are examples of areas where structures are burned and live trees remain adjacent to them, or burning embers jump highways and rivers and ignite more fires. Noted fire scientists have written about the problem being not the forest, but the wind driven burning embers igniting homes miles away. These then ignite adjacent homes.

    I live in a log cabin in the footprint of the 2018 Roosevelt Fire near Bondurant, Wyoming that burned 60,000 acres. The old cabin survived while large fir trees next to it burned. Why did the old log cabin survive? I can only believe it was the metal roof. My example would seem to indicate that clearing all vegetation next to the home is maybe not needed. Instead, applying home hardening which includes non-combustible roofing, keeping flammable tree debris off roofs, out of gutters or on the ground within 5 feet of flammable siding and other measures. Most recommendations are to clear trees and brush within a zone of 100 feet from the structure. These should be local government enforced requirements and property owner responsibilities and if not done, neither the insurance companies nor government should be held liable for bailing them out. Read more.

    The Federal Government Mandate for Logging

    From the top down, our Federal Government is intent on paving the way for more and more of these WUI projects to increase logging. A current White House Executive Order emphasizes “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production” along with expanded exclusions from oversight such as laws that protect endangered species and other wildlife.

    Then there is the Secretary of Agriculture Memorandum “Increasing Timber Production and Designating an Emergency Situation on National Forest System Lands” claiming our National Forests are “in crisis due to uncharacteristically severe wildfires, insect and disease outbreaks, invasive species, and other stressors whose impacts have been compounded by too little active management”. Active management, meaning more logging. In total, this Emergency Situation Designation applies to 112,646,000 acres, or 59% of our National Forests. Historical records indicate that the area burned in recent wildfires is low compared to the past.

    Then, to quote Tom Shultz, Forest Service Chief, “I want to refocus our efforts on safety, active forest management, fire management and recreation. As a field-based organization, safety must always be at the forefront of our minds. Years of fire suppression and declining timber harvest have left us with significant fuel buildup. I want us to do more to create resilient forests through active forest management, including timber sales, fuels reduction through mechanical thinning and prescribed fires, as well as fighting fires safely and protecting resource values.” All sounds good, right? Something for everyone except wildlife.

    The Money

    The Forest Service Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Justification shows allocations of $8.9 billion including $2.6 billion for Wildland Fire Management and an off-budget $3.2 billion from the Wildfire Suppression Operations Reserve Fund. The Wildland Fire Mgt funds include fire “pre-suppression” activities such as forest thinning, prescribed burns and so forth. Commercial timber harvest would be justified within these activities. A recent article describes annual losses on timber sales of nearly $2 billion.

    In California, for example, private insurers are required to cover homes, and pass these costs to homeowners across the State through surcharges, while regulations to create buffers around homes are delayed. Meanwhile, who pays? A recent article by Kenneth Abraham, University of Virginia Law School suggests it could be “rising insurance premiums, taxpayer-funded bailouts or homeowners absorbing significant losses”. Then we have the example of Gavin Newsom suspending environmental laws so reconstruction can be expedited. We rush to rebuild so history can repeat itself.

    Montana

    I used the Forest Service model to map the WUI for Montana to see the trend in WUI area over time. According to their model, the WUI has increased by 77%, or 612,000 acres in the last three decades. Of course, the forest hasn’t moved, people have moved to the forest.

    Intermix and Interface terms relate to whether structures are surrounded by at least 50% vegetation cover (intermix) or within 2.4 km of a patch of vegetation at least 5 km2 that contains at least 75% vegetation cover (Interface).

    We are seeing an onslaught of logging, thinning and burning (fuel reduction) projects proposed by the Forest Service in Montana and other states, largely justified as being in the WUI. Recent examples of these our team is opposing are the Round Star (28,000 acres), Cyclone Bill (40,000 acres), and Rumbling Owl (5,400 acres) projects in the Flathead NF, or the Pintler Face (11,000 acres) project in the Beaverhead Deerlodge NF. These occur in or adjacent to areas previously logged or “treated” and are only the tip of the iceberg.

    The Beaverhead Deerlodge NF Case

    The series of maps below tell the story of the WUI in the Beaverhead Deerlodge NF (BHDL). I mapped the BHDL to show the nearest urban centers. Most are many miles from the Forest. Anaconda and Butte are the closest to the Forest.

    I used data from the BHDL to map the Wildland Urban Interface within this 3.6 million-acre National Forest. In the map you can see a large part of the BHDL is classified as WUI. Roads are included in the WUI with mile-wide buffers. The WUI as defined by the BHDL is 1.6 million acres, or 44% of the Forest. Under the exclusions provided in the HFRA this 44% of the Forest is now available for logging and other fuel treatments with minimal protection for wildlife and watersheds, while serving as a barrier to public input or litigation to stop these “cures”.

    But, if we want to know the actual truth about the WUI in this National Forest, I used the most recent model developed by the US Geological Survey and more current building densities. (Ironically, this publication is found on the Forest Service website). This model analysis resulted in a total area of WUI within the BHDL of 35,000 acres. This is 2% of the Forest, not the 44% the BHDL itself has delineated to clear the way for wholesale logging. There you have it, there can be no explanation other than enabling subsidized logging on our National Forests, a situation some call “logging without laws”. The Shell Game.

    Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest (green outline) with nearest Urban centers.

    Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest with its version of the WUI (in orange).

    Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest with WUI mapped based on the actual occurrence of structures and definitions in the law. (Orange areas are Intermix WUI and red areas are Interface WUI).

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  • Is Yellowstone Grizzly Recovery at or Approaching a Tipping Point?

    Grizzly bear north of Obsidian Cliff; Jim Peaco; May 2014. Park Service.

    The August 2023 issue of Global Change Biology published a study on the state of the GYE grizzly population from 2000 to 2020. Among other things, the authors found that, at least until 2020, the bear’s foods were sufficient across the landscape, but also found that the bears’ population growth nevertheless slowed — did not stop, but slowed down — from 2010 to 2020.

    What’s happened in the five years since 2020 was beyond the scope of the study. But we’re left with the fact of a slowing from 2010 to the study’s end in 2020.

    So what? What, if anything, might this decade of slowing mean for recovery of the bear?

    First, it’s been standard practice to point to the population’s increasing numbers as bedrock evidence that the grizzly has recovered and can be delisted. By this analysis, the state of the bear population is reduced to a numbers game. 

    But there were already other lines of evidence available for assessing recovery, whether recovery of an ecosystem or a single species within it. In 2007, for example, American Naturalist published “Slow Recovery from Perturbations as a Generic Indicator of a Nearby Catastrophic Shift.”

    These authors wrote, “Such recovery rates decrease as a catastrophic regime shift is approached, a phenomenon known in physics as “critical slowing down.” They add, “In all the models we analyzed, critical slowing down becomes apparent quite far from a threshold point, suggesting that it may indeed be of practical use as an early warning signal.” 

    A record of evidence

    The concept of critical slowing down as a predictive early warning has repeatedly been tested within the context of ecological systems. For example, authors of a 2014 PNAS analysis concluded that “critical slowing-down indicators may be used as early warnings for the collapse of ecological networks.”

    For just one more example, a July 13 2022 article in Nature applied the concept to “signals of declining forest resilience under climate change.” The authors explain that they “integrate satellite-based vegetation indices with machine learning to show how forest resilience, quantified in terms of critical slowing down indicators, has changed during the period 2000–2020.”  

    Despite such evidence, it may be possible that the slowing growth of the grizzly population is still growth, that the slowing is not an early warning of trouble ahead, and that the rationale for delisting the grizzly is intact. That said, any risk of a critical slowing as prediction of trouble head for recovery probably can’t be dismissed lightly.

     Whether critical or not, that leaves the question of why the slowing developed. The authors of the Global Change Biology article refer to a “pronounced environmental changes have occurred in recent decades due to increased human impacts from recreation, development, and climate change.” 

    These three changes can help account for a slowing, they likely amount to a triple cumulative threat, and they have certainly not ended in the 5 years since 2020. 

    Recreation 

    Human recreation is well-established as an adverse impact across a variety of wildlife. A basic issue at stake here is every wild animal’s need to move around a landscape to find a bite to eat and water to drink. Interference with or disruption of this need can be consequential. 

    Under the title, “Human disturbance causes widespread disruption of animal movement,” the February 2021 issue of Nature Ecology and Evolution published a compilation of 208 research studies spanning 167 species. In reviewing these studies, the authors discovered that “Disturbance from human activities, such as recreation and hunting, had stronger impacts on animal movement than habitat modification, such as logging and.”

    The authors of a February 2025 article in the Journal of Applied Ecology tested this effect specifically on grizzlies and wolves. In their article, “Integrating human trail use in montane landscapes reveals larger zones of human influence for wary carnivores,” authors report that, “The negative effects of human use on wildlife declined steeply with distance such that 50% of the decrease in detection rates immediately adjacent to trails would be expected to occur at 267 m for grizzly bears and 576 m for wolves. Weak effects, 5% as strong as the effect adjacent to trails, extended up to 1.8 and 6.1 km for grizzly bears and wolves, revealing the importance of cumulative measures of human use.”

    Development

    The effects of trails recreation can arguably have cumulative effect alongside those from development, a.k.a. housing sprawl. In effect, once established, sprawl becomes an irreversible and irretrievable loss for the bear.

    By 2012, a team of researchers were already able to review sprawl’s effect on Yellowstone grizzlies in a Wildlife Biology article, “Impacts of rural development on Yellowstone wildlife: linking grizzly bear Ursus arctos demographics with projected residential growth.”

    The authors begin the abstract of the article by reporting that, “Exurban development is consuming wildlife habitat within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem with potential consequences to the long-term conservation of grizzly bears Ursus arctos.” To test the effect of this sprawl, researchers “portioned habitats into either source or sink, and projected the loss of source habitat associated with four different build out (new home construction) scenarios through 2020” 

    They go on to say, “Our findings showed that extremely low densities of residential development created sink habitats.” Along with increased human presence on the trails, this additional threat to the bear’s recovery has clearly persisted since the Global Change Biology study came to its end 2020.

    Climate 

    Add climate change effects to those from increased human recreation and housing sprawl, and the cumulative, triple-threat effects on grizzly recovery come to a fuller reckoning.

    Here, the effects can be direct and physical, across the Animal Kingdom. In its February 2019 issue, Physiology, a journal of the American Physiological Society,  published a review of the literature including this observation: “Of immediate importance is the increased frequency and severity of heat waves occurring around the planet, exposing life to elevated, and often stressful temperatures now more than ever before during the past 150 years.” 

    The reviewer goes on to say that these changes “are a present threat to animal life<<h>>.”

    A key issue here is an animal’s ability to shed or dissipate its own body heat before it builds up to endangering levels.

    Grizzlies aren’t immune. As previously reported in MoJo, authors of an article in the February 2021 Functional Ecology report that “… the heat dissipation limit theory posits that allocation of energy to growth and reproduction by endotherms is governed more by their capacity to dissipate heat than by their ability to harvest energy from the environment.”

    Furthermore, they say, “Our results suggest that the costs of heat dissipation, which are modulated by climate, may impose constraints on the behaviour and energetics of large endotherms like grizzly bears, and that access to water for cooling will likely be an increasingly important driver of grizzly bear distribution in Yellowstone as the climate continues to warm.”

    These authors tried a look ahead. Based on what the modeling had to tell them, they conclude that, “the availability of water for thermoregulation increased the number of hours during which lactating females could be active by up to 60% under current climatic conditions and by up to 43% in the future climate scenario. Moreover, even in the future climate scenario, lactating bears were able to achieve heat balance 24 hr/day by thermoregulating behaviourally when water was available to facilitate cooling.“

    In other words, if I understand correctly, a lactating grizzly female in a hotter and drier world, but with opportunity to cool off, will be functioning well enough to go looking for food if she has the opportunity to cool off. Distance to cooling water and, then, ready access to it may rise in urgency along with the food question.

    Authors of the 2021 Functional Ecology article aren’t the only ones who’ve ventured a look ahead. Authors of the 2023 Global Change Biology article went past the limits of their 2000 to 2020 to warn that ”…synergistic effects of continued climate change and increased human impacts could lead to more extreme changes in food availability and affect observed population resilience mechanisms.”  Their reference to resilience is of close interest because resilience is synonymous with recovery.

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  • ‘Be brave’ warning to nations against deepsea mining from UNOC

    By Laura Bergamo in Nice, France

    The UN Ocean Conference (UNOC) concluded today with significant progress made towards the ratification of the High Seas Treaty and a strong statement on a new plastics treaty signed by 95 governments.

    Once ratified, it will be the only legal tool that can create protected areas in international waters, making it fundamental to protecting 30 percent of the world’s oceans by 2030.

    Fifty countries, plus the European Union, have now ratified the Treaty.

    New Zealand has signed but is yet to ratify.

    Deep sea mining rose up the agenda in the conference debates, demonstrating the urgency of opposing this industry.

    The expectation from civil society and a large group of states, including both co-hosts of UNOC, was that governments would make progress towards stopping deep sea mining in Nice.

    UN Secretary-General Guterres said the deep sea should not become the “wild west“.

    Four new pledges
    French President Emmanuel Macron said a deep sea mining moratorium is an international necessity. Four new countries pledged their support for a moratorium at UNOC, bringing the total to 37.

    Attention now turns to what actions governments will take in July to stop this industry from starting.

    Megan Randles, Greenpeace head of delegation regarding the High Seas Treaty and progress towards stopping deep sea mining, said: “High Seas Treaty ratification is within touching distance, but the progress made here in Nice feels hollow as this UN Ocean Conference ends without more tangible commitments to stopping deep sea mining.

    “We’ve heard lots of fine words here in Nice, but these need to turn into tangible action.

    “Countries must be brave, stand up for global cooperation and make history by stopping deep sea mining this year.

    “They can do this by committing to a moratorium on deep sea mining at next month’s International Seabed Authority meeting.

    “We applaud those who have already taken a stand, and urge all others to be on the right side of history by stopping deep sea mining.”

    Attention on ISA meeting
    Following this UNOC, attention now turns to the International Seabed Authority (ISA) meetings in July. In the face of The Metals Company teaming up with US President Donald Trump to mine the global oceans, the upcoming ISA provides a space where governments can come together to defend the deep ocean by adopting a moratorium to stop this destructive industry.

    Negotiations on a Global Plastics Treaty resume in August.

    John Hocevar, oceans campaign director, Greenpeace USA said: “The majority of countries have spoken when they signed on to the Nice Call for an Ambitious Plastics Treaty that they want an agreement that will reduce plastic production. Now, as we end the UN Ocean Conference and head on to the Global Plastics Treaty negotiations in Geneva this August, they must act.

    “The world cannot afford a weak treaty dictated by oil-soaked obstructionists.

    “The ambitious majority must rise to this moment, firmly hold the line and ensure that we will have a Global Plastic Treaty that cuts plastic production, protects human health, and delivers justice for Indigenous Peoples and communities on the frontlines.

    “Governments need to show that multilateralism still works for people and the planet, not the profits of a greedy few.”

    Driving ecological collapse
    Nichanan Thantanwit, project leader, Ocean Justice Project, said: “Coastal and Indigenous communities, including small-scale fishers, have protected the ocean for generations. Now they are being pushed aside by industries driving ecological collapse and human rights violations.

    “As the UN Ocean Conference ends, governments must recognise small-scale fishers and Indigenous Peoples as rights-holders, secure their access and role in marine governance, and stop destructive practices such as bottom trawling and harmful aquaculture.

    “There is no ocean protection without the people who have protected it all along.”

    The anticipated Nice Ocean Action Plan, which consists of a political declaration and a series of voluntary commitments, will be announced later today at the end of the conference.

    None will be legally binding, so governments need to act strongly during the next ISA meeting in July and at plastic treaty negotiations in August.

    Republished from Greenpeace Aotearoa with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • 20 Major Wins For Indigenous Rights In 2025

    So far, 2025 has been a powerful year for Indigenous rights. Over the past 6 months we have seen many hard-fought victories and long-awaited acts of justice for Indigenous Peoples across the globe. While these wins vary in scale and geography, a common thread runs through them all: Indigenous leadership.

    Whether resisting oil drilling in the Peruvian Amazon, overturning mining projects in Arizona, or securing court protections for uncontacted peoples in Colombia and Ecuador, these movements reflect a resurgence of Indigenous authority in matters that directly affect their survival and future.

    The post 20 Major Wins For Indigenous Rights In 2025 appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Trump Administration Abandons Deal With Tribes To Restore Salmon

    Less than two years ago, the administration of President Joe Biden announced what tribal leaders hailed as an unprecedented commitment to the Native tribes whose ways of life had been devastated by federal dam-building along the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest.

    The deal, which took two years to negotiate, halted decades of lawsuits over the harm federal dams had caused to the salmon that had sustained those tribes culturally and economically for thousands of years. To enable the removal of four hydroelectric dams considered especially harmful to salmon, the government promised to invest billions of dollars in alternative energy sources to be created by the tribes.

    The post Trump Administration Abandons Deal With Tribes To Restore Salmon appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Plummeting Insects

    Insects are vanishing from pristine rainforests. “Around the world many insect populations are crashing.” (Natural History Museum, April 2025)

    Insects are crucial for the health of nature, whereas humans are not. And since insects are ‘dropping like flies’, does loss of insects mean nature is collapsing? That question of whether nature is collapsing because of insect Armageddon is found in many articles and upscale publications with some claiming that nature is collapsing, some are not so sure, but some question all analyses because of the vast scope of the subject.

    It’s an important subject because, if insects truly disappear, it leaves humans standing all alone, naked in the biosphere!

    According to the Royal Entomological Society: Insects are the dominant species on the planet. For every person on Earth, there are approximately 1.4 billion insects that, combined, weigh 70-times more than all humans bunched together. (“We Know Next to Nothing About 99 Percent of the World’s Insects: Here’s Why That’s a Problem,” Euro News, 04/04/2025)

    Yet, science has identified massive drop-offs of insect populations across the planet. Indeed, as shall be explained herein, there are regions where dense populations of insects are now basically gone. They’ve vanished. Some ecologists are claiming a new point in history has been reached: A New Era of Ecological Collapse.

    The all-important food web doesn’t thrive without insects. This is scientific fact. The health of insect populations is the single most critical measurement of the health of nature. Concern about nature collapsing has become prominent because of insects vanishing from protected, isolated, free-of-human-influence regions of the planet as well as several studies showing extremely high percentages of insect collapse in well-developed areas.

    In the field, in the hinterlands, ecologist Daniel Janzen spent the last 50+ years living in the Costa Rican protected national rainforest, monitoring insects: “The real show was at night: for two hours each evening, the site got power, and a 25-watt bulb flickered on above the porch. Out of the forest darkness, a tornado of insects would flock to its glow, spinning and dancing before the light. Lit up, the side of the house would be “absolutely plastered with moths – tens of thousands of them”, Janzen says.” (“‘Half the Tree of Life’ Ecologists Horror as Nature Reserves are Emptied of Insects,” Guardian, June 3, 2025)

    “Now 86, Janzen still works in the same research hut in the Guanacaste conservation area, alongside his longtime collaborator, spouse and fellow ecologist, Winnie Hallwachs. But in the forest that surrounds them, something has changed. Trees that once crawled with insects lie uncannily still,” Ibid. They are gone! In the Costa Rican rainforest ecologists now find emaciated dead bats and the flowers they suck for nectar no longer bloom.

    When Costa Rica was hit by pesticides, insects were completely wiped out. But now the new concern deals with protected preserved areas that are free of insecticides and pesticides and free of the human footprint with insect populations going down for the count in horrifying numbers. This may be a worldwide phenomenon, but the jury is still out.

    For example, in Germany flying insects in 63 separate protected reserves collapsed by 75% in a 30-year study, and a U.S. 45-year study showed 83% drop of bettles. A study in Puerto Rico’s rainforest found a 60% die-off. All three studies were in protected ecosystems. And a 20-year UK study showed a collapse of 80% of flying insects. According to researchers interviewed by Le Monde: “The destruction of habitats, climate warming, and widespread presence of pesticides in all environments are the culprits.”

    In the State of Texas, David Wagner, Professor of Ecology (Univ. of Connecticut): “I just got back from Texas, and it was the most unsuccessful trip I’ve ever taken. There just wasn’t any insect life to speak of ,.. It was not only the insects missing, but it was also everything. Everything was crispy, fried; the lizard numbers were down to the lowest numbers I can ever remember. And then the things that eat lizards were not present – I didn’t see a single snake the entire time,” Ibid.

    According to Dr. Wagner: “We’re at a new point in human history.”

    The worldwide food web is under attack, moving up the food chain. Scientists in the US, Brazil, Ecuador and Panama have now reported catastrophic declines of birds in “untouched regions,” including reserves inside millions of hectares of pristine forest. In each case, the worst losses were among insectivorous birds.

    For example: “75 Percent of North America’s Bird Species are in Decline, Study Says” (Washington Post, May 1, 2025) “Locations where species were once thriving, and where the environment and habitat was once really suitable for them, are now the places where they’re suffering the most.” Within the next 4 years 75% may look like a very low number: “The federal government under President Donald Trump is pushing forward with regulatory changes that weaken a century-old law protecting migratory birds and permit more mining, construction and other activities even if they destroy the habitats of endangered birds and other species,” Ibid.

    Global heat has become the major culprit in tropical forests, which ecosystems are highly sensitive to changes in season with every element interconnected, the humidity, the rainfall, the heat, drought sequences, length of seasons dictate the start and stop of life cycles. In Costa Rica, the dry season is now six (6) months versus four (4) months, fifty (50) years ago. Moreover, insects can’t hold water; a brief drought lasting just a few days can wipe out millions of humidity-dependent insects. Alas, droughts are no longer ‘brief’.

    According to Rob Cooke, an ecological modeler at UKCEH: “We need to find out whether insect declines are widespread and what’s causing them… The challenge is like a giant jigsaw puzzle where there are thousands of missing pieces, but we do not have decades to wait to fill these gaps and then act. The major drivers of biodiversity losses around the planet were really land degradation and land loss, habitat loss. But I think now climate change is by far exceeding that,” Ibid

    “A team of ecologists from The University of Hong Kong (HKU) are leading an international initiative to investigate the decline of insect populations in the world’s tropical forests. Insects, the most abundant and diverse group of animals on Earth, are experiencing alarming declines, prompting this research effort.” (“Declining Biodiversity in the Tropics,” Science Daily, April 8, 2025)

    Recent research indicates climate change, especially increasing global heat, is destroying insect populations in the planet’s most sensitive ‘protected’ nature reserves. As a result, burning fossil fuels can now check one more box of the extinction scorecard.

    Solution: Stop burning fossil fuels. Insects can’t handle the repercussions, and the food web desperately needs them.

    The post Plummeting Insects first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Virginia AG Hopeful Was Outraising His Rival — Then Dominion Energy Tipped the Scale

    Both candidates for Virginia attorney general in Tuesday’s Democratic primary have much in common. They’ve both promised, for instance, to fight against Donald Trump and DOGE, and to protect abortion rights.

    When it comes to who is funding their campaigns, though, there’s one source of cash that marks a striking difference between the candidates: Dominion Energy, the Fortune 500 utility company that has long thrown around huge sums to shape politics in Virginia.

    In the attorney general primary this year, local prosecutor Shannon Taylor has accepted $650,000 in donations from Dominion, while former state delegate Jay Jones has not taken any from the company.

    And that cash has made a difference: Jones had a significant fundraising lead this year — until Dominion began sending checks to Taylor.

    The spending split shows how Dominion continues to shape Democratic politics in the state, six years after party leaders said they would refuse donations from the controversial electricity monopoly. In response to Dominion’s attorney general race donations, 14 current and former Democratic officials aligned with Jones wrote a letter this week calling out Taylor for what they said was a looming conflict of interest.

    “The scale of these contributions appears to be unprecedented in Virginia Attorney General races,” the officials said. “This level of corporate influence over a candidate seeking the state’s highest law enforcement position undermines public confidence in the independence and integrity of the office.”

    Hitting a theme of her long experience as a prosecutor, Taylor’s campaign said in a statement, “Shannon is the only Democrat who can be trusted to flip this seat and fight back against Donald Trump.”

    In a statement, Jones’s campaign manager Rachel Rothman took a swipe at Taylor’s reliance on Dominion cash. She said, “Shannon Taylor is clearly aspiring to be Dominion’s in-house counsel.”

    Power Player

    Nobody in Virginia politics has a pocketbook quite like Dominion. The company is the leading campaign contributor this election cycle, according to the nonprofit Virginia Public Access Project. For years, it has showered candidates with what one observer called a “staggering” amount of cash.

    Meanwhile, the company has faced complaints about its business.

    Dominion has been accused of overcharging customers by $1.2 billion over a yearslong period, slowing efforts to develop rooftop solar energy, and threatening the climate with a since-canceled natural gas pipeline.

    Dominion’s political vise grip allowed it to get away with it all, critics said.

    In recent years, however, that grip has loosened. Responding to outrage from voters, the Democratic Party announced that it would no longer accept donations from Dominion — though individual candidates were not obliged to follow suit.

    Some Democrats have continued to take money from the company, while others have aligned themselves with the Clean Virginia Fund, a political organization created by a wealthy Charlottesville investor named Michael Bills to combat Dominion’s influence in state politics.

    Related

    $800,000 of Mystery Money Shaped the Virginia AG Race in the Final Weeks

    In 2018, then-attorney general Mark Herring, a Democrat, said he would stop taking money from Dominion. That did not stop the company from donating in 2021 to the Democratic Attorneys General Association, which spent on ads to support Herring when he was fighting a primary battle against Jones. The donation was not made public until after Jones had lost the race.

    The intra-party split is playing out again in this year’s attorney general race.

    Dominion, which partnered with environmental groups on an unsuccessful clean energy bill last year, defended its involvement in state politics in a prepared statement.

    “Like most companies, we participate in the political process on behalf of our thousands of employees and millions of customers,” said Aaron Ruby, a company spokesperson. “They depend on us for reliable, affordable and increasingly clean energy. We contribute to candidates from both parties in support of common sense public policy.”

    An Equalizer

    The Virginia attorney general race is one of this year’s marquee contests. Because the state has a large contingent of federal workers affected by DOGE cuts and the office’s ability to challenge actions by the administration, the race viewed as a bellwether for how Trump’s second term is going over with voters.

    Dominion has its own reasons for being interested. The attorney general’s office also plays an important role in utility regulation in the state. In 2022, Jason Miyares, a Republican and the current attorney general, tangled with Dominion Energy over whether a large offshore wind project did enough to protect ratepayers from potential cost overruns before reaching an agreement.

    The massive donations to Taylor have helped her even out Jones’s fundraising advantage. Jones has won endorsements from centrist Democrats such as former Virginia governors Ralph Northam and Terry McAuliffe, as well as national figures like Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. Along the way, Jones raised $2.7 million compared to Taylor’s $2.1 million. Jones’s major contributors include the Clean Virginia Fund, which has given his campaign nearly $579,000, according to disclosures.

    Prolific campaign spending by Bills, the Clean Virginia Fund founder, has drawn criticisms of its own from observers who say it is drowning out small-dollar donors.

    Earlier this month, Jones also received $1,000 from a Dominion Energy executive, complicating his allies’ criticism of Taylor. Jones’s campaign said they are refunding the money.

    Both candidates have criticized Miyares for not doing enough to fight back against Trump, and both have promised to fight for abortion rights.

    Jones has pointed to his experience fighting for consumer rights as a lawyer at the D.C. attorney general’s office and his legal fights with the administration of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin over voting rights.

    Taylor, the commonwealth attorney for Henrico County, has leaned heavily on her experience as a criminal prosecutor. In a statement responding to the letter from Democratic officials criticizing the Dominion donation, Taylor repeated her allegation that Jones lacks the experience to serve as the state’s top law enforcement official.

    “Jay Jones has never prosecuted a case and spent less than 10 months in the DC AGs office,” the release said. “Shannon spent 30 years prosecuting thousands of cases to protect Virginia families and hold fraudsters accountable.”

    Taylor also called out a few thousand dollars that Jones took from lobbyists associated with Dominion Energy between 2021 and 2024, and donations from the company itself in 2017 and 2018.

    Rothman, Jones’s campaign manager, said, “Virginia needs an Attorney General who fights for Virginians first. That candidate is Jay Jones.”

    Democrats are banking on outraged voters angry at Trump to hand them victories in key statewide races on the ballot this year, including governor and lieutenant governor.

    Dominion could be the ultimate winner, regardless of whether Democrats are right. The company has also donated $175,000 to the campaign of Miyares, who rallied with Trump ahead of last year’s election. His campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

    The post Virginia AG Hopeful Was Outraising His Rival — Then Dominion Energy Tipped the Scale appeared first on The Intercept.

    This post was originally published on The Intercept.

  • Greenpeace activists aboard Rainbow Warrior disrupt Pacific industrial fishing operation

    By Emma Page

    Greenpeace activists on board the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior disrupted an industrial longlining fishing operation in the South Pacific, seizing almost 20 km of fishing gear and freeing nine sharks — including an endangered mako — near Australia and New Zealand.

    Crew retrieved the entire longline and more than 210 baited hooks from a European Union-flagged industrial fishing vessel, including an endangered longfin mako shark, eight near-threatened blue sharks and four swordfish.

    The crew also documented the vessel catching endangered sharks during its longlining operation.

    The at-sea action followed new Greenpeace Australia Pacific analysis exposing the extent of shark catch from industrial longlining in parts of the Pacific Ocean.

    Latest fisheries data showed that almost 70 percent of EU vessels’ catch was blue shark in 2023 alone.

    The operation came ahead of this week’s UN Ocean Conference in Nice, France, where world leaders are discussing ocean protection and the Global Ocean Treaty.

    On board the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace Australia Pacific campaigner Georgia Whitaker said: “These longliners are industrial killing machines. Greenpeace Australia Pacific took peaceful and direct action to disrupt this attack on marine life.

    “We saved important species that would otherwise have been killed or left to die on hooks.

    “The scale of industrial fishing — still legal on the high seas — is astronomical. These vessels claim to be targeting swordfish or tuna, but we witnessed shark after shark being hauled up by these industrial fleets, including three endangered sharks in just half an hour.


    Rainbow Warrior crew disrupt longline fishing in the Pacific.  Video: Greenpeace

    “Greenpeace is calling on world leaders at the UN Ocean Conference to protect 30 percent of the world’s oceans by 2030 from this wanton destruction.”

    Stingray caught as bycatch is hauled onboard the Lu Rong Yuan Lu 212 longliner vessel in the Tasman Sea.

    The Rainbow Warrior is in the South Pacific ocean to expose longline fishing and call on governments to ratify the Global Ocean Treaty and create a network of protected areas in the high seas.

    A Greenpeace activist frees a blue shark
    A Greenpeace activist frees a blue shark caught on a longline in the Pacific . . . the blue shark is currently listed as “Near Threatened” globally by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature). Image: Greenpeace Pacific

    Greenpeace Aotearoa is calling on the New Zealand government to ratify the Global Ocean Treaty and help create global ocean sanctuaries, including in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand.

    New Zealand signed the agreement in 2023.

    More than two-thirds of sharks worldwide are endangered, and a third of those are at risk of extinction from overfishing.

    Over the last three weeks, the Rainbow Warrior has been documenting longlining vessels and practices off Australia’s east coast, including from Spain and China.

    Emma Page is Greenpeace Aotearoa’s communications lead, oceans and fisheries. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • More deaths reported out of Sugapa in West Papua clashes with military

    By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist

    Further reports of civilian casualties are coming out of West Papua, while clashes between Indonesia’s military and the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement continue.

    One of the most recent military operations took place in the early morning of May 14 in Sugapa District, Intan Jaya in Central Papua.

    Military spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Iwan Dwi Prihartono said in a video statement translated into English that 18 members of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) had been killed.

    He claimed the military wanted to provide health services and education to residents in villages in Intan Jaya but they were confronted by the TPNPB.

    Colonel Prihartono said the military confiscated an AK47, homemade weapons, ammunition, bows and arrows and the Morning Star flag — used as a symbol for West Papuan independence.

    But, according to the TPNPB, only three of the group’s soldiers were killed with the rest being civilians.

    The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) said civilians killed included a 75-year-old, two women and a child.

    Both women in shallow graves
    Both the women were allegedly found on May 23 in shallow graves.

    A spokesperson from the Indonesian Embassy in Wellington said all 18 people killed were part of the TPNPB, as declared by the military.

    “The local regent of Intan Jaya has checked for the victims at their home and hospitals; therefore, he can confirm that the 18 victims were in fact all members of the armed criminal group,” they said.

    “The difference in numbers of victim sometimes happens because the armed criminal group tried to downplay their casualties or to try to create confusion.”

    The spokesperson said the military operation was carried out because local authorities “followed up upon complaints and reports from local communities that were terrified and terrorised by the armed criminal group”.

    Jakarta-based Human Rights Watch researcher Andreas Harsono said it was part of the wider Operation Habema which started last year.

    “It is a military operation to ‘eliminate’ the Free Papua guerilla fighters, not only in Intan Jaya, but in several agencies along the central highlands,” Harsono said.

    ‘Military informers’
    He said it had been intensifying since the TPNPB killed 17 miners in April, which the armed group accused of being “military informers”.

    RNZ Pacific has been sent photos of people who have been allegedly killed or injured in the May 14 assault, while others have been shared by ULMWP.

    Harsono said despite the photos and videos it was hard to verify if civilians had been killed.

    He said Indonesia claimed civilian casualties — including of the women who were allegedly buried in shallow graves — were a result of the TPNPB.

    “The TPNPB says, ‘of course, it is a lie why should we kill an indigenous woman?’ Well, you know, it is difficult to verify which one is correct, because they’re fighting the battle [in a very remote area],” Harsono said.

    “It’s difficult to cross-check whatever information coming from there, including the fact that it is difficult to get big videos or big photos from the area with the metadata.”

    Harsono said Indonesia was now using drones to fight the TPNPB.

    “This is something new; I think it will change the security situation, the battle situation in West Papua.

    “So far the TPNPB has not used drones; they are still struggling. In fact, most of them are still using bows and arrows in the conflict with the Indonesian military.”

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Wai Bill Becomes Law: Major Victory For Water Protectors

    Honolulu, Hawaiʻi — After more than two years of steadfast community advocacy and legislative effort, the Water Alliance Initiative Act—addressing long term clean up and remediation of Oahu’s water and land and protecting the water source for over 400,000 residents—was signed into law on Friday, June 6, 2025, and is now officially Act 197 (Gov. Msg. No. 1297).

    This landmark law creates a WAI Policy Coordinator under the Department of Land and Natural Resources and establishes a Red Hill Remediation Special Fund to support long-term cleanup, monitoring, public education, and restoration of Oʻahu’s primary aquifer in the wake of the 2021 Red Hill fuel contamination crisis.

    The post Wai Bill Becomes Law: Major Victory For Water Protectors appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • EPA Drops Legal Case Against the GEO Group, a Major Trump Donor, Over Its Misuse of Harmful Chemicals in ICE Facilities

    by Sharon Lerner and Lisa Song

    ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

    The Environmental Protection Agency has withdrawn a legal complaint filed last year against the GEO Group, a major donor to President Donald Trump that has more than $1 billion in contracts with the administration to run private prisons and ICE detention facilities.

    The administrative complaint, which the EPA filed last June under the Biden administration, involved the GEO Group’s use of a disinfectant called Halt at the Adelanto Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in California. The EPA regulates the product, which causes irreversible eye damage and skin burns, according to its label. By law, users are supposed to use goggles or a face shield, chemical resistant gloves and protective clothing.

    But on more than 1,000 occasions in 2022 and 2023, the GEO group had its employees use the disinfectant without proper protections, the EPA complaint alleged. The agency alleged that GEO Group’s employees wore nitrile exam gloves that were labeled “extra soft” and “not intended for use as a general chemical barrier.” In a separate, pending lawsuit, people who were detained at the detention center alleged they were sickened by the company’s liberal use of a different disinfectant.

    A hearing had yet to be scheduled before an administrative law judge. The maximum penalty for the company’s alleged misuse of Halt is more than $4 million. But a notice filed on Friday by Matthew Salazar, a manager in the EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Division, stated that the EPA’s case against the GEO Group would be dropped. The notice did not provide an explanation.

    “This is a complete surrender,” said Gary Jonesi, an attorney who worked at the EPA for almost 40 years. “If this is not due to political intervention on behalf of an early and large Trump donor who stands to gain from managing ICE detention facilities and private prisons, then surely it is at least partly due to the intimidation that career staff feel in an environment when federal employees are being fired and reassigned to undesirable tasks and locations.”

    A spokesperson for the White House said that the GEO Group has “provided services to the Federal Bureau of Prisons for several decades” and has been a major federal contractor for many years. The spokesperson did not say whether the White House played a role in the decision to withdraw the complaint but referred ProPublica to the EPA.

    The EPA said in an email that, “As a matter of longstanding practice, EPA does not comment on litigation.” The GEO Group didn’t respond to questions from ProPublica. In a filing in response to the EPA’s complaint, the GEO Group admitted that its employees used Halt but said that the disinfectant “was applied in a manner consistent with its label at all times and locations.” The company also wrote in its court filing that the gloves its employees used are chemically resistant and offered appropriate protection.

    The GEO Group has had close ties to the Trump administration. Pam Bondi, Trump’s attorney general, was a lobbyist for the company in 2019. The attorney general “is in full compliance with all ethical guidance,” a spokesperson for the Department of Justice said in an email.

    The firm was the first corporation whose political action committee “maxed out” on contributions to Trump’s presidential campaign. A subsidiary company, GEO Acquisition II, also gave $1 million to the pro-Trump PAC Make America Great Again. The GEO Group, its PAC and individuals affiliated with the company collectively contributed $3.7 million to candidates and political committees in the 2024 election cycle, compared with $2.7 million in 2020, according to OpenSecrets, an independent group that tracks money in politics. They donated overwhelmingly to Republicans: In every election cycle since 2016, at least 87% of their donations to federal candidates went to Republicans.

    Data from the Federal Election Commission shows that George C. Zoley, the founder of the GEO Group, donated $50,000 in 2023 to a joint fundraising committee to support Republican efforts to maintain a majority in the House of Representatives. Zoley gave the maximum amount allowed for an individual per election at the time, $3,300, to Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson’s primary and general election campaigns in 2024.

    The GEO group regularly and liberally sprayed disinfectants in the ICE facility, according to both the EPA complaint and a separate civil suit filed on behalf of Adelanto detainees. The EPA complaint did not state whether employees were harmed by the pesticide; it accused the company of inappropriately handling the pesticide.

    The separate lawsuit, filed by the Social Justice Legal Foundation, alleges that Adelanto detainees were sickened by the use of a different disinfectant product, HDQ Neutral, made by the same company. “Various Plaintiffs had nosebleeds or found blood in their mouth and saliva. Others had debilitating headaches or felt dizzy and lightheaded,” the lawsuit stated. “GEO staff sprayed when people were eating, and the chemical mist would fall on their food. GEO staff sprayed at night, on or around the bunk beds and cells where people slept. And on at least one occasion, GEO staff sprayed individuals as a disciplinary measure.”

    That lawsuit is still pending. The allegations echo a warning letter the EPA previously sent the company accusing the GEO Group of improperly using HDQ Neutral. That letter cited complaints from detainees at Adelanto who suffered “difficulty breathing,” “lung pain” and skin rashes from the disinfectant. The pesticide was sprayed onto bedding and inside microwaves, the EPA said. The GEO Group has told reporters that it rejects allegations that it’s using harmful chemicals, and that it follows the manufacturer’s instructions. In a court filing, the company said any problems alleged by the EPA “were the result of the declared national emergency concerning COVID-19.” A judge ordered ICE to stop using HDQ Neutral in 2020. The GEO Group began using Halt “on or about” March 2022, according to the EPA complaint.

    Pratheek Rebala contributed reporting.

    This post was originally published on ProPublica.

  • Te Pāti Māori condemns Israel for Gaza ‘horrific violence’ over Madleen arrest

    Asia Pacific Report

    Aotearoa New Zealand’s Te Pāti Māori has condemned the Israeli navy’s armed interception of the Madleen, a civilian aid vessel attempting to carry food, medical supplies, and international activists to Gaza, including Sweden’s climate activist Greta Thunberg.

    In a statement after the Madleen’s communications were cut, the indigenous political party said it was not known if the crew were safe and unharmed.

    However, Israel has begun deportations of the activists and has confiscated the yacht and its aid supplies for Gaza.

    “This is the latest act in a horrific string of violence against civilians trying to access meagre aid,” said Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.

    “Since May 27, more than 130 civilians have murdered been while lining up for food at aid sites.

    “This is not an arrest [of the Madleen crew], it as an abduction. We have grave concerns for the safety of the crew.

    “Israel [has] proven time again they aren’t above committing violence against civilians.

    “Blocking baby formula and prosthetics while a people are deliberately starved is not border patrol, it is genocide.”

    Te Pāti Māori said it called on the New Zealand government to:

    • Demand safe release of all crew;
    • Demand safe passage of Aid to Gaza;
    • Name this blockade and starvation campaign for what it is — genocide; and
    • Sanction Israel for their crimes against humanity

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pacific civil society groups challenge France over hosting UN oceans event as political ‘rebranding’

    Asia Pacific Report

    Pacific advocacy movements and civil society organisations have challenged French credentials in hosting a global ocean conference, saying that unless France is accountable for its actions in the Pacific, it is merely “rebranding”.

    The call for accountability marked the French-sponsored UN Ocean Conference (UNOC) in Nice this week, during which President Emmanuel Macron will be hosting a France-Pacific Summit.

    French officials have described the UNOC event as a coming together “in the true spirit of Talanoa” and one that would be inconceivable without the Pacific.

    While acknowledging the importance of leveraging global partnerships for urgent climate action and ocean protection through the UNOC process, Pacific civil society groups have issued a joint statement saying that their political leaders must hold France accountable for its past actions and not allow it to “launder its dirty linen in ‘Blue Pacific’ and ‘critical transition’ narratives”.

    ‘Responsible steward’ image undermined
    France’s claims of being a “responsible steward” of the ocean were undermined by its historical actions in the Pacific, said the statement. This included:

    ● A brutal colonial legacy dating back to the mid-1800s, with the annexation of island nations now known as Kanaky-New Caledonia and Ma’ohi Nui-French Polynesia;

    ● A refusal to complete the decolonisation process, and in fact the perpetuation of the colonial condition, particularly for the those “territories” on the UN decolonisation list. In Kanaky-New Caledonia, for instance, France and its agents continue to renege on longstanding decolonisation commitments, while weaponising democratic ideals and processes such as “universal” voting rights to deny the fundamental rights of the indigenous population to self-determination;

    ● 30 years of nuclear violence in Ma’ohi Nui-French Polynesia with 193 test detonations — 46 in the atmosphere and close to 150 under the Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls, irradiating both land and sea, and people. Approximately 90 percent of the local population was exposed to radioactive fallout, resulting in long-term health impacts, including elevated rates of cancer and other radiation-related illnesses;

    ● Active efforts to obscure the true extent of its nuclear violence in Maʻohi Nui-French Polynesia, diverting resources to discredit independent research and obstructing transparency around health and environmental impacts. These actions reveal a persistent pattern of denial and narrative control that continues to undermine compensation efforts and delay justice for victims and communities;

    ● French claims to approximately one-third of the Pacific’s combined EEZ, and to being the world’s second largest ocean state, accruing largely from its so-called Pacific dependencies; and

    ● The supply of French military equipment, and the 1985 bombing of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior by French secret service agents — a state-sponsored terrorist attack with the 40th anniversary this year.

    A poster highlighting the issue of political prisoners depicting the Kanak flag after the pro-independence unrest and riots
    A poster highlighting the issue of political prisoners depicting the Kanak flag after the pro-independence unrest and riots in New Caledonia last year. Image: Collectif Solidarité Kanaky

    Seeking diplomatic support
    “Since the late 1980s, France has worked to build on diplomatic, development and defence fronts to garner support from Pacific governments.

    This includes development assistance through the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), Asian Development Fund, language and cultural exchanges, scientific collaboration and humanitarian assistance.

    A strong diplomatic presence in Pacific capitals as well as a full schedule of high-level exchanges, including a triennial France-Oceania leaders’ Summit commencing in 2003, together function to enhance proximity with and inclination towards Paris sentiments and priorities.

    The Pacific civil society statement said that French leadership at this UNOC process was once again central to its ongoing efforts to rebrand itself as a global leader on climate action, a champion of ocean protection, and a promoter of sovereignty.

    “Nothing can be further from the truth,” the groups said.

    “The reality is that France is rather more interested in strengthening its position as a middle power in an Indo-Pacific rather than a Pacific framework, and as a balancing power within the context of big-power rivalry between the US and China, all of which undermines rather than enhances Pacific sovereignty.”

    New global image
    The statement said that leaders must not allow France to build this new global image on the “foundations of its atrocities against Pacific peoples” and the ocean continent.

    Pacific civil society called on France:

    ● For immediate and irreversible commitments and practical steps to bring its colonial presence in the Pacific to an end before the conclusion, in 2030, of the 4th International Decade on the Eradication of Colonialism; and

    ● To acknowledge and take responsibility for the oceanic and human harms caused by 30 years of nuclear violence in Maʻohi Nui–French Polynesia, and to commit to full and just reparations, including support for affected communities, environmental remediation of test sites, and full public disclosure of all health and contamination data.

    The statement also called on Pacific leaders to:

    ● Keep France accountable for its multiple and longstanding debt to Pacific people; and

    ● Ensure that Ma’ohi Nui-French Polynesia and Kanaky-New Caledonia remain on the UN list of non-self-governing territories to be decolonised (UN decolonisation list).

    “Pacific leaders must ensure that France does not succeed in laundering its soiled linen — soiled by the blood of thousands of Pacific Islanders who resisted colonial occupation and/or who were used as test subjects for its industrial-military machinery — in the UNOC process,” said the statement.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Residents Demand Answers On US-Owned Toxic Waste Dump Expansion

    An emergency provincial law passed in late March has allowed Stablex—an American waste disposal company— to expand its Blainville operations into ancient nearby wetlands — overriding local opposition, shutting down debate in the National Assembly, and drawing growing concern over environmental contamination.

    Bill 93, pushed through by the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government on March 28, forced the City of Blainville to sell over 60 hectares of public forest land to Stablex and granted the company immunity from legal consequences for any actions taken prior to April 15 — a federal deadline protecting bird nesting areas. The bill was described by opposition parties as custom-built for the American firm.

    The post Residents Demand Answers On US-Owned Toxic Waste Dump Expansion appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Yurok Tribe Acquires 47,000 Acres In California’s Largest Land-Back Deal

    The Yurok Tribe has gained control and stewardship of 73 square miles of land along the Klamath River in a $56 million transfer — the largest land-back deal in California’s history.

    The tribe announced on June 5 it had completed the final phase of the land-transfer partnership with Portland, Ore.-based nonprofit Western Rivers Conservancy, a process that began in 2022. With the land under their control, the Yurok have designated 15,000 acres of the 47,097-acre property as the Blue Creek Salmon Sanctuary and established the remainder as the Yurok Community Forest.

    “The impact of this project is enormous,” Joseph L. James, chairman of the Yurok Tribe, said in a statement. “We are forging a sustainable future for the fish, forests and our people that honors both ecological integrity and our cultural heritage.”

    The post Yurok Tribe Acquires 47,000 Acres In California’s Largest Land-Back Deal appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Nightmare of Nightmares: New (Big) CO2 Emissions

    Global warming just got a brand-new source for trapping heat as Arctic tundra turns up the dial on CO2 emissions. It’s now in the ranks of cars, trains, and planes as an official emitter of carbon dioxide, CO2. But it distinguishes itself in one critical way. There’s no “on/off” switch. Once turned on, it’ll self-reinforce continued growth, meaning ever-increasing levels of CO2 emissions year-over-year.

    The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, made the official announcement only recently: “2024 Arctic Report Card: The Arctic Tundra is Now a Net Source of Carbon Dioxide.” climate.gov .

    Arctic tundra covers a significant portion of the Northern Hemisphere, accounting for approximately 20% of the Earth’s surface, and nearly 25% of the land surface in the Northern Hemisphere. Obviously, this has big impact on global CO2 emissions and the many dangers attendant to rising global temperatures, e.g. BBC News May 31, 2025: “The village of Blatten has stood for centuries, then in seconds it was gone.”

    It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure this one out, i.e., it means the planet is going to get a lot hotter a lot sooner as vital ecosystems wilt/melt/thaw and disintegrate. Already, one of Arctic tundra’s distant cousins, the Amazon rainforest, joined the CO2 Net-Emissions Club a couple of years ago. The magnificent rainforest is net-emitting CO2 in portions of the forest in harmony with cars, planes and trains. For example, The Economist recognized his unsettling event 3 years ago: “The Brazilian Amazon Has Been a Net Carbon Emitter Since 2016,” The Economist, May 21, 2022.

    As for the rainforest, there are several contributing factors to CO2 emissions, for example:  Conversion of rainforest to agriculture has caused a 17 percent decrease in forest extent in the Amazon, which stretches over an area almost as large as the continental U.S.  Replacing dense, humid forest canopies with drier pastures and cropland has increased local temperatures and decreased evaporation of water from the rainforest, which deprives downwind locations of rainfall. (NOAA)

    Now, the planet’s two largest warehouses, serving as carbon sinks for millions of years, over 10 million years for the Amazon, have opened business with the Anthropocene (era of human domination). Although, in all fairness, the Anthropocene doesn’t really need help in heating up the planet. It’s doing a spectacular job on its own. “Earth Shattered Heat Records in 2023 and 2024; Is Global Warming Speeding Up?” Nature, January 6, 2025.

    In the case of Arctic tundra, NOAA says: “The land areas of the Arctic have been a carbon sink for thousands of years, meaning there has been a net removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by plants, with long-term storage in the soil and permafrost. However, increasing surface air temperatures are causing permafrost to warm and thaw, allowing stored carbon dioxide and methane to be released into the atmosphere. Wildfires and other disturbances are adding pulse releases of carbon dioxide and methane. These changes together have shifted the Arctic tundra from a net carbon sink into a source.” (2024 Arctic Report Card).

    A New Regime – Insurance/Homeowners Replace Dinosaurs

    The Anthropocene has pushed the Arctic into a new, dangerous regime. Studies over the decades show that it has dramatically changed from even a decade or two ago. All of this is spearheaded by its new role as a net emitter of carbon dioxide CO2 and methane CH4. Arctic tundra stores 1,600 billion metric tons of organic carbon, mostly in permafrost. This is double the amount currently in the planet’s atmosphere, which is already causing the planet to heat up. The Amazon rainforest holds another 124 billion tons of carbon. This tandem, by increasing carbon emissions above and beyond cars, trains and planes, and industry, is likely zeroing out all of the saved CO2 via electric vehicles, and then some.

    The new regime has the earmarks of a big troublemaker. It’s reminiscent of that last big encounter with climate change 65 million years ago when the villain was an asteroid, the victim, dinosaurs. Poof! Gone after 165 million years living on Earth.

    Today’s version has fossil fuel playing the role of the asteroid and the property/casualty insurance industry with homeowners the victims. This sorrowful arrangement is likely how things stretch out over time because world leadership has never taken climate change seriously enough to head it off at the pass. As such, as global temperatures increase, over time, more people are displaced by repetitive high tide flooding, unlivable regions of recurring temperatures too high for survival, desertification, loss of glacial potable water, major rivers seasonally drying up, etc. It’s a long list.

    For example: “Will Flooding Force Seattle’s South Park Residents to Leave?” Seattle Times, June 1, 2025: “Sea-level rise, which globally is linked to fossil fuel emissions, is expected to worsen all types of flooding in South Park and climate change is expected to make storms — and storm surges — worse. The average high tide in Elliott Bay has already risen about 10 inches since 1899, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,” Ibid.

    The property/casualty insurance industry is already de facto declaring some regions uninsurable and/or so costly as to cause people flight. For Example: “Florida has lost more than 30 home insurance companies in recent years. Most recently, AAA, Farmers and Progressive made headlines for rolling back coverage availability in Florida. As of May 2024, there are 11 Florida home insurance companies in liquidation.” (“Home Insurance ‘Crisis’: First Florida, Now California — is my State Next?” Bankrate, Sept. 16, 2024)

    “Florida and California may receive the most press for their home insurance problems, but the future of home insurance in other states also looks grim. Across the country, home insurance rates are on the rise,” Ibid.

    And, even worse yet: “Map Shows 9 States Where Homeowners Are Losing Their Insurance,” Newsweek, March 1, 2024. In all cases of insurance crises, climate change is the villain.

    The disinformed who believe climate change a hoax or no big deal should do a reality check with a casual search on Google using only six words: “homeownership and climate change insurance crisis.” They’ll spend hours and hours, likely days, reading articles about climate change ruining the property insurance industry while undermining homeownership. Then, maybe pass along findings to representatives in Congress and asked them what to do about it. Several articles already show Congress informed of climate change endangering homeownership insurance, for example: (“New Data Reveal Climate Change-Driven Insurance Crisis is Spreading,” Senate Committee on the Budget)

    When conservatively managed property/casualty insurance companies complain about the damage caused by excessive global heat uprooting ecosystems that support life and structure for homeownership, you know for certain climate change is not regular ole climate change of the ages; it’s something much worse, and most certainly, it’s not a hoax! Ask y0ur insurance agent for confirmation of this obvious fact.

    In fact, more to the point: Risk of extinction of the entire fabric of the capitalist system goes to the heart of a recent article written by Gunther Thallinger, Member of the Board of Management of Allianz Group (est. 1889, Munich) the world’s largest insurance company: “Climate, Risk, Insurance: The Future of Capitalism,” March 25, 2025.

    Solution: It’s all about burning fossil fuels. Figure it out!

    The post Nightmare of Nightmares: New (Big) CO2 Emissions first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Please Ensure That The Planet Does Not Burn

    It is important to emphasise the fact that environmental degradation has not been caused by humans in general, but by a certain system of organising society which we call capitalism.

    The problem with the term Anthropocene (which began to be used first by scientists, then by social scientists) is that it implies that humans – as an undifferentiated whole – have created the ecological crisis we are facing. This subtly downplays the role of the capitalist system and its accompanying class and national divides. However, data shows that humanity is using the equivalent of about 1.7 Earths to sustain our current consumption levels.

    The post Please Ensure That The Planet Does Not Burn appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • 7 June is World Swift Day. Here’s why it’s so important.

    Saturday 7 June is World Swift Day, marked annually to celebrate, educate, and advocate for the conservation of these important migratory birds.

    Ahead of the international awareness event, a forest school in Kent put on a day of learning and activity to teach students all about the iconic species.

    World Swift Day 2025

    In the UK, swift populations have plummeted by 65% in just 25 years. Loss of suitable nesting sites and declining food sources (insects) are major concerns. Specifically, the UK has red-listed swifts’ conservation status, meaning they have the highest conservation priority.

    Swift bird fans have called for a legal rule that developers must incorporate a “swift brick” – a £35 hollow brick that gives these birds a place to nest – in all new houses to save these beautiful birds.

    Wild At Heart forest school in Meopham, Kent, decided to bring the marvel of this iconic species to life for students as part of this year’s World Swift Day celebrations.

    Ornithologist Carly Ahlen is founder of Gabo wildlife, the only clinic in the UK dedicated to the conservation of migratory birds, particularly those listed as ‘Birds of Conservation Concern’. The founders of Wild At Heart invited her to speak to the children amid a packed day of swift-inspired activities.

    She said:

    I was thrilled to come teach these wonderfully behaved children from Bronte School about migratory birds which is also crucial for their personal development. It helps them understand the natural world, appreciate its diversity, and develop a sense of responsibility for the environment. This knowledge empowers them to become future advocates for wildlife protection because red listed birds like swifts need all the help they can get in order not to become extinct.

    A day of swift activities and exploration

    Carly kicked off the day with a talk about swifts and their long migratory routes to the UK from the Congo basin in Africa. After this, she read an exciting book all about a female swifts’ plight. The children then got a chance to ask questions and hear swift calls, so they could ID them in the sky:

    Carly Ahlen sits in the forest with a group of students - backs to the photo - in high vis vests, attentively listening to her talk.

    Then, the forest school encouraged the children to get stuck in with some swift investigations. Off they went into the forest in search of insects that swifts would eat:

    Carly Ahlen and a student investigating insects in a piece of bark on the forest floor.

    Hands holding a broken branch with insects thriving inside it.

    They soon found a colony of ants and were excited learning about all the other insects that enrich the forest floors. The activity taught them how by keeping spaces wild and planting wild flowers, wildlife will thrive.

    The youngsters then sat around the campfire sipping hot chocolate with marshmallows as they learnt about other birds and how to identify their nests.

    The small birds weighs about the same as a Cadbury Creme Egg. Naturally, the school sent students away with an easy way to remember:

    Felted swift on a tree stump next to a Cadbury Creme Egg.

    Raising awareness, and instilling passion for the natural world

    Forest schools began life in Denmark in the 1950s before being taken up across Scandinavia. Teachers discovered that youngsters from forest kindergartens displayed strong social skills. The concept then arrived in Britain in the 1990s and is credited with helping children build independence and self-esteem, as well as learning about the environment.

    Wild At Heart hosted the event to help raise awareness for the important bird on World Swift Day. Though swifts only spend three or four months each summer in UK, they bring spectacular aerial action and excitement to urban skies.

    Swifts breed from Ireland to Beijing, the Mediterranean and the Middle East, right up to the Arctic. However, everywhere they are in decline – so promoting insect activities and installing nests can really help stop their march towards extinction.

    Co-owner and leader at the school Julia Slade said:

    At Wild at Heart Learning as well as being passionate about giving children the full Forest School experience, we are also keen to combine this with understanding & looking after the natural world. It is all around us & plays a vital role in our existence! We continue to support many conservation projects & like to pass our knowledge on to our younger generations in hope that they will continue to strive for balance & harmony in the future.

    Featured image and additional images supplied

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Marshall Islands nuclear legacy: report highlights lack of health research

    By Giff Johnson, editor, Marshall Islands Journal, and RNZ Pacific correspondent

    A new report on the United States nuclear weapons testing legacy in the Marshall Islands highlights the lack of studies into important health concerns voiced by Marshallese for decades that make it impossible to have a clear understanding of the impacts of the 67 nuclear weapons tests.

    The Legacy of US Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands, a report by Dr Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, was released late last month.

    The report was funded by Greenpeace Germany and is an outgrowth of the organisation’s flagship vessel, Rainbow Warrior III, visiting the Marshall Islands from March to April to recognise the 40th anniversary of the resettlement of the nuclear test-affected population of Rongelap Atoll.

    Dr Mahkijani said that among the “many troubling aspects” of the legacy is that the United States had concluded, in 1948, after three tests, that the Marshall Islands was not “a suitable site for atomic experiments” because it did not meet the required meteorological criteria.

    “Yet testing went on,” he said.

    “Also notable has been the lack of systematic scientific attention to the accounts by many Marshallese of severe malformations and other adverse pregnancy outcomes like stillbirths. This was despite the documented fallout throughout the country and the fact that the potential for fallout to cause major birth defects has been known since the 1950s.”

    Dr Makhijani highlights the point that, despite early documentation in the immediate aftermath of the 1954 Bravo hydrogen bomb test and numerous anecdotal reports from Marshallese women about miscarriages and still births, US government medical officials in charge of managing the nuclear test-related medical programme in the Marshall Islands never systematically studied birth anomalies.

    Committed billions of dollars
    The US Deputy Secretary of State in the Biden-Harris administration, Kurt Cambell, said that Washington, over decades, had committed billions of dollars to the damages and the rebuilding of the Marshall Islands.

    “I think we understand that that history carries a heavy burden, and we are doing what we can to support the people in the [Compact of Free Association] states, including the Marshall Islands,” he told reporters at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting in Nuku’alofa last year.

    “This is not a legacy that we seek to avoid. We have attempted to address it constructively with massive resources and a sustained commitment.”

    Among points outlined in the new report:

    • Gamma radiation levels at Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, officially considered a “very low exposure” atoll, were tens of times, and up to 300 times, more than background in the immediate aftermaths of the thermonuclear tests in the Castle series at Bikini Atoll in 1954.
    • Thyroid doses in the so-called “low exposure atolls” averaged 270 milligray (mGy), 60 percent more than the 50,000 people of Pripyat near Chernobyl who were evacuated (170 mGy) after the 1986 accident there, and roughly double the average thyroid exposures in the most exposed counties in the United States due to testing at the Nevada Test Site.
    Women from the nuclear test-affected Rongelap Atoll greeted the Rainbow Warrior and its crew with songs and dances as part of celebrating the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Atoll in 1985 by the Rainbow Warrior. Photo: Giff Johnson.
    Women from the nuclear test-affected Rongelap Atoll greeted the Rainbow Warrior and its crew with songs and dances as part of celebrating the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Atoll in 1985 by the Rainbow Warrior. Image: RNZ Pacific/Giff Johnson

    Despite this, “only a small fraction of the population has been officially recognised as exposed enough for screening and medical attention; even that came with its own downsides, including people being treated as experimental subjects,” the report said.

    Women reported adverse outcomes
    “In interviews and one 1980s country-wide survey, women have reported many adverse pregnancy outcomes,” said the report.

    “They include stillbirths, a baby with part of the skull missing and ‘the brain and the spinal cord fully exposed,’ and a two-headed baby. Many of the babies with major birth defects died shortly after birth.

    “Some who lived suffered very difficult lives, as did their families. Despite extensive personal testimony, no systematic country-wide scientific study of a possible relationship of adverse pregnancy outcomes to nuclear testing has been done.

    “It is to be noted that awareness among US scientists of the potential for major birth defects due to radioactive fallout goes back to the 1950s. Hiroshima-Nagasaki survivor data has also provided evidence for this problem.

    “The occurrence of stillbirths and major birth defects due to nuclear testing fallout in the Marshall Islands is scientifically plausible but no definitive statement is possible at the present time,” the report concluded.

    “The nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands created a vast amount of fission products, including radioactive isotopes that cross the placenta, such as iodine-131 and tritium.

    “Radiation exposure in the first trimester can cause early failed pregnancies, severe neurological damage, and other major birth defects.

    No definitive statement possible
    “This makes it plausible that radiation exposure may have caused the kinds of adverse pregnancy outcomes that were experienced and reported.

    “However, no definitive statement is possible in the absence of a detailed scientific assessment.”

    Scientists who traveled with the Rainbow Warrior III on its two-month visit to the Marshall Islands earlier this year collected samples from Enewetak, Bikini, Rongelap and other atolls for scientific study and evaluation.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • On the Superhighway to Nuclear Hell

    Photo by Lee Lawson

    On May 23rd, with several strokes of his pen, President Trump issued orders that would roll back US energy policy about 50 years.

    On that day, Trump signed five Executive Orders (EOs): Restoring Gold Standard Science; Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base; Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the Department of Energy; and Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies for National Security. (This page keeps a running tally of all the White House executive orders.)

    All of this madness was announced in a press release headlined “President Trump Signs Executive Orders to Usher in a Nuclear Renaissance, Restore Gold Standard Science.” Just in case there was any confusion about what this meant, the press release included an explanation that read: “Gold Standard Science is just that—science that meets the Gold Standard.”

    Collectively, the four orders that focused on the nuclear sector would: reduce and undermine the already inadequate safety oversight authority of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC); fast-track unproven new reactor projects without regard for safety, health or environmental impacts; curtail or possibly even end public intervention; weaken already insufficient radiation exposure standards; and reopen the pathway between the civil and military sectors, all while “unleashing” (Trump’s favorite verb) nuclear power expansion on a dangerous and utterly unrealistic accelerated timeline.

    The precursive warning shot to all this had been fired on February 5th with Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s own Executive Order:  Unleashing the Golden Era of American Energy Dominance, ‘dominance’ being another of Trump’s favorite big beautiful words, along with ‘big’ and ‘beautiful’ (—see his One Big Beautiful Bill Act.) “It’s time for nuclear, and we’re going to do it very big,” Trump told industry executives when he signed the orders.

    Perhaps it’s no surprise to find that ‘dominance’ appears 35 times in the Heritage Foundation’s 2023 handbook, Authoritarianism for Dummies, officially known as Project 2025. Variations on the word ‘unleash’ appear 19 times. ‘Tremendous’ shows up 11 times. So does ‘gold standard’.

    Which brings us to the fifth executive order of May 23, Restoring Gold Standard Science. While it does not specifically reference nuclear power, the order determines a hierarchy that will put political appointees in charge of specialized federal agencies, including the NRC.  The order also itemizes a set of requirements on how scientific research and activities must be conducted, including “without conflicts of interest.”

    But guess whose stocks soared after the release of Trump’s nuclear Executive Orders? Answer: Oklo, the company attempting to deliver the first US micro-reactors. Guess who was on the board of Oklo before his appointment as Trump’s Energy Secretary? Yes, Chris Wright.

    Uranium mining company Centrus Energy and the U.S. Navy’s main nuclear reactor supplier, BWX Technologies, also saw their stock prices soar after Trump’s executive orders were released.

    An Oklo executive, Jacob DeWitte, who was present at the signing, brought along a golf ball to help Trump understand just how little uranium is needed for the lifetime needs of a single human being (an entirely irrelevant statistic given the lethality contained in that glowing little golf ball.) Trump called the golf ball show-and-tell “very exciting” before teeing up another order that will not only muzzle but actually persecute scientists for any findings with which the Trump hive don’t agree.

    The definition of ‘sound science’, under Trump’s ‘gold standard’, is simply anything happening now or under the previous Trump administration. Anything that happened under the Biden administration is “politicized science”.

    Among the enforcers who will police and punish the NRC, along with other federal agencies who stray from Trump’s “science” script, is the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, one Michael Kratsios.

    Kratsios is the former chief of staff to AI entrepreneur, venture capitalist and nuclear promoter, Peter Thiel. Thiel’s venture capital firm, Founders Fund,  supported nuclear fuel start-up General Matter, in contention to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) for advanced nuclear reactors. One of the executive orders will “seek voluntary agreements pursuant to section 708 of the DPA with domestic nuclear energy companies that could deliver HALEU fuel.”

    Kratsios is already sharpening his knives to go after the NRC, viewed as an obstacle to fast-tracking the new nuclear projects that Kratisios’s former boss, among others, will be pushing.

    “Today’s executive orders are the most significant nuclear regulatory reform actions taken in decades,” said Kratsios on May 23. “We are restoring a strong American nuclear industrial base, rebuilding a secure and sovereign domestic nuclear fuel supply chain, and leading the world towards a future fueled by American nuclear energy. These actions are critical to American energy independence and continued dominance in AI and other emerging technologies.”

    There has already been some pushback against allowing a political appointee to be the arbiter of scientific integrity. “Putting that power in the hands of a political appointee who doesn’t need to consult with scientific experts before making a decision is very troubling,” Kris West of COGR, an association of research universities, affiliated medical centers, and independent research institutes, told Science.

    A group of scientists has written an open letter, retitling the order “Fool’s Gold Standard Science,” declaring that it “would not strengthen science, but instead would introduce stifling limits on intellectual freedom in our Nation’s laboratories and federal funding agencies”.

    Part of the “regulatory reform” outlined as “gold standard science” and that Kratsios will oversee, is gutting the NRC, which, complains the White House, “charges applicants by the hour to process license applications with prolonged timelines that maximize fees while throttling nuclear power development.”

    Somehow, “throttling nuclear power development” is not what springs to mind when reviewing the record of an agency that consistently favors the financial needs of the nuclear industry over the interests of public safety and the environment.

    Furthermore, charges the White House, the NRC “has failed to license new reactors even as technological advances promise to make nuclear power safer, cheaper, more adaptable, and more abundant than ever.”

    Trump, who seems to treat executive orders like a Nike slogan (“just do it”), has commanded that the US quadruple its nuclear energy capacity by 2050. This will be achieved not only by stripping the NRC of its power to scrutinize the safety assurances for new, primarily small modular reactors, but by expediting their licensing while keeping current reactors running longer and hotter and even reopening permanently closed ones.

    Licensing timeframes will be slashed to “a deadline of no more than 18 months” for final decisions on construction and operating license applications for new reactors, and to just one year “for final decision in an application to continue operating an existing reactor of any type.”

    The Trump order will also require “the reactivation of prematurely shuttered to partially completed nuclear facilities.” The former refers to Palisades, Three Mile Island and Duane Arnold so far. The latter is about the abandoned two-reactor Westinghouse AP 1000 project at V.C. Summer in South Carolina.

    Currently operating reactors will be expected to add “5 gigawatts of power uprates”, which comes with its own set of safety concerns given the age of the US nuclear reactor fleet.

    Everything has been put on a superhighway to nuclear hell, unhinged from the very real obstacles to fast-tracking nuclear expansion, most notably the cost and risks.

    “A pilot program for reactor construction and operation outside the National Laboratories,” will require the Energy Secretary to “approve at least three reactors pursuant to this pilot program with the goal of achieving criticality in each of the three reactors by July 4, 2026,” one order said.

    An astonishing “10 new large reactors with complete designs under construction by 2030,” is another aspirational command.

    The Secretary of Energy must also designate at least one site for advanced reactor technologies within three months of the order, and ensure that it will host a fully operational reactor there “no later than 30 months from the date of this order.”

    None of these timelines share any precedent with the track record of nuclear power plant construction, and bullying or handcuffing the NRC won’t change that.

    That’s because, as Toby Dalton and Ariel Levite of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace point out in their recent column in The Hill: “The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not presented the key obstacle to nuclear development in the U.S.” The orders, they said “underestimate the addition of time to market due to limitations on workforce availability, supply chain, financing, specialty fuels and community buy-in.”

    The Carnegie authors also criticized the way the orders treat nuclear power as if it is similar to any other form of energy. “The orders downplay or ignore the special magnitude of nuclear risks, the series of traumatic accidents suffered by leading nuclear power nations and the unique environmental and multi-generational footprint of nuclear waste and spent fuel,” they wrote.

    What reining in the NRC will achieve is an even greater reduction in confidence over the safe operation of current and future nuclear reactors.

    “This push by the Trump administration to usurp much of the agency’s autonomy as they seek to fast-track the construction of nuclear plants will weaken critical, independent oversight of the U.S. nuclear industry and poses significant safety and security risks to the public,” said Ed Lyman, a physicist and Director of Nuclear Power Safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

    To set all this right, the DOGE kids will soon be paying a visit to the NRC to fire people. DOGE, says the Reform the NRC order, will “reorganize the NRC to promote the expeditious processing of licensing applications and the adoption of innovative technology. The NRC shall undertake reductions in force in conjunction with this reorganization, though certain functions may increase in size consistent with the policies in this order, including those devoted to new reactor licensing.”

    But “reorganizing” the NRC will have the reverse effect, argues Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) a longtime nuclear watchdog on Capitol Hill, including during his earlier years in the US House of Representatives. “It will be impossible for NRC to maintain a commitment to safety and oversight with staffing levels slashed and expertise gone,”Markey said.

    “Allowing DOGE to blindly fire staff at the NRC does nothing to make it easier to permit or regulate nuclear power plants, but it will increase the risk of an accident,” said ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Frank Pallone (D-NJ), who called the orders “dangerous.”

    But then the Trump administration doesn’t actually consider nuclear power itself to be dangerous, and instead accuses the NRC of being overly cautious, saying: “Instead of efficiently promoting safe, abundant nuclear energy, the NRC has instead tried to insulate Americans from the most remote risks without appropriate regard for the severe domestic and geopolitical costs of such risk aversion.”

    Consequently, it’s no surprise to find a clause in the order that reads: “The personnel and functions of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) shall be reduced to the minimum necessary”. The ACRS panel is composed of cream-of-the-crop scientists from the national laboratories, universities and other areas of academia. Its mandate, ironically and in place for decades, has been precisely to uphold “Gold Standard Science” in the nuclear power sector.

    Like everything else Trump does, all of this constitutes another accident waiting to happen. “If you aren’t independent of political and industry influence, then you are at risk of an accident,” confirmed former NRC chair Allison Macfarlane of efforts to undermine her former agency.

    The orders are a “guillotine to the nation’s nuclear safety system”, another former NRC chair Greg Jaczko told the Los Angeles Times.

    Also guillotined is any pretense about protecting the public from the harm caused by exposure to the ionizing radiation released by the nuclear power sector.

    No longer must we adhere to the standard, endorsed by the National Academy of Sciences, that exposure to any amount of radiation, no matter how small, could be harmful to human health. (This is especially true if it involves consistent and chronic longterm exposure even to what might be considered “low” doses.)

    Instead, say Trump’s orders, “the NRC shall reconsider reliance on the linear-no-threshold (LNT) model for radiation exposure and the ‘as low as reasonably achievable’ standard, which is predicated on LNT.” Those models, says the White House, are “flawed.”

    This will of course open the door to the hormesis advocates who, without any firm basis in actual science, insist that a little radiation is good for all of us.

    “It’s time to set the record straight on radiation and the damage it causes, particularly to pregnancy, children and women,” responded Cindy Folkers, radiation and health hazard specialist at Beyond Nuclear. “Contrary to what Trump’s recent EO claims, abundant and largely officially ignored scientific evidence demonstrates that childhood cancers increase around normally operating nuclear facilities, with indications that these cancers begin during pregnancy. The uranium mining needed to produce fuel for reactors, is associatedwith a number of health impacts. Even already existing background radiation is associated with childhood cancers.”

    The already flimsy separation between the civil and military nuclear sectors is all but erased in the new EOs, most notably in the emphasis on a return to the reprocessing of irradiated reactor fuel. This operation separates out the uranium and plutonium while producing a vast amount of so-called low- and intermediate-level liquid and gaseous wastes that are routinely released into the air and sea.

    Reprocessing was rejected in the US by the Ford and Carter administrations as too proliferation risky, given that plutonium is the trigger component of a nuclear weapon. It is still carried out in France — and until recently in the UK — where radioactive isotopes released by these operations have been found as far away as the Arctic Circle. The UK reprocessing activities at Sellafield rendered the Irish Sea the most radioactively contaminated sea in the world.

    But, wrote the White House in the Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies EO: “Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Energy shall identify all useful uranium and plutonium material within the Department of Energy’s inventories that may be recycled or processed into nuclear fuel for reactors in the United States.” That sounds like a return to mixed oxide fuel, or MOX, another program that was abandoned, but not until after a protracted opposition campaign launched by our movement — Nix MOX — finally prevailed.

    Another order directs “The Secretary of Defense, through the Secretary of the Army” to “commence the operation of a nuclear reactor, regulated by the United States Army, at a domestic military base or installation no later than September 30, 2028.”

    Some of those closed civil nuclear power plants could find themselves repurposed by the Department of Defense, serving as “energy hubs for military microgrid support.” Advanced nuclear reactor technologies will also be expected to power AI datacenters “within the 48 contiguous States and the District of Columbia, in whole or in part, that are located at or operated in coordination with Department of Energy facilities, including as support for national security missions, as critical defense facilities, where appropriate.”

    Pronounced Kratsios in the May 23 press release: “We are recommitting ourselves to scientific best practices and empowering America’s researchers to achieve groundbreaking discoveries.”

    Until they come and arrest you for telling the truth.

    This first appeared on Beyond Nuclear International.

    The post On the Superhighway to Nuclear Hell appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • Climate, Plastics, and Toxics Experts Available to Comment on G7 Summit

    Toronto | Traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat –  From June 15-17, 2025 experts at Environmental Defence will be closely monitoring the proceedings of this year’s G7 Leaders Summit taking place in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada. Our experts will be able to react to announcements regarding environmental issues – including those related to ending fossil fuel subsidies, ensuring clean energy security, ending plastic pollution and aligning the financial system with climate action. 

    For more detailed information about G7 commitments, Canada’s record to date, and the topics under discussion, please see our backgrounder: https://environmentaldefence.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Environmental-Defence-Canada-G7-Media-Backgrounder.pdf 

    Experts available to comment:

    From Kananaskis:

    Stephen Legault – Senior Manager, Alberta Energy Transition

    Also Available to Comment:

    • Keith Brooks – Programs Director
    • Aliénor Rougeot – Program Manager, Climate and Energy
    • Emilia Belliveau – Program Manager, Energy Transition 
    • Julie Segal – Senior Program Manager, Climate Finance
    • Karen Wirsig – Senior Program Manager, Plastics
    • Cassie Barker – Senior Program Manager, Toxics

    ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE (environmentaldefence.ca): Environmental Defence is a leading Canadian environmental advocacy organization that works with government, industry and individuals to defend clean water, a safe climate and healthy communities.

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    For more information or to request an interview, please contact:

    Alex Ross, media@environmentaldefence.ca

    The post Climate, Plastics, and Toxics Experts Available to Comment on G7 Summit appeared first on Environmental Defence.

    This post was originally published on Environmental Defence.