“The Aedes aegypti is a species of mosquito that can carry life-threatening diseases. It’s difficult to find and hard to kill. This mosquito species is native to tropical and subtropical climates, but as climate change pushes up temperatures. it can spread Zika, dengue, chikungunya and other potentially deadly viruses.
“It’s popping up all over the Mountain West. Towns in New Mexico and Utah have begun catching Aedes aegypti in their traps year after year, and just this summer, one was found for the first time in Idaho. Now, an old residential neighborhood in Grand Junction, Colorado, has emerged as one of the latest frontiers for this troublesome mosquito.
“The Grand River Mosquito Control District based in Grand Junction bought different traps and adjusted their techniques to hunt for the mosquito. In 2024, the first year of the Aedes aegypti surveillance program, the district caught 796 adults and found 446 eggs. These mosquitoes weren’t just surviving in Colorado — they were thriving.
“The chances of an outbreak of dengue or another of the diseases the Aedes aegypti carries in western Colorado remain pretty slim. Still, state medical entomologist Chris Roundy said, ‘we are keeping a very close eye on [the mosquitoes] to see if they expand their area in Grand Junction, or if we start seeing them in other counties’.”
‘Climate friendly’ jet fuel from Amazon cattle ranch deforestation
“A Texas refinery that supplies ‘green’ fuel to U.S. airlines has been purchasing animal fat from cattle raised on illegally cleared lands in the Amazon rainforest, according to a Reuters review of government tracking data, interviews, and eyewitness accounts.
“Louisiana-based Diamond Green Diesel, a joint-venture between Darling Ingredients and Valero Energy, has invested in a refinery in Port Arthur, Texas that turns cattle fat — called tallow — into a ‘cleaner’ alternative to petroleum-based jet fuel. Diamond Green Diesel has collected over $3 billion in U.S. tax credits for producing biofuels since 2022.
“At least two Brazilian factories that supplied Diamond Green are sourcing some of its [tallow] from slaughterhouses that have bought animals from illegally deforested ranches in the Amazon rainforest. Carriers such as JetBlue and Southwest Airlines can claim credit for lowering their emissions because Diamond Green Diesel’s plant is certified under a United Nations agreement curbing the impact of aviation.”
Toxic stew: data center, AI, nuclear weapons, water scarcity, classified research
“Ypsilanti, Michigan [is proposed] to be the site of a new $1.2 billion data center, a massive collaborative project between the University of Michigan and America’s nuclear weapons scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL). The Ypsilanti city council voted to officially fight against the construction of the data center.
“The University of Michigan says the project is not a data center, but a ‘high-performance computing facility’, and it promises it won’t be used to ‘manufacture nuclear weapons’. The distinction and assertion are ringing hollow for Ypsilanti residents.
“Asked if the data generated by the facility would be used in nuclear weapons science in any way, neither LANL and the University of Michigan answered the question. LANL is going all in on AI. It partnered with OpenAI to use the company’s frontier models in research and recently announced a partnership with NVIDIA to build two new super computers named ‘Mission’ and ‘Vision’. It’s true that LANL’s scientific output covers a range of issues but its overwhelming focus, and budget allocation, is nuclear weapons.”
Soiled our nest? How to clean it?
“Radioactive wastes, along with many of the other types of waste material, comprise substances described under the Planetary Boundaries (PB) framework as Novel Entities (NEs).
“These NEs include various metals which do not participate in large scale biosphere processes, along with various organic materials (such as organochlorine pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxins, and phthalates), Per- and Poly-fluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS, a large group of ‘forever’ chemicals), the millions of tonnes of micro- and nanoplastics (that have consequently dispersed into every part of the Earth System), nanomaterials such as graphene, and of course the exotic radionuclides generated by anthropogenic nuclear processes.
“There is a concern and evidence that their growing ubiquity in the global environment may be increasingly driving a range of systemic effects, pressures, and disruptions to human health and fertility, the functioning of the Earth System, and the health of the biosphere. It has been previously suggested, and is also the proposition made in this article, that management at scale of the most toxic and persistent NEs via geological disposal may be justified.
“The first of the considerations is how wastes containing NEs could be made compatible with geological disposal. Some of the NEs of greatest concern exist in large proportion in an uncontrolled manner in the environment. The next consideration is to develop the means to cheaply and effectively treat and destroy many of the NEs of greatest concern, which could nullify the potential economic case for expensive geological disposal.
“Currently, energy-intensive high temperature incineration is the only practical approach for destroying PFAS, but innovative new techniques are under development. Enzyme-based biotechnology approaches are also under development for the destruction and recycling of plastics in the environment.
“The key question is: is this proposition realistic? Potential future global polycrisis predicaments could increasingly challenge the ability of many nations to maintain even critical functions, much less hugely complex and costly ‘gold-plated’ remedial projects. Whatever the obstacles, the waste and pollution we have collectively spewed into the global environment in the pursuit of convenience and profit isn’t going anywhere without some form of decisive and assertive action.”
Cost of pollution externalized off corporate books
“The cost of pollution and other damage to the natural environment caused by the world’s biggest companies would wipe out more than one-third of their profits if they were held financially accountable. The UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment initiative and the United Nations Environment Programme jointly ordered the report into the activities of the 3,000 biggest public companies in the world.
“The estimated combined damage was worth US$2.2 trillion (£1.4tn) in 2008 — a figure bigger than the national economies of all but seven countries in the world that year. The figure equates to 6-7% of the companies’ combined return, or an average of one-third of their profits.
“‘What we’re talking about is a completely new paradigm’, said Richard Mattison, leader of the report team. ‘Externalities of this scale pose a major risk to the global economy, and markets are not fully aware of these risks, nor do they know how to deal with them’.
“Nestlé’s reliance on throwaway plastic packaging in marketing its products is evident in the volume of Nestlé-branded trash found in clean-up activities and municipal and city waste audits in the Philippines.
“There is currently no comprehensive valuation of the economic impacts of plastic pollution by a certain company or industry, which includes costs to human health, environment, livelihoods, biodiversity, and climate. Such costs are called ‘externalities,’ or the economic costs that are shouldered by society.
“This paper outlines the various external costs arising from the impacts of single-use plastic packaging.
- Waste management is costly, and is often not internalized by businesses. Costs of clean-up activities are not included in this valuation.
- Plastics pose risks to human health at every stage of its lifecycle, from extraction to disposal. Microplastics are linked to an array of negative health outcomes including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic inflammation, autoimmune conditions, neurodegenerative diseases, and stroke.
- The total natural capital cost of plastic used in the consumer goods industry is over USD 75 billion per year. The cost comes from a range of environmental impacts.
- Wildlife (whether marine fish, mammals or birds, or terrestrial animals) can get sick and die when they eat plastic and ingest its toxic additives.
- Plastic pollution also has an effect on climate change. Most plastics are derived from fossil fuels and manufactured through energy-intensive processes, which release greenhouse gases into the environment. GHG emissions from the disposal of plastic (particularly from incineration) is also a significant concern.
- Fisheries and tourism are the two livelihood sectors most affected by plastic pollution. Impact on tourism revenue can be considerable.”
NextEra Energy 500MW solar project proposed in Jackson County KS
“Jackson County leaders have been engaged for years in talks with NextEra Energy Resources to establish a new solar energy farm west of Holton. The project, named Jeffrey Solar, is expected to cover 5,000 acres of space in the county, which equates to about eight square miles of land, and generate millions in tax revenue for the county while also adding numerous work opportunities.
“Not all local residents see the project as beneficial, or wanted, and are voicing their opposition to it. NextEra’s plans are getting some pushback from county commissioners. ‘I have a trust issue’, said Jackson County Commissioner Keith Kelly. ‘You are talking about a large company, you’re talking about a small community’.
“‘The whole state benefits, we need the electricity generation’, said Alan Anderson [representing Next Era], chair of the energy practice group with the Polsinelli law firm’s Kansas City office.
“Local residents and the City of Rossville filed a lawsuit in early 2025 against the U.S. Department of Treasury and Jeffrey Solar in an attempt to halt the project. The plaintiffs claimed the use of taxpayer funding for the project, in the form of tax credits, should require a review under the National Environmental Policy Act regarding the impact the solar farm will have on the environment. However, a U.S. district judge later dismissed the suit in July, ruling the plaintiffs lacked standing. The case is currently under appeal in the 10th Circuit.
“Austin Nimocks with PNT Law Firm, speaking on behalf of Tom Hoffman, one of the landowners who filed the lawsuit, said ‘The proposed industrial project is not undergoing any significant environmental review, though it is planned for a sensitive environmental area containing endangered species and which is prone to flooding, among other things’.”
29 COPs blew it — COP30 is about adaptation
“COP30 is being called the ‘Adaptation COP’ — the moment when the world finally faces the need to live within a changed climate. Hurricane Melissa, the devastating floods across Europe and Asia — these aren’t warnings; they’re the new normal. The climate emergency is no longer arriving. It’s here.
“When António Guterres declared recently that the 1.5°C goal is ‘dead’, it punctured the message: we either pay for adaptation now, or we pay for collapse later. There is no third option.
“Baroness Brown, who chairs the UK Committee’s adaptation sub-group, has said plainly that Britain is ‘not yet adapted for the changes we’re already living with’. Flooding, heatwaves, and food insecurity are no longer distant risks—they are stresses on our infrastructure today. Our buildings, roads, hospitals, and farms were built for a climate that no longer exists.
“And yet, ministers continue to equate clean-energy investment with climate readiness. It isn’t. Adaptation must now be treated as a matter of national security. That means flood-proof housing, heat-resilient schools, water systems that can cope with both drought and deluge, and local recovery networks capable of rapid, community-led response.
Local materials production, exchange, supply chain
“Everything begins with cultivation, with growing and land. With bast-fibres this involves understanding agronomy, soil, biodiversity, drilling seeds, managing weeds, harvesting and retting straw (in fields or in tanks). Flax and hemp can support organic crop rotations while creating valuable and useful outputs. They can also support biodiversity and reduce our use of plastic.
“We need farming systems that work in alignment with ecological processes rather than treating nature as a production input. Agroecology offers a framework.
“Some may question whether a country should give over a proportion of its arable land to growing textile material when food should take priority. ut carefully calculated estimates that show that one hectare of carefully managed land can make 10,000 loaves of bread or 650 pairs of jeans. The use value of the land over time is very different.
“Once we’ve considered the land involved in supply chains we need to think about the machinery needed to turn raw plant material into practical value such as insulation, growing medium or textile yarn. There are many steps and plenty of processes involved in flax to linen creation. Breaking and scutching machinery is not complicated to build and with the right technical plans, can be made by any local fabricator.
“Large-scale scutching mill machinery set-up costs approx. £15m, services 3000 ha, employs 30 people, creates 3 million metres of cloth or 2 million pairs of jeans. Micro-scale scutching mill machinery set-up costs approx. £15k, services 2 ha, employs 2 people, creates 2000 metres of cloth or 1300 pairs of jeans.
“Large-scale spinning mill machinery set-up cost approx. £5m, services 666 ha, employs 20 people, creates 300 tonnes of yarn or 430,000 pairs of jeans. Micro-scale spinning mill machinery set-up cost approx. £15k, services 1 ha, employs 1 person, produces 0.45 tonnes of yarn or 650 pairs of jeans.”
