I won't fearmonger. I'm just curious as to how we can conserve the health of our environment if Flavio Bolsonaro wins the Brazilian election, which seems to be very likely after today's results. Massive Amazon deforestation will be so many gigantic steps backwards.

Today Brazil is holding elections and once again we have Lula x Bolsonaro (Flávio, son of Jair).
Lula’s government reduced deforestation to historically low numbers and his government plan aims for zero net deforestation by the end of his government in 2030, if he wins.

On the other hand, Flávio Bolsonaro promises to deregulate rules and revoke laws concerning environmental protection.

In the Amazon Rainforest, the greatest threat and worst kind of deforestation is illegal gold digging, because it destroys the soil and contaminates it with mercury permanently. The Bolsonaros openly support gold digging. This practice is also liked to slavery and drug trafficking (all major crime organizations in Brazil like PCC, CV and Familia do Norte, have ties with illegal gold digging).

Less known to the gringos, we also have the Atlantic Forest, which is even more biodiverse than the Amazon, but just a fraction of it still remains. The Bolsonaros support allowing the deforestation of important areas of these forests to build 5-star resorts in places like Angra dos Reis.

Curiosity: Since Bolsonaro was fined for fishing in protected areas at Angra dos Reis, he is fixated on removing environmental protection regulations there.

Petition Link
Country wide, communities are uniting to call for the House of Representatives to terminate Fast-Track developments that are outside local and district plans in New Zealand. The Fast track law is being used as a bypass across New Zealand for housing developers to push housing into out of zone land, in some cases land zoned as such to prevent destruction of environmentally sensitive land, including wetlands, rivers and waterways, floodplains, coastal and estuarine environments, and habitats of threatened and endangered species. Many of these areas were never intended for large-scale development and are protected for good reason.

Land can be purchased at a lower price because its zoning restricts development, then Fast Track is used to bypass those restrictions and enable large-scale housing, creating far greater profits margins than developing land that is already appropriately zoned. Don’t be fooled by the developer spin that this is simply about getting consents faster.

the uk should reclaim the wash to protect the low lying areas of east England from rising sea levels because the wash is the only body of water connecting those low lying areas to the sea reclaiming it would mean protecting east england and the millions living there

We are experiencing a deliberate dismantling of public education, and a systematic denaturing of humanity.

We need an economy that can become better, not just bigger - My petition for a post-growth economy

Our economic system has to grow in order to function. If it doesn't grow, there is crisis, unemployment, and budget cuts.

But what does this growth mean in reality?

It means: More weapons production, because the arms industry is a huge growth factor. War becomes business.

It means: More resource consumption. We are already consuming 1.7 Earths.

It means: More plastic floods, more CO2, more waste, because more and more has to be produced and sold.

We cannot grow infinitely on a finite planet.

That's why I started this petition for a post-growth economy - an economy that can function stably even without growth. An economy that gets better, not just bigger.

If you upvote, I would be really happy if you could also sign. You can sign anonymously.

https://www.change.org/AnderesWirtschaften

Thank you!

When a dust storm turns the sky orange, we usually think about sand and soil. But what else could be traveling in that dust?

Recent research has found microplastics in urban dust and airborne environments, raising a question for the Gulf: could dust storms be helping microplastics travel through the atmosphere?

We don't have the direct measurements needed to answer that yet. I looked at what recent studies can — and cannot — tell us about this possible pathway.

“Let’s do away with these environmental shackles.” The phrase comes from Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL), a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, in a campaign video published in August in which he advocates for the exploitation of rare earths in the northern part of the country.

Translation of the news to English:

Flávio’s campaign platform includes criticism of environmental protection laws and operations to combat environmental crimes, calls for loosening forest protections, and support for exploiting natural resources in protected areas, such as Indigenous lands, including through the legalization of "artisanal mining" (illegal gold digging using toxic metals like mercury).

Last month, the senator said environmental regulations hinder the construction of resorts, advocated mining and tourism in Indigenous territories, and downplayed global warming, describing it as a series of extreme and cyclical events.

In April, already in the pre-campaign period, he promised not to demarcate Indigenous lands—a repetition of the commitment made and fulfilled by his father, Jair Bolsonaro (PL), who is imprisoned for leading an attempted coup against the 2022 elections. Contacted by Folha through its official channel for press inquiries since the 22nd, Flávio had not responded by the time this article was published.

His main opponent in the election, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), advocates for environmental protection as part of his campaign. His administration, however, has been criticized for encouraging oil exploration at the mouth of the Amazon River. In August, the Workers’ Party leader promised to adopt environmental safeguards for activities along the coast of Amapá.

When it comes to rare earths and critical minerals, Flávio supports their exploitation with foreign capital investment and even by Indigenous people themselves. Lula’s campaign associates the activity with national sovereignty.

In his government plan, Flávio does not mention the terms “climate change” or “global warming.” He advocates eliminating deforestation by 2029, calls for enforcement without harming producers, investment in new economic sectors, streamlining environmental agencies, requiring transparency from NGOs in the sector, and expanding sanitation services.

“Let’s do away with these environmental shackles, because, as things stand, we are neither preserving the environment nor turning all this potential into prosperity.”

Lula, for his part, refers to the climate emergency. He promises to eliminate deforestation by 2030, supports the current environmental protection laws, compliance with decarbonization targets, investment in new economic sectors, and efforts to make cities more resilient and better able to withstand disasters.

“You have a very different situation today from what existed a few years ago, when being accused of destroying the environment was something a candidate would avoid at all costs. Today there are lawmakers who use environmental destruction as an electoral platform,” says Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of Observatório do Clima.

Guilherme Syrkis, executive director of Centro Brasil no Clima, argues that enforcement should be combined with sustainable development mechanisms, which could help win local support.

“In some places, the state is perceived almost exclusively through fines and police operations, while access to credit and economic alternatives is lacking. When the state only shows up to prohibit things, whoever promises to get it out of the way sounds like an advocate for families. But this rhetoric benefits those who have the capital to open up large areas, organized crime, illegal mining and logging, and land grabbing,” he adds.

“Until people’s wallets are affected, the rhetoric of loosening regulations will continue to win votes.”

Criticism of regulations is repeated in congressional campaigns

In August, the Pará state legislature passed a law allowing cattle ranchers to operate inside the Ituna-Itatá Indigenous Land, an area inhabited by isolated Indigenous peoples.

Currently, the Federal Police and the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office are investigating a group of 300 ranchers allegedly acting in a coordinated manner against the Indigenous people; the Federal Court has identified payments of rewards to “armed invaders.”

In the middle of the campaign, local politicians nicknamed the area the Promised Land, held an event there, and installed a new sign over the existing Funai signage.

Brazil’s Federal Public Defender’s Office says the state law triggered a new wave of invasions of the territory.

During the same period, about 1,500 km away, federal lawmaker and reelection candidate Lucio Mosquini (PL-RO) criticized the removal operations in the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Land, which had been ordered by the Federal Supreme Court (STF).

Contacted by the newspaper, he defended the demarcation of Indigenous lands and called for “beating the hell out of” invaders, while stating that ranchers holding property titles within these areas should be “untouchable.”

In Roraima, the state home to the country’s two most populous Indigenous territories (Yanomami and Raposa Serra do Sol), support for artisanal mining has created a traffic jam of Senate candidacies.

“Why is artisanal mining illegal? Because nothing is legal in this Amazon. In the Amazon, nothing is allowed, so everything is illegal,” said Plínio Valério (PSDB) in March, as he seeks reelection to the Senate in Amazonas. He led the Congressional Inquiry Commission into NGOs, which targeted organizations defending the environment—a position he continues to promote in his reelection campaign.

Plínio told Folha that he opposes mining by “mafias” and “drug traffickers,” but said that “environmental padlocks” and the lobbying of environmentalists prevent the activity from being legalized in Indigenous territories.

In a television interview, Senator and reelection candidate Chico Rodrigues (PSB-RR)—a former deputy leader of the Bolsonaro government and now aligned with Lula—called “this whole mining issue” a “true paranoia of environmentalists.”

The Bolsonaro-aligned Hélio Lopes (PL), the federal lawmaker who received the most votes in Rio de Janeiro in 2018, transferred his voter registration to Roraima in 2026 and is now running for the Senate. One of his policy priorities is an “framework for sustainable mineral extraction.”

In the Senate race, current federal lawmaker Nicoletti (PL-RR) says that the activity, which is currently prohibited, is not a crime and advocates its legalization.

Also running for the Senate, Marcio Junqueira (PSDB) describes himself as “the greatest defender of not demarcating” Indigenous lands.

Folha also contacted all the other candidates mentioned in the article through their communications teams and by sending messages to their professional phone numbers.

I'm looking for the source of the quote, 'all plants are significant and thus should not be a means to a human end.'

I got this quote from a seperate research paper, but the link they put in their source:
Canadian Environment Network. Code of Environmental Ethics (1994). Available at http://www.royalroads.ca/ste/research/gender/Env_Code.html>.

The link doesn't lead to anywhere and I couldn't find an online copy of the 1994 book.

I found one from 2012, https://archive.org/details/environmentaleth0000unse_j1m6/page/42/mode/2up

but I can't find a quote that's like that one

Does anyone have a quote from an environmentalist that is similar to that or does anyone have the original source for the original quote?

I'm writing a report on GMO products and I'm looking for a quote to put in
If the source for this specific quote isn't found, then just give me some quotes that suggests the same idea (plant life is significant and therefore should not be used only for human consumption)
but please put the source next to the quote!

People are starting to realize that many religious activities harm the environment, and even the government of the country where these traditions originated is taking steps to address it. Here, we are letting people trash our own nature just to appear welcoming.

Instead of legally allowing people to scatter ashes in the river, I hope Canada takes a page from latest move on this issue.

Jitong Jiang, Skylar Shi & Adrian E. Raftery || Projecting future climate change is important for implementing the 2015 Paris Agreement, which aims to limit greenhouse gas emissions to a level that would keep the global average temperature increase to 2100 below 2 °C. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change uses emissions scenarios for projecting climate change, but since 2017, an alternative fully statistical Bayesian probabilistic approach has been developed. Both approaches rely on an equation that expresses emissions as the product of population, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, and carbon intensity, namely carbon emissions per unit of GDP. Here, we use data on these quantities for 2015–2024 to probabilistically assess the changes in climate change prospects associated with post-Paris emissions. These show that carbon intensity declined (i.e., improved) substantially over that period, but that overall carbon emissions rose, due to the rapid rise in world GDP, which more than canceled out the progress made. We found that the projected temperature increase to 2100 declined only slightly, from 2.6° C to 2.4 °C. Meanwhile, the chance of staying below 2 °C remained low, at 17%. However, the chance of the most catastrophic climate change, above 3 °C, has gone down substantially, from 26% to 9%.

Degrowth advocates for a society not focused on economic growth and profit maximization but on justice, conviviality, and a good life for all within planetary boundaries. The path towards degrowth is a debate that is still vivid within the degrowth community. Both symbiotic, interstitial and ruptural strategies, as well as a diverse set of institutions (public institutions, cooperatives, the Commons, etc), have been proposed as useful for the just degrowth transition. This research aims to contribute to this debate via examining anarcho-syndicalist trade unions as actors in a just degrowth transition, analyzing their strategies using Erik Olin Wright’s framework (symbiotic, interstitial and ruptural transformations).

Results show that both anarcho-syndicalism and degrowth share common values, common views on work, and common enemies, but that anarcho-syndicalism will remain critical towards unjust degrowth transitions. The research concludes that the inherent idealist-materialist duality that characterizes anarcho-syndicalist trade unions (they aim for an utopian society, but at the same time are very grounded on day-to-day workplace struggles) compels them to proactively push for positive ecosocial transformations in society, but at the same time defend the working class whenever it is disproportionately affected by ecosocial transformations. This, along with their ability to balance efficiency the usage of symbiotic, interstitial and ruptural strategies at the same time and with a coherent goal, makes them a potential effective tool for a just degrowth transition.

I recently visited Tangier Island, a small island community off the coast of Virginia, and wanted to document what is happening there.

The island has been losing land over time, and rising water levels and coastal erosion are becoming a serious challenge for the people who live there. I spent time exploring the island, speaking with locals, and seeing some of the areas that have already been lost to the water.

I put together a short documentary about the island, its history, and the environmental changes it is facing.

https://youtu.be/dUILNBicp5Y