#acid-rain — Public Fediverse posts

The Destruction of Nature is a Cost of War

by Ci Davis

We have become accustomed to seeing the human impacts of war, from starvation in Sudan to the almost 100,000 killed in Gaza, but most people will be less familiar with the environmental impacts. On February 28th, another Middle East war broke out when the US and Israel launched an attack on Iran. In the first few hours, the Supreme Leader was killed, followed by the bombing of a school, killing 150 Iranian schoolgirls, and soon after, columns of smoke began to rise from targeted hits on petrochemical infrastructures.  

Over the past three weeks, oil refineries, gas fields, tankers, nuclear facilities, desalination plants, oil storage tanks, air bases, and industrial areas have all been attacked. The water, marine and toxic-air pollution are a consequence of the smoke from the multiple infernos, from the widely dispersed toxic fragments, and from the many chemicals and heavy metals that escape into the soil and water, caused by thousands of bomb and missile strikes

The human and environmental costs of another war prompted two protests in Sheffield. On 21st March, 150 people demonstrated outside the Town Hall to call for an end to the war on Iran and also made connections with other current conflicts, including Gaza, Lebanon, Sudan, Ukraine and Cuba.  

Our media tends to represent the environmental impacts of war as collateral damage, an unfortunate side effect, but really, they are a deliberate and targeted means of disrupting the lives of people by making their connection to land fragile or even untenable.  No clearer example exists than the use of Agent Orange to defoliate the forests of Vietnam that left millions of Vietnamese and hundreds of thousands of US veterans with multigenerational health disorders and birth defects. Environmental harm is one of the ways that war impacts lives that can last many decades.

The environmental impacts of war cannot be separated from the environmental costs of the military machine itself, which is responsible for 5.5% of global greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions, which rose by a staggering 9.4% in 2024. The US military is the largest institutional emitter of GHGs that are responsible for climate change, burning 270000 barrels of oil daily. Countries are not required to produce figures for the wartime emissions, but recently it is estimated that the war in Ukraine has produced 237 million tonnes of CO2, the Gaza conflict 32 million tonnes and in the first 5 days of the Iran war 5 million tonnes. At a time when all countries should be doing everything to reduce climate and environmental damage, the resort to war is escalating the harm. 

Apocalyptic images, showing clouds of black toxic smoke blocking out the sun over Tehran, following the bombings of local oil depots on 7th March, are haunting. The oily residues, soot and sulphur-laden smoke, combined with a rare rainstorm, produced acid rain, causing immediate respiratory impacts with a lasting health legacy. For people who had already experienced chemical weapons attacks during the Iran-Iraq war, this environmental warfare was experienced as chemical warfare again.

The Middle East is experiencing the climate crisis through water insecurity. The conflict in Syria, which displaced 1.5 million people between 2007 and 2010, was in part precipitated by drought.  There are clear parallels to Iran today. After six years of drought, the water supply to Tehran was at just 11% capacity, and the shortage of water to drink or to supply agriculture contributed to protests in January 2026. War is exploiting this suffering, with all parties having targeted water and sewerage systems that, if continued, threaten to displace people throughout the region, as well as causing severe health impacts.  

Most of us will be familiar with the skeletons of buildings and mountains of debris from TV images of Gaza. The 61 million tonnes of rubble are laden with asbestos, unexploded weapons, dead bodies, and untreated sewerage that has rendered the land unfit for agriculture. The clearance will take decades and burn through hundreds of thousands more tonnes of fossil fuel, and we are seeing the same thing being repeated across Iran and the Gulf.

Years after wars end, the land, air and sea will remain contaminated. Thankfully, the deliberate targeting of the environment is becoming recognised in International Law as a war crime or ecocide and can be punished under the ICC’s Rome Statute. If it is demonstrated that the military intentionally launched an attack, knowing that it will cause long-term severe damage to the natural environment, that is excessive to the military advantage anticipated, then prosecutions may follow. 

As the war drags on, it risks total destruction of the oil-fields, spillage of nuclear material, and depleted Uranium contamination. These huge environmental threats will have global impacts, experienced as economic shocks and agricultural losses, threatening food security.  War demonstrates our intimate connection with the land and the importance of environmental protection.

Most people oppose the war, the use of UK bases in support of it, and sending the military to the Middle East.  We should make our voices heard, calling upon world leaders to respond to our opposition and pull back from the brink, for the sake of people and the planet.

For more information on what you can do, contact: [email protected] 

References

Gayle, D. (2025, May 31). What is ecocide and could it become a crime under international law? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/28/what-is-ecocide-and-could-it-become-a-under-international-law

Gayle, D. (2026, March 20). From black rain to marine pollution, the war in Iran is an environmental disaster. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/19/down-to-earth-iran-us-israeli-war-environmental-destruction

Holmes, O., Gayle, D., & Ahmedzade, T. (2026, March 23). Tehran’s toxic cloud: Satellite images show oily fires burned for days. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/23/tehran-toxic-cloud-satellite-image-oil-fires

Meadway, J. (2026, January 15). How ‘day zero’ water shortages in Iran are fuelling protests. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/15/how-day-zero-water-shortages-in-iran-are-fuelling-protests

Moneer, Z. (2026, March 22). Water Infrastructure Has Become a Target in Modern Warfare. Earth.Org. https://earth.org/from-lifeline-to-strategic-weapon-how-water-infrastructure-becomes-a-target-in-armed-conflicts/

Neimark, B., & Mackintosh, K. (2025, November 4). How wars ravage the environment – and what international law is doing about it. The Conversation. https://doi.org/10.64628/AB.4yt3f6ys7

New data reveals the Military Emissions Gap is growing wider. (2025, November 6). CEOBS. https://ceobs.org/new-data-reveals-the-military-emissions-gap-is-growing-wider/

Palmer, M. G. (2005). The legacy of agent orange: Empirical evidence from central Vietnam. Social Science & Medicine, 60(5), 1061–1070. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2004.04.037

Photos: Dire water shortages pile misery on Gaza’s starving population. (n.d.). Al Jazeera. Retrieved 24 March 2026, from https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2025/8/4/unprecedented-water-crisis-in-gaza-amid-israeli-induced-starvation

The US-Israel war on Iran and how war and conflict are destroying the environment. (2026, March 19). Greenpeace International. https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/82201/iran-lebanon-war-environment-climate-impacts/

Three days of Operation Epic Fury: Rapid overview of environmental harm in Iran and the region. (2026, March 3). CEOBS. https://ceobs.org/three-days-of-operation-epic-fury-rapid-overview-of-environmental-harm-in-iran-and-the-region/

…#Israel ofcls denied the 2 countries are misaligned, saying #Trump & #Netanyahu talk almost every day & are pursuing a divide-&-conquer strategy based on their strengths. “Israel coordinates everything with the US,” an Israeli ofcl said.
But other ofcls say significant cracks in the alliance emerged in the 2nd week of the #war as Israel’s attacks on #Iran #oil facilities unleashed clouds of #toxic smoke & #AcidRain & the economic impacts of Iran’s closure of the #StraitOfHormuz began to sink in

Manaro Voui volcano, #Ambae #Vanuatu eruption plume spreading over the island of Espiritu Santo where acid rain has been reported in recent days, seen on 6 March by #Himawari-9 #acidrain

Sensor Package Aims To Predict Acid Rain https://hackaday.com/2025/12/01/sensor-package-aims-to-predict-acid-rain/ #preciptiation #arduinonano #acidrain #Science #rain

‘We’ve done it before’: how not to lose hope in the fight against ecological disaster.

Some days it can feel as if climate catastrophe is inevitable.

But history is full of cases – such as the banning of whaling and CFCs – that show humanity can come together to avert disaster.

https://mediafaro.org/article/20250911-weve-done-it-before-how-not-to-lose-hope-in-the-fight-against-ecological-disaster?mf_channel=mastodon&action=forward

#Environment #ClimateCrisis #FossilFuels #CFC #OzoneLayer #Whaling #AcidRain #Lead #Pollution #GreenhouseGas #Longread

Worst bleaching on record for Western Australian coral reefs ~ BBC

”In a new report, the Aims researchers found the 2024-25 season was the "most severe coral bleaching on record" for WA coral reefs ....”

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq877llq099o

#coralbleaching #globalwarming #acidrain #oceanacidification #wildlife #nature

Industrial #pollution once ravaged the #Adirondacks − decades of history captured in lake #mud track their slow recovery
For decades, factories released this pollution without controls. By the 1960s and 1970s, their pollution was causing #acidrain that killed trees in forests across the eastern U.S., while airborne metals were accumulating in even the most remote lakes in the Adirondacks. https://theconversation.com/industrial-pollution-once-ravaged-the-adirondacks-decades-of-history-captured-in-lake-mud-track-their-slow-recovery-260182

Scientists Are Warning of A Brand-New Kind of #AcidRain

Story by Darren Orf

Key points:
- While acid rain caused by sulfur dioxide is an environmental threat of the past (at least, for now), a new kind of acid is proliferating in rain water—as well as groundwater, ice cores, and even human blood.
- #TrifluoroaceticAcid (#TFA) is a subclass of “#ForeverChemical” that’s been steadily increasing in concentrations around the world.
- With calls to consider this rise in TFA a planetary threat, some governments are starting ban chemicals linked to TFA—but the threat will require global cooperation.

"Acid rain may have a sequel, and like most sequels, it’s arguably worse.

"While the world’s first bout of acid rain (at least, in modern times) came from increased concentrations of sulfuric acid produced largely from coal plants, this new #anthropogenic source is possibly more pervasive, more persistent, and more sinister. Its name is Trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), a kind of 'forever chemical' that, for decades, has been steadily increasing in #RainWater—but not just rain water.

"Countries around the world have found increasing concentrations in #groundwater, #ArcticIceCores, #wine, and even #HumanBlood. In fact, TFA is likely the most pervasive form of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl (#PFAS)—technically, a subclass known as ultrashort-chain perfluoroalkyl acid (#PFAA)—on Earth due in part to the fact that longer-chain PFAS degrade into TFA via #incinerators or #SewageTreatment plants. They’re also used in #refrigerants instead of #chlorofluorocarbons and #hydrochlorofluorocarbons, which were famously known to deplete the Earth’s #OzoneLayer.

"In October of 2024, a team of European environmental scientists raised the TFA alarm, stating that a rise in concentration could be considered a threat to '#PlanetaryBoundaries' — a system designed to make sure the planet remains #habitable for human life (which we are doing a real bang-up job at following).

" 'Since the 1990s, it has been suggested that hazard-related concerns of TFA and other short-chain PFAAs are much lower than those of PFAAs with longer perfluoroalkyl chains, which are more #bioaccumulative and generally more #toxic,' the authors wrote back in October. 'However, these early reports did not consider TFA’s ubiquitous accumulation in the environment, in particular its observed accumulation in water resources and #bioaccumulation in various plants, including crops.'

"One of the most dangerous things about PFAAs is what we don’t know about them. Unlike other PFAS (of which there are, sadly, thousands of different kinds), TFA is so small (a.k.a. ultrashort) that it’s water-soluble, meaning it likely passes through the human body pretty quickly. A new Nature article reports that some scientists find this evidence compelling enough to not even consider TFA a kind of PFAS, but a growing chorus of voices are raising concerns that increased concentrations of TFA in water and food sources could render TFA’s fast-moving nature a moot point.

"In fact, TFA’s water-solubility could be a long-term headache. If scientists and governments eventually decide that TFA does need to be removed from drinking water and other sources, current filtration technologies are not up to the task. In other words, ridding the world of TFA will not only be immensely difficult, it’ll also be incredibly expensive. Current regulations to eliminate certain forms of PFAS are already proving to be fiscally onerous.

"Thankfully, some governments are taking action. #Denmark, for example, banned 23 substances earlier this month known to contain PFAS that contribute to rising TFA concentrations. Meanwhile, the #US is lagging behind—the Environmental Protection Agency [#EPA] doesn’t even define TFA as a 'forever chemical,' much to the dismay of #environmentalist groups and to the merriment of many #industry leaders.

"Rising concentrations of TFA is the acid rain sequel no one wanted. But just like every terrible sequel ever made, it seems like we’re getting it anyway."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/scientists-are-warning-of-a-brand-new-kind-of-acid-rain/ar-AA1JhZaP?ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&cvid=1f43e3736065441889cbebfb22a4eb74&ei=10

#WaterIsLife #Dupont #DowChemical #3M #ForeverChemicals #EPACuts #Deregulation #TrumpSucks #USPol #WorldPol #Environment #EnvironmentalDamage #GenXChemicals #3MLied

"Canada-United States Air Quality Agreement signed by Canada & US in 1991 to address transboundary air pollution leading to #AcidRain. Both countries agreed to reduce emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2) & nitrogen oxides (NOx), the primary precursors to acid rain" www.canada.ca/en/environme... #law

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:yw6wbtma6fynxiafh5v7j5sf/post/3lvgiya5hdc2b

Canada-United States Air Quali...

Canada should sue the US to stop resurgence of fossil fuels & coal mining & use because we already know that Acid Rain damages forests, crops, & waterways. US - Canada #AcidRain Acid Rain, Canada, and The Coal Conversion Program www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1... www.nytimes.com/1983/08/24/w...

U.S. AND CANADA IN ACID-RAIN A...

"Ocean acidification is already impacting many ocean species, especially organisms like oysters and corals that make hard shells and skeletons by combining calcium and carbonate from seawater." www.noaa.gov/education/re... #CO2 #AcidRain #marine #ecosystem #environment #fisheries #health #security

Ocean acidification

The occasional complaints we see coming out of the US, about how smoke from wildfires in Canada is affecting USAnians (or, as some have put it, "ruining their summer") are a bit rich. Besides the whole "the fires are due to climate change, which the USA is one of the worst contributors to, and besides they're trying to become *worse* on purpose" thing, it's both hypocritical and completely ignorant of (recent!) history.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the big environmental issue in a large part of the west was acid rain. It was hard on everything from gardens and crops to the finish of your car. And the acid rain falling in (for example) southern Ontario was almost completely due to industrial smokestacks in the USA, from Michigan to Pennsylvania.

Anyways, just wanted to get that off my chest.

#TheMoreYouKnow #AcidRain

A new study connects recent regionally confined warming in China 2010ff to their strive for healthy air by scrubbing SO2 from their coal chimneys. *

In other news, India is lambasted by a politician for excluding most of their coal chimneys from SO2 scrubbing regulation. **

And here's a curious side effect of acid rain from SO2:
it reduces CO2 emissions from soil 💡
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0341816221005725 "Acid rain reduces soil CO2 emission and promotes soil organic carbon accumulation in association with decreasing the biomass and biological activity of ecosystems: A meta-analysis" by Ziqiang Liu et al 2022

So when large areas simultaneously get rid of SO2 pollution
, CO2 emissions start to rise noticeably? Europe's SO2 reduction was fastest, USA is her typical laggard, and China began 2010ff and is now already on par with a mid-1990s Europe, much faster than USA.

My musings:
I guess, it means, once the soil removes the acid, CO2 emissions start to rise.
AFAIK, acid removal is no automatism in forest soil but I can imagine, removal from agricultural land happens automatically bit by bit during subsequent harvests? (Yum!)

Germany distributed chalk or something to her forest soils to counter the acidification and to rescue dying forests.

But. Plants and other beings suffer during acidification. And when forests recover they raise their carbon uptake. Crop yields also recover when the soil does, I reckon. (Indeed! see *** and pic 2, and also ****. Now I wonder whether the elsewhere celebrated yield gains are more due to cleaner air than genetical engineering and pesticides!)

Maybe, CO2 emissions from soil are balanced out by increased carbon uptake from healthier beings.
Does the paper say anything about all these musings?

"Overall, the responses of soil GHGs emissions to acid rain vary across different ecosystems, climates, soil types and experimental duration, and thus no consensus has emerged yet" 😁

* "East Asian aerosol cleanup has likely contributed to the recent acceleration in global warming" by Samset et al https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02527-3
A Conversation piece by the authors: https://theconversation.com/cleaner-air-in-east-asia-may-have-driven-recent-acceleration-in-global-warming-our-new-study-indicates-260601

** "‘Faulty premises’: Jairam Ramesh slams govt after it eases SO2 emission norms" https://theprint.in/india/faulty-premises-jairam-ramesh-slams-govt-after-it-eases-so2-emission-norms/2688855/

*** "The negative effects of simulated acid rain on maize physiology, grain quality and yield in a field trial" by Jidong Liao et al, 2025 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1309104224003477

**** "More Power Generation, More Wheat Losses? Evidence from Wheat Productivity in North China" by Fujin Yi et al 2024 .
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10640-024-00841-6

#SO2 #AcidRain #SoilBiodiversity #soil #carbonUptake #CO2 #greenhousegases #agriculture #forest #cropyield #ClimateChange

New YouTube video from METTE:

✨ Pouring, Dripping, Reigning. #ACIDRAIN wearing@AlexanderMcQueen to @YouTubeMusic Legacy Party ❤️

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N2DhXKNnNE

#music #mette #youtube #musicsocial

The main reasons for the release of heavy metals into the environment
What is more interesting: the main reasons
for the release of heavy metals into the environment are wastewater from various industrial facilities, some pesticides and fertilizers, acid rain (i.e. acidification).
Acid rain is associated with the fact that by reducing the pH of the soil, metals dissolve, falling into the aquatic environment.

#heavymetals #environment #pollution #acidrain

Rollback of regulations for clean air can bring back #acidRain with devastating effects on ecosystems and human health. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/27/acid-rain-trump-epa

US could see return of acid rain due to Trump’s rollbacks, says scientist who discovered it https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/27/acid-rain-trump-epa #trump #uspoli #EPA #AcidRain #EnvironmentalProtections #TrumpIsBurningItAllDown

I remember acid rain, do you? Apparently it will be making a comeback. Please make some noise about this.

#ClimateAction #AcidRain

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/27/acid-rain-trump-epa

With the wildfires in Los Angeles that began on Jan. 7 still not fully contained, rain has become another cause for concern as it could create landslides and toxic runoff. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/01/27/world/fire-la-toxic-rain-runoff/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #worldnews #losangeles #california #pollution #acidrain

Interesting. Regarding the cooling from own SO2 emissions, China has done a U-turn like Europe, and is now at the cooling stage that Germany experienced in the early 1990s, from 10mio t SO2.
I say Germany, because due to the #jetstream it inherited the impact of the atmospheric SO2 emissions from North, West, and South, but not from East Europe, I guess. (While East Europe enjoyed SO2 from everybody else.)

West-Germany in the early-mid 1990s was constantly flooded in my memory. I should look it up tho.
At the hight of forest die-off from acid rain, emissions in the Germany-impacting regions peaked at 35mio t SO2.
Exactly where China was in 2005.

India now has 10mio t own emissions, as well. As does West Asia, from where India inherits a little atmospheric SO2, I guess. So both are also comparable to Germany in the early 1990s.
But India's SO2 emissions are still growing steeply. No U-turn in sight. West Asia is still recovering from Covid fallout, difficult to tell where they might be going.

Haven't heard anything from Asia wrt #AcidRain. Have you?
Maybe their tree species and soil critters are more robust?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/so-emissions-by-world-region-in-million-tonnes

#PlasticRain Is the New #AcidRain

Plastic rain could prove to be a more insidious problem than acid rain.

by Matt Simon
June 12, 2020

"Hoof it through the national parks of the western United States—Joshua Tree, the #GrandCanyon, Bryce Canyon—and breathe deep the pristine air. These are unspoiled lands, collectively a great American conservation story. Yet an invisible menace is actually blowing through the air and falling via raindrops: #Microplastic particles, tiny chunks (by definition, less than 5 millimeters long) of fragmented plastic bottles and microfibers that fray from clothes, all #pollutants that get caught up in Earth’s atmospheric systems and deposited in the #wilderness.

"Writing in the journal Science, researchers report a startling discovery: After collecting #rainwater and air samples for 14 months, they calculated that over 1,000 metric tons of microplastic particles fall into 11 protected areas in the western US each year. That’s the equivalent of over 120 million plastic water bottles.

"'We just did that for the area of protected areas in the West, which is only 6 percent of the total US area,' says lead author Janice Brahney, an environmental scientist at Utah State University. 'The number was just so large, it's shocking.'

"It further confirms an increasingly hellish scenario: Microplastics are blowing all over the world, landing in supposedly pure habitats, like the #Arctic and the remote #FrenchPyrenees. They’re flowing into the #oceans via #wastewater and tainting #deepsea #ecosystems, and they’re even ejecting out of the water and blowing onto land in sea breezes. And now in the American West, and presumably across the rest of the world given that these are fundamental atmospheric processes, they are falling in the form of plastic rain—the new acid rain.

"Plastic rain could prove to be a more insidious problem than acid rain, which is a consequence of #SulfurDioxide and #NitrogenOxide emissions. By deploying #scrubbers in power plants to control the former, and catalytic converters in cars to control the latter, the US and other countries have over the last several decades cut down on the #acidification problem. But microplastic has already corrupted even the most #RemoteEnvironments, and there’s no way to scrub water or land or air of the particles—the stuff is absolutely everywhere, and it’s not like there’s a plastic magnet we can drag through the oceans. What makes plastic so useful—its hardiness—is what also makes it an alarming pollutant: Plastic never really goes away, instead breaking into ever smaller bits that infiltrate ever smaller corners of the planet. Even worse, plastic waste is expected to skyrocket from 260 million tons a year to 460 million tons by 2030, according to the consultancy McKinsey. More people joining the middle class in #EconomicallyDeveloping countries means more #consumerism and more #PlasticPackaging. "

Read more:
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/plastic-rain-is-the-new-acid-rain?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

#Crapitalism #BanPlastics #WaterIsLife #OceansAreLife

Salvage operation #toyphotography #urbex #oritoy #acidrain

SentinelLabs discovered a new variant of AcidRain wiper targeting Ukraine, which they call AcidPour. Their analysis confirms the connection between AcidRain and AcidPour, connecting it to clusters previously publicly attributed to Russian military intelligence. The discovery coincides with the enduring disruption of multiple Ukrainian telecommunication networks since 13 March 2024. SentinelLabs provides a technical analysis, describes AcidPour features and lists IOC. 🔗 https://www.sentinelone.com/labs/acidpour-new-embedded-wiper-variant-of-acidrain-appears-in-ukraine/

#AcidRain #AcidPour #wiper #malware #threatintel #IOC #Russia #Ukraine #RussiaUkraineWar