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maandag 4 mei 2026
WORLD WORLDWIDE INFORMATION - ACTIVISM - A-infos-index24 - Latest Headlines - 40 posts - News in all languages. Monday 4 May 2026.
WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, FDCA, Cantiere #43 - War leaves destruction and pollution for future generations - Giuseppe Oldani (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Wars bring destruction and death, human and economic devastation, but what is not sufficiently highlighted are the environmental consequences of wars. Their disastrous environmental impact includes water and soil pollution and the destruction of ecosystems, leaving profound and lasting scars on nature, jeopardizing the health of our planet for future generations.
Record levels of conflict and violence have been recorded in recent years: according to some analyses, 170 conflicts were recorded in 2023, and by the end of that year, nearly 120 million people worldwide were forced to flee their homes.The environmental damage caused by wars has devastating consequences for ecosystems, people's health, and livelihoods. When forests are cleared for military purposes or fertile land and water resources are lost and contaminated, vast areas are rendered uninhabitable and difficult to recover after many years.
Examples include Sudan, where these tactics have been denounced by local populations, and Iraq, where wetlands were drained during the civil war.
In Ukraine, vast areas are at risk of contamination by mines and unexploded ordnance. Soil, waterways, and forests have been polluted by bombings, fires, and floods. Clearing mines and unexploded ordnance often takes years and requires significant investment. In Ukraine, the estimated costs for such clearance currently amount to $34.6 million. These rapid damage and needs assessments[1]are conducted by organizations such as the World Bank, the United Nations, and the European Commission, which estimate physical damage, socioeconomic losses, and recovery needs following disasters and conflicts.
In Gaza, in addition to the tens of thousands of deaths, there is also land degradation, water pollution, and the loss of arable land. Sewerage, wastewater, and waste management facilities are collapsing.
The destruction of buildings, roads, and infrastructure has generated millions of tons of debris, some contaminated with unexploded ordnance, asbestos, and hazardous substances, as well as an increase in communicable diseases.
The World Health Organization reports 179,000 cases of acute respiratory infections and 136,000 cases of diarrhea in children under five after just three months of conflict. This is a clear sign of the impact of the destruction of public works.
In other countries, the abundance of natural resources fuels armed conflicts, a case in point being the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the extraction of rare earth elements continues to fuel the conflict in the eastern part of the country.
Emissions from military activities represent a significant and often underestimated source of greenhouse gases; according to a study by Scientists for Global Responsibility and the Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS), military facilities are responsible for approximately 5.5% of global emissions. They arise primarily from the massive consumption of fossil fuels by aircraft, ships, and armored vehicles, as well as from the production of weapons and energy for bases, often benefiting from exemptions in international climate reporting. Global military operational emissions are estimated to range from 300 to 600 million tons of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) per year. Considering the entire supply chain, the carbon footprint is between 1,600 and 3,500 MtCO2e, or between 3.3% and 7.0% of global emissions, to which the CO2 from post-conflict reconstruction must be added.
Since the Kyoto Protocol, military activities have often been exempted or not properly reported in climate agreements, creating a data gap (military emissions gap): military data are secret, and states are not required to report their emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions caused by armed conflicts have always been classified military information, excluded from every global climate agreement, and any call for transparency has been rejected in the name of internal security. Rising global military spending, particularly within NATO, is expected to further exacerbate pollution, with estimates of over a trillion tons of CO2 produced over the next decade.
In war, having a more powerful weapons system than my adversary, regardless of its active ingredient and constituents, gives me such a tactical advantage that I don't think about the potential long-term environmental damage caused by the substances I use. And this is a common thread that remains as valid a hundred years ago as it is today.
The speaker is Matteo Guidotti, a chemist and senior researcher at the CNR's "Giulio Andreatta" Institute of Chemical Sciences and Technologies in Milan. He studies the environmental damage caused by conflicts like the one in Gaza, where a previous study highlighted how the war in the Strip had led to an estimated 281,000 tons of CO2 emissions, more than the amount of the same molecule released into the atmosphere in a year by twenty countries around the world.
The bombing of chemical industrial sites and oil depots, as is currently happening in Iran, serves to cripple a country's industrial and economic potential, preventing an easy recovery. However, what they cause in terms of the release of pollutants into the air, water, and soil is significant immediate and long-term damage to human health and the environment.
During the first Gulf War in 1991, more than six hundred oil wells burned uncontrollably, causing the daily release of 500,000 tons of pollutants, with global air quality repercussions.
Guidotti states: "In Ukraine, we're now talking about ecocide, the deliberate and voluntary destruction of an ecosystem; there are more than half a million tons of weapons waste abandoned on the territory." Or the episode of the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam,[2]which rendered approximately one million hectares of agricultural land unusable due to water contaminated by toxic substances from industries and urban and industrial wastewater that spilled over an entire region.
"Ukraine," Guidotti states, "is a highly industrialized country, and if industries, power plants, warehouses, and even buildings are hit, by mistake or intentionally, then enormous damage can be caused."
It should be emphasized that Ukraine has a high rate of soil contamination: much of its land is unused and will remain so for a long time, due to unexploded ordnance and the massive presence of toxic substances such as white phosphorus, used in the invasion of Ukraine. These bombs rain down white phosphorus, a highly destructive chemical that ignites upon contact with air and water, causing deep tissue necrosis in living beings. A deadly and devastating effect.[3]
The intense bombing has caused widespread fires, resulting in the loss of vast areas of forests: unique forests and habitats that Ukraine hosts, 6,808 protected natural areas, and approximately 35% of continental biodiversity. The conflict has had significant effects on biodiversity, with the disappearance of forest environments and several rare animal species: it is estimated that numerous bird species have been lost, and approximately 50,000 cetaceans have died from the bombing at sea. This, combined with the noise from ships, disorients these animals, condemning them to death in the short or long term.
Tehran, already shaken by the horrors of a regime that massacred thousands of young people who tried to resist, is now engulfed by black smoke from burning refineries and huge oil storage facilities.
Toxic fumes and highly corrosive acid rain are chemical pollutants caused by oil spills from affected facilities, which release mixtures of carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and formaldehyde into the air, as well as dioxins from the burning of plastic materials.
Ecocide
The crime of ecocide has been discussed since the 1960s, following the discoveries in the 1940s by American biologist Arthur W. Galston, who described the defoliant effect of a chemical used in Agent Orange,[4]later used in Vietnam by the US Army.
In 1972, Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme raised the issue again during the United Nations conference, calling it an international crime precisely because of its use in Vietnam. The following year, Professor Richard Falk proposed an international convention on the crime of ecocide, defining the concept for the first time.
From that moment on, the definition of ecocide began to be codified as a crime in domestic law only in a few states, but "the main problem lies in the definition of the concept of ecocide;" as Elisabetta Reyneri, a lawyer specializing in environmental crimes, explains, "the issue today is that at the European level it is difficult to recognize ecocide as an autonomous crime, when it seems more appropriate to recognize a series of well-defined and clear crimes such as pollution, habitat destruction, the illegal release of waste, climate-altering emissions... treated as so-called qualified crimes."
To date, the European Commission has recently adopted Directive 1203/2024 on the protection of the environment through criminal law, which has not yet been translated into national law. In practice, the directive explicitly refers to conduct capable of producing catastrophic effects. This is a somewhat more precise concept of ecocide that would allow for more severe penalties if crimes committed under this directive produced catastrophic or serious effects on the environment.
This directive, like international treaties, agreements, and conventions, does not prevent and has not prevented the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in all the conflicts that have occurred since the last century, nor have they prevented the resulting environmental devastation, as schematically described in this text.
The mutagenic and carcinogenic effects do not disappear with the end of the war; serious consequences for human health remain and persist over time. The climate and environmental damage of wars is defined as collateral and is still not given due consideration, yet the spreading of poisons into soil and aquifers and the emissions of poisonous gases into the air, in addition to killing people and animals, will also have an impact on future climate change, which is already causing death and destruction.
Notes
[1]World Bank, Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, European Union, United Nations, Second Ukraine Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA2): February 2022 - February 2023, World Bank Group, Washington, D.C. (US), 2023 (http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099184503212328877).
[2]The dam and its hydroelectric power plant were severely damaged on the night of June 6, 2023, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
[3]A dramatic historical precedent: during the Vietnam War, a variant called napalm-B was developed, in which instead of gasoline, a mixture of polystyrene in a benzene-gasoline solution was added to which white phosphorus was added, which facilitated ignition when the gel was dispersed in the air, increasing its effects.
[4]Agent Orange was the code name given by the US Army to a defoliant that was widely sprayed throughout South Vietnam between 1961 and 1971 during the Vietnam War. See Agent Orange, «Wikipedia» (https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agente_Arancio).
https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/wpAL/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE FRANCE - news journal UPDATE - (en) France, OCL CA #358 - The North is Dark! An Interview About Tomjo's New Book (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Tomjo, who has run the website chez.renart.info for several years, has compiled several texts in this book focusing on the sugar beet industry, the agri-food sector, and gigafactories (battery manufacturing plants). These are among the main pillars of the industrial reconversion (excuse me, Transition!) of the Hauts-de-France region, a project we've been hearing about for over 30 years now-ever since the announced closure of mines, textile mills, and steelworks. This 200-page work oscillates between a well-argued industrial critique, historical narratives and colorful biographies, an anti-tech indictment that doesn't shy away from class struggle, and even a cookbook... you'll learn a recipe for anti-tech pizza dough! The whole thing serves as a salutary reminder of the devastating social, health, and environmental consequences of capitalism in the North, based on serious investigative work conducted by the author over many years. Here are a few questions we asked Tomjo to entice you to read his writing.
1) Why did you choose to write about beets, pizza, and batteries?
It came about through current events! It all started with our legal action with ASPI (Association for the Elimination of Industrial Pollution), which we created in 2014 with friends and our girlfriend, an environmental lawyer. We joined a lawsuit against the TEREOS group-the world's fourth-largest sugar producer, but the largest in France, and a specialist in sugar beets. In April 2020, during the lockdown, the factory in Escaudoeuvres (Nord) accidentally released the equivalent of 40 Olympic-sized swimming pools of "wastewater" into the Scheldt River-a river that flows from Cambrai to Antwerp, passing through Tournai and Ghent-causing the death of dozens of tons of fish. The media, preoccupied with the pandemic, barely covered it. At the same time, testimonies were emerging about working conditions akin to slavery in the TEREOS sugar cane fields in Brazil. That's when I decided to focus on sugar beets! With ASPI, we won a victory in early 2023 against TEREOS, which received a larger fine than Total for the Erika oil spill. Yet, we found ourselves quite alone against such a disastrous and centrally important industry for the Hauts-de-France region. You could say we were completely ignored by elected officials. This entire political class, which remained silent about this historic catastrophe, was marching in demonstrations barely a month after the verdict to prevent the factory's closure. From La France Insoumise (LFI) to the right wing, everyone defended the sugar company, completely ignoring the workers' conditions and the environmental impact of the beet farmers. To justify themselves and lend themselves historical weight, everyone trotted out the old imperial myth of sugar beets, of this industrial heritage of which they were supposedly so proud-concepts that greatly interest me (1)-and the fabricated story of Napoleon's invention of beet sugar to circumvent the Continental Blockade. I tell all about it in the book!
The topic of frozen pizzas was a suggestion from the publisher (Service Compris), my friends at Pièces et Main d'oeuvre. In 2022, the Buitoni factory in Caudry, right next to Escaudoeuvres, sold pizzas contaminated with E. coli bacteria. Seventy-five children fell ill, most were left disabled, and two died. By following the case closely, you stumble upon some incredible scenes. The arrogance of Nestlé executives, assuring everyone of the factory's impeccable hygiene, was contradicted the very next morning by a state inspection. Minister Olivier Véran, on camera, assured everyone of the factory's good condition, while the prefecture's hygiene department had been warning about its state for over ten years. And then you dig deeper and you uncover the shameful, hidden history of Buitoni, a company founded by an early fascist, a close associate of Mussolini and organizer of the March on Rome. I confess, I enjoy this kind of research! And then, as with TEREOS, the health scandal raises fears of the factory's closure, and this whole little class of local bigwigs suddenly rises up to defend jobs, while they haven't uttered a word of compassion for the dead.
Finally, regarding gigafactories, the issue is unavoidable here, with the opening of five battery plants and ministers parading around every other day in their hard hats. Courant Alternatif has already dedicated an issue to it (2). So, like any well-intentioned citizen, I kept a close eye on the media, read the impact studies and consultation documents, and, as with Buitoni, I stumbled upon the shameful history of the SAFT company during the war, the main French battery company that opened the first gigafactory - called ACC in Billy-Berclau/Douvrin - at the National Archives. My interest in gigafactories also stems from the massive and rather clumsy propaganda surrounding the "Transition," to the point that no critical voice exists. Here again, you come across some truly remarkable scenes where anti-nuclear associations and parties wholeheartedly applaud factories that can consume the energy of a single reactor. But the local environmental movement is full of surprises, as I already mentioned in *The Green Hell*, in 2013.
2) Your point is striking. But actually, is the North really so bleak? Why is it such a unique region in your opinion? In its economic and political history, its geography?
Why did we get to this point? There are several factors, some more well-known than others. First, the North, Flanders, which belonged to the Netherlands, saw the emergence of early capitalism. Without being exhaustive (3), you observe: an agricultural revolution that freed the workforce from servitude as early as the 12th-13th centuries; the historical presence of a textile industry that traded from the Baltic to Syria; an extremely wealthy bourgeoisie that invented the Stock Exchange and triggered the first speculative crisis in history, the Tulip Mania (1636); an early division of labor in the textile industry and shipbuilding; A republican revolution two centuries before the French Revolution, in the United Provinces, with a fervent Protestantism as its ideological foundation, advocating hard work. Finally, though this story is better known, there's the tragedy of coal mining from the late 18th century onward, which devastated the textile, railway, and steel industries, among others.
The North was at the forefront of capitalism, and local capitalism is now at the forefront of managing its own negative impacts. We can mention these data center and battery warehouse projects on land too polluted to be used for anything other than paving it over. A friend came up with the expression "while it's still too late...", which we used for an exhibition in Roubaix, to describe this perpetual cycle in which disaster creates opportunities for new disasters. Finally, on a cultural level, I would say that we are paying the price for centuries of paternalism in textiles, mining, and sugar. For 150 years, your boss was your landlord, your mayor the one who built your church, organized your leisure activities, paid your medical bills, and sent you on vacation. A totality took hold, encompassing all of life, so much so that you have a terrible time escaping this industrial fantasy. Look at the reactions to promises of jobs in the automotive, steel, battery, and nuclear industries: we are still subject to the benevolent care of the good boss who will create a good future for us.
3) Your anti-industrial critique is scathing; no one is spared, whether it's the bosses and the state (of course!), but also the unions and the workers who produce crappy products... But you manage to stay on the razor's edge between "anti-tech" criticism and class struggle. In your opinion, what are the possible connections between these two aspects?
One can have a class position while being anti-industrial. The history of the labor movement proves this. In early 19th-century England, the Luddites smashed up the looms that competed with them, stealing their livelihoods and autonomy. Various sectors rose up against their mechanization/proletarianization: typesetters, printers, locksmiths, and some silk weavers (canuts), who were at the forefront of the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. Many more examples could be cited, in England, Belgium, and elsewhere.
We can therefore consider both sides, provided we delve into the Marxist legacy. Marx was brilliant at understanding the socio-economic consequences of the division of labor and capitalist appropriation, but his political errors are definitive: the development of the productive forces did not create the conditions for transcending capitalism, but quite the opposite! The single example of nuclear waste illustrates this. It places us, for millennia, under the authority of experts, technocrats, and their police.
The socialists believed that the interests of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat were irreconcilable. They are indeed irreconcilable when it comes to the distribution of value and power. But an alliance systematically forms whenever it is necessary to preserve the means of production, however deadly they may be. We see this right now with Arcelor-Mittal in Dunkirk. Everyone agrees on saving "French" steel, as if the factory were a little earthly paradise, as if this industry didn't degrade the environment for centuries to come, as if it weren't the essential sector of the most disastrous industries: arms, automobiles, and nuclear power. No one disputes either decarbonization or the new steel production lines for electric motors. The only people I've heard speak out against Arcelor are those with asbestos exposure or retirees (4). I have only ever seen workers once demanding the closure of their factory, and that was in 2012 at the Ilva steelworks in Taranto, Puglia (5). Since then, I have no other examples.
Notes:
1 - For several years, Renart.info has offered a tour operator, "Nord-Pas-de-Calais Adventure," to explore the region's worst industrial sites, which have profoundly marked their surroundings. Recently, Tomjo has also started offering a guided tour of the now-vanished Saint-Sauveur district, a significant site in the local working-class history.
2 - See issue 350 of May 2025, available on the website https://oclibertaire.lautre.net
3 - For further explanation, read with interest the various chapters of the series "Blue Like an Orange" that Tomjo wrote on Flemish capitalism, which logically finds extensions in Northern France and elsewhere.
4 - See "Not a Penny for the Transition" and "Decarbonization or Hope in a Kit," renart.info. On the critique of work and the myth of miners, see 100% Death Postscript, directed by Modeste Richard and Tomjo in 2017, when the mining basin became a UNESCO World Heritage Site amidst piles of silicosis-ridden corpses.
5 - Read "Death in Taranto," La Brique no. 33, Oct.-Nov. 2012
Pizzas - Beets - Batteries. These three regional specialties illustrate the same phenomenon, as total as it is undeniable: the subjugation of a region, its landscapes, its inhabitants, and its utopian ideals, to the industrial exploitation regime that has reigned for at least two centuries.
Here is the publisher's description. Service included.
Follow the guide. Tomjo tells us the astonishing and true story of the sugar beet, the pizza machine, and the electric battery. Enough to verify firsthand that electrical energy, whatever its source, is neither "sustainable" nor decarbonized, and that the so-called Giga-Transition is in fact merely continuing the scorched-earth policy by other technological means. Two centuries of deadly industry have replaced the mines, weaving mills, and steelworks between Lille and Dunkirk with new calamities. As if the people of the North were doomed to the curse of a land poisoned by factory waste; as much as they are by the hard, mindless, and unhealthy jobs they are all too happy to accept, in order to produce and consume the junk food they are force-fed.
We don't really know what's left to save in the North, or what hope remains; except perhaps the hope of speaking out about what we see, what we know, what we think; for those who refuse to die peacefully alongside industrial society.
Tomjo, a troublemaker from the North, an environmentalist and anti-industrialist, runs the website Chez Renart ("news from the North and elsewhere"), as well as guided tours of industrial wastelands and devastation in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region. He has published *L'enfer Vert* (Green Hell), a project paved with good intentions (L'Échappée, 2013), and numerous articles of technocriticism.
The book can be ordered in bookstores:
"Nord c'est noir" by Tomjo, Service compris, 2025 (ISBN 9791094229903)
By mail to Renart bookstore: EUR19 + EUR2.50 shipping, by sending a check payable to ASPI to the following address: Renart, Chez Rita, 49 rue Daubenton, 59100 Roubaix, France.
Or through Renart's online bookstore.
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4669
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, Anarres: ANTIMILITARIST ATTENDANCE AT PORTA SUSA AGAINST WAR TRAINS (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Railways are increasingly at the service of war. A torrent of public money has been allocated to modernizing lines for military transport.
On Saturday, March 28, as part of the week of information and struggle launched by the Antimilitarist Assembly, a demonstration was held at Porta Susa station in Turin.Riot police deployed to block access to the platforms.
The banner "No to War Trains" was nevertheless hung above the entrance.
The initiative attracted a wide and varied turnout.
Music, leafleting, and speeches captured the attention of passersby and travelers, who lingered for long periods during the various speeches, which highlighted how rail transport has become increasingly dangerous in recent years, as staff cuts and the outsourcing of maintenance expose workers and travelers to enormous risks.
From Viareggio to Brandizzo, the list of massacres grows. These are not accidents, but murders, the perpetrators of which sit on railway boards and in government offices.
With new investments in war logistics, railways, a potential target for drones and bombings, will become increasingly dangerous.
Thanks to dual use, both civilian and military, trains full of ammunition and tanks travel alongside passenger trains.
The money wasted on military logistics could be used to make the trains we take every day to work and study more comfortable and safe.
World War III is now underway. Military bases on Italian soil are key hubs for logistics and intelligence in the wars that, from Ukraine to Palestine, from Iran to Lebanon, are setting ever-larger areas of our immediate world ablaze.
The war industry is rapidly expanding, thanks to rearmament programs that span vast swathes of the planet.
Each speech emphasized the importance and urgency of information and direct action against war and those who arm it.
We cannot stand by and watch. We cannot accept that war becomes just another option.
The foundations of war are just a stone's throw from our homes.
It's up to us to throw sand, not oil, into the militarist machine.
If we allow a train loaded with weapons to pass through our homes, we are complicit in the murder of men, women, and children killed by those weapons.
One day, someone dear to us could die if that train were to crash.
The day ended with a commitment to continue monitoring military transport, war production, and the Aerospace City construction site.
War is already here.
Stopping it is possible.
Today they want us all to be conscripted.
We desert.
We want a world without borders, armies, oppression, exploitation, and war.
Antimilitarist Assembly Turin
antimilitarista.to@gmail.com
https://www.anarresinfo.org/antimilitaristi-a-porta-susa-contro-i-treni-di-guerra/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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