After centuries of dam building, a nationwide movement to dismantle these aging barriers is showing how free-flowing rivers can restore ecosystems, improve safety, and reconnect people with nature.

With more than 550,000 dams in the United States, free-flowing rivers are an endangered species. We’ve dammed, diked, and diverted almost every major river in the country, straightening curves, pinching off floodplains, and blocking passage for fish and other aquatic animals. But this has come at a great cost. Freshwater biodiversity—all the organisms that hail from our rivers, streams, lakes, and wetlands—is among the most threatened on the planet. Dams have played a big role in that demise, pushing fish, mussels, and other animals to the brink, and some over it. In North America, nearly 40 percent of fish are imperiled, and 61 species have blinked out since 1900.

A growing dam removal movement has led to some 2,200 dams being blasted and backhoed from U.S. rivers—most of them in the past 25 years. It’s an extraordinary turn of events for a dam-loving country. //

The United States emerged from the Great Depression into a dam-building frenzy that lasted more than 30 years, dubbed the “go-go years” by Marc Reisner in Cadillac Desert, his iconic book on western water. Between 1950 and 1979, approximately 1,700 dams were built each year.

Most Americans have probably never heard of the European Union’s (EU) recently passed Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). According to the EU, the “aim” of the CSDDD “is to foster sustainable and responsible corporate behaviour in companies’ operations and across their global value chains. The new rules will ensure that companies in scope identify and address adverse human rights and environmental impacts of their actions inside and outside Europe.” //

As my colleagues Justin Haskins and Jack McPherrin note in a recent Heartland Institute Policy Study outlining the CSDDD:

It is not hyperbolic to say the CSDDD is one of the most economically restrictive and nakedly authoritarian laws in the history of western democratic civilization. The directive attempts to globally institutionalize sweeping ESG objectives by mandating practices for large companies doing business in the European Union, regardless of whether those companies are headquartered in the EU. Even worse, the CSDDD forces those companies to impose the same standards on many of the businesses operating within their global supply chains— fundamentally transforming all social and economic activity around the world. It is one of the gravest threats to freedom that Americans face today.

Under the CSDDD, all U.S. businesses, from multinational corporations to small family farms, would have to adhere to the EU’s environmental regulations that prioritize the mass adoption of expensive and unreliable so-called green energy while restricting the production of abundant, affordable, and reliable fossil fuel energy.

In essence, the CSDDD “is a transition plan for climate change mitigation aligned with the 2050 climate neutrality objective of the Paris Agreement as well as intermediate targets under the European Climate Law,” says the EU. //

ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods explained on Fox News’ Special Report recently that the EU’s CSDDD represents a non-tariff trade barrier that Trump is intent on eliminating as his team negotiates with EU officials.

Woods also recommended that Congress draft legislation that deems the EU’s CSDDD irrelevant to U.S. businesses. I highly suspect that Trump would sign such a bill with gusto.

Companies today claim they are “designing for the environment.” What they often mean is: they’re doing what the Association of Plastics Recyclers (APR) tells them to do.

APR is not an environmental nonprofit, nor is it a scientific body. It is a trade association. Its purpose isn’t planetary stewardship or public benefit—it’s to protect the business model of mechanical recyclers. Across the country, retailers and consumer brands have allowed APR to shape packaging policy, effectively outsourcing key sustainability decisions to an organization with no accountability to the public.

This didn’t happen by accident. It was a calculated public affairs coup.

By presenting itself as a neutral authority on recycling, APR has become the de facto gatekeeper of “recyclable” packaging. Its “Design Guide for Plastics Recyclability” guidelines are treated by many brands as gospel. The result is a system in which APR’s preferences—many of which conveniently raise costs, entrench incumbents, and discourage alternatives—are adopted as moral imperatives rather than contested ideas. //

APR has pulled off something remarkable but all too common in today’s age. It has cloaked its trade priorities in the language of sustainability, allowing its design standards to spread across entire industries without serious scrutiny.

Brands that comply get to call their packaging “recyclable.” Lawmakers and regulators often codify APR’s framework into official policy. Environmental groups, eager to support anything labeled circular or zero-waste, rarely question the mechanics. But this is where the problem begins. //

A 2022 Greenpeace USA report found that less than six percent of plastic waste in the United States is recycled. That means more than 94 percent of plastic—much of it labeled recyclable—never completes the circular loop consumers are led to believe exists.

Meanwhile, the cost of playing by APR’s rules isn’t theoretical. Brands often must reengineer their packaging to meet APR’s specifications, which can involve switching to more expensive materials, altering shapes or adhesives, or redesigning entire product lines. These costs are passed directly to consumers—and they rarely result in actual environmental gains.

In fact, many APR-approved packages use more resources and energy to produce than their conventional counterparts. When those packages aren’t recycled, the net environmental impact is worse than if brands had used simpler, more efficient designs. Compliance becomes performance. And performance becomes policy. //

One of the clearest indicators of APR’s self-interest is its stance on chemical recycling. Unlike mechanical recycling, which is limited to certain polymers and degrades material quality, chemical recycling can break down a broader range of plastics into base feedstocks. It has real potential to scale down plastic recovery and reduce landfill dependency. For APR, chemical recycling threatens its existing model. The association has repeatedly warned that advanced recycling isn’t a “silver bullet,” advocating for limited definitions of the practice and cautioning against falling for marketing claims. //

msctex
an hour ago edited
Corruption can and nearly inevitably will evolve in what amounts to a natural fashion, whenever any organized group finds its goal or raison d'être has been met, but said group does not then immediately refocus its aim at another problem. Many Unions are the embodiment of this, as are countless Leftist social causes.

But then there is Corruption that was never anything but from the jump, examples we can always trace to the Left. Any solution to an imaginary problem falls under this inevitably taxpayer-funded umbrella.

A Swedish columnist, Linda Jerneck, has the right take on this:

Still, putting the best-preserved 17th-century ship at risk “reveals the activists’ fanaticism,” columnist Linda Jerneck wrote: “Restore Wetlands wants us to show solidarity with future generations—by pissing on what previous generations left behind.”

But it's worse. These eco-loons are not only initiating micturition on the past, including on the legacy of one of Sweden's greatest kings, but also on the future. They oppose everything that makes our modern lifestyle possible. They oppose, in effect, modern civilization. And this latest act just shows the callous disregard they have for the past, the present, and the future.

Ryan Maue
@RyanMaue
·
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Greenpeace hit with $667 million judgement.

"...massive financial blow to the group that environmentalists say could chill future climate advocacy" Show more
5:56 PM · Mar 19, 2025. //

However, “Midwestern Burning Man” was no peaceful protest but a transition state to the domestic-terror style ‘advocacy’ eco-extremists are now targeting Tesla with.

This judgement is being celebrated by “normies” and, hopefully it will actually chill the destruction of private property and violence-based intimidation tactics that have been adopted by Marxists/socialists power-mongers parading as “climate advocates”. //

Hodge | March 20, 2025 at 9:28 am
Greenpeace protestors at the pipeline were totally and solely concerned about protecting the environment – NOT.

“On February 22, 2017, the protest site was cleared. Although many left voluntarily, ten people were arrested. On February 23, National Guard and law enforcement officers evicted the remaining protesters. Thirty-three people were arrested. After the protest site was abandoned, sanitation crews cleared garbage from the protest; this included abandoned cars and human waste. Also abandoned were 12 dogs. North Dakota Department of Emergency Services estimated that about 21 million pounds of garbage was removed; the cost of cleaning up the protest site was about $1 million. ”

The jury in Mandan, North Dakota—a community that bore the brunt of the mayhem—saw through the sham. After just two days of deliberation, they delivered a verdict that didn’t just meet Energy Transfer’s $340 million damage claim but doubled down with punitive damages, totaling over $660 million. Trespass, defamation, conspiracy—the list of Greenpeace’s transgressions read like a rap sheet, and the jurors weren’t buying the group’s excuse that it was just a bit player in the mess it helped create.

Greenpeace, predictably, is crying foul, whining that this payout could bankrupt its U.S. operations. Good riddance, say many conservatives who’ve watched the group thumb its nose at law and order for years. "This is about accountability," said Trey Cox, Energy Transfer’s lead attorney from Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, outside the courthouse. "Peaceful protest is American as apple pie, but what Greenpeace did—funding destruction and smearing a company trying to keep our country running—that’s not protest, that’s sabotage." People like @theCCR love to say that their right to protest is being harmed yet they don't tell you about the damage to the environment when they leave trash and destroy private properties. //

Of course, Greenpeace is pulling out all the stops to spin this as an attack on the First Amendment. “This threatens our rights to peaceful protest,” bleated Deepa Padmanabha, a Greenpeace lawyer, as if torching equipment and delaying a vital infrastructure project qualifies as "peaceful." The irony wasn’t lost on Cox, who called the ruling a “powerful affirmation” of real free speech—speech that doesn’t come with a Molotov cocktail attached. //

As one local put it outside the courthouse, “Maybe now they’ll think twice before messing with our way of life.” Amen to that. //

stripmallgrackle RedRaider85
an hour ago
Big Oil Stacked Jury implies jury tampering in the jury selection process. That sounds like a defamation/libel suit waiting to happen, unless SpleenPeace can prove the jury was rigged. Clearly, the post was intended to defame Energy Transfer. //

ConservativeInMinnesota
3 hours ago
The hypocrites abandoned hundreds of junk cars and over 48 million pounds of trash (it filled hundreds of semi trucks). Over a million was spent cleaning up their trash.

Pipelines significantly more energy efficient and environmentally friendly than trains. Those oil trains still run not too far from my house.

It was a greenwashing power trip. They earned their court loss and I hope it ruins them.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/1/dakota-access-protest-camp-crews-haul-48-million-p/

https://thefederalist.com/2017/03/10/environmentalist-protest-destroys-environment-standing-rock/. //

ThatGuy81
3 hours ago
Oh, you mean the Indian "tribe" that was holding out for more money then got pissed when they and their "sacred land" was bypassed by accommodating land owners and they got nothing, then decided to hold the company hostage by claiming environmental issues? Yeah, those greedy a**holes. //

USA_Proud
3 hours ago
ProPublica reported that Greenpeace has $22M in Revenue in 2023, with total assets of $48.4M.. Greenpeace Fund Inc; Washington, DC; Tax-exempt since Jan. 1979; EIN: 95-3313195. As such, doubtful that Energy Transfer can ultimately recover compensatory damages, much less punitive damages. They will fight it to Bankruptcy, and likely would be willing to spend every dollar on a legal challenge before they give anything to Energy Transfer. I would expect that they would get some form of legal claim against them, so that they can't commit more dollars to their legal defense. Even if they go into bankruptcy, it will be a warning shot to other 501C organizations messing around with what can rightfully be considered terroristic actions. The next step may be to find if some big donor put leverage on them to do these steps, and pursue it as a conspiratorial act.

The Supreme Court struck down some of EPA's rules regulating the discharge of treated sewage. The rules allegedly enforced the Clean Water Act. In a 5-4 decision, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett crossing to join three progressive justices, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA can't play Humpty Dumpty and say the legal standard "means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."

It started when the EPA fined the City of San Francisco nearly $10 billion because of alleged violations of its sewage discharge into the Pacific Ocean. There were $313 million in assessed fines and about $10.6 billion in mandated upgrades to its treatment plant. San Francisco did not deny that the EPA had the authority to police sewage discharge; its objection was that the standards were so vague that the city could not meet them because they were forever shifting.

“We simply want to understand our prohibition limits so we can comply with them,” Tara M. Steeley, the San Francisco deputy city attorney, told the justices.

This is how Justice Alito described the situation in his opinion.

Instead, this case involves provisions that do not spell out what a permittee must do or refrain from doing; rather, they make a permittee responsible for the quality of the water in the body of water into which the permittee discharges pollutants. When a permit contains such requirements, a permittee that punctiliously follows every specific requirement in its permit may nevertheless face crushing penalties if the quality of the water in its receiving waters falls below the applicable standards. For convenience, we will call such provisions “end-result” requirements. //

This case marks the latest entrant in the list of court cases that roll back the incredible authority that the EPA has arrogated to itself to manage the US economy.

My first reaction to this claim — that wood-based bottles have a lower carbon footprint than plastic or glass — is "Show your work." Let's see the numbers because, as always, you can color me skeptical. The claim is that these wooden bottles have a lower carbon footprint; OK, then, let's see the proponents of this silly idea quantify the carbon footprints of wooden, plastic, and glass bottles. //

And what's crazy is that the Telegraph reports this so uncritically. Nowhere does this publication attempt to justify spending £43.5 million — that's about $55 million in American cash — for 35 jobs. And that's only the beginning; these things always seem to end up costing more than planned.

$55 million for 35 jobs — that's a bit over a million and a half per job. We must also come back to the inevitable economics statement: If this were a viable business model, it wouldn't require a government subsidy. Let this company make its case to private investors, to commercial banks, and if there's a market for wooden bottles, best of luck to them. //

Also, trees are carbon sinks. Whether one is worried about climate change or not, trees are still big carbon sinks. They take carbon from the atmosphere in the form of CO2 and convert it to sugars that are essentially food for the tree. How many trees will these wooden bottles cost?

There are other issues. Can these bottles be reused? Wood — cellulose — is porous. Can these bottles be cleaned for reuse? //

Random US Citizen
11 hours ago
The real question—as always—is who benefits. If you dug around the books of this boondoggle, I can almost guarantee you’d find kickbacks, campaign donations, and other assorted money laundering schemes putting a significant portion of that $40+ million into the pockets of grifters. These things always fail, because they’re designed to fail. And all that money will have mysteriously disappeared never to be recovered. It happens every time. ///

This is a fancy way of promoting boxed water Mar of paper

The head of the criminal division of the US Attorney's office in DC has resigned rather than investigate a Biden-sponsored New Green Deal grant network for possible criminal behavior. Denise Cheung announced her departure to staff with an email saying, “This office is a special place. I took an oath of office to support and defend the Constitution, and I have executed this duty faithfully.” //

The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund was to funnel about $26 billion to the United Climate Fund and Climate Justice Alliance. This grant was funded in August 2024 to the tune of $20.3 billion, again in October for $4.3 billion, with the final tranche of $2 billion landing in December 2024/January 2025; see the details here. These were all part of the Biden "throwing gold bars off the Titanic" (see EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin Finds the $20 Billion 'Gold Bars' the Biden Administration Tried to Jettison – RedState) plan where immense amounts of grant funding would be "parked" in leftist 501(c)3 corporations that were supposed to continue to run beneath the radar even after Trump had taken office.

Southern California has been ravaged by wildfires, which have destroyed the communities of Altadena, Pacific Palisades, and Malibu. So, Newsom needs the Trump administration's goodwill (and recovery dollars) and is now changing his tune.

Thomas Catenacci @ThomasCatenacci
·
NEW: California is withdrawing a request for the Biden admin to approve its EV truck mandate. Under the rules, a large share of truck sales in CA and other states would have been forced to be electric by 2035. Less than 1% of truck sales are EVs.

A major setback for activists.
6:47 PM · Jan 14, 2025. //

Newsom is fighting to save his political career and keep control of power. This move makes it clear he is not succeeding. His hand-selected CARB agency is simply doing his bidding. Along with the terrible optics of Newsom standing in front of burning buildings and practically dancing with glee, Californians are rejecting the whole climate change schtick the Democrats love to trot out when their save-the-environment policies do exactly the opposite. Many recognize that any environmental gains that might have been produced through these EV mandates have gone up in smoke. //

polyjunkie
4 hours ago
Well. Gonna be interesting when Congress requires that the reservoirs and power line maintenance ALREADY APPROVED by CA voters be built or no rebuilding money. Someone once said, “Never let a crisis go to waste”….😳😊

sighence
@krisuz44
Conservation of the land has been totally abandoned on the altar of environmentalism.
True stewardship of the land is controlled burning. Look at the controller burns over the last 100 years:
11:17 AM · Jan 12, 2025

A federal judge ruled Friday that American Airlines's pension fund had violated the law by making investment decisions using criteria other than the interests of the plan beneficiaries. The decision by Judge Reed O'Connor, a George Bush appointee serving the Northern District of Texas, comes from a decision by American Airlines management to allow the pension fund to be managed by BlackRock, which in turn used Environmental, Social, and Governance principles rather than financial performance to guide investment. //

For the reasons explained below, the Court concludes that the facts compellingly demonstrated that Defendants breached their fiduciary duty by failing to loyally act solely in the retirement plan’s best financial interests by allowing their corporate interests, as well as BlackRock’s ESG interests, to influence management of the plan. However, the facts do not compel the same result for the duty of prudence. Defendants acted according to prevailing industry practices, even if leaders in the fiduciary industry contrived to set the standard. This is fatal to Plaintiff’s breach of prudence claim. //

The day before Judge O'Connor ruled that BlackRock had sacrificed the pension payout to plan beneficiaries on the altar of ESG investing, BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, with $11.5 trillion in assets under management, announced its withdrawal from Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, an international group of asset management companies "committed to supporting the goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner."

This makes BlackRock the latest asset manager to reconsider the business model of screwing over investors in exchange for invitations to all the right events. //

The exits are clearly linked to the American Airlines lawsuit, which imposes liability for damages on asset managers for breaching their fiduciary responsibility. One can't ignore the effect of an incoming Congress that is skeptical of ESG. Last summer, the House Judiciary Committee labeled the ESG movement as violating antitrust law.

Blaming these fires on "climate change" when there's little to no fire mitigation (clearing brush, trimming undergrowth, managing forests) and allowing millions of acre-feet of water to be washed out to sea are also really dumb ideas. Maybe these dumb ideas are what they mean by "man-made" climate change.

It's hard to ignore the record.

Fire officials say that homeless camp wildfires doubled from 2020 to 2023 to 13,909. There were 24 "homeless related" fires in LA County responded to every day of 2021.

According to NBC 4 in L.A., some of the homeless campfires started from campers illegally hooking up to underground electricity outlets. That's what caused a fire in Hollywood. //

In October 2024, Joe Biden's Administration officially pronounced an end to controlled burns in California for fire mitigation. //

In the Sacramento area, where a homeless camp sparked a 585-acre wildfire in June 2024, local officials were asked to provide homeless campers with firefighting equipment instead of telling the campers to get out. //

FloridaMan
15 hours ago
somebody's battery operated vehicle (there's no such thing as an electric vehicle) exploded... started the whole shebang...?

The question is, with billions of gallons dropping out of the sky, where does all that water go? Shouldn’t this be enough to end the drought and leave us with oodles of H2O?

Turns out, the answer lies in bad planning, wasted resources and bureaucratic entanglements. Why do I say that? Because most of this water will fly down the LA River and into the ocean, an ephemeral visitor that we fail to capture or effectively utilize. In effect, God is giving us the very answer to one of California’s most vexing problems—and we’re simply letting it slip through our hands. //

Voters in 2018 approved Measure W, which is aimed at improving L.A.’s aging stormwater capture system. Officials are making progress, but experts say there’s a long way to go. Of an estimated 5 billion to 10 billion gallons pouring into the Los Angeles Basin from current storms, only about 20% will be captured by the county. //

Hoi Polloi Boy
7 hours ago
The California State Water Project, as envisioned by Dem Governor Pat Brown back in 60s when dems were still rational, is only 50% built 60 yrs later.
Meanwhile the population has doubled and water is released from major reservoirs to the sea to save the Delta Smelt.

You can't make this stuff up.

Bonchie
@bonchieredstate
·
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The “experts” were left “head-scratching”after Trump suggested to clean up brush and build more infrastructure to store water.

They were perplexed by the most obvious solution imaginable.

Amazing.
9:11 AM · Jan 8, 2025. //

Trump’s suggestions have prompted head-scratching from experts who say his prescriptions — more raking, less water released into the ocean for environmental purposes — suggest he does not understand the science of wildfires. Critics also point out that most of California’s wildlands are federally managed. //

The 2024 budget also included increased funding for forest management and wildfire prevention. The state also has the largest aerial firefighting force in the world. Further, it should be noted that much of the land that burns in California and then spreads to populated areas is federally owned and maintained.

Unfortunately, President Joe Biden's Forestry Service canceled all of its controlled burns last Fall out of worry the agency (and by virtue, the White House) would be blamed if anything went wrong. Yes, the federal government valued protecting itself from scrutiny over the lives and livelihoods of California residents. I'd say that's surprising, but it's not surprising at all.

One of the larger issues that does fall on the shoulders of California's leadership is water management. While rainy winters have helped mostly fill the existing reservoirs over the last several years, the lack of capacity has still led to valuable water flowing into the ocean. California has not built a new reservoir since 1979 despite suffering numerous droughts and wildfires over the years. That isn't lost on voters in the state, who passed Proposition 4 in November, which allocated significant funds to increase capacity that is sorely lacking. Whether that will be followed through on is anyone's guess. //

Trump attempted to change federal government policy to increase water diversions into existing reservoirs as a measure to fight wildfires. He was sued by the State of California and a series of environmental groups. They won an injunction in 2020, stopping his plans to provide more desperately needed water.

Four backcountry airstrips in Idaho’s Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness known as the “Big Creek Four” have been deemed emergency use only as outlined by a recent legal settlement.

The ruling stems from a lawsuit between environmental groups and the U.S. Forest Service, with the State of Idaho intervening on behalf of recreational aviators. In its complaint, environmental advocates have stated that aircraft use of the Big Creek Four is damaging wilderness character, wildlife habitats and the area's legally protected solitude.

The recent ruling notes that the airstrips will remain technically open for emergencies, but recreational access will be prohibited, with both usage and maintenance subject to monitoring—a major setback for recreational flyers. //

bbgun06
A grass strip that is not used recreationally won’t be maintained for emergency use.
I’d hate for a pilot experiencing an emergency to die after attempting a landing there.

scarlson
This is exactly correct. I know many pilots who help maintain back country strips in Idaho and Montana. Pilots are the least impactful on the environment and what exactly is “damaging the wildlife character”? //

jbmcnamee
I would hope that the NPS also banned surface vehicles with ICE motivators, such as four-wheelers, motorcycles, AWD pickups, etc, or this whole thing is pretty much a sham. Ground vehicles do far more damage to the environment that an airplane does. Airplanes don’t leave trails and ruts in the forest, run over animals, possibly spark fires from poorly maintained exhaust pipes or overheated catalytic converters. Pilots rarely leave their trash behind, throw beer bottles and cans in the brush or use the trees and animals as target practice with the gun they brought along “just for fun”. In fact, if you were to ask park rangers what their biggest problems are for keeping the parks “pristine”, i doubt that pilots and airplanes even make the top ten. //

Slipstream
New backcountry rules from people who never leave the city.

Editors of the environmental chemistry journal Chemosphere have posted an eye-catching correction to a study reporting toxic flame retardants from electronics wind up in some household products made of black plastic, including kitchen utensils. The study sparked a flurry of media reports a few weeks ago that urgently implored people to ditch their kitchen spatulas and spoons. Wirecutter even offered a buying guide for what to replace them with.

The correction, posted Sunday, will likely take some heat off the beleaguered utensils. The authors made a math error that put the estimated risk from kitchen utensils off by an order of magnitude. //

While being off by an order of magnitude seems like a significant error, the authors don't seem to think it changes anything. "This calculation error does not affect the overall conclusion of the paper," the correction reads. The corrected study still ends by saying that the flame retardants "significantly contaminate" the plastic products, which have "high exposure potential."

Ars has reached out to the lead author, Megan Liu, but has not received a response. Liu works for the environmental health advocacy group Toxic-Free Future, which led the study.

The study highlighted that flame retardants used in plastic electronics may, in some instances, be recycled into household items.

According to recent reports, TikTok’s carbon footprint might outpace that of the entire country of Greece. Estimates from Greenly, a carbon accounting consultancy based in Paris, show the average TikTok user generating greenhouse gases equivalent to driving an extra 123 miles in a gasoline-powered car each year.

Those figures are more than X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, although both platforms have a significantly larger user base. With its one billion global users, the average TikToker spends 45.5 minutes scrolling, compared to Instagram’s 30.6 minutes a day.

And why is TikTok responsible for such a heavy carbon footprint? It’s all about the addictive algorithm, according to Alexis Normand, the chief executive of Greenly.

According to Bukele, El Salvador may be sitting on unmined gold reserves worth an estimated $3 trillion, approximately 8,800% of the nation’s current GDP.

In a series of posts on social media platform X, Bukele projected that the country potentially has “the largest gold deposits per square kilometer in the world.”.

GOD PLACED A GIGANTIC TREASURE UNDER OUR FEET: El Salvador potentially has the highest density gold deposits per km² in the world. Located in the Pacific Ring of Fire, one of the richest areas in mineral resources thanks to its volcanic activity.

But it isn’t just gold that is important. Studies have identified the presence of a wide range of critical metals and rare earth minerals: Cobalt, lithium, nickel, platinum, iridium, titanium, and germanium. //

The president claims that ‘responsible mining’ can be done, but there is no evidence to support this claim,” Pedro Cabezas, a member of the Central American Alliance against Mining (ACAFREMIN), told Newsweek. “There are no examples of ‘responsible mining’ that haven’t caused serious impacts. The effects in El Salvador would be terrible,” he warned.

But Bukele makes a persuasive case that a richer country is a cleaner country.

“I understand the concern. El Salvador has 95% of its waters polluted. Imagine if we pollute them further; we’ll end up with 97%, 98% contamination. The reality is that when 95% of your rivers are polluted, you shouldn’t focus on saving the remaining 5%, but on recovering the 95% that was lost,” Bukele argued on Thursday. “If we had 95% of our rivers clean, then we could focus on maintaining the status quo.”

“The only thing we can do is invest billions of dollars to clean up the polluted waters. And to have those billions, we need resources that can easily be obtained from mining,” he added, according to Diario El Salvador.

Does recycling work? Sure! On aluminum, cardboard, and glass... but that's about it. Everything else we're "recycling," especially plastics, aren't actually being recycled with in ways that are saving the planet. In fact, every time plastic is recycled, it becomes less and less useable.

“Recycling is an industry that uses increasingly expensive labor to produce materials that are worth less and less,” says John Tierney, author of the New York Times Magazine story "Recycling Is Garbage." //

“If you think of the United States as a football field,” says Tierney, “all the garbage that we will generate in the next 1,000 years would fit inside a tiny fraction of the one-inch line.”

Moreover, if we stopped recycling plastic, the savings we'd have would blow your mind. Stossel says that in his own town, $340 million would be saved a year if the recycling stopped.

Even Greenpeace admits recycling isn't actually doing what people think it is, as Stossel points out in his video.

“It’s appalling that after telling people for three decades to recycle, they don’t even apologize for all the time and money that they wasted,” said Tierney. “Instead, they have a proposal (banning plastic) that will make life even worse.”