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File:  ltr to Congress, 76 scientists 2012.pdfResource Type: Letters

File:  ltr to Congress, 76 scientists 2012.pdfResource Type: Letters

Wind farm developer has shaved 110 hectares off its footprint after working with EPBC planners to improve the environmental credentials of the contested project.

The post Contested wind project pivots turbines and cuts footprint after discovering more endangered cycads appeared first on Renew Economy.

Maryland county allows dense development over fire training area

By Pat Elder
June 16, 2026

This map shows PFAS contamination in surface waters downstream of the former Montgomery County Public Safety Training Academy in Rockville, Maryland, where firefighting foams containing PFAS were historically used during training exercises. The striped corridor marks the Maryland water-contact advisory area along Muddy Branch Creek, while sampling locations MB8 and MB9 document contamination extending through a residential watershed near the former training grounds.

NBC4 Washington recently reported that PFAS contamination has been discovered in a creek and pond system near the former Montgomery County Public Safety Training Academy in Rockville. The report included a map showing contaminated surface waters, sampling locations, and a water-contact advisory area. The contamination has been traced to historical firefighting activities at the former academy, where firefighting foams containing PFAS were used during training exercises for decades.

Maryland maintains a statewide firefighter training network through the Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute (MFRI), which operates six regional training centers serving every part of the state. In addition to these state-supported facilities, many counties operate their own fire academies and public safety training centers, including facilities in Montgomery, Carroll, Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Howard, Prince George's, and Washington counties. These facilities have trained generations of firefighters and emergency responders, often using live-fire exercises and, historically, firefighting foams containing PFAS.

Dozens of firefighter training grounds, burn pits, foam-training areas, airport fire-training facilities, and military fire-training sites have operated throughout Maryland over the last fifty years. These facilities routinely discharged aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF), the same PFAS-laden foam responsible for widespread contamination at military bases throughout the state.

Military Poisons has documented PFAS contamination at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Joint Base Andrews, Fort Meade, Fort Detrick, Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Webster Field, the Naval Research Laboratory Chesapeake Bay Detachment, Forest Glen Annex, and several former military facilities throughout Maryland. At the same time, the organization has repeatedly warned that firefighter training academies, airports, and other non-military facilities have also created contamination patterns similar to those found on military bases.

The Maryland Department of the Environment has been reluctant to investigate, publicize, regulate, or clean up any of this. Maryland is behind many states in this regard.

Mongomery County planning documents provide disturbing details.

The former Montgomery County Public Safety Training Academy property consisted of approximately 44.84 acres at 9710 Great Seneca Highway in Rockville, Montgomery County, approved the disposition of essentially the entire site for private redevelopment as "The Elms at PSTA," (Public Safety Training Academy) a project containing roughly 630 residential units plus retail and open space. The academy closed in 2016, and the county subsequently sold or agreed to sell the property to the developer.

Montgomery County still owns land immediately adjacent to the former academy. Planning documents identify a 6.25-acre county-owned parcel south of the redevelopment site, currently occupied by the County Innovation Incubator and the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. The county also retained and received additional land associated with a potential future school site (Parcel V), which planning documents describe as approximately 6.5 acres.

‍Hundreds of homes are being built on property that served as Montgomery County's primary police and firefighter training facility for roughly forty years. The question that now demands an answer is whether Montgomery County or MDE investigated the property for PFAS contamination associated with historical firefighting activities before approving the redevelopment.

Given the well-established association between firefighter training facilities and PFAS contamination, it is difficult to understand how a comprehensive PFAS investigation was not publicly discussed before the site was approved for redevelopment. Firefighter training centers have been recognized nationwide as major PFAS source areas for years.

The planning documents note that a stream and approximately 3.35 acres of stream buffer run through the eastern portion of the former academy property and drain toward Muddy Branch.

The Maryland Department of the Environment recommends that all private well owners, regardless of location, have their well water tested at least once a year to ensure that their water is safe to drink and to include PFAS in that testing. The agency ought to be identifying well owners much further away and it ought to be providing these services. They dropped the ball.

‍It is important that the public be provided with the analytical results for each PFAS compound detected in the creek, pond, groundwater, and air. This is precisely the type of information the Maryland Department of the Environment has been hesitant to release at other severely contaminated PFAS sites around the state.

Although most PFAS compounds are not volatile, several compounds, especially PFOS, which is likely to dominate the chemical signature here, can attach to soil particles and become airborne. The carcinogens saturate the banks of the creek. When the water recedes, the toxins dry in the sun and are lifted by the wind into our lungs and into our homes as dust. The dust is a major PFAS pathway to small children. People living nearby should have their houses tested and they should change their air conditioner filters regularly. Sweeping and vacuuming ought to be traded for wet-mopping.

Since 2019, I have been writing about Maryland’s PFAS contamination associated with firefighter training activities. In 2021, when elevated PFAS levels were discovered in drinking water wells serving Westminster and Hampstead, I publicly questioned whether the Carroll County Public Fire Training Center was contributing to the contamination. At the time, I argued that Maryland should move beyond testing drinking water wells and begin identifying actual contamination sources through groundwater and surface-water investigations. My concern was that firefighter training facilities had used PFAS-containing foams for decades and were being overlooked as potential contributors to contamination. I sent all of my work to the Maryland Department of the Environment. They know the score.‍

The analytical data collected from Muddy Branch are essential for a host of reasons, but mostly because PFAS compounds can accumulate in fish. The EPA has reported that PFOS may bioaccumulate in fish up to 4,000 times the amount in the water. Streams and retention ponds near firefighter training facilities have been documented with PFOS concentrations in the hundreds and thousands of parts per trillion. Under such conditions, fish may contain PFAS concentrations in the hundreds of thousands or even millions of parts per trillion. One fish outside a fire training area in Michigan had 10 million parts per trillion in its filet.

‍The county health department must strive to identify those who have consumed fish from these waters. The county should also offer blood testing to individuals who may have been exposed to PFAS through consumption of the fish. The state will not do it.‍ ‍

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has established guidance for PFAS blood levels and recommends clinical follow-up for individuals with more than 2 parts per billion of seven different PFAS compounds. Residents should not be forced to pay out of pocket to determine whether they have been exposed to chemicals released from a government-operated facility. But, government agencies may balk at the idea, so If people living in these nice new homes ought to know a PFAS skin prick test is available for $279 from Empower DX.‍ ‍

We must demand complete transparency. The state and the county should release the full analytical results for every PFAS compound detected at each sampling location, including surface water, groundwater, sediment, fish tissue, and any other environmental samples collected during the investigation. The public cannot adequately assess the risks posed by this contamination without access to the underlying data.

The contamination discovered near the former Montgomery County Public Safety Training Academy is not an isolated incident. It is the predictable consequence of decades of PFAS use at firefighter training facilities throughout Maryland. The question is no longer whether these facilities contaminated groundwater, streams, ponds, fish, and nearby communities. The question is how many sites remain uninvestigated, how many people have been exposed, and why state regulators failed to act sooner despite years of warnings.‍‍ ‍

——————————

I’ve written 80 articles on PFAS contamination emanating from fire training areas in Maryland. Here are two:

Bad News for Westminster (MD) and the Surrounding Region – February 2, 2021

Here, I identified the Carroll County Public Fire Training Center as a potential PFAS source and asked, "Where's the PFAS coming from in Westminster?"

https://patelder.weebly.com/westminster-md--pfas.html?utm_source=

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Small Naval Facility in Southern Maryland Causes Massive PFAS Contamination - April 15, 2021

This article connected extremely high PFAS concentrations to a naval fire station and historical firefighting foam use.

https://www.militarypoisons.org/latest-news/small-naval-facility-in-southern-maryland-causes-massive-pfas-contamination?utm_source=‍ ‍

Australia’s backyard pools could help support a cleaner and more flexible electricity grid and save households hundreds of dollars a year.

The post SwitchedOn podcast: The hidden energy guzzler in Australian backyards – and how it could help the grid appeared first on Renew Economy.

An Australian facility will seek to prove carbon can be embedded into useful products, such as concrete, paint and plasterboard, and resold for a profit.

The post First of a kind “carbon refinery” to embed emissions in concrete and other building materials appeared first on Renew Economy.

State government launches Home Energy Saver program offering zero-interest loans of up to $15,000 to help pay for upgrades including rooftop solar, batteries, electric appliances and insulation.

The post Zero interest loans launched to help lower income homes get off gas with solar, batteries, insulation appeared first on Renew Economy.

Helena, Mont. (June 16, 2026) — Old Salt Co-op’s four partner cattle ranches—J Bar L Ranch, LF Ranch, Mannix Ranch, and Sieben Live Stock Company—are the newest ranches to achieve the...

World's biggest dairy exporter signs PPAs with two new solar projects as part of its efforts to wean itself off the use of coal power for boilers.

The post New Zealand dairy giant signs two major solar deals as it works to wean itself off coal boilers appeared first on Renew Economy.

A unique trial of renewable hydrogen power in an off-grid coastal community has struggled because of repeated failures from the hydrogen fuel cell.

The post Unique off-grid trial proves technical case for renewable hydrogen power, despite repeated fuel cell failures appeared first on Renew Economy.

Birding can be transformative, even healing. This is part of what drives Carmen Meuret’s work—both as Vice President for Winnebago Audubon in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and in her professional life as...

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Governor Newsom’s May Revise budget raises urgent concerns about California’s ability to protect birds, restore habitat, and maintain public access to nature.California has made critical...

Abolition, as Angela Davis reminds us, is based on the radical notion that institutions like the police, courts, and prisons are not isolated problems that might be fixed by reforming away their most harmful and violent elements. They are constitutive of capitalism, so can only be undone through a complete transformation of society. It is only through such a process of revolutionary change that real alternatives to punitive and carceral forms of justice might be created. In the process of political struggle different ways of relating to each other begin to develop, new social forms of organization are produced, and qualitatively different alternative futures begin to emerge as material possibilities. Abolitionism, in this sense, is a negative resistance to the oppressive and exploitative relations of the present as well as a positive force capable of expanding the horizon of what a future society might look like.

Revolutionary Forgiveness: Beyond Moralism, Toward Liberation by D. K. Renton begins from the abolitionist position that recognizes that “if every intimate harm is to be met with the incarceration of the perpetrator, then a series of abuses will follow” (1). Of course, an abolitionist stance does not mean ignoring immediate social harms both within left-wing movements and in society more broadly. Revolutionary Forgiveness insists that leftists must begin to create meaningful alternatives to the carceral system and that one possibility is to be found in revolutionary forgiveness. More than a moral commitment to magnanimity, revolutionary forgiveness for Renton is a political and ethical practice in which perpetrators of social wrongs are only forgiven once the social relations that allowed those harms to occur have been (or are in the process of being) transformed. Only then will the victims have gained the social power necessary to actively choose to forgive the offenders, allowing them both to reintegrate fully into society.

Connecting forgiveness with social justice goes beyond individual accountability. However, as Renton emphasizes, the perpetrator taking responsibility for the harm they have caused is an integral part of revolutionary forgiveness. Justice at the individual level is directly tied to revolutionary transformation, the complete reorganization of all social relations, and the creation of new revolutionary institutions. Importantly, though, Renton is not content to wait until after the revolution for the process of forgiveness to begin or new ways of dealing with harm to develop. Instead, he insists that alternative and truly democratic ways of dealing with social injustice can – and must – be developed in the present, in concert with resistance against capitalist exploitation and oppression. Drawing from the writings of György Lukács, Renton argues that “the means chosen to achieve socialism [must be] indivisible from the ends” (64).

No forgiveness without justice

Stressing the necessary relationship between means and ends need not reduce politics to an attempt to create a post-revolutionary future in the present. At its worst, prefigurative politics places change at the individual level above social transformation. But prefiguration does not mean living exactly as we would like to in a post-revolutionary situation while ignoring the social relations of the present. Instead, Renton rethinks prefigurative politics through a revolutionary lens by emphasizing that through the process of struggling against present conditions, people begin to create new ways of relating to each other and the world. Revolutionary transformation occurs through what Alan Sears, in his recent book Eros and Alienation, calls concrete utopian practices. By engaging in political movements, people begin to become aware of their own collective power and, in the process, start to create new forms of democratic organization, new forms of revolutionary infrastructure, and new political institutions.

As Renton reminds us, Marx saw political experimentation with new ways of organizing society’s life activity as an essential part of the revolutionary process. Critical of the utopian socialists of his time who tried to create an ideal society based on a preconceived vision of the future, Marx states in The Civil War in France that the working class will have to “work out their own emancipation” for themselves, a project which requires them “to pass through long struggles, through a series of historical processes, transforming circumstances and men.” Revolution, for Renton as for Marx, is not a one-time event. It is an ongoing and non-linear process which includes political experimentation, defeats, and discovering new practices along the way.

Revolutionary forgiveness represents a distinct approach, one which Renton clearly differentiates from other theories of forgiveness, including those of philosophers Jacques Derrida and Hannah Arendt. Derrida’s notion of forgiveness is based on the moral claim that forgiveness is the right thing to do regardless of the circumstances surrounding it. Such an unconditional view of forgiveness is, as Renton describes it, a “wager on the possibility of the offender’s redemption, prior to the moment when the perpetrator has changed heart” (27). While revolutionary forgiveness is also a wager in the sense that it is part of a broader revolutionary process, the outcome of which cannot be certain, Derrida’s wager is completely disconnected from justice as it does not depend on either a commitment to individual change by the perpetrator or broader social transformation. Renton insists that the decision to forgive must rest with the victims, including the ability to refuse forgiveness.

As a case in point, the book examines the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, an attempt to respond to the great social harm of apartheid with accountability and forgiveness. Those involved in the crimes of the apartheid state met with victims and listened to them describe the harm they endured. The Commission implored perpetrators to come forward and victims to begin to forgive. All of this occurred as a part of a process of forming a post-apartheid state grounded in multi-racial democracy. However, as Renton argues, post-apartheid South Africa left racial and class inequality largely in place: “It is a story of what happens when you tell a people to forgive, but without granting them in return the social revolution whose victory would dull the acrid taste of seeing culprits go free” (40). While the post-apartheid state has granted formal equality, South Africa remains a class society and so continues to be segregated along class and racial lines.

As Massimiliano Tomba demonstrates in Insurgent Universality, a truly democratic society cannot emerge from formal rights granted from above by a nation-state, as this will always exclude the most marginal elements of society. Instead, a politics of universality must be directed by self-organized activity and struggle from below. Renton shows that this process was blocked by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where the state prompted victims to forgive their oppressors without granting them the true social equality needed for the people to dictate their own terms. Of course, there is no guarantee that former oppressors will not betray their promises to change and attempt to retake their positions in power if given the chance. But unlike Derrida’s unconditional moral claim, Renton insists that forgiveness can only truly occur as part of a broader process of social transformation, where the victims hold the social power necessary to ensure reconciliation actually takes place.

Unlike Derrida’s, Arendt’s notion of forgiveness centers the experiences of victims by arguing that it is only through forgiveness that a victim of harm is able to move beyond their feelings of shame, guilt, anger and resentment. By forgiving the perpetrator, the victim transfers the burden of the past from themselves to the offender, allowing themselves to begin to fully heal while also permitting the perpetrator to reintegrate into society. However, like Derrida’s, Arendt’s view of forgiveness does not require any substantial transformation, either socially or on the part of the offender. As Renton states, “Forgiveness in Arendt’s terms does not require that an offender make reparation, not even that the wrongdoer restore the victim at least to the nearest available approximation of their lives before the pattern of social harm began” (242).

Once again, forgiveness is disconnected from justice. This lack of justice is unacceptable on an individual level as Renton shows in the case of Eleanor Marx’s abuse at the hands of socialist Edward Aveling. Subject to a pattern of emotional abuse, Eleanor Marx continually forgave Aveling but remained committed to their relationship. But her forgiveness did not allow her to move on from the past. Instead, she remained trapped in a situation of unequal power and abuse. On March 31, 1898, Eleanor Marx committed suicide by cyanide. According to all accounts by biographers of Marx, Aveling “was the effective but not the immediate cause of her death.” While Aveling, by most accounts, did not murder Marx (though, as Renton shows, the biography of Aveling written by Deborah Levin states that Aveling murdered Marx), he was culpable in her suicide.

Eleanor Marx was never able to achieve justice. Her death was a result of a pattern of abusive behavior that she was not able to escape from. Her attempts to forgive Aveling did not protect her. Separated from justice, forgiveness is not possible. Despite Marx’s efforts to forgive Aveling, a meaningful process of forgiveness could not have occurred unless she removed herself from the abusive relationship and began to heal. That process never happened.

The lack of justice is even more unsupportable at the social level. For example, demanding that Palestinians forgive those who have enacted genocidal violence without any reparations or justice “would be a cruel joke” (245). As Renton argues, the struggle for a free Palestine requires going beyond the reparations given to the victims of South African Apartheid. Palestinian liberation will only be fully achieved through a complete transformation of the capitalist system that underpins settler colonialism and imperialism today. Moving on from the past can only occur once revolutionary justice has been achieved.

The need to forgive

It is for this reason that Renton stresses that “the sequence is crucial: I want the oppressed to be compassionate after they have destroyed the citadels of the rich and removed those who occupy them” (2). However, at other moments Renton insists that forgiveness can (and, indeed, must) be a part of the process of social change. There is an undeniable tension here, between the need for revolution to occur prior to forgiveness and the notion that forgiveness must be a part of social transformation. Rather than eliding this tension, Renton defines revolutionary forgiveness as a process that must be combined with social struggle if it is to be at all. But it can also be an integral part of the process of social change, transforming relationships between people in a way that strengthens our movements by beginning to mend the harm done by violent and oppressive behaviour internal to our communities.

He draws on the example of Prisoners Against Rape (PAR), a Black collective composed of prisoners convicted of rape at Lorton Reformatory in Virginia in the late 1970s to early 1980s, to demonstrate the possibility that forgiveness can occur in the present, if it is a part of our political practice. Members of PAR contacted the DC Rape Crisis Center as part of an effort to change both themselves and society. They read feminist and anti-racist theory, wrote letters for feminist newsletters in which they defined rape as a systemic form of violence emerging from unequal power relations between men and women, and called for non-carceral forms of dealing with acts of violence. Their commitment to meaningful change is what convinced feminist activists to take them seriously and begin to forgive them. But this process of forgiveness was only possible because society as a whole was beginning to change. Feminist struggles had begun to win meaningful victories, such as the recognition of marital rape beginning in 1978. As Renton states, “In that context, women activists could afford to be more generous – because they could imagine a world after rape” (202).

Rather than an act that occurs only after the revolution, forgiveness represents an essential component of our movements. This must be the case because individual and social change are not mutually exclusive processes. As Hannah Proctor argues in Burnout, finding new and non-carceral ways of dealing with oppressive behavior in leftist movements cannot wait. Pushing individual and collective change off to a post-revolutionary future allows for the reproduction of oppressive behavior in left-wing spaces. But while Proctor insists that we confront oppressive relations in our organizing, she maintains that we must do so in a way that recognizes the contradictions internal to social movements attempting to overcome oppression and exploitation while still bound up in the social relations of capitalism.

While we should all strive to live up to the political and ethical ideals we hold, it is important to recognize that individual change is often slow, imperfect, contradictory, and non-linear. Proctor asks: “Can political movements make space for psychic ambivalence, inconsistency and contradiction rather than viewing them as antithetical to their goals?” (102). Instead of responding to any violent or oppressive behavior with ostracization or incarceration, Renton, like Proctor, allows for the possibility of redemption as part of a project of achieving justice. The refusal to forgive despite meaningful commitment to change on the part of the perpetrator results in unjust outcomes for all. Indeed, it reproduces the moralism of the carceral state, which views all acts of crime as punishable and labels those who commit crimes as deviant criminals, regardless of the historical, economic, or political circumstances which led them to those actions.

Of course, this does not mean that instances of abuse should be ignored or minimized in order to avoid fragmenting an already relatively weak Left. Renton himself has been a consistent critic of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) for their cover up of rape in the party and the role of party leadership in attempting to minimize the effects of the ensuing organizational crisis. While he does not interrogate the specifics of the SWP in detail here (Comrade Delta, Renton’s account of the events is forthcoming in September 2026), Renton shares an interaction with a party member who supported the leadership against the oppositional movement – including Renton – demanding accountability. This party member approached Renton, suggesting that the offender be removed from his role in the leadership of the party. However, he would remain a member of the party, paid by party-led campaigns.

Unsurprisingly, Renton was unconvinced that this would be a way forward, either for the victims or for the party. But what would have allowed for a process of forgiveness to occur? Renton does not specify exactly, but proposes that a statement of guilt from the perpetrator and an admission by the party for its role in the cover up, accompanied by meaningful attempts by the perpetrator to mend the harm done to the victims and by the party to ensure that similar incidents in the future would be handled in a way that prioritized the interests of the victims, would perhaps have allowed for a process of forgiveness to occur. However, without such attempts to achieve a just outcome for the victim, Renton insists that forgiveness could never occur: “When it comes to rape, just as with any other violent crime of a similar seriousness, the instinct to choose a punishment acceptable to an unrepentant perpetrator is both wrong and offensive” (11).

Renton’s notion of revolutionary forgiveness is not an easy thing to achieve. But a process of healing and forgiveness will be necessary in order to move forward with our vision for a different future. Rather than viewing the past as a static and finished entity, Proctor argues that our relationship to our history shapes how we will act in the future. Instead of using forgiveness as a way to forget the past as Arendt would have us do, revolutionary forgiveness – understood as part of a broader movement for radical social transformation – allows for the redemption of the past. By remaining committed to a vision of a different future, past actions which caused harm or trauma might be forgiven, political mistakes might be overcome, and wrongs might be righted. Through the process of revolution both the past and the future are made to be qualitatively different.

The redemption of the Left

The redemption of the past will occur, as Daniel Bensaïd argues in Marx for our Times, through the realization of the future our ancestors struggled for. But revolutionary forgiveness redeems our past in another way. As Renton points out, the history of communism is stained with the blood of the Stalinist purges in Russia, the repression, expulsion, and murder of anti-Stalinist dissidents. But instead of turning away from revolutionary politics, Renton insists on a renewed commitment to the possibility of socialism from below, which would realize the emancipatory promise contained in the Russian Revolution. Of course, there is no guarantee that we will live to see such a future and in this sense Renton’s notion of revolutionary forgiveness is, like Derrida’s and Arendt’s, a wager on the possibility of a different future. But unlike the other two, Renton links forgiveness with revolutionary change and maintains that it is only through the process of revolution that our past might be fully redeemed.

Renton follows Lukács in describing Soviet Russia under Stalin as a society based on political violence, ongoing oppression, and class domination. He argues that rather than abandoning revolutionary politics, Lukács remained committed to a view of communism that did not separate means and ends. A liberatory society, for Lukács, could never be achieved through non-liberatory means. This commitment resulted in Lukács being jailed in Moscow by the People’s Commissariat for State Security. Despite the repression of the Soviet State, Renton argues that Lukács consistently criticized Stalinism against his own material interests and safety. Renton states that “it was Lukács’s tragedy that – by living long enough to see Stalin replacing Lenin as the leader of the USSR – his jailers came from the ranks of his comrades” (69). Remaining committed to revolutionary communism resulted in Lukács’ imprisonment.

However, Renton does not comment on what Michael Löwy views as the true tragedy of Lukács: the repudiation of his own commitment to revolutionary socialism in 1926 resulting in a turn towards a “realist” politics and an acceptance of Stalinism. In an essay on “Lukács and Stalinism,” Löwy shows that Lukács began to accept the relative stability of global capitalism, causing him to modify his theoretical and political views, including agreeing with Stalin on the need for socialism in one country. According to Löwy, Stalinism from Lukács became “a ‘necessary phase’, ‘prosaic’ yet with a ‘progressive character’, in the revolutionary development of the proletariat seen as a unified whole.” While critical of some elements of Stalinist Russia, Lukács was unwilling to fully endorse the Left Opposition, unlike others within the movement. While he did not uncritically accept the Stalinist political line he nevertheless stood by its basic tenets.

While Renton presents the fact that “Lukács remained loyal to the state that had imprisoned him” as evidence of his ongoing commitment to communism, Löwy highlights the ways in which Lukács turned away from his earlier views on revolution in favor of the more “realistic” project of reconciling bourgeois culture with Soviet Communism. This shift to realism represented a break with his original commitment to revolutionary socialism. While he did not abandon communist politics entirely, he nevertheless accepted that if revolution was not imminent the best course of action was to support Stalinism.

However, as both Renton and Löwy show, Lukács returned to his revolutionary commitments in 1968, supporting the Czechoslovakian workers’ resistance to Soviet rule. As Löwy demonstrates, Lukács’ post-1968 writings show a renewal of his earlier work and devotion to revolutionary socialism from below, including support for the growing student movement and anti-imperialist struggle in Vietnam, as well as a critique of Soviet bureaucracy. In doing so, Lukács was able to redeem his own past, restoring the hope in a revolutionary future despite the many defeats of the communist movement.

Hope in forgiveness

Incorporating a fuller examination of Lukács’ political trajectory helps to situate revolutionary forgiveness as part of a project of total transformation, both individual and social. As Renton argues, an ongoing relationship with past movements like the Russian Revolution is important so as to avoid repeating the errors of our forebearers. But remaining open to a relationship with the past also reveals the ways in which our ancestors like Lukács, while not free from contradiction, committed themselves to revolutionary socialism. By renewing that commitment in the present, we might redeem the failures and defeats of the past, allowing for the full realization of the future that the Russian Revolution was not able to fulfill.

It is only by completely transforming the world that forgiveness can be finally tied to justice. Revolutionary forgiveness can only occur when the oppressed have seized control of the power necessary to ensure that their former oppressors cannot restore the unequal power relations of capitalist society. But revolution is not simply a final event, a moment in the future that we wait to come to us. It is a process of transformation. If it is to be truly revolutionary, forgiveness must occur as a part of that revolutionary process. It cannot wait until after the revolution because it is a necessary part of the social and individual changes that we enact as we struggle to transform the world. We must be able to forgive ourselves, our comrades, and our ancestors for the mistakes we have all made so that we can continue to participate in the social movements we are a part of. If we cannot forgive ourselves, our commitments to revolutionary politics might waver, causing us to accept either Stalinist realism (as Lukács did for a time) or reformist realism. And if we do not forgive ourselves, we certainly will not be able to forgive those who acted in the interests of capital. In order to move towards a different world, we need to insist on the possibility of a completely new and non-carceral future, one where all people begin to relate to each other not as boss and worker, colonizer and colonized, oppressor and oppressed, but as human beings committed to a collective project of human freedom and self-realization. Revolutionary Forgiveness represents an important contribution to that process and will be valuable to anyone committed to truly revolutionary theory and practice.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: Haymarket Books; modified by Tempest.

The post Redeeming the past for a revolutionary future appeared first on Tempest.

Editor’s Note: That’s my friend and favorite mechanic Adam Griego in the bottom photo reaching across from prisoner to prison guard. He’s been involved in all kinds of prison reform projects and prisoner reentry into society. He’s also helped set up a facility for homeless people living in cars to spend the night.  While doing all  this he owns and runs a garage and is an expert Subaru  mechanic. He invites everyone to come to the showing of  this documentary at the Museum of International Folk Art.

The Centre for Future Work recently hosted a webinar presenting results from its new report, A Sequel We Don’t Want: What the 2026 Oil Price Shock Will Cost Canadians.

The webinar featured presentations from Jim Stanford (Centre for Future Work Director, and author of the report), Atila Jaffar (Canada Country Manager from 350.org, sponsor of a campaign for an excess profit tax on petroleum companies), and DT Cochrane (Senior Economist at the Canadian Labour Congress).

It explains the likely effects of the new global oil price shock on Canadian consumers, inflation, and interest rates. It predicts at least $50 billion in higher direct and indirect costs for consumers (including the flow-through effects of higher oil prices on prices of other products, ranging from transportation to food to housing). It also warned of the possibility of higher interest rates and even slower economic growth.

Please view the entire one-hour webinar on the Centre’s You Tube channel.

The post Webinar on New Report: A Sequel We Don’t Want appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

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As Türkiye prepares to host COP31, we, the undersigned civil society organizations, acknowledge the Turkish Presidency’s decision to elevate Zero Waste and waste-derived methane reduction as top priorities within the Action Agenda. We affirm that zero waste is an indispensable strategy for climate mitigation, adaptation, and co-benefits, given that approximately 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions are linked to the materials economy—the extraction, production, and disposal of “stuff.” However, we stress that this focus must reinforce, not replace, a binding global roadmap for fossil fuel phase-out. 

1. Zero Waste as a Fossil Fuel Phase-Out Strategy 

Zero Waste is one of the central actions for climate mitigation. It is a vision and roadmap for designing waste out of the system through strategies that change how we produce and consume goods and process discarded materials. This approach meets environmental justice and eventually ends the disposal of waste in landfills and incinerators, while keeping the materials economy within planetary boundaries. The production and disposal of materials—plastics, cement, steel, paper, and others—generate roughly 29% of all global greenhouse gas emissions, and 99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels. Therefore, zero waste and plastic reduction policies are, by definition, fossil fuel phase-out strategies. A high-ambition COP31 agenda must include binding targets to cap and reduce plastic production, aligned with the UN Global Plastic Treaty, to ensure that the “Zero Waste” narrative does not become a cover for continued petrochemical expansion. 

2. Closing the Methane Accountability Gap and Advancing ROW Commitments 

While we welcome Türkiye’s focus on waste-related methane, we note the contradiction in prioritizing this sector while the country remains one of the few major economies that has not signed the Global Methane Pledge—an important accountability gap. To lead a 

credible COP31 presidency, Türkiye must commit to the pledge and translate this commitment into concrete, high-impact actions. Its signature of the COP29 ROW Declaration on Reducing Methane from Organic Waste demonstrates initial commitment, but ambitious implementation is needed. 

In addition to acknowledging the ROW Declaration, Türkiye should:

● Set quantified methane reduction targets for the waste sector with clear interim milestones. 

● Integrate these targets into its NDC. 

● Legislate mandatory source separation and phase out landfilling of untreated organic waste. 

● Establish dedicated financing and MRV frameworks to support implementation and ensure accountability. 

● Ensure the social dimension of waste management is honored, including formal recognition, protections, and inclusion of waste pickers in policy design and delivery, with access to training, safety, and financial support. 

● Explicitly avoid high-carbon “false solutions” such as open burning or waste-to-energy incineration. 

3. Avoiding Counterproductive or Carbon-Intensive Pathways 

These measures can reduce waste-sector methane by up to 95%, far more effective than technological fixes, and ensure that Türkiye’s leadership at COP31 is credible, ambitious, and socially inclusive. 

We caution against policy approaches that favor high-carbon waste treatment technologies under the guise of climate solutions. Rebranding incineration (“waste-to-energy”), pyrolysis, or chemical recycling as mitigation strategies risks locking in emissions-intensive infrastructure, creating long-term dependence on fossil-fuel-derived energy, and diverting investment away from upstream solutions. Incineration is extremely expensive and represents an unsustainable use of both public and climate finance. It also generates toxic air pollutants, including dioxins, furans, and particulate matter, that disproportionately harm frontline and vulnerable communities, undermines local recycling and informal waste recovery economies, and produces hazardous residual ash. COP31 should instead prioritize upstream measures such as waste prevention, organic waste diversion, and inclusive management practices, which reduce emissions at the source while delivering social, economic, and environmental co-benefits. 

4. Ending Waste Colonialism 

Türkiye is uniquely positioned to lead globally in zero-waste solutions by ending its role as a top destination for plastic waste exports from the EU and UK. Imported plastic waste is not only largely unrecyclable – often up to 50% – but also represents an endless source of plastic pollution. When illegally burned, it produces black carbon, a super pollutant that accelerates global warming, along with other toxic emissions that disproportionately harm vulnerable communities. By implementing a comprehensive

ban on plastic waste imports, Türkiye can prioritize domestic reduction, strengthen national recycling systems, protect public health, and demonstrate leadership in environmental justice and climate action. 

5. Centering a Just Transition for Waste Pickers and Other Waste Workers 

COP30 delivered a breakthrough with the creation of a rights-based Just Transition Mechanism, a long-sought win for informal economy workers, communities, and movements across the Global South. Yet governments left unanswered the core question: who will pay for the transition. Without new, grant-based public finance and structural reform of the global financial system, the mechanism risks becoming another promise without the resources to deliver justice. Türkiye’s championing of zero waste should take the baton on this agenda and go further, advancing a transformation of the waste sector in line with UNFCCC and environmental justice principles. A genuine zero-waste approach means that waste pickers and other waste workers must be prioritized, formally recognized, and protected, as they are central actors in the country’s waste management system. This includes ensuring social security, occupational safety, fair employment and living income opportunities, and meaningful participation in decision-making for the new materials economy. 

Conclusion 

We call on the COP31 Presidency and Champion to present a unified climate roadmap that combines a robust fossil fuel phase-out with justice-centered zero-waste implementation. All Parties must ensure that the “Zero Waste” label does not mask low-ambition climate targets. Success at COP31 will depend on moving beyond showcase policies toward systemic shifts that protect both the planet and its people. 

Signatories

Türkçe

Ortak Bildiri: Sıfır Atık Hedefi COP31’in İklim Eyleminde Yüksek Hedeflerle Uyumlu Olmalıdır

Türkiye, COP31’e ev sahipliği yapmaya hazırlanırken, aşağıda imzası bulunan sivil toplum kuruluşları olarak, Türkiye Başkanlığı’nın sıfır atık hedefini ve atıklardan kaynaklanan metan emisyonlarının azaltılmasını Eylem Gündemi’nin en önemli öncelikleri arasında konumlandırma kararını memnuniyetle karşılıyoruz. Küresel sera gazı emisyonlarının yaklaşık %70’inin kaynak çıkarımı, üretim ve bertaraf süreçlerini kapsayan malzeme ekonomisiyle bağlantılı olduğu göz önüne alındığında, sıfır atık yaklaşımının iklim değişikliğinin etkilerinin azaltılması, iklim değişikliğine uyum ve ortak faydalar için vazgeçilmez bir strateji olduğunu düşünüyoruz. Ancak, bu yaklaşımın fosil yakıtlardan aşamalı çıkışa  yönelik bağlayıcı bir küresel yol haritasının yerine geçmemesi, aksine bu yol haritasını  güçlendirmesi gerektiğini vurguluyoruz.

1. Sıfır Atık, Fosil Yakıtlardan Çıkışın Temel Stratejilerinden Biri Olmalıdır 

Sıfır atık, iklim değişikliğinin etkilerini azaltmaya yönelik en temel yaklaşımlardan biridir. Üretim ve tüketim biçimlerimizi dönüştüren, atık haline gelen materyallerin nasıl yönetildiğini yeniden tanımlayan stratejiler aracılığıyla, atığın sistemin dışına çıkarılmasını hedefleyen bir vizyon ve yol haritası sunar. Bu yaklaşım, çevresel adaleti gözetirken aynı zamanda atıkların depolama sahalarında ve yakma tesislerinde bertaraf edilmesine son verilmesini ve kaynak kullanımının gezegenin sınırları içinde tutulmasını amaçlar. Plastik, çimento, çelik, kağıt ve diğer malzemelerin üretimi ve bertarafı, küresel sera gazı emisyonlarının yaklaşık %29’unu oluşturmaktadır. Ayrıca plastiklerin %99’u fosil kaynaklardan üretilmektedir. Bu nedenle, sıfır atık ve plastik azaltım  politikaları, doğrudan fosil yakıtlardan aşamalı çıkış stratejilerinin bir parçasıdır.  “Sıfır atık” söyleminin petrokimya sektöründeki büyümeyi meşrulaştıran bir araca dönüşmemesi için, yüksek hedefli bir COP31 gündemi, BM Küresel Plastik Anlaşması ile uyumlu şekilde  plastik üretimini sınarlandıran ve azaltan  bağlayıcı hedefler içermelidir.

2. Metan Emisyonlarında Hesap Verebilirlik Güçlendirilmeli ve Organik Atıklardan Kaynaklanan Metanın Azaltımına Yönelik Taahhütler Hayata Geçirilmelidir 

Türkiye’nin atık kaynaklı metanları azaltmaya odaklanması memnuniyetle karşılıyoruz. Ankcak ülkenin hâlâ Küresel Metan Taahhüdünü imzalamamış birkaç büyük ekonomiden biri olması önemli bir çelişki ve hesap verebilirlik eksikliği yaratmaktadır. Türkiye’nin COP31 Başkanlığı’nı güvenilir ve güçlü bir şekilde yürütebilmesi için, Küresel Metan Taahhüdü’ne taraf olması ve bu taahhüdü somut, yüksek etkili politikalara dönüştürmesi gerekmektedir. Türkiye’nin COP29 kapsamında kabul edilen Organik Atıklardan Kaynaklanan Metanın Azaltılmasına İlişkin ROW Deklarasyonu’na imza atmış olması önemli bir başlangıç niteliği taşımaktadır. Ancak bu taahhüdün etkili olabilmesi için iddialı ve kapsamlı bir uygulama süreci gereklidir. 

Türkiye, ROW Deklarasyonu’nu kabul etmiş olmanın yanı sıra:

• Atık sektörü için net ara hedefler içeren nicel metan azaltım hedefleri belirlemelidir.
• Bu hedefleri Ulusal Katkı Beyanı’na (NDC) entegre etmelidir.
• Kaynağında ayrıştırmayı zorunlu hale getirmeli ve işlenmemiş organik atıkların depolama alanlarına gönderilmesini aşamalı olarak sona erdirmelidir 
• Uygulamayı desteklemek ve hesap verebilirliği sağlamak amacıyla özel finansman mekanizmaları ile Ölçme, Raporlama ve Doğrulama (MRV) sistemleri oluşturmalı, 
• Atık yönetiminin sosyal boyutunu gözeterek; atık toplayıcıların resmi olarak tanınmasını, korunmasını ve politika geliştirme ile uygulama süreçlerine dahil edilmesini sağlamalı; eğitim, güvenlik ve finansal destek imkanlarına erişimlerini güvence altına almalı, 
• Atık yakma veya atıktan enerji elde etme gibi yüksek karbon salımına yol açan “yanlış çözümlerden” açıkça kaçınmalı, buralara verilen teşvikleri sonlandırmalıdır.

Bu önlemler, atık sektöründen kaynaklanan metan emisyonlarını %95’e kadar azaltma potansiyeline sahip ve teknoloji yoğun çözümlerden çok daha etkilidir. Ayrıca teknoloji odaklı sınırlı çözümlere kıyasla çok daha etkili sonuçlar sağlayarak Türkiye’nin COP31 kapsamındaki liderliğinin güvenilir, iddialı ve sosyal açıdan kapsayıcı olmasına katkı sunacaktır. 

3. Karbon Yoğun Yanlış Çözüm Yaratan Atık Yönetimi Yöntemlerinden Kaçınılmalıdır

İklim çözümü adı altında yüksek karbon salımına yol açan atık işleme teknolojilerini teşvik eden politika yaklaşımlarına karşı dikkatli olunmalıdır.  Yakma tesislerinin (“atıktan enerji üretimi”), piroliz ve kimyasal geri dönüşüm uygulamalarının iklim değişikliğiyle mücadele aracı olarak sunulması; emisyon yoğun altyapıların uzun yıllar boyunca kalıcı hale gelmesine, fosil yakıt temelli enerji sistemlerine bağımlılığın sürmesine ve yatırımların kaynağında önleme çözümlerinden uzaklaşmasına neden olmaktadır. Atık yakma tesisleri son derece maliyetli olup hem kamu kaynaklarının hem de iklim finansmanının sürdürülemez biçimde kullanılmasına yol açmaktadır. Ayrıca dioksinler, furanlar ve partikül maddeler gibi toksik hava kirleticileri üreterek özellikle kırılgan topluluklar ile tesislerin etki alanında yaşayan kesimler üzerinde orantısız sağlık ve çevre yükleri yaratmaktadır. Bunun yanında yerel atık geri kazanım ekonomilerini baltalar ve bertarafı mümkün olmayan tehlikeli atık kül üretir. Dolayısıyla COP31 kapsamında öncelik verilmesi gereken yaklaşım; atık oluşumunun önlenmesi, organik atıkların düzenli depolama yerine kompost ve benzeri yöntemlerle değerlendirilmesi ve kapsayıcı atık yönetimi uygulamalarının yaygınlaştırılmasıdır. Bu tür politikalar emisyonları kaynağında azaltırken aynı zamanda sosyal, ekonomik ve çevresel faydalar da sağlamaktadır. 

4. AB’nin Atık Sığınağı Olmaya Neden Olan Politikalara ve Atık Sömürgeciliğine Son Verilmelidir

Türkiye, Avrupa Birliği ve Birleşik Krallık’tan gelen plastik atık ihracatının başlıca varış noktalarından biri olma rolünü sona erdirerek sıfır atık politikalarında küresel ölçekte öncü bir konuma gelebilir  Sıfır atık ancak sıfır atık ithalatıyla mümkün olur. Türkiye’ye ithal edilen plastik atıkların önemli bir bölümü düşük kaliteli ve geri dönüştürülemez niteliktedir; bazı durumlarda bu oran %50’ye kadar ulaşabilmektedir. Bu atıklar yalnızca sürekli büyüyen bir plastik ve mikroplastik kirliliği kaynağı yaratmakla kalmamakta, aynı zamanda açıkta ya da yasa dışı biçimde yakıldıklarında ciddi çevresel ve sağlık risklerine yol açmaktadır. Bu süreçlerde, küresel ısınmayı hızlandıran güçlü bir kirletici olan siyah karbonun yanı sıra, özellikle kırılgan toplulukları orantısız biçimde etkileyen toksik emisyonlar ortaya çıkmaktadır.  Türkiye plastik atık ithalatına kapsamlı bir yasak getirerek, yurt içindeki atık azaltım politikalarını güçlendirebilir, ulusal geri dönüşüm sistemlerini güçlendirebilir, halk sağlığını koruyabilir ve çevresel adalet ve iklim eylemi konusunda güçlü bir liderlik gösterebilir.

5. Atık İşçileri için Adil Geçişi Merkeze Almalıdır

COP30 kapsamında hak temelli bir Adil Geçiş Mekanizması’nın oluşturulması önemli bir dönüm noktası olmuştur.  Bu, Küresel Güney ülkelerindeki işçiler, topluluklar ve hareketler için uzun zamandır talep edilen önemli bir kazanımı temsil etmektedir. Ancak hükümetler, geçiş sürecinin finansmanının nasıl sağlanacağına ilişkin temel soruyu cevapsız bıraktı. Yeni ve hibe temelli kamu finansmanı sağlanmadan ve küresel finans sisteminde yapısal reformlar gerçekleştirilmeden, bu mekanizmanın gerekli kaynaklardan yoksun bir taahhüt olarak kalma riski bulunmaktadır. Türkiye, sıfır atık alanındaki öncü rolünü yalnızca atık azaltım politikalarıyla sınırlamamalı; aynı zamanda BM İklim Değişikliği Çerçeve Sözleşmesi (BMİDÇS) ve çevresel adalet ilkeleri doğrultusunda atık sektöründe adil bir dönüşümün ilerletilmesine de öncülük etmelidir.  Gerçek bir sıfır atık yaklaşımı, atık toplayıcılarının ülkenin atık yönetim sisteminde merkezi aktör haline getirilmesi ile mümkündür. Dolayısıyla sıfır atıkta öncü olmak ancak ve ancak atık toplayıcıların önceliklendirilmesi, resmi olarak tanınması ve korunması ile mümkündür. Bu aynı zamanda sosyal güvenlik, iş güvenliği, adil istihdam fırsatları, asgari yaşam ücreti ve yeni malzeme ekonomisi için karar alma süreçlerine anlamlı katılımın sağlanmasını da içerir.

Sonuç

COP31 Başkanlığı’nı ve İklim Şampiyonluğu mekanizmasını, fosil yakıtlardan aşamalı çıkışı adalet temelli sıfır atık politikalarıyla birleştiren bütüncül bir iklim yol haritası ortaya koymaya çağırıyoruz. Tüm taraflar, “Sıfır Atık” etiketinin yüksek hedefli iklim hedeflerini maskelemesinin önüne geçmelidir. COP31’in başarısı, vitrin niteliğindeki politikaların ötesine geçilerek; hem insanları hem de gezegeni koruyan yapısal dönüşümlerin hayata geçirilmesine bağlı olacaktır. 

İlk imzacılar ESPAÑOL Declaración conjunta: Alinear la meta de «Basura Cero» con una acción climática ambiciosa rumbo a la COP 31

Mientras Turquía se prepara para acoger la COP 31, nosotros, las organizaciones de la sociedad civil abajo firmantes, reconocemos la decisión de la Presidencia turca de elevar el objetivo «Basura Cero» y la reducción del metano derivado de los residuos a la categoría de prioridades principales dentro de la Agenda de Acción. Afirmamos que «Basura Cero» es una estrategia indispensable para la mitigación y la adaptación climáticas, así como para obtener beneficios colaterales, dado que aproximadamente el 70 % de las emisiones globales de gases de efecto invernadero están vinculadas a la economía de los materiales: la extracción, la producción y la eliminación de «cosas». Sin embargo, hacemos hincapié en que este enfoque debe reforzar, y no sustituir, una hoja de ruta global vinculante para la eliminación gradual de los combustibles fósiles.

1. Basura Cero como estrategia para la eliminación gradual de los combustibles fósiles

Basura Cero es una de las acciones centrales para la mitigación climática. Es una visión y una hoja de ruta para eliminar los residuos del sistema mediante estrategias que cambian la forma en que producimos y consumimos bienes y procesamos los materiales desechados. Este enfoque cumple con la justicia ambiental y, a la larga, pone fin a la eliminación de residuos en vertederos e incineradoras, al tiempo que mantiene la economía de los materiales dentro de los límites planetarios. La producción y eliminación de materiales —plásticos, cemento, acero, papel y otros— generan aproximadamente el 29 % de todas las emisiones globales de gases de efecto invernadero, y el 99 % de los plásticos se fabrican a partir de combustibles fósiles. Por lo tanto, las políticas de basura cero y reducción de plásticos son, por definición, estrategias de eliminación gradual de los combustibles fósiles. Una agenda ambiciosa para la COP 31 debe incluir objetivos vinculantes para limitar y reducir la producción de plástico, en consonancia con el Tratado Global de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Plástico, a fin de garantizar que la narrativa de «basura cero» no se convierta en una excusa para la expansión petroquímica continua.

2. Cerrar la brecha de rendición de cuentas sobre el metano y avanzar en los compromisos del ROW

Si bien celebramos el enfoque de Turquía en el metano relacionado con los residuos, observamos la contradicción de priorizar este sector mientras el país sigue siendo una de las pocas economías importantes que no ha firmado el Compromiso Global sobre el Metano —una importante brecha de rendición de cuentas—. Para liderar una presidencia creíble de la COP 31, Turquía debe comprometerse con el Pacto y traducir este compromiso en acciones concretas y de gran impacto. Su firma de la Declaración ROW de la COP 29 sobre la reducción del metano procedente de residuos orgánicos demuestra un compromiso inicial, pero se necesita una implementación ambiciosa.

Además de reconocer la Declaración ROW, Turquía debería:

• Establecer objetivos cuantificados de reducción de metano para el sector de los residuos con hitos intermedios claros.
• Integrar estos objetivos en su NDC.
• Legislar la separación obligatoria en origen y eliminar gradualmente el vertido de residuos orgánicos sin tratar.
• Establecer marcos específicos de financiamiento y MRV para apoyar la implementación y garantizar la rendición de cuentas.
• Asegurar que se respete la dimensión social de la gestión de residuos, incluyendo el reconocimiento formal, la protección y la inclusión de los recolectores de residuos en la economía informal en el diseño y la ejecución de las políticas, con acceso a capacitación, seguridad y apoyo financiero.
• Evitar explícitamente las «falsas soluciones» con altas emisiones de carbono, como la quema al aire libre o la incineración para la generación de energía.

Estas medidas pueden reducir el metano del sector de los residuos hasta en un 95 %, lo que es mucho más eficaz que las soluciones tecnológicas, y garantizar que el liderazgo de Turquía en la COP 31 sea creíble, ambicioso y socialmente inclusivo.

3. Evitar vías contraproducentes o con altas emisiones de carbono

Advertimos contra los enfoques de políticas que favorecen tecnologías de tratamiento de residuos con altas emisiones de carbono bajo el pretexto de ser soluciones climáticas. Renombrar la incineración («energía a partir de residuos»), la pirólisis o el reciclaje químico como estrategias de mitigación corre el riesgo de consolidar una infraestructura intensiva en emisiones, creando una dependencia a largo plazo de la energía derivada de combustibles fósiles y desviando la inversión de las soluciones en las etapas iniciales. La incineración es extremadamente costosa y representa un uso insostenible tanto de los fondos públicos como de los fondos climáticos. Además, genera contaminantes atmosféricos tóxicos, como dioxinas, furanos y partículas, que perjudican de manera desproporcionada a las comunidades vulnerables y en primera línea, socava las economías locales de reciclaje y recuperación informal de residuos, y produce cenizas residuales peligrosas. La COP31 debería, en cambio, priorizar medidas en las etapas iniciales, como la prevención de residuos, el desvío de residuos orgánicos y las prácticas de gestión inclusivas, que reducen las emisiones en la fuente al tiempo que aportan beneficios sociales, económicos y ambientales.

4. Acabar con el colonialismo de los residuos

Turquía se encuentra en una posición única para liderar a nivel mundial las soluciones de basura cero al poner fin a su papel como principal destino de las exportaciones de residuos plásticos de la UE y el Reino Unido. Los residuos plásticos importados no solo son en gran medida no reciclables —a menudo hasta un 50 %—, sino que también representan una fuente inagotable de contaminación plástica. Cuando se queman ilegalmente, producen carbono negro, un supercontaminante que acelera el calentamiento global, junto con otras emisiones tóxicas que perjudican de manera desproporcionada a las comunidades vulnerables. Al implementar una prohibición integral de las importaciones de residuos plásticos, Turquía puede priorizar la reducción interna, fortalecer los sistemas nacionales de reciclaje, proteger la salud pública y demostrar liderazgo en justicia ambiental y acción climática.

5. Centrarse en una transición justa para los recolectores y trabajadores del sector de residuos

La COP30 logró un avance decisivo con la creación de un Mecanismo de Transición Justa basado en los derechos, una victoria largamente esperada para los trabajadores, las comunidades y los movimientos de todo el Sur Global. Sin embargo, los gobiernos dejaron sin respuesta la pregunta fundamental: ¿quién pagará por la transición? Sin una nueva financiación pública basada en donaciones y una reforma estructural del sistema financiero global, el mecanismo corre el riesgo de convertirse en otra promesa sin los recursos necesarios para hacer justicia. La defensa de la política de basura cero por parte de Turquía debería tomar el relevo en esta agenda e ir más allá, impulsando una transformación del sector de los residuos en consonancia con la CMNUCC y los principios de justicia ambiental. Un enfoque genuinamente de basura cero significa que los recolectores y recicladores de residuos en la economía informal deben ser priorizados, reconocidos formalmente y protegidos, ya que son actores centrales en el sistema de gestión de residuos del país. Esto incluye garantizar la seguridad social, la seguridad laboral, oportunidades de empleo justas, un ingreso digno, y una participación significativa en la toma de decisiones para la nueva economía de materiales.

Conclusión

Hacemos un llamado a la Presidencia y al Defensor de la COP 31 para que presenten una hoja de ruta climática unificada que combine una eliminación gradual sólida de los combustibles fósiles con una implementación de «basura cero» centrada en la justicia. Todas las Partes deben garantizar que la etiqueta «basura cero» no enmascare objetivos climáticos de baja ambición. El éxito de la COP 31 dependerá de ir más allá de las políticas de escaparate hacia cambios sistémicos que protejan tanto al planeta como a su gente.

Firmantes

FRANÇAIS Déclaration commune : Aligner le « zéro déchet » sur une action climatique ambitieuse en vue de la COP 31

Alors que la Turquie s’apprête à accueillir la COP 31, nous, organisations de la société civile soussignées, saluons la décision de la présidence turque de faire du « zéro déchet » et de la réduction des émissions de méthane issues des déchets des priorités absolues du programme d’action. Nous affirmons que le zéro déchet est une stratégie indispensable pour l’atténuation et l’adaptation au changement climatique, ainsi que pour les avantages connexes, étant donné qu’environ 70 % des émissions mondiales de gaz à effet de serre sont liées à l’économie des matériaux — l’extraction, la production et l’élimination des « objets ». Cependant, nous soulignons que cette priorité doit renforcer, et non remplacer, une feuille de route mondiale contraignante pour l’élimination progressive des combustibles fossiles.

1. Le « zéro déchet » comme stratégie d’élimination progressive des combustibles fossiles

Le « zéro déchet » est l’une des actions centrales pour l’atténuation du changement climatique. Il s’agit d’une vision et d’une feuille de route visant à éliminer les déchets du système grâce à des stratégies qui modifient la manière dont nous produisons et consommons les biens et traitons les matériaux mis au rebut. Cette approche répond aux principes de justice environnementale et mettra fin à terme à l’élimination des déchets dans les décharges et les incinérateurs, tout en maintenant l’économie des matériaux dans les limites planétaires. La production et l’élimination des matériaux — plastiques, ciment, acier, papier et autres — génèrent environ 29 % de l’ensemble des émissions mondiales de gaz à effet de serre, et 99 % des plastiques sont fabriqués à partir de combustibles fossiles. Par conséquent, les politiques de zéro déchet et de réduction des plastiques sont, par définition, des stratégies d’élimination progressive des combustibles fossiles. Un programme ambitieux pour la COP 31 doit inclure des objectifs contraignants visant à plafonner et à réduire la production de plastique, en accord avec le Traité mondial des Nations unies sur les plastiques, afin de garantir que le discours du « zéro déchet » ne serve pas de prétexte à la poursuite de l’expansion pétrochimique.

2. Combler le déficit de responsabilité en matière de méthane et faire progresser les engagements ROW

Si nous saluons l’attention portée par la Turquie au méthane issu des déchets, nous relevons la contradiction qu’il y a à donner la priorité à ce secteur alors que le pays reste l’une des rares grandes économies à ne pas avoir signé le Global Methane Pledge — un déficit de responsabilité important. Pour assurer une présidence crédible de la COP 31, la Turquie doit s’engager à respecter cet engagement et le traduire en actions concrètes et à fort impact. Sa signature de la Déclaration ROW de la COP 29 sur la réduction du méthane issu des déchets organiques témoigne d’un engagement initial, mais une mise en œuvre ambitieuse est nécessaire.

En plus de reconnaître la Déclaration ROW, la Turquie devrait :

• Fixer des objectifs chiffrés de réduction du méthane pour le secteur des déchets, assortis d’étapes intermédiaires claires.
• Intégrer ces objectifs dans ses NDCs.
• Légiférer pour rendre obligatoire le tri à la source et éliminer progressivement la mise en décharge des déchets organiques non traités.
• Mettre en place des cadres de financement et de MRV (mesure, rapport et vérification) dédiés pour soutenir la mise en œuvre et garantir la responsabilité.
• Veiller à ce que la dimension sociale de la gestion des déchets soit respectée, notamment par la reconnaissance officielle, la protection et l’inclusion des ramasseurs de déchets dans la conception et la mise en œuvre des politiques, avec un accès à la formation, à la sécurité et au soutien financier.
• Éviter explicitement les « fausses solutions » à forte intensité carbone telles que le brûlage à l’air libre ou l’incinération des déchets à des fins énergétiques.

Ces mesures peuvent réduire les émissions de méthane du secteur des déchets jusqu’à 95 %, ce qui est bien plus efficace que les solutions technologiques, et garantir que le leadership de la Turquie lors de la COP 31 soit crédible, ambitieux et socialement inclusif.

3. Éviter les voies contre-productives ou à forte intensité carbone

Nous mettons en garde contre les approches politiques qui favorisent les technologies de traitement des déchets à forte intensité carbone sous le couvert de solutions climatiques. Présenter l’incinération (« valorisation énergétique des déchets »), la pyrolyse ou le recyclage chimique comme des stratégies d’atténuation risque de verrouiller des infrastructures à fortes émissions, de créer une dépendance à long terme à l’égard de l’énergie dérivée des combustibles fossiles et de détourner les investissements des solutions en amont. L’incinération est extrêmement coûteuse et représente une utilisation non durable des financements publics et climatiques. Elle génère également des polluants atmosphériques toxiques, notamment des dioxines, des furanes et des particules fines, qui nuisent de manière disproportionnée aux communautés de première ligne et vulnérables, sapent les économies locales de recyclage et de valorisation informelle des déchets, et produisent des cendres résiduelles dangereuses. La COP 31 devrait plutôt donner la priorité à des mesures en amont telles que la prévention des déchets, le détournement des déchets organiques et des pratiques de gestion inclusives, qui réduisent les émissions à la source tout en apportant des avantages sociaux, économiques et environnementaux.

4. Mettre fin au colonialisme des déchets

La Turquie est particulièrement bien placée pour jouer un rôle de premier plan au niveau mondial en matière de solutions « zéro déchet » en mettant fin à son statut de principale destination des exportations de déchets plastiques en provenance de l’UE et du Royaume-Uni. Les déchets plastiques importés sont non seulement en grande partie non recyclables – souvent jusqu’à 50 % –, mais constituent également une source inépuisable de pollution plastique. Lorsqu’ils sont brûlés illégalement, ils produisent du carbone noir, un super-polluant qui accélère le réchauffement climatique, ainsi que d’autres émissions toxiques qui nuisent de manière disproportionnée aux communautés vulnérables. En mettant en œuvre une interdiction totale des importations de déchets plastiques, la Turquie peut donner la priorité à la réduction des déchets au niveau national, renforcer les systèmes de recyclage nationaux, protéger la santé publique et faire preuve de leadership en matière de justice environnementale et d’action climatique.

5. Placer la transition juste au cœur des préoccupations pour les récupérateurs de déchets et autres travailleurs du secteur

La COP 30 a marqué un tournant décisif avec la création d’un mécanisme de transition juste fondé sur les droits, une victoire attendue de longue date pour les travailleurs de l’économie informelle, les communautés et les mouvements sociaux à travers le Sud global. Pourtant, les gouvernements ont laissé sans réponse la question centrale : qui financera la transition ? Sans nouveaux financements publics sous forme de subventions et sans réforme structurelle du système financier mondial, ce mécanisme risque de devenir une nouvelle promesse sans les ressources nécessaires pour rendre justice. L’engagement de la Turquie en faveur du zéro déchet devrait prendre le relais de cet agenda et aller plus loin, en faisant progresser une transformation du secteur des déchets conforme à la CCNUCC et aux principes de justice environnementale.Une véritable approche « zéro déchet » implique que les récupérateurs de déchets et autres travailleurs du secteur soient prioritaires, officiellement reconnus et protégés, car ils sont des acteurs centraux du système de gestion des déchets du pays. Cela passe par la garantie de la sécurité sociale, de la sécurité au travail, d’opportunités d’emploi équitables et d’un revenu décent, et d’une participation significative à la prise de décision pour la nouvelle économie des matériaux.

Conclusion

Nous appelons la présidence et le champion de la COP 31 à présenter une feuille de route climatique unifiée qui combine une élimination progressive et rigoureuse des combustibles fossiles avec une mise en œuvre du « zéro déchet » centrée sur la justice. Toutes les Parties doivent veiller à ce que le label « zéro déchet » ne masque pas des objectifs climatiques peu ambitieux. Le succès de la COP 31 dépendra de la capacité à aller au-delà des politiques de façade pour opérer des changements systémiques qui protègent à la fois la planète et ses habitants.

Signataires Signatories

1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations

Aama Nepal Foundation

AbibiNsroma Foundation 

Agency for Conservation and Development (ACD)

AGIR POUR LA SECURITE ET LA SOUVERAINETÉ ALIMENTAIRE (ASSA)

Allen+

APLOI (The Indonesian Organic Waste Management Association)

ASSOCIATION OF SCRAPS AND WASTEPICKERS OF LAGOS STATE ASWOL 

Association pour la protection de l’environnement banda bitsi 

Bio Vision Africa (BiVA)

Bioenzyme Entrepreneur Academy Of India 

Blue Dalian

Breathe Free Detroit 

CAB

Carbone Guinée 

Carrot Foundation

CEE Bankwatch Network

Centre for Citizens Conserving Environment & Management (CECIC)

Centre For Earth Works (CFEW)

Centre for Environment Justice and Development

Centre for financial accountability 

Centro de Estudios Superiores Universitarios – Universidad Mayor de San Simón (CESU-UMSS)

CESTA AT

Citizen consumer and civic Action Group

Climate Action Network Arab World

Climate Action Network Zimbabwe

Coaction Indonesia

COLECTIVO ACONTRAVIA

Colectivo Acontravia

Dalai Lama Foundation 

Društvo Ekologi brez meja

Ecosoum

Ecoteca NGO

Egyptian Foundation for Environmental Rights – EFER

End Plastic Pollution Uganda 

Environment and Social Development Organization – ESDO

Fair Resource Foundation

Faith and Hope Association

Family Tree Movement Namibia 

Flamingo Chap Chap CBO

Foundation for Environment and Development (FEDEV)

Foundation Milieukontakt Albania

Friends of the Earth – SPZ

Friends of the Earth Cyprus

Front commun pour la protection de l’environnement et des Espaces Protégés (FCPEEP-RDC)

Fundacion Basura

Fundación El Árbol

Fundación Entrejardines 

Future for Future 

GLOBAL 2000

Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) 

Grambangla Unnayan Committee

GRC

Green Knowledge Foundation 

Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice

Greenpeace Türkiye

Health Environment and Climate Action Foundation (HECAF360)

Health service consumer Rights watch

Hnutí DUHA – Friends of the Earth Czech Republic

Humusz Szövetség

Instituto Pólis (Pólis Institute for Social Policy Studies, Training and Advisory Services)

International Alliance of Waste Pickers

Irrigation Training and Economic Empowerment Organization – IRTECO

Just Transition Alliance

Kalyani Rani Biswas 

KongoGreen 

Korea Zero Waste Movement Network

La Cuica Cósmica

Microplastic Research Group 

Mikroplastik Araştırma Grubu

Miya Ywech 

Mother Earth Foundation (MEF)

MT Plastic Free

NA

Nect Green Code (NGC)

Nipe Fagio

Pacific Environment Vietnam

Pan African Vision for the Environment(PAVE)

Plastic Free Future

Plastic Free Türkiye Platform

Pocasset Pokanoket Land Trust

Polish Zero Waste Association

Prakriti Sanrachna

Prowaste concepts pvt ltd 

Reach-Out Health Awareness Foundation 

Red de Acción por los Derechos Ambientales RADA

Retorna

Rezero

Sanggar Hijau Indonesia

Scuola Agraria del Parco di Monza

Slingshot

Solidarité pour la Protection des Droits de l’Enfant( SOPRODE)

Sustainable Environment Development Initiative 

Sustainable Research and Action for Environmental Development (SRADev Nigeria)

THANAL Trust

The Danish Society for Nsature Conservation

The UMI FUND

United Kingdom Without Incineration Network (UKWIN)

VOICE (Voice Of Irish Concern for the Environment)

VšĮ “Žiedinė ekonomika”

Vukani Environmental Movement 

WALHI

West Berkeley Alliance for Clean Air and Safe Jobs

WIEGO 

WWF-Türkiye

Xpozz India 

Youth Exploring Solutions

ZERO – Association for the Sustainability of the Earth System

Zero Waste Aotearoa

Zero Waste Association of South Africa

Zero Waste BC

Zero Waste Belgium

Zero Waste Canada

Zero Waste Detroit

Zero Waste Estonia SA

Zero Waste Europe

Zero Waste Italy

Zero Waste Ithaca

Zero Waste Lab

Zero Waste Latvija

Zero Waste Nederland

Zero Waste Senegal Association

Zero Waste Society

Zero Waste USA

The post Joint Declaration: Aligning Zero Waste with High-Ambition Climate Action for COP31  first appeared on GAIA.

Centre for Future Work Economist and Director Jim Stanford was recently interviewed on CBC News Channel regarding the outlook for Canada’s economy. He stressed that growth has been near-zero since U.S. president Donald Trump launched his trade war through big tariffs on Canadian exports. He also explained how high oil prices resulting from Trump’s attacks on Iran and the resulting disruption in global oil supplies would affect inflation in Canada, citing findings from the Centre’s recent report on the inflationary impacts of the war.

Please see the full interview here.

The post Oil Price Spike Causing More Trouble for Canada’s Economy appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

Centre for Future Work Economist and Director Jim Stanford was recently invited to testify before the Senate of Canada’s National Finance committee, regarding the economic and fiscal outlook for the country. The testimony was part of the committee’s hearings regarding certain aspects of budget implementation (including measures announced in the recent Spring Economics and Fiscal Update).

Below are Stanford’s opening remarks. He touched on several issues, including the need to diversify the product composition of Canada’s exports in the wake of Donald Trump’s tariffs, issues related to the proposed new Sovereign Wealth Fund announced by Prime Minister Carney, and the macroeconomic and distributional impacts of the latest spike in global oil prices (resulting from the U.S. attacks on Iran). Questions to Stanford from committee members included the sovereign wealth fund, the risks of privatizing airports and other public assets, and the challenges facing the auto industry. A Hansard record of the full hearing is available here.

Opening Remarks Senate Standing Committee on National Finance Bill C-30 Hearings, May 27, 2026 By Jim Stanford, Economist and Director Centre for Future Work

Thank you very much, Senators, for the opportunity to meet and share my views on Canada’s economic and fiscal situation as you discuss issues related to the federal budget.

The Centre for Future Work is a labour economics research institute, founded in Canada in 2020. We conduct research on the full range of economic issues facing working people: including the future of jobs, wages and income distribution, skills and training, sector and industry policies, globalization, the role of government, public services, and more. The Centre also develops timely and practical policy proposals to help make the world of work better for working people and their families.  The Centre is independent and non-partisan.

Today I will present short comments on three economic issues of relevance to implementation of measures announced in the spring fiscal update, and related processes:

Diversifying Trade, Composition as Well as Destination: Donald Trump’s tariff policies and other trade attacks have posed a historic threat to Canada’s export industries. Most vulnerable are the higher-tech value-added industries that have been deliberately targeted by his Section 232 sectoral tariffs: including auto, steel, aluminum, and forestry. Further sectoral tariffs are possible given other investigations he has launched, including on aerospace, industrial machinery, semiconductors, and pharmaceuticals. Diversifying the end destination of our exports is a logical response to this challenge, and the federal government has pursued several opportunities in this regard. But there is another, equally important priority that must also be kept in mind as we traverse this challenge: diversifying the composition of our exports. In other words, what we sell is just as important as where we sell it. Canada has had some initial success in growing exports to other markets. By the fourth quarter of 2025, only two-thirds of our merchandise exports were to the U.S., down from three-quarters only a few years ago. That progress is fragile, however, dependent on cyclically high prices for gold, oil, and some other resource projects. At the same time, Canada’s dependence on exports of unprocessed or barely processed resource products – or ‘staples’, as they are often known in Canadian economic history – has been growing. Basic resources accounted for half of Canada’s merchandise exports last year, up from one-fifth at the turn of the century. Revering to a pure resource supplier – a ‘hewer of wood, drawer of water’ in the classic phrase – will not protect Canada’s economic sovereignty. We must preserve the capability to produce a full range of goods and services, including higher-technology value-added products. This goal should be front and centre in Canada’s emerging industrial policy strategy for responding to the threat from the U.S.

Sovereign Wealth and the Public Interest: Concurrent with the spring fiscal update, Prime Minister Carney recently announced his government’s intention to create a new sovereign wealth fund, that would invest in various projects with the intent of stimulating desired new economic activity, strengthening the structure of Canada’s economy, and accumulating public wealth over time. This is an interesting proposal with both opportunities and risks. Successful examples of sovereign wealth funds exist around the world. In general, the goal is not solely to accumulate and invest budgetary surpluses; most sovereign funds have a mandate to wield public capital in the interests of economic diversification or the qualitative development of the domestic economy. On that score, the fact that Canada’s fund is likely to be initially endowed with borrowed funds (rather than accumulated budget surpluses, which do not exist right now at the federal level) is not the critical issue. However, it will be important to correctly specify the mandate and governance structure of the new fund. In my judgment, the goal should be to foster investment and growth in strategic value-added industries that add to the breadth of capabilities of the Canadian economy, and help to address the composition challenge I mentioned above. I am worried by Mr. Carney’s reference to ‘asset recycling’ in his initial discussion of the idea, through which the government would potentially sell of existing public assets (reportedly including airports and ports) in order to subsidize other projects. This is a dangerous model that risks undermining the public interest in continued ownership of those vital assets. The goal is not to ‘recycle’ public wealth, but to build it over time (and enhance our economic capacities in so doing), and the new sovereign fund should be structured and managed with those public interests as its top priority.

The Latest Oil Price Shock: An already uncertain macroeconomic environment has been further disrupted by Donald Trump’s attack on Iran, the resulting closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and a global shock in oil prices. This will have negative effects on Canada, even though we are a major net exporter of oil and import virtually no oil from the Persian Gulf. Our Centre recently published a report estimating the impact of this oil shock on consumer costs and future inflation, based in part on the documented experience of the last oil shock (in 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine). We considered three broad scenarios: one in which the Strait reopens immediately, one in which it remains closed for three more months, and one in which it remains closed for six more months. In any of these cases, supply disruptions and high prices will last for months after the Strait reopens, due to delays in loading and transporting shipments from the Persian Gulf, damage to export infrastructure from the war, and lasting shifts in expectations and risk premiums built into world prices. Even with immediate reopening, Canadian consumers would pay an additional $50 billion in direct and indirect costs over a 12-month period starting with the outbreak of the war at the end of February. The inflation rate would rise above 4 percent. If the Strait remains closed for longer, those costs escalate, and inflation could rise to 6 percent or higher. In turn, that will lead to higher interest rates and slower growth – on top of the existing weakness in Canada’s economy from the trade war. This disruption is the last thing Canada needs right now, and in my view it highlights important policy considerations. Having core energy prices in Canada set on the basis of volatile fluctuations in global futures markets, with no connection to Canadian production, supply, and demand conditions, exposes us to unnecessary risks. We should have a conversation in Canada about other ways to manage petroleum prices (noting that we already regulate electricity prices and gas distribution charges, which have remained stable despite the global oil chaos), and other ways to manage inflation (rather than relying solely on across-the-board interest rate hikes to suppress inflation of any kind, no matter its cause). I would also support fiscal measures to redistribute some of the record revenues that are now flowing to the petroleum industry as a result of this latest price shock – and which partly reflect excess costs paid by Canadian consumers. An excess profit tax, modeled on the one applied to Canadian banks and insurance companies during the pandemic, could recapture some of that revenue windfall, and use it to finance rebates to Canadian consumers and investments in renewable energy infrastructure (which are ultimately the best way to disengage from the volatility of world oil fluctuations). Bill C-30 includes measures to reduce federal excise taxes on gasoline and diesel in response to this price shock; asking the petroleum industry to contribute to the cost of that relief seems both fair and efficient. The full report which I reference, titled ‘A Sequel We Don’t Want: What the 2026 Oil Price Shock Will Cost Canadians,’ is available at www.centreforfuturework.ca.

Thank you again for your attention, and I look forward to any questions or discussion.

The post Senate Testimony on the Canadian Economic Outlook appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

June 16, 2026 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SUWA Statement on approval of Keg Knoll airstrip in the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness – 6.16.26  Action by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is unnecessary and unlawful 

Contacts:
Grant Stevens, Communications Director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA); (319) 427-0260; grant@suwa.org

Salt Lake City, UT – Last Friday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released a decision authorizing private airplanes to take off and land in the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness by designating the previously unauthorized Keg Knoll backcountry airstrip as open for aircraft use. The airstrip is located on the west side of Labyrinth Canyon and north of Canyonlands National Park. Below is a statement from SUWA Wildlands Director Neal Clark and additional information.  

“Wilderness is a finite resource and should be managed in a way that protects the reasons it’s designated in the first place—the preservation of natural soundscapes, solitude, wildlife habitat, and non-motorized recreational opportunities,” said Neal Clark, Wildlands Director at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “Unfortunately, the Trump administration BLM seems unable to say no to activities that are fundamentally incompatible with wilderness, including motorized aircraft use. Degrading the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness so a handful of private pilots can land their planes at one more backcountry airstrip is a disservice to the landscape and public lands users seeking a wilderness experience. We’ll be exploring every possible way to right this decision and protect the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness from the impacts of private aircraft use.”

Additional information: 

The Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness was designated by Congress in 2019, as part of the Dingell Act. While the Wilderness Act gives the BLM some discretion to allow (or prohibit) continued use at airstrips that were legally established prior to wilderness designation, it does not allow the agency to authorize aircraft use when the airstrip was not legally open prior to the wilderness designation.   

The BLM Price Field Office’s 2008 management plan—the land use plan in effect when the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness was established—specifically lists five “existing and currently used backcountry airstrips” for continued noncommercial and limited commercial aviation use; Keg Knoll is not on the list. And for good reason, as it was unused and reclaiming at the time. The agency’s 1999 wilderness inventory of Labyrinth Canyon confirms as much, noting “abandoned airstrips” in the Keg Knoll area. 

SUWA’s members sent over 3,000 comments in opposition to the decision.  

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The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is a nonprofit organization with members and supporters from around the country dedicated to protecting America’s redrock wilderness. From offices in Moab, Salt Lake City, and Washington, DC, our team of professionals defends the redrock, organizes support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, and stewards a world-renowned landscape. Learn more at www.suwa.org. 

 

 

The post SUWA Statement on approval of Keg Knoll airstrip in the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness – 6.16.26  appeared first on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.