Tag: environment

Major Oil Spill From Attacked Tanker Forces Closure Of UAE Beaches

Amid the record pace in Iranian attacks on crude tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, many have been wondering: where does all that oil end up when it comes to severely damaged or sunken tankers?

On Friday the UAE has confirmed a deeply alarming event: some of its beaches are being shuttered as a major spill is washing up after a tanker was struck by a projectile off the UAE coast, resulting in a fire aboard the vessel and apparent major spillage. The attack incident happened earlier in October.

Authorities have “detected a tanker oil spill affecting Umm Al Quwain’s beaches,” the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment announced in a statement.

It confirmed that the emirate in question was forced to close its beaches, and that “teams immediately began containment, cordoning, clean-up and remediation… to limit environmental impacts.”

International reports have identified that the leak resulted from the Oct.9 incident involving the GEM NO.2 tanker, which had been detailed by the UKMTO

“Gem No. 2, was hit by a projectile Friday off the coast of the UAE resulting in a fire onboard. The ship departed Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia, in March and has remained in the Persian Gulf since the war began,” as reported at the time.

The last week saw increasing complaints by beach area residents of unusual smells – reports that were initially brushed off by local authorities. One regional Gulf outlet documents the following timeline:

October 19: Unusual smells reported

Reports of unusual odours emerged on Monday, October 19, in Sharjah and other parts of the UAE.

The reports prompted authorities to begin monitoring the situation in coordination with federal and local government agencies.

Authorities conducted inspections and assessments to identify the source of the smells and determine whether they posed any risk to residents.

October 20: Sharjah Police reassure residents

Lieutenant General Abdullah Mubarak bin Amer, Commander-in-Chief of Sharjah Police, addressed public concerns during the Direct Line programme broadcast on Sharjah TV and Radio.

He said the situation was safe and stable, with no indication of a threat to public health or safety.

October 21: Environment ministry provides initial findings

The Ministry of Climate Change and Environment confirmed that it was coordinating with local authorities to investigate unusual odours detected in several areas.

The ministry said its assessments found no cause for concern.

Field monitoring and response efforts were continuing to reduce the odours and help them dissipate.

But then by Friday the oil spill impacting beaches was belatedly confirmed. This came long after oil-like smells began to inundate local social media, and government office call centers.

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World’s Worst Polluter, China, Vows Strong Presence at U.N. Climate Alarmism Summit

China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment said on Wednesday that it will send a delegation to the COP31 climate conference in Antalya, Turkey in November, to “actively promote the international climate negotiations.”

China is, by far, the worst polluter in the world and it rakes in considerable profits from its near-monopoly on the materials for green energy products like solar panels and electric vehicles (EVs). Yet it presents itself as a humble, concerned citizen of the Earth at conferences like COP31 and the climate movement seems generally inclined to go along with the routine.

“China supports COP31 in prioritizing implementation and addressing both longstanding issues, such as insufficient emissions reductions and inadequate financial support from developed countries, and emerging challenges, including unilateralism and protectionism that undermine collective climate action,” said Vice Minister of Ecology and the Environment Li Gao at a press conference on Wednesday.

Li expressed China’s support for the Paris climate agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and said “progress should also be made on climate finance,” including “in-depth discussions on a roadmap for developed countries to deliver the $300 billion climate finance goal by 2035 and to triple adaptation finance.”

Li also called for “the establishment of international mechanisms for a just transition, helping countries, particularly developing countries, address transition-related challenges and narrow the gap between the Global North and the Global South.”

China is not expected to be paying any of these bills because it does not consider itself to be a “developed country,” even though it is currently the second-largest economy in the world and a voracious consumer of fossil fuel energy.

China postures as a developing nation, as Li said at his press conference, so it would not be on the business end of climate-themed wealth redistribution from the “Global North” to the “Global South.” These are conceptual designations, not statements of geographic reality, so China is not part of the “Global North” even though it also claims to be an Arctic power.

Li made much of China’s surging green energy production, saying China’s solar power capacity exceeded its coal power capacity for the first time this year, and it has become the world’s top producer of EVs. He also boasted that China now leads the world in nuclear power, combining installed capacity with power plants under construction.

Li forgot to mention that China’s coal fired power generation is still increasing, with consumption forecast to increase by over three percent this year. This increase was partly due to reduced shipments of liquified natural gas (LNG) from the Middle East due to the Iran war – and also due to surging demand for electricity to power data centers, EVs, and air conditioning.

In a June 2026 analysis, Reuters noted that China’s “renewable energy” generation did surpass coal power in 2025, but this was partly due to sharply reduced demand in the wake of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.

Renewable power construction beat some of China’s early projections for the “transition” to green energy, but actual electricity generation is lagging behind demand, in part due to unpredictable weather fluctuations – poor wind conditions for wind turbines, drought or floods plaguing hydropower plants, and so forth. China still needs fossil fuels – oil, gas, and coal – to meet peak demand, and it is still building new coal-fired power plants.

One of the big concerns among energy analysts is that China might not have enough coal for the winter of 2026, as coal production is down and imports have declined. Demand for coal power rose when LNG imports declined, cleaning out inventories. Production also declined in May due to a major disaster at the Liushyenyu Coal Mine, which killed at least 82 people.

Even with its reduced production and imports over the summer, China remains the world’s largest consumer of coal, accounting for more than half of worldwide demand, and China is still the world’s largest emitter of “greenhouse gases.” According to the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), air pollution causes about two million deaths in China every year.

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‘No More Pipelines’ law is unconstitutional: Alberta Court

Ottawa’s controversial “No More Pipelines” law has suffered another constitutional defeat, with Alberta’s highest court ruling 4–1 on Friday that the legislation still oversteps federal authority despite attempts to fix it.

“Yet another big win for Alberta,” Premier Danielle Smith declared Friday on social media.

The legislation, introduced through Bill C-69 in 2019, governs federal environmental assessments of major infrastructure and resource projects, including mines and pipelines.

The Alberta Court of Appeal first found the law unconstitutional in 2022. The Supreme Court of Canada largely agreed in a 5–2 ruling in 2023, rejecting its designated projects scheme while upholding provisions governing federal projects.

Ottawa amended the legislation in 2024, but Alberta challenged the changes, arguing they failed to address the Supreme Court’s concerns.

Friday’s ruling found that Ottawa could still use limited federal interests to regulate entire provincial projects, exceeding its constitutional authority. The majority also rejected using federal responsibilities toward Indigenous peoples to justify broader regulation.

Justice Kevin Feehan dissented, finding that Ottawa’s amendments sufficiently addressed the Supreme Court’s concerns.

Smith urged Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government to accept the ruling rather than pursue another appeal.

“The Alberta Court of Appeal just ruled that C-69 remains largely unconstitutional,” she said.

“I’m calling on the Federal Government to accept this ruling, refrain from yet another appeal, and immediately work with Alberta and the other provinces to clean up this flawed Trudeau-era legislation once and for all so it no longer inhibits economic development in our country.”

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Massive Smoke Plume As Tanker Erupts In Flames, Spills Oil Off Russia’s Sochi Coast

The Black Sea tanker wars have continued Tuesday. In the latest tit-for-tat episode, a large so-called ‘shadow fleet’ tanker is ablaze close to the Russian Black Sea port of Sochi.

The vessel, identified in reports as likely being the Aframax Rio, which was previously sanctioned by Ukraine for alleged involvement in Russian oil exports, is producing a massive smoke plume and has been photographed and filmed by shocked onlookers at Sochi’s shores. Images like the below are widely circulating on Russian Telegram channels.

Russian regional authorities in nearby Sirius have since confirmed in a public announcement that a tanker had caught fire in the Black Sea.

Reuters writes that “The beaches in the settlement in Russia’s south Krasnodar region are closed to the public, the authorities said, without giving any details of the cause of the fire.”

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Democrat Congressional Candidate Accused In Sworn Police Statement Of Dumping Waste In Waterway, Polluting District And State

Democrat Blake Gendebien wants to go to Washington and lecture New Yorkers about protecting the environment.

According to a sworn statement filed with the New York State Police, he can’t even keep his own backyard from turning into a landfill, and the garbage is spilling toward a waterway where North Country families swim, fish, and draw their water.

On Monday, Gendebien’s opponent, Republican congressional candidate Anthony Constantino, held a press conference to reveal the findings of a private investigation into Gendebien’s farm, and demanded the appropriate authorities launch their own investigation immediately.

The investigation produced a supporting deposition, filed with the State Police on October 1 by investigator Nathan Couture of Brooks Investigations, that relays the account of a confidential witness who worked on Gendebien’s farm.

According to the sworn statement, Gendebien directed his own workers to haul garbage into a wooded creek area behind his property, which feeds the St. Lawrence River.

According to testimony, this was routine, and it was done for one reason: to dodge waste disposal fees. Gendebien kept the money, and Upstate New York got his trash.

In late July, investigators flew a drone over the woods and the creek. The images show a dumpsite nearly the size of two basketball courts, choked with garbage, with debris thrown straight into the water. This isn’t a stray bag blown off a truck. It’s an operation.

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Trump’s Repeal of Roadless Rule Would Declare Open Season on Protected Forests

n August 18, Donald Trump’s United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) officially proposed eliminating the national Roadless Rule. If finalized, the repeal would strip protections from 44.7 million acres of wild intact forest.

The rule, passed in 2001, protects in total 58 million acres of forest from road building, logging, fossil fuel extraction, and other development. Forests in Idaho and Colorado, which have their own state roadless laws, would be exempt, at least for now.

The USDA, which oversees the U.S. Forest Service, initially gave the public only 30 days to comment on the plan. They were forced after public pressure to allow 15 additional days, until October 6. Opponents are aiming to mobilize 1 million public comments during this short period, as well as sponsoring public events speaking out against the repeal.

One hundred and eighty environmental, conservation, and citizen’s groups have been joined by tribes, sportsmen, wildland firefighters, and businesses dedicated to tourism, in submitting a joint public comment or otherwise speaking out against this decision. A letter in support of the Roadless Rule and opposing recission has been signed by 164 congressional representatives.

The recission is “the largest evisceration of public lands protection in American history,” according to Randi Spivak, public lands policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity. Spivak told Truthout the Roadless Rule shelters “hundreds of threatened and endangered species. It provides incredible recreation opportunities — hunting, fishing, hiking. These were really the last of the forests outside of wilderness that had not been opened up to industrial development.”

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Federal Judge Blocks Border Wall Construction in Big Bend Region in Texas

A federal judge on Friday blocked border wall construction in the Big Bend region in Texas.

US District Judge Kathleen Cardone, a George W. Bush appointee, issued a preliminary injunction blocking border wall construction in Texas’s Big Bend region and Big Bend National Park.

The scope of Judge Cardone’s order includes patrol roads, border barriers or related infrastructure.

Environmental advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity filed the lawsuit in April and argued that the border wall construction lacked approval from Congress.

Judge Cardone sided with the plaintiffs on Friday and stopped the bulldozing and road-clearing by contractors while the lawsuit makes its way through the courts.

The Texas Tribune reported:

A judge on Friday blocked further border barrier construction in the Big Bend region, approving an environmental group’s motion for a preliminary injunction.

At the end of Friday’s hearing, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone asked the courtroom to remain calm while she read her order aloud from the bench.

She ruled that the plaintiffs’ constitutional claims to halt the construction were likely to succeed and her preliminary injunction against “ground-distrurbing activities” would remain in effect while the suit continued to play out in court.

The legal team at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental advocacy group, filed the lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and its secretary in April on behalf of the Friends of the Ruidosa Church, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving a historic church in Presidio County, and Danny William Miller, a Rio Grande river guide and landowner who stands to lose his property in Redford to the wall.

The lawsuit argues that the five contracted border wall projects in the region are unconstitutional for a range of reasons, including violating the constitutional separation of powers and depriving citizens of their land.

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Google Accused of Illegally Killing a Massive Forest for Its New Data Center Project

As the AI race reaches white-hot temperatures, big tech companies are caught up in a heated race to build as many pollution-belching and power-sucking data centers as they can.

And while the Trump administration is largely clearing their way by easing environmental rules for the polluting facilities, other governments are less inclined to give companies a pass.

As Finnish newspaper Kaleva reported last month, Google is under fire for clearing over 300 hectares — the equivalent of almost 500 football fields — for two new data centers in the northern part of the European nation without concluding the necessary environmental assessments.

Despite the assessments still being in progress, the tech giant’s contractors started clearing trees in the area months ago, raising the alarm bells at the Finnish Nature Conservation Association.

“Either this is gross incompetence from Google’s Finnish project company, Tuike Finland Oy, or gross disregard for Finnish legislation, or at worst both,” said the association’s chair, Hanna Halmeenpää, in a statement, as translated by Wood Central.

Satellite images show that four separate sites were bulldozed to make way for two new data centers.

Google maintains that its felling of the trees met the requirements of the country’s Forestry Act and that it had completed extensive environmental evaluations.

Nonetheless, the Finnish Nature Conservation Association has since asked Finnish regulators to suspend activities until the conclusion of the ongoing environmental assessments.

Halmeenpää said she was worried that local bird species may have been impacted by the area being razed. The forest also serves as a critical ecological connection, allowing animals to spread from one habitat to another.

The incident highlights the explosive growth in new AI data center projects across the globe, a major infrastructure undertaking that could have a significant impact on the local environment.

Meanwhile, Google is hoping to appease the Finnish government by having picked it for its largest single investment in the continent, to the tune of $15 billion.

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Where are the Environmentalists? Illegals Destroying Connecticut’s Natural Resources

In Westport, Connecticut, residents are facing the devastating environmental impact of illegals refusing to follow local laws to protect marine life.

Although there are laws meant to limit the harvesting of shellfish in the state, to protect the population of clams, steamers, oysters, and mussels, illegals are ignoring the laws and creating what could become devastating for the shellfish population in the area.

The Connecticut Sentinel notes that Connecticut General Statutes § 26-228 “prohibits taking any shells or shellfish from the shores or waters of the state between sunset and sunrise. The penalty is a fine of $100–$500 and/or up to 30 days in jail. Westport’s recreational shellfishing regulations explicitly adopt this rule. Harvesting is allowed only from sunrise to sunset.”

A resource guide from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), notes, “Shellfish are important to Connecticut’s coastal communities and economies, the waters of Long Island Sound and the many species of marine wildlife that rely upon them.”

“The harvest and cultivation of shellfish along our shores provides local food, jobs, contributes to the maritime economy, and shellfisheries are an important part of the state’s history and culture.”

“Connecticut’s aquaculture industry is an important agriculture sector. Aquaculture is the 7th highest valued agriculture product in the state according to the USDA Census of Agriculture. Marine aquaculture is the largest sector.”

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The End EPA Abuse Act targets regulatory overreach and the climate hysteria baked into onerous regulations

The conflict between the EPA and congressional conservatives is not a recent development, but rather the culmination of decades of increasingly aggressive interpretations of the Clean Air Act. Originally enacted in 1970 to address visible air pollution, the statute has been used by successive administrations, particularly under Presidents Obama and Biden, to pursue broader climate policy objectives that many legal scholars argue were never intended by Congress.

The Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which sought to shift the nation’s electricity generation away from coal, was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2022 under the major questions doctrine, which holds that agencies cannot make decisions of vast economic and political significance without clear congressional authorization. The Biden regime continued this approach by pushing electric vehicle mandates and greenhouse gas standards that functioned as indirect bans on traditional combustion engines, according to the bill’s supporters.

Senator Lee did not mince words when describing the EPA’s actions, stating, “They’ve exploited any power they can grab to push Biden and Obama’s climate psychosis at the expense of our energy security.” The senator’s language reflects a growing frustration among conservatives with what they perceive as a regulatory assault on American industry.

Senator Lummis echoed this sentiment, emphasizing the importance of restoring power to elected officials, noting, “The End EPA Abuse Act puts Congress back in the driver’s seat where we belong.” Representative Clyde, who introduced the House companion bill, specifically called out the Biden administration’s approach, saying the EPA “increasingly treated the Clean Air Act as a blank check to push de facto electric vehicle mandates, jeopardize reliable energy sources, and impose costly regulations on American consumers and businesses.”

One of the most contentious aspects of the bill is its prohibition on waivers granted to California, which has historically received special permission under the Clean Air Act to set stricter emissions standards than the federal government. Due to California’s enormous market size, its regulations effectively dictate vehicle production decisions for the entire nation, as automakers cannot afford to produce separate vehicle lines for different states. The bill would eliminate this waiver authority, which supporters argue would return market forces to the automobile industry and bring down costs for all Americans. Democrats contend that California’s leadership has driven innovation in vehicle emissions technology for decades, and removing the waiver could weaken environmental protections in states that choose to adopt stricter standards.

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