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Environment

World Court Says Polluter States Must Compensate Victims For Harms

A new ruling from the World Court provides climate activists new tools for demanding accountability. On July 23, in a stunning 140 page advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice (ICJ, or World Court) held for the first time that there is a human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, and countries have a legal obligation to protect the climate from greenhouse gas emissions. The ICJ found that climate change poses “an existential problem of planetary proportions that imperils all forms of life and the very health of our planet.”

Cheap Tricks For Hard Problems

The future is impossible to predict in its particulars. But if you understand the nature of a problem, and the nature of the economic incentive structure relating to the problem, and the nature of the political system and the personalities of the decision-makers surrounding the problem, it is very possible to make medium-term predictions about the general nature of what is going to happen with high confidence. Climate change. Big problem. It is hard to say to what extent humanity as a whole, as embodied by all the governing structures of the world, will rally itself to respond wisely to the problem, and how much damage to humanity’s well-being will occur in the meantime.

The Drying Planet

As the planet gets hotter and its reservoirs shrink and its glaciers melt, people have increasingly drilled into a largely ungoverned, invisible cache of fresh water: the vast, hidden pools found deep underground. Now, a new study that examines the world’s total supply of fresh water — accounting for its rivers and rain, ice and aquifers together — warns that Earth’s most essential resource is quickly disappearing, signaling what the paper’s authors describe as “a critical, emerging threat to humanity.” The landmasses of the planet are drying. In most places there is less precipitation even as moisture evaporates from the soil faster.

World’s Governments Fail On Moratorium On Deep-Sea Mining

Despite growing momentum, world governments failed to agree to a moratorium on deep-sea mining as the 30th session of the International Seabed Authority wrapped up on Friday. The authority’s July meeting was the first since U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to expedite permits for deep-sea mining under U.S. authority and The Metals Company (TMC) promptly applied for U.S. permits. Governments rebuked the U.S. and TMC for their unilateral approach and did not agree on a mining code that would allow the controversial practice to move forward under international law.

UN’s Top Court Rules ‘Clean, Healthy’ Environment Is A Human Right

In a landmark finding, the United Nations’ top court on Wednesday issued an advisory opinion stating that a “clean, healthy and sustainable environment” is a human right. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling supports the obligation of UN member states to tackle the climate crisis and outlines the consequences they could face if they fail to do so. “The consequences of climate change are severe and far-reaching: they affect both natural ecosystems and human populations. These consequences underscore the urgent and existential threat posed by climate change,” said ICJ president Yuji Iwasawa, as The Guardian reported.

Truckers Are Tired Of Being Exposed To Hazardous Waste

A seemingly unlikely coalition of oil and gas workers and environmentalists have joined forces to ask the federal government for help. On June 4, the driver advocacy group Truckers Movement for Justice and Ohio Valley Allies, Earthjustice, Oilfield Witness and several other environmental groups sent a letter to Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and top officials at the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. They made a simple request: that regulations around the transportation of hazardous materials be enforced.

Fast Tracking A Pipeline To BC’s Coast Will Undermine Canada’s Security

“Now the real work starts.” These words from Prime Minister Mark Carney marked the rapid passage of Bill C-5, which grants sweeping powers to his cabinet to fast-track infrastructure projects. While his recent meeting with Canada’s premiers was described as a love-in, the love may be short lived if certain powerful industries don’t get the pony they thought they were promised. I speak of course of the oil patch and their relentless demands for more pipelines, whether they are needed or not. The long-dead Northern Gateway proposal to B.C.’s north coast seems to be top of the fossil fuel wish list, backed up by recent comments from Carney. 

America Builds To Resist Disasters; The Global South Builds To Recover

In the last few weeks, as the United States suffered through a record-breaking heatwave, people were instructed to take refuge in buildings with indoor air conditioning. This reliance on a system that runs on fossil fuels and contributes to nearly 20% of our greenhouse gas emissions also inevitably set us up for another, more severe heatwave. Even as the U.S. faces increasingly frequent – and deadly – climate change-related disasters, we continue to be caught off guard, treating them as short-term inconveniences and not the new normal. Science has proved that we are actively contributing to future climate devastation, and yet we continue to design buildings with an assumption that climate resilience means waiting out disasters, wasting significant energy fighting the symptoms while contributing to the illness.

This Small Texas Town Is Fighting Back Against Big Ammonia

Chris Carlton built his house in Ingleside, Texas in 2008, back when it was a sleepy fishing town. “We were this little pocket of paradise. This area was known for fishing long before it was known for petroleum.” Since then, more than a dozen oil and chemical facilities have sprung up along the coastline, drawn to the local area by access to Transatlantic shipping routes, the cheap supply of fossil fuels and lenient local regulators. Now, a new industry is rolling in – one with its sights firmly set on winning over the local community. In 2023, Norwegian fertiliser giant Yara teamed up with Canadian pipeline operator Enbridge, announcing plans to build the first ammonia plant in Ingleside.

Movements Need To Learn To Fly Like Bees And Thread Like Spiders

The first months of the Trump administration — with its rapid and sweeping turn toward autocratic rule — have rightly led to calls for collective and national resistance. Leading civil resistance scholars Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks have described the need for a “large-scale, multiracial, cross-class, pro-democracy front.” And Maria Stephan, writing for Just Security, called this a critical moment for taking up the “journey from individual angst to collective action, from siloed work to big-tent formations.” Creating such a collective response, however, requires a great deal of creativity and focus, particularly — as these authors suggest — when it comes to relating to different groups and building unexpected connections.

Environmental And Indigenous Groups Mobilize To Stop ‘Alligator Alcatraz’

As Florida's Republican government moves to construct a sprawling new immigration detention center in the heart of the Everglades, nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz," environmental groups and a wide range of other activists have begun to mobilize against it. Florida's Republican attorney general, James Uthmeier, announced last week that construction of the jail, at the site of a disused airbase in the Big Cypress National Preserve, had begun. According to Fox 4 Now, an affiliate in Southwest Florida, construction has moved at "a blistering pace," with the site expected to be done by next week.

Three Years Could Be Left To Limit Warming To 1.5 Degrees

Leading climate scientists are warning that the timeframe to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is shrinking, and the world could have just three years left to prevent breaching this limit. Experts warn the threshold could be passed within the next few years, with Piers Forster, director at the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at University of Leeds, noting that “Things are all moving in the wrong direction” with global heating and sea level rise, as reported by BBC. Forster lead a recent study with more than 60 leading climate scientists from around the world that determined countries have continued to “burn record amounts of coal, oil and gas and chop down carbon-rich forests,” which has left the 1.5 degree target of the Paris Agreement at risk.

20 Major Wins For Indigenous Rights In 2025

So far, 2025 has been a powerful year for Indigenous rights. Over the past 6 months we have seen many hard-fought victories and long-awaited acts of justice for Indigenous Peoples across the globe. While these wins vary in scale and geography, a common thread runs through them all: Indigenous leadership. Whether resisting oil drilling in the Peruvian Amazon, overturning mining projects in Arizona, or securing court protections for uncontacted peoples in Colombia and Ecuador, these movements reflect a resurgence of Indigenous authority in matters that directly affect their survival and future.

Trump Administration Abandons Deal With Tribes To Restore Salmon

Less than two years ago, the administration of President Joe Biden announced what tribal leaders hailed as an unprecedented commitment to the Native tribes whose ways of life had been devastated by federal dam-building along the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest. The deal, which took two years to negotiate, halted decades of lawsuits over the harm federal dams had caused to the salmon that had sustained those tribes culturally and economically for thousands of years. To enable the removal of four hydroelectric dams considered especially harmful to salmon, the government promised to invest billions of dollars in alternative energy sources to be created by the tribes.

Wai Bill Becomes Law: Major Victory For Water Protectors

Honolulu, Hawaiʻi — After more than two years of steadfast community advocacy and legislative effort, the Water Alliance Initiative Act—addressing long term clean up and remediation of Oahu’s water and land and protecting the water source for over 400,000 residents—was signed into law on Friday, June 6, 2025, and is now officially Act 197 (Gov. Msg. No. 1297). This landmark law creates a WAI Policy Coordinator under the Department of Land and Natural Resources and establishes a Red Hill Remediation Special Fund to support long-term cleanup, monitoring, public education, and restoration of Oʻahu’s primary aquifer in the wake of the 2021 Red Hill fuel contamination crisis.
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