Archive for category: Ecology
The post Revolutionary Strategies on a Heated Earth appeared first on Spectre Journal.
Latest analysis by World Wildlife Fund warns humanity—possible “victim of it own lifestyle”—might ultimately be added to list of threatened species.
Summer 2021 has been an alarming season for climate news. Massive fires have raged from California to Europe; countries in the Global South have been hit by deadly droughts and historic winters; and on August 9, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report confirming what many people already knew: the climate crisis is already here. For the past three years, leading climate scientists have argued that the global average temperature rise needs to remain below 1.5 degrees Celsius in order to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. The recent IPCC report suggests that humanity is past the point where meeting that limit is possible.
Left Voice has regularly covered how the climate crisis is a result of the capitalist system which is incapable of responding to such a universal and rapidly-evolving threat to humanity. While capitalists are doing their part to fuel global disaster, the Pentagon, one of the bastions of the imperialist state, deserves a notable mention for its role in the climate crisis. The U.S. military — with its 800 foreign bases planted around the globe to enforce the will of the U.S. empire — is a bigger polluter than 100 countries combined.
Here are five of the ways the Pentagon is fueling climate change.
1: Keeping Imperialism Running
As noted above, the U.S. military consists of nearly 800 bases in foreign countries and territories. Keeping all of these bases running and connected also requires a massive network of transportation, including ships and planes, and infrastructure like energy and water.
An article in Newsweek found that in 2017 “the U.S. military bought about 269,230 barrels of oil a day and emitted more than 25,000 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide by burning those fuels.” Research by Brown University’s Costs of War project shows that from 2001 to 2017, U.S. “overseas contingency operations” in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria have produced 400 million tons of CO2 emissions. Other findings by Costs of War show that the war in Afghanistan resulted in illegal logging which has led to the destruction of wildlife habitats, and the war in Iraq has increased cancer rates and birth defects.
Even outside of warzones, the U.S. military threatens human life and prosperity daily by pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. There is unjustifiable harm from even the U.S. military’s most mundane fuel use, such as keeping the lights on at some base in Italy or filling up vehicles for training U.S. troops in Australia. Every penny spent on such actions is a penny spent on fossil fuels that are slowly making the world uninhabitable, all for the purpose of maintaining U.S. capital’s control of the world’s resources for profit.
2: Supporting Oil
One of the biggest contributors to the climate crisis is the burning of fossil fuels. As covered above, the U.S. military consumes enormous amounts of fossil fuel. However, its role in fossil fuel use goes far beyond its own consumption — an entire global economy has been built around the cheap extraction of oil. Fossil fuel capitalists were able to build such an economy by using the U.S. military to violently secure their interests. This violent protection of fossil fuel interests was one of the main drivers of the U.S. military’s wars in the Middle East.
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We will never know the Pentagon’s exact contribution to global warming, but we can calculate the extreme spike in oil production as a result of U.S. capital seizing Iraq with the help of the U.S. military. In 2016, Iraq produced more than 4 million barrels of oil per day, more than double what it was producing in 2003, the year of the U.S. invasion.
The intertwining of U.S. imperialist hegemony at the start of the 21st century and oil production has created an uphill battle for the transition to renewable energy. Even with the obvious planetary benefits of wind and solar technology, the most influential sectors of capital will continue to back fossil fuel extraction. Between finance capital, which has billions of dollars invested in oil and expects returns, and the fossil fuel industry, which has sunk costs in extraction infrastructure, the most influential sectors of capital will continue to oppose an economy built around green energy.
This continued investment in oil will mean continued investment in resource wars. Already, some figures in the U.S. State Department and Pentagon have been discussing the need for the United States to compete with Russia in the Arctic over newly emerging trade routes and below ground oil reserves.
3: Harming Indigenous Communities
Indigenous people around the world have been at the forefront of environmental protection. Many indigenous communities have fought bravely to protect their land from the U.S. empire and its knack for destroying whole ecosystems.
In fact, the U.S. military is founded on a history of war against Native people and their lands. This was the legacy of the “American Indian Wars,” in which the U.S. army was used to colonize North America, and enforce the genocide of Native people and theft of land and resources.
The modern U.S. military continues to pose a threat to indigenous communities and their land by maintaining foreign bases. While U.S. military violence towards indigenous people has continued, so has the resistance led by indigenous communities. For example, in Okinawa, the presence of the U.S. military has been the subject of significant opposition. Currently, indigenous Okinawans are trying to stop construction of a new base which would destroy burial grounds for victims of war and pose a threat to 262 different endangered species.
The U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific region is likely to become a greater focus of the Biden administration as he puts more emphasis on competition with China. This makes it all the more essential for an international environmental movement to stand in solidarity with indigneous communities on islands key to U.S. operations in the Pacific, such as in Okinawa, Hawaii, and Guam.
4: Producing Hazardous Waste
The destructive presence of U.S. military bases is not limited to foreign soil. Throughout the United States, military bases have produced toxic chemicals which gravely impact the health of communities near these bases. One of the worst forms of military pollution throughout the United States is a synthetic foam known as (AFFF).
Developed by the U.S. navy in the 1960s, this chemical has been shown to cause all sorts of immune, hormonal, and reproductive health problems which are sometimes fatal, as well as various types of cancer. Due to the military’s regular use of the chemical in training exercises at hundreds of bases throughout the United States, the foam has been seeping into the water and soil across the country, poisoning communities while the military dodges accountability.
In response to several class action lawsuits, the Pentagon has started disposing of their AFFF supply by incinerating it, creating a whole new form of grand-scale poisoning.
5: Deprioritizing Worthwhile Projects
In the United States, we’re constantly told that there’s no money to implement any comprehensive measures for fighting the climate crisis. Public transportation, green infrastructure, solar energy, etc. are deemed “too expensive.”
The truth is that the money for such projects exists, but it’s going to the Pentagon. In 2015, the military received 54 percent of the federal budget, and each new budget further bloats funding for The Pentagon. The Biden administration has already requested a 2022 defense budget which would increase military spending by 1.6 percent compared to this year.
The $715 billion that Biden requests for military spending in this budget could instead go to green infrastructure projects. For example, if a $715 billion annual budget was put towards replacing the U.S. electrical grid with renewable energy, it would only take a little more than eight years to completely replace the entire electrical grid of the United States.
There are also plenty of smaller projects that could be accomplished with one year’s worth of the money requested for the 2022 military budget. The $715 billion is more than enough to cover the cost of boats needed to clean the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an island of garbage twice the size of Texas currently floating between California and Hawaii.
Defund the Pentagon
Only socialism can adequately tackle the climate crisis which is already destroying entire ecosystems and costing lives. Capitalism kills via the climate crisis when people in Texas freeze to death because their power grid crashes in the winter and when people in the Pacific Northwest die of unprecedented heat waves. Capitalism kills by depriving the most exploited countries of food and water and by subjecting oppressed communities in the imperialist countries to environmental racism. The global environmental movement needs to take a revolutionary stand against capitalism and it needs to be led by the poor and working-class communities around the world who are already facing the worst consequences of capitalist-fueled climate change.
Part of the fight against capitalism is the fight against imperialism. Leftists in imperialist countries, especially the United States, have an obligation to fight imperialism for many reasons. The role of the U.S. military in fueling climate change is just one reason that the U.S. Left needs to demand the defunding of the Pentagon.
Defunding the Pentagon means closing the 800 bases and web of ships and planes which require an endless stream of fuel. It means not polluting working-class communities with hazardous waste. It also means making it clear to all that the climate crisis is not the fault of individuals, but of the capitalist class and their institutions of violence. The working class and leaders of movements to fight climate change need to unite around the demand to invest in green energy and environmental conservation while divesting from war and all other forms of imperialist aggression.
The post The U.S. Military Is Driving Environmental Collapse Across the Planet appeared first on Left Voice.
“Scientists say we cannot allow this to happen. People in power stand in our way.”
A team of international lawyers has unveiled a definition of “ecocide” that, if adopted, would treat environmental destruction on a par with crimes against humanity.
After six months of deliberation, a panel of experts yesterday published the core text of a legal document that would criminalise “ecocide” if taken on by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“This is an historic moment,” said Jojo Mehta, chair of the Stop Ecocide Foundation which commissioned the team of lawyers. “This expert panel came together in direct response to a growing political appetite for real answers to the climate and ecological crisis.”
Balancing Act
In the draft law, the panel of 12 lawyers defined ecocide as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts”.
If ratified by signatory states, ecocide would become the fifth international crime investigated and prosecuted by the ICC, alongside genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.
During a webinar marking the release of the document, panel co-chair Philippe Sands QC said the proposed definition would “cause us to think about our place in the world differently and it causes us to imagine the possibility that the law could be used to protect the global environment at a time of real challenge”.
“None of our international laws protect the environment as an end in itself and that’s what the crime of ecocide does,” Sands added.
Mehta described the draft law as a “necessary guardrail that could help steer our civilisation back into a safe operating space”.
“Without some kind of enforceable legal parameter addressing the root causes of these crises, it’s hard to see how the Paris targets and the UNSDGs [United Nations Sustainable Development Goals] can possibly be reached,” she said.
The panel said that the idea of “unlawful or wanton” acts would allow judges and prosecutors to balance consideration of these elements. This idea of balance could be vital to the law’s success if it is to be agreed to by the states that subscribe to the ICC, according to co-chair Sands, who said it avoids “setting the bar too low and frightening states who we need to adopt the definition, or setting the bar so high that it becomes effectively useless in practice”.
A team of lawyers published its proposed definition of ‘ecocide’ on June 22, 2021. Credit: Stop Ecocide Foundation.
Defining ‘Ecocide’
Mehta acknowledged that ecocide legislation was likely to meet resistance from some richer nations, as it would inevitably force changes in corporate practice, “by making severe and reckless damage to nature illegal, and therefore unlicensable and uninsurable”.
This would close the door on “the old polluting ways”, she said. At the same time, Mehta argued, adopting ecocide legislation may be economically beneficial for stimulating innovation in green industries.
Sands said that oil spills, deforestation, and the authorisation of new coal fired power stations could all potentially be considered ecocide under the definition.
However, specific acts such as these were left out of the final document, Mr Sands said, as doing so could run the risk of unintentionally omitting certain practices from the definition.
“This is not about catching every single horror that occurs in relation to the environment, but those horrors that cross a threshold and are of international concern,” he said, adding that it would be up to prosecutors and judges to form a view on whether a particular act is ecocide.
The campaign to criminalise ecocide, a term which was first coined in the 1970s, faces a number of further obstacles, with the entire process expected to take at least four years.
As a next step, any of the ICC’s 123 member states can propose the core text as an amendment to the Rome Statute treaty, before the annual assembly holds a vote on whether it can be considered for future enactment. It will then have to be approved by two thirds of the member states to go ahead, ahead of it being adopted by individual members into national jurisdiction.
The post ‘Historic Moment’: ‘Ecocide’ Definition Unveiled By International Lawyers appeared first on DeSmog.
In northern Michigan, across rolling sand dunes and a picturesque village situated on Lake Michigan, it is raining toxic PFAS chemicals.
No, really. It is.
A team of U.S. and Canadian scientists analyzed rainfall at six sites across the Great Lakes region and found high levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, at all the sites, including, surprisingly, rural Michigan. The rainwater samples contained PFAS levels between 100 to 400 parts per trillion (ppt). For comparison, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “safe” limit for drinking water — not rainwater — is 70 ppt.
The findings highlight the ubiquitous nature of PFAS chemicals, man-made substances used in common household products because of their water-, oil-, and grease-resistant qualities. Firefighting foam is also a main source of PFAS. Commonly referred to as “forever chemicals,” their legacy can be found everywhere — in soil, groundwater, lakes, oceans, and now, even the rain.
“All of these products that we use in our everyday life are treated with PFAS,” Marta Venier, an environmental chemist at Indiana University and the principal investigator for the research, told Grist. “So every time we use them, there is either dust or air where these chemicals are released.”
PFAS chemicals are transported through the air and then deposited via precipitation into the environment, where it accumulates, can be ingested by wildlife, and can wind up in the human body. Studies indicate that exposure to PFAS chemicals can cause reproductive, liver, kidney, and immunological damage in laboratory animals. It’s also a possible carcinogen — two PFAS chemicals have been shown to cause tumors in animal studies.
The new research was conducted by the Integrated Atmospheric Deposition Network, a monitoring program funded by the U.S. EPA’s Great Lakes National Program Office, and managed by Indiana University.
Beginning last August, scientists collected ambient air and rainwater samples for 38 different PFAS compounds from six sites across the Great Lakes region: Cleveland, Ohio, Chicago, Illinois, Sturgeon Point, New York, Point Petre in Ontario, Canada, and Sleeping Bear Dunes and Eagle Harbor, both in Michigan. Both the rural and urban sites’ rainwater showed high levels of PFAS contamination.
The research also showed the magnitude of the problem — at all six test sites, there was more PFAS than other pollutants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Scientists say the early analysis, first presented at the Emerging Contaminants in the Environment Conference in April, shows that PFAS chemicals are a major contaminant regionally in snow and rain.
While immediate exposure to the contaminated rainwater isn’t a concern, scientists warn that because PFAS chemicals linger in the environment, there could be serious long-term effects of airborne PFAS contamination on wildlife and human health. “There’s a lot of information that needs to be pieced together,” said Venier.
The findings add to the growing body of research on airborne movement and deposition of PFAS. This past April, another group of researchers, from the College of Wooster, shared their findings from testing rainwater in Ohio and Indiana at a meeting of the American Chemical Society. The scientists found 17 different PFAS chemicals in the rainwater.
Researchers plan to keep analyzing PFAS in rainwater to be able to trace the chemicals back to specific polluters, and to evaluate seasonal trends in concentration. In 2018, for example, investigators in North Carolina traced PFAS chemicals from rainwater to Chemours, a chemical manufacturing facility in Bladen County, prompting the state agency to order emissions reductions.
With other chemicals, like PAHs, researchers have found that the levels are higher in the winter when we use heat more, so Venier plans to look for the same trends with PFAS to increase understanding so regulatory action can be taken based on the findings.
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline It’s raining “forever chemicals” in the Great Lakes on Jun 9, 2021.
Jessica Corbett, staff writer
“We need to put an end to the domination of capital over life in order to create a world that is just, egalitarian, and vibrant, so that we all can live well and in peace,” says La Via Campesina’s Anti-Imperialist Manifesto in Defense of the Environment.
A new study suggests that we are entering a period of mass extinction comparable to the one 66 million years ago
The natural world is in a state of crisis, and we are to blame. We are in the midst of the Sixth Extinction, the biggest loss of species in the history of humankind. So many species are facing total annihilation.
Nearly one-third of freshwater species are facing extinction. So are:
- 40% of amphibians
- 84% of large mammals
- A third of reef-building corals
- Nearly one-third of oak trees.
Rhinos and elephants are being gunned down at rates so alarming that they could be completely wiped out from the wild by 2034. There may be fewer than 10 Vaquita—a kind of porpoise endemic to Mexico’s Gulf of California—due to illegal fishing nets, pesticides and irrigation.
There are 130,000 plant species that could become extinct in our lifetimes. All told, about 28% of evaluated plant and animal species across the planet are now at risk of becoming extinct.
We can end extinction with funding and willpower. We must stop making excuses and make the policy actions necessary to save life on Earth.
The rapid decline in species has occurred in recent years: 60% of the planet’s wildlife populations have been lost in just the last 50 years. Scientists warn that in the coming decades, if we don’t take action, more than 1 million species may vanish from the Earth forever.
Our fellow Earthlings are being overhunted, overfished and overharvested for our food, clothing and medicines. And the ones that we don’t kill are losing their homes as we destroy their natural habitats to make space for our farms and cities, and to extract fuels, minerals, timber and other resources for human society.
And the habitats that we don’t completely eradicate, we pollute with a vast array of toxic elements, from pesticides and plastics to carbon dioxide, fracking chemicals and invasive species. We are even polluting wildlife habitats with our lightand noise. And scientists fear that the worst is yet to come.
As the International Union for Conservation of Nature warns, the worldwide extinction crisis is “expected to worsen as the human population grows.” According to the Population Reference Bureau, the world’s human population is expected to reach 9.9 billion by 2050.
That’s more than 25% more people on the planet than the 7.9 billion people currently living on the Earth. Other species will certainly be squeezed out.
Biodiversity isn’t just nice to have—it’s essential to the health and maintenance of Earth’s ecosystems, which, in turn, are critical to human health. In addition to providing sustenance, medicines and livelihoods to billions of people, biodiversity helps maintain the Earth’s basic life-supporting elements like:
- Clean water
- Clean air
- Crop pollination
- Critical ecosystem services like soil fertility
- Waste decomposition
- Recovery from natural disasters.
“Whether in a village in the Amazon or a metropolis such as Beijing, humans depend on the services ecosystems provide,” writes Julie Shaw, the director of communications for the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, a biodiversity conservation joint initiative of the French Development Agency, Conservation International, the European Union, the Global Environment Facility, the government of Japan and the World Bank.
“Ecosystems on Earth are weakened by the loss of biodiversity are less likely to deliver those services, especially given the needs of an ever-growing human population.”
There is also a massive economic benefit to biodiversity on Earth.
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)—a three-decade-old international treaty adopted by 193 countries (not including, most notably, the United States)—points out that “at least 40% of the world’s economy and 80% of the needs of the poor are derived from biological resources.” Damian Carrington, the environment editor of the Guardian, writes that ecosystem services are “estimated to be worth trillions of dollars—double the world’s GDP. Biodiversity loss in Europe alone costs the continent about 3% of its GDP [$546 million] … a year.”
Biden’s Environmental Justice Test at St. Croix Refinery: The Limetree Bay Refining facility has presented President Biden, and his EPA, with an early test of his commitment to environmental justice. https://t.co/zyzFPmIzEX @reynardloki https://t.co/bSuXLYi2vh #climatechange pic.twitter.com/1IxEzkFKRo
— LA Progressive (@LAProgressive) May 18, 2021
So what can be done to prevent the rapid extinction of species and protect Earth’s biodiversity?
In April 2019, a group of 19 prominent scientists answered that question when they published the “Global Deal for Nature” (GDN), a “time-bound, science-driven plan to save the diversity and abundance of life on Earth,” which, when paired with the Paris Climate Agreement, is meant to “avoid catastrophic climate change, conserve species, and secure essential ecosystem services.”
To achieve its goal of “ensuring a more livable biosphere,” the GDN’s main objective is crystallized in its “30×30” proposal: Conserve 30 percent of the Earth in its natural state by 2030. The idea has taken off, with 50 nations led by Costa Rica, France and the United Kingdom joining the movement to realize the 30×30 vision of defending big swathes of intact ecosystems from exploitation.
“Protecting 30% of the planet will undoubtedly improve the quality of life of our citizens, and help us achieve a fair, decarbonized and resilient society,” said Andrea Meza, Costa Rica’s environmental minister. “Healing and restoring nature is a key step towards human wellbeing, creating millions of quality green and blue jobs and fulfilling the 2030 agenda, particularly as part of our sustainable recovery efforts.”
Nongovernmental organizations have answered the rallying cry as well. The Wyss Foundation, a private charitable foundation based in Washington, D.C., “dedicated to… empower[ing] communities… and strengthen[ing] connections to the land,” has joined forces with National Geographic to launch the Wyss Campaign for Nature—“a $1 billion investment to help [nations,] communities, [and] Indigenous peoples” mobilize to achieve the 30×30 goal.
The campaign has launched a public petition urging immediate action to protect those ecosystems that have not yet been completely despoiled by the unrelenting expansion of humanity. “Protecting 30% of our entire planet by 2030 (30×30) is an ambitious but achievable goal,” asserts the campaign.
“To achieve it, all countries must embrace the goal and contribute to it; Indigenous rights must be respected; and conservation efforts must be fully funded.”
And while the U.S. is not a signatory of the CBD treaty, President Biden can take unilateral action by declaring the wildlife extinction crisis a national emergency. “The declaration, under the National Emergencies Act, isn’t just symbolic,” says the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation nonprofit based in Tucson, Arizona, which has launched a public petition urging the president to take this important and powerful step. “It will unlock key presidential powers to stem the loss of animals and plants in the United States and beyond,” the group says.
Biden’s declaration would marshal the federal resources necessary to start safeguarding the hundreds of species—including the monarch butterfly, eastern gopher tortoise and northern spotted owl—that have been languishing on the waiting list to receive protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Those actions could include directing federal agencies to rein in wildlife exploitation, defend critical wildlife habitat on federal land and use the nation’s economic influence to help protect wildlife habitat around the world from deforestation and environmental damage caused by the private sector.
Thankfully, there is international traction to make the 30×30 vision a reality. When the 15th Conference of the Parties to the CBD convenes in October in Kunming, China, chances are good that delegates will secure a firm multilateral commitment: The current “zero draft” of the global framework meant to steer conservation efforts through 2030 includes the 30×30 vision as an explicit aim.
“We lose a species to extinction every hour, but extinction is not inevitable,” said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, in December. “We can end extinction with funding and political will. We need to stop making excuses and take the bold policy actions necessary to save life on Earth.”
Reynard Loki
Independent Media Institute
This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
The post Earth Biodiversity Near Critical Point of No Return appeared first on LA Progressive.