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Italy Is Caught Between Two Wars. Russia’s LNG Tanker

By Manlio Dinucci | Global Research | March 22, 2026

The case of the Russian LNG tanker Arctic Metagaz, which, after being struck by a Ukrainian drone, is now adrift uncontrolled off our coast, with a cargo of liquefied natural gas, is emblematic of Italy’s predicament, caught between two wars – one in Europe and the other in the Middle East – both provoked by the same power politics pursued by the United States and its allies.

The WWF announced that it is closely monitoring the Russian LNG tanker Arctic Metagaz, which is adrift in the Strait of Sicily following a series of explosions that occurred between 3 and 4 March. The vessel, which is unmanned and out of control, is carrying an extremely dangerous cargo of approximately 900 tonnes of diesel and over 60,000 tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG). A potential spill – warns the WWF – could cause fires, lethal cryogenic clouds and widespread, long-lasting pollution of the water and the atmosphere. The environmental risk is very high and potentially irreversible, with serious repercussions for the economies of the Pelagie Islands, which rely on fishing and tourism. The gravity of the situation is confirmed by the fact that Italy, France and seven other countries have called for prompt action by the European Commission.

What caused this disaster?

Alfredo Mantovano, Undersecretary to the Prime Minister, stated in an interview that it was an “accident involving the Russian vessel”. The government is thus attempting to conceal the true cause: as we reported in Grandangolo on 6 March and as the photos of the wreck show, the Russian vessel Arctic Metagaz was struck by a Ukrainian naval drone launched from Libya.

A genuine act of international terrorism that exposes Italy and other European countries to extremely serious risks – the very same countries that are arming and financing Ukraine for the war against Russia: the thermal content of the ship, which could end up on our shores, is equivalent to that of almost 50 Hiroshima bombs, not counting radioactivity. (See the well-documented articles by Prof. Francesco Cappello on www.pangeanotizie.it).

The story of this veritable ticking time bomb, drifting unchecked in the Mediterranean off our coast, is emblematic of the situation in which Italy finds itself caught between two wars – one in Europe and the other in the Middle East – both triggered by the same power politics pursued by the United States and its allies. Not only do these expose us to growing risks, including the threat of nuclear war, but they are also having an increasing impact on our living conditions. The war against Russia and now that against Iran are causing a sharp rise in energy prices, with serious economic and social consequences. The Israeli attack on the South Pars gas field in Iran, the largest in the world, and Iran’s subsequent retaliation, have sent oil and gas prices soaring.

Italy, which is already effectively participating in the war against Russia despite officially denying it, is now also taking part in the war against Iran, again under US command. US Navy Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft and Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton drones regularly take off from the Sigonella naval air base (Sicily) for operations in the Persian Gulf against Iran. Italian forces are stationed in Kuwait alongside US forces, equipped with MQ-9 Reaper drones (one of which was destroyed by an Iranian attack) and Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets. At the same time, an Italian Navy missile frigate, the Federico Martinengo, forms part of the naval battle group accompanying the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean as part of the war against Iran.

March 22, 2026 Posted by | Environmentalism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Comments Off on Italy Is Caught Between Two Wars. Russia’s LNG Tanker

The Sludging of Rural America

By Paula Yockel | Brownstone Institute | March 13, 2026

In recent weeks, a major pipeline erupted in Maryland spilling over 243 million gallons of sewage into the Potomac River that flows along the southern border of Washington, D.C. You couldn’t have missed this news because it was reported everywhere: NPR, NBC, the New York Times, and Wall Street Journal.

Even the British Guardian ran several stories, reporting that the sewage spill caused a rift between Maryland’s Governor and President Trump over who bears blame.

A disaster declaration was approved.

But each year, as our primary means of sewage disposal, millions of tons of toxic sewage sludge, labeled as “biosolids,” are spread as agricultural fertilizer across our nation’s farmland, where rural Americans call home. I know this because my family lived it, and it made us very sick. We had to leave our home to save our health.

The unthinkable illnesses my family suffered motivated me to seek independent facts. After all, we had authorities at every level telling us that this practice was safe, but our experience told us otherwise.

What we uncovered in our testing and research—including the statistically significant increased relative risk of disease in a community where sludge is used on farmland—left us no option but to take action.

I founded the nonprofit Mission503, to not only raise awareness of this practice, but to end it, and lead the way to real solutions. 

As Americans are aligning on concerns regarding toxic chemical exposure, including PFAS from sludge practices, it’s timely to share some of our key findings. But first, let’s level set on three quick things about our nation’s sewage disposal practices.

Number one. Sewage sludge is the solid material that remains after liquid is separated from wastewater that enters the nation’s sewer plants. It’s typically the consistency of thick brownie batter. While the facilities are designed to treat and discharge the liquid effluent into our natural waters, like rivers, streams, and lakes, the cleaner the liquid, the more concentrated the toxins and pathogens are in the solids. Although sludge is considered “treated” and is often digested to reduce its volume, the more than 17,000 sewer plants in the US are neither engineered for, nor mechanically capable of, safely disposing or destroying sewage solids.

Number two. Consider what flows into city sewers—then imagine it concentrated. Sludge isn’t just flushed toilets (though human waste is chemically and biologically hazardous); it is the condensed residual of everything entering the sewer system: industrial and manufacturing discharge, institutional and medical waste, mortuary and slaughter operation drains, residential waste, street drains, fuels, narcotics, poisons, parasites and pathogens, microplastics, toxic chemicals—including PFAS “forever chemicals”—and so much more.

Number three. Yes, we have a US federal rule, 40 CFR Part 503, that promotes using municipal sewage sludge as fertilizer on agricultural land—where food is grown, beef and dairy cattle graze, among rural communities across the nation. For sludge to qualify for land application (the term for spreading sludge on farmland), the rule regulates only nine metals and a fecal indicator. All other pollutants are ignored. Even mercury, lead, and arsenic are allowed at certain levels, meaning these toxic metals can legally be present in sludge.

We’ve utilized this practice for decades and have successfully kept it off the American people’s radar. Sludge is rebranded as “biosolids,” promoted as “beneficial reuse,” and misleadingly described as “organic,” while farmers are not informed of its contents. Medical practitioners and researchers are largely unaware of it as well, complicating diagnosis and treatment for families who suffer illness from it. That, alone, is a topic for another day.

Proponents of the rule—those whose budgets generally benefit from it and are contractually bound to deploy it—often refer to sludge practices as “highly regulated.” The chemical and biological realities revealed in our testing would characterize the practice as hardly regulated. But let’s be clear. No amount of regulation (or treatment, for that matter) can make toxic sewage sludge a safe, legitimate fertilizer.

When we bought our place in rural Oklahoma City we had no idea, no disclosure, no awareness that our nation discarded its sewage sludge on farmland or that Oklahoma City would be dumping theirs next door to our home.

Over the course of many years, my family’s illnesses were significant. Among them were MRSA infections, respiratory disorders, cryptosporidium, rotavirus, adenovirus, GI disorders, heart arrhythmias, skin infections, rashes, hospitalizations, chronic strep infections, including strep throat so severe my doctor suspected it had abscessed into my brain. Our pets also suffered many illnesses, such as allergic reactions, skin and eye infections, seizures, tremors, and respiratory illness. While living in this forest, however, we couldn’t fully see the trees.

It wasn’t until we began conducting independent testing of the sludge—and identifying the pathogenic and toxic complexity of what we’d been breathing—that we began scientifically connecting dots to not only our infections, but also to other illnesses that might not seem obvious with sewage sludge exposure. Sudden and severe onset of endometriosis makes sense when you discover you’ve been breathing a cocktail of dioxin, phthalates, and countless organic compounds.

Our goal for conducting independent testing was not to launch a crusade, but simply to gather facts to share with our local leaders. As a mom, I believed the sludge was making my family sick and hoped the evidence would show that federal and state regulations were not only failing to protect us and our community but were also misleading our local officials.

However, our testing began revealing highly troubling facts, each one compelling us to dig deeper, a process that spanned more than six years and led us to one conclusion—the federal 503 Rule was inflicting illness on our people and contaminating our nation.

A few important things to note about our research: our sludge testing used legally obtained samples that met federal and state sludge regulations; our environmental sampling followed proper protocols and maintained chain of custody; we utilized certified commercial labs and gold-standard research labs holding proper certifications; our community health analyses utilized publicly available hospital discharge data accessed in accordance with established guidelines; and for many studies, we collaborated with some of the top researchers in the nation.

In summary form, these are some of our key findings. Detailed lab reports and supporting documents are provided at Missions503.org:

  • Yes, sludge contains the nine regulated metals, plus 21 others. Many metals are individually classified as carcinogenic or neurotoxic, while inhalation exposure to multiple metals simultaneously has compounding health effects.
  • Statistical analyses show that metals’ presence and concentrations in animal lung and liver tissues within our studied community closely correlate with metals in locally land-applied sludge, with associations exceeding what could be considered chance.
  • Viable, culturable, bacterial pathogens were found in our federally compliant sludge with gram-positive cocci—staph and strep—being the most prevalent.
  • Soon after sludge was applied, four of the six antibiotic-resistant pathogens—that are most prevalent among deaths from drug-resistant infection—were viable in the sludged soil; and 30 days after land application, three were still viable in the soil.
  • Metagenomic sequencing conducted on our samples showed significant presence of antibiotic-resistant genes signaling resistance to critical drugs of last resort.
  • RNA and DNA evidence indicate that human viruses and zoonotic parasites (which infect both humans and animals) can become airborne from sludge and infect neighboring families. (This medical episode could’ve taken my life.)
  • In a 44-minute headspace study, sludge released 100 organic compounds into the air. Inhalation of SVOCs and VOCs is associated with leukemia, bone and other cancers, liver and kidney disease, immune and reproductive disorders, gender dysphoria, central nervous system damage, and other illnesses.
  • PFAS (“forever chemicals”) in the sludged topsoil we tested were in excess of 75,000 ppt. Topsoil becomes dust in homes. For comparison, the maximum contaminant level for PFOA in drinking water is 4 ppt.
  • Dioxin is among the most toxic substances known to mankind. More than 140 dioxins, furans, and dioxin-like PCBs were detected. Dioxin was also detected in animal lung tissue in our studied community, indicating plausible inhalation exposure for nearby families.
  • DNA shows sludge becomes airborne and travels into the homes of neighbors.
  • The relative risk of disease in our studied community—where my family lived for many years, and where sludge has been land-applied for decades—shows more than 125 diagnoses with statistically significant greater risk compared to our State of Oklahoma, including myeloid leukemia, bone cancer, infection, mental health and cognitive disorders, birth defects of the limbs, heart and lung disease, reproductive disorders and many other life-altering conditions.
  • And remember, for land application, the federal rule ignores all pollutants except nine metals and a fecal indicator.

We also learned some things about the marketing tactics for “biosolids:”

  • Referring to sewage sludge as “organic” is deceptive. In the context of sludge, organic simply means carbon-containing. Our samples were approximately 65 percent organic carbons. PFAS are organic. Benzene is organic. Both are in sludge.
  • Yes, there are plant nutrients commingled in toxic sludge, such as nitrogen—and very high levels of phosphorus, which the rule doesn’t disclose. Excess nutrient is also pollution.
  • If Truth in Advertising and fertilizer disclosure laws applied to the marketing of “biosolids,” toxic sewage sludge wouldn’t be used as fertilizer.

We recognize variances exist across sludges, treatment methods, classifications, sewer plants and waste streams. No two grams are identical. However, volumes of scientific literature corroborate our concerns, which are also available on our website.

A large portion of our nation’s toxic sewage sludge is land applied in rural communities across our beautiful land. Americans’ exposure to pollutants in sludge goes beyond even those communities.

The federal 503 Rule allows food, feed, and fiber crops to be grown on sludged soil. Beef and dairy cattle can be grazed after 30 days. Tobacco and cannabis—considered “super accumulators” of heavy metals in soils—can also be grown on toxic sludge.

The recent catastrophic impact on farmers’ lives and livelihoods from PFAS contamination has been an unthinkable tip of the iceberg. The disease and toxic chemicals being ushered into the lives of Americans through our sewage disposal practices are potentially beyond measure. Unless you’re one of the countless rural families living with sludge next door to your home, where it’s measured in medical bills, time off work, chronically sick children, and loss of basic freedoms.

So how do we solve this? We get honest and recognize two things: dumping our toxic and pathogenic sewage sludge where millions of Americans live is harming our nation, and we need infrastructure solutions where sewage solids can be delivered and safely, responsibly destroyed. American innovation can solve this if we choose to, which is why we are calling upon President Trump to meet with us to begin a path towards solutions.

So, we concur, sewage in the Potomac is a federal disaster. But so is sewage sludge on our nation’s farmland. Please help us raise awareness.

Paula B. Yockel is the founder of the nonprofit, Mission503, Inc. in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

March 15, 2026 Posted by | Environmentalism, Progressive Hypocrite | | Comments Off on The Sludging of Rural America

The Toxic Border: How Israel’s Chemical Spraying is Reshaping Life in South Lebanon

By Robert Inlakesh | The Palestine Chronicle | February 8, 2026

Reports that Israeli aircraft sprayed chemical agents along the Lebanese border — later identified as toxic defoliants — have intensified concerns over environmental damage, civilian harm, and possible violations of international law, with similar incidents also reported in southern Syria.

Key Takeaways

  • UN peacekeepers suspended patrols after being warned that aircraft would spray chemical agents near the Blue Line.
  • The sprayed substance was later identified as a toxic herbicide linked to cancer.
  • The campaign is seen as serving both military land-clearing and civilian displacement purposes.
  • Similar chemical spraying incidents have been reported in southern Syria.
  • Rights groups say targeting farmland may constitute a violation of international humanitarian law.
  • Spraying along the Blue Line

Israel is waging chemical warfare against both Lebanese and Syrian lands, a campaign that may not only have dire environmental repercussions but also inflict long-term health problems on local civilian populations.

On February 1, the United Nations peacekeeping forces stationed in southern Lebanon – UNIFIL – were forced to suspend their patrols along what is known as the Blue Line that demarcates the de facto Israeli-Lebanese border. They did so out of safety concerns for their soldiers, after Israel informed them it would be using planes to spray chemical agents in the area.

Tel Aviv initially informed UNIFIL that the chemical agent was “non-toxic.” Nevertheless, the UN reiterated its “concerns” about flight movements in the area, stressing that such activities violate UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

It wasn’t long until it was discovered that the agent being sprayed was, in fact, toxic. Allegedly, the specific agent used, for which a toxicology test was conducted, is a defoliant and herbicide that is linked to cancer.

Israel is currently on its way to violating the Lebanon ceasefire, which went into effect on November 27, 2024, nearly 10,000 times. This makes it the most violated ceasefire deal in recorded history.

Israeli strikes, targeting north to south and even the capital city of Beirut, have killed hundreds. Despite this, there have been no recorded violations by Hezbollah or the Lebanese Army.

A Strategy of Erasure

What is so consequential about Israel’s use of chemical agents in southern Lebanon is that it has two primary purposes. The first is to kill everything it touches, to clear the land for military purposes. The second is that it is being used as a form of collective punishment, a likely intention behind which is to drive Lebanese citizens from their homes.

Perhaps the most horrifying part of this is that there is a dark history of such chemicals being used for the same purposes elsewhere. The most infamous case is that of the US military spraying Agent Orange, also a herbicide and defoliant, during the Vietnam War.

As a result of the callous use of Agent Orange, both the civilian population of Vietnam and US soldiers alike ended up contracting serious chronic health problems. One of the results was birth defects, cancers such as Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and even neurodegenerative diseases. This was in addition to what was labeled ecocide in the country.

While some may argue that the Israelis are simply using chemical agents to clear the land, as a security precaution, this is not plausible. Israel has the capability and has historically used heavy equipment to clear the land.

Deploying chemical agents, which it is of note that they haven’t done so on their side of the Blue Line, is clearly a malicious attack on Lebanese lands and the civilian population living there.

Beyond Lebanon

Israelis have frequently expressed their dismay over the immediate return of Lebanese villagers to their destroyed homes in the south, particularly near the unofficial border, as Israel has never declared its borders.

Meanwhile, a considerable percentage of Israelis, formerly living in settlements like Kiryat Shimona, that were hit the hardest by Hezbollah during the last war, have refused to return.

It has not only been Lebanon that has been subjected to such chemical agent attacks, but southern Syria has also fallen victim to the Israeli military spraying similar chemical agents on its lands.

While the Lebanese government has come under criticism for often ignoring the plight of its citizens in the south, the Syrian government completely refrains from addressing the ongoing occupation and war crimes committed in the south of their country.

The refusal of Damascus to even voice its concern about the chemical warfare being waged against its people and lands has made it less of an issue than in Lebanon, as Beirut has raised its voice.

“The deliberate targeting of civilian farmland violates international humanitarian law, particularly the prohibition on attacking or destroying objects indispensable to civilian survival,” commented the Switzerland-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

It also demanded accountability for Israel’s “large-scale destruction of private property without specific military necessity amounts to a war crime and undermines food security and basic livelihoods in the affected areas.”

– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. 

February 8, 2026 Posted by | Environmentalism, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

NEW FAUCI EMAILS EXPOSE ATTACK ON NATURAL IMMUNITY

The HighWire with Del Bigtree | January 22, 2026

Newly revealed emails show Dr. Anthony Fauci privately acknowledged that natural immunity may provide stronger protection than COVID vaccination, even as he publicly dismissed it during the mandate period. As Senator Rand Paul calls for criminal referrals, the larger issue is whether the DOJ will pursue Fauci—or protect the COVID-era establishment instead.

January 23, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Environmentalism, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Mom Tells Trump: Dumping Sewage Sludge on Farmland Won’t Make America Healthy Again

By Jill Erzen | The Defender | January 20, 2026

America cannot be “healthy again” while the EPA continues to allow states to dump treated sewage sludge on farmland near homes and schools, said Paula Yockel, founder of the nonprofit Mission503.

Late last year, the Oklahoma mother posted an open letter to President Donald Trump on YouTube, urging him to address what she called a nationwide public health crisis enabled by a decades-old federal rule that allows toxic sludge to be spread on agricultural land.

The rule “is betraying all of us and harming our great nation,” Yockel said in her video.

At the center of Yockel’s campaign is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) biosolids regulation, Title 40 Code of Federal Regulations Part 503. The regulation governs the application of treated sewage sludge on farmland.

The rule allows municipalities to market sludge as agricultural fertilizer if it meets federal standards. Yockel said the practice directly contradicts national promises to improve public health.

She told The Defender that mothers in rural areas share posts on social media about their sick babies, but most people remain unaware of the causes.

“Those are fighting words to me,” Yockel said. “We cannot say we want to make America healthy again and continue to dump our sewage where millions of people live.”

The 503 rule enables the disposal of industrial and municipal waste — including human feces, pharmaceuticals, hormones, solvents and “forever chemicals” — onto farmland in communities where families live, work and play, she said.

“The 503 rule is spreading massive volumes of toxic chemicals and human pathogens into our communities, harming our people with illness and loss of freedoms, polluting our air, water, soil and food supply, and compromising our national security,” she said.

‘We don’t even know’ which foods are grown in sludge

Under the rule, sewage sludge is treated at wastewater plants and then applied to land as fertilizer. The EPA refers to the material as “biosolids,” though the agency notes the terms “biosolids” and “sewage sludge” are often used interchangeably.

The treatment at wastewater plants doesn’t make the material safe, Yockel said.

“The toxic gases, vapors and pathogens emitting from the sludge, and the stench and flies, will travel for miles,” she said in her video.

The foods grown on land treated with sewage sludge, and the livestock grazed there, enter the nation’s food supply without any disclosure. “We don’t even know which fruits and vegetables, beef, dairy and grains are affected,” she said.

Yockel is asking for a meeting with Trump to present research she said shows the practice is harming rural communities, contaminating the food supply and undermining national health goals.

The White House has not responded to her request for a meeting, Yockel said.

“There is a significant firewall in the way,” Yockel said. “People don’t want to touch this topic.”

Nausea, headaches and dizziness ‘were almost immediate’

In a January Substack post, Yockel wrote that she and her husband bought land outside Oklahoma City in 2004. Some days, she noticed a persistent, foul odor. In 2008, she watched trucks dump what she described as “black, oozing muck” on the farm next to her home.

“Nausea, headaches, GI [gastrointestinal] distress and dizziness were almost immediate,” Yockel wrote.

State regulators told her that the landowner had a permit and that the sludge was applied correctly. However, officials acknowledged the “odor is very bad and the flies have been worse than ever this year,” according to Yockel.

At the time, Yockel said, her family did not immediately connect their health problems to sewage exposure.

“When sludge was spread on farmland next to our home, we were convinced it made us sick,” she wrote. “But we didn’t really connect the dots between sewage exposure and the unusual illnesses we’d get.”

She described symptoms that included blistering rashes, heart arrhythmias, MRSA infections and severe strep throat.

“We definitely didn’t realize it may have caused the health problems during my pregnancy and the risky delivery of our son,” she wrote. “We assumed these things were just part of life. Plus, authorities were assuring us that spreading ‘biosolids’ on the land around us was safe and couldn’t harm us.”

Yockel and her husband eventually began working with researchers to test air, water, soil and clinical samples in sludged environments over roughly six years.

Land that has had sewer sludge applied in accordance with the 503 rule “is exposing Americans to pathogens like staph and strep, viruses, human parasites, and antibiotic-resistant bacteria,” she said.

The sludge also contains carcinogens, neurotoxins, endocrine disruptors and immune-disrupting chemicals.

Hospital data show ‘more than seven times the risk for bone cancer’

Publicly available Oklahoma hospital discharge data, which Yockel displays in her open letter to Trump, show stark disparities between one community where sludge has been applied for decades and the rest of the state.

“The community shows over 125 diagnoses with a statistically significant increased risk compared to the state,” she said. The diagnoses include infections, cancers, heart and lung disease, neurological disorders and birth defects.

The data show “more than double the risk for myeloid leukemia and more than seven times the risk for bone cancer,” she added.

Independent reporting has increasingly drawn attention to the issue. Investigate Midwest reported that sewage sludge can contain high concentrations of chemicals linked to cancer and birth defects. The health risks have prompted lawsuits and bans in parts of the country.

In Oklahoma, a major farm insurance provider recently excluded coverage for biosolids-related damages.

In 2025, the EPA acknowledged that biosolids containing elevated levels of PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, may pose risks to human health. The agency also warned that drinking water near application sites — common in parts of Oklahoma — can be dangerous.

However, the EPA hasn’t issued new nationwide regulations. Instead, the agency leaves the monitoring of biosolids for PFAS contamination to the states.

In Oklahoma alone, Investigate Midwest reported that more than 80% of wastewater sludge ends up on crop fields, with about 40% coming from Oklahoma City. The city permits biosolids application on roughly 11,000 acres and produces about 350 tons of sludge each day.

Since the early 1980s, applying sewage sludge to land has provided a low-cost disposal method. Farmers receive the material for free after it is treated with lime and tested for heavy metals.

“We’ve been doing this across our nation for decades and still are today,” Yockel said in her video letter to Trump.

She said the system misleads farmers and shifts long-term costs onto communities.

“Their lands and livelihoods are being destroyed because this rule allows sewage to be marketed as biosolids, and they’re told it’s cheap and a beneficial fertilizer,” she said.

‘A lot of power and money supporting the myth that sludge is a good idea’

Maine offers a glimpse of what change can look like — and how complicated it can be.

In 2022, Maine became the first state to ban the use of sewage sludge on farmland after widespread PFAS contamination was discovered in soil, water and food, according to Inside Climate News.

Testing later showed elevated levels of the “forever chemicals” in farmers’ blood.

But Maine has struggled to manage the waste it can no longer spread on land, as it faces limited landfill capacity and high disposal costs.

Yockel said the challenge underscores the need for national infrastructure investment, not incremental regulation.

“Policy change alone doesn’t fix this problem,” she said. “We must have infrastructure solutions.”

She rejected landfills as a long-term solution and said managing individual chemicals like PFAS misses the broader risk.

“You cannot regulate sewage to safety,” Yockel said. “Managing PFAS does nothing but check a box and move on down the road.”

Instead, she said a secondary tier of infrastructure is crucial for managing sewage solids because today’s wastewater treatment plants focus on the water and are not engineered to dispose of solids.

“Hazardous waste cannot become fertilizer by the stroke of a pen,” she said. “It is time for courageous, honest facts around the 503 rule because we must have real solutions.”

That call for action runs up against entrenched interests that have kept the practice in place for decades, according to Yockel.

“There is a lot of power and money supporting the myth that sludge is a good idea,” she said.

Public outcry may be the most immediate path forward, she said.

“The results may be through public awareness. We are just trying to save our nation from the harm of this wretched practice.”

For Yockel, the stakes are clear.

“Once we understand the impact on our nation’s health, we’re going to have to make a choice,” she said. “When we recognize the cost of what we are doing today, the cost of change is small.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

January 23, 2026 Posted by | Environmentalism | | Leave a comment

Medicinal plants hold key to Iran’s drought-resistant revenue

Press TV – December 16, 2025

Iran’s agriculture faces water scarcity, restricted market access, and declining returns from traditional crops, pushing farmers and policymakers toward low-water, high-value, and sanction-resilient export products.

Medicinal plants are among the few agricultural sectors meeting all three criteria, increasingly seen over the past decade as an expandable income source aligned with environmental limits and export needs.

Iran has one of the richest plant ecosystems in the world. More than 8,000 plant species have been identified across the country, of which around 2,300 have medicinal, aromatic, cosmetic, or industrial uses.

About 1,700 of these species are endemic, meaning they grow naturally only in Iran. This biodiversity is supported by wide climatic variation, from arid plains to high mountain ranges, with elevations from 900 to more than 4,000 meters above sea level.

These conditions allow different plants to grow with little or no irrigation. The scale and diversity of this natural resource provide Iran with a broad production base that few countries can replicate, enabling year-round cultivation and harvesting across different regions.

Most medicinal plants cultivated or harvested in Iran are naturally adapted to dry and semi-dry environments. Many grow under rain-fed conditions or require less than 3,000 cubic meters of water per hectare.

By comparison, crops such as wheat, rice, and corn often need between 10,000 and 15,000 cubic meters per hectare. As groundwater reserves shrink and rainfall becomes more erratic, this difference has direct economic value.

Lower water use reduces production costs while preserving agricultural land for sustained use over time. This makes medicinal plants particularly suitable for long-term planning in regions facing declining water availability.

According to official figures, Iran receives about 400 billion cubic meters of rainfall annually, but more than half is lost to evaporation. Crops that can grow using direct rainfall reduce pressure on dams, rivers, and aquifers.

Medicinal plants make effective use of this rainfall because they are already rooted in the soil when seasonal precipitation occurs, allowing moisture to be absorbed rather than lost. This characteristic strengthens their role in maintaining agricultural output without increasing water extraction.

Medicinal plants are produced both on farmland and in rangelands. In many provinces, farmers grow them under permits on national lands, relying on rainfall rather than irrigation. Because these plants are mostly perennial and slow-growing, high irrigation costs are not economically justified.

Harvesting, drying, and basic processing often take place close to production sites, creating seasonal employment in rural areas. Each hectare of medicinal plants generates between two and three direct jobs, according to agricultural authorities.

In addition to farming, jobs are created in collection, sorting, drying, distillation, and packaging, forming local value chains that support village-level incomes.

Export revenue from medicinal plants currently stands at about $600 million a year, accounting for roughly 9 to 10 percent of Iran’s total agricultural exports. Projections suggest exports could reach $700 million if production and processing improve.

Saffron dominates the sector. Iran produces more than 90 percent of the world’s saffron and accounts for around 40 percent of the total export value of medicinal plants.

Other major exports include rose products from damask rose, such as rose water and extracts, liquorice extract, mint, thyme, and natural gums like asafoetida locally called anguzeh.

These products are sold not only as raw materials but also as inputs for pharmaceutical, food, and cosmetic industries.

Demand for medicinal plants continues to grow in international markets, including Central Asia, Eurasia, and China. These markets are accessible through regional trade routes and do not always require direct financial links with Western banking systems.

Products such as saffron, rose water, and herbal extracts have relatively high value-to-weight ratios, which lowers transport costs and makes them more suitable for indirect export channels. Their long shelf life further supports trade across longer distances and reduces losses during storage and transport.

Barijeh, scientifically known as ferula gummosa, is a plant native to Iran.

The internal economics of medicinal plant cultivation are also favorable. In several provinces, income from medicinal plants is many times higher than from grains.

For example, harvesting wild or cultivated plants such as musir can generate net income far above that of wheat or barley on the same land.

This income difference has encouraged farmers to shift land away from water-intensive crops, especially in drought-affected regions. Higher returns per hectare allow smaller landholdings to remain economically viable, supporting family-based farming systems.

Four provinces illustrate this potential clearly. Khorasan remains the center of saffron production. Kashan and surrounding areas specialize in rose cultivation and distillation.

Yazd produces lemon verbena, while Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province has emerged as a major center for wild and cultivated medicinal plants.

This province is largely mountainous, with 87 percent of its area classified as highland. More than 1,350 plant species have been identified there, including 270 with medicinal or industrial uses and 27 species found nowhere else in the world. Cool nights, diverse soils, and varied elevations contribute to high-quality yields and strong concentrations of active ingredients.

In Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, medicinal plants are grown on about 3,500 hectares, split between national rangelands and agricultural land. Since the early 2010s, the cultivated area has expanded sharply, supported by a national strategy to promote medicinal plants.

From a fiscal perspective, medicinal plants offer a rare combination for Iran under sanctions. They reduce water use, generate foreign currency, and support employment without heavy reliance on imported inputs.

Unlike major industrial exports, they do not require large-scale capital equipment or advanced foreign technology. Their production is decentralized, which spreads income across rural and underdeveloped regions. This decentralization strengthens local economies and reduces dependence on a limited number of export hubs.

Iran already holds dominant positions in several global markets, particularly saffron. Medicinal plants do not eliminate the economic impact of sanctions, but they provide a measurable source of revenue that fits Iran’s environmental constraints.

December 19, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Environmentalism | , , | Leave a comment

Russian Scientists Develop New Polymer Material to Trap Lead Ions in Water

Sputnik – 03.12.2025

A new material that traps lead ions in wastewater and natural waterways has been created and tested by researchers at Russia’s Tyumen State University.

Developed as part of an international team, the material makes it faster and easier to remove the ecotoxicant from aquatic environments.

The results were published in Polymer Bulletin. The main sources of heavy-metal pollution in the environment include the mining, metallurgical, electroplating and steel industries.

When filtration systems at industrial facilities fail, large quantities of lead and other metal ions — toxic to bacteria, plants and mammals — can enter wastewater or natural waters, the university specialists explained.

Researchers from the State University of Tyumen, together with colleagues from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, India, China and Saudi Arabia, have developed and tested a material capable of “capturing” lead from water in reservoirs.

The material is based on humic acids extracted from coal.

“We obtained lead traps with specially designed pores that can hold exactly a lead ion,” said Gulnara Shigabaeva, head of the Department of Organic and Environmental Chemistry at the university.

“Tests of the absorption process showed that the new material works more efficiently than existing analogue,” she added, and “the lead can be easily removed from our sorbent.”

She explained that the sorbent selectively captures lead ions because it is engineered with a “memory” of their size and charge — a polymer-design technique known as molecular imprinting.

“In the humic-acid and acrylic-acid–based material, there are cavities — imprints of lead ions,” Shigabaeva said “Smaller particles, such as iron ions, simply pass through them, while larger particles cannot fit into the sorbent.”

The granulated sorbent can be placed directly into water and later filtered out after swelling and absorbing the lead ions.

Laboratory experiments showed that one gram of the sorbent can extract 50 milligrams of lead ions from water in one hour. In the future, the researchers plan to develop molecularly imprinted polymer sorbents for other ecotoxicants such as nickel, copper and zinc.

They also intend to assess the effectiveness of the new materials under real environmental conditions.

December 5, 2025 Posted by | Environmentalism | | Leave a comment

No, Reuters, Climate Change is Not Threatening Europe’s Resources

By Anthony Watts | ClimateRealism | October 2, 2025

In the article, “Climate change and pollution threaten Europe’s resources, EU warns,” Reuters asserts that climate change poses a “direct threat” to Europe’s natural resources, citing an EU environment agency report, and warns of worsening droughts and extreme weather. These claims are patently false. History shows far worse droughts in the past with no appreciable trend of other types of extreme weather events becoming more common or severe. Europe’s resource problems are caused by humans, stemming from overuse and poor management, just not from human-caused climate change.

The article declares that “Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent and is experiencing worsening droughts and other extreme weather events.” It further states that more than 80 percent of protected habitats are in poor condition, blaming climate change and pollution.

“The window for meaningful action is narrowing, and the consequences of delay are becoming more tangible,” European Environment Agency executive director Leena Yla-Mononen told Reuters. “We are approaching tipping points – not only in ecosystems, but also in the social and economic systems that underpin our societies.”

The is political rhetoric couched in weak science.

The reality is far more mundane. The European Environment Agency’s own data show that water stress is primarily linked to intensive agriculture, industrial demand, and population growth. As the “Review of National Water Allocation Policies in Six European Countries” documents, many European countries continue to over-allocate water rights, creating artificial scarcity even in years with average rainfall. This is a governance problem, not a climate one. Similarly, biodiversity decline across Europe is overwhelmingly the result of land use change, habitat fragmentation, and invasive species—not a few tenths of a degree of warming over the last few decades.

When it comes to extreme weather, Reuters’ claims are directly contradicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 report which notes there is little to no attribution of many types of severe weather to climate change. As Climate at a Glance: Extreme Weather summarizes, data do not support claims that extreme weather events are becoming more frequent or severe worldwide.

Further, Europe’s worst droughts occurred long before today’s modest warming. The megadrought of 1540 lasted an entire year, with contemporaneous records describing riverbeds across central Europe running dry, widespread crop failure, and thousands of deaths. More recent severe droughts struck in the 1920s and 1940s, periods that cannot be blamed on modern greenhouse gas emissions. The paper “The 1921 European drought: impacts, reconstruction and drivers” describes the 1921 European drought as “the most severe and most widespread drought in Europe since the start of the 20th century.

In “A drought climatology for Europe,” decadal trends show “greater pan-European drought incidence in the 1940s, early 1950s … and lesser drought incidence in the 1910s, 1930s” over the 20th century.

And there are many more worse droughts even further back in the past, before climate change even had a name, as this graph from the 2021 paper Recent European drought extremes beyond Common Era background variability shows:

Compared to these historical drought episodes, recent intermittent summer dry spells are far from extraordinary.

Also, as detailed in multiple Climate Realism posts on the topics neither floods, here and here, for example, nor wildfires, here and here, are more frequent or severe now than they have been in the past.

Even heatwaves are neither more frequent nor deadly now than they have been historically, with deaths from temperatures declining.

Europe’s actual environmental challenges—such as nutrient pollution in rivers, overfishing, and urban sprawl—require pragmatic policy solutions, not grandiose climate pledges. By conflating resource depletion with climate change and exaggerating extreme weather risks, Reuters has misled its audience. The problems it describes are not new, not worsening because of climate change, and not solvable by CO₂ reductions. They are solvable by better governance, better planning, and better science. Once again, journalism has been sacrificed to climate alarmism.

October 13, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Environmentalism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Quit Promoting Mad Schemes, New York Times, Blocking the Sun is a Dangerous Climate Gamble

By Anthony Watts | ClimateRealism | September 25, 2025

In The New York Times’ (NYT) op-ed, “Turns Out Air Pollution Was Good for Something,” Zeke Hausfather and David Keith argue that because sulfur particles from past industrial pollution once cooled the planet by reflecting sunlight, policymakers should now consider a deliberate version of that process. They suggest aircraft could inject sulfur into the upper atmosphere to mimic the cooling once provided by dirty smokestacks, pointing to volcanic eruptions such as Mount Pinatubo in 1991 as evidence the method would work. This idea is wrong-headed madness. Experience demonstrates geo-engineering ideas such as this have dangerous and unpredictable consequences.

The authors write that “geoengineering the climate in this way is not a new idea,” and claim that “a more modest approach” of maintaining present temperatures with controlled sulfur injections buys the world time for carbon dioxide reductions to continue.

But geoengineering by blocking the sun is a dangerous fool’s errand. First, the potential unintended consequences are enormous and unpredictable. Sulfur dioxide particles injected into the upper atmosphere would scatter sunlight differently depending on latitude. At middle to low latitudes, sunlight passes through less atmosphere, so scattering effects are modest. But at higher latitudes, sunlight travels through more atmosphere, amplifying scattering—just as sunsets turn red because of the increased distance light travels through more air and particles at low sun angles. Injecting reflective particles globally would therefore not create uniform cooling. It would over-cool the polar and sub-polar regions, while perhaps under-cooling equatorial areas. The result would be an uneven, artificial climate system with consequences no climate model can reliably predict.

These regional impacts would not just be academic. Farmers in Canada or Scandinavia might see shortened growing seasons. Populations in northern Russia could face colder winters. Developing nations in Africa or Asia could sue over disrupted rainfall patterns or crop failures. Geoengineering would open a legal and geopolitical Pandora’s box of claims, counterclaims, and lawsuits, as countries argue that someone else’s climate tinkering damaged their own livelihoods. Even Hausfather and Keith concede in their NYT op-ed that large-scale deployment “could exacerbate climate change in some locations, perhaps by shifting rainfall patterns.”

Aside from these uncertain consequences, one consequence of this scheme is certain, increased sulfur pollution, most likely resulting in acid rain which changes the pH of waters and damages buildings, statues, and other structures.

History warns us as well. The eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 produced the “year without a summer” in 1816, dropping temperatures, as seen in the figure below, devastating agriculture across Europe and North America. Crops failed, famines spread, and tens of thousands perished.

More recently, Mount Pinatubo’s eruption in 1991 cooled the globe by about half a degree Celsius (0.9 degree Fahrenheit) for at least 20 months, disrupting rainfall patterns in the process. The eruption also depleted the ozone layer.

Scientists have also raised red flags about such schemes mimicking the Pinatubo eruption. A 2018 study in Nature Ecology & Evolution warned that solar geoengineering could “abruptly terminate” and trigger rapid global warming if deployment stopped. Researchers published a paper in 2022 in the journal Science of the Anthropocene, have cautioned that stratospheric aerosol injection could delay, but not prevent, ocean acidification, and could undermine incentives for emissions reductions. Back in 2014, LiveScience argued that “Geoengineering Ineffective Against Climate Change, Could Make Worse.”

These papers together strongly suggest that geoengineering via sun-blocking/aerosol injection is not a benign or risk-free option and that its consequences are highly uncertain, with many potential negative side-effects that are difficult or impossible to predict. Deliberately blocking the sun is not a climate solution—it is climate roulette.

Even advocates of the idea admit it is nothing more than a Band-Aid. As Hausfather and Keith acknowledge, “sunlight reflection is no panacea” and “treats the symptoms of climate change but not the underlying disease.” They also admit the risk of political dependency: once started, stopping a geoengineering program could trigger rapid warming rebound, a scenario far more destabilizing than gradual warming itself.

Steve Milloy, writing in the Daily Caller, explained why this notion is absurd. In “Trump’s EPA Is Right To Be Skeptical Of ‘Sun-Blocking’,” he highlighted that sulfur dioxide particles are air pollution—pollution that once drove acid rain and deadly smog events. Milloy sulfur notes that particles eventually fall back to Earth, meaning a program of perpetual injections would be required. “It sounds like a great business model on paper,” he wrote, “but people can’t just launch potentially dangerous air pollutants into the sky without some sort of guidelines and monitoring.”

The unintended consequences are not only physical but political. If wealthy nations take it upon themselves to inject particles into the stratosphere, what happens if poorer nations see droughts or floods as a result? International lawsuits and even conflicts could follow. The specter of “climate weaponization” looms large—as Milloy noted, the ability to control sunlight could be seen as a tool of geopolitical leverage.

The NYT itself might have cooled to the idea. Shortly after the op-ed was first published, the title was changed from “A Responsible way to Cool the Planet” to “Turns Out Air Pollution Was Good for Something.” Perhaps other scientists raised similar concerns as have been highlighted here and the NYT decided to walk back the “responsible” part.

The bottom line is this: blocking the sun to cool the planet is an inherently dangerous idea. Sunlight is the basis of life on Earth. Corrupting its distribution and intensity will not stabilize climate but destabilize societies. History, common sense, and scientific warnings all converge on the same conclusion: geoengineering by aerosol injection is not a solution but an invitation to chaos.

The New York Times’s op-ed promoting intentional sulfur pollution is a reversal of decades of clean air progress, representing climate recklessness, not climate realism.

October 12, 2025 Posted by | Environmentalism | | Leave a comment

Russian Air Defense Shot Down Ukrainian Drone Near Kursk NPP, Radiation Unchanged

Sputnik – 24.08.2025

Russian air defense shot down a Ukrainian drone near the Kursk nuclear power plant, the downed drone damaged an auxiliary transformer, the press service of the Kursk NPP said.

“On August 24 at 0:26 Moscow time [21:26 GMT Saturday], near the Kursk NPP, an air defense shot down a combat unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) of the Ukrainian armed forces. When it fell, the device detonated, as a result of which the auxiliary transformer was damaged,” the NPP said on Telegram.

As the plant clarified, the local fire had been extinguished, as a result of which the third unit had been unloaded by 50%. There were no casualties.

“Currently, the third power unit is in operation at the Kursk NPP. The fourth power unit is undergoing scheduled maintenance. The first and second power units are in operation without generation,” the plant’s press service added.

The radiation background at the industrial site of the Kursk NPP and the adjacent territory has not changed and corresponds to natural values, the press service concluded.

August 24, 2025 Posted by | Environmentalism, Militarism, Nuclear Power, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

UK Defence Ministry Covered Up Radioactive Leak From Nuclear Storage Into Sea – Reports

Sputnik – 10.08.2025

The UK Ministry of Defence has been covering up for years the leak of radioactive water into the sea from a nuclear warhead storage facility in western Scotland due to old pipes bursting, the Guardian newspaper reported, citing documents from the Scottish environmental regulator.

The base where Britain’s nuclear bombs are stored allowed radioactive water to leak into the sea after old pipes repeatedly burst.

Radioactive substances leaked into Loch Long, a sea bay near Glasgow in western Scotland, because the British navy failed to properly maintain a network of 1,500 water pipes at the base, the newspaper said.

According to the publication, the military base in question is near the Scottish settlement of Coulport. It stores nuclear warheads intended for four Trident submarines, which are based nearby.

Citing documents from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), the publication said that the military base’s pipes had repeatedly burst: in 2010, then twice in 2019 and twice more in 2021. According to the regulator, at the time of the ruptures, about half of all the storage equipment had expired. As noted, water contaminated with radioactive tritium, a substance used in warheads, was leaking from the pipes.

According to the publication, Sepa and the British Ministry of Defence have tried to hide information about the leaks for many years, claiming that it was a matter of national security. But recently, Scottish Information Commissioner David Hamilton ordered this data to be made public, after which it was obtained by the Scottish media Ferret and the Guardian.

August 10, 2025 Posted by | Environmentalism, Militarism | | Leave a comment

OPCW members condemn Israeli attack on Iran’s chemical facilities

Press TV – July 1, 2025

A majority of the member states of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has condemned Israel’s recent acts of aggression against Iranian chemical and industrial facilities.

The condemnation was issued during a special session of the OPCW Executive Council in The Hague, convened at Iran’s request.

At the session, Hadi Farajvand, Iran’s ambassador to the Netherlands and permanent representative to the OPCW, highlighted the killing of women and children, scientists, and civilians, as well as the targeting of research centers, including petrochemical facilities and chemical research centers.

He cited the harm to civilians, the risk of chemical substance release, environmental damage, and threats to critical infrastructure.

Farajvand underscored a series of violations by the Israeli regime, including breaches of humanitarian law, disregard for international legal norms, violations of peremptory norms (jus cogens), failure to adhere to any treaties or conventions on weapons of mass destruction, and a record of attacks on chemical facilities in Syria and Lebanon.

During the session, Iran’s ambassador proposed that the OPCW Executive Council establish a working group aimed at adopting binding decisions to prevent attacks on chemical facilities during conflicts and called for appropriate measures to be taken in this regard.

During the 12-day aggression by the Israeli regime against Iran, several chemical facilities and fuel storage sites were targeted, resulting in significant environmental damage.

July 1, 2025 Posted by | Environmentalism, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

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