Optimist Daily: Colombia’s outgoing president protected 42% of the country’s Amazon from mining
On August 4, three days before he left office, Colombian President Gustavo Petro signed a resolution placing 186,500 square miles of the Amazon off-limits to any new extraction. That means no new mining concessions, no new oil or gas contracts, and no environmental permits that would make either possible
NYT: A California law coming into force could change fashion
California is trying to become the first state to make fashion brands, manufacturers and retailers pick up the tab for textile waste, and the details of the plan are taking shape now. If it works, the transformation could be enormous: California residents discarded nearly 1.2 million tons of textiles in 2021 alone
Climate Action Now: Scientific expedition has discovered 149 new species in the deep-sea abyssal sea floor
A recent CSIRO ocean-going scientific expedition has discovered 149 new species in the deep-sea abyssal floor and shallow seamounts of the waters around the Christmas and Cocos islands, remote Australian possessions in the Indian Ocean. The new 149 included decapods (crabs, shrimps, kin) fishes, ophiuroids (brittle stars), barnacles, sea cucumbers,…
Guardian: Datacenter rush will create ‘tsunami’ of discarded electronics
The electronic trash AI generates in the next 25 years could fill enough shipping containers to encircle the globe six times, it said. Yet, says the report by the non-profit environmental group Basel Action Network (BAN), there is no plan to deal with that waste…
Canary Media: California moves to cut red tape for heat pumps, solar, and more
Late last month, the state Legislature passed two first-in-the-nation bills that would streamline permitting and inspections for these clean energy home projects. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has until Sept. 30 to sign the bills, the Heat Pump Access Act (Senate Bill 222) and the Remote Virtual Inspection Act (Assembly Bill 1738)
Heatmap: Federal court rejects Trump’s emergency order to keep Michigan coal plant open
…On Sept 11, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Trump administration’s use of emergency powers to force the plant to stay open. The court found that the Department of Energy illegally invoked Section 202(c), the emergency authority of the Federal Power Act, to override the long-term planning process
Happy Eco News: EU Cage-Free Farming Legislation Moves Closer to Reality
In a major step forward this year, The European Commission released its long-awaited Livestock Strategy, laying out plans to end cage confinement for over 300 million hens and pigs. This move follows years of public pressure and scientific review.,,
Scientific American: Gray whales are washing up dead on the West Coast. The reason is alarming.
Sept 9 - As of mid-August, 187 gray whales have been found dead this year along the West Coast, from Mexico to Alaska. Scientists have scrambled to investigate, hoping to prevent further deaths in a species that has been in decline for years—gray whales lost 35 percent of their population between 2020 and 2025
Anthropocene Magazine: Mushroom leather may finally be ready for mass production
Researchers in Finland have developed a way to make leather-like fabrics from fungal mycelium at large scale using industrial equipment. This is a key advance towards vegan, plastic-free leather alternatives for the mass market…..
Fix The News: Drones Aid Removal of Ghost Nets
AI-equipped drones are helping Indigenous rangers clear ghost nets from northern Australia’s coast. AI-equipped drones are now spotting abandoned fishing nets from the air, letting Anindilyakwa and Dhimurru ranger teams remove about 15 nets…
Guardian: Almost half of world’s farmers poisoned by pesticides every year, experts find
Using publicly available data from 2006-2023, the study, which was commissioned by Pesticide Action Network, found there to be an estimated 402-433m cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning of farmers and farm workers every year. Based on a worldwide farming population of 934 million, this means approximately 46% of farmers are being poisoned every year….
Inside Climate News: Court Stalls EPA Plan to Override California’s Vehicle Pollution Standards
Sept 3 - A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from challenging California’s longstanding authority to set vehicle pollution standards stricter than federal requirements….
Earthjustice: Stopping a massive oil terminal in the Gulf of Mexico
A federal court rejected the Trump administration’s approval of a proposed oil terminal in the Gulf of Mexico. The proposed terminal, called the Texas GulfLink project, was projected to export over 2 million barrels of crude oil per day. Earthjustice and Texas Community Law Partners took the federal government to court….
Happy Eco News: Global Mangrove Forest Recovery Confirmed by Four Decades of Satellite Data Showing Unexpected Expansion
Mangrove forests, once considered among the world’s most threatened coastal ecosystems, are showing signs of recovery worldwide. New research published in the journal Science found that decades of losses have been largely offset by regrowth and expansion
Heated: Wastewater - The oil industry’s achilles heel
But oil producers in the Permian are running into a serious problem: They are running out of space to dispose of their toxic, often radioactive wastewater, often called “produced water,” which comes out of the ground at about four times the rate of every barrel of oil - nearly a billion gallons of this wastewater every day.
Jan Rosenow, Substack: Bright Spots - Clean Energy Investment Overtakes Fossil Fuels
….there are clear indicators of the energy system moving. I’ve written about example after example of energy systems already changing beyond recognition, whether that is electric vehicles in Norway, the rapid rise of batteries in places such as California, Pakistan’s bottom-up solar revolution, Spain’s successful phase-down of natural gas in power market….
Fix The News: First Nations win back the world’s oldest rainforest
On August 12, Australian courts recognized the Eastern Kuku Yalanji’s native title over a vast stretch of their ancestral Country in Cape York, including the remaining parts of the Daintree (Earth’s oldest surviving rainforest - 180 million years old)…
Optimist Daily: The Great Bubble Barrier - Bubble curtains are intercepting 86 percent of river plastic
Rivers are how plastic gets to the ocean. Stop it there, and you stop it for good. The Great Bubble Barrier, a Dutch company, built a technology to do exactly that. A perforated tube runs across the bed of a waterway and connects to an air pump. The pump creates a rising curtain of bubble…
High Country News: Trump Fast-Tracks Oil and Gas Development in Alaska
Trump and his team are following through on their promise to fast-track drilling in the NPRA by allowing new winter exploration and drilling to move forward without any kind of environmental review.
Inside Climate News: The year so far in New Power Plants
More than two-thirds of new power capacity that’s come online In the US this year has come from solar and battery storage, with clean energy responsible for 90% of new energy sources. Eric Gimon, with Energy Innovation, explained that the bulk of new projects are small and mid-size utility-scale solar…