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British climate finance largess in Brazil Channel News brendan 11th May 2026 Teaser Media

The last federal transportation law gave states more than enough money to fix every crumbling highway and bridge in America — but a disturbing share of departments of Transportation sunk that windfall into expanding highways instead, a new report found. And unless Congress learns from its mistakes and finally requires transportation officials to “fix it first,” we will continue to set billions of taxpayer dollars on fire.

A stunning 16.3 percent of U.S. roads that were eligible for federal money were still rated in “poor” condition in 2024, according to a recent Transportation for America analysis — despite Congress providing state DOTs with $56.8 billion in largely unrestricted transportation funds that year alone, and nearly $1.5 trillion over the 30 years prior.

Experts say it would take $43.2 billion per year to maintain all of the country’s existing roads in “acceptable” condition, or roughly 23 percent less than Congress authorized annually under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

And the authors of the report say the waste may be even worse than it seems.

Because increasingly lax reporting standards conceal broken roads from public view, and DOTs routinely mis-categorize expensive expansion projects as simple “maintenance” or lump them into a mysterious “other” category, Transportation for America suspects the national highway network is actually even more drastically overbuilt than it appears on paper.

That means that even a steep increase federal dollars may not be enough to repair our rapidly expanding transportation network — at least without using that money to shift people onto modes other than driving and take pressure off our battered asphalt.

“We’re still adding to the system faster than we’re able to take care of it,” said Mehr Mukhtar, the group’s senior policy associate. “We’re still seeing inconsistencies and a lack of transparency in reporting standards. And all of this just leads us to the conclusion that until we see a meaningful shift in our priorities, and in how we’re tying our spending to our outcomes, the backlog of roads in poor conditions is going to persist — and likely it’s going to worsen.”

Mukhtar traces much of America’s pothole crisis to a long-standing tradition of giving states broad latitude over how they spend their federal “formula” dollars, or grants doled out to DOTs based on a pre-determined government calculation.

In the absence of federal rules to rein them in, many states pick ribbon-cuttings for new and “improved” — i.e., widened — highways over the unsexy work of repaving the lanes they already have, even if those lanes are falling apart.

A whopping 24 states chose to spend less than $2.35 on maintenance for every dollar they spent on expansion — a ratio that Transportation for America says is alarming — despite the fact that those states have a higher share of roads in poor condition than the national average.

Worse, experts say those expansions won’t come close to accomplishing the goals they’re theoretically supposed to achieve. Decades of research has shown that widening roads does nothing to fix traffic jams over the long term, encourages drivers to fill newly added lanes, and saddles communities with compounding long-term maintenance obligations that they can’t keep up with.

It’s a little like adding a ballroom to a house when the roof is so leaky that rain is pouring in — except that ballroom is somehow accelerating a traffic violence crisis that claims nearly 40,000 lives a year, super-charging climate change, and amplifying income inequality by reducing access to jobs, rather than, say, hosting waltzes.

“That’s fiscally irresponsible, and it’s a burden on taxpayer dollars,” Mukhtar added.

Of course, not all states are neglecting their maintenance backlog in favor of climate arson — and some of them are even offsetting the worst offenders.

Communities like North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Vermont won applause from the report’s authors for strong repair-to-expansion ratios, which helped bring their average road conditions above the national average — though, to be fair, many of those states have a high share of depopulated rural roads that need less-frequent maintenance than highly trafficked urban arterials. Still, Mukhtar credited those communities with lowering America’s total share of roads and bridges in poor condition by three percentage points between 2018 and 2024.

But she warned that extremely modest progress won’t be enough to outrun America’s looming maintenance obligations. The report says every new lane-mile of highway built will cost future taxpayers $47,300 per year to maintain in good condition — roughly the cost of a year’s out-of-state tuition at a decent public university — and America built 119,257 of them in the six years the researchers analyzed.

Worse, even some of the “good” states are still delaying maintenance until its bridges are on the brink of collapse, driving maintenance costs well above the average. Mukhtar pointed to Michigan, whose maintenance spending, which looks impressive on paper, actually masks the fact that the Wolverine State tends to postpone repaving until roads are so bad that they need to be totally rebuilt.

“With the costs of construction ballooning and inflation rising, even those same dollars don’t get stretched as far now as they would have decades ago, if [states] started prioritizing repair earlier,” she said.

With the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act due to expire on Sept. 30, Mukhtar said Congress has a rare opportunity to restore sanity to the transportation system and finally require states to “fix it first,” rather than adding endless new ballrooms to a falling-down house.

That might look like setting “tangible goals, such as reducing the backlog by half,” requiring federal agencies to collect better data on the actual condition of roads, and establishing enforceable mandates that state DOTs be more transparent about how taxpayer dollars are spent.

And until they actually do, no voter should believe a politician who pledges to “fix America’s crumbling roads and bridges” — because nearly $57 billion a year later, they still haven’t done so.

“Whenever a transportation bill is passed, we hear the same thing come out of Congress time and time again: the same rhetoric about fixing crumbling roads and bridges, and why we need to increase funding,” said Mukhtar. “But I think what we need to see this time around are enforceable requirements, which actually compel states to spend that money on fixing it first.”

• The Guardian asked experts how to fix traffic-choked cities, especially in light of high gas prices. The answers: Expand and improve transit, create more space for pedestrians and cyclists, focus on providing alternatives for commuters traveling into the city core from car-centric suburbs, and address the reasons why people choose to drive, such as service hours and safety concerns.
• Uber is shifting tactics away from fighting with local governments and labor unions as it seeks to roll out robotaxis, according to Axios. Meanwhile, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating Uber partner Avride after at least 16 documented autonomous vehicle crashes (Tech Crunch).
• Urban trees counter half the heat island effect from climate change in cities, but less so in poorer neighborhoods, according to a new study. (Associated Press)
• Seattle’s Sound Transit adopted a two-decade plan to close a $34 billion budget gap in future capital projects. (KOMO)
• The first Vision Zero report from Indianapolis indicates that traffic deaths fell to 85 last year from a high of 120 in 2021, but a number of major roads remain dangerous. (WTHR)
• Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell, whose major accomplishment has been passing the “Choose How You Move” transit expansion referendum, will run for re-election. (News Channel 6)
• San Antonio is considering dropping speed limits on neighborhood streets from 30 miles per hour to 25, but in places where it’s already been done, it hasn’t had an effect on driver behavior. (Report)
• Amtrak is adding cars to its Missouri River Runner route to accommodate additional riders traveling to the World Cup in Kansas City. (Mass Transit)
• Construction on Baltimore’s long-awaited Purple Line is complete, but service won’t begin until late 2027 at the earliest. (Maryland Matters)
• An Omaha traffic reporter is still out of work after having been hit by two different drivers in separate crashes; one as a pedestrian, one while she was behind the wheel. (KETV)
• Cincinnati’s Red Bike bikeshare had a record number of users in 2026. (CityBeat)
• Kansas City opened a new bike and pedestrian bridge on Grand Boulevard. (Fox 4)
• Lime introduced a new type of bikeshare bike in Seattle that looks like a scooter with pedals. (Seattle Bike Blog)
• Pending the governor’s signature, South Carolina recently became the first East Coast state to adopt the “Idaho stop,” allowing cyclists to proceed through a yield sign or red light when it’s safe to do so. (Palmetto Walk Bike)
• A lot of people like to ride the D: The new Metro line in Los Angeles opened last weekend to great fanfare. (Streetsblog LA)

In a triumphal move back toward democratic rule, Hungary's new leader Péter Magyar took his oath of office Saturday in a "regime-change" ceremony rich with symbolism before thousands of jubilant constituents. The sense of a hopeful new political era resonated in Magyar's tribute to a victory for "ordinary, flesh-and-blood people" - and in the gleeful moves and air guitar of unstoppable "dancing machine" and new Health Minister Zsolt Hegedűs. Lookit this guy boogie. Damn, we can't wait.

The day's celebration" marked Magya's stunning defeat last month of authoritarian Viktor Orbán after 16 years in power. A 45-year-old lawyer who founded the center-right Tisza party in 2024, Magyar won a two-thirds majority over Orbán’s nationalist Fidesz party, which will allow him to roll back many of Orbán’s policies. Tisza now controls 141 seats in the 199-seat Parliament, with over a quarter held by women; Fidesz won 52 seats, down from 135, and far-right Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) took six. Magyar has vowed to restore democratic institutions, clamp down on corruption, repair ties with the EU, where Orbán often vetoed key decisions including support for Ukraine, and unlock about $20 billion of EU funds to help jump-start Hungary's struggling economy,

Magya was sworn in at the sprawling Parliament building as tens of thousands of Hungarians gathered outside in Kossuth Square. Marking the sea change his victory represents, the EU flag flew for the first time since Orbán’ removed it in 2014, and the Beethoven-inspired European anthem Ode to Joy, symbolizing peace and solidarity, rang out. "Today, every freedom-loving person in the world would like to be Hungarian a little," Magya told the crowd in a message aimed at healing the deep divisions of Orbán's rule. "You have taught (the) world that the most ordinary, flesh-and-blood people can defeat the most vicious tyranny...Today is the fulfillment of a long journey made together (to) once again be a common homeland for all Hungarians."

As the party went all day and into the night - when Magyar took on DJ duties - the high point of its joy and fervor may have come after Magyar's speech when Zsolt Hegedűs, unable to restrain himself, broke out into dancing as the singer Jalja began performing The Hanging Tree: "Strange things have happened here." Hungary's new 56-year-old Health Minister and an internationally recognised orthopaedic surgeon who spent 10 years working for the UK's NHS, Hegedűs had already gone viral last month when, on stage after Magyar's landslide victory, he busted out some fiery dance moves and air guitar in his excitement. This time, he said he wasn't planning a repeat performance. Then the music started...And 140 Party members joined in.

"I could see the audience had been waiting for this," he said. "I didn’t want to let down the people.” So off he went, delighting everyone (except, possibly, his kids if he has any) with his slick moves. The next day, he ascribed it all to his "emotional roller-coaster" since Magyar's victory, with his chance to repair Hungary's health care system, take down Orbán's hate-mongering propaganda, urge people to focus on their mental health. "It's not that I'm going to start dancing in Parliament, but I want (to) encourage people to adopt a healthy lifestyle...Go outside, dance, be together," he said. "The weight has begun to lift from people’s shoulders." America, weary, ravaged, hungry for peace, just imagine the miracle of it. And for now enjoy his glee.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Join us on May 21st at 6:30pm for a panel on Radicals, Realists, and Repression: The State of Activism in the US. The panel will feature Prof. Thomas Zeitzoff, professor…

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, May 3, 2026 thru Sat, May 9, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category:

Climate Change Impacts (6 articles)

• The ramifications of record-shattering heat on the West`s ecosystems Not only did Western US locations set new March highs but many exceeded temperature records for May, according to Climate Central scientist Zachary Lab. Grist, Christine Peterson, May 02, 2026.
• Flooding in Chicago Is Getting Worse. Here`s Why. Over the past century in Chicago, the likelihood of heavy rainstorms has increased sevenfold. Inside Climate News, Brett Chase, May 04, 2026.
• `Point of no return`: New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level, study finds Louisiana’s cultural hotspot could be surrounded by Gulf of Mexico before end of this century, authors say The Guardian, Oliver Milman, May 04, 2026.
• Dangerous heavy rains are getting more likely and widespread Seven of the top 11 highest-volume precipitation events over the past 77 years have occurred just in the past 10 years. Yale Climate Connections, Jeff Masters, May 04, 2026.
• New Study Shows Risks of Amazon Deforestation. And Rewards of Protection. Researchers examined the combined effects of tree loss and global warming in an effort to better understand how and when an ecosystem collapse could unfold. NYT, Sachi Kitajima Mulkey, May 06, 2026.
• Our Oceans Are Tipped To Collapse: Can we still act? ClimateAdam on Youtube, Adam Levy, May 8, 2026.

Climate Science and Research (6 articles)

• Benjamin Santer: Speaking Science to Power Youtube, College of the Holy Cross, Mar 27, 2026.
• Climate scientist finds large errors in a global climate pollution database New research from Northern Arizona University found that a global greenhouse gas emissions database produced by the Climate TRACE consortium is underestimating vehicle carbon dioxide emissions in cities by an average of 70%. Phys.org, Gaby Clark, May 05, 2026.
• Climate models struggling to capture human impact on storm tracks Models are accurately capturing the impact of a warmer atmosphere holding more moisture, but struggling to represent the shift in atmospheric circulation patterns caused by human emissions, which ultimately determine where the rain falls. The Guardian, Kate Ravilious, May 06, 2026.
• Skeptical Science New Research for Week #19 2026 Our regular weekly scan of scientific, NGO and government research publications on matters pertaining to climate change. Skeptical Science, Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack , May 07, 2026.
• Why fears are growing over the fate of a key Atlantic current Mounting evidence suggests the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current may be nearing a tipping point, though the research is far from certain. The Daily Climate, Nicola Jones, May 08, 2026.
• Antarctic sea ice defied global warming for decades - now, hidden ocean heat is breaking through 'Antarctica was long considered a part of the climate system expected to change slowly. The speed of the recent sea ice decline has therefore come as a shock.'' The Conversation, Aditya Narayanan, May 08, 2026.

Miscellaneous (5 articles)

• Two months in, the Iran war has changed the global energy system forever The conflict may be the beginning of the end of fossil fuel dominance and a clear opening for accelerated energy modernization. Grist, Jake Bittle, May 01, 2026.
• 2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #18 A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 26, 2026 thru Sat, May 2, 2026. Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler & Doug Bostrom, May 3, 2026.
• Why we need to treat Earth like a spaceship 'On Earth, there is no mission control – only us.'' The Conversation, Chris Rapley, May 06, 2026.
• Faster slaughterhouse line speeds are increasingly a climate problem Worker safety, animal welfare and climate concerns overlap in ways that are not immediately obvious. The Daily Climate, EHN Curators, May 07, 2026.
• EGU2026 - Five days of virtual learning This is the diary our team member Bärbel Winkler wrote over the past week while participating online in a large scientific conference. Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler, May 9, 2026.

Climate Policy and Politics (3 articles)

• DeBriefed 1 May 2026: Countries chart path away from fossil fuels | China`s clean-tech surge | Global forest loss slows Countries attending a first-of-its-kind summit have walked away with plans to develop national “roadmaps” to move away from fossil fuels, along with new tools to address subsidies and carbon-intensive trade. Carbon Brief, Daisy Dunne, May 01, 2026.
• Hard choices test breakaway climate summit A first-of-its-kind conference that focused on phasing out fossil fuels now confronts the challenge of turning plans into policy. Politico, Sara Schonhardt, May 01, 2026.
• Trump’s NOAA cuts would save less than a day and a half of Iran War spending Administration's incoherent and/or ignorant national security policy exposed by funding priorities. Heated, Emily Atkin, May 7, 2026.

Climate Education and Communication (2 articles)

• Spiralling global temperatures A decade later... Climate Lab Book, Ed Hawkins, May 8, 2026.
• A look back at `An Inconvenient Truth,` 20 years later Al Gore’s famous documentary has mostly stood the test of time. Yale Climate Connections, Dana Nuccitelli, May 08, 2026.

Health Aspects of Climate Change (2 articles)

• Extreme heat is a growing threat to health, jobs and food security in southern Africa - study looks for practical solutions The Conversation, Jerome Amir Singh & Caradee Yael Wright, May 03, 2026.
• How climate change makes your allergies worse As pollen season worsens, allergies compound with other climate health hazards. Ars Technica, Keerti Gopal, May 08, 2026.

Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation (1 article)

• States are demanding property insurance records to study climate change State insurance regulators are undertaking the most comprehensive analysis of the nation’s battered property-insurance market to try to understand how climate change is affecting the price and availability of coverage. Poltico E&E Daily Climate, Saqib Rahim, May 01, 2026.

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Science (1 article)

• Despite big storms, U.S. winters are still warming Events like the January 23rd storm capture headlines and attention, but they don’t occur often enough to outweigh the long-term influence of human-caused global warming on U.S. winter temperatures. climate.us, Rebecca Lindsey, Jan 01, 2031.

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Solutions (1 article)

• Fact brief - Were the 2022 whale deaths off the US East Coast caused by offshore wind development? No - The 2022 whale deaths have not been linked to offshore wind surveys or construction. Research has found no evidence of wind farms driving whale deaths, and responsibly developed wind farms avert systemic harms of fossil fuels. Skeptical Science, Sue Bin Park, May 4, 2026.

Climate Law and Justice (1 article)

• Event With Links to Oil Industry Teaches Judges "Healthy Skepticism" of Climate Science As congressional Republicans accuse climate scholars and lawyers of colluding to influence the judiciary, a symposium hosted by a center funded by the fossil fuel industry injects free market ideology into courts. ProPublica, Abrahm Lustgarten, May 02, 2026.

If you happen upon high quality climate-science and/or climate-myth busting articles from reliable sources while surfing the web, please feel free to submit them via this Google form so that we may share them widely. Thanks!

Two high-profile water crises, juiced up by climate change and industrial overuse, are building in the U.S. From a city in Texas staring down a drought emergency to a decades-long political crisis coming to a head for the states that rely on the Colorado River, water issues in the West will take center stage this summer — and experts tell WIRED that other places should take notes and start planning ahead for their own future.

In February, following a winter of record-breaking heat, snowpack in various mountain ranges across the American West reached record lows. March came in even hotter, smashing records in states across the region.

“What happened in March was unprecedented and stunning and disturbing and out of this world, frankly — we had temperatures the likes of which we have never seen and couldn’t have happened without human-caused climate change,” said Brad Udall, a senior water and climate researcher at Colorado State University’s Colorado Water Center. “We had a crummy snowpack that went from crummy to god-awful in three weeks.”

This snowmelt crisis is having dire impacts on the Colorado River, one of the most crucial water sources in the West, which provides water for 40 million people across seven states. River flow in some areas on the Colorado had slowed to a trickle last week, thanks to the early snowmelt this year.

Read Next The West’s unprecedented winter could fuel a summer of disaster Tik Root

The Colorado River isn’t just a crucial water supply: It also provides power for more than 25 million people through dams at Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the two largest reservoirs in the country. Low water levels in those reservoirs spell trouble for electricity generation. As of Tuesday morning, Lake Mead was sitting at just 17 feet above its record low level, set in July of 2022.

This record dry season is also colliding with a decades-long political crisis on the Colorado River. For years, the states drawing water from the river have sparred over how to equitably divide the supply from the river, as the growth of agriculture and a series of climate-charged droughts have begun threatening the long-term water supply. Alfalfa for cattle feed is the biggest consumer of water from the Colorado, using more water than all of the cities along the river combined. States have missed key deadlines, including one in February, to renegotiate the Colorado River Compact of 1922, which regulates how water in the region is distributed. Each state gets an annual allotment, and the total amount of water is supposed to be divided evenly between an upper basin and a lower basin.

Earlier this month, following dire projections for the summer, the U.S. Interior Department stepped in, announcing a series of actions intended to keep hydropower at Lake Powell running. The government acknowledges that this could lessen hydropower at Lake Mead as well as water availability in states along the lower part of the river.

With all this chaos, there’s a chance, Udall said, that this season’s scarce water could cause a historic first in the next few years: States in the upper basin of the river could fail to deliver enough water to states in the lower basin, violating the 1922 agreement for the first time. This could trigger a potential lawsuit between states.

“What’s frustrating to somebody like myself is this is all foreseeable,” said Udall. “Those of us who are kind of in the know, and that includes a lot of people in the Colorado River Basin, have seen something like this coming for a long, long time.”

Read Next In Texas, Corpus Christi’s water crisis may be a glimpse into the future Rebecca Egan McCarthy

Even with this dire set of circumstances, it’s unlikely that the millions of people who rely on the Colorado River will reach Day Zero, the term for when municipal water sources run dry. No U.S. city has ever gotten to that point.

However, there’s a region that could be inching closer to this kind of catastrophe. Officials in Corpus Christi, the eighth-largest city in Texas, said last week that the city is set to reach a Level 1 drought emergency — what it defines as 180 days of water demand outpacing supply — by September. Some projections say that, barring major weather patterns that bring more rain, municipal water sources could run dry by next year.

People living in Corpus Christi are already under restrictions for their water use, including limits on lawn watering and car washing. Residential water bills also increased by an average of just under $5 this year. City officials said that industrial customers would be asked to cut use by 25 percent in September.

“We don’t want to wreck our economy,” Corpus Christi city manager Peter Zanoni told NBC News of the decision to wait until September to declare a Level 1 drought emergency, which would force those industrial customers to curb their use. “We don’t want to have operations close down.”

Corpus Christi’s water supplies come overwhelmingly from surface water sources. Two of the most important local sources — the Choke Canyon Reservoir and Lake Corpus Christi — have reached critically low levels over the past few years as drought has gripped the region. As of Tuesday, they were sitting at 7.4 percent full and 8.7 percent full, respectively.

Read Next Arizona’s water is drying up. That’s not stopping the data center rush. Jake Bittle

Many of the city’s problems stem from industrial water use. Corpus Christi is a major petrochemical hub, and the largest industrial consumer of water in the area, according to permit statistics obtained by Inside Climate News, is a joint Exxon Mobil and Saudi Basic Industries Corporation plastics plant. The plant used an average of 13.5 million gallons of water each day between 2022 and 2024. The average residential customer, according to the city, uses 6,000 gallons per month. (Exxon Mobil did not return a request for comment.)

The city has discussed building a desalination plant to provide water to its industrial customers — including the Exxon plant, which began operating in 2022 — for years. But the project’s potential costs ballooned to more than $1 billion, while residents expressed concerns about the ecological impacts the plant could have. Last year, regulators voted to pass on the project, with no backup plan for water supply in place. On Wednesday, the Houston Chronicle reported that Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s office had denied Corpus Christi additional funding for a separate desalination plant.

“Some lessons to learn from this situation that are important for a lot of cities, especially in the Southwest, is that water infrastructure projects are getting more expensive with time,” said Shane Walker, director of the Water and the Environment Research Center at Texas Tech University. “If you think you can wait around and get a cheaper deal on a water infrastructure project, it’s probably the opposite.”

This push and pull between attracting business and what a city can maintain waterwise, Walker said, is a common tension for city planners. As more cities in Texas see population growth — and struggle with planning out their water needs — more of them need to be thinking much farther ahead.

“You have to think of a 20-year time horizon as urgent,” Walker said. “If you’re relying on groundwater — groundwater is a finite resource. Lakes are vulnerable to drought. What’s your alternative supply?”

There could be some short- and medium-term relief for both Corpus Christi and the Colorado River. At a water update briefing last week, Zanoni said that recent rains had been “beneficial” to the region, helping to boost water levels in Lake Texana, another water source for the city. Udall said that recent wet weather has also helped stabilize some conditions out West. And the upcoming El Niño phenomenon — forecast to be one of the most intense El Niños on record — could bring a heavy monsoon season to the West this summer.

But both the municipal situation in Corpus Christi and the regional crisis for the Colorado River have specific similarities: a lack of attention to slow-building problems, exacerbated by industrial use. Climate change is pushing water crises like these to a new type of breaking point.

“Around the world we’ve seen climate change events that are really big and massive,” Udall said of the crisis on the Colorado River. “Maybe this is the first worldwide climate change crisis that’s going to force really fundamental policy-level decisions to be made, and fundamental changes in how we operate. Seven states, two nations, 40-plus million people, a whole bunch of farmers, and major cities are going to have to completely rethink how they use this resource.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline This summer, the American water crisis becomes real on May 10, 2026.

Headline News:

• “Why Rolls-Royce Is Hiring Cabinet Makers And Tattoo Artists To Build Its Cars” • Last month, British automaker Rolls-Royce showed off what is called “Project Nightingale.” It is a car, the company’s new, electric two-seater. Production begins at the factory in Goodwood, England, next year, but there’s one catch: all 100 units are already sold. [ABC News]

Project Nightingale (Rolls-Royce image)

• “Two Years After Completion, Plant Vogtle Still Looms Over The Nuclear Debate” • As states across the country weigh a new wave of nuclear energy, many in Georgia urge caution. Plant Vogtle’s newest reactors came online there two years ago. The customers are paying for the project, and many say they are not getting their money’s worth. [Inside Climate News]
• “‘Triple Whammy’: Antarctica’s Sea Ice Collapse Is No Longer A Mystery” • A study found that deep ocean heat, strong winds, and a self-reinforcing feedback loop have destabilized the ocean around Antarctica since 2015. Researchers warn that the losses could disrupt ocean currents, accelerate warming, and add to rising sea levels worldwide. [Euronews]
• “Gujarat Launches 870 MW Of Battery Storage for Stable Renewable Power” • Gujarat commissioned 870 MW of battery storage in five sites. This capacity is crucial for a more resilient renewable power grid capable of integrating intermittent solar and wind sources. The initiative upholds the Gujarat Integrated Renewable Energy Policy. [Whalesbook]
• “Microsoft Weighs Abandoning Renewable Energy Target In AI Boom” • Microsoft is in the spotlight amid reports that the tech titan is considering delaying or abandoning its ambitious 2030 goal of meeting 100% of its hourly electricity use with renewable energy. This shift shows friction between hyperscalers’ climate pledges and AI’s power demands. [MSN]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

Ucapan itu bukan sekadar candaan. Dunia judi online memang berkembang sangat cepat, terutama sejak teknologi Artificial Intelligence (AI) mulai masuk ke dalam sistem permainan digital. Perubahan tersebut bukan hanya terlihat dari tampilan visual yang makin realistis, tetapi juga dari cara platform memahami perilaku pemain secara detail.

Teknologi AI Mulai Mengubah Cara Permainan Berjalan

Beberapa tahun terakhir, teknologi AI menjadi salah satu fondasi penting dalam industri hiburan digital. Banyak platform game online mulai menggunakan sistem otomatis yang mampu mempelajari pola permainan pengguna. Teknologi ini bekerja diam-diam di balik layar, namun dampaknya terasa nyata.

AI digunakan untuk menganalisis data pemain, mulai dari waktu bermain, jenis permainan favorit, hingga kebiasaan melakukan taruhan. Dari situ, sistem akan memberikan rekomendasi permainan yang dianggap paling sesuai dengan karakter pengguna.

Bagi sebagian pemain, fitur ini terasa membantu. Mereka lebih mudah menemukan game yang cocok tanpa harus mencoba satu per satu. Tetapi di sisi lain, ada juga yang merasa sistem tersebut membuat permainan menjadi semakin intens dan sulit dilepaskan.

Rian pernah mengalami momen itu. Awalnya ia hanya mencoba satu permainan slot karena rekomendasi muncul di halaman utama. Namun beberapa menit kemudian, muncul lagi rekomendasi lain dengan tema yang mirip dan bonus yang terlihat lebih menarik.

“Kayak aplikasi streaming film,” ujarnya. “Semakin sering dimainkan, semakin ngerti apa yang kita suka.”

Pengalaman Bermain yang Kini Terasa Lebih Personal

Salah satu alasan mengapa AI berkembang pesat di industri game online adalah kemampuannya menciptakan pengalaman yang terasa personal. Teknologi ini mampu membuat pemain merasa diperhatikan oleh sistem.

Jika dulu permainan online terlihat monoton, sekarang tampilannya jauh lebih interaktif. Ada animasi dinamis, efek suara yang menyesuaikan situasi permainan, hingga fitur live chat otomatis yang mampu menjawab pertanyaan pemain dalam hitungan detik.

Bahkan beberapa platform sudah memakai AI untuk mendeteksi emosi pemain melalui pola aktivitas mereka. Ketika sistem melihat pengguna mulai pasif atau kehilangan minat, permainan akan memunculkan promosi tertentu agar pemain kembali aktif.

Di sinilah teknologi menjadi pedang bermata dua.

Di satu sisi, inovasi tersebut menunjukkan kemajuan luar biasa dalam dunia digital. Pengalaman bermain menjadi lebih nyaman, cepat, dan modern. Namun di sisi lain, muncul pertanyaan besar tentang batas antara hiburan dan manipulasi perilaku.

Industri Judi Online Semakin Kompetitif

Perkembangan AI juga membuat persaingan antar platform judi online semakin ketat. Banyak penyedia layanan berlomba menghadirkan teknologi terbaru agar pengguna betah lebih lama di platform mereka.

Mulai dari sistem keamanan berbasis AI, deteksi aktivitas mencurigakan, hingga fitur anti-kecurangan kini menjadi bagian penting dalam operasional situs modern. Teknologi ini membantu menjaga stabilitas permainan sekaligus meningkatkan kepercayaan pengguna.

Beberapa pengamat industri digital menilai bahwa AI sebenarnya tidak selalu membawa dampak negatif. Jika digunakan secara tepat, teknologi ini bisa membantu menciptakan sistem permainan yang lebih aman dan transparan.

Contohnya adalah fitur responsible gaming yang mulai diterapkan beberapa platform besar. Sistem AI dapat mendeteksi pola bermain berlebihan dan memberikan peringatan otomatis kepada pengguna agar beristirahat.

Walau belum diterapkan secara merata, langkah tersebut menunjukkan bahwa teknologi juga bisa diarahkan untuk melindungi pemain, bukan sekadar meningkatkan keuntungan perusahaan.

Ketika Teknologi dan Emosi Manusia Bertemu

Yang menarik dari perkembangan ini bukan hanya soal mesin atau algoritma, melainkan bagaimana manusia meresponsnya secara emosional.

Banyak pemain merasa permainan digital sekarang lebih “hidup”. Mereka tidak lagi sekadar menekan tombol taruhan, tetapi seperti masuk ke dalam dunia virtual yang penuh interaksi.

Ada suara dealer langsung, tampilan grafis ultra-realistis, hingga sistem AI yang membuat permainan terasa responsif terhadap tindakan pemain. Semua itu menciptakan sensasi yang jauh berbeda dibanding era awal judi online beberapa tahun lalu.

Namun di balik kecanggihan tersebut, ada satu hal yang tetap tidak berubah: manusia tetap menjadi pusat dari semua keputusan.

Teknologi bisa membantu membaca pola, memprediksi kebiasaan, bahkan menciptakan pengalaman yang terasa personal. Tetapi kendali tetap berada di tangan pemain itu sendiri.

Rian akhirnya menyadari hal tersebut setelah beberapa kali terlalu larut dalam permainan. Ia mulai membatasi waktu bermain dan melihat judi online sebagai hiburan digital, bukan jalan instan untuk mendapatkan keuntungan besar.

“Teknologinya makin pintar,” katanya pelan. “Makanya pemain juga harus lebih pintar.”

Masa Depan Judi Online dan AI Masih Akan Terus Berkembang

Melihat perkembangan saat ini, banyak pihak percaya bahwa hubungan antara AI dan industri judi online akan semakin erat di masa depan. Kemungkinan besar, teknologi akan menghadirkan pengalaman bermain yang lebih realistis melalui virtual reality, analisis data real-time, hingga sistem interaksi yang semakin menyerupai manusia.

Bagi industri digital, AI adalah alat untuk menciptakan efisiensi dan pengalaman pengguna yang lebih baik. Tetapi bagi pemain, pemahaman dan kontrol diri tetap menjadi hal terpenting.

Karena pada akhirnya, secanggih apa pun teknologi berkembang, keputusan manusia tetap menjadi faktor utama yang menentukan arah permainan.

We have entered a new epoch of global capitalism. It is characterized by crisis, imperial rivalry, authoritarian nationalism, and episodic, explosive resistance from below. The Trump administration’s brief year of misrule has brought all these to a head, particularly with its war on Iran. That war has put a definitive end to Washington’s imperial order of free trade globalization that it constructed within its bloc after World War II and expanded globally after the Cold War. Now the U.S. is a predatory imperialist state out for its own interests against nominal allies, rivals, regional powers, and subject nations.

Trump’s rise to power, like that of other authoritarian nationalists, did not come out of the blue. The electoral successes of the Right are the product of capitalism’s multiple crises and the establishment parties’ inability to overcome them. Their failure has triggered political polarization to the right and left. Given the revolutionary Left’s decline and reformist parties’ incapacity to deliver when in power, the new Right, in the form of authoritarian nationalism, has been the principal beneficiary. But their program of austerity, bigotry, and scapegoating has also failed to address capitalism’s systemic crises, undercutting their ability to secure hegemony and impose stable rule. As a result, political instability is the order of the day throughout the world.

These conditions have triggered wave after wave of resistance from below. But so far this resistance has been episodic and unable to win, largely because of the decomposition of class, social, and political organizations to sustain struggle and pose an alternative to the establishment parties and the Right. Nonetheless, these struggles open opportunities to rebuild the infrastructure of resistance, cohere a militant minority, and reconstruct a revolutionary Left for the 21st century.

Capitalism’s global slump

Capitalism is beset by multiple systemic crises from climate change to mass migration and pandemics like COVID. The other two, which are the most important ones for shaping our new epoch, are the global economic slump and the return of inter-imperial rivalry. The 2008 economic crisis triggered the Great Recession, which brought an end to the long neoliberal boom that began in the 1980s.

While capitalism survived, its recovery has been characterized by low profitability and slow growth, punctuated by recessions and weak recoveries. The heartlands of the system, from the U.S. to Europe and Japan, are either growing at a modest rate or are stagnant. As far as the U.S. is concerned, only the high-tech companies’ massive investment in AI data centers and the accompanying stock market bubble have kept the economy growing. But that is now in jeopardy as a result of the war with Iran. Even China, which was key to the global recovery after the Great Recession, has seen its growth drop from 10 percent a year in the 2000s to under 5 percent today.

As far as the U.S. is concerned, only the high-tech companies’ massive investment in AI data centers and the accompanying stock market bubble have kept the economy growing. But that is now in jeopardy as a result of the war with  Iran.

Inflation in the wake of the COVID recession has forced the U.S. and Europe to maintain relatively high interest rates, hampering investment and growth. On the other hand, overinvestment, cutthroat competition, and low profitability have fueled deflation in China, forcing its corporations to seek out profitable sites for investment internationally through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), while exporting their surplus products and in the process undercutting their competition everywhere.

The combination of U.S. high interest rates and Chinese dumping has triggered a double crisis in the Global South. First, high interest rates have hammered indebted countries, which are now facing the prospect of another debt crisis like the one they suffered in the 1980s. Already, creditors are demanding austerity measures from governments in the Global South. Second, Beijing’s exports have undermined the Global South’s domestic manufacturing base, reducing it to exporting raw materials to China for China’s ongoing expansion.

Thus, we are in a global slump. It will continue until a deeper crisis clears out all the uncompetitive capital in the world economy. Up to today, the main capitalist states have stopped this from happening. They have bailed out corporations they consider too big to fail, fearing mass bankruptcies and a 1930s-style depression. That has propped up the so-called zombie corporations. These are so unprofitable that they are forced to take out ever more loans to repay interest on their existing loans. As a result, the system limps along.

By contrast, ruling classes have imposed austerity measures on their workers, cutting social welfare spending and attacking wages and benefits. As a result, class inequality has deepened throughout the world. At the same time, states have turned to protectionism and other beggar-thy-neighbor policies to protect their capitals against other states and their capitals.

The return of inter-imperial rivalry

Thus, the global slump is intensifying the second key crisis—inter-imperial rivalry, especially between the two biggest economies in the world, the U.S. and China. Washington no longer oversees the unipolar world order as it did after the Cold War. The long neoliberal boom produced new centers of capital accumulation from China to Russia and a host of regional powers.

Washington no longer oversees the unipolar world order as it did after the Cold War. The long neoliberal boom produced new centers of capital accumulation from China to Russia and a host of regional powers.

The U.S. attempt to defend its increasingly challenged hegemony through wars in Afghanistan and Iraq backfired, leading to disastrous defeats. On top of that, the Great Recession hammered the U.S., Europe, and Japan, in contrast to China, which used massive state investment to keep its economy booming, and with that, all its tributary economies expanding from Russia to Australia and Brazil.

These developments led to the relative decline of the U.S. against its rivals, especially China, ushering in today’s asymmetric multipolar world order. The U.S. remains the largest economy with the biggest military and greatest geopolitical influence. Its dollar remains the world’s reserve currency, it oversees an empire of 800 military overseas bases, and uses that power to bully allies, rivals, and so-called rogue states.

But it is no longer unrivaled. China is now a potential peer competitor, while Russia, with its vast nuclear stockpile and fossil capitalist economy, is an outsized regional power with global pretensions. In this context, regional powers exploit conflicts between the great powers to pursue their own interests. Iran, for instance, oversaw the so-called Axis of Resistance, which it used to build regional imperial influence against the U.S., the Arab states, and Israel.

Faced with this new order, successive U.S. administrations have abandoned Washington’s post-Cold War strategy of superintending capitalism by incorporating all states into a neoliberal world order of free trade globalization. Obama initiated a shift toward great power competition with China through his Pivot to Asia.

In his first term, Trump enshrined great power rivalry as Washington’s new grand strategy, naming specifically China and Russia. His America First foreign policy put what he perceived to be U.S. interests over and above those of both friends and foes. He began to abandon free trade for protectionism, particularly by raising tariffs on China. But his administration’s internal divisions, hostility to traditional allies, propensity to make transactional deals with rivals, and general incompetence prevented its coherent implementation.

The Biden administration retained Trump’s focus on great power but abandoned his unilateralism. Instead, it tried to rebuild Washington’s alliance structure, especially NATO, and unite its vassals against China and Russia in defense of the so-called rules-based international order. It paired that with strategic protectionism against Beijing and an industrial policy to ensure U.S. dominance in high-tech industries, especially microchips, which it wanted to onshore from Taiwan.

Biden capitalized on Russia’s imperialist war on Ukraine to rally NATO behind Kyiv’s national liberation struggle. His aim was not to defend Ukraine’s right to self-determination but to weaken Russia. However, his administration fatally discredited its claims to support international law, human rights, and oppressed nations by championing, bankrolling, and arming Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.

Waves of resistance

The global slump, growing inter-imperial rivalries, and capitalism’s other systemic crises have combined to destabilize societies around the world. These conditions have set off waves of resistance from below by various classes, from the petty bourgeoisie to the working class and peasantry. The movements have been politically heterogeneous, spanning the gamut from right-wing small business revolts to uprisings of workers and the oppressed.

Most important for the Left have been the progressive class and social struggles throughout the world from the Arab Spring revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa to the Red State Teachers Revolt, Black Lives Matter, and Palestine solidarity in the U.S. These movements have been the largest since the 1960s and have a class content more like that of the 1930s, expressing rage against the deep economic and social inequalities of our epoch.

But they all have been hampered by the weaknesses inherited from the previous period of defeat and retreat. These include everything from the collapse of the revolutionary Left to the dramatic drop in trade union density and retreat of social movements from membership-based groups to grant-funded NGOs with all their golden chains.

As a result, workers and the oppressed have gone into struggle bereft of class, social, and political infrastructures of dissent. That has impacted the character of movements today. They tend to seemingly come out of nowhere and explode in size, challenging capital and the state. Their demands are usually negative in character, like the slogan of the Arab Spring, which was “the people want the fall of the regime,” and lack a positive alternative. In the words of one analyst, they are revolutions without revolutionaries.

That makes them vulnerable in all sorts of ways. The states and capitals can crush them with brute force as the regimes succeeded in doing throughout the Middle East and North Africa. They can also co-opt them as the Ford Foundation did with key leaders of Black Lives Matter. Reformist parties can also channel uprisings into the dead-end of electoral attempts to use the capitalist state to overcome systemic crises and inequalities. The movements can also dissipate in demoralization over the difficulties of winning victories faced with the intransigence of the state and capital.

That said, more and more activists have drawn lessons from these experiences that it’s necessary to build more serious class, social, and political organizations capable of sustaining struggles for positive demands and reforms on the way to systemic change.

Political polarization to the right and left

Global capitalism’s crises and the waves of resistance have intensified political polarization to the right and to the left. The various regimes and parties of the capitalist classes offer no solutions either to the system’s intractable problems or popular grievances. Undemocratic regimes have turned to increasing authoritarianism to enforce their rule in countries like China and Russia. In bourgeois democracies, angry electorates have voted out capital’s traditional parties, searching for alternatives on the right and the left.

The chief beneficiary of this polarization has been the Right for obvious reasons. The revolutionary Left is far too weak to offer an alternative. The reformist Left has ridden the resistance to win elected office in various countries, but constrained by capitalism’s crisis and the intransigence of the capitalist class, their electoral strategy has been unable to deliver reforms to improve people’s lives. They have, at best, administered neoliberal capitalism with a human face or, worse, broken their promises and turned on their working-class base. The examples of this are legion, from Syriza’s betrayal of Greek workers to the collapse of the Pink Tide in Latin America.

The authoritarian nationalist politicians have reaped the rewards of disappointment with establishment and reformist parties. The Right’s parties represent at best a minority of capital but are mainly an expression of petty bourgeois radicalization. They have found a base in the atomized, defeated, and demoralized sections of the working class. As a result, authoritarian nationalist regimes have multiplied throughout the world, from Putin in Russia to Modi in India, Orban in Hungary, Kast in Chile, Milei in Argentina, and, of course, Trump in the United States.

But their “solutions” of class war, bigotry, and scapegoating, especially of migrants, have also failed to solve the system’s crises and address mass popular grievances from their own petty bourgeois base to the much larger popular classes. So, they too have not been able to establish stable regimes and have even been driven out of power. For instance, Hungarian voters recently voted Orban out of office. Authoritarian states also have faced resistance from below as well as other forces. President Xi Jinping faced a mass uprising against his brutal Zero-COVID policy, and Vladimir Putin faced a coup attempt by the Wagner Group.

In bourgeois democracies, when the new Right has faced governmental crises, some have been tempted to turn to authoritarian rule, like Brazil’s Bolsonaro, who tried to organize a coup after he lost the election to stay in power. He failed. In reality, few democracies have yet fallen to such seizures of power. Instead, the old capitalist parties have exploited the failure of the reformists and the Right to return to power, often by adopting elements of the authoritarian nationalists’ program, especially its attacks on migrants.

But such triangulation only confirms the arguments of the Right, giving them a new lease on life. With bourgeois rule unstable, states across the board are becoming more authoritarian, enforcing rule through coercion, not consent. At the same time, they are becoming more aggressive internationally, the great imperial powers in particular.

With bourgeois rule unstable, states across the board are becoming more authoritarian, enforcing rule through coercion, not consent. At the same time, they are becoming more aggressive internationally, the great imperial powers in particular. Trump’s authoritarian nationalism

The Trump administration is part of this global pattern of the rise of a new Right. Trump’s victory in the 2024 election was entirely the fault of the Democratic Party and its commitment to capitalism and imperialism. The Biden administration failed to address the system’s crises, oversaw the immiseration of workers through inflation, and carried out mass deportations. Abroad, it ramped up inter-imperial conflict and backed Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.

Trump exploited disappointment with the Democrats, but still only managed to squeak out a narrow victory over Harris, winning around half of those who bothered to vote, only about 33 percent of the overall electorate. Like other authoritarian nationalists, he does not represent a capitalist consensus, but a rogue clique of billionaires and the radicalized petty bourgeoisie. And, at best, he won a weak mandate in the 2024 election.

But that does not make his administration any less vicious. Unlike his first term, Trump now has a coherent program in Project 2025 and a unified cabinet of sycophants that, despite their differences, support their leader, including his wildest impulses and without question. They are aggressively implementing their authoritarian nationalist project.

In the U.S., they have launched a class war, cutting taxes on the rich, firing government workers, stripping the rest of union rights, gutting social welfare, and deregulating the economy. They are carrying this out through classic divide-and-rule tactics, blaming the oppressed and scapegoating them, especially immigrants, for the system’s failures. He has poured $85 billion into ICE’s budget over the next four years to hire and unleash thousands of new agents to occupy cities and arrest hundreds of thousands of migrants, detain them in new concentration camps, and deport them back to their countries of origin

In a fit of irrationalism, Trump is also carrying out revenge on the deep state, slashing entire parts of the government bureaucracy essential for reproducing U.S. capitalism, like the National Institute of Health, and managing U.S. imperialism like the State Department. In place of professional managers, he is appointing right-wing hacks, ideologues,  and lackeys.

He’s extended this assault into the private sphere as well, targeting, for example, elite higher education, which trains future CEOs, scientists, professionals, and state managers, all personnel essential for U.S. capitalism and its state. He really seems to want to Make America Stupid Again.

Ripping up the imperial order

Abroad, largely in defiance of the capitalist class and state managers, Trump has ripped up the entire order that the U.S. built after World War II and expanded globally after the Cold War. His administration’s project is not isolationist, but one of predatory dominance in pursuit of its conception of U.S. interests against both allies and rivals. Trump’s representatives laid out this in their National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, and a series of speeches by JD Vance and Marco Rubio.

Their stated goal is to Make America Great Again by putting America First, definitively abandoning all their predecessors’ project of superintending global capitalism. In geopolitics, they are withdrawing from multilateral bodies like the UN and World Health Organization that the U.S. set up to oversee the world. Trump has even gutted funding for humanitarian aid programs like USAID that used to garner support from countries in the Global South. He dismissed those as corrupt welfare schemes, essentially abandoning any use of soft power.

In economics, he has abandoned free trade globalization, establishing a protectionist trade regime against both allies and rivals. But he has run into international and domestic opposition. China, unlike most other states, stood toe to toe with his administration, imposed crippling restrictions on its exports of processed rare earths, and left Trump no choice but to lower his tariffs.

In the U.S., the capitalist class and Trump’s own petty bourgeois base of farmers forced him to grant them carve-outs. And the Supreme Court ruled against his use of the International Emergency Powers Act to impose his tariffs, forcing the administration back to the drawing board to use other powers to maintain the new protectionism.

Finally, on the military front, the administration has doubled down on hard power, jacking up the Pentagon’s budget to over $1 trillion. And now Trump is proposing to raise it to $1.5 trillion. At the same time, his regime has retreated from enforcing global order. It is demanding that its nominal allies in Europe and Asia shoulder the burden of their own security so that the U.S. can focus on carving out a sphere of influence in Latin America through crude gunboat diplomacy for naked economic gain.

The goal of its new “Donroe Doctrine” is to lock the region under its dominion, crushing opponents, and pushing out China. Already, Trump bullied Panama into withdrawing from China’s BRI, carried out a coup in Venezuela to seize control of its oil, threatened to take over Greenland to establish bases and stake claim to the Arctic’s resources, and has imposed a brutal blockade on Cuba, threatening it with regime change to open it up for U.S. real estate capital.

While that sphere of influence is Trump’s top priority, he has three others—Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. In Europe, he is supporting the far Right to restore “white civilization” and imperialist pride, pressuring the EU to deregulate, and bullying NATO to increase its military spending and manage its own security, including against Russia. He has all but sold Ukraine down the river, conceding to Moscow its old sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.

In Asia, he has stated that he intends to maintain the status quo standoff with China, but he’s also hinted that he might cut a deal with Beijing to concede it a sphere of influence. And in the Middle East, he backs Israel to finish off Hamas in Gaza, impose a predatory “peace” there, and dismantle the rest of the so-called Axis of Resistance, including its headquarters in Iran. After that, Trump wants to expand the so-called Abraham Accords to normalize relations between Israel and the region’s regimes, all under the thumb of the U.S., not China and Russia.

Survival of the most vicious

With this project, the Trump administration has put the world on notice that it has abandoned the so-called rules-based order to advance its narrow economic interests without disguise. It is establishing a new world disorder where might makes right, the great powers struggle for dominance, and the weak, in the words of Thucydides, “suffer what they must.”

While other powers like the EU may pine for the rules-based order, they have no choice but to adapt to the pressure from the U.S. and other great powers to abide by their dog-eat-dog rules. In a stunning speech at the World Economic Forum, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney laid out the new global disorder in stark terms. He eulogized the old rules-based order. While he recognized that it was always a sham, he argued that at least there were some political and economic restraints on great powers.

But Trump, he noted, has laid waste to it and so-called middle powers like Canada must recognize that fact and respond accordingly, otherwise they “won’t be at the table but on the menu.” Whether he liked it or not, Carney argued, Canada has to put its imperial interests first. Already, he is advancing that project, increasing his state’s military budget, staking claims to the Arctic, and cutting economic deals with U.S. rivals like China. Other U.S. allies are doing the same. In a shocking example, Denmark actually made plans to deploy its troops to Greenland and blow up its airport runways to stop a U.S. invasion.

All states are adapting to Trump’s contest for the survival of the most vicious. The EU, NATO, and individual states, especially France and Germany, do not trust the U.S. and recognize that they have no choice but to stake out their own path. The European powers are cutting trade deals with China and Latin America in defiance of the U.S., jacking up their military budgets, and imposing austerity on workers with cuts to social welfare spending, wages, and benefits. Russia has already established a war economy to fuel its imperialist invasion of Ukraine. In Asia, Japan is doing the same. So is China, Washington’s key rival. We are thus in the midst of a new global arms race.

Iran—A turning point in world history

The so-called rules-based order was already in tatters in the wake of Russia’s imperialist war in Ukraine and the U.S. and Israel’s genocide in Gaza. And now with his war on Iran, Trump destroyed what remained of it. Flush with success after kidnapping Maduro in Venezuela and turning the remnants of his regime into a servant of U.S. imperialism, Trump thought he and Israel could do the same in Iran. Instead, it has blown up in his face with Tehran launching a regional war in response.

While the U.S. and Israel started this war together, they have different war aims. Trump had sought a Venezuela-style solution; he wanted to find a figure in the regime that would play the role Delcy Rodriguez did in Caracas and cut a deal to survive on the condition of obeying U.S. dictates. He hoped a reconfigured Iranian regime would then join the Abraham Accords along with the Arab states and normalize relations with Israel.

By contrast, Netanyahu intends to destroy the entire regime, balkanize the country, and wipe out its allies to ensure that none can pose any challenge to Israel’s regional hegemony. Thus, as Trump admitted, Israel undermined Washington’s goal by killing the Iranian leaders Washington hoped to cut a deal with. Unsurprisingly, Israel has paired its blitzkrieg in Iran with a new offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon to go with its ongoing genocide in Gaza and settlement expansion in the West Bank. It aims to carve out its own mini-empire—Greater Israel.

Of course, Israel pressured Trump to launch the war, but it did not sucker him into doing it. The tail does not wag the dog. Even Netanyahu ridiculed that idea in an interview with Sean Hannity. When Hannity said, “There are people that say, ‘Wow, the prime minister of Israel dragged him into it,” Netanyahu laughed. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “Donald Trump is the strongest leader in the world. He does what he thinks is right for America.”

Thus, Trump launched the war for his own stupid reasons. He is no puppet of Israel. But he catastrophically miscalculated. Iran is not Venezuela; it is a battle-tested, theocratic regime with a loyal base in a minority of the population. It has carried out a regional war and repeatedly crushed every democratic uprising of its workers and the oppressed peoples. And it had been elaborately prepared not only to survive a U.S. and Israeli war but also to launch a devastating counter-attack.

Catastrophic consequences

So, when Trump started this war, Iran withstood the assault and responded by firing missiles and drones at Israel, all the Arab states, and even NATO powers. It attacked Turkey and  British bases in Cyprus and Diego Garcia. And they shut down the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off shipment of oil and natural gas to the world. That sent fossil fuel prices spiraling upwards, threatening global economic growth and setting off inflation—the capitalist nightmare of stagflation.

And the danger to the world economy could get far worse if the conflict escalates. Already, when Israel struck Iran’s natural gas field, Tehran responded by attacking Qatar’s liquid natural gas (LNG)  processing plant in Ras Laffan, which supplies Asia with much of its LNG. That provoked Trump to tell Israel to refrain from further strikes. But the damage may have already been done. Qatar reports that it will take 3 to 5 years to repair its massive plant. One analyst said this will lead to the Armageddon scenario—the biggest oil and natural gas shock in history.

But the impact of the war will be even greater than that. Contrary to stereotypes, the importance of the region’s economy to the world extends far beyond fossil fuels. The Gulf states have transformed themselves into centers of industry, international travel, commercial shipping, and finance capital. The disruption of all this will be devastating for the system and, more importantly, for the working class and peasants of the world.

The war and the closure of the Strait are blocking the export of the region’s fertilizer industry. That will lead to shortages and drive up prices of fertilizer right as planting season starts over the next few months across the world. Farmers in the Global North may be able to stomach the costs and gobble up the bulk of the supply, but farmers in the Global South will be priced out of the market, suffer shortages, and produce lower crop yields. The combination of increased fertilizer and fuel costs will trigger a spike in food prices in the Global North and famine in the Global South.

The war is also blocking the region’s export of all sorts of fossil fuel byproducts that are essential for the global economy. For example, its plants produce naphtha, one of the key components for the global manufacturing of plastic, which corporations use for almost everything from packaging to cars and fighter jets. Another example is helium. It is essential for the manufacture of microchips, without which today’s high-tech economy can’t function.

Moreover, the region’s ports and airports are essential hubs for both international travel and commercial transit. Their disruption is causing all sorts of problems in the world economy. Even if the Strait of Hormuz reopens along with the airports, corporations will now distrust them as reliable hubs for transport and commerce, throwing into question their vast investments, infrastructure, and trade and travel routes.

Finally, the Gulf states like the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have turned themselves into major centers of international finance capital. They have used their funds to invest in all sorts of things, but especially AI data centers, not only in their region, but also in the United States. Now, companies will doubt the security of data centers in the Gulf states. And the Gulf states will have to pull back from their international investment and use their capital to rebuild their own infrastructure. Such a drawback will undercut the U.S. data center boom and could pop the high-tech bubble, the main prop for U.S. capitalism’s growth. Thus, the war is disrupting the whole system.

The logic of escalation

Trump has thereby stumbled into the biggest imperialist crisis since Iraq and potentially a far worse one. The U.S., Israel, and Iran, up until the ceasefire, were locked in a logic of escalation with no clear end in sight. The Iranian regime faced an existential threat and will fight to its death. It therefore expanded the war to force states throughout the region and world to compel the U.S. and Israel to stop it and prevent another one. No doubt they will be determined to build nuclear weapons after the war to deter any future attack.

Trump has thereby stumbled into the biggest imperialist crisis since Iraq and potentially a far worse one.

Iran’s counterattacks forced the U.S. and Israel to respond, prolonging what Trump had hoped would be a quick victory. Thus, like the sorcerer’s apprentice, Trump lost control of a spiraling war. And his decision to stage his own blockade of the Strait of Hormuz to cut off Iranian exports has intensified the conflict’s damage to the world economy.

Faced with this crisis, Trump relented, agreeing to a ceasefire with none of his goals achieved. Iran’s regime remains in power, it still has nuclear stockpiles, it retains significant missile and drone capacity to threaten attacks on the region, and it has promised to continue support for its regional allies in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen.

At this point, the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked, the talks are at stand still, and the world economy stands at the precipice of an even greater crisis. The Iranian regime clearly believes it can weather the standoff longer than the U.S.. While Trump clearly wants to cut a deal, he cannot accept one that further humiliates the U.S. Meanwhile, Israel is braying for more war in Iran and Lebanon.

Regardless of what happens, the U.S. is in the midst of a metastasizing economic, geopolitical, and military crisis. The world economy has been hammered. No one in the region can now trust the United States. All its military bases and defense systems have not protected its vassals like Saudi Arabia but have made them targets for attack. And no regime will risk normalizing relations with Israel against the wishes of the masses of the population in the region, who are now furious with the U.S. and Israel. That puts Trump’s Abraham Accords in jeopardy.

Trump has thoroughly alienated all of Washington’s allies, whom he kept in the dark about his plans to launch the war. Now, with the U.S. in crisis, none of them has agreed to bail Trump out. They all have refused to join his war and send ships to open the Strait of Hormuz. At this point, they want to keep out of it and have become increasingly critical of it. The German chancellor’s remark that Iran had humiliated the U.S. drove Trump in a fit of rage to threaten to withdraw all of Washington’s troops from Europe, threatening the entire NATO alliance.

Even worse for the U.S., Trump’s war has benefited Washington’s main rivals, Russia and China. In a desperate attempt to lower fossil fuel prices, Trump lowered sanctions on Russia’s oil exports. Putin has thus scored a victory, securing desperately needed funds to aid his ailing economy. That will enable him to escalate his imperialist war on Ukraine. Trump lowered sanctions on Russia even though it is aiding Iran by giving it military intelligence. Sensing his advantage, Putin even offered to suspend its intelligence sharing if the U.S. stops doing the same for Ukraine.

China is happy to see the U.S. bogged down in yet another catastrophic war. While it has lost oil and natural gas from Iran, it can, for now, draw on its huge fossil fuel reserves and can expand contracts for more supplies from Russia, further consolidating their “friendship without limits.” But China is not immune to the war’s consequences. It will find difficulties securing key materials for its manufacturing, the global slump will weaken its export markets that are its main engine of continued growth, and countries in its debt will find it ever more difficult to repay their loans, putting Chinese financial capital in jeopardy.

Trump’s intensifying domestic crisis

Trump’s war will intensify his domestic political crisis. Already deeply unpopular, he now faces splits in his MAGA leadership with figures like Tucker Carlson opposing the war. He has also alienated sections of his base that voted for him, believing naively that Trump would keep the U.S. out of “forever wars.” With no end in sight, this war dooms the Republican Party to defeat in the upcoming midterm elections, if they are free and fair. The Democrats will take the House, possibly the Senate, tie Congress up in hearings, block all legislation, and try to impeach Trump and members of his cabinet.

Trump knows that. So, he is turning to more and more authoritarian means to maintain power. He is trying to rig the election through gerrymandering and voter suppression, most recently with the Save America Act, which would effectively disenfranchise millions. The Supreme Court also helped Trump in its recent ruling that overturned Louisiana’s congressional map that afforded Black voters a majority in two districts. Their decision effectively guts the Voting Rights Act, risking a return to electoral white supremacy not seen since the Jim Crow era. Already, in a dangerous precedent, Louisiana has suspended the primary election to enable redistricting to the advantage of the GOP.

In an even more ominous sign, some on the right, like Bannon, have argued for Trump to deploy ICE at polling locations. Trump has already tested the water by deploying ICE to the airports across the country. Thus, U.S. norms of bourgeois democracy hang in the balance. Lest anyone think this to be an exaggeration, three new studies found that the U.S. is slipping toward an autocracy at astonishing speed.

Faced with this spiraling crisis, the Democratic Party spent the last year practically in hiding. They adopted James Carville’s “possum strategy”—literally playing dead when faced with a predator. While outliers like Bernie Sanders and AOC agitated for action against the billionaire class, the establishment Democrats bided their time, hoping Trump would punch himself out and discredit the GOP so that they could sweep the midterms. Then they could find some new corporate standard bearer like Gavin Newsom or JB Pritzker or even worse turn back to genocidaire, Kamala Harris, to win back the White House in 2028 and restore the status quo ante.

Truth be told, the Democratic Party did next to nothing to resist Trump until the Minneapolis mass strike against ICE. Only then did they challenge the funding of ICE and Homeland Security. But just like they have done with police, their demand was not for the abolition of ICE’s racist goon squad, but that its agents wear body cameras, get more training, and stop wearing masks. With those “reforms,” they have promised to grant ICE more funding! That should surprise no one since the Democrats have bankrolled DHS and ICE with billions since their creation in 2003. And, under Obama and Biden, they used ICE and Border Patrol to deport millions of people.

Their supposed opposition to Trump’s catastrophic war on Iran has been even more pathetic. Why? Because they share with the GOP U.S. imperialism’s determination since Iran’s 1979 revolution to topple the Islamic Republic. So, their initial objections were procedural—that Trump had not made the case for war, had not secured support from Congress under the War Powers Act, and had no plan or clearly stated goals. And their main concern is that Trump’s idiotic war has weakened U.S. imperialism and its capacity to fight China and Russia.

While some reformists in the party have denounced the war, they remain trapped in an imperialist party, which is both reactionary and incapacitated in a moment of emergency. As a result, despite the fact that the Democrats are likely to win the midterms, if the elections happen in any normal fashion, they remain deeply unpopular and offer no solutions to the system’s crises and popular grievances.

In resistance, there is hope

Unlike the Democratic Party, workers and the oppressed have risen up against Trump, producing a mass heterogeneous resistance. Some of its currents predate Trump’s presidency, like the Palestine solidarity movement, which persists despite state repression and hostility from liberal and Zionist forces. Most other currents have been galvanized by Trump’s unrelenting class and social attacks, particularly on ICE’s war on immigrants. All these converged in Minneapolis, culminating in a mass strike and protest that forced Trump to retreat, fire his commander of the Border Patrol, Greg Bovino, demote Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, and withdraw hundreds of ICE and Border Patrol agents.

That uprising against ICE was based on a developed infrastructure of resistance forged over the last couple of decades. That included the George Floyd uprising against police brutality, union organizing and strikes, immigrant rights struggles, and indigenous-led climate justice campaigns. But most parts of the country lack this infrastructure of resistance. And even there, the militant minority and revolutionary Left remain small as elsewhere. These hamper the organization and politics of the resistance.

Nevertheless, the struggle is forging new organizations and a new Left. The two main organized currents of the national resistance are Indivisible and May Day Strong. Indivisible was formed by two Democratic Party organizers who explicitly conceived the project as a means to galvanize its base in struggle and then turn it to elections to defeat Trump and Republicans. It is thus a popular front formation, wedding workers and the oppressed to a capitalist party in the hopes of securing liberal reforms.

It has staged three massive No Kings rallies. But, because of its ties to the Democratic Party, it has tended to exclude Palestine solidarity activists and has proved reluctant to even include opposition to the war on Iran. Its strategy is to turn the millions on its demonstrations into campaigners for the Democrats in the midterms and 2028 presidential elections. But, as we know from bitter experience, the Democrats are no alternative for the vast majority. Nevertheless, the people at those demonstrations are open to much more radical ideas and strategies.

The other formation, May Day Strong, was spearheaded by the Chicago Teachers Union. It has brought together unions, immigrant rights groups, other social movement organizations, and NGOs in a potential united front of working-class forces. It does include Indivisible and another liberal formation, 5051, and it is limited by the horizons of the left union bureaucracy. Nevertheless, it has put May Day back on the map, encouraged solidarity schools to prepare unions to stage political strikes against Trump, and pushed the slogan, “no work, no school, no shopping,” for this year’s May Day.

May Day Strong offers the Left a national vehicle to advance the argument for a general strike to challenge Trump’s increasingly authoritarian regime. Its explicit model is the South Korean strike that blocked a coup and toppled the government. That said, it does not exist in all cities and towns. It is also not immune from co-optation by the Democrats through the trade union officialdom’s alliance with the party’s reformist wing. And it is an ominous sign that Indivisible plays such a prominent role in its midst. Nonetheless, May Day Strong is an important strategic orientation for the revolutionary left in building the resistance. Our challenge is how to forge similar local formations aligned with the national coalition. It is our best shot to agitate for mass, independent working-class action to topple the Trump regime.

Rebirth of the revolutionary Left

This new epoch of crisis, imperialist rivalry, authoritarianism, and resistance is opening up space for the construction of a new socialist Left. Indeed, all political organizations are now growing from reformism to neo-Stalinism and revolutionary socialism. The struggle is on to shape a new generation’s politics, strategies, and tactics for an epoch of crisis and class struggle.

Tempest argues that the tradition of socialism from below offers the best way to fight here and now on the road to international socialism. We aim to embody these politics in an organization with branches that avoid the traps of the micro party that has paralyzed our forebears—ideological uniformity, sectarianism, ultraleftism, and organization building in isolation from the living struggle. Join us to build a socialist organization, forge new infrastructures of resistance, cohere a militant minority, and eventually found a revolutionary party. These are tall tasks, but necessary ones in our apocalyptic times.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”

The post Faultlines in a new epoch of crisis appeared first on Tempest.

Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP), launched in 2000, sought to correct colonial-era land inequalities by redistributing land from approximately 4,500 white commercial farmers — who held over 70% of arable land — to millions of landless Black Zimbabweans. While rooted in legitimate grievances, the program’s hasty and often violent implementation triggered severe economic collapse, social disruption, and environmental degradation.

This case study examines the FTLRP’s historical context, motivations, and wide-ranging impacts, drawing critical lessons for future land reform efforts across Africa and beyond.

Read the case study here

This blog evolved over the week of May 4 to 8, 2026 when I was adding to it from day to day as time allowed. It may still see some updates even after fully published on our homepage as some more information becomes available.

This year's General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) took place from May 4 to 8 2026 both on premise in Vienna and online as a fully hybrid conference. This year, I had decided to join virtually, picking and chosing sessions I was interested in. This blog post is a compilation - a kind of personal diary - of the happenings in Vienna from my perspective.

All told, 21,117 abstracts were submitted for the conference back in January and this year’s programme included over 1,000 scientific sessions, 62 short courses, 16 keynote Union Symposia and Great Debates, 38 Medal and Award lectures, as well as the Job Centre, Artists in Residence, GeoCinema, Science-Policy events and much, much more.

As this post is fairly large, you can jump to the different days, via these links:

Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday - Friday - Summary

The already published prolog blog post contains a summary of what I had planned for the week. Let's see how well - or not - the plans match reality!

Monday, May 4

EGU Today

The very first session I attended at this year's EGU conference was EOS1.1 Science and Society: Science Communication Practice, Research, and Reflection which started at 8:30 in the monring and lasted until lunchtime with a 30 minutes break in the middle.

Science communication includes the efforts of natural, physical and social scientists, communications professionals, and teams that communicate the process and values of science and scientific findings to non-specialist audiences outside of formal educational settings. The goals of science communication can include enhanced dialogue, understanding, awareness, enthusiasm, influencing sustainable behaviour change, improving decision making, and/or community building. Channels to facilitate science communication can include in-person interaction through teaching and outreach programs, and online through social media, mass media, podcasts, video, or other methods. This session invited presentations by individuals and teams on science communication practice, research, and reflection.

During this session we heard about many examples of science eduction and communication in various countries (Italy, Spain, Ireland, The Netherlands, Great Britain, Belgium...), settings (schools, university, public outreach, prisons...) and topics (Climate change, natural hazards, polar science, geodesy...):

• Lorena Salgado - SmarTerrae: Applied scientific training in geoscience from the earliest educational stages 
• Gabriele Weigelhofer - Interactive wetland education: Classroom materials following a constructivist instructional framework (Horizon Europe Restore4Life) 
• Martin Sehnal - Scientific Storytelling in Geodesy: Using Cartoons, Videos, and Digital Platforms to Reach New Audiences 
• Chiara Anzolini - Speculative Storytelling as a Tool for Biodiversity and Climate Communication 
• Rob Butler - The Shear Zone Channel – reflections on sharing geological science on YouTube 
• Reinout Verbeke - Planet Belgium: narrating the geological odyssey of a country through multimedia storytelling 
• C. Nur Schuba - Using sequential art to communicate scientific ocean drilling 
• Federica Flapp - “Signals from the climate in FVG”: a magazine enhancing climate awareness and bridging the gap between science and society at the regional level 
• Rodrigo Martinez-Abarca - A guide to outreach geosciences on social media: the case of Divulgación Terróloga 
• Maria del Socorro Fonseca Cerda - From Science to Practice: Co-Designing Windstorm Hazard & Risk Information for Dutch Portals 
• Sandra Ricart - Co-Designed, Stakeholder-Driven Governance for the WEFE Nexus under Climate Extremes: Lessons from Lake Como, Italy 
• Alex Lipp - www.SewageMap.co.uk and POOPy: Open-source tools for understanding and communicating the impacts of sewage pollution on waterways in real-time 
• Tatiana Izquierdo - Access, verification, and trust in extreme weather events communication: age and discipline matter 
• Thais Siqueira - From Landscape to Geohazard: Assessing volcanic hazard communication in Tenerife geosites 
• Deniz Vural - From Network to Ecosystem: Reflecting on Early Career–Led Science Communication through APECS 
• Carla Mateus - Prison talks: bringing climate change conversations into the Irish prisons 

This session included my own presentation right in the middle before the coffee break where I talked about our website relaunch project as already mentioned in my prolog blog post. In the meantime, I created a "companion blog post" for my presentation which includes all the slides and accompanying text as well as a link to download the PDF-version.

The session ended for today - there'll be more tomorrow! - with Philip Heron giving the invited Katia and Maurice Krafft Award Lecture titled What we’ve learned from teaching people in prison to Think Like a Scientist. Here is a snippet from this abstract to give you some context

Scientific thinking requires the critical analysis of information, while science itself thrives on the diversity of ideas. Yet, science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects have historically struggled to be inclusive and accessible to students from underrepresented communities - meaning we often miss a diversity of voices. Furthermore, STEM subjects have often been rigid in their teaching structure, creating barriers to education for students with more specific (or unrecognised) learning needs.

To address this, our science outreach course Think Like A Scientist was designed to improve critical thinking and encourage independent thought by applying adaptive education practices to create inclusive and accessible classroom environments. The program started in 2017 and has been applied in several different settings (e.g., schools and adult learning centres), but has mainly featured in prisons around the world (including England, Canada, Australia, and Spain).

In the afternoon I joined session EOS4.1 Geoethics: Linking Geoscience Knowledge, Ethical Responsibility, and Action. This session was created by merging EOS4.1 (26 abstracts) Geoethics: Linking Geoscience Knowledge, Ethical Responsibility, and Action, EOS 2.6 (9 abstracts) From crisis to action: Education and communication for climate, ocean, overshoot and geoethics and EOS4.2 (7 abstracts) Geoscience research and collaboration in times of geopolitical crises.

Geoscientists play a key role in providing essential information in decision-making processes that consider environmental, social, and economic consequences of geoscience work. Therefore, their responsibilities extend beyond scientific analysis alone. Global challenges, such as climate change, resource management, and disaster risk reduction, push geoscientists to expand their role beyond research and to engage ethically in public efforts.

Geoethics provides a framework for reflecting on the ethical, social, and cultural implications of geoscience in research, practice, and education, guiding responsible action for society and the environment. It also encourages the scientific community to move beyond purely technical solutions by embracing just, inclusive, and transformative approaches to socio-environmental issues.

Furthermore, science is inseparable from social and geopolitical contexts. These conditions shape what research is funded, whose knowledge is valued, with whom we collaborate, and who has access to conferences. As Earth and planetary scientists, we must consider the human and environmental consequences of our work. This is especially true in Earth observation, where many satellites have both scientific and military applications, and where scientific tools have at times enabled ecocide and resource exploitation under neocolonial systems.

This session will offer insights and reflections across a wide range of topics, from theoretical considerations to case studies, foster awareness and discussion of sensitive issues at the geoscience–society interface and explore how geoethics can guide responsible behavior and policies in the geosciences. 

The nine presentations in the first half of the session covered a wide range of topics related to the field of geoethics. We heard about moral values in the scope of ecosystems and biodiversity, about creating a new curriculum for ethical awareness in Ghana, about respecting indegenous knowledge in Australia in the era of big data, about turning sustainability into practice, about a workers.coop in the UK creating data tools for scientists, about avoiding "impact washing", about the ethical usage of AI and LLMs, about the ongoing anthropocene debate and the needed ethical framework for climate intervention research:

• Jeannine G.M. de Caluwe - Ecological Moral Voluntarism is a Corollary of Ethical Education 
• Samuel Nyarko - Paving the way for geoethics pedagogy in Ghana: what students’ geoethical reasoning reveals 
• Simon Haberle - Humanising Natural History Collections: Putting CARE principles into practice in the geosciences in Australia 
• Janne J. Salovaara - Critical Sustainability in Geosciences — A praxis 
• Jacqueline Campbell - Worker Co-operative Research Laboratories; An Alternative Model for Ambitious Science 
• Rosa Rantanen - Social impact or impact washing? The case for a deeper ethical understanding and concrete action 
• Paul Cleverley - Fostering the ethical use of Artificial Intelligence in the Geosciences 
• Emlyn Koster - The Anthropocene as Earth’s natural to unnatural history transition 
• Billy Williams - An Ethical Framework for Climate Intervention Research: Keeping Pace with Rapidly Evolving Needs 

After the coffee break we heard about the EU's high dependency on critical raw materials, how AGU responds in the U.S. with science being under threat by the current administration, about solar-radiation management concerns in Pakistan, about Climate Interactive's en-Roads simulator and how its utilized, about the game ClimarisQ, about the 30th anniversary of Ukraine's Antarctic Station Akademik Vernadsky, about the Palestine Space Institute and doing science in regions of war, about different measures scientific institutions are taking (or not) in case of armed conflicts and genocide:

• Ludwig Hermann - Four-pillar policy recommendation to increase the European Union’s critical raw material resilience 
• Janice Lachance - Meeting the Moment: Sustaining Climate Science and Engagement in Shifting Policy Environments 
• Abdul Waheed - Towards Inclusive and Ethical SRM Governance in Pakistan: Bridging Policy Gaps and Global South Representation 
• Juliette Rooney-Varga - Interactive simulation with En-ROADS spurs climate action among decision-makers 
• Davide Faranda - ClimarisQ: What can we learn by playing a game for climate education? 
• Svitlana Krakovska - From Polar Science to Public Action: 30 Years of the Ukrainian Antarctic Station Akademik Vernadsky in Times of Polycrisis  
• Divya M Persaud - Political Education in Science: Two Years of Palestine Space Institute 
• Stefano Corradini - Beyond Scientific Neutrality: Ethical Responsibility and Geopolitical Accountability in Public Research Institutions 
• Shahzad Gani - Best practices for geosciences in the time of crises 

In this part of the session, I had the chance to tell participants about the results of the Skeptical Science experiment. Like with my other presentation you can read up on it in a companion article from where you can also download the PDF-version of my talk.

Before my presentation I had asked Pimnutcha Promduangsri to grab a few pictures onsite in Vienna to also get some impressions from how it looked like as seen in the conference room. Here is a compilation of some of the images Pim was kind enough to send over:

Tuesday, May 5

EGU Today

Tuesday morning started at 8:30 with the 2nd half of EOS1.1 Science and Society: Science Communication Practice, Research, and Reflection and lasted until lunchtime with a 30 minutes break in the middle.

In the presentations before the coffee break, the speakers told us about projects in Switzerland, Hongkong, France, Japan, Greenland, Italy, the UK and the United States. We heard about projects related to food, rainfall, soil, caves, air quality, clean water and flood hydrology and how they were used in communication and outreach activities with the public.

• Alex Valach - Community outreach using positive sensory experiences: A taste of climate change 
• Hermione Mok - Communicating Food and Climate: The Role of Science Communication for Engagement 
• Auguste Gires - Enhancing awareness of the geophysical environment through a multisensory rainfall experience 
• Keiko Mori  - Appealing to the senses, long-run workshops and exhibitions on soil for museum visitors 
• Gina E. Moseley - Science communication in Greenland: Experiences from the Kalaallit Nunaat Caves and Climate Outreach Project (KINDLE) 
• Marta Galvagno - Engaging young audiences in climate change: moving beyond fear through active science communication 
• Carly Reddington - Visualising historical changes in air pollution with the Air Quality Stripes 
• Luisa Galgani - The Italian Citizen Science Observatory: a growing association open to collaboration to foster public participation and education in water research Europe-wide 
• Lisa Gallagher - Learning, creating, and sharing: A science communication framework for water and climate education 
• Linda Speight - Communication within the UK flood hydrology community: bridging the gaps between science and practice 

After the coffee break we heard about AI-created virtual climate scientists, how generative AI could be utilized for paleontological communication, how some activism increases trust in climate scientists, how science communication and activism is impacted by authoritarianism and how knowledge can be made relevant for society as well as for individual choices. Last but not least, Joshua Howgeg gave the Angela Croome Award Lecture in which he talked about lessons for non-ficting writing based on his experience as a magazine editor.

• Corinne Brevik - Creating AI-driven Virtual Climate Scientists to introduce both students and the general public to climate science careers 
• Luis Azevedo Rodrigues - Generative AI and 3D Digital Technologies for Paleontological Heritage Communication: An Epistemological Framework and Practical Applications 
• Erik van Sebille - A little bit of activism increases trust in climate scientists 
• Karsten Haustein - Science communication and academic activism in times of rising authoritarianism and Trumpism 
• Rosa Rodríguez Gasén - From Knowledge Production to Societal Relevance in Earth Sciences 
• Elena Claire Ricci - Expanding the Space of Climate Agency: From Individual Decisions to System Dynamics 
• Joshua Howgeg - Sleepy cat and the cosmic dust: Lessons for non-fiction writing from 10 years as a magazine editor - Angela Croome Award Lecture

After the lunch break I joined short course SC3.4 Science Diplomacy: What is it and how to engage to learn more about the overlap between science and diplomacy. This course was convened by Lene Topp, Zsanett Greta Papp, Alfonso Acosta and Noel Baker who all gave short keynote about their connections with the topic. They were joined online by Jan Marco Müller who gave a short presentation about his path from geoscientists into science diplomacy at the European Commission.

Global challenges, such as climate change and natural hazards, are becoming increasingly complex and interdependent, and solutions have to be global in scope and based on a firm scientific understanding of the challenges we face. At the same time, Science and technology are playing an increasingly important role in a complex geopolitical landscape. In this difficult setting, scientific collaboration can not only be used to help address global challenges but also to foster international relations and build bridges across geopolitical divisions. Science diplomacy is a broad term used both to describe the various roles that science and researchers play in bridging geopolitical gaps and finding solutions to international issues, and also the study of how science intertwines with diplomacy in pursuing these goals.

During this Short Course, science diplomacy experts will introduce key science diplomacy concepts and outline the skills that are required to effectively engage in science diplomacy. They will also provide practical insights on how researchers can actively participate in science diplomacy, explore real-life examples of science diplomacy, and highlight resources where participants can learn more about science diplomacy moving forward.

Here are some of my take-aways from this course:

• Science and diplomacy are intricitely linked in that one informs the other and one is needed for the other and this goes both ways in each case
• The rise of populism and authoriatarianism are changing the landscape
• Geoscience has a lot of touchpoints with diplomacy
• Quote (Maria Leptin): "We don't ask our researchers to be diplomats - yet their excellent science naturally feeds into global policy."
• Nations retreat from multilateralism
• Nations put up barriers to international scientific collaboration
• Some challenge evidence-informed policymaking
• Scientific endeavours like turning a wetland into a protected area can have diplomatic implications if the water comes from across the border or if too much water is used for agriculture
• Right now, scientific spending often has to compete with defense spending
• Some institutions may be tempted to accept defense funding for "dual use" research
• Such "dual use research" could however make an institution's campus a military target in case of war

Resources linked in the presentation for anybody interested in learning more:

• EU Science Diplomacy Alliance
• Free online 8-module introduction course on Science Diplomacy
• 9 case studies on Science Diplomacy
• The World Academy of Sciences
• Towards a European Framework for Science Diplomacy (e.g. new EU report)
• Article: What is a Science Diplomat?
• Article: Building a Science Diplomacy Curriculum
• EGU GeoPolicy Blog: Science Diplomacy in a new Geopolitical order
• The Science Diplomat

After the afternoon coffee-break it was time for a fun but most likely challenging session for the authors: EOS1.6 - Up-Goer Five Challenge: Making Big Ideas Simpler by Talking About Them in Words We Use a Lot. The session was held in one the underground PICO sessions and unfortunately, the Zoom-sessions wasn't completely stable, so I didn't always get the full presentation.

Whether you thrill at the chance to tell taxi drivers and dinner-table companions about your research or want to hide every time someone asks, “What do you do?”, we offer an exciting and valuable challenge for you.

Inspired by the XKCD comic that describes the Saturn V Rocket using only the thousand most common words in English (https://xkcd.com/1133/), we ask speakers to present short (~5-minute) scientific talks using the same vocabulary (determined via the Up-Goer Five Text Editor: https://splasho.com/upgoer5). The talk is preferably about your own research but can also be about a general topic you are interested in. 

Here are some examples for Up-Goer-Five lingo - can you guess what they describe (solutions below the image)?

1. people-flying things
2. sky water
3. space eye in the sky
4. black underground burn stuff
5. computer pictures
6. middle water
7. cold part of the world with water

Solutions:

1. people-flying things = airplanes
2. sky water = rain
3. space eye in the sky = satellite
4. black underground burn stuff = coal & oil
5. computer pictures = models
6. middle water = Mediterranean Sea
7. cold part of the world with water = Arctic

Wednesday, May 6

EGU Today

My day started with Union Symposium  US6 - Climate change, morals, values and policies, convened by Noel Baker, Chloe Hill, Mario Scharfbillig, Emmanuel Salmon and Maria Vittoria Gargiulo:

The climate challenge is no longer only about understanding the Earth system, it is also about understanding ourselves as humans. As a global society, response to climate change information and climate action policies is shaped not only by scientific evidence, but also by moral values, cultural identities, religious beliefs, fears, and psychological dynamics. Attitudes that may appear irrational often reflect deeper questions of meaning, trust, and social belonging. How can scientists and governments communicate climate science in ways that resonate with diverse societies without resorting to manipulative tactics? How can decision-makers design ethical and inclusive policies that inspire meaningful action at individual, community, and societal levels?

This Union Symposium will bring together experts from multiple disciplines to explore these questions through both scientific research and practical experience. Speakers will examine the moral, psychological, cultural, and social dimensions that shape public engagement with climate change. Perspectives from religious traditions, as well as indigenous and marginalized communities, will broaden the dialogue and offer insights into how climate communication and policy can become more inclusive, trustworthy, and impactful.

The symposium started with an introduction by Dr. Mario Scharfbillig, who uses behavioural insights to improve evidence-informed policymaking and democratic processes in the EU. He first noted that there is broad global support for climate action but that this is not really well-known due to a perception gap leading people to consistently underestimate the willingness of others to act. This also holds true for politicians and there own voters.

People have different priorities dependent on whether the focus is on higher order values, personal values, values terminology, social identities or the big picture. People live in different worlds which can be caused by and/or lead to information overload, distorted reality, echo chambers or even echo platforms and a "fantasy-industrial complex". 

Illustration based on JRC-Publication Values and Identities - a policymaker's guide

After this introduction, each panelist gave a 10-minute keynote to "set the stage" for the subsequent discussion.

Raffaella Russo is an economist and project manager working at the science-policy intcrface, focusing on the socio-cconomic impacts of climate risks, risk perception, and adaptation strategies. She is a member Of EGIYs Climate Hazards and Risks Task Force. 

She started with a quote from the European Environement Agency: "Climate change is already impacting Europeans' daily lives and will continue to do for the foreseeable future. Europe is expected to get warmer, some regions getting drier, while others wetter. These changes will not only impact our health bu also the ecosystems we depend on. The EU is preparing to live with a changing climate through various adaptation measures."

She then gave a few examples illustrating the transition from isolated shocks to recurring and compoundng events happening in Italy just between 2023 and 2025. She pointed out that - while funding from the country and EU was allocated after the 2023 Emilia Romagne flooding - there is a need to strengthen  the private sector involvement in climate adaptation programming. In addition, fragmentation has to be replaced by coordination in order to reach a whole-of-society approach to climate resilience.

Eli Mitchell-Larson is a climate advocate, policy entrepreneur, and Ph.D. researcher based at the University of Oxford. Eli currently advises the Climate Pathfinders Foundation, facilitating grants to advance carbon dioxide removal and next-generation climate interventions. He previously co-founded and served as Launch Director and Chief Scientist at Carbon Gap, Europe's leading NGO dedicated to responsibly scaling carbon dioxide removal. 

He laid out five hypothesis related to climate advocacy [I updated the list after watching the recording]:

1. For geoscientists there are no neutral choices. Every choice we make is politically relevant.
2. Climate policy-advocacy is not a monolith, it can be behind the scenes, it can be slow, it can be measured, it can be injecting expertise where needed.
3. Engaging with climate policy is not as challenging or isolating as a lot of researchers may fear.
4. Engaging with climate policy makes you a better scientist.
5. Geoscientists are uniquely suited to be climate policy advocates.

Dr. Gabriel Filippelli is the Chancellor's Professor, Director of the Center for Urban Health, Executive Directorr Environmental Resilience Institute at Indiana University in the United States. He started his keynote with an image of the Keeling Curve which is a "5-alarm fire" for scientists but doesn't really mean much for people you might meet in a train or on the street.

Individuals care about concrete instead of abstract things (e.g. fuel prices vs. polar bears) and there's therefore a need to change the message. Compare "things" like energy infrastructure on equal footing and with concrete numbers, so for example point out the noise and pollution caused by an oil refinery to that of a solar farm. You may also need to change the messenger. So, instead of having a climate scientist talk with a local community, train students to become "Climate Fellows" who can then work towards making their neighbourhood climate resilient. This also provides an opportunity for the students, many of whom later work in sustainability and environmental careers.

 

Emelina Corrales Cordero is a Costa Rican marine biologist, environmental consultant, and executive coach With over 20 years of experience in marine conservation and climate action. She integrates science, mindfulness—rooted in the Plum Village tradition— and leadership to support leaders navigating eco-anxiety while sustaining purposeful action. She is the co-creator of Politics of Being, author of Grandmother Ocean Speaks, and was awarded the French Senate Medal of Honor in 2025. 

After a short meditation exercise, Emelina introduced us to "The Mediator, The Warrior and The Artist" to help with navigating geological and biological timescales. She started her keynote with a quote from Christine Wamsler et al. (2019): "Transformative change toward sustainability depends on changes in inner dimension such as: beliefs, values and worldviews.". This was followed by a quote from Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn: "There are two dimensions to life, and we shall be able to touch both. One is like a wave and we call it the historical dimension. The other is like water and we call it the ultimate dimension." 

Emelina Corrales ended her keynote with reciting her poem "All Waters: The Ocean of Life" which you can read on her website.

After these diverse keynotes, the discussion was opened to questions from the audienence and many participants made good use of this opportunity. It was tricky to capture all the questions and answers, so here are just a few notes:

• How can those who protect the environment be better protected? Response was along the lines of making their voices heard, don't visit countries where activists are getting persecuted or even killed.
• Focus on dialog instead of persuation
• Ask people questions and really listen to their replies.
• What ONE advice should high school teachers give their students?
• Take care of what you do in every day life.
• Get involved and vote!
• Take them outside
• Put down the phone!

The session was recorded and if/when the video is made publicly available on Youtube, I'll add the link here. In the meantime, this compilation gives an idea of what all was covered in this symposia: 

After the lunch break I had planned to join short course  SC3.13 - Get your writing right: A hands-on, participatory workshop to help improve writing skills, but it turned out that this was only available onsite in Vienna, so I couldn't join it virtually. Poking around in the program for an alternative, I noticed one of the science sessions and joined ITS2.1/CL0.7 - Compound weather and climate events instead.

High-impact climate and weather events typically result from the interaction of multiple climate and weather drivers, as well as vulnerability and exposure, across various spatial and temporal scales. Such compound events often cause more severe socio-economic impacts than single-hazard events, rendering traditional univariate extreme event analyses and risk assessment techniques insufficient. It is, therefore, crucial to develop new methodologies that account for the possible interaction of multiple physical and societal drivers when analyzing high-impact events under present and future conditions. This session aims to address several challenges and topics.

These include: (1) identifying the compounding drivers, including physical drivers (e.g., modes of variability) and/or drivers of vulnerability and exposure, of the most impactful events; (2) Developing methods to better shape the definition and classification of compound events, i.e. legitimate the ‘cut-offs’ in the considered number of hazard types or variables to ultimately disentangle enough information for decision-making; (3) Understanding whether and how often novel compound events, including record-shattering events, will emerge in the future; (4) Explicitly addressing and communicating uncertainties in present-day and future assessments (e.g., via climate storylines/scenarios); (5) Disentangling the contribution of climate change in recently observed events and future projections (attribution); (6) Employing novel Single Model Initial-condition Large Ensemble simulations, which provide hundreds to thousands of years of plausible weather, to better study compound events. (7) Developing novel statistical methods (e.g., machine learning, artificial intelligence, and climate model emulators) for studying compound events; (8) Assessing the weather forecast skill for compound events at different temporal scales; (9) Evaluating the performance of novel statistical methods, climate and impact models, in representing compound events and developing novel methods for constraining/reducing uncertainties (e.g., multivariate bias correction and observational constraints); and (10) engaging with stakeholders to ensure the relevance of the aforementioned analyses.

From the description this seemed to be a scientific session which didn't require too much prior knowledge and this turned out to be true. Sonia Seneviratne introduced the topic with a longer than usual presentation for these oral sessions to explain what the purpose and main focus was. Compound extreme events happen when for example a flood event follows quickly after a drought event, or when several of these events happen close after or to each other, limiting resources for help and clean-up activities. These events can come with high costs in both lives lost and money.

The authors for example talked about a need to adapt to larger scale drought and to ensure that water is still available where and when it is needed, about the risks extreme humid heatwaves pose for human health, wether there are detectable trends in soil moisture, how marine and terrestrial heatwaves are connected, that marine heatwaves are happening more frequently, are getting more intense and last longer, that heatwaves often coincide with river-low-flows (less water flowing downstream), that rivers can get too warm for cooling nuclear power plants, that low-flow events have from the local to a European scale and that climate extremes like heatwaves and extreme floods are happening with less time in between in Pakistan.

• Sonia I. Seneviratne - Compound extreme events in a warming climate: Implications for climate change adaptation and mitigation 
• Manuela I. Brunner - Hydrological drought but not flood synchronicity increases over Europe 
• Jian Fang - Increasing risk of global compound humid heatwaves and the impacts of antecedent precipitation 
• Takumi Therville - Drivers of compound drought-heatwave events: assessments of univariate extremes and causal soil moisture-temperature feedback 
• Fabíola Silva - Connecting Marine and Terrestrial Extremes: Oceanic Drivers of Temperature and Precipitation in Europe 
• Name - More frequent and intense compound low-flow and heatwave events in European rivers since 1960 
• Sumayya Ijaz - Historical Evidence of Compound Heatwave and Extreme Precipitation in Pakistan, 1980-2024 

 

As my last session for the day I joined PICO EOS1.3 - Games for Geoscience showcasing many creative ways of how to turn science into fun and interesting learning experiences. The session was convened by Christopher Skinner, Rolf Hut, Elizabeth Lewis, Lisa Gallagher and Maria Elena Orduna Alegria. As is typical for a PICO session, presenters only had 2 minutes for their pitch during the first part of the session and afterwards moved to their individual screens for more detailed discussions.

Games have the power to ignite imaginations and place you in someone else’s shoes or situation, often forcing you into making decisions from perspectives other than your own. This makes them powerful tools for communication, through use in outreach, disseminating research, in education and teaching at all levels, and as a method to train the public, practitioners, and decision-makers in order to build environmental resilience.

Games can also inspire innovative and fun approaches to learning. Gamification and game-based approaches add an extra spark of engagement and interaction with a topic. Gaming technology (e.g. virtual reality) can transport and immerse people into new worlds providing fascinating and otherwise impossible experiences for learners.

The 2-minute pitches covered all sorts of games: card games, board games, role plays, simulations, planning games, escape games and digital games. They also touched many topical areas like natural hazards (think: mud slides or earth quakes), resource management (think: aquifers in danger of drying up), climate resilient planning, policy simulations, geothermal energy, saving oceans, climate change and mitigation and more! 

• Noemi Mannucci - Playback to the Future: a card game for inclusive engagement with environmental hazards 
• Guillemette Legrand - Model Fatigue: role-playing climate infrastructural imaginaries 
• Blair Schneider - Ogallala: A New Educational Geoscience Game Designed to Teach Groundwater Resource Management in Agriculture 
• Silvia De Angeli - Habit’Action: a serious game approach to exploring human habitability under Climate Change in mid-mountain communities 
• Silvio Kmetyko - Moving Mountains: A Board Game to Communicate the Risks of Landslides in High Mountain Terrain 
• Emanuele Intrieri - Earthvism - Dangers and Dwellers: a project to promote civic engagement through a board game on geological hazards 
• Pierre-Antoine Versini - From Play to Planning: Récré'Action, a Serious Game for Climate-Resilient Schoolyards 
• David Crookall - A policy simulation on sea level rise in the SIDSs: Come help build it 
• Marek Götsch - Escape the Quake – an educational escape room on geothermal energy and associated risk of induced seismicity 
• Jan Steinhauser - Hotspot Earth: a climate action game 
• Priscilla Le Mézo - Climat Tic Tac (Climate Tick-Tock) Ocean: playing together to save our oceans and coasts 
• Ivan Miranda Moral - Soil Guardians: A visual and accessible digital game for learning soil functions 
• Hanna Pfeffer - (Un)Real Landslides: Game Engine Technologies for Process Simulation and Communication 
• Jenny Bjordal - The Climate Casino: Teaching Climate Change and Mitigation Through Play 
• Alexis Johnson - Building Geologic Maps and Models in Minecraft for Use in Early Education 

Thursday, May 7

EGU Today

As the first session I joined short course SC3.2 - Instruments and Initiatives for Policy Engagement convened by Erika von Schneidemesser, Zsanett Greta Papp, Chloe Hill and Alice Albertini

Are you keen to see your research results integrated into decision-making but don’t know where to start? Science for policy can be very rewarding, but some basic considerations for engaging in science-policy can help you get your foot in the door or up your level of impact. A basic introduction that provides some tips for engagement will be followed up with short impulse talks from a panel of experts, highlighting different opportunities for policy engagement and the skills that got them there. It will also include teasers for different existing toolkits (e.g., Sci-4-Pol Competence Framework) and training opportunities (e.g., Science-Policy Pairing Scheme, or IEEP-EGU mentorship scheme) to boost your science for policy engagement skills. The session will end with an open Q&A with the panel.

This short course started with Zsanett Greta Papp giving us an overview of what all EGU offers for scientists who might want to get into the wide field of Science for Policy. Detailed information is available in this EGU blog post from 2024: GeoPolicy: 10 things that you can do to start engaging with policymaking today and this flyer lists them all:

Florian Schwendinger then told us about his experiences with working in the field of Science for Policy. He mentioned that you need quite a lot of different competencies and that you have to be prepared for "information overload" because you'll need to collect it, sift through it and then interpret and summarize it for the policy maker you are working with. You need to be aware of the policy implications the information has and understand the context and different timelines you are working in. You need to invest time in order to build trust, you need to understand available support structures and the different attitudes involved. And most important of all: don't fall for the myth that policy makers are bound to ignore scientific findings! If you manage to make information accessible and legible for them, chances are good that they'll take it into account.

Next Nicole Arbour enthusiastically (and without slides) told us about non-traditional was to engage in Science for Policy. One of the first things she mentioned was that soft skills - contrary to what some believe - are very important in this area where science and policy overlap and interact. Active listening is especially relevant as is building a network by meeting as many people at receptions as possible (even if that is not your favorite kind of event). She for example regularly organizes what she called "Science parties" where she brings in a scientist prepared to give a 15-minute keynote - without scientifc charts or error bars - for invited policy makers. In addition, she encouraged scientists to write op-eds (you never know who reads those, but they can have a direct impact on policy), go on podcasts, join advisory boards and accept expert roles.

As the last speaker of this short course Alice Albertine explained the new mentoring program set up by EGU and the Institute for European Environment Policy (IEEP) of which she was the first mentee. This mentoring scheme is a 12-month flexible, hybrid programme for early and mid-career researchers who have completed a PhD. The objectives are to gain experience in a non-academic sector, broaden the mentee’s professional network, develop/increase an understanding of the European policy landscape, enhance their science for policy skills, and learn about how they and their institutions can increase the policy impact of their research. Activities include contributing to existing IEEP projects and publications, attend IEEP events and networking. Alice pointed out the human factor is very important and that helps to engage with many teams even those not directly linked to your project.

To learn more about Science for Policy, here are a few links:

• European Commission - Competence Framework ‘Science for Policy’ for researchers 
• European Commission - Smart4Policy: Reflect about your work on policy!
• European Union Academy - Science for Policy - Maximise your Policy Impact
• EGU - Subscribe to the Newsletter 

     
After the coffee break it was time for short course SC3.3 - New Toolkits – the destabilisation of science and what we can do about it convened by  Lene Topp, Zsanett Greta Papp, Erika von Schneidemesser and Chloe Hill:

Science is increasingly under pressure from political polarisation, misinformation, and declining public trust. These dynamics not only destabilise scientific communication but also challenge the ability of researchers to engage effectively with society and policymakers. To navigate this landscape, scientists and science communicators are developing new “toolkits” – practical methods, frameworks, and strategies – that support resilience, credibility, and impact.

This short course will introduce participants to a set of emerging toolkits designed over the coming year, focusing on how researchers can strengthen the role of science in public discourse and policy. The session will explore key questions: How can scientists better anticipate and counter misinformation? Which communication strategies foster trust across diverse audiences? What can we learn from cross-disciplinary and international experiences in addressing science denial and disinformation campaigns?

The invited speakers gave short keynotes to set the stage for the course:

Sheena Cruickshank is a science communicator, immunologist, and Professor in Biomedical Sciences and Public Engagement at the University of Manchester. During the COVID-pandemic she learned a lot about how important it is to communicate science effectively and to build trust with communities you work with. She trained communicators from communities of how to translate scientific jargon and to give them the necessary vocabulary and toolkits. She also stressed the importance of what she called the "Five C's":

• Confidence and trust in the people making vaccines, the science, etc
• Complacency considers whether people feel complacent regarding risks of infection vs vaccine
• Convenience is how easy is it to get vaccinated
• Communication is about how clear the communication is and if it is in the right language and accessible
• Context considers cultural contexts and barriers like e.g. whether there is historical mistrust in a group

George N. Georgarakis is the Moritz Schlick Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Political Communication in the Department of Communication at the University of Vienna. Together with a team he conducted research into how misinformation spreads online and what options exist to decrease sharing of false information and increase the sharing of true content. They found that a lot of misinformation is shared by actual people and not by bots, that political motivation, heuristics (mental shortcuts) and accuracy neglect are some of the reasons for this.

He mentioned various forms of interventions like debunking, pre-bunking and credibility lables, or asking people actively to not share false information. They found that the interventions didn't increase polarization with results replicated in several countries already.

Matthias Fejes is the Co-founder of Scicomm-Support, TUD Dresden University of Technology spokesperson, and member of the executive board of the German Association for University Communication. He introduced participants to the Scicomm-Support platform which is a central point of contact for scientists if they get attacked or harrassed. He explained the four different dimensions of hostility towards science, namely anti-science, ingorance about science, science skeptisim and denial of science. 

He gave some pointers of how to recognize the situation (what it is, whether or not it's dynamic, what happened, who should be contacted), what the context of the situation is (social media posts, threads via phone, email or letters), which information can be found online about you, what are the options (refute, confront, ignore, criminal prosecution).

The subsequent discussion touched on topics like necessary smarter regulation of platforms; they may need to be forced to bring fact-checking back. Everybody needs to be mindful of self-care and resilience. The course ended with some tips for attacked or harrassed scientists:

• whenever available get prevention training
• be aware about how sensitive your research topic is
• draw on the academic community for support
• report incidents to police
• but pick your battles and make use of the block option online

 

After lunch, another short course was on the menu: SC3.10 - Elevate your Pitch: Developing Engaging Short Scientific Presentations convened by Antara Dasgupta, Hannah Cloke, Hazel Gibson and Simon Clark. This was a neat mixture of input from the conveners and a practical exercises for 1-minutes pitches with getting feedback on.

The scientific communication landscape in the digital era is rapidly becoming all about effectively delivering ideas in brief. As scientific conferences move from longer physical meetings to more condensed hybrid formats, not only are short presentations necessary for pitching yourself to senior scientists or your next entrepreneurial venture to Venture Capitalists, but also for promoting your research. The opportunities of networking rarely reveal themselves, unless you are able to tell a brief, informative, and compelling story about you and your research.

It is truly an art to engage people through these short presentations and ignite a fire in their hearts, which will burn long enough for them to remember you and reach out to you later about relevant opportunities. While practice makes perfect is the mantra for delivering power-packed short presentations, there are several tricks to make your content stand out and set yourself apart from the crowd.

In this hybrid format course, we will bring together ideas and tips from years of sci-comm experience to provide you a one stop shop with the tricks of the trade. Finally, a hands-on exercise where participants will receive structured feedback on all aspects of their talk will help solidify the learning outcomes. 

In the first part of the session, Antara Dasgupta walked us through some tips about succesful presenting: 

• Ground yourself before giving a talk (try a "power pose" like "The Cormorant")
• Concentrate on a good pitch: clarity, conficence, delivery
• Simple story-telling is a key to a killer pitch, so channel your inner story teller
• Know your audience
• Record yourself for effective practicing
• Own your mistakes (everybody makes them!)
• Identify your stumbling blocks, words you have problems with and if need be replace them
• Be careful with jargon and acronyms - even fellow scientists may not know what they mean if they work in a different field
• Talk to the audience not the floor or screen
• Be careful with reading from a script as veering off from it, may trip you up

This theoretical section was then followed by an exercise where on-site participants split into pairs to prepare and practice a 1-minute pitch. Online participants were encouraged to do this as well, albeit on their own. Volunteers had a chance to give their pitches in the room after about 20 minutes preparation and some did. So, we heard from a meteorologist who keeps the planet safe by forecasting "space weather" or about how wind turbines "feel" about their job and a few more.

I used the opportunity for a quick pitch about the Cranky Uncle game, recycling parts from a PICO-session I gave in 2022. Based on the reactions from the room - I did hear some chuckling at the expected places - and the feedback provided, it came across quite well.

I'd like to briefly introduce you to Cranky Uncle, a critical thinking game developed by John Cook to build resilience against climate and other misinformation.

The game helps you to understand Cranky Uncles by becoming a Cranky Uncle yourself.

And you learn the techniques of science denial which are: fake experts, logical fallacies, impossible expectations, cherry picking and conspiracy theories.
All easily memorable via the abbreviation FLICC.

Cranky Uncle mentors you on how to deny science by using these FLICC techniques.

You then practice spotting these techniques with the help of cartoon quizzes and other forms of quiz questions.

As you move along you build up Cranky points.

And the more cranky points you get, the more you are able to level up and see your mood get ever crankier.

To wrap up the day I joined Great Debate GDB3 -  Geoengineering - Overarching Great Debate convened by Marie G. P. Cavitte, Zsanett Greta Papp, Noel Baker and Erika von Schneidemesser:

As our world approaches 1.5°C of global warming, as worldwide emissions continue to grow, and the impacts of climate change escalate, there is a general sentiment that we are running out of time. Increasingly, geoengineering concepts are being pushed into the media and policy spheres, using this sentiment of urgency to frame these concepts as “buying us time” for mitigation. There are many concepts, with the most advanced concepts including solar radiation management (marine cloud brightening, stratospheric aerosol injection mostly), sea ice thickening/brightening, sea curtains, tarping mountain glaciers, ocean fertilisation or alkalinity enhancement, as well as ocean biomass dumping, and many more. Some might target the root cause of our rising temperatures by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but with detrimental effects on the ecosystems impacted. Other concepts would just attenuate the symptoms of our planet, the rising global temperature.

Are geoengineering concepts a distraction from our urgent need for adaptation and mitigation? In a world where research funding, political focus on the green transition, and geopolitical order are dwindling, are we reducing our chances of reaching the highest possible mitigation ambition to stay well below 2°C and pursue efforts to stay below 1.5°C by even discussing these options? Several of the targeted ecosystems (e.g. our deep ocean, cloud-aerosol interactions, etc.) are not yet well understood at a fundamental level. Is it appropriate to advocate for their manipulation without first conducting adequate fundamental research?

Not too surprisingly given the topic, this turned out to be a very interesting and timely session, for which the focus had been restricted to two kinds of geo-engineering: solar radiation management (SRM) and Marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR). The debate started with 10 minute keynotes from the panelists. The information provided below is based on my notes and the slides presented:

Carl Friedrich Schleussner leads the Integrated Climate Impacts Research Group at IIASA, and is also an Honorary Professor at Humboldt University Berlin. His research spans extreme climate events, climate impact projection, tipping elements and the societal implications of climate change, with a special focus on international climate negotiations and climate overshoot.

Carl Schleussner expects that carbon dioxide removal (CDR) will become necessary in one form or the other to compensate for the very likely overshoot our continuing emissions are causing. He noted that there'll be side effects and unitended consequences and that SRM obviously doesn't fix the root cause of the problem. He also mentioned that there is no defined governance at the moment and that it could be used for geopolitical leverage and cause conflicts.

Yolanda López-Maldonado is a Maya Indigenous Earth systems scientist advancing Indigenous science in global environmental governance. Lead author of the upcoming UNEP Global Environment Outlook Report, a Review Editor for the 2nd IPBEST Global Assessment, and the founder of Indigenous Science, an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to integrating Indigenous knowledge into global scientific and diplomatic frameworks. Yolanda bridges Indigenous knowledge and global policy at the highest levels.

Yolanda López described SRM as a hypothesis about climate interventation but not a proven solution. Indigenous people nned to be involved and heard as right-holders instead of just stake-holders (if even that). Any intervention that alters the Earth system should be evaluated with a multidecadal perspective that Indigenous knowledge often provides. A globally inclusive, transparent and equitable scientific assessment process for SRM is required (UNEP 2023). Ethically, Indigenous peoples must be involved because they have a legitimate right to participate in decisions that may affect their territories and futures. If SRM is ever considered seriously, it must be governed as a planetary issue, not a technocratic fix: scientifically uncertain, ethically consequential, and inseparable from justice, Indigenous rights, and long-term observation.

Philippe Tulkens is head of the unit “Climate and Planetary Boundaries” in the Healthy Planet Directorate in DG Research and Innovation at the European Commission. His unit co-programs EU R&I activities in the areas of climate change, biodiversity, nature-based solutions and environmental observation. His unit is the EU focal point to the IPCC and EU co-focal point to the IPBES. Philippe is also the Deputy Mission Manager for the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change.

Philippe Turkens stated that from an EU perspective SRM is seen as a risk and is poorly understood. A commitment to assess the risks and uncertainties, to promote international discussions which are guided by the precautionary principle is needed and a moratorium on deployment is called for.

Sian Henley is a Reader in Marine Science and Deputy Head of the Global Change Research Institute at the University of Edinburgh. Her research spans climate and environmental change in the polar oceans, both the Arctic and Antarctic, to climate change impacts on children worldwide. Sian is active at the science-policy interface with a focus on Earth’s polar regions, such as at the COPs and the UN Ocean Conferences. 

Sian Henley focused on the mCDR options and none of the proposed ideas really passes scrutiny. Even if they are tried, they will most likely not have much of an impact and these thought experiments should not distract from the urgen task to decrease emissions as quickly as possible. Of the proposed options, only iron fertilization has been tried experimentally but the results were not conclusive. There is however a risk that ocean chemistry would be changed with the nature of these changes being unknown. Impacts on fisheries and therefore people in the global south could be high, so they would be the ones most affected by decisions made in the global north - possibly even without their involvement.

Wil Burns serves as the Founding Co-Director of the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal, a research center at American University in Washington DC, and is a Professor in the School of International Service. His research focuses on the law and governance of carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation modification approaches.

Wil Burns touched on some of the same issues Sian Henley mentioned and also pointed out that decarbonization of industry has to be tackled aggressively. He still fears that some carbon removal will be needed, something the IPCC expects as well. 

A lot more points were raised in the subsequent panel discussion and during the Q&A part, here are some of them:

• no governance framework exists for CDR and it doesn't fit into any of the existing climate-related frameworks
• 77 countries include CDR in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) without giving any details
• geo-engineering is complex and therefore hard to explain to policy makers
• community led and nature based solutions may be better options
• topic is sensitive
• there's no transparency of who and why is currently pushing for geo-engineering
• how to avoid falling into the trap of "technical fixes"?
• some want to deploy e.g. SRM quickly because the situation is so dire
• some say that mitigation and adaptation needs to speed up first
• CDR could be abused for coercion
• we could be opening a Pandora's box
• large-scale testing will most likely happen - w/o asking - on indigenous land or near disenfranchised communities
• how big is the risk of somebody going roque and "simply" start something? Would we even be able to detect it?

So, at the end of the debate there were perhaps more open than closed questions but it definitely was thought-provoking!

Friday, May 8

EGU Today

I started the last day of virtual EGU with another PICO-session: NH9.13 - Innovative Approaches to Hazards, Risk and Disaster Education and Communication convened by Bruce D. Malamud, Thomas Glade, Annika Fröwis, Faith Taylor, Caroline Michellier and Solmaz Mohadjer:

Resilience building requires effective communication, teaching and understanding of hazard and risk. Traditional outreach methods often struggle to engage diverse audiences; connect science and practice; or influence policy. Innovative approaches can address some of these challenges. For example, digital tools such as serious games, (massive) open online courses (MOOCs), simulations and immersive virtual/augmented reality can bring hazard scenarios to life. Equally, non-digital methods such as role-play, participatory mapping, classroom activities and tabletop demonstrations can foster engagement and deeper understanding of risk. This session welcomes abstracts that explore the development, application and evaluation of education and communication innovations across a spectrum: from primary through the postgraduate learning, and from public to expert engagement. We particularly welcome contributions of serious games, VR/AR simulations and digital platforms in addition to non-digital methods such as classroom demonstrations and participatory activities. Presentations that reflect on co-production with stakeholders, inclusivity and approaches for evaluating outcomes are strongly encouraged. In this session, we hope to bring together researchers, educators and practitioners to share best practice, showcase cutting-edge tools and teaching methods, and critically reflect on the role of innovation in hazard and risk education and communication. We plan on having a PICO session to ensure a lively combination of discussion and poster presentation. 

The conveners had divided this 2-part PICO-session thematically. Before the morning coffee-break we heard about serious games & simulations and academic & professional eduction projects. Afterwards the themes changed to child & youth eduction, public engagement and media. Unfortunately, some of the speakers didn't make it in time to the session because there were issues with public transport in Vienna.

Initially, I wasn't quite sure if a session from the Natural Hazards (NH) science section of EGU would make much sense for me to join as I usually gravitate towards the education, outreach and policy sessions offered at the conference. However - and after taking a closer look at the submitted abstracts - this could just as well have been an EOS-session given that the talks were in fact about different education and outreach strategies in the realm of natural hazards.

As this was a PICO-session, short 2-minute pitches followed in rapid succession during the first part of each timeblock. We heard about an online simulation game where players have to evacuate people after an earthquake without getting into landslides while doing so, about gamified flood resilience simulation and effective risk communication, about underappreciated hazards of burning lowlands, about disaster risk reduction in case of floods and wildfires, about necessary civic engangement when it comes to natural hazards, about climate-driven geohazard mitigation, about enhancing risk management through education, research and innovation, about webplatforms collecting natural hazards, about storytelling and podcasts to get the word out.

In addition to the many different topics touched upon, where these projects are done is just as varied: they could be very local (Tübingen in Germany), regional (lowlands in The Netherlands), moutaineous areas in Nepal, Pakistan, Austria, South Korea, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Italy, volcanic regions in The Democratic Republic of Congo, on the Canary Islands or the Philippines. Or they could be in virtual and synthetic worlds simulating various places.

List of presentations:

• Martin Mergili - Geogames and geohazards 
• Binod Prasad Parajuli - Immersive Flood Education for Effective Risk Communication: Field-Based Testing of Virtual Reality and Gamified Simulations for Flood Preparedness in Terai region of Nepal 
• Milica Mijailovi? - Burning Lowlands: A Serious Game to Evaluate Citizen Learning, Communication, and Decision-Making in Climate Adaptation 
• Innocent Bahati Mutazihara - Using serious games to communicate disaster risk: Insights from interrupted implementation in Eastern DR Congo 
• Jakob F. Steiner - Asking those who feel it - indigenous knowledge on climate risks in mountains: Transdisciplinary teaching to enhance student engagement  
• Sophia Sternath - EUMAplus: Digitalization of educational materials for Disaster Management and Civil Protection experts and professionals 
• Monica May L Mendoza - Advancing Disaster Education and Risk Communication through the Fundamentals of Resilience MOOCs in the Philippines 
• Solmaz Mohadjer - Fostering Civic Engagement on Natural Hazard Uncertainty: A Service-Learning course to create an active dialogue between science and society 
• Graham Lewis Gilbert - Educating for Climate-Driven Geohazard Mitigation and Management – Experience from the GEOMME International Partnership in Norway, South Korea, and Japan 
• Lisa Van Well - Communicating Cascading Natural Hazards through Co-Created Visualization with Youth 
• Bruce D Malamud - Low-Cost and Accessible Approaches to Natural Hazard Education in Secondary Schools 
• Luca Piciullo - Halfway through the NATRISK project: Enhancing risk management and resilience to natural hazards in India, Brazil and Norway through collaborative education, research and innovation 
• Carla Iadanza - The IdroGEO web platform: an innovative tool for landslide hazard and risk communication in Italy 
• Alfonso Senatore - PAER: A new web platform for acquisition, storage, processing, and visualization of natural risks 
• Saverio Romeo - Innovative Tools for Disaster Risk Education: Twenty Years of LARES Initiatives in Italy 
• Paul Caesar Flores - From Data to Stories: Human-Centered Podcasting for Hazard and Risk Communication 
• Nemesio M. Pérez - The role of media and journalism in volcanic risk reduction: insights from the Canary Island 

This turned out to be the last session I documented during the week. The virtual poster session I had on my list for the afternoon turned out to contain only a few presentations from a cross-section of what had already been covered in oral sessions during the week and lasted for only 30 minutes. Some of the posters were flagged as "no pictures allowed" and some were in a format not really suitable to grab screenshots of.

Over the final lunch break of EGU26 I headed back up to the rooftop in Gather on the off-chance that somebody might come there for the last networking session I had offered to chat about Skeptical Science. While nobody came for the session itself I had a nice - if short - chat with another participant who joined EGU virtually from Australia. 

Summary

As you can tell by the length of this blog post (sorry about that!), EGU kept me pretty occupied during the week. All told, I gave 2 oral presentations, joined 14 timeslots covering 4 Education and Outreach sessions (EOS) two of which were done as oral sessions and two as PICOs, 1 Natural Hazards PICO session (NH), 1 Inter- and Transdisciplinary Studies session (ITS), 4 short courses (SC), 1 Union Symposium (US) and 1 Great Debate (GDB). Joining the sessions virtually worked pretty well and only one of the PICO-sessions did have some technical issues with the Zoom-Meeting.

During the sessions I grabbed about 500 screenshots of which 162 made it into my visual session summaries and from there into the daily compilations. I took a lot of notes on my iPad during the sessions but fear, that I won't really be able to read my own scribbles when I look at them again in a short little while. But they did help with writing my diary, so served their main purpose quite well.

Final update from the EGU-website: "The EGU General Assembly 2026 welcomed 22,497 registered attendees, of which 20,027 made their way to Vienna from 125 countries and 2,470 joined online from 107 countries. It was a great success with 20,173 presentations given in 1,014 sessions. [...]"

To paraphrase a saying: "After a General Assembly of the European Geoscience Union is before the next one"! I plan to join EGU27 onsite in Vienna next year when the conference will happen a month earlier than this year from April 4 to 9. I'm already looking forward to the trip!

Each week, Food Tank is rounding up a few news stories that inspire excitement, infuriation, or curiosity.

Investment in Africa’s Agrifood Systems Is Growing—But Not Enough

A new joint report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, the World Food Programme, and the African Union Commission finds that since 2018, the African continent has seen a general upward trend in government spending on agriculture, forestry, and fishing. In 2022, public expenditure in these sectors amounted to US$16 billion, up from US$12.6 billion in 2020 and US$14.6 billion in 2021. 

While encouraging, the investment is still not enough to meet targets for ending hunger and transforming food and agriculture systems in a region where hunger has increased for eight consecutive years. 

Private sector funding in the form of bank credit and foreign direct investment is particularly low and far below potential, the authors state. The perceived high risk of investing in food and agriculture markets remains a key barrier to financing solutions that can boost food and nutrition security for communities. 

That’s why the report urgently calls for public-private collaboration that will de-risk investments. Policy reforms that are inclusive of women and youth are needed as well. The report also identifies climate finance—which rose nearly 50 percent in two years—as an untapped opportunity if decisionmakers can align this funding with food systems transformation that builds resilience.

COP31 Presidency, IEA Team Up to Push Clean Energy

The COP31 Presidency recently announced a partnership with the International Energy Agency (IEA) to speed up the transition to clean energy. This comes during what IEA’s Executive Director Fatih Birol calls “the biggest energy crisis in history”

Murat Kurum, Turkey’s Minister of Environment, says that it will take collaboration to “transform the crisis into an opportunity.”

While details of the partnership are still limited, one of the most important pillars of this transition will focus on clean cooking, helping the roughly 2.3 billion people reliant on polluting fuels like charcoal, firewood, and waste switch to cleaner cooking solutions. This move can not only reduce emissions but also lower the associated negative health impacts.

The Environment Minister also shared that the IEA will conduct special research on the impact of recycling, which will inform the COP31 Presidency’s agenda on cutting emissions from waste—a top priority for Turkey. 

New South Wales Prepares for Food Waste Prevention Laws

Beginning July 1, sites in New South Wales that generate 3,960 liters of waste a week will be required to separate food waste from their general waste. This will impact larger operations including hotels, food courts, and other high-volume venues. 

By July 2028, the rules will apply to sites that produce at least 1,980 liters of waste per week. By 2030, it will apply to those generating at least 720 liters. 

Currently, households spend roughly AU$2,000 every year on food that goes uneaten. And by 2030, the government states that the country’s landfills will not be able to accept additional waste. 

The New South Wales Environment Protection Authority is offering programs and grants that will help businesses comply with the new laws. 

While their timelines vary, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory, and Queensland are also moving toward circular economy frameworks that will prioritize diverting organic waste from landfills. 

Agricultural Cooperatives Offer Resilience and Hope

A new policy paper from the Co-operative Party finds that agricultural cooperatives could “unleash growth” and boost food security in the United Kingdom. 

At a time when the conflict is driving fuel and fertilizer prices higher, co-ops offer stability. By allowing farmers to pool resources, and share risks, and invest collectively, this model can improve resilience in the face of volatile input markets. 

Paul Gerrard, Director of public affairs at the Co-operative Group, says that a co-op “naturally lends itself to sharing costs and spreading risk” while making “the day-to-day fundamentals of farming more efficient.”

There are around 500 agricultural co-ops in the UK and around half of UK farmers are estimated to be members of a co-op of some kind. But the paper says there is “significant room for expansion.” A new Farming Roadmap for England, which will be published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The report’s authors believe this Roadmap is an opportunity to formalize a commitment to expanding co-ops even further. 

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Photo courtesy of Danie Kawed, Unsplash

The post Food Tank’s Weekly News Roundup: Australia Cracks Down on Food Waste, COP31 Pushes Clean Energy, Ag Co-ops Offer Hope appeared first on Food Tank.

Justin Smarsh and his family used to kayak a few times a year on the rivers and creeks near their home in Cherry Tree, Pennsylvania. High on the Appalachian Plateau, northeast of Pittsburgh, he spent hours in the woods and taught his two sons to hunt. Today, Smarsh said, he gets “suffocated just walking.” He has a constant dry cough, and he loses his breath if he bends down to tie his shoes. 

A few years after he graduated from high school and got married, Smarsh went to work in a coal mine in his home county, just as his father and grandfather had. “It was the best-paying job around,” he said. “It still is.” Now Smarsh, 42, has progressive massive fibrosis — the most severe form of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, or black lung.

There is no cure for Smarsh’s condition. He tries to slow the progression with “piles of meds,” he said, but things will eventually worsen, potentially to the point of heart failure. In patients with advanced disease, a flu or common cold can lead to a kind of drowning as the lungs fill with fluid. Smarsh’s doctors say he won’t live to see 50. 

“Most people think coal mining is a thing of the past,” said Deanna Istik, CEO of Lungs at Work, a black lung clinic in Washington County, Pennsylvania. “Meanwhile, we see more people being diagnosed with black lung disease than we ever have before.” 

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Coal mining has always been a hazardous occupation. But today’s miners face a new danger because they’re inhaling something worse than the coal dust that settles in lungs, triggering immune cells to form nodules, masses, and scarified black tissue. Most of the large coal seams in the mountains of Appalachia are gone now. To reach smaller seams, miners must cut through much more rock with high levels of quartz, which gets pulverized into crystalline silica.

When tiny particles of silica are inhaled, they act like minute shards of glass, leading to severe tissue scarring and inflammation and eventually to progressive massive fibrosis, the most severe form of black lung disease. Researchers from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH, estimate the disease now afflicts one in 10 working miners who have worked in mines for at least 25 years. Rising rates of the disease have led to stark increases in lung transplants and mortality. Between 2013 and 2017, hundreds of cases of progressive massive fibrosis were identified at three Virginia clinics alone, leading NIOSH to declare a renewed black lung epidemic. Black-lung-associated deaths, which declined between 1999 and 2018, rose between 2020 and 2023.

The disease is on the uptick at a time when the Trump administration is calling for the expansion of coal production. Last fall, the U.S. Department of Energy announced it was investing $625 million in coal projects, and this month, President Trump signed an executive order reaffirming coal as essential to national security, a move that will direct billions of dollars in federal funding to the industry. But while the administration is calling for more coal, it is simultaneously delaying implementation of new regulations that would protect miners from deadly silica. 

In the United States, black lung was officially acknowledged as a workplace-related illness only in the late 1960s, after a highly publicized disaster at a West Virginia mine killed 78 coal miners. Subsequent strikes and protests led to the passage of the 1969 Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, which mandated federal safety inspections of mines, set fines for violations, and established a benefits program to compensate miners with black lung. 

From left: Healthy lung tissue, simple black lung disease, and complicated black lung disease.
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

Rates of the disease dropped almost immediately, and by the end of the 20th century, thanks to the implementation of those standards and a strong union presence in mines in Pennsylvania and across Appalachia, black lung was nearly eradicated. 

In the last two decades, U.S. coal production has fallen precipitously. It peaked in 2008 at more than 1,170 million tons, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration; in 2023, production was 578 million tons, a drop of more than 50 percent. 

But in Pennsylvania, says Istik, “this is not a dead industry. We’re still cutting coal.” A 2024 report by the Pennsylvania Coal Alliance counted more than 5,000 mining jobs generating some $2.2 billion in economic output. Nationwide, there are still close to 40,000 coal workers. 

Black lung diagnoses continue to mount. Doctors and miner advocates say the condition is underdiagnosed, as many miners are reluctant to undergo testing for fear of losing their jobs should their employer find out. “I think there’s always going to be that fear of retribution,” said Istik. But eventually, she added, the symptoms become debilitating. Smarsh, a patient of Lungs at Work, didn’t see a doctor about his labored breathing until his wife, Alicia, insisted he had no choice. 

Black lung clinics are seeing more and more patients like Smarsh, who’ve gotten sick in their 30s and 40s. In earlier generations, miners might have needed decades of coal dust exposure to develop serious disease, if they got sick at all. “My dad and my pap were both miners, and they didn’t get it,” Smarsh said. “So, I thought, ‘Who says I’m going to?’” But today’s workers, who are breathing a much higher proportion of silica, can develop a disabling illness in much less time. 

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Smarsh worked mostly as a roof bolter — the person responsible for installing supports to prevent cave-ins — drilling up into rock. He spent eight years underground before his lung condition made it impossible for him to work, or to walk across his own backyard without using an inhaler. 

Experts have understood the dangers of silica dust for decades. In the 1970s, NIOSH suggested regulations that would limit exposure to 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air, averaged over a 10-hour workday in the mine. In 2016, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration adopted the 50-microgram silica standard for other occupations, like construction and manufacturing. But in 2017, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, or MSHA — which is mandated to conduct quarterly inspections of underground mines and enforce safety standards — responded to industry pressure and set the limit for mining at 100 micrograms over an eight-hour workday. 

After a negotiation process that spanned years and multiple administrations and involved mining industry lobbyists, legal groups, and scientists from NIOSH and other agencies, MSHA announced in 2024 that it would issue a new rule reducing the silica exposure limit in mines to 50 micrograms, with enforcement to begin in April 2025. 

The new rule would require operators to use “engineering controls,” such as improved ventilation systems, as the primary means of meeting the standard. Those tools could be supplemented, when necessary, by “administrative controls,” such as clothing decontamination and avoidance of especially dusty areas, to keep miners from breathing unacceptable amounts of silica.

The National Mining Association and other industry groups mounted a legal challenge, arguing that when ventilation systems aren’t enough to bring respirable silica levels below the 50-microgram standard, operators should be able to require miners to use respirators to achieve compliance.

But “respirators are really the last line of defense, because they aren’t foolproof,” Istik said. “Silica is such a small particle; it still comes through.” 

Smarsh wore a respirator some of the time when he was underground. But there were other times, he said, when it was too difficult to see or breathe through it. “Anytime you’re underground, you see dust,” he said. “But it’s not the dust you see that gets you. It’s the little stuff you don’t see.” 

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While respirators are important safety equipment, it should not be the coal miner’s responsibility not to get black lung, said Erin Bates, communications director of the United Mine Workers of America. It is the company, she added, that must ensure a safe work environment for its employees.

When the Trump administration came into office, it cut MSHA’s budget and staff. The agency had already been operating at a disadvantage: According to data from the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, MSHA’s coal mine enforcement staff has been cut in half over the last decade. The American Federation of Government Employees reported that another 7 percent of the agency’s full-time workforce accepted the Trump administration’s “Fork in the Road” buyout last year, and 90 newly hired mine inspectors had their job offers rescinded. There were concerns among black lung experts and advocates about the diminished agency’s ability to implement the new silica exposure rule. The loss included people “we desperately needed,” Carey Clarkson, who represents Labor Department workers for the federation, told NPR at the time. “I can’t image how many years of experience we lost.” 

A few days before the April 2025 enforcement date, the rule hit two different roadblocks: The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency stay of the rule in response to a petition led by another industry group — the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association — and MSHA itself announced it would delay implementation to give operators more time to “come into compliance.” 

The litigation has remained in limbo. Last November, MSHA moved to have the legal proceedings paused as it “reconsiders” parts of the rule, and earlier this month it announced the delay would continue “indefinitely” pending judicial review. The agency did not respond to a request for comment. 

Bates said the union is disheartened. The agency “was literally created for the health and safety of coal miners, but they don’t want to take that into consideration,” she said.

Rebecca Shelton, director of policy for the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, which has been advocating for a new silica rule since the late 2000s, said her organization had hoped to see the rule implemented under the Biden administration “because we were concerned about challenges it might face.” The process was slowed by intense lobbying, she said, and MSHA’s need to study the rule’s impact across diverse mining industries. 

“If the Trump administration actually cared about protecting coal miners from black lung, we’d have a strong silica rule in place right now,” she said in a statement issued by the center after MSHA announced the indefinite delay. “Instead, they are hiding behind a ridiculous legal process to delay action while miners get sick and die.” 

Smarsh said his 19-year-old son wants to work in the coal mines. “Me and my wife tell him all the time, you see what I’m going through? All the good coal that was around here is gone. Now there’s nothing but rock and silica.” Gone too, Smarsh said, is any trust he once had in a coal company to keep miners safe. 

“All they’re worried about is ‘you better have that black gold,’” he said. “They say they care about miners, but you go underground, you’re taking the risk, for you to get nothing but sick, and to fill their pockets full.” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline In coal country, black lung surges as federal protections stall on May 9, 2026.

Iran is passing through a phase of exceptional violence and intensity. In the wake of the genocide in Palestine and the large-scale destruction inflicted on Lebanon, the United States and Israel are also participating in the devastation of lives, bodies, territories, and vital infrastructures in Iran.There they have been targeting not only refineries and fuel depots, but also health facilities, water resources, energy systems, oil installations, schools, and other civilian spaces. In Minab, a girls’ school was obliterated and more than 168 were killed, among them Baloch children. This war has disrupted the very conditions of social reproduction, further deepened the vulnerability of the working classes. It has undermined the material basis of social autonomy, pushing struggles from below several steps backward, and reinforcing forms of state or social-driven ethno-nationalism. The rapid shift, within the space of a month, from Trump’s promise to “make Iran great again” to the threat of reducing the country to the “stone age” dispelled any remaining ambiguity about the imperial logic at work—a formula that unmistakably recalls the language of the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq.

This imperialist “external” violence, however, cannot be understood apart from the internal crisis through which the Islamic Republic has been attempting to reconstitute its authority. Since the 2022 uprising, following the police murder of the young Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini, the Islamic Republic has continuously sought, in every war and geopolitical crisis, ways to restore some of the authority and respectability it has lost.

The paradox of imperialist assault and regime legitimacy

The war waged by the genocidal Israeli colonial power against the Palestinians after October 7, 2023, followed by the first Israeli-U.S. attack on Iran in June 2025, offered the Islamic Republic an initial framework for rehabilitation. However, the January 2026 massacre, during which thousands of Iranian demonstrators were killed in just two days by the forces of the theocratic state, simply for protesting against the economic crisis and political dictatorship, reopened an acute crisis of legitimacy, domestically and internationally, for Tehran.

When Iranians were still in mourning, and while many families had not even been able to recover the bodies of their loved ones killed in January, the United States and Israel launched a new imperialist invasion on February 28, 2026, one even more violent than previous assaults. Paradoxically, the attacks have so far helped the Islamic Republic regain some of the credibility it had lost through the bloody repression of the previous month.

These two events, massacre and war, do not constitute either separate sequences or two opposing forms of violence—one repressive and the other supposedly liberatory—but rather successive, even asymmetric, moments of an interconnected counter-revolutionary process. The “external” war prolongs and deepens the internal counter-revolution, enabling the Iranian state to tighten internal cohesion and, once again, stifle popular dissent.

Recognizing this in no way minimizes the fact that Iran has been, and remains, the target of imperialist and colonial aggression carried out with impunity. On the contrary, it requires us to read this assault in terms of its deeper political function: first, as a murderous enterprise of destruction targeting civilian lives, bodies, infrastructure, and territories, carried out under false pretexts and extending the genocidal enterprise pursued in Gaza, as well as in the West bank and Lebanon; and, second, as the provision of new resources to the Islamic Republic for its own reconstitution.

What is campism?

Israeli-U.S. aggression is reinforcing Iran’s militarization, repression, and the crushing of uprisings from below. It is also intensifying a deadly political polarization. On one side, part of the opposition, especially monarchists, welcomed the imperialist bombings in the name of their hostility to the theocratic state. On the other side, other political forces have fallen back into the orbit of the Islamic Republic in the name of anti-imperialism and opposition to war. While the reactionary nature of the first current—pro-Israel, pro-U.S., and pro-genocide—has been readily opposed based on a relative consensus among the progressive and leftist forces, the second current has unfortunately captured parts of the Left and  is every bit as significant.

It is within this impasse that the question of campism re-emerges with particular urgency. By campism I mean a range of positions and tendencies that support any force or state  based on its opposition to Western imperialism regardless of its reactionary or progressive nature.

A legacy of the Cold War, campism, as articulated by self-proclaimed anti-imperialists and supporters of the so-called resistance camp, often reduces the world based on a binary logic of two “camps”: imperialism (the United States, NATO, Israel, and their allies) versus “the resistance” (Iran, Russia, China, Assad’s Syria, and so on). The democratic and subversive uprisings against the latter states, such as Rojava, are thereby dismissed as inherently suspect or as a”” Trojan Horse” of the enemy. Any criticism of dictators is immediately disqualified as “complicity with imperialism”.

Popular mobilizations are reduced to mere “Western relays”, or else instrumentalized whenever they can serve one camp. The logic of “the enemy of my enemy” becomes an alibi: it becomes an excuse for overlooking internal repression and the protests that follow,  as nothing more than parts of a larger geopolitical conflict.

The result is that internationalist, mutual solidarity based on the shared experiences and destinities of the oppressed classes becomes paralyzed, incapable of holding anti-authoritarianism and anti-imperialism together. Under the pretext of preventing any “imperialist exploitation” of revolutions, campists tend to privilege a structurally marginalized, “prudent” Left, at times condemned to perpetual defeat.

This “identity-based anti-imperialism” privileges loyalty to “anti-Western” states over an analysis of global capitalism. In so doing, it justifies repression, patriarchy, homophobia, and internal colonialism in the name of “resistance.” Absolute priority is given to the struggle against Western imperialism, and victims of these “anti-imperialist” states become “collateral damage.” .

The Irish essayist Fred Halliday described this type of thinking as “the anti-imperialism of fools.” In the name of hostility to the United States, this posture violently reinforces, in practice, a theocratic state that represses the Left, national minorities, feminists, and popular councils. The concept was later taken up by the Syrian activist Leila Al-Shami in her book Burning Country to designate supporters of Bashar al-Assad during the Arab revolution of the 2010s. From the Soviet crushing of the Hungarian uprising in Budapest in 1956 to the present, this anti-imperialism of fools has masked state violence and the crushing of revolts.

Such a tendency can be observed within certain segments of the white Western left, but also within decolonial modes of thinking. It belongs to what one might call “anti-imperialism-washing,” the strategic use of anti-imperialist rhetoric to conceal, justify, or minimize forms of authoritarianism and fascistic violence exercised within national borders, especially when these states are presented as adversaries of Western hegemonic power. While these figures denounce the colonialism of Western powers, they remain largely blind, and even complicit, when it comes to “internal colonialism,” that is, the way minoritized peoples, such as the Kurds and Baluchs, describe their relationship to Iranian state power.

This practice is also often accompanied by a form of racial gaslighting. “Gaslighting” originally referred to the manipulation of women by systematically casting doubt on their word and mental state. Having become a key term in psychology and later a critical tool of feminism, it now encompasses a form of deceitful, violent, even denialist political language more broadly. Communities that have historically been subjected both to imperial domination and to internal repression are “taught,” from positions of relative privilege, the “correct” interpretation of imperialism and resistance. This condescending posture does not merely reinscribe colonial hierarchies of knowledge; it delegitimizes the ideas and lived experiences—the very agency— of those subjected to entangled systems of violence.

The consequences are all too tangible. The Islamic Republic of Iran instrumentalizes this decolonial discourse to label demonstrators as “terrorists” and harden its coercive apparatus. This logic also helps justify the discriminatory policies directed against Afghan migrants in Iran: by portraying them as an internal threat, the state shifts onto them responsibility for difficulties that in fact stem from its own political, social, and economic regime.

No struggle should be consigned to the “waiting-room of history” in the name of a linear conception of liberation, or sacrificed to a hierarchy of supposedly more urgent causes. The counterrevolutionary logic of campism

After the genocide in Gaza and the war waged by Israel and the United States against Iran in June 2025, campism has once again  come to dominate part of the global radical Left in the West, as well as in Latin America, Africa, and the Arab world. It reduces Iranian politics to a duel between “Iran” and the “U.S.-Israeli axis.” Popular uprisings, repressed in blood since 2017, are either passed over in silence or recast through the state’s official discourse: “Mossad infiltration,” “color revolution,” “Western plot,” and so on. This framework turns social movements into a security threat and legitimizes repression—from street violence to executions—under the pretext of a “state of emergency” or an “untimely moment”. By treating insurgent people as the principal enemy, it is, in fact, profoundly counterrevolutionary.

Under the expanding regime of permanent war, people in  struggle are repeatedly told to stand down, to defer themselves for the sake of a higher urgency. Even those who recognize the repressive nature of these forces often set aside emancipatory struggles in the name of strategy. This is what Morteza Samanpour and Amir Kianpour have called “strategic campism.” Feminist struggles have long been trapped in precisely this logic: they are always asked to wait, first for class, now for anti-imperialism. But feminist politics has named the truth of this postponement with clarity: later too often means never. No struggle should be consigned to the “waiting-room of history” in the name of a linear conception of liberation, or sacrificed to a hierarchy of supposedly more urgent causes.

Recent geopolitical developments have given campists even greater room for maneuver. During Israel’s war against Iran in June 2025, often referred to as the “Twelve-Day War,” the concrete experience of destruction strengthened anti-war tendencies inside Iran. However, after the bloody massacre perpetrated by the state in January 2026, part of society, exhausted and confronted with a dead end, came to falsely view foreign intervention as a means of overthrowing the government, other internal avenues having been tried unsuccessfully and with the state not yielding to pressure. A prominent doctor reported that “at least a thousand” patients (protesters) with severe eye injuries had presented at a single hospital in Tehran following the January protests, all requiring urgent treatment in an attempt to save their eyesight.

It is precisely here that campism collapses. To condemn external war while remaining silent about internal state violence is not a principled anti-war position, but a form of relativism that effaces crucial differences between regimes and modalities of violence. This is not a claim of Iranian exceptionalism invoked to legitimize military attack, as some Trumpist and monarchist currents have done. It is, rather, the insistence that a theocratic dictatorship, in which an unelected leader exercises extralegal power over ninety million people through social terror, executions, torture, political imprisonment, digital isolation, misogynistic religious rule, and racist-colonial policies toward national minorities and Afghan migrants, cannot be treated as equivalent to states where civil and legal freedoms, however limited, still exist, and where violence operates at a structurally different scale and form. .

To condemn the external war or imperialist intervention without explicitly denouncing this internal violences, the massacre of its own population, as campists do, is both a complete political misreading of dynamics in Iran, and means siding with the state against the people it is killing. States rule by dividing people and crushing uprisings. Campists do not resist this logic; they follow it. By taking states and their geopolitical alignments as their primary point of reference, they reproduce and legitimize the divisions imposed from above, substituting allegiance to state camps for solidarities forged from below among people in struggle.

By taking states and their geopolitical alignments as their primary point of reference, they reproduce and legitimize the divisions imposed from above, substituting allegiance to state camps for solidarities forged from below among people in struggle. A betrayal of the memories of the Global South

Since the Islamic counterrevolution against the genuine 1979 revolution, part of the national and international left has subordinated class and gender analysis to its one-sided interpretation of anti-imperialism. Women’s protests against compulsory veiling, for example, were marginalized, inadvertently contributing to the consolidation of the religious and patriarchal order, and came to be presented as a guarantee of “cultural authenticity,” a sign of distinction from the West, and a marker of national independence. A dominant narrative thus took shape, one that views the Iranian Revolution exclusively through the prism of anti-Westernism and, in so doing, erases secular, feminist, queer, Kurdish, socialist, and other progressist forces. This ideology is structurally incapable of recognizing the legitimacy of internal struggles within anti-Western states. Non-Western peoples are recognized only as objects of Western imperialism, the lived experiences, collective memories, and political subjectivities of subaltern groups—women/queer communities, ethnic minorities, and the popular classes—are systematically dismissed as insignificant distractions or as being inventions of the West.

After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, this orientation persisted in the form of statist Third Worldism: the loyalty of populations was transferred to “anti-American” states, and the rights of women, queer people, and minorities were subordinated to “anti-imperialist unity.” This approach, at once Eurocentric and Orientalist, ignores the subjectivity of non-Western peoples. It treats violence as serious only when it emanates from the U.S. camp and refuses to acknowledge that populations of the Global South may genuinely struggle for democratic rights and freedoms.

“Anti-colonial unity” is thus transformed into nationalist authoritarianism. And it accepts the logic of a seemingly permanent “state of emergency”: priority is given to state power, security, and geopolitical leverage (for example: “We fight in Syria so that we do not have to fight in Tehran”).

Campism turns anti-colonial memory into an instrument for legitimizing authoritarian postcolonial states. It makes the state the agent of resistance and strips peoples of both their legitimacy and their political subjectivity. In doing so, it betrays subaltern memories that were often constituted against the state itself. Paradoxically, states such as Iran are presented as “independent from global capitalism,” even as they remain machines of internal exploitation and militarism, concerned precisely with integrating themselves into and competing with other states on the stage of global capitalism.

It is precisely in its relation to Iran’s colonized margins that this logic most clearly reveals its violence. Campism does not only erase the plurality of Iranian opposition forces. Rooted in a quasi-colonial and securitized conception of sovereignty and borders, it also reproduces internal hierarchies by relegating Kurdish and other non-Persian ethnic struggles to the background, or even disqualifying them. In this respect, from the 1980 jihad against Kurdistan to 100+ recent attacks on exiled Iranian Kurdish parties in Iraqi Kurdistan during the war, campists have often shown themselves even more hostile to the Kurds than the Iranian government, minimizing or marginalizing the legitimacy of their resistance.

These violences form part of a longer history, aggravated by the active support—or the silence—of some actors in the Arab world and of certain segments of the Left. The Al-Anfal genocide carried out by Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, costing the lives of around 180,000 Kurds simply because of their identity, illustrates this dynamic. The trauma of the murderous repression was compounded by the support of part of the Arab world and the denial of the genocide on the part of intellectuals.

More recently, in 2018, the occupation of Afrin in Rojava by the Turkish army brought systematic violence, displacement, and destruction. In response, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, stated, “ victory in Afrin is a symbol of Turkey[’s] will. If God wills, we will submit great epics to help our people,” before praising the leadership of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his party, the Justice and Development Party, which has been in power for more than twenty years.

These events have unfortunately produced a lasting rupture in the ties between Kurdish struggles and those of the Arab or Persian worlds, as well as with certain parts of the self-proclaimed anti-imperialist left, which have too often failed to recognize and support the Kurdish struggle.

State instrumentalization of Western sanctions

The recent war against Iran did not emerge suddenly; it was long in the making through a sanctions regime that operates as an imperial technology for producing social vulnerability, as Iraq had already shown. Sanctions have not merely impoverished the population, fueled inflation, eroded healthcare and employment, and weakened collective capacities for resistance; they have also helped generate the very conditions for military escalation. By locking the country into a protracted siege economy, they have normalized the state of exception, consolidated the state’s rentier and security apparatuses, and displaced the costs of the crisis onto the popular classes. In doing so, they have prepared both the material and ideological terrain of war: a society exhausted, fragmented, and reduced to the struggle for survival becomes more exposed to external projects of militarization. Sanctions thus appear for what they are: not an alternative to war, but one of its preparatory forms.

Yet while sanctions are real and devastating, they do not alone account for the conditions of undignified life in a resource-rich country like Iran. Against campist readings that reduce all forms of social inequality in Iran to Western sanctions, analysis must also confront Iran’s own political economy: a capitalist order marked by harsh privatization, widespread labor precarity—with more than 90 percent of contracts reportedly temporary—and an internally organized regime of domination and deprivation, sustained in part through the extreme exploitation and expropriation of racialised and undocumented workers, especially Afghanis and Baluches. For campists, popular protests in Iran are interpreted as economic discontent, caused entirely by sanctions, thereby obscuring the central role of the state’s own policies. One implication of this campist logic is that, by minimizing the actual dynamics of the domestic opposition to Islamic Republic, it draws a false equivalence based on the mistaken notion that such “economic discontent” is consonant with the reactionary Pahlavist project of regime change from above. Contrary to the campist claims, opposing imperialist regime change does not require dismissing or delegitimizing domestic revolt against the Islamic Republic.

Widespread poverty in Iran is not attributable to sanctions alone; it is also rooted in a rentier political economy and in the monopolization of imports, both of which the Islamic Republic has instrumentalized. Its security and regional policies are not simply reactions to outside pressure. Rather, these policies are integral to the state’s logic of survival, channeling resources toward coercive institutions and ideological-military projects, while the population is left exhausted and impoverished. As Kayhan Valadbaigi argues, sanctions help intensify the concentration of wealth within the oligarchy while consolidating structures of power. They shift the costs onto the most vulnerable, justify repression, and further enrich the oligarchy. Economic shock policies—fluctuations in the dollar, the removal of the preferential exchange rate—appear as calculated measures of “survival” in a context of vulnerability.

In addition, campists erase the Islamic Republic’s violence against the people. Murders, torture, executions, the shooting of wounded people in hospitals, and attacks on mourning ceremonies are ignored or denied, and thus legitimized. This support for an authoritarian and anti-imperialist theocracy empties the language of emancipation of any real content.

Stop judging a cause by the way it is coopted

The spread of authoritarian campism takes place largely through social media. There, the legitimization of authoritarian states intertwines with a reductive anti-Westernism and, in some cases, with antisemitism and conspiratorial patterns of thought.

Despite the objective asymmetries between Israel (backed by the West) and the Islamic Republic (under Western sanctions), similar political and symbolic mechanisms are at work: U.S. and Israeli flags at certain “pro-Iran” rallies; Iranian state flags (or the Islamic Republic flags) and portraits of Ali Khamenei at certain pro-Palestinian mobilizations. These are all gestures liable to turn legitimate struggles into justifications for violence, while at the same time discrediting both the Iranian and Palestinian resistance. The same logic applies to the now-famous slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom” (Jin, Jiyan, Azadî). Appropriated by the Western far right, the Iranian far right in the diaspora, and pro-genocide currents, it has been instrumentalized in support of militarized violence.

This logic is not specific to Iran. As David Brophy has argued  in relation to Xinjiang, parts of the international Left have treated the repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim peoples less as a question of national rights and state violence than as a problem of Western propaganda, funding, or geopolitical manipulation; in the case of Vijay Prashad and Tings Chak, this apologetic posture has even relied on fabricated, apparently AI-generated sources. But the cynical instrumentalization of human rights by Western states does not make the suffering to which that language refers any less real.

We know all too well how progressive and radical movements from the Global South often end up being appropriated by the right once they are relayed in the West. But this process cannot lead us to abandon the duty of solidarity. The case of the queer movement illustrates this well: pinkwashing by states such as Israel cancels neither the emancipatory force of queerness nor the necessity of solidarity with queers who face repression in any context. The legitimacy of a resistance depends only on its emancipatory content and on its rootedness among the oppressed, never on its appropriation.

Campism contributes in very concrete ways to the perpetuation of historical and contemporary injustices. It creates a political vacuum through dispersal and fragmentation, a vacuum gradually filled by the right and the far right, both in the region and across the world. The Iranian far right in the diaspora occupies this vacuum by simplifying the revolution and demonizing “anti-imperialism.” It can thereby present itself as the only force for change. By artificially homogenizing entire populations (“All Ukrainians resisting Russia are Nazis.” “All Syrian revolutionaries are jihadists.” “All Iranians in revolt support Israel or the monarchists.”), campism becomes an accomplice in the rise of imperialist and reactionary forces.

By artificially homogenizing entire populations (“All Ukrainians resisting Russia are Nazis.” “All Syrian revolutionaries are jihadists.” “All Iranians in revolt support Israel or the monarchists.”), campism becomes an accomplice in the rise of imperialist and reactionary forces. The far right is the far right everywhere

In Europe, no consistent Left would accept rallying under the flags of the far right on the grounds that an enemy power was attacking the country. Yet when it comes to Iran, some consider it acceptable to demand that Iranians efface themselves and rally behind reactionary, nationalist, fanatical, even fascistic forces. Such an asymmetry implies, in effect, that the peoples of the Global South should be satisfied with a choice between imperial domination and internal barbarism. And yet the Islamic Republic is precisely a state that must be named for what it is: a fascistic formation, a non-Western far right, especially when it comes to ethnic-national minorities and Afghan immigrants.

The recent “anti-war” statement on Iran exposes the political impasse of campism: an anti-war discourse that enables certain segments of the Left to converge with fascist, antisemitic, neo-Nazi, and conspiracist milieus. The statement brought together signatories from  seemingly opposed political milieus: on the one hand, decolonial-campist anti-war figures such as Vijay Prashad, Sandew Hira, Ramón Grosfoguel, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Munyaradzi Mushonga, Ajamu Baraka, Nordine Saïdi and Paulina Aroch Fugellie; and, on the other, a range of figures—including Dieudonné, Alain de Benoist, Thomas Werlet, Jean-Michel Vernochet, Christian Bouchet, Marion Sigaut, Jacob Cohen, Pierre-Antoine Plaquevent, and Arnaud Develay—as well as organisations such as the RN, Égalité & Réconciliation, L’Œuvre française, and the Mouvement France Résistance, all associated with conservative , far-right, nationalist, or fascist currents. This juxtaposition illustrates how a purely geopolitical form of anti-imperialism can become compatible with far-right politics. Within this framework, the Iranian regime and its criminal Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, are recast as “a voice against arrogance and terrorism” while a deeply troubling tolerance toward the violence of post-colonial states against their own populations is being normalized under the banner of anti-war politics.

Political consistency requires refusing, for Iranians as for any other people, any injunction to accommodate fascism in the name of a geopolitical “lesser evil.” We should not ask Iranians to accept politically any reality that the Left would refuse to accept for themselves elsewhere. We neither march with fascists nor under their banners: we fight them, including when they appropriate the lexicon of freedom in order to invert its meaning.

Much like Stalinism, which did so much to discredit socialism, campism in Iran weakens the Left and strengthens the far right. At the same time, it deepens the North-South divide and legitimizes the repression of anti-tyrannical movements in the South. The result is the isolation of emancipatory forces, the distrust of exiles toward the Left in the North (including decolonial currents), and the collapse of international solidarity.

We should not ask Iranians to accept politically any reality that the Left would refuse to accept for themselves elsewhere. We neither march with fascists nor under their banners: we fight them, including when they appropriate the lexicon of freedom in order to invert its meaning.

While Kurdish feminist prisoners sentenced to death in Evin prison are capable of expressing their solidarity with the Palestinian resistance—even at the risk of losing part of their support in Iran—authoritarian and identity-based anti-imperialists, speaking from the comfort of the West or elsewhere, prove incapable of showing comparable solidarity with popular struggles in Iran. At times, and even more gravely, the full extent of those sufferings is denied or called into question.

It is urgent to move beyond campism. Otherwise, will not succeed in rebuilding a genuinely emancipatory left or in revitalizing a truly popular internationalism that networks such as “Peoples Want” attempt to do. Anti-imperialism is authentic only if it fights all forms of domination, everywhere and for everyone.

Parts of this text was originally published in French  -Eds.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”

Featured Image credit: C.Suthorn; modified by Tempest.

The post For an end to campism, the Iran war, and the anti-imperialist washing of the Islamic Republic appeared first on Tempest.

Headline News:

• “California, Nevada, And Arizona announce temporary plan to save water from Colorado River” • Absent a longer term deal on how to share a key water source in the US West, three states say they’ll cut back to prop up reservoirs in a short-term agreement following the driest winter on record. The plan is to save up to 44 billion cubic feet of water through 2028. [ABC News]

Colorado River (Steve Gribble, Unsplash, cropped)

• “Europe’s Airlines Face Jet Fuel Shift As Safety Concerns Grow” • The EU’s Aviation Safety Agency warned Europe’s aviation sector that potential shortages of domestic aviation fuel could force airports and airlines to adapt to a different type of fuel across regions. The problem is that such a change would require heightened safety measures. [Euronews]
• “Review Finds ‘No Infrasound Harm Risk'” • Green Power Sweden commissioned a review, which finds that infrasound from wind turbines does not have a negative impact on nearby residents. The audit by Akustikkonsulten and Akustikverkstan concludes that recent research claims suggesting harm are not supported by the broader body of evidence. [reNews]
• “After Months Of War With Iran, People Across The US Say They’re Feeling The Strain Of High Gas Prices” • The war in Iran is inflicting economic pain across the US as many Americans report struggling with higher costs, particularly the record rise in gas prices. Nearly a quarter of Americans polled said they are falling behind financially. [ABC News]
• “So Much For The War On Solar Power: 4-GW Factory Coming To The US” • President Trump’s war on wind turbines goes on, but his efforts to stop solar power have fallen flat. A case in point is the SEG Solar. Despite the U-turn in federal energy policy, SEG just announced the addition of a new 4-GW solar module factory to its US portfolio. [CleanTechnica]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

Banyak pemain awalnya mengira popularitas PGSOFT cuma tren sesaat. Namun faktanya, popularitas mereka justru terus naik dan berhasil bersaing dengan provider besar yang lebih dulu menguasai pasar slot digital global.

Lalu apa sebenarnya yang membuat PGSOFT begitu cepat melejit?

Visual Game yang Beda dari Provider Lain

Salah satu alasan paling jelas ada pada kualitas visual yang mereka tampilkan. Saat banyak provider slot masih memakai desain klasik dan monoton, PGSOFT datang membawa konsep yang terasa lebih modern dan mirip game mobile premium.

Pengguna yang pertama kali mencoba game mereka biasanya langsung menyadari detail animasi yang lebih hidup. Mulai dari efek kemenangan, desain karakter, hingga transisi permainan dibuat sangat halus. Bahkan beberapa pemain menyebut pengalaman bermain slot PGSOFT terasa seperti memainkan game RPG ringan di smartphone.

Fenomena ini cukup menarik karena mayoritas pemain slot online saat ini berasal dari generasi pengguna mobile. Mereka tidak hanya mencari peluang menang, tetapi juga pengalaman visual yang nyaman dilihat dalam waktu lama.

Beberapa judul seperti Mahjong Ways, Lucky Neko, dan Treasures of Aztec bahkan sempat viral di media sosial karena tampilannya yang dianggap “lebih niat” dibanding game slot biasa.

Adaptasi Mobile yang Sangat Stabil

Faktor lain yang membuat PGSOFT cepat diterima pasar adalah optimalisasi mobile yang sangat baik. Banyak provider lama awalnya fokus pada desktop, sementara PGSOFT sejak awal sudah bermain di jalur pengguna smartphone.

Hal ini terasa penting karena tren konsumsi hiburan digital sekarang memang bergeser ke perangkat mobile. Berdasarkan pengamatan komunitas pemain slot online di Asia Tenggara, mayoritas pemain mengakses permainan langsung dari ponsel mereka, bukan komputer.

PGSOFT memanfaatkan perubahan perilaku itu dengan sangat efektif. Loading game relatif cepat, navigasi sederhana, dan ukuran tampilan otomatis menyesuaikan layar. Bahkan pada koneksi internet standar sekalipun, game mereka masih bisa berjalan cukup mulus.

Bagi pemain kasual, kenyamanan seperti ini sering kali jadi alasan utama untuk kembali bermain.

Sistem Permainan yang Mudah Dipahami

Tidak semua pemain slot menyukai mekanisme permainan yang rumit. PGSOFT tampaknya memahami hal tersebut. Mereka menghadirkan pola permainan yang sederhana tetapi tetap terasa menantang.

Banyak game mereka memakai konsep multiplier, free spin, dan combo win yang mudah dimengerti pemain baru. Namun di saat yang sama, sistem itu tetap memberikan sensasi yang menarik bagi pemain lama.

Menurut beberapa content creator game digital, salah satu kekuatan PGSOFT adalah kemampuan mereka membuat permainan terasa cepat dipahami tanpa kehilangan unsur hiburan.

“Pemain sekarang ingin game yang langsung bisa dinikmati tanpa harus membaca aturan panjang,” ujar salah satu streamer slot Asia yang cukup aktif membahas provider game digital di platform live streaming.

Komentar seperti ini cukup sering muncul karena tren hiburan modern memang bergerak ke arah instan dan praktis.

Viral karena Media Sosial dan Live Streaming

Tidak bisa dipungkiri, media sosial punya pengaruh besar terhadap naiknya popularitas PGSOFT. Potongan video kemenangan besar dari game mereka sangat mudah ditemukan di TikTok, Facebook, hingga YouTube Shorts.

Format permainan PGSOFT memang cocok untuk konten pendek. Efek animasi kemenangan yang besar, suara dramatis, dan tampilan warna mencolok membuat video gameplay terlihat menarik saat muncul di timeline pengguna.

Fenomena ini kemudian menciptakan efek viral berantai.

Semakin banyak orang melihat konten kemenangan, semakin tinggi rasa penasaran mereka untuk mencoba permainan yang sama. Strategi ini secara tidak langsung membuat nama PGSOFT terus muncul di berbagai platform digital tanpa perlu promosi berlebihan.

Bahkan beberapa analis industri game digital menyebut keberhasilan PGSOFT bukan hanya soal kualitas game, tetapi juga kemampuan mereka membaca pola distribusi konten era media sosial.

Tema Game Dekat dengan Pasar Asia

Hal lain yang sering dianggap sepele tetapi sebenarnya sangat penting adalah pemilihan tema permainan. PGSOFT cukup cerdas menghadirkan tema yang dekat dengan budaya Asia, terutama pasar Asia Tenggara.

Tema seperti keberuntungan, naga, kucing hoki, mahjong, hingga nuansa festival oriental terasa lebih familiar bagi pemain regional. Kedekatan emosional ini membuat game mereka lebih mudah diterima dibanding provider yang memakai tema terlalu western.

Selain itu, desain karakter mereka juga dibuat lebih ringan dan tidak terlalu serius. Ada sentuhan fun yang membuat pemain merasa lebih santai saat bermain.

Strategi lokal seperti ini terbukti efektif. Banyak pemain merasa game PGSOFT “lebih relate” dibanding slot klasik dengan desain lama yang terasa kaku.

RTP dan Volatilitas Jadi Perbincangan

Di komunitas pemain slot online, pembahasan soal RTP dan pola permainan hampir selalu muncul. PGSOFT termasuk provider yang cukup sering dibahas karena dianggap punya ritme permainan yang menarik.

Sebagian pemain menyukai volatilitas game mereka yang dinilai seimbang. Tidak terlalu lambat, tetapi juga tidak terlalu ekstrem. Kombinasi ini membuat pemain tetap merasa punya peluang mendapatkan kemenangan tanpa harus bermain terlalu lama.

Walaupun setiap hasil permainan tetap berbasis sistem acak, faktor psikologis pemain tetap berpengaruh besar. Ketika sebuah game dianggap “sering kasih kejutan”, popularitasnya biasanya meningkat sangat cepat di komunitas.

Inilah yang terjadi pada beberapa game PGSOFT yang mendadak viral hanya karena sering muncul dalam konten kemenangan pemain.

Dukungan Teknologi dan Update Konsisten

Salah satu indikator penting dalam industri game digital adalah konsistensi update. PGSOFT termasuk provider yang aktif merilis game baru secara rutin.

Mereka tidak hanya mengandalkan satu judul viral, tetapi terus menghadirkan variasi permainan dengan konsep berbeda. Strategi ini menjaga pemain agar tidak cepat bosan.

Selain itu, pembaruan fitur dan perbaikan bug juga tergolong cepat dibanding beberapa provider lain. Dari sisi teknis, hal ini menunjukkan bahwa mereka serius membangun reputasi jangka panjang, bukan sekadar mengejar hype sesaat.

Beberapa pengamat industri bahkan melihat PGSOFT sebagai contoh provider yang berhasil menggabungkan kualitas visual, kenyamanan pengguna, dan strategi pemasaran digital dalam satu paket lengkap.

Popularitas yang Kemungkinan Masih Akan Naik

Melihat tren saat ini, popularitas PGSOFT tampaknya belum akan berhenti dalam waktu dekat. Kombinasi desain modern, adaptasi mobile, gameplay ringan, dan efek viral media sosial membuat mereka punya posisi kuat di pasar slot online global.

Di tengah persaingan industri hiburan digital yang semakin ketat, PGSOFT berhasil memahami satu hal penting: pemain modern tidak hanya mencari permainan, tetapi juga pengalaman hiburan yang cepat, visual menarik, dan mudah dibagikan di media sosial.

Karena alasan itulah, nama PGSOFT kini bukan lagi sekadar provider biasa, melainkan sudah menjadi bagian dari tren besar dunia slot online modern.

On April 17 and 18, 2026, we commemorated the International Day of Peasant Struggles with a festival of resistance: meetings, protests against the EU-Mercosur agreement, film screenings and discussions, tributes, festive moments, etc.

The post Belgium: A look back at the 2026 Peasant Struggles appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

FracTracker documented early construction and demolition activity at the former Homer City coal plant, now being redeveloped into a fracked gas-powered AI and high-performance computing campus in Indiana County, Pennsylvania.

The post From Coal Plant to AI Campus: FracTracker Documents Construction at Homer City appeared first on FracTracker Alliance.

Mary Purdy, an integrative and eco-minded Registered Dietary Nutritionist, is the former Managing Director of the Nutrient Density Initiative. Her work integrates personal well-being and ecological health. As a dietary educator, she connects the dots between farming practices, food systems and individual health. Mary is also an adjunct faculty at the Master’s Program in Sustainable Food Systems at The Culinary Institute of America. She is a podcaster and author of “Serving the Broccoli Gods” and “The Microbiome Diet Reset.” This article is an edited transcript of her talk at a recent Bioneers Conference.

The concept of One Health states that humans and our health are inextricably connected to the health of the environment, of our fellow animals, of bees, birds, and are interdependent. The cornerstone of those relationships is the soil. Currently, the industrial way that we are producing food is contributing to greenhouse gases and biodiversity loss. It is using enormous amounts of land, using and contaminating freshwater, contributing to eutrophication which is killing our marine life, eroding our soil, and is a leading cause of soil contamination and air pollution. We’re losing habitats for people and animals. And a lot of this is disproportionately affecting BIPOC and marginalized populations.

Along with all of that collateral damage, the food system is producing, in large proportion, foods that don’t support health and well-being. Half of all Americans are diabetic or prediabetic. About 40% of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer and one third of teenagers are prediabetic.  Needless to say, we have a serious health crisis on our hands.

The majority of calories come from ultra processed foods, which sometimes is the only food accessible or affordable to people. A large chunk of the protein that we consume comes from industrial processed animals. Agriculture uses over one billion pounds of pesticides every single year, and we have increased the use of synthetic fertilizer 800 percent compared to 50 to 75 years ago. If we want to change this system, we should look at corporate farms and large agribusinesses that promote the practices that degrade our environment and make us suffer. 

But I don’t want to blame the farmers. I want to honor and uplift them. Farmers are doing incredible work and getting paid very little money for it. But the question is: “Why have we been farming this way?” The main reason is that yield is emphasized over quality of food. There’s a reliance on government subsidies that incentivize farmers to continue to use industrial practices. There’s security in using agrochemicals which have been in use for a long time. There’s a lack of time, resources, and education.

The current system does not provide the basic minimum nutritional needs of vitamins A, C, E, D, K or minerals. We’re not getting enough fiber. We’re not getting enough omega 3 fatty acids. We’re definitely not getting enough polyphenols to help support our health and well-being.

Why is this? Because food grown in the industrial system is less nutritious, in other words the food is not nutrient dense. The Nutrient Density Initiative defines nutrient-dense foods as foods that are rich in the vitamins, minerals, fiber, healthy fats, and polyphenols that research has shown to be beneficial for human health. And that these foods are also free of ingredients that we know degrade our health – agrochemicals, pesticides, additives, etc. All of these nutritional qualities are absolutely influenced by the way that we grow our food and the agricultural practices that are used.

Nutrients drive every chemical reaction in your body. The production of neurotransmitters in your brain and your gut are driven by nutrients. The creation and function of your immune system is driven by nutrients. The synthesis of your liver that is trying to neutralize all the toxins that regularly come into your body are driven by nutrients. So our brain and our body are functioning in accordance with the nutritional value of that food that we give it.

We are what we eat, kind of. The idea that food is our medicine isn’t always true, although it should be. The USDA has documented a significant decline in the nutritional quality of food over the past 50 years. There are up to 25 to 50 percent less vitamins and minerals, depending on the crop, than there were 5 decades ago. There are lower levels of polyphenols and omega 3 fatty acids in a lot of the foods that should be high in them. The science is really clear about this.

Food and nutrition start in the soil; 95 percent of our food is grown or raised on soil. When the soil is healthy, humans tend to be healthier. Soil health and fertility directly influence the nutritional quality of food. Healthy soils provide those essential nutrients. Soils are the medium in which food is grown and determines the quality and flavor of food. So when nutrition is deficient in the soil, there is less uptake by the plant of those nutrients.

Graphic by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) via Creative Commons

So, what is healthy soil? There are different definitions. I will characterize three. The first one is having a diverse community of a large number of microorganisms in the soil. Second is soil organic matter, which is made up of decomposed plants and animals that provide living plants with nutrition. And lastly, it is a well-developed structure so the soil is able to withstand floods, droughts and erosion by retaining water. Good soil structure also allows plant roots to reach deep into the soil and gather more nutrients.

Soil health is not only one of the strongest pathways to improve the quality of nutrition, but it also increases soil’s capacity to sequester carbon and support healthier ecosystems.  

The plant is not acting alone. Plants depend on soil microbes for their health. There’s a wonderful symbiotic relationship with the plant and soil microorganisms. The plant’s roots only go so far, so plants need help. The microbes provide that help by bringing minerals and other nutrients to the root zone in exchange for carbohydrates that the plants provide to the microbes. Beneficial microbes suppress the pathogenic microbes that we don’t want in the soil. And they are key for helping the plant synthesize the compounds called polyphenols, which have wonderful antioxidant properties and also provide flavor to the plants.

Polyphenols have a really positive influence on human health. When we don’t get enough polyphenols, people become more susceptible to all different kinds of diseases.

Additionally, polyphenols are a prebiotic feeding the beneficial microbes in our gut. Flavonoids are a type of polyphenol and flavones are a class of flavonoids that contribute to aroma and flavor. There is a strong connection between flavor and nutrition.

When we eat a carrot or a piece of spinach that has not been excessively washed or heated, along with it, you are ingesting some of the microorganisms from the plant’s microbiome which helps support our gut microbiome.

But when synthetic fertilizers are used to grow crops, that hinders the formation of the plant’s roots going further down into the ground to take up nutrients. Additionally, when we use synthetic chemical fertilizers year-after-year, there is a depletion of nutrients in the soil. Microbial diversity is reduced. It reduces phytochemical production, as well as things like vitamin C and trace minerals in plants. Chemical fertilizers are also bad for the environment. They run off of the farm into waterways contaminating drinking water.

And then there’s pesticides. Pesticides also reduce the soil microbial diversity. When people get exposed to pesticides, whether that’s direct exposure or from residues, there’s a higher incidence of endocrine disruption issues, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative diseases. A lot of farmers are struggling with Parkinson’s disease. Birth defects, respiratory illnesses, cancers are also caused by pesticides. Needless to say, farm workers are on the front lines of exposure to toxic chemicals. So there’s a serious environmental injustice issue around pesticides.

Pesticides are having a negative impact on the human gut microbiome and inhibit phytochemical synthesis. A plant under stress normally creates phytochemical compounds as an immune response to protect themselves when it is exposed to things like pests, predators and adverse weather conditions. When we eat the plant, we get the benefit of the phytochemicals which make our immune system strong as well. However, if a pesticide is used to protect the plant, the plant doesn’t have to produce those immune-enhancing compounds.

Phytochemicals, which is the family name for different polyphenols, are associated with better cardiovascular health, better brain health, better blood sugar balance, improved lung function, better immune health, less incidents of cancer, as well as a healthier and diverse gut microbiome.

In contrast to an industrial chemical approach to farming, there are practices – whether we call them regenerative, conservation, organic, common sense, or traditional – that build the health of the soil and, as a result, grow more nutritious crops: reducing the disturbance to the soil by using low or no tillage, having a lot of biodiversity on the farm or garden, keeping the ground covered with cover crops or mulch, using compost, rotating crops, eliminating chemicals, and integrating livestock into the fields. It’s not just about using one or two of these practices, it is the whole suite that increases soil health and grows more nutritious crops.

And the good thing is that they also have planetary benefits. When we garden or farm, whether it is large scale or small scale, we are helping to elevate the ability of the soil to sequester carbon, which is key for the climate crisis. These practices also help provide pollinator habitats and reduce environmental harm in general.

There’s a huge variation between the nutrient density of plants that come from different farming systems, but in general, when we see more of these agroecological practices in play, we see higher levels of vitamins, minerals, beta carotene, etc. and lower levels of heavy metals.

The Nutrient Density Initiative works with Edacious, a nutrition analysis food lab. We had a number of our members, who use these practices, send in samples of their produce and meat products and had Edacious compare them to the conventional versions of the same product.

Peaches tested from Frog Hollow Farm had over 200% higher vitamin C compared to the conventional peaches, much higher iron levels, much higher alpha carotene, and a number of other vitamins and minerals were much higher. While we may not be able to say definitively that we will always get the same results, data like this suggests a link between the positive benefits of soil health and the nutritional density of plants.

The regeneratively grown citrus that we tested had higher amounts of flavones, and higher total value antioxidant levels when compared to conventionally grown samples.

We also looked at dairy. An Alexandre Family Farms dairy product, when compared to a conventional product, had a much more favorable omega 6 to 3 ratio which is very important for inflammation and other immune functions. It also had higher protein and higher levels of certain nutrients such as calcium, B2, and phosphorus.

The Rodale Institute did a side-by-side trial comparing butternut squashes grown conventionally and with regenerative methods and found that regenerative butternut squash had higher total polyphenols, and higher levels of carotenoid levels.

We conducted a pilot protein project. Nutrient Density Initiative members sent in chicken and beef products, and once again compared them to conventionally grown counterparts. We found higher amounts of omega 3s, lower amounts of overall fat including saturated fat, more balanced omega 6 to 3 ratios, more protein per serving, and no heavy metals detected in the products raised with the regenerative practices.

These are small trials, there’s always going to be variation depending on environment, depending on species or varietal of food, etc. I want to make sure that, at this point, I am not making grandiose claims, but that data we have collected so far is clearly demonstrating that when the soil is healthy, we’re going to produce crops with higher nutritional density.

So when and if possible, we can be citizen eaters. Support organic and regenerative farmers who are using the practices that I mentioned, let your grocer know that you want nutritious food, choose minimally processed food, if you can. Let your politicians know food nutrition is an issue you care about. Ask them to support a Farm Bill that actually protects soil health and biodiversity, and rewards the farmers for doing regenerative practices.

The post The Path to Good Health is Made of Soil appeared first on Bioneers.