Editor’s note: It’s a coast – not a beach, we forget that when our society talks about going to the beach. A beach is for basking in the sun, getting a drink, and dabbling in the water. But a coast is far more than an entertainment place for humans, it’s a habitat for a variety of animals and plants. Sand mining is a threat to these ecosystems and criminals operate it illegally. Construction companies need sand for their concrete as the demand for buildings soars. They seal the planet by destroying coastlines – and beaches.
While beaches are being stolen in poor places, they are being nourished(replenished) in wealthy places. Beach nourishment is the process of placing additional sediment on a beach or in the nearshore. A wider and higher beach can provide storm protection for coastal structures. Sediment is commonly dredged offshore and pumped directly onto the beach, dumped nearshore by a hopper dredge, or occasionally sourced from an inland location. It is an exercise in futility that destroys natural ecosystems and subsidizes wealthy beachfront homeowners at taxpayers’ expense, particularly as worsening storms resulting from climate change demand investment in more permanent solutions to beach erosion. The sea level will rise and people living there will have to move.
It is time to stop building infrastructure and trying to control nature.
Increasing demand for this seemingly abundant and common material harms human and natural communities — and fuels a lucrative and dangerous illegal industry.
Coastal ecosystems — including oyster reefs, sandy beaches, mangrove forests and seagrass beds — provide important habitat for marine life and food and recreation for people. They also protect shorelines from waves and storms. But these precious systems face serious threats. This article looks at what put them at risk, along with examples of efforts to restore and protect important coastal ecosystems around the world.
We need to talk about sand
Most people don’t realize that these humble grains — that ubiquitous stuff of vacations, ant farms and hourglasses — are the second-most used natural resource in the world after water. According to a 2019 report from the United Nations Environment Programme, we use more than 55 billion tons of it per year — nearly 40 pounds per person per day.
And a lot of that sand comes from illegal activity, involving criminal gangs who mine, smuggle, and kill for the precious material.
The Building Blocks of Modern Society
Sand — legal or otherwise — gets used to enhance beaches, extract petroleum through hydraulic fracking, fill land under buildings, and make computer chips.
But the biggest amount by far — an estimated 85% of the sand mined globally — goes into making concrete. Concrete combines two key ingredients: cement, a binding agent made from calcium or other substances, and aggregate, which is either sand or a combination of sand and gravel. Quality concrete requires jagged and angular aggregate grains — a quality found in only a tiny fraction of the worlds’ sand, most of it on beaches and in rivers. This sand also is easy and cheap to mine, and it’s located close to much of the construction taking place around the world.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme, world consumption of aggregate for all uses exceeds 40 billion metric tons (44 billion U.S. tons) a year — an estimate that’s likely on the conservative side and represents about twice the amount of sediment carried annually by all the world’s rivers. (Sediment from land rocks is the source of most coastal sand, which also comes from shells and marine organisms pulverized by waves, the digestive tracts of coral-eating fish, and the remains of tiny creatures called foraminifera.)
The organization also warns about sand mining’s serious consequences for humans and the natural environment.
Removing beach sand leaves coastal structures more vulnerable to erosion even as climate change raises sea levels and makes storms more intense. Transporting sand generates carbon dioxide emissions. Sand mining has political and cultural consequences, including effects on the tourism industry, and creates noise and air pollution.
Coastal sand mining also destroys complex ecosystems. The microorganisms, crabs, and clams that live in beach sand are important food sources for birds. Sea turtles and several bird species nest on sandy beaches. Seagrass, an important food source and habitat for marine residents, needs sandy ocean floor to grow. Stretches of underwater sand provide habitat for sea stars, sea cucumbers, conchs, and other critters, and are feeding grounds for flounder, rays, fish, and sharks.
Yet this harm is not the only issue. Increasing demand for sand has created a vast illegal industry resembling the organized criminal drug trade, including the same violence, black markets, and piles of money — an estimated $200 to $350 billion a year. Of all the sand extracted globally every year, only about 15 billion metric tons are legally traded, according to a report from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.
Pascal Pedruzzi, director of UNEP’s Global Resource Information Database-Geneva, became aware of illegal sand mining when the Jamaican government asked UNEP in 2014 to find out why the island had a serious beach erosion problem.
“There was a lot we didn’t know about sand extraction, including how much was being taken,” he says.
Or from how many places: Sand is mined from coastal environments in at least 80 countries on six continents, according to the 2022 book Vanishing Sands, written by several geologists and other experts on coastal management and land rights.
The book outlines a litany of sand crimes, from seemingly small to massive. In Sardinia, Italy, airport officials have seized about 10 tons of sand over 10 years, much of it carried in thousands of individual half-quart bottles. In Morocco, criminals removed as many as 200 dump trucks of sand a day from massive dunes lining the Atlantic coast.
According to Africa’s Institute for Security Studies, illegal sand mining in Morocco is run by a syndicate second in size only to the country’s drug mafia. It involves corrupt government and law enforcement officials and foreign companies. Much of the Moroccan sand, for example, ends up in buildings in Spain.
In India demand for sand tripled from 2000 to 2017, creating a market worth 150 billion rupees, just over $2 billion. Multiple diverse and competing “sand mafias” run mining sites surrounded by armed private security guards. Their weapons likely are obtained illegally, given the difficult process of acquiring guns legally in India.
The NGO South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People reports hundreds of deaths and injuries related to illegal sand mining in India each year, including citizens (adults and children), journalists, activists, government officials, and law enforcement.
There are similar stories in Bangladesh, Cambodia, elsewhere in Africa, and in the Caribbean — almost everywhere sandy coastal areas can be found.
How to Solve the Problem
UNEP has begun tackling the problem of sand mining, putting forth ten recommendations that include creating international standards for extracting sand from the marine environment, reducing the use of sand by using substitutes, and recycling products made with sand.
While these recommendations target legal sand mining, more responsible management and reduced overall demand also should make illegal mining less lucrative and, therefore, less common.
“The good news is there’s a long list of solutions,” says Peduzzi. “We start by stopping the waste of sand. We can make the life of buildings longer, by retrofitting them instead of knocking them down. Maybe change the use of a building over time, as a school first and then 50 years later, a place for elderly people. When a building needs to be destroyed, crush and reuse the concrete. Build with wood, bricks, adobe, and straw.”
Building with straw also could reduce burning of crop waste. Every year, India produces 500 million tons of straw but burns 140 million tons as “excess.” One company there, Strawcture Eco, is using straw to create wall and ceiling panels that are fire resistant, insulating, and sustainable.
Alternatives to sand in concrete include ash from waste incineration and aluminum smelting waste. Peduzzi notes that ash creates concrete that is about 10% less solid, but points out, “that is still pretty good. You can use it to make buildings, but maybe not a bridge.”
The UNEP report notes that involvement from industry, the private sector, and civil society is vital in solving the problem. For example, shifting away from building with concrete will require changing the way architects and engineers are trained, acceptance by building owners, and new laws and regulations.
“We rely on sand, as a commodity,” Peduzzi says. “But we also need to realize its ecosystem services. We must be wiser about how we use it.”
UNEP hopes to collect solutions into a single, accessible online location (although it currently lacks funding for the effort). The idea is to create a hub for policies and technological solutions, Peduzzi says, and to develop best practices for them. The Global Initiative report on India also calls for a website for tracking illegal sand mining hosted by a think-tank or journalism agency — a sort of crime-spotters portal where people could anonymously upload evidence.
Shifting Sands, Shifting Thinking
William Neal, an emeritus professor at Grand Valley State University in Michigan and one of the authors of Vanishing Sands, suggests in an email that finding sand substitutes is not enough. Coastal communities, he says, need to retreat from rising seas rather than build more hard structures such as seawalls. This “shoreline engineering” often destroys the very beaches it is intended to save, he explains, and the long-term cost of saving property through engineering often ends up exceeding the value of the property. Seawalls also tend to simply shift water elsewhere, potentially causing flooding and significant damage along other parts of the shoreline.
Peduzzi also espouses shifts in thinking, including how we get around in cities.
“Instead of building roads for cars, build subways,” he says. “That moves people faster and gets away from fossil fuels. The icing on the cake is that when digging subway tunnels, you are getting rocks, generating this material instead of using it. Cars are not sustainable — not the material to make a car itself or the roads and parking lots.”
Without systemic changes, the problem of sand removal is only going to grow bigger as the population increases and people continue to migrate from rural to urban areas, increasing the demand for infrastructure like roads and buildings.
“The problem has been overlooked,” Peduzzi warns. “People need to realize that sand is just another story of how dependent we are on natural resources for development.”
Melissa Gaskill is a freelance science writer based in Austin, Texas, whose work has appeared in Scientific American, Mental Floss, Newsweek, Alert Diver and many other publications. She is the co-author of A Worldwide Travel Guide to Sea Turtles and author of Pandas to Penguins: Ethical Encounters with Animals at Risk.
“The geoengineering approach puts Earth’s systems at risk in a faulty and false bid toward solving the climate crisis. It is what we call a false solution,” said one campaigner.
Biodiversity advocates on Wednesday called on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reject a new geoengineering project spearheaded by researchers in Massachusetts that one critic said would do “nothing to solve the root causes of the climate crisis and instead puts at risk the oceans’ natural capacity to absorb carbon and their role in sustaining life on Earth.”
Friends of the Earth (FOE) and other groups warned that an experiment called LOC-NESS by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) carries “potentially catastrophic risks” for the Atlantic Ocean, where researchers have proposed dumping more than 60,000 gallons of sodium hydroxide near Cape Cod to test a “carbon dioxide removal approach” called Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE).
WHOI’s website states that the experiment would involve the release of “nontoxic, fluorescent Rhodamine WT dye into the ocean from a research ship,” with researchers tracking the dye’s movement over 72 hours in order to determine whether the ocean’s alkalinity could be enhanced.
If so, the scientists say, they could ultimately help to regulate atmospheric carbon.
The EPA’s notice about the proposed study from last month, however, says that the project “would involve a controlled release of a sodium hydroxide solution”—which is “essentially lye, a substance known to cause chemical burns and one that must be handled with great care,” according to Tom Goldtooth, co-founder and member of the board of directors of the national Climate Justice Alliance.
“It’s astonishing that the EPA is even considering allowing dangerous, caustic chemicals to be dumped in ocean waters that are frequented by at least eight endangered species, including right whales and leatherback turtles.”
“Altering the chemical composition of the ocean under the guise of increasing its capacity to absorb carbon dioxide is misleading and dangerous,” said Goldtooth. “An experiment centered on introducing this caustic substance into the sea should not be permitted… The geoengineering approach puts Earth’s systems at risk in a faulty and false bid toward solving the climate crisis. It is what we call a false solution.”
Friends of the Earth pointed out that WHOI’s permit application to the EPA acknowledges that after changing the ocean’s alkalinity, the researchers “have no direct way of measuring how much carbon dioxide will be removed by the experiment.”
“The production of alkaline materials is extremely energy-intensive, releasing similar or even higher levels of greenhouse gasses than they remove upon being dumped into the ocean,” said the group. “The researchers have declined to analyze how much carbon dioxide was released in the production, transportation, and dumping of the sodium hydroxide, making it impossible to know whether the technology even reduces greenhouse gas emissions.”
Despite these lingering questions, said FOE, the EPA has issued tentative approval for a permit for the experiment, with a public comment period open until July 1.
The caustic sodium hydroxide solution the researchers plan to use, warns FOE, “causes chemical burns upon contact with skin or marine animals, setting the stage for potentially extreme damage to local ecosystems.”
Benjamin Day, FOE’s senior campaigner for its Climate and Energy Justice Program, said the group “unequivocally” opposes the LOC-NESS geoengineering experiment in the fragile ecosystem off the coast of Cape Cod.
“It’s astonishing that the EPA is even considering allowing dangerous, caustic chemicals to be dumped in ocean waters that are frequented by at least eight endangered species, including right whales and leatherback turtles,” said Day.
Mary Church, geoengineering campaign manager for the Center for International Environmental Law, said “speculative technologies” like OAE are “a dangerous distraction from the real solutions to the climate crisis,” which scientists around the world agree requires a rapid reduction in planet-heating fossil fuel emissions through a large-scale shift to renewable energy sources.
“Marine geoengineering does nothing to solve the root causes of the climate crisis and instead puts at risk the oceans’ natural capacity to absorb carbon and their role in sustaining life on Earth,” said Church. “Outdoor experiments could not only cause immediate harm to marine life but are also a slippery slope to potentially catastrophic impacts of large-scale deployment.”
United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity has placed a moratorium on geoengineering techniques like OAE until there is “adequate scientific basis on which to justify such activities and appropriate consideration of the associated risks for the environment and biodiversity and associated social, economic, and cultural impacts.”
Editor’s note: Sharks are beautiful, intelligent creatures, but they have been overexploited for decades. Because of their “high market value” industrial fisheries hunt sharks for their fins and other body parts. But it’s difficult to control the protection of the sea predators when they move to unprotected zones or international and local fleets fish in other countries’ fishery zones. The brutal killings of adults, babies, and even pregnant sharks happen while our culture is focused on buying more stuff and attending distracting events.
If sharks went extinct, it would set off a chain reaction. Sharks play an important role in the food chain. Smaller animals like shellfish may go extinct if there were no sharks to eat seals, for example. That would create a ripple effect, causing mass die-offs of otters, seals, and many types of fish due to food scarcity. The chain reaction would continue until its effects were felt on land, with fisheries collapsing in a matter of years. When will humanity wake up and start living with – not against other precious beings?
Every year on July 14th, we celebrate Shark Awareness Day. It is not just a tribute to one of nature’s most misunderstood creatures; it is a call to action. Sharks have cruised the oceans for over 450 million years, playing a vital role in keeping marine ecosystems healthy. But today, these apex predators find themselves under increasing pressure, with many species teetering on the brink of extinction.
Sharks: More Than Just Jaws
Hollywood might portray sharks as mindless killing machines, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Sharks come in a staggering variety of shapes and sizes, from the filter-feeding giants like the whale shark to the sleek and speedy blue shark. They possess incredible senses, like electroreception, that allows them to detect electrical fields emitted by prey, and an amazing ability to navigate vast distances.
As apex predators, they help maintain the balance by regulating the populations of species below them in the food chain. This includes controlling the numbers of mid-level predators and helping to ensure species diversity among smaller fish and invertebrate populations. Their feeding habits help keep marine ecosystems healthy and functional. For instance, by preying on weak or sick individuals, sharks help prevent the spread of disease and ensure a healthier gene pool within the prey population. Their disappearance could have devastating consequences, leading to population explosions of prey species and ultimately, the collapse of entire ecosystems.
A Cause for Alarm: Why Are Sharks Endangered?
Despite their importance, many shark species are alarmingly close to extinction. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), over one-third or 30% of shark species are either vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. Some of the most threatened species include the Great Hammerhead, the Oceanic whitetip, and the Basking shark.
The main culprit behind this is overfishing. Driven by demand for shark fins (a prized ingredient in shark fin soup) and meat, millions of sharks are caught every year, often through unsustainable practices like finning, where fins are removed and the body discarded.
Another major threat is habitat loss. Sharks rely on healthy coral reefs and mangroves for breeding and feeding. However, these vital ecosystems are being degraded by pollution, climate change, and coastal development.
A Ray of Hope: Conservation Efforts Underway
The silver lining in the story of sharks is the growing awareness and effort towards their conservation. Governments, NGOs, and international bodies are working together to protect these magnificent creatures:
Protected Areas: Many marine protected areas (MPAs) have been established to provide safe havens for sharks where fishing is restricted or banned. One notable example of a Marine Protected Area (MPA) that provides a safe haven for sharks is the Chagos Marine Reserve in the Indian Ocean. This reserve is one of the world’s largest marine protected areas and encompasses a variety of marine environments. It offers significant protection to various shark species, among other marine life, by enforcing strict regulations that limit fishing and other extractive activities.
Another example is the Jardines de la Reina National Park in Cuba, which has been particularly successful in conserving shark populations. This MPA provides a refuge for several species of sharks and has implemented strict no-take policies and eco-tourism guidelines that help maintain the health and biodiversity of its waters.
Deadly Predators
Deadly predators, Under the sea and on land But, what’s more deadly? A razor sharp, swimming shark Or the end of marine life?
Poem by @saf_begum
Regulations and Bans on Shark Finning: Shark finning, the brutal practice of removing a shark’s fins and discarding the rest of the body, has prompted global action through stringent regulations and international cooperation. Many countries now enforce laws that require sharks to be landed with fins naturally attached, enhancing sustainable practices and compliance. Furthermore, international agreements like CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) play a critical role in regulating the trade of endangered shark species to ensure their survival. These efforts are crucial in curbing unsustainable exploitation, promoting marine conservation, and supporting the recovery of shark populations worldwide.
Sustainable Fishing Practices: Minimizing bycatch, the accidental capture of non-target species in fisheries, is crucial for preserving marine biodiversity, including sharks. Sustainable practices such as gear modification, implementing time and area closures, and employing bycatch reduction devices can significantly reduce unintended catches. Regulations that require fisheries to use circle hooks and turtle excluder devices (TEDs) help prevent the capture of non-target species like sharks and turtles. Additionally, real-time management of fisheries based on immediate data and promoting consumer awareness through eco-labeling, as mandated by organizations like the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), can drive demand towards sustainably harvested seafood. These strategies not only help conserve marine species but also enhance the overall health of marine ecosystems and support the economic stability of fishing-dependent communities.
This Shark Awareness Day, let’s not only admire the majestic Great Whites and the elusive deep-sea dwellers but also ignite a global commitment to safeguard their future. Every shark species plays a pivotal role in marine ecosystems, balancing marine life and ensuring the health of our oceans.
Today, we must transcend admiration and take decisive action. Let’s pledge to protect these magnificent creatures, understanding that saving sharks is fundamentally about preserving the entire marine ecosystem. By protecting sharks, we are not just saving individual species; we are investing in the health and sustainability of our entire ocean. Join us in this crucial mission—educate, advocate, and participate. Together, we can turn the tide for sharks and secure a vibrant future for our blue planet.
BioDB
BioDB is a new, non-profit website that serves as a dynamic hub for wildlife conservation enthusiasts while advocating for protecting our planet’s invaluable biodiversity. With a primary goal of raising awareness and mobilizing funds for selected non-governmental organizations (NGOs) dedicated to wildlife conservation, BioDB offers a comprehensive platform for individuals and organizations passionate about positively impacting our natural world. https://biodb.com/
Editor’s note: The author asks if that is a good thing. The short answer is no. For the same reason, agriculture is bad for the land, aquaculture is bad for the ocean. It is because humans have overcaught wild fish and depleted their numbers that people have more and more gone to aquaculture. There are now just too many human mouths to feed and not enough fish in the oceans.
Both aquaculture and fisheries have environmental and climate impacts — and they overlap more than you’d think
A new report from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO, has found that more fish were farmed worldwide in 2022 than harvested from the wild, an apparent first.
Last week, the FAO released its annual report on the state of aquaculture — which refers to the farming of both seafood and aquatic plants — and fisheries around the world. The organization found that global production from both aquaculture and fisheries reached a new high — 223.3 million metric tons of animals and plants — in 2022. Of that, 185.4 million metric tons were aquatic animals, and 37.8 million metric tons were algae. Aquaculture was responsible for 51 percent of aquatic animal production in 2022, or 94.4 metric tons.
The milestone was in many ways an expected one, given the world’s insatiable appetite for seafood. Since 1961, consumption of seafood has grown at twice the annual rate of the global population, according to the FAO. Because production levels from fisheries are not expected to change significantly in the future, meeting the growing global demand for seafood almost certainly necessitates an increase in aquaculture.
Though fishery production levels fluctuate from year to year, “it’s not like there’s new fisheries out there waiting to be discovered,” said Dave Martin, program director for Sustainable Fisheries Partnerships, an international organization that works to reduce the environmental impact of seafood supply chains. “So any growth in consumption of seafood is going to come from aquaculture.”
A worker removes a stack of oyster baskets during harvest. Bloomberg Creative / Getty Images via Grist
But the rise of aquaculture underscores the need to transform seafood systems to minimize their impact on the planet. Both aquaculture and fisheries — sometimes referred to as capture fisheries, as they involve the capture of wild seafood — come with significant environmental and climate considerations. What’s more, the two systems often depend on each other, making it difficult to isolate their climate impacts.
“There’s a lot of overlap between fisheries and aquaculture that the average consumer may not see,” said Dave Love, a research professor at the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins University.
Studies have shown that the best diet for the planet is one free of animal protein. Still, seafood generally has much lower greenhouse gas emissions than other forms of protein from land-based animals. And given many people’s unwillingness or inability to go vegan, the FAO recommends transforming, adapting, and expanding sustainable seafood production to feed the world’s growing population and improve food security.
But “there’s a lot of ways to do aquaculture well, and there’s a lot of ways to do it poorly,” said Martin. Aquaculture can result in nitrogen and phosphorus being released into the natural environment, damaging aquatic ecosystems. Farmed fish can also spread disease to wild populations, or escape from their confines and breed with other species, resulting in genetic pollution that can disrupt the fitness of a wild population. Martin points to the diesel fuel used to power equipment on certain fish farms as a major source of aquaculture’s environmental impact. According to an analysis from the climate solutions nonprofit Project Drawdown, swapping out fossil fuel-based generators on fish farms for renewable-powered hybrids would prevent 500 million to 780 million metric tons of carbon emissions by 2050.
Other areas for improvement will vary depending on the specific species being farmed. In 2012, a U.N. study found that mangrove forests — a major carbon sink — have suffered greatly due to the development of shrimp and fish farming. Today, industry stakeholders have been exploring how new approaches and techniques from shrimp farmers can help restore mangroves.
Meanwhile, wild fishing operations present their own environmental problems. For example, poorly managed fisheries can harvest fish more quickly than wild populations can breed, a phenomenon known as overfishing. Certain destructive wild fishing techniques also kill a lot of non-targeted species, known as bycatch, threatening marine biodiversity.
But the line between aquaculture and fish harvested from the wild isn’t as clear as it may seem. For example, pink salmon that are raised in hatcheries and then released into the wild to feed, mature, and ultimately be caught again are often marketed as “wild caught.” Lobsters, caught wild in Maine, are often fed bait by fisherman to help them put on weight. “It’s a wild fishery,” said Love — but the lobster fishermen’s practice of fattening up their catch shows how human intervention is present even in wild-caught operations.
On the flipside, in a majority of aquaculture systems, farmers provide their fish with feed. That feed sometimes includes fish meal, says Love, a powder that comes from two sources: seafood processing waste (think: fish guts and tails) and wild-caught fish.
All of this can result in a confusing landscape for climate- or environmentally-conscientious consumers who eat fish. But Love recommends a few ways in which consumers can navigate choice when shopping for seafood. Buying fresh fish locally helps shorten supply chains, which can lower the carbon impact of eating aquatic animals. “In our work, we’ve found that the big impact from transport is shipping fresh seafood internationally by air,” he said. Most farmed salmon, for example, sold in the U.S. is flown in.
From both a climate and a nutritional standpoint, smaller fish and sea vegetables are also both good options. “Mussels, clams, oysters, seaweed — they’re all loaded with macronutrients and minerals in different ways” compared to fin fish, said Love.
Burning wood to generate electricity — “biomass energy” — is increasingly being pursued as a renewable replacement for burning coal in nations like the U.K., Japan, and South Korea — even though its emissions aren’t carbon neutral in practice.
On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, reporter Justin Catanoso speaks with Rachel Donald about the single largest emitter of CO2 in the U.K., biomass firm Drax, which is trying to open two wood pellet plants in the state of California.
Catanoso explains how years of investigation helped him uncover a complicated web of public relations messaging that obscures the fact that replanting trees after cutting them down and burning them is not in practice carbon neutral or renewable and severely harms global biodiversity and forests.
“When those trees get ripped out, that carbon gets released. And that comes before we process this wood and ship it … then we burn it and don’t count those emissions. This is just [an] imponderable policy,” he says on this episode.
Justin Catanoso is no stranger to wood pellet plants, as he lives near four of them in the U.S. state of North Carolina, where biomass giant Enviva has several facilities. While that company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this year, it remains the single largest producer of wood pellets globally.
This firm is one of several (alongside Drax in the U.K.) seeking to expand its global stake in the shift to renewable energy — a category of energy generation that industry and regulators insist burning biomass belongs in. However, a recent analysis shows it’s not renewable and adds more carbon to the atmosphere than coal and gas. But due to complicated language in the Kyoto Protocol treaty that extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, several nations and the European Union still allow the burning of wood pellets to be counted as such, and thus made eligible for subsidies, too. This is a tremendous problem for global efforts to slow the biodiversity and climate crises, Catanoso says.
“In my area of North Carolina, which is the mid-Atlantic, we will have the climate of northern Florida in about 15 years. That’s how fast our climate is changing here,” Catanoso says. “It’s upon us, and we are not pulling the levers fast enough. To slow this down and cutting down trees, calling it carbon neutral … that’s just one of those loopholes that is just completely man-made.”
Subscribe to or follow the Mongabay Newscast wherever you listen to podcasts, from Apple to Spotify, and you can also listen to all episodes here on the Mongabay website, or download our free app for Apple and Android devices to gain instant access to our latest episodes and all of our previous ones.
Rachel Donald is a climate corruption reporter and the creator of Planet: Critical, the podcast and newsletter for a world in crisis. Her latest thoughts can be found at 𝕏 via @CrisisReports and at Bluesky via @racheldonald.bsky.social.
Mike DiGirolamo is a host & associate producer for Mongabay based in Sydney. He co-hosts and edits the Mongabay Newscast. Find him on LinkedIn, Bluesky and Instagram.
Editor’s note: While renewable energies won’t save the climate and need to be fought against, it’s as neccessary to keep on fighting against fossil fuels. Because the oil and gas industries will continue with their business as usual – even if they promote an energy transistion from fossil to renewables. This is a lie, all technology inventions for new energy extraction are added up. That’s why it’s effective when people organize in order to continue the abolition of burning fossil fuels, be it in court or outdoors.
Judgment could have profound implications for new fossil fuel projects, including Cumbrian coal mine and North Sea oil and gas fields, says Friends of the Earth.
United Kingdom. Surrey County Council acted unlawfully by giving planning permission for oil production at Horse Hill in the Surrey countryside without considering the climate impacts when the oil is inevitably burned, the Supreme Court has ruled today.
Planning permission for four new oil wells and 20 years of oil production at Horse Hill will now be quashed.
The landmark judgment follows a legal challenge against Surrey County Council’s decision to grant planning permission for oil drilling at Horse Hill, near Gatwick airport in the Surrey countryside.
The case was brought by former Surrey resident Sarah Finch, on behalf of the Weald Action Group, and supported by Friends of the Earth.
It could have enormous impacts on all new UK fossil fuel developments – including proposals for a new coal mine in Cumbria and North Sea oil and gas projects.
Not included
Finch argued that the environmental impact assessment carried out by Surrey County Council – which declared a climate emergency in 2019 – should have considered the climate impacts that would inevitably arise from burning the oil, known as ‘Scope 3’ or ‘downstream’ emissions.
More than 10 million tonnes of carbon emissions would be produced from burning the oil, but this was not included in the environmental impact assessments.
Scope 3 emissions are increasingly being left out of environmental impact assessments when planning applications are made for fossil fuel projects, including plans for a new coal mine on Cumbria and new North Sea oil developments, despite the huge impact they would have on the escalating climate crisis.
Justice Leggatt said: “I do not accept the premise that it would be wrong for a local planning authority, in deciding whether to grant planning permission, to take into account the fact that the proposed use of the land is one that will contribute to global warming through fossil fuel extraction.”
FoE called the ruling “groundbreaking”, and “a heavy blow” for the fossil fuel industry. The judgment is very clear that the inevitability of the end-use emissions of this oil project meant they were indirect effects of the development, and so needed to be factored into the environmental impact assessment, FoE pointed out in a statement.
Friends of the Earth lawyer Katie de Kauwe said: “This historic ruling is a watershed moment in the fight to stop further fossil fuel extraction projects in the UK and make the emissions cuts needed to meet crucial climate targets. It is a huge boost to everyone involved in resisting fossil fuel projects.
“Gas, oil and coal companies have been fighting tooth and nail to avoid having to account for all the climate-harming emissions their developments cause,” she said.
Developers of the Whitehaven coal mine and the Rosebank oil field in the North Sea also did not provide information on downstream emissions in their environmental statements.
This historic ruling is a watershed moment in the fight to stop further fossil fuel extraction projects in the UK. Gas, oil and coal companies have been fighting tooth and nail to avoid having to account for all the climate-harming emissions their developments cause.
Both are currently subject to legal challenges, and today’s judgment strengthens the cases against them, FoE believes.
The Stop Rosebank campaign is also bringing legal action on the grounds that the emissions from burning the oil and gas had not been taken into account. Its case was on hold pending the Supreme Court decision.
In a statement, the campaign said: “This now means that we can proceed with our legal case against the Rosebank oil field on very strong grounds and with more confidence than ever. We expect to get the official permission to proceed with the Rosebank case, along with a date for our hearing, very soon.”
Grit
De Kauwe added: “This is a stunning victory for Sarah Finch and the Weald Action Group, after nearly five years of grit and determination, in going to court year after year against adversaries with far greater financial resources than they have. Despite setbacks in the lower courts, they never gave up.”
Campaigner Sarah Finch said she was“absolutely over the moon” to have won the case. “The oil and gas companies may act like business-as-usual is still an option, but it will be very hard for planning authorities to permit new fossil fuel developments – in the Weald, the North Sea or anywhere else – when their true climate impact is clear for all to see,” she said.
In a statement, Surrey County Council said: “Council officers at the time of the planning application assessment believed that they acted in compliance with the law. The judgement makes it clear that local planning authorities must have regard to downstream emissions.”
A new decision on the planning application will need to be made in due course.
Catherine Early is a freelance environmental journalist and chief reporter for the Ecologist. She tweets at @Cat_Early76. This article is published under Creative Commons 4.0
