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TUESDAYS — YOUR INBOX — ASSUREDLY
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CURATED ECOLOGICAL NEWS
Iran’s Strait of Hormuz — what could possibly go wrong?
“S-T-A-R-T, the last nuclear Arms control treaty between the United States and Russia, expired February 4th with no replacement. There are now zero legally binding limits on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals for the first time since the 1970s.
“The wide boundary lens here is the architecture built over fifty years to prevent nuclear catastrophe has now fully collapsed. This is nominally about warheads, but it’s really about the loss of transparency mechanisms like inspections, data exchanges, notifications, dialogues that prevent an archduke Ferdinand type miscalculation.
“Okay — Iran. We’re now contemplating sustained military options against a nation whose nuclear program is the stated reason for those operations. While Russia and China run naval exercises in the Strait of Hormuz. The USA now has two carrier strike groups in the vicinity.
“I could spend this entire episode on the wide boundary angles of this developing story. I’ll just offer two here. The news outlets all correctly point out that around 20 million barrels of crude oil passed through a two mile wide stretch of the Strait of Hormuz each day.
“But about half of the oil the world extracts is consumed in the country that extracts it, leaving only around 50 million or so barrels for purchase, making fully 40% or so of the world’s purchasable oil coming through, this fossil pixie dust gauntlet, in the Strait of Homuz in Iran. What could go wrong?
“Wide boundary point number two is about the complacency, about what could go wrong around this building of military hardware and warships and war machinery. This is an example of the concept of risk homeostasis. Think of running a red light in your car ten times in a row, but nothing bad ever happened by chance.
“You would over time adjust your behavior from caution, to disregard, to an outright cavalier attitude. Not because the risk had changed, but because you psychologically adjusted your own behavioral homeostasis. I think this is happening on steroids in this Iran situation. Iran chose not to retaliate and chose not to close the Strait of Hormuz — the last time.”
The Great Unraveling and mutual aid
“Part I of this article argued that the world is now crossing a threshold from decades of growth and increasing integration to decades of economic shrinkage and political breakdown. This shift will create stresses that extend in scale from ecosystems and international relations down to households and individuals.
“There are three components to this tectonic shift: environmental, economic, and political. It’s useful to think of this in terms of disasters. Some general observations apply. When a disaster happens, our normal sense of time is interrupted and our priorities get scrambled. Suddenly, nothing matters but the immediate necessities of escaping harm and helping others to safety.
“Environmental disasters are sometimes the easiest for victims to mentally comprehend, though not always to recover from. Neighbors pull together to make sure all are safe, while longer-term recovery typically depends on national governmental assistance.
“Economic disasters can linger for years and can scar a generation, as occurred during and in the wake of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic, though relatively short in duration, saw large-scale failure of businesses and disappearance of jobs.
“Political disasters (including civil conflicts) often turn neighbor against neighbor, or communities against their national government. Government may hurt rather than help. But they can also evoke extraordinary levels of community solidarity and mutual aid.
“The Great Unraveling of environmental and social stability will feature all three kinds of disasters. Currently, global breakdown is being accelerated primarily by an ongoing and worsening political calamity in the United States.
“Trump and his officials have stated that the purpose of the ICE surge is to remove ‘the worst of the worst’ — thieves, rapists, and murderers. However, three-quarters of individuals currently detained by ICE do not have a criminal record, and that many who do were convicted of only minor offenses, like traffic violations.
“The story of what is happening [in Minneapolis] is best told by someone who is in the thick of it themselves, so I am giving over the remainder of this article to their words.
“I think the community building going on has been impressive because, unlike what the media says, none of us have been paid a cent for this and never expect to be. It’s been an evolution. As people get more involved, they see the different pieces of the puzzle, and then they can contribute. The biggest thing for the people who’ve been leading it longer is that they’re getting burnt out.
“Longer-term observers are keen to get more people in leadership roles so that the work can be distributed. And the ability to do that has come from just building trust with people you initially may only know anonymously through the phone. That trust comes from showing up repeatedly, putting in the time and effort, and vouching for each other.
“It is increasingly difficult to leave the house and drive somewhere without viewing every car with suspicion. We fear what may come next, what the retribution may be. But there is a power in this resistance, a feeling of deep connection and kinship, a feeling that so many people have your back, even if they have never met you.”
Adaptation to heating climate is top priority
“Warnings about systemic risks to economies, ecosystems, critical services and security continue to mount following the release of the United Kingdoms’ assessment on global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and national security. Every ecosystem which is critical to the U.K. is on a pathway to collapse, and the implications for our food and water supplies, geopolitical instability, conflict, migration, and inter-state competition for resources are therefore obviously very serious indeed.
“Without adequate adaptation, most climate risks in the EU are projected to reach critical levels by mid-century, bringing frequent, severe, persistent and far-reaching impacts. Europe is heating at twice the global average. Extreme heat has resulted in tens of thousands of premature deaths in recent years, including an estimated 24,000 in summer 2025.
“Current adaptation efforts are described as ‘insufficient, largely incremental, often coming too late, and . . . not yet commensurate with the scale, pace and complexity of increasing climate risks. The central message — Europe needs to act urgently and strategically to adapt to a warming climate.
“For successive governments, climate adaptation has been under-resourced and underfunded. When adaptation measures are pursued, they frequently take the form of short-term fixes like flood barriers, or piecemeal reactive measures that can come at a high carbon cost.
“Adaptation frames in brief:
- Reactive Adaptation: short-term responses to immediate climate impacts, such as flood defenses.
- Deep Adaptation: preparing for systemic collapse scenarios, including relocation or managed retreat.
- Transformative Adaptation: long-term systemic changes integrating decarbonization and resilience-building, such as wetland restoration or local food systems.
- Strategic Adaptation (proposed approach): a wholistic framework combining elements of all three, prioritizing local resilience and ecological health
“Adaptation must be local, community-led, and tailored to specific regional needs. Key themes are biodiversity and ecosystem resilience, retrofits and energy conservation, business transition to incentivize climate-proof investments, local food systems, water as a keystone resource, citizens’ adaptation toolkit, and citizens’ assemblies on adaptation.”
The commons are more common than you think
“The Commons is not an abstract utopia nor a relic of the past. From alpine pastures and salmon fisheries to offshore wind farms and online encyclopedias, commons take many forms. Ancient place-based commons are the oldest-known expression of commoning. Referred to as subsistence commons, they have sustained and nurtured indigenous populations for centuries. Some still-running commons even span millennia, such as the salmon fisheries in British Columbia.
“Digital commons are borderless, yet globally accessible. Knowledge commons are collectively created repositories of information, open for anyone to use. Wikipedia has grown into the world’s largest encyclopedia, with over 7 million articles in English alone. Crucially, it is also a commons: entirely built by volunteer contributions. Open Educational Resources (OER) extend this logic to science and education. Free and open-source software (FOSS) underpins much of the modern Internet, and indeed the world’s digital infrastructure. Linux, an open-source operating system kernel, powers all of the world’s top supercomputers, most smartphones (through Android), and countless other systems.
“Digital commons can also have a physical footprint. Fab Labs, maker spaces, and tool libraries provide shared community access to equipment such as 3D printers or laser cutters. This exemplifies the principle of cosmolocalism to design and share globally, but produce and manufacture locally. This shared production model offers possibilities for local innovation, circular economies, and reduced dependency on global supply chains.
“Community land trusts (CLTs) are community-governed organisations that own and hold land in trust. A key feature is the separation of land ownership from building ownership: land is taken off the market and kept in community hands, but residents can still buy and sell buildings. Cooperative housing offers a different model. Unlike CLTs, housing cooperatives own both the land and the buildings on it: members hold shares in the cooperative, which give them long-term tenancy rights and a say in collective decision-making.
“Food cooperatives are member-run businesses. In addition to paying a small equity investment to the co-op, each member contributes about 3 hours of work per month — staffing the store, stocking shelves, or doing administrative work. Terre de Liens in France tackles the underlying issue of land. It purchases farmland collectively and leases it to organic farmers under contracts that prohibit resale or speculative development.
“When organised as commons, financial systems become shared infrastructures that enable cooperatives to provision life’s necessities on their own terms. The Community Exchange System (CES) connects over 80,000 users in 1,200 local exchanges across 105 countries. A time bank is essentially a mutual credit system using hours instead of a monetary reference unit.”
Poison as national security, shielded from regulation and liability
“President Donald Trump signed an executive order to guarantee the supply of glyphosate-based herbicides, claiming it is critical to national security. By granting immunity to the makers of the nation’s most widely used pesticide, President Trump just gave Bayer-Monsanto a license to poison people.
“For years, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — now Health and Human Services secretary — publicly attacked glyphosate and built a national profile suing its maker, Bayer-Monsanto. On the campaign trail, both Kennedy and Trump pledged to confront pesticides like glyphosate and clean up the food supply.
“Citing the Defense Production Act, Trump declared phosphorus and glyphosate products are essential not only for agriculture but also for military readiness as well. The order also shields those companies from regulatory or financial pressures. Bayer-Monsanto is the only company producing glyphosate in the United States but the U.S. also imports large volumes of generic copies from China.”
N.E. states considering plug-in solar
“The solar panels that hang from balconies across Europe may soon be coming to New England, helping lower energy costs and ease grid demand. More than two dozen states are considering legislation including Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The Natural Resources Council of Maine estimated that a 1,200-watt plug-in solar unit could reduce the average Central Maine Power customer’s annual electricity bill by about 21%.
“The small units, typically ranging from 200 to 1,200 watts — roughly the power draw of a laptop charger up to a microwave — are prohibited in most of the U.S. because they conflict with electrical codes and utility rules that assume electricity flows in one direction.
“Plug-in solar reverses that flow, allowing panels equipped with small inverters to plug into a standard outlet and feed power back into a household’s electrical system. Plug-in solar is typically allowed only if customers secure special agreements with their utility. Proposed legislation would remove those contract requirements and update electrical codes.
“Some raise safety concerns. If a plug-in unit sends power into a circuit that’s already in use, the circuit breaker might not trip as expected, which could allow the circuit to overload. Supporters say these limitations are exactly why clear rules and standards are needed.”
Increasing pressure on highly biodiverse Darien Gap
“The Darien Gap — the approximately 60 to 100 mile wilderness region [of the Isthmus of Panama] — exemplifies the type of area in which modern conservation and restoration efforts may have a disproportionally high return on investment in terms of protection of overall biological diversity. It also serves as an example of contemporary environmental and societal threats magnified by large-scale geopolitical changes.
“Mass human migration skyrocketed in recent years, contributing to unchecked habitat destruction and illicit activities throughout the Darien Gap. A vast network of non-state groups participated in hosting and transporting displaced persons through much of the Darien Gap’s difficult, harsh terrain, to small outposts along the Pan-American highway. The human and ecological impacts were devastating: rape, theft, and assault of migrants, as well as poaching, pollution, and habitat destruction became rampant.
“With the ongoing destabilization of neighboring South American countries such as Venezuela and Colombia, and projections of as many as 17 million climate migrants through Latin America by 2050, the future of conservation in the Darien will require novel innovation.
“Another major issue has been land-use conflict linked to mining and infrastructure expansion, triggering protests and national debates over environmental governance, water security, and long-term sustainability.
“Panama sits at a biogeographic crossroads, so environmental changes here resonate beyond national borders. The country plays a disproportionate role in maintaining connectivity between North and South American fauna.”
Exhaust Earth’s life and move on — classic human escapism
“I grew up as a space enthusiast before I grew up. Part of the maturation process involved two decades of uninterrupted work on a Space Shuttle project. No single moment stands out as my migration away from fantasy. But my faith had eroded in response to the ‘growth can’t last on a finite planet’.
“Some countered ‘We’ll just expand into space’. Note: always beware the word ‘just’, especially when attached to feats of unprecedented difficulty. My journey has produced significantly new perspectives (for me) which only serve to make the space delusion more strikingly fascinating and revealing. At this point, it’s hard to identify a phenomenon that so completely captures the religion of the day and its unhinged basis.
“We’ll start with a statement that might make the enthusiasts sputter — humans have never lived in space. But what about Skylab, Mir, and the International Space Station? Once you’ve showered in space, aren’t you living in space? Well, there’s a lot more to life than showering.
“The space situation as we’ve experienced it is a lot like camping or backpacking, only far more extreme. Every atom/molecule critical to a space visitor’s life are of earthly origin. Oxygen, water, food, shelter, fuel, tools — are all carried from Earth. It’s not really living in space, but the most elaborate and expensive backpacking/scuba trip ever.
“Yet, the case against space is a hard-sell in a culture whose faith in technology and ingenuity approaches religious fervor. People bridle at statements starting out with ‘We can’t’, or appeals to limits in general. Just know that people who talk up space colonization are painting alluring pictures of castles resting on clouds. But painting is the easy/empty part.
“There’s no foundation to it: no evidence; no demonstration; no funding at relevant scales; insufficient political will; misguided motivations; and a raft of technical deal-breakers relating to radiation, physiology, extraction, reliability, and self-supporting micro-ecological sustainability.”
Radioactive fracking — ever under the radar
“In 2015, the secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) was busy trying to keep up with the consequences of the state’s rapid increase in natural gas production. But when reports landed on his desk that trucks carrying oil and gas [fracking] waste were tripping radioactivity alarms at landfills, he was especially concerned.
“Seventy-two percent of the solid waste ends up in landfills within state borders. Experts have long worried about the potential health and environmental impacts of this waste. Radium exposure is linked to an increased risk for cancer, anemia and cataracts. But the state has barely shifted its approach to regulating the waste.
“In 2021, then-Gov. Tom Wolf said the state would require regular radium testing of landfills’ leachate, a liquid byproduct created when rainwater passes through waste. DEP spokesperson Neil Shader said the agency does not currently require landfills to test for it. He did not explain why the policy has not yet been implemented. DEP’s last comprehensive study of radioactivity in oil and gas waste is more than nine years old.”
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