Michael Wilson Becerril

Aug 21, 2023 | truthout.org | Jake Johnson |Farhana Sultana |Michael Wilson Becerril |Luís Martín-Cabrera

Ecuadorians voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to reject oil drilling in a section of Yasuní National Park, the most biodiverse area of the imperiled Amazon rainforest. Nearly 60% of Ecuadorian voters backed a binding referendum opposing oil exploration in Block 43 of the national park, which is home to uncontacted Indigenous tribes as well as hundreds of bird species and more than 1,000 tree species.

Jun 8, 2023 | truthout.org | Derek Seidman |Luís Martín-Cabrera |Tamara Pearson |Michael Wilson Becerril

A global boom in the production of electric vehicles (EVs) propelled by battery power instead of internal combustion engines is imminent. Worldwide, around 14 percent of all new cars sold in 2022 were electric, up from less than 5 percent in 2020. In the U.S., electric car sales increased from 0.2 percent in 2011 to 4.6 percent in 2021, and then jumped to 8 percent in 2022. Analysts predict that number could rise to 40 percent or more by 2030.

May 2, 2023 | truthout.org | Tamara Pearson |Ella Fassler |Michael Wilson Becerril |Sharon Zhang

Activists from Mexico are decrying the plan as a prime example of “colonial extractivism.”People were lining up with buckets to get water from a truck last year in Monterrey, Mexico, as two of the city’s three dams almost completely dried up. Now Tesla has plans to build a huge electric car “gigafactory” in that same water-insecure city. A gigafactory is Tesla’s term for its massive assembly and parts plants.