#environmentaldamage — Public Fediverse posts

https://www.europesays.com/iran/285108/ US-Iran Conflict Extends to Seas, Threatening Marine Ecosystems and Economies | Ratopati #1991GulfWar #CoastalCommunities #desalination #EconomicImpact #EnvironmentalDamage #FishingIndustry #MarineEcosystem #MarineLife #MaritimeSecurity #OilSpill #PersianGulf #Pollution #StraitOfHormuz #TankerAttacks #USIranConflict

The Esto’k Gna Fight to Protect #SacredLands from #SpaceX Expansion

Oct 14, 2025

Key takeaways:

- Tribal nation challenges #SpaceX expansion: The Esto’k Gna, or #CarrizoComecrudo Tribe of #Texas, oppose SpaceX’s ongoing expansion at Boca Chica, saying the project desecrates sacred lands and harms protected ecosystems.
- #EnvironmentalDamage documented: Tribal leaders and #conservationists report that rocket launches have caused #fires, #debris fallout, and #HabitatLoss in an area home to #EndangeredSpecies.
- Lack of consultation and oversight: The Esto’k Gna say they were never properly consulted by federal or state agencies, despite legal obligations to consider Indigenous rights and cultural heritage in environmental reviews.
- Broader fight for recognition: The Tribe’s concerns highlight ongoing struggles for federal acknowledgment and protection of #IndigenousSovereignty in the face of high-tech industrial expansion.

Excerpt: "On the southernmost edge of Texas, where the Rio Grande meets the Gulf, the Esto’k Gna Tribal Nation — also known as the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas — still hopes to protect what remains of its ancestral lands from Elon Musk’s expanding SpaceX base.

The tribe says the company’s operations at Boca Chica — rebranded 'Starbase' — have devastated fragile #ecosystems, desecrated #SacredSites, and cut off traditional access to the coastline that forms the heart of their creation story. What SpaceX hails as a gateway to Mars, tribal leaders call a continuation of the centuries-long #erasure of Indigenous peoples in the name of progress. As Tribal Chairman #JuanMancias recently told Decatur Metro, 'They dream of reaching Mars. We’re just trying to stay on Earth.' "

Read more:
https://icmagazine.org/the-estok-gna-fight-to-protect-sacred-lands-from-spacex-expansion/

Watch video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPcDYLEKc0c

#CulturalGenocide #EstokGna #IntercontinentalCry #ReaderSupportedNews #SacredLand #BocaChicaBeach #RocketLaunch #Pollution #CarrizoComecrudoTribe #ProtectTheSacred #Colonialism
#CorporateColonialism #OccupySpaceX #TwoHeartedPeople #GarciaPasture #EndangeredSpecies #AncestralLand #ElonSucks #StarbaseCity

International Survey Shows 81% Back Forcing #BigOil to Pay for #Climate Destruction

"People are no longer buying the lies. They see the fingerprints of #FossilFuel giants all over the #storms, #floods, #droughts, and #wildfires devastating their lives, and they want accountability," said the head of one green group.

by Eloise Goldsmith, Jun 19, 2025

"Large majorities of people around the world support both taxing #oil, #gas, and #coal companies for the #EnvironmentalDamage made worse by fossil fuels and using higher taxes on #polluters to support communities most impacted by the #ClimateCrisis, according to the results of an international survey released Thursday.

"The study, which was jointly commissioned by #Greenpeace International and #Oxfam International, surveyed roughly 1,200 people in each of these 13 countries: #Brazil, #Canada, #France, #Germany, #India, #Italy, #Kenya, #Mexico, #Philippines, #SouthAfrica, #Spain, #UnitedKingdom, and the #UnitedStates. The research was conducted by the data company Dynata, and field work was done between May 9-28, 2025. Greenpeace noted that, taken together, the countries represent close to 50% of the globe's population.

"The results of the survey showed a whopping 81% of those surveyed would support taxes fossil fuel companies to pay for damages wrought by 'fossil-fuel driven climate disasters.'

"These survey results send a clear message: people are no longer buying the lies. They see the fingerprints of fossil fuel giants all over the storms, floods, droughts, and wildfires devastating their lives, and they want accountability," said #MadsChristensen, the executive director of #GreenpeaceInternational.

" 'It's only fair that those who caused the crisis should pay for the damage, not those suffering from it,' he added.

Read more / listen:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/international-survey-shows-81-back-forcing-big-oil-to-pay-for-climate-destruction

#BigOilAndGas #BigCoal #BigOilLied #BigOilKnew #Sunoco #BP #Chevron #Capitalism #Oiligarchy #Oligarchy #AmericanPetroleumInstitute #ShellOil #ExxonLied #ExtremeWeather #BPLied #ClimateCrisis #TaxThePolluters #CorporateColonialism #OilCompanies #ChevronDoctrine #MakePollutersPay #Pollution #WateIsLife #AirIsLife

So, when I see catastrophic events like the #BESSFires or widespread #PFASContamination in #BrunswickMaine, the first thing I think of is, "Where are the wildlife going to hide? How is this event going to affect them and the nearby #ecosystems?"

"The #ElkhornSlough Reserve is closed until further notice due to potential health risks from a fire at the #MossLanding Battery Storage Plant that started on January 16.

"The area has been evacuated and will remain closed until emergency services determines that air quality is no longer hazardous.

"Elkhorn Slough is a cherished #ecosystem of tremendous importance to #MontereyBay and beyond. We appreciate all the efforts of local, county, and state authorities and emergency response teams, as well as the outpouring of concern from the community regarding health impacts for people and #wildlife in the area.

"We have not yet seen reports of any documented negative environmental impacts from this incident, but it is too early to know. The Elkhorn Slough Reserve conducts robust monitoring programs for water quality, habitats, and wildlife. We will be looking closely at impacts from this incident in the future, and will collaborate with partner agencies in their monitoring efforts."

https://elkhornslough.org/moss-landing-fire-incident-january-2025/
#EnvironmentalDamage #ManMadeDisasters

#Wales - Explosion fears over proposed huge battery farm

by Dafydd Evans, BBC News, January 16, 2025

"Concerns about fires and explosions have been raised over plans to build one of the UK largest #BatteryFarms.

"The Ynni Celyn project would create a 1,000MW #BatteryEnergyStorageSystem (BESS) site on green fields above the village of #Gwyddelwern in #Denbighshire.

"A public meeting will be held on Thursday, with some residents concerned about the safety of the site and potential #EnvironmentalDamage.

"Developer #NatPower said safety was 'paramount' and only about a third of the 75 acre site would house batteries.

"BESS are being built across the UK to help balance the electricity grid, which is becoming increasingly powered by #renewables.

"The systems hold electricity generated from renewable sources such as wind turbines and solar farms.

"Plans for the site, close to the #ClwydianHills and a planned new #NationalPark, were recently shown to the community.

"Dr Kevin Sharp lives near the proposed site and said it could create a 'potential catastrophe'.

"He added said: 'We know that these batteries can catch fire, explode and emit lots of very #ToxicGases.

"'I don't think anyone can guarantee the safety of everybody around here, should there be an incident.'

"'A small chance of a bad thing is an unacceptable risk for the people who live locally.'

"Demand for electricity is expected to double in Wales by 2050 as efforts to reduce carbon emissions continue and BESS sites are seen as providing a stable and reliable supply.

"Similarly sized projects are being built or have been approved.

"However, fires and explosions have been reported around the world including one at a 20MW site in #Liverpool in 2020.

"Jamie Corry also lives close to the site and said it was unsuitable due to the 'shocking' access for the fire service."

Read more:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c30dn61m64eo
#BessFires #LithiumBatteries #LithiumFires

Murders, #megaprojects and a ‘new Panama Canal’ in Mexico

#Activists suspect murders of 15 #Indigenous community members are linked to their opposition to a proposed megaproject.

By Eoin Wilson
Published On 13 Jul 2020

Mexico City, Mexico – "The murders bore all the hallmarks of drug cartel executions. Fifteen victims – all members of the Ikoots Indigenous community – had been beaten, shot, and their bodies burned in a field just outside Huazantlan del Rio, a village in the municipality of San Mateo del Mar in Oaxaca, southern Mexico, in late June. An as-yet-unknown number of people were also 'disappeared'.

"At first the local government, headed by Mayor Bernardino Ponce Hinojosa, blamed the killings on a shadowy figure and an unnamed organised-crime group. Officials also acknowledged intra-community grievances and political infighting, caused by dissatisfaction with municipal elections and tension over last October’s mayoral election, which Ponce Hinojosa won.

"San Mateo used to be governed by an Indigenous 'popular assembly', which made decisions by consensus and served on a one-year rotation. But in 2017, this changed to a ballot-based electoral approach, leading to tensions that increased after the mayor’s disputed 2019 win.

"The Ikoots, most of whom consider the popular assembly to be the legitimate source of authority in the region, allege that the vote was fraudulent. They also accuse the mayor and a local businessman of being complicit in the wave of violence, sources told Al Jazeera, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

"Meanwhile, a collective of 15 civil society and teachers’ organisations, the National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE), has accused the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) – one of Mexico’s most violent and territorially-ambitious cartels – of committing the murders.

"The allegations came in the same week that the CJNG was accused of the attempted assassination of Mexico City’s chief of police in an ambush with heavy weapons in which three people were killed.

"Although CNTE gave no evidence to support its accusation, many in San Mateo believe the claims because the cartel had already been active in their Istmo region, which boasts a wealth of mineral resources and a strategic location.

"The Istmo (or Isthmus in English) spans the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz at the narrowest point between the Pacific and the Atlantic. It is the site of the controversial 'Interoceanic' or 'Transistmico' corridor project, initiated by the government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and opposed by many Indigenous communities."

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/7/13/murders-megaprojects-and-a-new-panama-canal-in-mexico

#Ikoots #IndigenousActivists #MegaInfrastructureProjects #CarbonIntensive #MegaCorridors #SDGs #CIIT #GulfOfMexico #IMFLoanSharks #SacrificeZones #CulturalGenocide #CulturalErasism #EnvironmentalDegradation #EnvironmentalDamage #Capitalism #CorporateColonialism #IndigenousPeoples #CulturalSurvival #Oaxaca #Veracruz #IndigenousCulture #ExtractiveIndustries #InteroceanicCorridor #TransistmicoCorridor #Istmo #IsthmusOfTehuantepec #Tehuntepec

From the Bretton Woods Project: Focus on #MegaProjects

"The [#WorldBank] ’s shift towards leveraging private sector finance for development (see Governance above), which has gained momentum since 2015, includes a particular emphasis on promoting ‘infrastructure as an asset class’, in order to crowd in institutional #investors. This policy initiative is highly dependent on mega-infrastructure projects – and, as noted by a letter sent by concerned economists in October 2018, currently lacks a framework for aligning such mega-projects with the Paris Climate Agreement or the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

"This is of major concern, given that many planned ‘mega-corridors’ in developing regions are predicated on building a new generation of carbon-intensive infrastructure. In many cases, the Bank continues to support such projects that, while not ‘fossil fuel investments’ per se, are part of such carbon-intensive mega-corridors (see Observer Autumn 2018)."

Paper: Infrastructure Megaprojects as World Erasers: Cultural Survival in the Context of the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec

Author: Susanne Hofmann, November 8, 2024

"This article explores the meaning of infrastructural changes resulting from the Corredor Interoceánico del Istmo de Tehuantepec (CIIT) infrastructure project for the cultural survival
of Indigenous peoples resident in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region through the lens of ontological justice. The CIIT is being promoted as a multimodal road and rail transport corridor that will link the Gulf of Mexico with the Pacific Ocean, speed up global trade and benefit local residents. Based on interviews with affected residents in the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz, this research found that there is a strong desire for the continuity of existing, collective life
projects, Indigenous languages, cultural identities, beliefs, spirituality, established political and legal systems, and solidarity economy. De facto, the CIIT infrastructure project functions
as a technology of erasure of other lifeworlds, imposing integration into the One-World World (Escobar, 2016) and assimilation of Indigenous peoples and Afrodescendant communities.
Contemporary legal frameworks are not sufficient to guarantee alterlivability (Hamraie, 2020). Therefore, infrastructural megaprojects based on modern/colonial-extractivist-
developmentalist premises continue to threaten the futurity of Indigenous and
Afrodescendant life projects.

[...]

"An increasing number of infrastructure corridors, such as the Corredor Interoceánico, are currently being built across the globe (e.g. the Belt and Road Initiative/China, Corredor Bioceánico/Paraguay; Corredor Interoceánico/Chile-Bolivia-Brazil; The Northern Transport Corridor in East Africa/Kenya-Ethiopia-South Sudan – just to name a few). These projects are directed at reducing ‘economic distance’ –i.e. speeding up the transport of goods across
geographical distance whilst lowering the cost (Hildyard, 2016: 20). In the process, infrastructure megacorridors restructure whole regions into purpose-specific zones for export, logistics, transit, housing development, resource extraction, manufacturing etc.

"Thereby, they fragment geographic space, generating a distinctive reterritorialisation of the space to develop sites of capitalist growth. Megacorridors connect what Lerner (2010) called 'sacrifice zones' – geographic areas where processes of natural resource extraction cause permanent environmental damage – to global circuits of capital. Across Latin America the social and environmental impacts of extractive megaprojects and resistance against them has
been widely documented (Aguilar Rivero & Echavarría Cango, 2019; Domínguez, 2015, 2017;
Domínguez & Corona, 2016; Ibarra García & Talledos Sánchez, 2016; Pérez Negrete, 2017; Rodríguez Wallenius, 2015). This article explores the meaning of infrastructural changes resulting from the CIIT project for the cultural survival of Indigenous peoples resident in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region through the lens of ontological justice."

Original paper:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0094582X241294080?journalCode=lapa

PDF version:
https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/120254/1/SHofmann_infrastructure_megaprojects_as_world_erasers_LSE_eprint.pdf

#MegaInfrastructureProjects #CarbonIntensive #MegaCorridors #SDGs #CIIT #GulfOfMexico #SustainableDevelopmentGoals #DeGrowth #IMFLoanSharks #SacrificeZones #CulturalGenocide #CulturalErasism #EnvironmentalDegradation #EnvironmentalDamage #Capitalism #CorporateColonialism #IndigenousPeoples #CulturalSurvival #IsthmusOfTehuantepec #OntologicalJustice #Tehuantepec #ExtractiveIndustries #Oaxaca #Veracruz #CorredorInteroceánico #BeltAndRoadInitiative #CorredorBioceánico #NorthernTransportCorridor #China, #Paraguay; Corredor #Chile #Bolivia #Brazil #EastAfrica #Kenya #Ethiopia #SouthSudan #IndigenousCulture #AfrodescendantCulture

@DamienMarieAtHope THIS! 💯 !

#FreeTradeZones and #ExportProcessingZones are places where #LaborLaws don't exist, and are used by big corporations to increase profits!

"In some situations, employees work excessive hours in unsafe conditions such as extreme heat, around faulty machinery, and in buildings that are not routinely inspected and maintained.

"Although foreign investors, enterprises, and firms often earn a sizable amount and the global economy benefits, workers’ wages are typically low, often below that of the required country minimum wage.

Most employees have to accept the previously mentioned working conditions as trade unions, and labor movements are not allowed.

"Due to the competitive nature of EPZs, workers often cannot expect any improvement in conditions as operating costs are purposely kept low to attract investors. Because of the development and infrastructure EPZs bring, countries and governments often won’t step in either."

https://www.thomasnet.com/insights/export-processing-zones/

"Also called foreign trade zones or export processing zones (EPZs), FTZs are “special commercial and industrial area…where foreign and domestic merchandise may be brought in without being subject to payment of customs duties.”[ii] Social protection for labor is ensured by both national and international legislation in Latin America; nonetheless, economic globalization inhibits worker rights across the region, particularly for vulnerable populations such as women, who are employed in FTZs.[iii] The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that there are approximately 500 FTZs in Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean, employing over 6 million workers. Women constitute 70 percent, and in some cases 90 percent, of workers in FTZs, and often perform labor-intensive tasks in sub-standard work conditions.[iv] While economic globalization and free trade enterprises themselves are not to blame for such abuses, there is an urgent need for governments, multi-national corporations, and international institutions to guarantee to hold one another accountable for the gross violations of worker rights occurring."

https://coha.org/worker-rights-and-wrongs-fair-trade-zones-and-labor-in-the-americas/

#HumanRights #CorporateProfits #CorporateColonialism #SEZ #SpecialEconomicZones #EPZ #FTZ #FreeTradeZones #Pollution #EnvironmentalDamage #EnvironmentalRacism