This is the website page in The Multiplural World of ‘Ecology news headlines and analysis’ for the current month of May 2025. Items with red headlines indicate they were published in full on the home page of the website; notice of these are emailed to website subscribers. Comments and information in square brackets [ ] are by the website editors. Ecology news headlines for the month of April 2025 are archived here; all previous months of ‘Ecology news headlines and analysis’ (since March 2024) are archived here.
Ecology news and analysis, May 2025
Wildfires force thousands to flee homes across Western Canada, Globe and Mail, May 31, 2025 (here in pdf format: Wildfires force thousands to flee homes across Western Canada) [The wildfires in western Canada continue to grow. As of June 2, the number of evacuees in the hardest hit province of Manitoba was nearly 20,000, while 10,000 are displaced in neighbouring Saskatchewan. Many of them live in remote and impoverished First Nations where access and evacuations are difficult to conduct. The town of La Ronge, Saskatchewan, population 5,000, 400 km north of Saskatoon, was evacuated on June 3 as fire began entering on that date. ].
Related: Canada wildfires force 17,000 to evacuate, with smoke billowing into the United States, Washington Post, May 29, 2025 (here in pdf format: Canada wildfires force 17,000 to evacuate, with smoke blowing into the U.S.) …At least 1.54 million acres (623,256 hectares) have burned so far this year. Last year, the total area burned in all of Canada was 13 million acres (5.3 million hectares). In 2023, Canada shattered its wildfire record with more than 42 million acres (17.3 million hectares) burned, more than double the previous record. The fires also brought record-breaking air pollution to the United States. A study published last year found that the frequency and magnitude of extreme wildfires around the globe has doubled since 2003 due to global warming…
Groundwater supplies are plunging across the Colorado River Basin, The Hill, May 28, 2025
Scientists in Canada recommend that snowy owl be listed as a threatened species, Canadian Press, May 25, 2025 ….”The snowy owl nests in the Arctic region which has one of the fastest-warming climates on the planet. In addition, when the snowy owl heads south for the winter, it faces many additional threats — collisions, electrocution, rodenticide poisoning, and diseases such as avian influenza,” explains a news release by a sub-committee of The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife In Canada, an advisory body to the Canadian government…
In China’s Hainan province, a cancer treatment revolution is taking place, South China Morning Post, May 24, 2025 (here in pdf format: In China’s Hainan province, a cancer treatment revolution is taking place)
Landmark global study debunks ‘lab leak’ theory, finds Covid-19 virus did not originate in Wuhan, The Multiplural World, May 24, 2025 (This report was originally published in the South China Morning Post on May 23, 2025. To date, the newspaper is the only major news publication in the world to report this story! This posting includes related readings on the subject of the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic.)
Soybean and pork exports to China from U.S. plunge to zero or near-zero in the wake of the U.S. trade war, South China Morning Post, May 23, 2024
U.S. states and cities fear a disaster season full of unknowns amid federal cuts, New York Times, May 21, 2025 (here in pdf format: U.S. states and cities fear this year’s a disaster season amid federal cuts to emergency services)
Drought, rising temperatures, a century of forest clear-cutting, and the culture of global warming denial all threaten the Rocky Mountain towns of oil-rich Alberta. Report by Matthew Scace, The Canadian Press, May 19, 2025 (here in pdf format, with explanatory notes: Another year of wildfire threat in the rocky Mountain towns of oil-fouled Alberta)
Background: Jasper, Alberta is the latest victim of Canada’s government-led, global warming denial, commentary by Gillian Steward, columnist, in Toronto Star, July 29, 2024 (here in pdf format: Jasper, Alberta is the latest victim of government-led, global warming denial in Canada) [It will take weeks to put out the last of the fires in Jasper and remove the vast amounts of toxic waste created. As of August 1, there is no date when residents may safely return to the town.]
Chart showing air cargo is by far the dirtiest way to move freight:
The land under the largest cities in the United States is sinking, Washington Post, May 12, 2025 (paywalled) … Researchers have mapped how land is subsiding vertically across the 28 most populous U.S. cities. Twenty-five of them are dropping across two-thirds of their land, with about 34 million people (about ten per cent of the U.S. population) living in the subsiding areas, according to the study published Thursday in Nature Cities… Subsidence has typically been a high concern in coastal cities, but the researchers say sinking land inland can destabilize infrastructure as well as worsen flooding during storms…
The richest ten per cent in the world are responsible for two-thirds of global warming, Yale Environment 360, May 7, 2025 The wealthiest 10 percent of people on earth have fueled two-thirds of the warming since 1990, according to research published in Nature Climate Change on May 7 (12-pages). The top one per cent alone are responsible for one-fifth of warming, not just by using more energy, authors say, but by investing in industries such as fossil fuels that are driving up emissions…
Fifty years later, Vietnam’s environment still bears the scars of war and signals a dark future for Gaza and Ukraine, essay by Pamela McElwee (Rutgers University, New Jersey), published in The Conversation, Apr 28, 2025 …Fifty years following the defeat of the U.S in Vietnam in 1975, Vietnam’s degraded ecosystems and dioxin-contaminated soils and waters still reflect the long-term ecological consequences of the war. Efforts to restore these damaged landscapes and even to assess the long-term harm have been limited… ‘The American War in Vietnam is a reminder that failure to address ecological consequences, both during war and after, has harsh, long-term effects. What remains in short supply is the political will to ensure that these impacts are neither ignored nor repeated.
[How odd that this rare report on the aftermath of the American War in Vietnam, originally published ten days ago, has not been re-published in any environmental publication. Actually, that is not odd. It is further confirmation that the environmental movement dating from the late 20th century and early 21st century has disappeared into a vortex of self-imposed prejudice and hate against Russia and China. This couples with the failure of this same environmental movement to recognize the imperative of degrowth as the path to salvation from the capitalist expansionism and imperialist wars that are killing the Earth and the humans who inhabit it.]
Hong Kong scientists make breakthrough on needle-free flu vaccine with more protection, South China Morning Post, May 8, 2025 (here in pdf format: Hong Kong scientists make breakthrough on needle-free flu vaccine providing more protection)
Scientists hail the medical breakthrough of mRNA vaccine technology, but the right-wing storm in global politics threaten to cripple it. Report in New York Times, May 7, 2025 Therapies involving mRNA vaccine technology, which was key to the success of Covid vaccines, hold great potential in treating several diseases. But some lawmakers in the U.S. want to ban them and the government is cutting funding. (Read the report here in pdf format: The right-wing storm in global politics threaten to cripple mRNA vaccine technology)
Related: Scientists say NIH officials told them to scrub mRNA references on grants, Kaiser Health News, March 11, 2025 Officials at the National Institutes of Health in the United States are urging scientists to remove all references to mRNA vaccine technology from their grant applications in a move that signals the agency might abandon a promising field of medical research. The mRNA technology is under study at the NIH for prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, including flu and AIDS, and also cancer. The technology was deployed in the development of Covid-19 vaccines credited with saving three million lives in the U.S. alone…
Climate change, once a big issue, absent from Canada’s recent election, New York Times, April 26, 2025 (here in pdf format: Climate change, once a big issue, absent from Canada’s recent election)
[This report in the New York Times writes that newly elected prime minister of Canada Mark Carney “has a decades-long pedigree in climate policy”. Ha ha, good one. Mark Carney is an investment banker by trade. The government he now leads joined with its imperialist partners in late 2021 to provoke a proxy war in Ukraine precisely to avoid any meaningful action to mitigate global warming. The timing said it all. The COP26 UN Climate Change Conference took place in Glasgow, Scotland, from October 31 to November 12, 2021. This was yet another world gathering voicing the demands of the world’s population to ‘do something’ to mitigate global warming. As in 1914, the world’s capitalist rulers decided that war would be the ‘best remedy’ for the crisis of credibility they were facing. The anti-Russia and anti-China prejudices of leaders of the environmental movement and the political ‘left’ in the Western countries joined in and made this project rather easy. This did the political left as inherited from the 20th century willingly committed political suicide; it is dead and gone. As a result, environmental and left-wing politics in the West must now be rebuilt anew.]
Rising summer heat in Japan will limit outdoor sports activity, South China Morning Post, May 4, 2025 By 2060, summer temperatures in Japan could become so dangerously high that outdoor sports for children may need to be suspended entirely during parts of July and August. Of the 153 weather stations across Japan, 80 reported unprecedented high temperatures in the summer of 2024 and 120 confirmed record-high autumn heat. Summer temperatures in Japan could become 5.1 degrees Celsius hotter by the end of the century, with urban areas experiencing increases of up to 6.2 degrees. (Read the report here in pdf format: Rising summer heat in Japan will limit outdoor sports activity)
Seventy five percent of North America’s bird species are in decline, study says, Washington Post, May 1, 2025 Birds are rapidly vanishing from North America, including dramatic population losses in places that were once thought safe (here in pdf format: Seventy five percent of North America’s bird species are in decline)
