SteveKLord

When the Vietnam War finally ended on April 30, 1975, it left behind a landscape scarred with environmental damage. Vast stretches of coastal mangroves, once housing rich stocks of fish and birds, lay in ruins. Forests that had boasted hundreds of species were reduced to dried-out fragments, overgrown with invasive grasses.

Fifty years later, 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.

Although the war spurred new international treaties aimed at protecting the environment during wartime, these efforts failed to compel post-war restoration for Vietnam. Current conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East show these laws and treaties still aren’t effective.

Farming has always been at the mercy of the weather, but recent years have seen unprecedented swings in temperature, rainfall, and storms. Droughts dry up fields, floods wash away seeds, and heatwaves scorch crops. These shifts don’t just threaten harvests—they destabilize farm incomes. Solar energy offers a much-needed anchor. By capturing sunlight, a constant even when the weather is wild, farmers can generate reliable electricity regardless of the season. This newfound consistency helps them weather financial storms even when nature is unpredictable.

Recognizing the benefits of clean energy, many governments now offer attractive incentives for solar adoption. These include grants, low-interest loans, and tax breaks designed to lower upfront costs. For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s REAP program covers up to 50% of solar installation costs. Such support makes the switch to solar not just appealing, but financially feasible for small and large farms alike. It’s a win-win: farmers get affordable energy, and communities enjoy cleaner air.

In a major boon for action film enthusiasts and physical media collectors, Shout! Studios is launching a new entertainment label dedicated to restored Hong Kong cinema classics.

The Hong Kong Cinema Classics line will spotlight a treasure trove of Hong Kong cinematic masterpieces, beginning with digital 4K releases in June before expanding to definitive-edition physical media.

The move comes on the back of Shout! Studios nabbing worldwide rights (excluding select Asian territories) to the coveted Golden Princess movie library.

John Woo’s “Hard Boiled” (starring Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Ringo Lam’s “City on Fire” (starring Chow Yun-Fat, Sun Yueh, and Danny Lee) will begin the digital rollout on June 24. July 8 brings John Woo’s “A Better Tomorrow” trilogy, followed by Tsui Hark’s “Peking Opera Blues” and John Woo’s “The Killer” on July 22. The digital releases continue with Tony Ching’s “A Chinese Ghost Story” trilogy on Aug. 5 and Woo’s “Bullet in the Head” on Aug. 19.

On the physical media front, “The Jet Li Collection” box set launches July 29, followed by Ringo Lam’s “City on Fire” on Aug. 26 and Tsui Hark’s “Peking Opera Blues” on Sept. 23, both as 4K UHD + Blu-ray combo packs. The series will be numbered for collectors, with the five Jet Li films designated as HKCC #1-5, “City on Fire” as HKCC #6, and “Peking Opera Blues” as HKCC #7.

Enter the Evertop, a portable IBM XT emulator powered by an ESP32 that doesn’t just flirt with low power; it basically lives off the grid. Designed by [ericjenott], hacker with a love for old-school computing and survivalist flair, this machine emulates 1980s PCs, runs DOS, Windows 3.0, and even MINIX, and stays powered for hundreds of hours. It has a built-in solar panel and 20,000mAh of battery, basically making it an old-school dream in a new-school shell.

On a beautiful spring day in Gaza, Adli and Mansour are in need of a new pair of shoes. Their economic backgrounds are quite divergent, but they have been close since their schooldays. They pull up on their shared motorcycle outside a local shoe shop and make their way inside on their crutches. Both are excited to try on the latest styles and quickly settle on a pair they both love. They split the cost. Adli pays for the left shoe, which is all he needs, and Mansour pays for the right.

They love that they have the same taste in shoes and the same-sized feet, and they laugh and joke with the shop owner, who has never before seen two customers come in to buy a single pair of shoes.

They tell him about a chilly afternoon when Adli noticed Mansour’s shoe looked worn out. He offered to give Mansour his other sneaker, since he didn’t need it, and they had lost opposite legs in successive Israeli attacks. Mansour was hesitant, but Adli assured him they had the same shoe size and that the shoe would be comfortable and supportive. After trying on the shoe, Mansour realized it was indeed very comfortable, and he accepted Adli’s kind offer. They’ve been sharing shoes ever since.

A new study led by Tulane University backs up that view, revealing stark racial disparities across the U.S.’s petrochemical workforce. Inequity was especially pronounced in Louisiana, where people of color were underrepresented in both high- and low-paying jobs at chemical plants and refineries.

“It was really surprising how consistently people of color didn’t get their fair share of jobs in the petrochemical industry,” said Kimberly Terrell, a research scientist with the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic. “No matter how you slice or dice the data by states, metro areas or parishes, the data’s consistent.”

Toxic air pollution in Louisiana’s petrochemical corridor, an area often referred to as “Cancer Alley,” has risen in recent years. The burdens of pollution have been borne mostly by the state’s Black and poor communities, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

By 2020, the global capacity of PV energy had climbed to 760 gigawatts. Much of this came from installations in leading regions like Asia, Europe, and North America. Most systems were built on open ground—often farmland—stirring concern over their effect on food production and ecosystems.

The widespread use of agricultural land for solar farms has sparked fears of shrinking crop yields and harm to biodiversity. Rural communities have voiced worries too, pointing to risks like fewer farming jobs and increased depopulation.

To ease this tension, researchers have turned to agrivoltaics—an idea that dates back to 1982. This dual-use method allows solar panels and crops to share the same land. Early designs let sunlight reach the plants underneath, preserving growing conditions.

Welcome to Solarpunk USA, a guide to creating a solarpunk future. Solarpunk is much more than art, its a lifestyle we can have now or very soon if we learn how to organize our communities with direct involvement from everyone.

New York Harbor was a haven of incredible underwater biodiversity—until centuries of pollution turned it into a cesspool. Today, an alliance of architects, restaurateurs, scientists, and high school students is working to restore the harbor and protect the city from climate change. At the heart of the effort is a tiny creature with an outsized talent for cleanup: the extraordinary oyster.

You are one of the passengers on a ship that has crashed onto an uninhabited island and have been given a section of the island to turn into your habitat. You have to start from scratch and build it in a way that respects nature and keeps all your necessities within a 15-minute walking distance.

It’s Revolution or Death Part 2: Heads Up, the Revolution is Already Here

State and market solutions to the ecological crisis have only increased the wealth and power of those on top, while greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. Nearly all the experts and professionals are invested, literally, in a framework that is only making things worse. With so much power concentrated in the very institutions that suppress any realistic assessment of the situation, things seem incredibly bleak. But what if we told you that there’s another way? That there are already people all around the world implementing immediate, effective responses that can be integrated into long-term strategies to survive these overlapping, cascading crises?

We spoke with three revolutionaries on the front lines resisting capitalist, colonial projects. Sleydo' from the Gidimt'en clan of the Wet'suwet'en nation, in so-called British Columbia, Isa from the ZAD in the west of France, and Neto, a militant with the Landless Workers’ Movement based in the northeast of so-called Brazil. They share their experiences gained from years of building collective power, defeating repression, and defending the Earth for all its inhabitants and for the generations still to come.

They share stories of solidarity spreading across a continent, of people abandoned to poverty and marginalization reclaiming land, restoring devastated forests, and feeding themselves communally, stories of strangers coming together for their shared survival and a better future, going head to head with militarized police forces and winning. And in these stories we can hear things that are lacking almost everywhere else we look: optimism alongside realism, intelligent strategies for how we can survive, love and empathy for the world around us and for the future generations, together with the belief that we can do something meaningful, something that makes a difference. The joy of revolutionary transformation.

We learn about solutions. Real world solutions. Solutions outside of the control of capitalism and the state.

The Revolution is Already Here.

Your choices do not exist in a vacuum. Earth is an interconnected community of living and non-living things says ethicist Patrick Effiong Ben of the University of Manchester. African philosophers like Jonathan Chimakonam and Aïda Terblanché-Greeff have a helpful concept for thinking through the weightiness of your decisions: complementarity.