A specific ideological register now dominates left-adjacent climate politics: the grammar of responsibility & guilt, the aesthetics of urgency without adequate theory of causation, the displacement of structural questions onto individual conduct. Moralism “cannot name capital as its object, because to do so would dissolve the framework.” If ecological destruction is produced by the structural imperatives of a mode of production, “then the question is not how to make individuals more responsible within that mode of production but how to end it.” The moralist turn has determinate social conditions—the defeat of organised labour & the hollowing out of political forms capable of mounting a class-based challenge to capital. “What it cannot think is the structural logic that makes ecological destruction not an aberration of capital but one of its normal products.” Three mechanisms follow from the valorisation imperative: externalisation (costs omitted from the value form), the discount rate (systematic devaluation of future costs), & the structural separation of production decisions from their ecological consequences. “Together they constitute not a market failure but a structural feature of capitalist production as such.” The metabolic rift concept (Marx via Foster) names the systematic disruption of the labour-nature metabolism; the fossil capital argument (Malm) adds historical specificity regarding the capital-labour relation. Green New Deal liberalism “correctly identifies the scale of public investment required… [but] what it leaves intact: the private ownership of the means of production… the valorisation imperative that will ensure any green investment programme is bent toward the requirements of accumulation rather than the requirements of ecological reproduction wherever the two diverge.” A materialist ecology must address the planning question, the class question (who bears transition costs), & the organisational question—the latter requiring a political force organised around the working class as “the social force whose position within production gives it both the structural interest & the potential capacity to bring production under conscious social control.” The separation between ecological & class politics is untenable: “the ecological crisis is a crisis of the capital-nature relation at the level of the mode of production… addressing it requires transforming that mode of production… building that force is the prior condition of everything else.”

Xinjiang has transmitted 304 billion kWh of new energy to other parts of China, accounting for about 30% of its total outgoing electricity. With a strong grid of seven internal loops and five external channels, the region now has six new energy bases each exceeding 10 million kilowatt.

China's tree-planting drive is entering a new phase. As the country marked its 48th National Tree Planting Day on March 12, the focus has been shifting from planting more trees to building healthier, higher-quality forests, with digital technology and artificial intelligence playing a growing role.

Using satellite monitoring, drones and digital twin systems, researchers can now track forests with far greater accuracy. These tools help scientists assess forest quality, guide planting in real time and ensure each new forest brings stronger ecological benefits.

Tourists play musical instruments amid blooming flowers in Langxi Town, Yinjiang Tujia and Miao Autonomous County, southwest China's Guizhou Province on March 13, 2026. /Tongren Media Convergence Center

Tourists play musical instruments amid blooming flowers in Langxi Town, Yinjiang Tujia and Miao Autonomous County, southwest China's Guizhou Province on March 13, 2026. /Tongren Media Convergence Center

In early spring, vibrant peach and plum blossoms blanket 800 hectares of once barren rocky land in Langxi Town of southwest China's Guizhou Province, drawing flocks of tourists for spring outings.

Langxi was once hit hardest by severe rocky desertification–bare rocks, water shortages and poor farmland. Through years of ecological restoration including reforestation and land reclamation, the barren slopes have turned into lush fruit forests.

Local authorities have built an eco-park integrating sightseeing, recreation and sports, creating year-round tourism with spring blossoms and autumn fruits. Annual per capita disposable income has surged from over 6,000 yuan ($871) in 2014 to 17,000 yuan ($2,468) today, proving desertification control can boost both ecology and rural vitalization.

（ECNS） -- Central China's Hubei Province launched the first zero-carbon emission vessel fleet for the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River on Wednesday, marking a significant step forward in green waterway transport.

All-electric container ship Huahang Xinneng 2 undergoes a trial operation in Wuhan, March 25, 2026. (Photo/China News Service)  

An inaugural sailing ceremony for the all-electric container ships Huahang Xinneng 2 and Huahang Xinneng 3 was held in Wuhan, the capital of central China's Hubei Province.

The first ship in the series, Huahang Xinneng 1, entered service on Nov. 16, 2023. It became the first all-electric container vessel to operate across both the main channel and tributaries of the Yangtze River in Hubei.

With a top speed of 18 km/h and a range of 175 km, the vessel can carry more than 100 standard containers.

Over more than two years of operation, it has travelled nearly 100,000 km, maintaining a record of zero emissions, zero pollution, and zero carbon output.

Each vessel is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 334 metric tons annually.

She Xiuqi, deputy general manager of Hubei Port Huazhong Port Shipping Logistics Group, said that Huahang Xinneng 5 and Huahang Xinneng 6 have been completed, and are currently undergoing trial operations.

Once the full fleet is in service, the vessels will run on high-frequency intercity routes, connecting Wuhan with nearby cities such as Ezhou and Huanggang within Hubei province.

This network aims to establish an efficient and convenient green water transport corridor linking the Han River with the Yangtze.

She added that while diesel-powered ships still dominate China's inland waterways, the growing adoption of electric ships is paving a new path toward greener, more intensive, and commercially viable river shipping.

How should we regard conservation orgs that view the primary instigators of climate change as irreplacable allies? tl;dr JFK administration birthed USAID which created AIDS for killing more Africans. The food aid kills them too. Am I joking? More on this later.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8046971

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/37313

In the fall of 2004, Diane Miller, a tree-fruit specialist, began a two-part expedition on a Fulbright to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, in Central Asia, the birthplace of the apple. Her quest: to bring back seeds from the region’s wild apple trees that could infuse domestic breeding programs with biodiversity.

The American apple industry is concentrated almost entirely on a handful of varieties. Just 15 apples account for roughly 90 percent of the market. In contrast, Central Asia’s thousands of wild apple varieties offered untold diversity from trees that had borne fruit across centuries of cultivation.

On the second half of the expedition in 2005, Miller, accompanied by her teenage daughter, Amy, journeyed through dramatic Kyrgyz landscapes. The pair traversed alpine passes and arid valleys on the way to a mountainous area in the west that was blanketed by apple and walnut forests. They were awed by the breathtaking abundance.

There was something else, too: The steep, wooded slopes and sandstone bluffs, surrounded by a wash of dense greenery, reminded them of their home in Appalachian Ohio.

“If I squinted a little bit, I could have thought I was at home,” said Amy Miller, now a fruit grower and plant pathologist. “That was our first indicator that these trees might be well adapted to our region.”

“It can be the foundation to a future of apple growing that ensures clean water and biodiversity and the health of farmworkers.”

The Millers returned to Ohio with hundreds of seeds from trees whose longevity suggested they might carry disease resistance—a trait that could be bred into American varieties, potentially reducing domestic reliance on chemical sprays.

In spring 2007, they planted seedlings in a research plot at Dawes Arboretum, a 2,000-acre preserve in an agricultural community east of Columbus, Ohio. The seedlings became part of a much larger collection, spanning roughly 6,000 trees and 15 acres, including controlled crosses of domestic varieties and selections from previous U.S. Department of Agriculture collection trips to Kazakhstan.

At Dawes, the Kyrgyz apples thrived. For nearly two decades they’ve lived there, some 800 trees growing into a unique repository of wild apple genetics that many breeders and growers now view as critical for the future of the domestic apple industry. Apple growers face a host of challenges, including global competition, climate change, rising costs, and many more.

“It can be the foundation to a future of apple growing that ensures clean water and biodiversity . . . and the health of farmworkers,” said Eliza Greenman, a germplasm specialist at the agroforestry nonprofit Savanna Institute. “It’s a foundation to unlocking apple flavors, too—to extending the boundaries of what we think apples can taste like.”

That future, however, is now uncertain. In mid-December 2025, Dawes’ executive director, Stephanie Crockatt, sent Miller a letter asking for the trees to be removed by the end of March.

“We have made the decision to adjust our research priorities and land management strategies,” the letter stated.

The directive left only enough time for “triage,” Greenman said. More than 100 plant breeders, researchers, fruit growers, agroforesters, and nonprofits signed a letter, written by Greenman, that pleaded for an extension so the collection “can be used, studied, and evaluated for years to come.”

Dawes pushed its deadline out a year to March 2027. Even with the extension, Greenman said, the decision risks dismantling an unrivaled resource for apple breeders that could take decades to reassemble.

Diane Miller surveys the wild Kyrgyz apple collection at Dawes Arboretum in Newark, Ohio. (Photo credit: Amy Miller)

Resilience Through Diversity

Diane Miller’s work is organized around a simple idea, she said: “genetic diversity for environmental resilience.” Through her work at Ohio State, the Midwest Apple Improvement Association, and the Midwest Apple Foundation, she’s long championed plant breeding that can increase disease resistance and reduce reliance on fungicides and insecticides.

Domestic apples are susceptible to pests like the codling moth and diseases like apple scab, a fungus that blemishes the fruit’s skin, and fireblight, a destructive bacteria that can rapidly kill trees. Because of these vulnerabilities, apples are sprayed with pesticides intensively, often weekly.

The domestic apple industry has veered toward a high-risk, high-reward model, Greenman said, accepting the added frustration and increased costs—in both sprays and systems—of working with delicate but delicious apples like Honeycrisp because the price they fetch can be three times that of sturdier alternatives.

In Kyrgyzstan, where the Millers gathered their genetic material, apples have been cultivated for centuries but never domesticated in isolation like American apples. In that wild setting, the trees remain largely unbothered by pests and disease. For the Millers, that made them invaluable for breeding programs that could cross their hardy traits with the intense sweetness and trademark crunch consumers crave from the Honeycrisp and numerous varieties it’s inspired.

“The future of the apple industry needs more disease resistance built in,” Greenman said, “or else breeding will be replaced by creating chemicals.”

“The future of the apple industry needs more disease resistance built in or else breeding will be replaced by creating chemicals.”

With American apple growers concentrated on a small range of varieties, “there’s a real risk of a genetic bottleneck,” said Matthew Moser Miller, an Ohio orchardist and cider maker who is familiar with the Dawes collection (and who is unrelated to Diane and Amy Miller).

A limited genetic pool can weaken disease resistance, making trees more vulnerable over time, he said. The Kyrgyz trees at the arboretum offer a safeguard—an immense variety of flavors and the promise of greater crop resilience.

As the seedlings grew into a forest of mature, 20-foot-tall trees, Diane Miller selected the best candidates for breeding, propagating them by grafting cuttings, called scionwood, onto rootstock and letting them grow. To cross two varieties, she applied pollen from the flowers of one to the flowers of the other.

Miller worked at this for years, promoting desirable qualities through generations of breeding while maintaining a library of traits breeders could use into the future. The Kyrgyz trees “have inherent vigor that is lacking in domestic apples,” she said. They also boast unusually high quantities of phenols, the chemical compounds that give fruits their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory power.

But plant breeding is a long-term process that will be interrupted by the forced exit from the arboretum. Moving the entire collection would be impossible, and moving just a selection wouldn’t capture its diversity. Miller will spend the next year collecting scionwood to propagate clones from the planting, but she will lose mature trees whose age is an integral part of understanding their potential.

“It takes time to sort and sift all that out,” Miller said. “They don’t just jump out and say, ‘I’ve got multi-gene disease resistance. Take me.’”

An apple tree bred with wild Kyrgyz genetics from the Dawes Arboretum collection. With its disease resistance and large fruit, it’s a prime candidate for breeding with existing commercial varieties to produce a crisp, delicious, yet resilient apple. (Photo credit: Diane Miller)

Rebuilding a Repository

Despite the protests of the apple breeding community, Crockatt, who took over as Dawes’ executive director in November 2024, says genetic research and crop production no longer align with the arboretum’s priorities.

Although Dawes hosts other research collections, including for maple, buckeye, and witch hazel, those are governed by formal research agreements outlining responsibilities and expectations. The Kyrgyz apple collection hasn’t met those guidelines, Crockatt said.

“It really is a situation where we have been a host, not a partner,” Crockatt said.

The relationship between Dawes and the nonprofit Midwest Apple Foundation, whose members have tended and monitored the entire 15-acre collection since its planting, developed out of a handshake agreement between leaders who are no longer at their respective institutions, Amy Miller said.

The foundation tried to formalize an agreement with Dawes in 2024, while the arboretum was under interim leadership; its intention was to rehabilitate the full planting, replacing trees whose evaluation was completed with new seedlings to observe. With a funding plan in place and apparent support from Dawes, the Millers were optimistic about their proposal. But the next time they heard from the arboretum was the December letter, sparking frustration and a rush to find a new home for the plant material.

“The new leadership team didn’t show any interest in actually learning what we have there,” Amy Miller said. “They didn’t reach out with any questions or to get any background information on what is even going on there. They just suddenly said, ‘Pack your stuff and get out.’”

According to Crockatt, research had been concluded on one plot when she arrived and left unattended at another, allowing invasive species to proliferate and threaten nearby collections. The arboretum’s decision was “based on alignment to our nonprofit mission,” she said.

With no other recourse, the Millers are hoping to replicate through grafting the seedling orchard they first planted in 2007, perhaps with duplicates in multiple locations to ensure longevity. They have yet to identify suitable host sites.

In late February, Diane and Amy Miller visited Dawes, along with Matt Thomas, a conservation biologist and Amy’s partner, to collect scionwood from 120 trees to begin rebuilding the repository. They will have two more opportunities to do so—in late summer, when they can gather budwood, and again during the trees’ dormancy next winter.

The group won’t be able to salvage everything, and what they do collect will no longer be growing on its own roots, which diminishes their ability to fully evaluate a tree’s potential, Diane Miller said.

Once the Millers have rescued what they can from the collection next spring, Crockatt said the trees will all be taken to local zoos to be browsed on by animals.

“It’s not like they’re going to be destroyed and forgotten,” Crockatt said. “They will serve a purpose.”

For apple breeders and growers, though, the trees’ highest purpose would be to remain in the ground at Dawes, where they can continue to serve as a vast library of genetic material whose potential can be explored over time.

“While we have it, we should protect it and try to preserve it, lest we shortsightedly allow it to be lost,” Matthew Miller said. “At that point, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to recover those lost genetics.”

The post In an Ohio Apple Grove, Researchers Race to Save Rare Varieties appeared first on Civil Eats.

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If you've spent the past ten years reading The Guardian's best attempts to yuck China's yum, the adjustments in these figures should overturn a lot of that malingering petro-supremacy thinking, provided you're paying attention (and god knows we are)

Conventional electrolytes on the market predominantly use oxygen- and nitrogen-based ligands as solvents. Although these compounds effectively dissolve lithium salts, they impede charge transfer, creating persistent bottlenecks in enhancing energy density and low-temperature performance. Data shows that traditional lithium batteries achieve an energy density of approximately 300 watt-hours per kilogram at room temperature, a figure that plummets to below 150 watt-hours per kilogram at minus 20 degrees Celsius.

To overcome these limitations, the research team has developed hydrofluorocarbon electrolytes, which significantly reduce viscosity while enhancing oxidative stability and low-temperature ionic conductivity, thereby boosting the low-temperature energy output of high-energy-density lithium batteries.

This advancement enables lithium batteries to achieve an energy density exceeding 700 watt-hours per kilogram at room temperature while maintaining approximately 400 watt-hours per kilogram even at minus 50 degrees Celsius, said Li Yong, a researcher at SAST.

"With a two- to threefold increase or more in room-temperature energy storage capacity for lithium batteries of the same mass, the range of electric vehicles can be extended from 500-600 kilometers to over 1,000 kilometers," Li said. "Remarkably, these batteries continue functioning normally even in extreme conditions as low as minus 70 degrees Celsius."

Can't find an English article, apologies.

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/36900956

Reading through speculation about what the **Monsterverse’s new kaiju Titan X aka Le Gran Dios de la Mar may be (such as the article linked above), it sounds increasingly as though she may be a new protective mother figure, impacted or possibly even responding to the effects of global heating on the oceans.

If so, this season’s Titan threat may put Monarch: Legacy of Monsters in a unique position among current major science fiction streaming shows in directly taking on a Climate Change/Emergency scenario with no gloss of allegory.

It is nonetheless absolutely in keeping with the long tradition of the broader franchise in critiquing the consequences of human actions on the planet.

The 70+ year Godzilla franchise is unique in embedding the impact of humanity on the Earth’s environment from its outset.

The narrative of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as later nuclear weapons testing and nuclear power plants, calling up kaiju, literally “strange creature”, is a constant within the franchise.

In addition to atomic/nuclear radiation, films such as Godzilla vs Hedorah (1971), with its smog monster, and the more recent Monsterverse film Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), which ends with Godzilla leading an ecological recovery, the franchise continues to underscore its deep theme that humanity shares the Earth and will bear the consequences for its actions.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7947189

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/34996

This article by Patricia Calvillo originally appeared in the March 13, 2026 edition of El Sol de San Luis.

Indigenous communities of the Tének and Nahuatl ethnicities in the Huasteca region of San Luis Potosí have raised their voices to express their rejection of any oil and gas exploration and extraction project that involves the use of hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, in the region. In a statement addressed to the President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, representatives of these communities warned of the environmental, social, and cultural risks that they assert would result from implementing such projects in their territory.

The document was issued in recent days from the municipality of Tancanhuitz de Santos, in the Huasteca Potosina region, and is addressed to both the federal government and national and international public opinion. In it, the communities express their concern over what they consider a change in the government’s commitment to prohibiting hydraulic fracturing, a technique used to extract hydrocarbons from complex geological formations.

The signatories of the statement point out that fracking consists of injecting fluids at high pressure to fracture the rock and release gas or oil trapped underground, although the possibility of using water recycling systems has been raised, they warn that the technique involves inherent risks such as the release of methane, the possible generation of induced seismicity and the production of toxic waste derived from the process.

According to the communities, the official discourse has presented the extraction of national gas as a strategy for energy sovereignty; however, they maintain that the development of unconventional deposits in Mexico depends largely on technology, machinery, and specialized services from foreign companies, mainly from the United States, which in their view would maintain a form of technological dependence.

Communities also argue that proceeding with such projects without their consent would violate the rights of Indigenous peoples recognized in the Mexican Constitution and international treaties. They cite Articles 1 and 2 of the Constitution, as well as Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization , which establishes the right of Indigenous peoples to be consulted in a prior, free, and informed manner about projects that may affect their territories.

One of the central points of the statement is the impact the technique would have on water, a fundamental resource for life and the economy of the region. The Huasteca region is known for its abundance of rivers, springs, and other bodies of water, but community representatives warn that the extraction processes require large volumes of fresh water to begin operations.

According to the document, the first stage of fracking would require millions of liters of water that would have to be extracted from local rivers or aquifers; in addition, they mention that recycling the water used in the process is not completely efficient and generates residual sludge that may contain hazardous chemicals.

The communities point out that the project would directly affect 3,268 localities where mostly Indigenous Tének and Nahuatl peoples live.

They question the feasibility of installing oil projects in areas far from populated areas, as has been suggested in some technical presentations. In the Tampico-Misantla Basin region, there is a high density of rural and Indigenous communities, meaning that virtually any project would be located near agricultural areas or water sources.

The potential impact of this phenomenon is not limited to the environmental sphere. Communities point out that the project would directly affect 3,268 localities inhabited primarily by indigenous Tének and Nahuatl peoples, populations that have historically faced poverty and marginalization.

They believe that the introduction of extractive projects could profoundly alter the social and economic fabric of the region, affecting traditional activities such as small-scale agriculture and access to natural resources on which numerous families depend.

Communities say economic development cannot be built on the dispossession of Indigenous territories or on environmental degradation.

Another point of concern is the risk to existing bodies of water in the area. According to the communities , there are at least 1,019 rivers, springs, aquifers, and other water bodies in the region that could be directly or indirectly affected by mining activity.

Furthermore, soil disturbance and potential contamination could trigger a process of environmental degradation that would affect local biodiversity. The Huasteca region is considered to be of great biological richness, with flora and fauna species that form part of the country’s natural heritage.

The communities also argue that proceeding with such projects without their consent would violate the rights of Indigenous peoples recognized in the Mexican Constitution and international treaties. They cite Articles 1 and 2 of the Constitution, as well as Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization , which establishes the right of Indigenous peoples to be consulted in a prior, free, and informed manner about projects that may affect their territories.

Given this situation, they have decided not to give their consent to the strategic plan that contemplates the exploitation of hydrocarbons in the area, nor to any initiative that may affect their territory, their culture, or their natural environment.

The statement also affirms that the Huasteca region should not be considered a sacrifice zone for energy projects and maintains that it is a living ecosystem and a territory with a millennia-old cultural history that requires protection, not exploitation.

Finally, they formally requested a direct meeting with President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo to establish a respectful and direct dialogue about the future of the region. They stated that economic development cannot be built on the dispossession of Indigenous territories or on environmental degradation.

• 

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  Trump Launches Investigation into Mexico for Excessive Manufacturing Capacity & Production

  March 13, 2026

  US officials say the investigation will examine whether certain industries in Mexico are producing more goods than domestic demand can absorb and exporting excess supply into the US market.

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  Mañanera

  People’s Mañanera March 13

  March 13, 2026March 13, 2026

  President Sheinbaum’s daily press conference, with comments on electoral reform, crime reduction, Colima public works, foreign direct investment, and peace.

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  Senate Concludes Vote Against “Golden Pensions”; Sends Reform to San Lázaro

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  President Sheinbaum’s initiative establishes a cap on pensions and retirement benefits for high-ranking officials to prevent them from receiving more than 50% of the presidential salary.

The post Indigenous Communities Tell Sheinbaum Fracking Threatens Huasteca Potosina’s Social Fabric & Natural Resources appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7821460

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/32016

Under the warm light of a hanging lamp, Marty Landorf carefully crumbled the dried flower head of a black-eyed Susan between her fingers, teasing apart the chaff to uncover its puny black seeds. Each one was destined for long-term cold storage alongside roughly 46 million other seeds at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Every seed in the garden’s vault is different. Some seeds have hooks. Others verge on microscopic. A few carry a sharp, deterring scent. And some, like the airborne seeds of the milkweed, the host plant for monarch caterpillars, are fastened to silky fluff that drifts everywhere, hitching rides on volunteers’ clothes and following them home.

“Fluff is fun,” Landorf said laughing, seated alongside five other volunteers cleaning, counting, and sorting seeds at a long metallic table in the garden’s seed bank preparation lab.

Carolyn Kuechler, left, and Marty Landorf, volunteers at the Chicago Botanic Garden, work on separating the seeds from the chaff at the seed bank in the Carr Administrative Center. Manuel Martinez / WBEZ

For all their variation, these seeds share a common trait: They’re native to the Midwest. These species genetically adapted over thousands of years and sustain the region’s ecosystems. That evolutionary inheritance makes them indispensable for restoring the nation’s remaining prairies, wetlands, and woodlands.

The problem: Native seeds are in short supply. And climate change is intensifying demand.

“Climate change is affecting our weather and the frequency of natural disasters,” said Kayri Havens, chief scientist at the Chicago Botanic Garden. “Wildfires becoming more common, hurricanes becoming more common — that increases the need for seed.”

In 2024, the Chicago Botanic Garden, a 385-acre public garden and home to one of the nation’s leading plant conservation programs, launched the Midwest Native Seed Network, a first step in improving the region’s fragile seed supply. The coalition now includes roughly 300 restoration ecologists, land managers, and seed growers across 150 institutions in 11 states. Together, they are researching which species are most in demand, where they are likely to thrive, and what it will take to produce them at scale and get them in the ground.

The collaborative is compiling information on seed collection, processing, germination, and propagation while identifying regional research gaps and planning collaborative projects to close them. For example, the network is currently collecting research on submerged aquatic plants such as pondweeds, and other species that are challenging to germinate, like the bastard toadflax, a partially parasitic perennial herb.

“We’re addressing these local, regional, and national shortages of native seed that are really just hindering our ability to restore really diverse habitats, build green infrastructure, and support urban gardens,” said Andrea Kramer, director of restoration at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Sarah Hollis, research assistant at the Chicago Botanic Garden, tours the seed bank in the Carr Administrative Center. Manuel Martinez / WBEZ

Last year, the network undertook its first major project: a large-scale survey of more than 50 partners across the region. The results were stark. They revealed that more than 500 native species in the Midwest are effectively unavailable for restoration. In some cases, it’s because no one grows them. In others, the seeds are available, but the cost — even at a couple of dollars per packet — becomes prohibitive when restoration projects require thousands of pounds. And for certain finicky species, the bottleneck is technical: Researchers and growers still don’t fully understand how to germinate them reliably or help them thrive in restoration settings.

Kramer said that, ultimately, the goal is to connect the people who need seeds with those who know how to grow them. While the network does not sell seeds, it works with organizations and partners that do. “We are using the network to help elevate what we all know and share what we know to make it easier,” she said.

The shortage itself is not new. In 2001, following sweeping wildfires in the West, Congress tasked federal agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service — which, combined, manage approximately one-fifth of the nation’s public lands — to craft an interagency, public-private partnership to increase the availability of native seeds. But according to a 2023 report, which identified the lack of native seeds as a major obstacle for ecological restoration projects across the United States, those efforts remain unfinished.

Kayri Havens, vice president of science and chief scientist at the Chicago Botanic Garden, poses for a portrait in the Carr Administrative Center. Manuel Martinez / WBEZ

Wildfires have scorched more than 170 million acres in the U.S. between 2000 and 2025, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. In 2020 alone, the Bureau of Land Management purchased roughly 1.5 million pounds of seed to rehabilitate burned landscapes. In a bad fire year, the agency can buy as much as 10 million pounds.

The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law dedicated $1.4 billion for ecosystem restoration over five years, including $200 million for the National Seed Strategy, a coalition of 12 federal agencies and various private partners established in 2015 to provide genetically diverse native seeds for restoration. The following year, the Inflation Reduction Act invested nearly $18 million to develop an interagency seed bank for native seeds. And in 2024, the Interior Department announced an initial round of $1 million for a national seed bank for native plants.

“The U.S. does have a major seed bank run by the [Department of Agriculture], and it mostly banks crops,” said Havens, the scientist at the Chicago Botanic Garden. “But we don’t have that kind of infrastructure in place for native seed.”

Momentum for establishing a native seed bank stalled following funding cuts by the Trump administration. In early 2025, the Department of Government Efficiency cut 10 percent of the staff at the National Plant Germplasm System, which is home to one of the largest and most diverse plant collections in the world.

Andrea Kramer, senior director of restoration at the Chicago Botanic Garden, said the network’s goal is to connect those who have access to seeds to those who don’t. Manuel Martinez / WBEZ

“If something isn’t supported on a national level, then it becomes incumbent on states and regions to do that kind of work,” Havens said. “So that’s why we’re focusing right now in the Midwest.”

The network is the first of its kind in the Midwest, though similar initiatives have been active elsewhere in the country for years. Today, there are more than 25 similar networks operating across the U.S. In the western United States, these coalitions have come together in response to post-wildfire restoration projects.

“One of the reasons why we were among the first is because of this federal land ownership that we have in the West, whereas in the Midwest, it’s more private land,” said Elizabeth Lager, a professor at the University of Nevada in Reno and co-founder of the Nevada Native Seed Partnership. More than 90 percent of all federal land is located in 11 Western states.

Kramer said she hopes to run the seed availability survey again in 20 years and get a different response.

“I want them to say, ‘We have access to all the seed we need,’” said Kramer. “And we can move on to the next challenging question, like, ‘Why isn’t the seed establishing in my restoration? Or, how do we manage the next challenge coming with climate change?’”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A regional network is racing to save the Midwest’s native seeds on Mar 2, 2026.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7821507

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/31729

Last Updated on February 28, 2026 Ecuador’s National Assembly has approved sweeping changes to the country’s mining framework, igniting opposition from Indigenous nations and their allies who say the reforms endanger biodiverse ecosystems and weaken Indigenous rights protections.

On Feb. 26, lawmakers passed the Organic Law for the Strengthening of the Strategic Mining and Energy Sectors by a 77–70 vote as part of a fast-tracked package promoted by President Daniel Noboa and his allies. Supporters argue the changes will ‘modernize’ regulation and make Ecuador’s mining sector more competitive.

But Indigenous leaders and civil society groups have condemned the measure as a threat to their lands and ways of life, raising alarms that the law erodes critical safeguards long championed in Ecuador’s constitution — including recognition of the rights of nature.

The national Indigenous federation CONAIE and regional Amazonian nations publicly rejected the legislation, saying it would accelerate mining activity in territories that have historically been protected from large-scale extractive projects.

They argue the law opens the door to expanded mining without meaningful free, prior and informed consent, a right that’s enshrined in Ecuador’s constitution and international agreements like ILO 169, which Ecuador ratified.

According to Amazon Frontlines, “the bill also conflicts with landmark rulings such as the 2022 Sinangoe decision [and] international agreements including the Escazú Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.”

Leaders from the Achuar, Kichwa, Shuar, Sápara and Waorani nations have emphasized that their territories comprise some of the most intact forests on Earth, playing a critical role in biodiversity conservation and climate stability. In a public statement issued ahead of the vote, they called on legislators to reject the law, warning that it would fuel conflict and environmental degradation in the Amazon.

“So-called ‘responsible mining’ does not exist. Where mining enters, so do deforestation, river pollution, violence, and organized crime. The data confirms this: in 2024, 4,926 hectares were registered as open-pit mining sites in 105 Indigenous territories, and at least 23 protected areas have lost approximately 14,660 hectares of forest between 2001 and 2024*. This law will only exacerbate this damage,” they said.

“By dismantling environmental safeguards and transferring oversight responsibilities to extractive-sector institutions, the new law deepens tensions between Ecuador’s economic development model and the protection of human rights, biodiversity, and the global climate,” said Amazon Frontlines.

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From Intercontinental Cry via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7783560

Protest mass environmental damage

Get sued for 400 million dollars

in bad country

Scientists have detected a massive lithium plume in Earth's upper atmosphere, traced to a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that broke up over Poland in February 2025[^1]. Using ground-based laser measurements, researchers found lithium levels increased tenfold at 96 kilometers altitude, about 20 hours after the rocket's uncontrolled re-entry[^1].

The Falcon 9's upper stage, which contained an estimated 30 kg of lithium in its aluminum alloy tank walls, released significantly more lithium than the typical 80 grams that enters the atmosphere daily from cosmic dust[^1].

"This finding supports growing concerns that space traffic may pollute the upper atmosphere in ways not yet fully understood," according to the research paper published in February 2026[^1]. The scientists warn this could become a recurring issue as more satellites and rockets re-enter Earth's atmosphere.

The study marks two firsts: the initial measurement of upper-atmosphere pollution from space debris re-entry, and proof that ground-based lidar can detect space debris burning up[^1]. The research team used a specialized dye laser system in Germany that could detect lithium atoms in the mesosphere while maintaining strict safety protocols for aircraft[^10].

[^1]: The Register - Euro boffins track lithium plume from Falcon 9 burn-up

[^10]: ACS - How powerful lasers can measure air pollution from space debris

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7672215

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/28531

It was sunny and warm for the end of November on the Rocky Boy’s Reservation in northern Montana. Joseph Eagleman was standing on a grassy hill looking at a 20-panel solar array in the backyard of a Chippewa Cree elder.

It was built under the Solar for All program, a Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act-funded project that distributed $7 billion to build residential solar across the country. Here on Rocky Boy’s, around 200 homes would have received solar funded by the federal dollars.

This home was the first to get panels in Queensville, a small community of modest homes in one of the reservation’s valleys. The home is brown, two stories, and fully electric, which is one of the requirements to qualify for Solar for All funding. Eagleman met me there to give me a tour of the panels that all but eliminated the resident’s $200–300 monthly electricity bills, according to Eagleman.

Eagleman is the CEO of the Chippewa Cree Energy Corporation, an organization that manages energy development for the tribe. Here in the northern Plains, a coalition of 14 tribes received a $135 million grant. The money would have provided around $7.6 million for each reservation to build residential solar, and Eagleman would have managed the Solar for All funds for the Chippewa Cree.

Then came President Donald Trump. His administration cut Solar for All in August of 2025.

Joseph Eagleman, standing beneath the solar array, looks out onto the Rocky Boy’s Reservation.
Ilana Newman / Daily Yonder

“It’s terrible. We were getting ready to take off,” Eagleman said.

Residents had seen this solar array, which was built in the fall of 2024, and were excited about the possibility of free solar. Eagleman had a list of 40 households that were applying for the first round of the project. But only this home got a completed solar array before the program was stopped.

“It was a gut punch,” he said.

The reservation is about an hour and a half from the closest city, Great Falls, Montana, and has a population of 3,300. Driving down to meet Eagleman, I passed a cafe/casino/bar/gas station, a school, a skate park, and many residences, but little else. “There’s not a lot of opportunities, except for leaving the reservation,” said Eagleman.

Electricity costs are high on the reservation, as they are across rural America. Building and maintaining infrastructure without density drives up costs in these areas. Applicants showed Eagleman their bills to demonstrate why they wanted solar so badly, and some were up to $900 a month. Around 35 percent of the reservation’s residents live below the poverty line, more than double the rate for the United States. Solar installations like these cost thousands of dollars — money that most residents don’t have.

Eagleman had hired Zane Patacsil, a local resident who had experience installing solar, a month before the cuts. Patacsil joined us in the sunny backyard, overlooking the hills and valleys that make up the Rocky Boy’s Reservation.

Around 200 solar arrays would have been installed on the Rocky Boy’s Reservation in northern Montana with funding from Solar for All. This was the first, and ultimately the only one, installed in fall 2024. Ilana Newman / Daily Yonder

He said Solar for All would have brought some economic development to Rocky Boy’s and the other reservations that received the grant: an office and people to manage it, as well as training and hiring solar installers to do the labor.

“There were even members who were talking about starting their own solar businesses so they could be installing,” added Patacsil. “It was very disheartening to hear that news, because we lost all of that with it.”

A question of sovereignty

When protests raged against the Dakota Access pipeline in 2016, Cody Two Bears was on the tribal council for the Standing Rock Sioux. He saw another layer to the dispute: energy extraction on tribal land that not only hurt residents, but also brought no relief for high energy bills.

Two Bears wanted to bring energy sovereignty to his community and other tribal nations. He started the nonprofit Indigenized Energy in 2017. “I do this because of energy and energy sovereignty as well, but it creates a sense of hope for our tribal nations,” he said.

Sovereignty and self-governance are what tribes allegedly gained in exchange for giving up traditional homelands when treaties were signed over the past centuries. Tribal sovereignty is not only about protecting culture and traditions; it’s also about self-sufficiency. It’s also legally protected by the U.S. Constitution. But that’s easier said than done without the resources to support true independence, which have been systemically removed by the U.S. government.

Native Americans are more food insecure and rely on Medicaid at higher rates than their white counterparts, depending on the U.S. government for subsidies while desiring the sovereignty that was promised. Energy independence is a way to regain a degree of that sovereignty, and Two Bears has made that his goal with Indigenized Energy.

Donica Brady outside Busby, Montana on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. Ilana Newman / Daily Yonder

“My ultimate goal is to work myself out of a job. I want to build so much capacity into these tribes where they don’t need Indigenized Energy anymore,” said Two Bears.

But the funding picture changed dramatically when Trump’s administration slashed solar spending.

Indigenized Energy had already been building residential solar on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation for a few years, and it ramped up to prepare for more work through Solar for All. But when the program was cut, Indigenized Energy laid off around half its staff, including Donica Brady, the coordinator for the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in southeastern Montana.

I first met Brady in September 2025, about a month after the layoff, and the pain of losing a job she loved was evident. Brady had spent the past couple of years building trust in a community where promises have been made and broken over and over again. Solar for All became yet another one.

Part of programs like Solar for All is job development within the solar industry. Brady was part of a training program through Red Cloud Renewable, funded by previous grants for solar on reservations. Solar for All would also have funded training and trade development on these reservations.

When I caught up with Brady again at her house in Busby, she was working two jobs, and the only time she had for me was at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday, after her daughter’s choir recital. I found her in the garage with a kitchen knife in hand, skinning a deer her wife had shot a few days previously. She asked if I wanted to help and handed me a knife.

Donica Brady carves out meat from a deer in her garage in Busby, Montana. Ilana Newman / Daily Yonder

We chatted as we worked on the deer skin, cutting fat and sinew away from the dark red meat. She’d returned to her previous job as a bus driver and was hired by Freedom Forever, a solar installation company based in California. She’s still working in renewable energy, and Freedom Forever does work on reservations at times, but Brady’s job is no longer on the ground working with her community like she craves.

“I want my people to be able to be self-sufficient, not have to rely on funding or things like that that can be taken away,” Brady said. I heard this over and over: People don’t want to have to depend on the federal government for “handouts.”

As Brady cut out the tender backstraps and set them aside to give to her auntie, she talked about solar’s deeper meaning. “People call it progress, but I see it as going back to what we were taught, but in a new way,” she said. It’s more than just energy; it’s harnessing the sun, an important reflection of Northern Cheyenne culture.

The deer we were cutting up felt like a symbol summarizing everything we talked about. It was one way Brady could become self-sufficient and support those she loves. If only the power of the sun could be harnessed as easily as a deer skinned in a garage.

Residents are hurt most

Some time later, just outside of Lame Deer, Montana, the tribal headquarters of Northern Cheyenne, I got lost looking for Thomasine Woodenlegs’ house. My phone had no service, so all I had was Woodenlegs’ instructions: Look for a bright-green house at the end of the road. Many U-turns later, Woodenlegs welcomed me into her kitchen, where photos of loved ones covered the walls and two cats, one orange and one black, lounged on the couch.

Woodenlegs works for her tribe, and she has lived in this house for 50 years. She plans to pass it down to her family. But she knows she will be saddling them with a financial burden, too.

“How am I going to survive after I retire? And how is whoever inherits my house?” Woodenlegs asked. “I’ll need to warn them that the electricity runs like $400 or $500, and they’d have to have a really secure income to live here. Otherwise, they’d be without lights.”

Power lines cross the short grass prairie on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. Ilana Newman / Daily Yonder

Woodenlegs saw solar panels from previous grant programs like the White River Community Solar Project, funded by the Department of Energy, going up around the reservation in 2020 and 2021. Back then, Solar for All’s big allocation for Indigenous communities brought more hope. She put in her own applications, feeling jealous of friends and acquaintances who received them, wondering when it would be her turn. She’s still waiting.

Tina Cady, another Northern Cheyenne resident, lives just outside of Busby and has applied for solar panels multiple times. She worked for the Indian Health Service for 25 years until she went on disability. Now she lives on a fixed income of about $1,000 a month, and her husband picks up as many hours as he can as an adjunct professor at the tribal college. She showed me her October electric bill, which was $225.13.

Brady handled her application and told Cady what she’d learned in the field so far: Cady was a prime applicant for solar panels and she should be at the top of the list. “I’m an elder, and I’m disabled,” Cady said. Plus, she owns her own land. But Cady never heard anything more about it.

I asked whether she felt betrayed by the funding cuts, after so many previous letdowns to tribal communities. Cady said no, because it wasn’t her money to be betrayed. But she was disappointed and disenchanted. “I have seen them do this before. You get so you don’t trust anybody anymore.”

The fight continues

Four different lawsuits have been filed in federal courts against the Trump administration for ending Solar for All. It was terminated after the One Big Beautiful Bill Actrescinded “the unobligated funds for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund,” which had provided the funding for Solar for All.

The lawsuits claim that Solar for All was already a year into operation, so the funds were obligated, and that taking away already obligated funds is illegal.

All the lawsuits are still active. One from Climate United will move into oral arguments in February. Another from a coalition of 22 states is seeking an injunction to keep the Solar for All funds available.

Eagleman hopes to find additional funding to build residential solar arrays like this one for many more Chippewa Cree elders. Ilana Newman / Daily Yonder

But even without results from the lawsuits, solar installers like Cody Two Bears and Joseph Eagleman plan to continue to fight for solar development on northern Plains reservations.

Eagleman said he’s going to keep looking for funding to help bring affordable electricity to the Chippewa Cree on the Rocky Boy’s Reservation. He’s been looking at other public funding through the Department of Energy, as well as private philanthropic options.

Two Bears said he is moving forward with his company’s list of families awaiting solar. Indigenized Energy is ready to break ground on a project on the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin, which was next in line when the funding was cut. He said they found private funding for that project, as well as another solar array for the Rosebud Sioux.

“So even though the money is not there, we’re still finding alternative resources and funding to make these possible and make ’em feasible,” said Two Bears. “It’s just going to take longer.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Native families were promised free solar. Trump took it away. on Feb 15, 2026.

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