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Their will be no News Digest next week
as our Editor is on hiatus
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CURATED ECOLOGICAL NEWS
UN Biodiversity Summit in Yerevan, Armenia, 19-30 October 2026
“The Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity is a major international summit focused on global measures to protect, restore, and sustainably manage nature. Its focus is implementing the 2023–2030 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted at COP15, evaluating whether countries are on track to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.
“The health of Earth’s living systems quite literally determines the long-term survival and stability of human civilisation. Biodiversity is the physical fabric that regulates the planet’s biogeochemical cycles (carbon, water, nitrogen). Losing biodiversity degrades the Earth system’s resilience and, with it, its capacity to absorb shocks like climate change, pollution, and extreme weather.
“Climate change and biodiversity loss are twin crises driven by the same systemic roots. Healthy ecosystems act as essential carbon sinks and natural buffers, helping stabilise the climate. Managing the biodiversity crisis within political borders is impossible; we must prioritise a global approach that manages Earth’s interconnected systems.” [click the links for the full articles]
Bring nature into cities is a key biodiversity strategy
“Montreal’s Mount Royal is a biodiverse super-hub in the middle of Canada’s second-largest city. Its landscape of forests, wetlands and meadows rises above the metropolis, providing vital habitat for wildlife, including red foxes.
“When the foxes began disappearing from the area in 2010, it was alarming, to say the least. So, when they were spotted two years later back on Mount Royal, a plan was devised to get them to stay.
“Foxes used the narrow ribbon of vegetation along the edges of the tracks to move through the city while avoiding many of its busiest roads and barriers. Alexandre Beaudoin, at the University of Montreal came up with an idea for an ecological corridor that would connect the tracks (and the foxes) to Mount Royal.
“Since its founding in 2014, the Darlington Ecological Corridor has created a series of biodiverse pockets – stepping stones – around existing infrastructure to form the connectivity characteristic of an ecological corridor. Approximately 300 trees and shrubs were planted to strengthen the green corridor along the Édouard-Montpetit woodland.” [click the link for the full article]
SMR nuke company stock price plummets 50%
“The Deep Fission mile deep nuclear project near Parsons is under fire after a report said it is underestimating costs, overestimating the project’s energy efficiency and promoting an unrealistic timeline. The report by Iceberg Research called Deep Fission a ‘money pit’.
“The California-based company’s stock, listed on NASDAQ as FISN, has dropped more than 50% since the report came out September 24. Central to the report was Iceberg’s analysis that Deep Fission misrepresented the cost of energy that would be produced by its reactor.
“Said spokesperson Marjorie Reynolds of the Prairie Dog Alliance, an activist organization demanding more information about the nuclear project, ‘Given how speculative and novel their approach is, we are alarmed by the state of Kansas and their acceptance of Deep Fission’s activities’. Reynolds said her organization wants Deep Fission to ‘halt its Gravity micro-reactor siting pending resolution of all allegations’.” [click the link for the full article]
AI data centers are a lightning rod for opposition
“According to a recent report, at least $260 billion in data center projects were cancelled so far this year thanks to the efforts of local organizers. An NBC News poll found that nearly 70% of participants do not support AI data center construction.
“Reports have uncovered campaigns already working to undermine resistance to data centers. Several of these online disinformation campaigns are run by groups overseas. An investigative report by Alethea, a tech company that assesses online threats, found that countries such as Russia and Iran were responsible for spreading data center misinformation.
“What are data centers? These facilities house the computing infrastructure used to train artificial intelligence models and generate results through a process known as inference, making them essential to the AI industry.
“According to a Pew Research Center analysis, more than 3,000 data centers are operating in the United States, while more than 1,500 others are in various stages of development. It goes without saying that protesting AI data centers is a legitimate cause. Communities have the right to protect their lands, health, and access to natural resources, and advancing this cause requires a focus on facts and science to avoid misdirection.” [click the link for the full article]
Steps to a steady state economy
“U.S. capital markets — what we often call ‘Wall Street’ — allegedly supply one critical economic function. They provide investment capital to those who need it and are best prepared to use it. But bigger and more productive isn’t always good for people or planet.
“U.S. capital markets are powerful economic forces. Though numbers of publicly listed companies and initial public offerings have declined over the last thirty years, their total value has continued to increase.
“The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), launched by FDR in the 1930s, was a response to immense fraud and dysfunction. Its reporting requirements made it difficult for corporations to fudge their numbers when promoting the sale of their stocks or bonds. In the wake of the dot com and housing bubbles, and with many close observers warning of an AI bubble, it’s time to reinvigorate the SEC.
“What should we fix? A good place to start is liability. Prior to 1970, all prominent Wall Street firms were partnerships. This meant that firm owners and managers assumed much of the risk inherent to their investments. Offloading liability onto shareholders has freed investment banks for casino-like behavior. The resumption of a system where owners and managers are liable for investment decisions is long overdue.
“Bond markets — a poorly understood segment of U.S. capital markets — also require significant reform and more SEC oversight. They are too costly, inefficient, and unreliable for most passive investors
“Another major bond-market issue is the prevalence of specialized local-government bonds. Compared with general-obligation bonds, which are tied to the full faith and credit of the issuing government, these specialized bonds are often tied to economic development projects.
“Growth for its own sake should have no place in U.S. capital markets. Only real productivity, economies of scale, and actual returns on selective investments remain worthy goals in a steady state economy. And a steady state economy — built on respect for the planet, workers, consumers, and investors — entails optimally scaled capital markets.” [click the link for the full article]
Supreme Court might bankrupt oil companies — gee, what a shame
“Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about whether a lawsuit filed in state court in Colorado seeking damages from two major oil companies for the climate-change-related damage inflicted on Boulder County can go forward.
“Here’s the short version: The Canadian-based Suncor Energy Inc. and Texas-based ExxonMobil say that policies regarding climate change and any alleged damages resulting from it are matters for the federal government and courts only, and that therefore the state suit should not be allowed to go forward.
“Saying that you will go bankrupt if you lose a lawsuit is not much of defense. Just ask the asbestos industry that suffered a rash of bankruptcies after losing cases for destroying the health of people who were exposed to their products.
“Now, here’s the key thing to know about bankruptcies. Large companies with valuable assets very often reorganize under court supervision and continue to operate while paying their debts. Shareholders would probably have little remaining value or get wiped out. Bondholders might take a serious drubbing. And, of course, executives owning their company’s stock would fare no better.” [click the link for the full article]
Thwaites ice sheet melt estimate is twice that previously simulated
“The Antarctic bulwark known as Thwaites, or the ‘Doomsday Glacier’, is gargantuan — roughly the size of Florida. The edge of Thwaites also acts as a cork, holding up the rim of the West Antarctic ice sheet, much of which sits below sea level. A new paper, published in Nature Communications, appears to be the first to account for what’s happening underneath Thwaites to simulate how quickly it may lose ice.
“As Thwaites deteriorates, more ice in this bowl becomes exposed to the ocean, creating a feedback loop that makes it melt faster. And if Thwaites were to succumb entirely, the whole interior of the sheet might follow suit, raising sea levels by as much as 10 feet.
“The problem area is where the icy underbelly of Thwaites rests on the seabed, known as the grounding zone. Only relatively recently did scientists realize this zone was not a fixed boundary, but one that oscillates with the tides. As it bobs up and down, warm water pushes underneath the glacier — creating cracks and miles-long channels that allow even more melting.
“Thwaites could become permanently unpinned from the seafloor as early as 2038, with a 60% chance that this could happen by the end of the century. Thwaites would be on track to add 3 centimeters of sea level rise by the end of the century. That may not sound like much, but it doubles the projections made by previous models, according to the study.” [click the link for the full article]
From industrial livestock production, to humane food systems
“The U.S. food system relies on the overproduction and high consumption of industrial animal products at the expense of people, wildlife, air, water, and the climate. We urgently need to transition away from this model to an equitable, sustainable food system that supports healthy and affordable plant-rich diets.
“A new food system is possible. To help us get there, the Center or Biological Diversity and more than 20 allies have put together the U.S. Just Food Transition Roadmap. The roadmap envisions a U.S. food system that prioritizes sustainable, nutrient-dense food production with greater support for whole and minimally processed plant foods.
“It supports fair prices for farmers, adheres to strong worker-protection standards that ensure workers’ rights, strengthens food sovereignty, and significantly reduces the number of animals killed and wild habitats destroyed for food.” [click the link for the full article]
Modernity — affluent industrial society
“Few among us question actions done ‘in the name of science’ when said actions are carried out by credible groups or individuals. But one level deeper, what is science itself done in the name of? Not surprisingly, much of science is in the service of modernity: producing remarkable short-term advantages for humans — generally at the expense of the rest of the Community of Life on both short- and long-term scales.
“Market systems assure funding for efforts that will facilitate continued growth: accessing more energy, more materials, more indispensable gadgets, and longer lives for affluent humans whose ecological footprints are already monstrous (let’s keep those ones going the longest, yeah?).
“Let’s first ground this discussion in something I recently encountered. A friend loaned me a book, called Seabirds as Sentinels. The characters described in the book — assisted by the author — perform science on the auklets to learn more of their secrets and challenges. It doesn’t always turn out so well for the auklets.
“At least the author struggles with it, sensing deep down that what he’s doing to the auklets is wrong — before embracing his left-brain rationalization built on a number of comfortable presumptions. It’s in the name of science, after all. That’s gotta be holy work, right?
“But what I really want to explore is what benefit actually derives from many of our scientific pursuits? If it’s just the well-being of the Community of Life, we don’t actually need to know. If able to wave a magic wand that eliminated agriculture, deforestation, mining, manufacturing, pollution, shipping, overpopulation of humans, etc. is there any doubt that the boot would come off the throat, giving wildlife a chance to rebound?
“So conservation science seeks ways that ecological health might obtain in the shadow of modernity. It’s practical . . I’ll give it that. Modernity isn’t going to respond to a sharply-worded journal article by saying ‘Well, you’ve got me there. Guess I’ll just fold up shop’.
“Why not face up to the monster and stop pretending that initiating a sixth mass extinction can be reconciled with ecological health? The question is whether modernity — and its countless tentacles — represents a primary, originating threat to virtually all endangered species. We don’t need sophisticated measurements to know the answer to that one.” [click the link for the full article]
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