Environment

Climate scientists agree that tackling methane emissions is the fastest way to slow near-term climate change. That’s because methane is a potent greenhouse gas with a warming potential 84 times stronger than that of carbon dioxide over the 20-year span when humanity will be scrambling to get climate change under control.

Tásmam Koyóm, a high Sierra meadow in California, U.S. returned to the Mountain Maidu people in 2019, is once again wet where once it had been dry. Rivulets now snake through hip-high grasses and willow thickets, feeding a beaver pond where a family of beavers released in 2023 has built a chest-high lodge. This was California’s first beaver translocation in decades, part of a tribal effort to restore the health of the landscape, reports Mongabay’s John Cannon after a site visit.

Once deeply incised by snowmelt channels that sent water rushing downslope, the meadow now holds water longer into the summer. Melt from the ridges slows and spreads, clear streams meander out from the pond, and a mosaic of habitats has begun to return. Advocates say such changes show how beavers can help blunt droughts, lower fire intensity, and create refuge for plants and animals, offering a template for restoration in a warming, drying state.

California officials had long denied that beavers ever ranged widely across the state. Fur trapping in the 19th century all but eliminated them, and the survivors were treated as pests. Advocacy, research and policy shifts have since produced a state restoration program. Before the Maidu reintroduction, tribal crews built dozens of structures that mimicked beaver dams to prepare the site. “We knew that the habitat was, for the most part, just ready to receive and support beavers,” Valerie Cook of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) told Cannon.

The project has increased the surface area of water at Tásmam Koyóm by more than 22%, according to an April 2025 report from the department. Yet expectations remain tempered.

“We’re always going back to the whole systems piece, honoring beaver for the work beaver can do, but not turning them into this silver bullet,” says Brock Dolman of the nonprofit Occidental Arts and Ecology Center.

Other pilot relocations, such as on the Tule River Reservation, also in California, have had mixed results, underscoring the need for careful planning and coexistence strategies before translocation. Still, the Mountain Maidu site shows how returning beavers can also return sovereignty. Centuries-old dams and acorn mortars testify to a time when beavers and people shaped this valley together.

In August, the world should have been celebrating the first global agreement to end plastics pollution. Instead, negotiators from more than 180 countries ended the latest round of talks in Geneva, Switzerland, amid acrimony.

The chair and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which organizes the talks, have failed to bridge the gulf between countries that want chemicals of concern to be regulated and plastics production to be decarbonized over time, and those who would prefer an agreement that focuses on a narrower range of measures, such as improved recycling. But this crisis can both be resolved and be prevented from happening again, suggest the authors of two articles in this week’s issue.

Archived link of the article

In the northern suburbs of Sydney, Australia, Adam Bushell has saved about $10 a month in waste collection fees since his local council swapped flat fees for a “pay-as-you-throw” system four years ago. While recycling is collected free of charge, microchipped bins for general waste are weighed, and households receive a monthly statement listing how much they threw out and what they owe.

The new approach has changed the way Bushell thinks about household waste, not least when it comes to food.

“The pay-by-weight concept has made me very conscious of the amount of food that we waste and has really made me want to dispose of less,” says Bushell, who runs an electrical services company. “The personal financial cost definitely makes you think in a different way on what you discard. It makes it immediately, physically cost-effective to waste less.”

The system works thanks to several factors, first and foremost the clear financial incentive and rules, says Graham Matthews, head of content at U.K. commercial waste management company Business Waste. “Residents know and understand that the less trash they produce, the less they will pay. The system adheres to the principle of ‘polluter pays,’ meaning those who produce pollution should bear the costs of managing it.”

Nnimmo Bassey, a prominent figure in the decades-long environmental struggles in Africa's largest oil-producing country, will next month attend yet another UN climate summit, this time in Brazil.

Despite believing the situation worsens by the day, Bassey maintains there is still hope, thanks to a new crop of budding young activists.

Set off the main road through San Isidro, El Salvador, an old gate sits locked by a chain. Across its rusted metal wire mesh are emblazoned the words: “Private property, entry forbidden.” A bus stop outside is covered with faded black and yellow posters. Though peeling with age, their message can still be read: “No to mining – yes to life.”

This is the site of what was once the El Dorado gold mining project. After the suspension of operations in 2009 amid community backlash, OceanaGold formally closed the project in 2017 following El Salvador’s historic prohibition of metal mining.

But 10 months after hardline President Nayib Bukele’s administration repealed this prohibition, environmentalists fear that El Dorado may become one of the key sites in the re-emergence of mining interests in the country – a political movement they say is being obscured by state secrecy.

In January, El Salvador’s energy directorate announced that government mining studies will remain “trade secrets”, blocking public access to data relating to metal mining in the country. Although no new mining projects have been officially announced, activists worry they are proceeding behind closed doors.

Nearly 40 percent of the waste produced in the EU comes from construction and demolition, making the sector one of Europe’s largest sources of emissions and environmental impact.

The US has demanded that the European Union roll back its climate and human rights rules in order to allow greater imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), as the Trump administration approved a controversial gas export hub along the Gulf of Mexico coast.

A letter jointly sent by the US and Qatar, two of the three largest LNG exporters in the world, warned the EU that its new rules pose an “existential threat” to European economies as they would hinder imports of gas from countries such as theirs.

The EU should either completely repeal or substantially cut back the new rules, known as the corporate sustainability due diligence directive, according to the letter. The directive, which is set to be debated by EU legislators in the coming week, requires gas exporters to the 27-country bloc to show they protect human rights and are cutting their planet-heating emissions, or risk hefty fines.

Because, you know, fuck sovereignty.

In 1957, the Tulsequah Chief Mine stopped production of gold, copper, lead and zinc after a short-lived six years of operations. Its legacy has since made it infamous: for the past seven decades, the Tulsequah Chief Mine has leaked a rust-red, mineral-laden runoff called acid mine drainage into the glacial waters of the Tulsequah River. Despite repeated calls from locals and environmentalists and government promises, the acid mine drainage has yet to be cleaned up. Amid this ongoing environmental contamination, the New Polaris Mine is entering the picture.

José Gualinga discusses his Kichwa People of Sarayaku’s visionary Living Forest Declaration and the importance of collaborating across cultures and areas of expertise.

At the heart of the declaration is an explanation of how Sarayaku people have always understood their Amazonian territory: as a living, intelligent forest—not a collection of resources for humans to exploit, as the Western world believes.

Ecuador’s strong Indigenous movements, including Sarayaku, led the way in cementing the idea in the country’s new constitution in 2008. (...)

As this is a visual story, trying to grab an excerpt is going to be without context.

Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere soared by a record amount in 2024 to hit another high, UN data shows, deepening the climate crisis that is already taking lives and livelihoods across the world.

Scientists are worried that the natural land and ocean “sinks” that remove CO2 from the air are weakening as a result of global heating, which could form a vicious circle and drive temperatures up even faster.

The global average concentration of the gas surged by 3.5 parts per million to 424ppm in 2024, the largest increase since modern measurements started in 1957, according to the report by the World Meteorological Organization.

Several factors contributed to the leap in CO2, including another year of unrelenting fossil fuel burning despite a pledge by the world’s countries in 2023 to “transition away” from coal, oil and gas. Another factor was an upsurge in wildfires in conditions made hotter and drier by global heating. Wildfire emissions in the Americas reached historic levels in 2024, which was the hottest year yet recorded.

However, scientists are concerned about a third factor: the possibility that the planet’s carbon sinks are beginning to fail. About half of all CO2 emissions every year are taken back out of the atmosphere by being dissolved in the ocean or being sucked up by growing trees and plants. But the oceans are getting hotter and can therefore absorb less CO2 while on land hotter and drier conditions and more wildfires mean less plant growth.

Well, that's excellent news.

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• https://www.eco-libre.org/life-line-2025-10-released/

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Eco-Libre is a volunteer-run project that designs libre technology for sustainable communities.

Eco-Libre's mission is to research, develop, document, teach, build, and distribute open-source technology that sustainably enfranchises communities' human rights.

We aim to provide clear documentation to build low-cost machines, tools, and infrastructure for people all over the world who wish to live in sustainable communities with others.

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Other islands have emerged since the 1960s, but scientists say they have not been as ecologically stable. The last time something similar took place before Surtsey’s emergence was the birth of Anak Krakatau, Indonesia, in 1927, but it was quickly contaminated by humans. Icelandic researchers were adamant that this time would be different.

In 1965, Surtsey was placed under formal protection by the government. Only researchers and the odd journalist – under strict supervision – would be allowed to visit. No sheep would ever be allowed to graze there. The same year, the first plant was spotted: a clump of sea rocket brought over the waves from the Icelandic mainland.

“The first scientists that stepped on Surtsey in 1964 could see that seeds and plant residues had been washed ashore. Birds were even coming to the island to see what was going on. The eruption was still going on when they spotted the first plant – it was very quick,” says Vilmundardóttir.

Not just "less than a penny" .. one-tenth of a penny, making it the only thing outside of gasoline and property taxes using mills.

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A Navajo tribe-owned company bid $186,000 to lease 167 million tons of coal on federal lands in southeastern Montana on Mosnday in the biggest U.S. coal sale in more than a decade.

The offer from the Navajo Transitional Energy Co. (NTEC) equates to one-tenth of a penny per ton, underscoring coal’s diminished value even as President Donald Trump pushes to mine and burn more of the heavily polluting fuel.

Federal officials did not immediately say if they would accept the offer. It was the only bid received. Two NTEC representatives attended the sale at the Bureau of Land Management local office in Billings, Montana. They declined to comment after it was over.

At the last successful government lease sale in the region, a subsidiary of Peabody Energy paid $793 million, or $1.10 per ton, for 721 million tons of coal in Wyoming.

I'm no economist, but having the price per ton go from $1.10 to $0.001 in consecutive lease sales is not indicative of a growth market.

The world’s wind and solar farms have generated more electricity than coal plants for the first time this year, marking a turning point for the global power system, according to research.

A report by the climate thinktank Ember found that in the first six months of 2025, renewable energy outpaced the world’s growing appetite for electricity, leading to a small decline in coal and gas use.

The world generated almost a third more solar power in the first half of the year compared with the same period in 2024, meeting 83% of the global increase in electricity demand. Wind power grew by just over 7%, allowing renewables to displace fossil fuels for the first time.

Whenever you see this many numbers packed together into a single graf, it's a safe guess that neither the reporter nor editor knows what these numbers actually mean and are just running them off a press release.

Let's break it down.

We have one-third more Joules being generated by solar, so let's call the 2024 baseline x and throw a dart at 1.3x for 2025, since it's not quite a third.

Next up, 0.3x = 0.87y. What is y? Who cares? We don't even know what x is!

And finally z' = 1.07z, leading to the obvious conclusion that renewables have overtaken fossil fuels for electricity production.

I can't see how one could intentionally made a more logically flawed argument over hard numbers (the only thing we don't get).

The Trump administration has said it will rescind Bill Clinton’s roadless rule, more than two decades after its introduction appeared to mark the end of the bitter battle between environmentalists and loggers over the future of America’s best remaining woodland.

The rule is “overly restrictive” and an “absurd obstacle” to development, according to Brooke Rollins, Trump’s secretary of agriculture, as she outlined its demise in June. The administration is in a hurry – an unusually short public comment period of 21 days for this rescission has just ended, following a Trump “emergency” order to swiftly fell trees across the US’s network of national forests, spanning 280 million acres.

“We are freeing up our forests so we are allowed to take down trees and make a lot of money,” Trump has said. “We have massive forests. We just aren’t allowed to use them because of the environmental lunatics who stopped us.”