https://znetwork.org/category/topic/ecology/climate-change-ecology/ Independent Left News, Analysis, Vision and Strategy Wed, 17 Dec 2025 20:33:14 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://znetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/cropped-Z_logo_512-32x32.png https://znetwork.org/category/topic/ecology/climate-change-ecology/ 32 32 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/save-our-forests-one-roll-at-a-time/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/save-our-forests-one-roll-at-a-time/#respond Wed, 17 Dec 2025 18:42:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292454 North America’s boreal forests are crucial for wildlife and the climate, but we’re literally trashing them to make pulp for toilet paper and other disposable paper products. Companies are clear-cutting a million acres a year, according to a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The northern boreal forests are Earth’s largest terrestrial [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/save-our-forests-one-roll-at-a-time/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fossil-fuel-subsidies-are-leading-u-s-and-eu-into-industrial-decline/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fossil-fuel-subsidies-are-leading-u-s-and-eu-into-industrial-decline/#respond Tue, 16 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292443 The following is an interview with Hans-Josef Fell. Fell is the drafter of the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), a law that came into force in Germany 25 years ago and has been copied over 100 times in more than 60 countries. Hans-Josef Fell was a member of the German Bundestag from 1998 to 2013. [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fossil-fuel-subsidies-are-leading-u-s-and-eu-into-industrial-decline/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/reefolution-respond-to-marine-ecosystem-disruption/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/reefolution-respond-to-marine-ecosystem-disruption/#respond Mon, 15 Dec 2025 18:46:27 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292391 Decades of inaction responding to rapidly increasing carbon emissions, industrial overfishing, point source contamination, and similar compounding pressures on our planet’s oceans have begun obvious, large scale disruption of marine ecosystems.  84.4 % of the world’s coral reefs experienced mass bleaching, and ongoing, record high ocean heat for several years are just some of the recent extreme, systemic [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/reefolution-respond-to-marine-ecosystem-disruption/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/when-young-people-and-farmers-are-guardians-of-soil-health/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/when-young-people-and-farmers-are-guardians-of-soil-health/#respond Mon, 15 Dec 2025 18:38:36 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292386 Surviving repeated threats of being buried alive, the EU’s first ever law on soil health was finally adopted last month. And while environmental groups have called out “severe shortcomings” in the final text of the Soil Monitoring Law, it is a significant step in the right direction on the journey towards healthy soils in Europe. Whether [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/when-young-people-and-farmers-are-guardians-of-soil-health/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-paris-climate-treaty-changed-the-world-heres-how/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-paris-climate-treaty-changed-the-world-heres-how/#respond Sun, 14 Dec 2025 17:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292341 Today marks the 10th anniversary of the Paris climate treaty, one of the landmark days in climate-action history. Attending the conference as a journalist, I watched and listened and wondered whether 194 countries could ever agree on anything at all, and the night before they did, people who I thought were more sophisticated than me [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-paris-climate-treaty-changed-the-world-heres-how/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/climateflation-and-water-scarcity-why-africa-faces-the-worlds-sharpest-food-security-risks/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/climateflation-and-water-scarcity-why-africa-faces-the-worlds-sharpest-food-security-risks/#respond Sat, 13 Dec 2025 14:42:57 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292323 In Lagos, a maize seller recently doubled her prices within a single year. In Morocco, pipelines stretch across barren plains, carrying desalinated water to farms that once relied on rainfall. Across much of the continent, the pattern is unmistakable: in the regions most exposed to climate shocks, the future of food security is becoming increasingly [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/climateflation-and-water-scarcity-why-africa-faces-the-worlds-sharpest-food-security-risks/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/homo-stultus-the-case-for-renaming-ourselves/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/homo-stultus-the-case-for-renaming-ourselves/#respond Tue, 09 Dec 2025 18:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292183 The name Homo sapiens—Latin for “wise man”—has always carried an air of self-congratulation. Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, coined the term in 1758, confident that his species stood apart by virtue of intelligence and reason. But what if wisdom, properly defined as the capacity to act with foresight and moral restraint, has proven [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/homo-stultus-the-case-for-renaming-ourselves/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/who-really-pays-for-your-cheap-flight/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/who-really-pays-for-your-cheap-flight/#respond Mon, 08 Dec 2025 21:18:28 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292150 In September 2025, I log into social media. My algorithm advertises a $137 Iberia Airlines flight from the US to Spain. The fare is crazy cheap. I can’t even fly to visit my family within the continental US for $137. I know I’m not the only one whose hand is twitching to click. But $137 [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/who-really-pays-for-your-cheap-flight/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-earth-is-unhappy-with-the-capitalist-climate-catastrophe/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-earth-is-unhappy-with-the-capitalist-climate-catastrophe/#respond Sat, 06 Dec 2025 17:50:34 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292091 During the closing plenaries of the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP30) in Belém do Pará in the Brazilian Amazon, United Nations Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell gave a rousing speech.  Stiell, from Grenada, came to his post after a long career in the corporate sector and [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-earth-is-unhappy-with-the-capitalist-climate-catastrophe/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/indigenous-and-environmental-defenders-risk-their-lives-as-the-last-line-protecting-the-planet/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/indigenous-and-environmental-defenders-risk-their-lives-as-the-last-line-protecting-the-planet/#respond Sat, 06 Dec 2025 17:12:20 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292082 Land and environmental defenders—Indigenous leaders, farmers, conservationists, and community activists—risk their lives opposing the destructive exploitation of natural resources. Global Witness defines them as people who “take a stand… against the unjust, discriminatory, corrupt or damaging exploitation of natural resources or the environment.” Often described as the planet’s last line of defense, they protest, document, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/indigenous-and-environmental-defenders-risk-their-lives-as-the-last-line-protecting-the-planet/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/environmental-crisis-its-all-about-the-money/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/environmental-crisis-its-all-about-the-money/#respond Tue, 02 Dec 2025 17:30:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291879 For regular viewers of Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! Program, she and her team recently reported from the COP30 conference in Belém, Brazil.  This COPS spotlighted Indigenous people, and the program had numerous interviews with not only representatives of different Indigenous groups but also environmental activists challenging fossil-fuel hegemony. The Money Sadly, none of the well-meaning people interviewed mentioned that the global [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/environmental-crisis-its-all-about-the-money/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/have-we-reached-peak-fossil-fuels-wind-solar-met-all-new-energy-demand-in-q1-q3-25/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/have-we-reached-peak-fossil-fuels-wind-solar-met-all-new-energy-demand-in-q1-q3-25/#comments Tue, 02 Dec 2025 17:30:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291883 Richard Black and other analysts at the Ember energy consultancy find that all new electricity demand in the first three quarters of 2025 was met by solar and wind, mainly solar. That statistic requires us to conclude that there was no growth in fossil fuels globally during that period. Ember anticipates that Q4 will show the same result. Fossil fuel [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/have-we-reached-peak-fossil-fuels-wind-solar-met-all-new-energy-demand-in-q1-q3-25/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ecosocialism-or-extinction-defending-life-building-free-territories-and-ecosocialism-from-and-for-the-peoples/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ecosocialism-or-extinction-defending-life-building-free-territories-and-ecosocialism-from-and-for-the-peoples/#respond Mon, 01 Dec 2025 16:35:19 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291821 Statement from the Second Ecosocialist Meeting, held in Belém, Brazil, November 2025, with the participation of 99 organizations and more than 350 people, including a strong presence of organizations representing Indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants. We don’t sell our land because it is like our mother. Our territory is our body. And we don’t sell our [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ecosocialism-or-extinction-defending-life-building-free-territories-and-ecosocialism-from-and-for-the-peoples/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/climate-change-and-labour-precarity-a-worker-centred-agenda/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/climate-change-and-labour-precarity-a-worker-centred-agenda/#respond Sat, 29 Nov 2025 16:00:32 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291777 Just as the COP30 meeting in Belen, Brazil, has ended, the last week of November is Canada Climate Week Xchange. We could hope this is good news, but instead of the week’s activities being sponsored by traditional climate organizations or climate innovators, it is organized by the Toronto Stock Exchange. Canada Climate Week stands out from other [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/climate-change-and-labour-precarity-a-worker-centred-agenda/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-second-term-dispels-any-notion-of-ceos-saving-us-from-climate-crisis/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-second-term-dispels-any-notion-of-ceos-saving-us-from-climate-crisis/#respond Sat, 29 Nov 2025 15:55:16 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291775 Billionaire executives have long been lauded by the corporate media as unfettered heroes advancing human progress. But the first year of Donald Trump’s second presidential term should dispel any notion that wealthy CEOs will save us from the twin crises of creeping authoritarianism and intensifying global climate chaos. Today, many of these supposed icons have wasted little time groveling to Trump [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-second-term-dispels-any-notion-of-ceos-saving-us-from-climate-crisis/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/indigenous-people-were-the-heroes-of-cop30/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/indigenous-people-were-the-heroes-of-cop30/#respond Fri, 28 Nov 2025 17:59:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291742 Contradictions pervaded the latest UN climate conference (COP30) held in Belem, Brazil. Progressive President Lula da Silva of Brazil proclaimed it would a positive turning point in progress, while he authorized his state-owned oil producer to do exploratory drilling for oil near the Great Amazon Reef System.  For ninety species of reef fish this is [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/indigenous-people-were-the-heroes-of-cop30/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/salt-the-earth/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/salt-the-earth/#respond Wed, 26 Nov 2025 16:02:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291678 The year is 2019. Tens of millions across the globe pour into the streets, demanding governments halt new fossil fuel infrastructure and pass policy that puts humanity on a path toward a relatively climate-safe world of 1.5 degrees Celsius worth of warming by 2100, as recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). There [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/salt-the-earth/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/cop30-self-congratulations-and-promises-to-talk-more-are-no-substitute-for-action/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/cop30-self-congratulations-and-promises-to-talk-more-are-no-substitute-for-action/#respond Wed, 26 Nov 2025 16:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291680 Another climate summit has mercifully ended. As with past summits, nothing of substance happened. The United States did not participate, meaning that the Trump administration technically could not thwart any attempt to block meaningful decision-making, but that was no problem for the Trump gang as Saudi Arabia was there to pick up the ball. Any [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/cop30-self-congratulations-and-promises-to-talk-more-are-no-substitute-for-action/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/china-desert-turns-green-via-25-years-of-youth-led-efforts/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/china-desert-turns-green-via-25-years-of-youth-led-efforts/#respond Tue, 25 Nov 2025 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291659 Amid the chilling wind of an early winter morning, Nong Haojun, a 26-year-old PhD student, set out toward an experimental field deep in the interior of the Maowusu Desert, one of the major deserts in China’s northwest. This was his final trip this year to collect soil data after a six-month stay focused on wilderness [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/china-desert-turns-green-via-25-years-of-youth-led-efforts/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/zvideo/climate-deal-excludes-fossil-fuel-phaseout-as-wealthy-nations-place-burden-on-the-backs-of-the-poor/ https://znetwork.org/zvideo/climate-deal-excludes-fossil-fuel-phaseout-as-wealthy-nations-place-burden-on-the-backs-of-the-poor/#respond Tue, 25 Nov 2025 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=video&p=1291669 Global negotiations at the annual U.N. climate summit ended Saturday in Belém, Brazil, with a watered-down agreement that does not even mention fossil fuels, let alone offer a roadmap to phase out what are the primary contributors to the climate crisis. The COP30 agreement also makes no new commitments to halt deforestation and does not [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/zvideo/climate-deal-excludes-fossil-fuel-phaseout-as-wealthy-nations-place-burden-on-the-backs-of-the-poor/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/energy-affordability-not-energy-dominance/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/energy-affordability-not-energy-dominance/#respond Mon, 24 Nov 2025 18:10:20 +0000 Two of the most significant dates in my life as a progressive activist and organizer are April 4, 1968 and August of 2003. The 1968 date is the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed. His killing pushed me to finally do something about racial injustice and the Vietnam War rather than just reading and [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/energy-affordability-not-energy-dominance/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-hot-tub-of-death/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-hot-tub-of-death/#respond Mon, 24 Nov 2025 18:03:07 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291622 In late October, Hurricane Melissa (that should have been called “Godzilla”) battered western Jamaica with 185-mile-an-hour winds. It tossed the roofs of buildings about like splintering javelins, demolished municipal buildings and hospitals, snapped telephone poles like matchsticks, flattened crops, and dumped torrential floodwaters everywhere, leaving $8 billion in damage. That Category 5 storm’s unprecedented ferocity was driven by an [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-hot-tub-of-death/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-is-attracting-investment-to-the-us-but-at-a-huge-cost-to-workers-and-the-environment/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-is-attracting-investment-to-the-us-but-at-a-huge-cost-to-workers-and-the-environment/#respond Mon, 24 Nov 2025 17:25:43 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291614 Early in his second presidency, Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs was met with widespread scepticism. Critics warned of economic decline and a global backlash. Yet the current landscape for the United States paints a more complex picture. Less than a year into his second term in office, the White House claims that Trump is bringing manufacturing back to [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-is-attracting-investment-to-the-us-but-at-a-huge-cost-to-workers-and-the-environment/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/g20-cop30-and-more-mickey-mouse-multilateralism-to-come/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/g20-cop30-and-more-mickey-mouse-multilateralism-to-come/#respond Mon, 24 Nov 2025 17:07:35 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291606 The third weekend in November offered the world two disastrous days for solving polycrisis problems, starting in the Brazilian Amazon city of Belém at the United Nations climate summit (‘COP30’) on November 22, just as South African President Cyril Ramaphosa hosted (most of) the Group of 20 leaders in Johannesburg. The G20 comprises 19 of [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/g20-cop30-and-more-mickey-mouse-multilateralism-to-come/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/declaration-of-the-peoples-summit-towards-cop30/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/declaration-of-the-peoples-summit-towards-cop30/#respond Sun, 23 Nov 2025 17:34:44 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291595 We, the Peoples’ Summit, gathered in Belém do Pará, in the Brazilian Amazon, from 12 to 16 November 2025, declare to the peoples of the world what we have accumulated in struggles, debates, studies, exchanges of experiences, cultural activities and testimonies, over several months of preparation and during these days gathered here. Our process brought [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/declaration-of-the-peoples-summit-towards-cop30/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/cop30-backpedals-on-climate-action/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/cop30-backpedals-on-climate-action/#respond Sun, 23 Nov 2025 17:29:37 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291592 Offering no new plans to cut fossil fuels, the UN’s climate conference failed to produce a roadmap to stop global warming BELÉM, Brazil—After negotiators at COP30 retreated from meaningful climate action by failing to specifically mention the need to stop using fossil fuels in the final conference documents published Saturday, the disappointment inside the COP30 conference center [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/cop30-backpedals-on-climate-action/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/zvideo/inviting-the-arsonists-indian-climate-activist-slams-fossil-fuel-lobbyists-at-u-n-climate-summit/ https://znetwork.org/zvideo/inviting-the-arsonists-indian-climate-activist-slams-fossil-fuel-lobbyists-at-u-n-climate-summit/#respond Sun, 23 Nov 2025 16:15:26 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=video&p=1291573 Nations are struggling to reach a final text agreement at the COP30 U.N. climate summit in Belém, Brazil. Decisions are made by consensus at COPs, requiring consent among 192 countries, and the biggest fight over the draft text is the exclusion of a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels. Reportedly Saudi Arabia, China, Russia and [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/zvideo/inviting-the-arsonists-indian-climate-activist-slams-fossil-fuel-lobbyists-at-u-n-climate-summit/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/converging-crises-capitalism-poverty-and-the-failure-of-green-capitalism/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/converging-crises-capitalism-poverty-and-the-failure-of-green-capitalism/#respond Wed, 19 Nov 2025 19:18:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291441 On Friday, 17 October 2025, the UN Development Programme released the 2025 edition of its Multidimensional Poverty Index Report. For the first time, the report directly evaluates their multidimensional poverty data against climate hazards, exposing the extent to which the world’s poor are threatened by the environmental crisis. According to the UNDP, approximately 887 million out [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/converging-crises-capitalism-poverty-and-the-failure-of-green-capitalism/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-environmental-policy-is-determined-to-make-america-poisoned-again/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-environmental-policy-is-determined-to-make-america-poisoned-again/#respond Wed, 19 Nov 2025 19:17:00 +0000 In 2020, Noam Chomsky raised eyebrows by declaring Donald Trump “the worst criminal in human history” on account of the fact that, as president of the most powerful nation in the world, he was pursuing environmental policies that would lead to the destruction of “organized life on earth.” That statement was made during Trump’s first [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-environmental-policy-is-determined-to-make-america-poisoned-again/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-philippines-chose-to-sideline-climate-security/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-philippines-chose-to-sideline-climate-security/#respond Tue, 18 Nov 2025 17:31:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291408 Despite seven decades of climate denialism, funded primarily by the world’s largest energy giants in the United States and, to a lesser degree, in Western Europe, the elevated risks associated with climate change and extreme weather events are today widely recognized. In the climate risk and disaster rankings, the Philippines is not just any other [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-philippines-chose-to-sideline-climate-security/feed/ 0