Climate Crisis, Biosphere & Societal Collapse

For centuries, wolves have roamed the mountain ranges of Andalucía in southern Spain, but after years of decline the creature has been officially declared extinct in the region.

Since 2003, the regional government has carried out a census of the wolf (Canis lupus signatus) population in an effort to monitor the species and reduce conflict with the local population, farmers in particular.

However, in a report, the Andalucian government’s environment department says that “since 2020 there has been no sign of the wolf being present in Andalucía”, in spite of it being a protected species.

Up until at least 2010 it was estimated there were six to eight wolfpacks in the region, mostly in the Sierra Morena, comprising up to 56 individuals.

Despite the wolf being declared extinct only now, experts say there has not been any evidence of wolves in Andalucía since 2013, and probably no reproductive group since 2003.

“This is bad news and it confirms the negative trend for the few existing wolfpacks in southern Spain, which are threatened through being physically and genetically isolated from wolves in the rest of Spain, by loss of habitat, poaching and illegal hunting,” said Luis Suárez, the conservation coordinator for the World Wildlife Fund in Spain.

Documents contain a long list of ‘sensitive’ topics for petrostate include oil and gas production, emissions and Yemen war crimes.

"Tokyo has pointed out that China discharges more tritium into the environment, and at vastly higher rates, than does Japan even if one includes the planned Fukushima wastewater releases."

Globally, there have been 2,180 climate-related cases in 2022 filed in 65 jurisdictions. This represents a steady increase from 884 cases in 2017 and 1,550 cases in 2020. Children and youth, women's groups, local communities, and Indigenous Peoples are taking a prominent role in bringing these cases and driving climate change governance reform in more and more countries around the world.

Since 2019, the local residents of İkizköy village in Turkey's southwestern province of Muğla have been trying to prevent deforestation in the Akbelen forest, which is situated near their village. But in Turkey, the preservation of green spaces has never been a priority for the ruling Justice and Development Party, which has no sound environmental policy.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/2139477

Recent academic analysis of previously secret documents from major PFAS-producers DuPont and 3M shows that companies knew PFAS were “highly toxic when inhaled and moderately toxic when ingested” by 1970, 40 years before the public health community.

The companies used several strategies to influence science and regulation, including “suppressing unfavourable research and distorting public discourse”.

The parallels between the PFAS industry and the denial tactics of the Big Tobacco and fossil fuel industries are clear, and now we can see the legacy of that approach. Today in the Netherlands it is recommended not to eat fruit or vegetables coming from gardens within a one kilometre radius of a DuPont PFAS factory.

Now the regulation of ‘forever chemicals’ is firmly on the EU political agenda, with a proposal for an EU-wide PFAS ban on the manufacture, sale, and use of PFAS. And the industry has wised up.

Desperate to take the heat off their products, PFAS polluters are going out of their way to recognise public concern about ‘forever chemicals’, while simultaneously trying to persuade decision-makers that they are willing to sort it out themselves.

Having established this narrative, the PFAS public relations operation moves into phase two, with a much more ‘business as usual’ approach i.e.: to argue that a producer or user’s own PFAS are in a special class and therefore need special treatment, such as an opt-out to the ban.

Apparently the five or 12 year temporary opt-outs already included in the EU proposal are not enough.

Instead the new game in town is to attach your PFAS product to an EU strategic priority, whether it is the remnants of Ursula von der Leyen’s Green Deal or the EU Chips Act which aims to boost European competitiveness in the field of semiconductors.

The industry’s hyperbolic insistence that PFAS are critical to these sectors denies how regulation can be a key driver to finding sustainable alternatives. After all, replacements for PFAS are being found for various supply chains, and many consumer-focused companies are demanding a comprehensive ban.

Nonetheless, PFAS polluters are largely sticking to these strategies – presenting themselves as reasonable, concerned actors, and then demanding a special opt-out for their products. And following these chemical producers and their corporate clients into battle are a legion of bespoke PFAS lobby groups, PR consultancies, and law firms.

The outraged reaction to Just Stop Oil’s mild protests says far more about us than it does about the activists themselves.

Indigenous people and experts say Moscow’s military push and increased shipping and mining will destroy Arctic environment

In an era where the daily news could be mistaken for the weather report because of the growing frequency of climate-change calamities, one wonders how our descendants in centuries to come will view our current behaviour, especially since we are well aware of the need to rapidly change our lifestyles to mitigate global warming.

The highly infectious variant of H5N1, which gained momentum in the winter of 2021, caused Europe’s worst bird flu outbreak before spreading globally. The disease reached South America in November 2022, and has now been reported on every continent except Oceania and Antarctica.

There are more and more reports of pesticide contamination in groundwater and ecosystems, and harmful symptoms and disorders among animals and humans in areas where coffee is grown—from skin disorders, respiratory problems, to high blood pressure, organ damage, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. All of this seems to be linked to the use of pesticides in coffee production. "If we want to enjoy our morning coffee in the future, we'll need to stop producing it like there is no tomorrow," says Athina Koutouleas, a PhD fellow at the University of Copenhagen’s department of geosciences and natural resource management.

James Hansen published a research paper (yet to be peer reviewed) together with two other scientists arguing that we "must expect global warming to continue."

Refering to their forecasts in the late 1980s, the researchers say that "global warming causes wet places to get wetter and dry places to get drier", and in places where the average precipitation changes little, "wet times get wetter and dry times get drier." Also, storms become stronger in a warmer world, they say.

With regard to the rising temperatures, Hansen et al. say that:

"[...] most people notice the change, but that doesn’t prevent a person with a bias from taking the cool June in the U.S. this year as proof that global warming predictions were wrong – and, of course, a loose cannon on Twitter has done just that. That’s nonsense, of course. On global average, June 2023 was easily the warmest June in the historical record."

[...]

"What to do about loose cannons [of climate change denial]? Censor them? Bad idea. Censorship leads to enforced conformity, which has more serious consequences than loose cannons. Conformity leads to dogma, which is anti-science. Science aims to compile real-world data and interpret it without prejudice, including its implications for policy. In a democracy, we must keep the public informed, which requires correcting disinformation. The aim is not to persuade a loose cannon – who likely has prior bias and is unpersuadable – but rather to educate those people who are open-minded."

Strict controls on nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands are undermining the EU’s efforts to fight climate change, said the outgoing chief executive of Europe’s biggest port.

Castelein said that with Prime Minister Mark Rutte running a caretaker administration after the collapse of his coalition government this month, parliament had to find a solution urgently. Plans to reduce nitrogen levels by buying out farmers and closing some industrial plants are unlikely to proceed until after elections in November.

"The BBC claims that it had “full editorial control” over Follow the Food. However, an award submission by BBC StoryWorks – a studio that produces paid content for commercial clients – shows that the Follow the Food was tailored to hit key performance indicators and meet specific “objectives” for Corteva, potentially in breach of the BBC’s editorial guidelines.

"The award submission claimed that the BBC applied its “lens” to the project, which “[focused] on the client’s objectives and what our audiences would want to know about a sustainable food future, to create an end-to-end strategy for Corteva Agriscience”.

"The BBC’s editorial guidelines state that editorial content must not become “a vehicle for the purpose of promoting the sponsor”.

"Environmental journalist Amy Westervelt told DeSmog that these sort of partnerships are “selling the public’s trust”. Corporations are able to piggyback on the BBC’s reputation to “lend them credibility”, she said.

"The BBC and other publications increasingly need to raise money from corporations, she said, “making it possible for the media to be used as a disinformation tool”."