 |
|
|
|||||
The war in Gaza has come with an awful cost. Tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed, and thousands more are missing. And while a temporary ceasefire has allowed for increased aid delivery, easing the plight of those facing disease and hunger, experts predict malnutrition and health issues to persist for months or even years. Much of the territorys infrastructureits schools, hospitals, and homeshas been damaged or destroyed. And yet, the tremendous human and societal loss has been augmented by a lesser reported but potentially catastrophic consequence: environmental devastation. In June 2024, the United Nations Environment Programme conducted an environmental impact assessment to evaluate the damage resulting from Israeli military actions in Gaza. It found unprecedented levels of destruction from the intensive bombing campaign, along with the complete collapse of water and solid waste systems, and widespread contamination of the soil, water, and air. And that was before another six months of bombing caused further damage to Gaza. As a scholar of environmental justice, I have thought carefully about the impact that a lack of clean water, access to sanitation facilities, and the absence of basic infrastructure can have on a community, particularly vulnerable and marginalized populations. The current pause in fighting is providing respite for the 2.2 million people in Gaza who have endured more than a year of war. It also provides an opportunity to evaluate the environmental damage to the densely populated enclave in three crucial areas: the water, sanitation and hygiene sector, or WASH; air quality; and waste management. Here is what we know so far: WASH sector According to an interim damage assessment released by the World Bank, U.N., and EU in March 2024, an estimated US$502.7 million of damage was inflicted on the WASH sector in Gaza in the initial months of bombing, including damage to approximately 57% of the water infrastructure. The United Nations reported that water desalination plants in Gaza, 162 water wells, and two of the three water connections with Israels national water provider had been severely damaged. As a result, the amount of available water in Gaza was at that point reduced to roughly 28 liters per person per daybelow the World Health Organization emergency daily minimum of 15 liters and far below its standard recommendation of 50100 liters per day. In November 2024, meanwhile, the charity Oxfam reported that all five wastewater treatment plants in Gaza had been forced to shut down, along with the majority of its 65 wastewater pumping stations. This resulted in ongoing discharges of raw, untreated sewage into the environment. As of June 2024, an estimated 15.8 million gallons of wastewater has been discharged into the environment in and around Gaza, according to the U.N. environmental report. Meanwhile, sanitation facilities for Palestinians in Gaza are practically nonexistent. Reporting from U.N. Women states that people in Gaza routinely walk long distances and then wait for hours just to use a toilet, and due to the lack of water, these toilets cannot be flushed or cleaned. Smoke and clouds of dust rise after an Israeli attack in Gaza City on Jan. 5, 2025. [Photo: Khalil Ramzi Alkahlut/Anadolu/Getty Images] Air quality The air quality in Gaza has been drastically impacted by this war. NASA satellite imagery from the first few months of the war found that approximately 165 fires were recorded in Gaza from October 2023 to January 2024. With a shortage of electricity, residents have been forced to burn various materials, including plastics and household waste, for cooking and heating. And this has contributed to a dangerous decline in air quality. Meanwhile, large amounts of dust, debris, and chemical releases have been produced from explosions and the destruction of infrastructure, leading to significant air pollution. In February 2024, the U.N. Mine Action Service estimated that, in the first few months of the war alone, more than 25,000 tons of explosives had been used, equivalent to two nuclear bombs. Waste management In the first six months of bombardment, more than 39 million tons of debris were generated, much of it likely to contain harmful contaminants, including asbestos, residue from explosives, and toxic medical waste. Human remains are also mixed in with this debris, with estimates that over 10,000 bodies remain under the rubble. Moreover, the three ain landfills in the Gaza Strip have been closed and are unable to receive waste or conflict-related debris. Substantial damage has been done to five out of six solid waste management facilities, and solid waste continues to accumulate at camps and shelters, with an estimate of 1,100 to 1,200 tons being generated daily. The charge of ecocide With such environmental destruction, claims of ecocide have been made against the Israeli government by international rights groups. Although not presently incorporated into the framework of international law, there have been recent efforts for ecocide to be added as a crime under the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court. Indeed, a panel of experts in 2021 proposed a working definition of ecocide as unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment caused by those acts. To date, 15 countries have criminalized ecocide, and Ukraine is investigating Russia for ecocide for its destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in 2023. Various organizations, including the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, the University of California Global Health Institute, and the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom, have stated that the level of environmental devastation in Gaza reaches the proposed legal definition of ecocide. Although the Israeli government has not responded to these accusations, it has consistently stated that it has a right to defend itself and that it seeks to protect civilians as it conducts its military operations. Health impacts of environmental harm Regardless of whether the charge of ecocide applies to Israels bombardment of Gaza, the environmental impact, the spread of disease, and other harmful health impairments will be felt for years to come. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency reported an increase in hepatitis A in the enclave, from 85 cases before the current war to 107,000 cases in October 2024. The WHO has reported 500,000 cases of diarrhea and 100,000 cases of lice and scabies, along with the reemergence of polio. The lack of adequate WASH facilities has also disproportionately affected women and girls by interfering with basic menstrual hygiene, harming their mental and physical health. Meanwhile, the increased presence of dangerous air pollutants has led to increases in respiratory issues, including nearly one million acute respiratory illnesses. Presently, the most common respiratory ailments in Gaza are asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, bronchitis, pneumonia, and lung cancer. Next steps As a licensed environmental engineer, I have never seen the scale of environmental destruction that has occurred in Gaza. While the situation is unprecedented, there are concrete steps that the international community can take to help Gazas environment recover. The three-stage ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which went into effect on January 19, 2025, is a promising first step. This agreement has allowed some Israeli hostages to be released and Palestinian detainees to return to their homes. It also allows for more humanitarian aid to enter Gaza to deal with the current food crisis and health emergency. Nevertheless, there are significant challenges ahead for the people of Gaza. First, the ceasefire agreement will need to holdand already there are signs of difficulty in implementing the agreement in full. Should fighting resume, that will close or delay the opportunity for engineers and surveyors to perform detailed, comprehensive field assessments. Meanwhile, the need for a post-conflict plan for Gaza has never been starker. Recovering from Gazas environmental devastation will require Israel and neighboring countries, as well as influential world powers such as the United States and the European Union, to work together to rebuild critical infrastructure, such as water and wastewater treatment plants and solid waste infrastructure. Moreover, to succeed, any long-term plan for the reconstruction of Gaza will need to prioritize the needs and perspectives of Palestinians themselves. Lesley Joseph is a research assistant professor of environmental engineering at the University of South Carolina. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Category:
E-Commerce
Across the city of Chengdu, China, the quiet but remarkable buildings of Liu Jiakun has slowly pierced through the dominant stereotype of bombastic Chinese architecture. Liu, who has just been named the 2025 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate, has spent the past three decades carefully injecting pieces of socially conscious and transformative architecture into his hometown. Liu’s work includes subtle museums, historically informed preservation projects, and progressive urban projects that blur the edges of private space and public good. In a world that tends to create endless dull peripheries, he has found a way to build places that are a building, infrastructure, landscape and public space at the same time, writes Alejandro Aravena, chair of the Pritzker jury. Novartis (Shanghai) Block – C6 [Photo: courtesy of Arch-Exist] Liu, 69, has a unique background that informs his work. After studying architecture in the late 1970s and early ’80s, he worked at the state-owned Chengdu Architectural Design and Research Institute before volunteering to embed in remote Tibet where he developed a passion for meditation and writing. For a decade he left architecture to write novels and paint. In 1999 he returned to the field and established Jiakun Architects, when he was in his 40s. He now has more than 30 built projects to his name, many located in and around his hometown of Chengdu. In its citation for the 2025 Pritzker Prize, the jury commended Liu for his focus on the creating high-quality buildings for the lives of ordinary people. While density appears to be a more sustainable solution for people to live together, the scarcity of space usually implies a poor quality of life, the jury writes. Liu Jiakun rethinks the fundamentals of density through cohabitation, crafting an intelligent solution that balances the opposite forces at play. West Village [Photo: courtesy Chen Chen] This is especially evident in one of Liu’s standout projects, the West Village mixed use urban complex, which wraps the perimeter of a gigantic city block with a five-story building combining shops, offices, and community spaces. One full side of this megablock is made of a striking crisscross of steel ramps that serve to connect pedestrians and cyclists to the complex’s various spaces while also doubling as an inner city trail. A large courtyard of sports fields and gardens sits inside the built perimeter, with its towering ramps serving as a window frame for the 21-million-person city beyond. West Village [Photo: courtesy Qian Shen Photography] This socially minded work is continuing at an even larger scale in a forthcoming project. Liu’s firm is in the midst of creating a large park from a former steel factory in the city of Hangzhou. Opening once degraded land to the public while also celebrating its industrial heritage, the park strikes a soft balance between history and contemporary urban demands. Liu is just the second Pritzker Prize winner from China, after Wang Shu in 2012. No American has won the prize since 2005.
Category:
E-Commerce
Its not only cryptocurrency investors who are seeing red today. If youre an investor in Elon Musks Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA), the trading day is off to another bad start. Thats because Tesla shares are currently down over 6% to below $267 a share as of the time of this writing. Todays early-morning drop is just the latest one for the electric carmaker since the beginning of the year, with TSLA shares down over 33% in 2025 so far. Increasingly, theyve fallen nearer to an important psychological price barrier: $251, which is where they were trading on November 5, 2024 when President Trump won the election. In other words, Tesla is close to losing all of the gains it had made since Trump’s victory. Exactly why are TSLA shares falling this morning? There are two likely immediate reasons. Tesla sales crash in China in February China is Teslas second most important market after the U.S. However, sales in the country reportedly fell off a cliff last month. In February 2025, Tesla sold just 30,688 cars in China. That is a staggering decline of 49.2% from a year earlier. Its also the lowest number of vehicles Tesla has sold in any month in China since August 2022. However, there are a few onetime events that may have contributed to this drop. First, Tesla had to partially suspend the production of the Model Y in the country due to upgrade work. Second, there was a shift in the Lunar New Year holidays this year, which could have contributed to fewer people car shopping during the February period. However, as Reuters notes, one-offs werent the only reasons behind the fall. During the same month, one of Teslas main Chinese competitors, BYD, reported 614,679 vehicles solda 90.4% increase. Tesla is also facing an EV price war in the country. BYD recently released an EV with driving-assistance technology. The starting price of that vehicle is less than $10,000 USD. Teslas Model Y starts at around $35,000 USD in China. And BYD isnt the only rival Tesla faces in China. Other companies in the country, including Geely and Leapmotor, have recently entered into the EV price wars, heaping more competition on the company. Teslas nearly 50% sales drop in China during the month follows recent falls in other countries. Data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) shows that Tesla has recently seen a 45.2% drop in the European Union, Britain, and the European Free Trade Area. Bank of America downgrades TSLA stock A second bit of news seems to be rattling Tesla investors this morning, too. Bank of America has downgraded Teslas stock price. Previously, BoA held a $490 price target for TSLA shares, but now it’s reduced that target to $380. At $380, thats still about $110 higher than where Tesla is right now, but it’s a huge drop from the nearly $500 price point that BoA previously had on the stock. Its worth noting that Bank of America has maintained its neutral rating on TSLA shares. Trump trade wars and DOGE President Trump’s tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China in the past day may also be weighing on Tesla stock. Those tariffsas well as retaliatory actions taken by America’s three largest trading partnersare spooking markets in general this morning. Economists worry that the tit-for-tat tariffs could signal that the largest economies in the world are on the cusp of a massive trade warone that would not benefit the economies of any country involved, nor the larger global economy. If the global economy worsens, it could lead to consumers pulling back on spending on everything from cars to computers. Todays 6%-plus decline in Teslas stock may also partially be blamed on ongoing worries that Elon Musks political activities and his involvement with the controversial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may be tarnishing the companys brand image beyond repair. Not since Steve Jobs and Apple has one man been so connected to a company in the eyes of the public. If Elon Musks political antics continue to generate anger against the buying publicespecially the affluent, progressive, environmentally conscious consumers who tend to buy his carsinvestors worry those customers may abandon the brand. Where does Tesla go from here? Where TSLA shares go from here is anyones guess. Tesla recently passed a grim milestone last month when it lost its status as a company with a $1 trillion market cap. As of the time of this writing, Tesla is now worth below $900 billion. In December, TSLA shares closed at an all-time high of over $488. They have fallen more than $222 since then.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||