#environmentaldestruction — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #environmentaldestruction, aggregated by home.social.
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#BigOil Knew It Was Wrecking #Louisiana ’s Coast, Records Show
Now, parish lawsuits, including one in front of the Supreme Court, could make oil giants pay to restore the state’s vanishing marshes.
Emily Sanders 03/26/26
Excerpt: "Now, one of those cases is under consideration by the US Supreme Court. Last year, a state court jury found #Chevron liable in a lawsuit brought by #PlaqueminesParish, one of more than 40 parish lawsuits accusing oil companies of failing to secure permits for their operations and neglecting to clean up the damage they left behind in violation of state coastal management law. After the landmark verdict requiring Chevron to spend $745 million to restore the coast, the company appealed the case to the Supreme Court, which heard arguments in January.
"In light of the industry’s successful lobbying for legislation limiting landowners’ lawsuits, parish lawsuits are an especially crucial avenue to hold the companies accountable, some local attorneys say. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of the parishes and they continue to win their cases in state courts, they could make Chevron, #Exxon, #BP, #Shell, and other oil companies pay billions of dollars to help fund coastal restoration efforts as the state runs out of resources to support cleanup. "
#MakePollutersPay #EnvironmentalPollution #EnvironmentalDestruction #DeepwaterHorizon #ClimateCrisis #BigOilKnew #MakeCorporatePollutersPay #GlobalWarming #BritishPetroleum
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#SpaceDatacenters proposed by #Musk and #Bezos ‘catastrophic’ for planet, experts warn
New US petition demands review of plans from #TechCompanies amid fears of #EnvironmentalDestruction
Tom Perkins
Thu 23 Jul 2026Excerpt: "The number of active #satellites in orbit has grown exponentially from about 1,400 in 2015 to about 15,000 currently. As many as 100,000 are expected to be in orbit within the decade, not including the #datacenter networks. As of now, the bulk of the satellites’ pollution is thought to come from #Starlink and Amazon’s '#MegaConstellations' that provide broadband internet made up of about 10,000 satellites.
"Spacecraft can cause problems on their way up and down. Launches emit a range of emissions like #BlackCarbon, #NitrogenOxides, #CarbonMonoxide, #AluminumOxide, #ChlorineGases and, once in orbit, #mercury. When satellites are decommissioned five to 15 years later, they release metals as they vaporize. That’s injecting #pollutants into previously pristine parts of the #stratosphere, a highly sensitive system, and there’s very little understanding of the consequences."
Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/23/space-datacenters-bezos-blue-originArchived version:
https://archive.ph/A9F07#ElonSucks #TechBros #BezosSucks #BigData #Datacenters #WorldPol #USPol #LEO #LowEarthOrbit #KesslerSyndrome #LightPollution
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#Russia suffering '#EnvironmentalCatastrophe' after #OilSpill in #KerchStrait
Joshua Cheetham, Olga Robinson & Matt Murphy, January 23, 2025
"Satellite images reviewed by BBC Verify have shown a major oil slick spreading across the Kerch Strait that separates Russia from annexed #Crimea, a month after two oil tankers were badly damaged in the #BlackSea.
"Oil has leaked into the strait from two ships which ran into trouble during bad weather on 15 December. Volgoneft-239 ran aground following the storm, while Volgoneft-212 sank.
"Up to 5,000 tonnes of oil has now leaked, and media reports and official statements analysed by BBC Verify suggest the spill has spread across the Black Sea and the #SeaOfAzov.
"A senior Russian scientist called the spill the country's worst '#EnvironmentalCatastrophe' of the 21st Century.
"'This is the first time fuel oil has been spilled in such quantities,' Viktor Danilov-Danilyan - the head of science at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) - said in a 17 January interview with a Russian newspaper.
"Russian scientists said in December that this spill could be more than twice the size of a similar disaster in the strait in 2007, which saw up to 1,600 tonnes of #HeavyOil leak into the sea. #Ukraine's ministry of #ecology has estimated that the clear up from the latest spill could cost the Russian state up to $14bn (£11.4bn).
"#PaulJohnston, a scientist at #GreenpeaceResearchLaboratories, said 'there's always an element of uncertainty around oil spills', but a lack of timely information has heightened this uncertainty further.
"'I'm not entirely optimistic we'll ever know the full extent of the problem,' he added.
"Satellite images reviewed by #BBCVerify on 10 January - the most recent available high-resolution photos - showed a #MassiveOilSlick running through the strait, measuring at least 25km (15 miles) long. A second, smaller slick measuring around 5.7km (3.5 miles) long is also visible."
Read more:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c23ngk5vgmpo
#WaterIsLife #EnvironmentalDestruction #OilSpill -
Oh yeah. #JuniperRidgeLandfill is NOT a solution!
Time is running out to find new solutions to manage #biosolids in Maine
A new report shows that capacity at a state-owned #landfill will run out in 2028.
PORTLAND, Maine — "There are growing concerns about the state's ability to handle waste and the impact it could have on wastewater treatment facilities in just a few years. Tons of wastewater #sludge, or #biosolids, are shipped to a state-owned landfill every day. That sludge is laced with #PFAS.
"State regulators say if investments aren't made to manage it, the landfill could be at capacity by 2028. The Portland Water District's East End plant takes in 25,000 pounds of solid waste daily.
"'What comes in has to go out, so when we have interruptions in the ability to manage biosolids, that is a huge challenge,' Scott Firmin, director of Portland Wastewater Services with the Portland Water District, explained.
"The utility has nearly 100,000 customers in the Greater Portland area and ships the byproduct of that waste, known as sludge or biosolids, to the #JuniperRidgeLandfill near #OldTownMaine.
"Last summer, it was left scrambling after #Casella Waste Systems said it could not safely accept municipal #sludge at #JuniperRidge after shipments of construction debris needed to stabilize the site were banned.
"'Ninety percent of the biosolids generated in Maine go to that landfill,' Firmin said."
https://www.newscentermaine.com/article/tech/science/environment/pfas/time-is-running-out-to-find-new-solutions-to-manage-biosolids-in-maine-waste-pfas/97-0e674c1a-6c51-40a6-b297-5438e2cda549
#WaterIsLIfe #CompostingToilets #JuniperRidge #EnvironmentalDestruction #PenobscotRiver #PenobscotNation #EnvironmentalRacism #ProtectTheSacred -
From the Bretton Woods Project: #Forests
"Finally, the [#WorldBank] ’s #forest policy and #WeakSafeguards on #ForestProtection have also been observed to infringe the rights of local communities and have failed to protect one of the planet’s most important ‘#CarbonSinks’ (see Observer Spring 2017). CSOs have called for the Bank to open up its Forest Notes – which are meant to guide the interface between its lending and forests – to consultation (see Observer Winter 2017-2018). CSOs have also been highly critical of one of the forest initiatives the Bank manages, the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), a climate investment fund that supports Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) projects. A March 2017 post in REDD Monitor called the FCPF, 'the most cost-inefficient tree-saving scheme ever,' owing to high administrative costs between fiscal years 2009-2015 absorbing 64 per cent of FCFP’s $55 million expenditure. More generally, the Bank’s overall approach to lending has undermined the protection of vital natural ecosystems in borrower countries. As noted by Bruce Rich in his influential 2013 book, Foreclosing the Future: The World Bank and the Politics of Environmental Destruction, 'When one examines the failures to conserve ecosystems, or to mitigate environmental impacts of development, one finds that failed governance at all levels is almost invariably at the root. …Many of [the Bank’s] problems are associated with a dysfunctional institutional culture in which the relentless pressure to move money out the door, even in violation of the Bank’s own policies and rules, often overrides all other considerations.'"
2017: World Bank policy lending undermines climate goals
"One of the main problems is the Bank’s refusal to adequately assess the social and environmental risks of their policy loans" - Harlem Mariño, Derechos, Ambiente y Recursos Naturales
6 April 2017
"A late January report by US-based NGO Bank Information Center (BIC), together with partners in Egypt, Indonesia, Mozambique and Peru, claimed that the Bank is undermining its climate commitments by supporting investment incentives for coal, gas and oil projects through its development policy financing (DPF) mechanism. DPF accounts for approximately a third of all Bank funding and provides resources for programmes of policy and institutional reforms that are agreed by the Bank and the borrowing government (see Update 82). The report argued that the Bank’s financing through DPF contradicts the internationally agreed and Bank-supported goal of limiting the global average temperature increase to 2°C, which according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change would require that at least two-thirds of existing fossil fuel reserves are left in the ground.
"BIC’s report looked at the Bank’s DPF measures in four countries: Egypt, Indonesia, Mozambique and Peru. It found that DPF introduced subsidies for coal in all countries, apart from Peru. For example, the report argued that Bank-supported subsidies for coal infrastructure have helped Indonesia become one of the world’s top coal exporters. It found some DPF support for renewable energy, but argued that the Bank could do more given that all countries examined have potential to develop renewable energy. For example, while Peru’s DPF provides subsidies to public-private partnerships to develop oil and gas infrastructure, it does not include plans for solar or wind power projects."
https://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/2017/04/world-bank-policy-lending-undermines-climate-goals/
#FCPF #REDD #Ecosystems #ProtectTheForests #EnvironmentalDestruction #ForestDegradation #Deforestation #EnvironmentalImpacts #Egypt #Indonesia #Mozambique #Peru #LeaveItInTheGround #Coal #BigOilAndGas #ExtractiveIndustries #Exploitation #EnvironmentalImpacts
#HumanRights #ParisAgreement
#ParisClimateAgreement #BigOilAndGas #CorporateColonialism #IMFLoanSharks #RenewablesNow