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NSW to legislate new rules to allow key projects to be fast-tracked, and will seek to prevent long distance objectors from holding up the process.

The post Key wind, solar and network projects to be fast-tracked in race to quit coal and power smelter appeared first on Renew Economy.

With Alaska once again in the administration’s crosshairs, we’ve heard a big question from supporters across the country: How are we fighting back? 

The answer is: in every way we can. From the halls of Congress to communities across the country, we’re building a movement to defend the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This blog focuses on one of our most powerful tools to get there—the Arctic Refuge Protection Act—and why it matters right now. 

A Once-in-a-Generation Opportunity 

The Arctic Refuge Protection Act introduced by Senator Markey (D-MA) and Representatives Huffman (D-CA) and Fitzpatrick (R-PA), offers something we’ve never needed more: a lasting solution.  

This bipartisan bill would repeal the destructive oil and gas leasing program mandated by the 2017 Tax Act and permanently protect the Refuge’s 1.5-million-acre coastal plain as Wilderness.  

At a time when short-term political decisions threaten long-term ecological futures, this bill charts a path rooted in respect, responsibility, and permanence.  

Why This Bill Matters on Capitol Hill 

Not only does the Refuge Protection Act provide the best opportunity to create lasting change, but it is a crucial tool to build support and empower our champions on the Hill. 

Every new co-sponsor is a public commitment to protecting one of the last truly wild places in America. It gives Members of Congress a clear way to stand with their constituents, with Indigenous communities, and with future generations.  

And in a deeply divided political moment, this bill provides a powerful opportunity to demonstrate that protecting the Arctic Refuge is a shared value and not a partisan issue. Growing this bipartisan support sends a clear message across administrations and party lines that the Arctic Refuge is not a bargaining chip for industrial extraction. It is a shared heritage that is worth protecting. 

 People Power Makes This Possible 

Our team is pushing our decision-makers on the Hill every single day, but we also know that the people fundamentally power this work. We’ve seen the impact when advocates step forward to share why the Arctic matters to them. Gwich’in leaders have traveled thousands of miles to speak about their deep, enduring connection to the land and the caribou. Their voices have opened hearts, shifted perspectives, and built lasting relationships with decision-makers

We’ve also partnered with organizations like Love Is King and Hip Hop Caucus to bring new voices into the conversation—veterans, young leaders, and community advocates who have experienced the Refuge firsthand and carry its story with them. 

And just as importantly, we’ve seen how powerful it is when constituents—people like you—speak up. Whether you live in Portland, Oregon or Portland, Maine (or anywhere in between), your voice reminds Congress that the Arctic Refuge belongs to all of us.  

When Contra Costa voters approved the Urban Limit Line (ULL) in 1990, they made a decision about what kind of county this would be. They drew a boundary beyond which urban development couldn’t go – protecting the farms in the Tassajara Valley, the open hillsides above Walnut Creek, and the wetlands along the shoreline – and they asked future generations to keep it in place.

For 35 years, it has held. In that time, the line has been adjusted only six times, and voters renewed it in 2006 with 64% support. The landscapes that define Contra Costa exist in part because that commitment has been kept.

It expires December 31, 2026. Measure A on the June 2 ballot is how we renew it again.

The Contra Costa Board of Supervisors has referred the measure to voters, with updates to the boundary to better reflect current conditions on the ground. Greenbelt Alliance urges a YES vote in June.

Why the Urban Limit Line Matters

The ULL isn’t about stopping growth. It’s about making sure growth happens in the right places: in existing communities where infrastructure already exists, where people can get around without a car, where new housing and new neighbors strengthen what’s already there. By establishing a clear line beyond which no new urban land uses can be designated, the ULL has protected the county’s agricultural lands, open hillsides, and natural landscapes for more than three decades.

Protected open space and farmland are not optional extras — they are foundational to the health, climate resilience, and livability of Contra Costa communities. Clean water, cooler temperatures, local food, open land that absorbs carbon, and buffers communities from wildfire and flood. The ULL supports all of that by directing growth where it belongs and keeping natural lands open.

Why Greenbelt Alliance Supports Measure A

 

“Greenbelt Alliance has been following the Urban Limit Line since before it was even a measure, working with the county to ensure the lines being drawn are protecting open spaces and encouraging growth in the right places. We do both those things. We want to encourage infill housing and also make sure the open spaces we love are protected.”

Zoe Siegel, Senior Director of Climate Resilience at Greenbelt Alliance

Greenbelt Alliance has worked to protect the Bay Area’s open spaces and farmland for more than 60 years, and the Contra Costa Urban Limit Line is central to that work. By keeping growth focused within existing communities and away from natural landscapes, the ULL directly supports our mission to protect the greenbelt and help Bay Area cities thrive. 

Measure A is also a critical climate tool. Compact infill development reduces the vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions that drive the climate crisis, while preserving open lands sequester carbon, filter water, and buffer communities against extreme heat, flooding, and wildfire. At a time when federal rollbacks are threatening environmental protections across the board, locally-driven policies like this one matter more than ever.

Voting yes on Measure A advances priorities that matter deeply to residents across the county, including:

• Protecting agricultural lands and open space from conversion to sprawl development
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and traffic by directing new housing and jobs to infill locations
• Maintaining the 65/35 Land Preservation Standard, which ensures that at least 65% of the county’s land remains non-urban
• Restricting new development in fire hazard severity zones and on steep slopes, reducing wildfire risk
• Supporting successful implementation of the county’s newly adopted 2045 General Plan

There Is Room to Grow Inside the Line

Opponents of urban growth boundaries sometimes argue that such limits constrain housing production. The Contra Costa ULL tells a different story. The county’s 2045 General Plan process confirmed that vacant and underutilized land inside the existing ULL can accommodate 23,200 new housing units, 1.2 million square feet of new commercial development, and 5 million square feet of new industrial space. There is no need to expand into open space and farmland to meet the county’s growth needs — and there never has been.

Measure A also includes targeted adjustments to the ULL map that would make it more accurate and functional: removing areas with major development constraints or protected status, aligning the county line with city boundaries where cities have adopted their own urban growth boundaries, and cleaning up inconsistencies like so-called ULL “islands.” These changes reflect reality on the ground without opening the door to sprawl.

A Long Track Record of Stability

The ULL has proven to be a remarkably stable and durable policy. In its 35-year history, it has been adjusted only six times, and only once in response to a private development application. That’s a record that reflects both the policy’s durability and the strong public commitment to the values it protects.

Renewing the ULL through Measure A also has a practical financial benefit: the county is required to maintain it in order to receive approximately $2 million annually in local street maintenance funding from the Contra Costa Transportation Authority. Letting the ULL expire would put those dollars at risk.

In the June 2026 election, vote YES on Measure A to renew the Contra Costa Urban Limit Line. Renewing the ULL is a tangible way for Contra Costa voters to say that the landscapes they love — the farms, the hills, the open shorelines — are worth protecting for the next generation.

The post Vote Yes on Measure A to Renew Contra Costa’s Urban Limit Line appeared first on Greenbelt Alliance.

Opportunity for Public Support Comments to clean up Los Alamos Labs, until June 8th

 By email to: HWB-WIPP-Comment@env.nm.gov
By postal mail:
Megan McLean, WIPP Program Manager
Hazardous Waste Bureau – New Mexico Environment Department
2905 Rodeo Park Drive East, Building 1
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505-6303

On April 23, the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) issued a Draft Permit proposing to require a minimum percentage of legacy shipments from Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, (WIPP).

NMED’s action would help stop LANL plans to leave 1 million cubic meters of radioactive and hazardous waste buried above our regional aquifer in a seismic zone between a rift and a dormant super volcano. The action would also limit waste from new pit production.

Here are some of the provisions of the Draft Permit that we must support in our comments –

* From January 1, 2027 through December 31, 2031, at least 55% of the total volume of all waste emplaced at WIPP from all generator/storage sites must be LANL legacy waste.

* Beginning January 1, 2032, and until all LANL legacy waste has been emplaced at WIPP, LANL legacy waste must be at least 75% of the total volume of waste emplaced from all generator/storage sites.

* Legacy waste currently stored above-ground at LANL Material Disposal Area-G shall be shipped and emplaced at WIPP by July 1, 2028.

* If at any point any of those conditions are not met, all generator/storage site shipments (with the exception of LANL) must cease until all deficiencies are cured.

Written public comments can be submitted until 5:00 p.m. MT, on June 8, 2026. The NMED Draft

Permit, Public Notice, and Fact Sheet are on the WIPP News https://www.env.nm.gov/hazardous-waste/wipp/.

For more info: http://www.stopforeverwipp.org,

http://sric.org/ , http://nuclearactive.org/,  http://www.nukewatch.org

 

This article The Global Sumud Flotilla is a mission of mercy, met with cruelty was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

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After a symbolic launch in Barcelona on April 12, the Global Sumud Flotilla set out across the Mediterranean Sea to bring aid to Gaza in what proved to be the largest civilian maritime convoy of its kind: 58 vessels, more than a thousand participants from over a hundred countries. Amnesty called on governments to guarantee safe passage. Greenpeace sent the Arctic Sunrise. And in the early hours of April 30, off the coast of Greece, Israeli naval forces moved in. 

There is something deeply affecting in the sight of everyday people rising to perform the simplest offices of mercy while states and institutions, created for hours of peril such as this, withdraw behind procedure and delay. Across the Mediterranean, men and women gathered what aid they could carry, along with the inward resolve such a voyage demands, and turned themselves toward Gaza. Great structures, swollen with authority and self-protection, were suddenly made to look small beside a few fragile boats moved by fellow feeling.

That, for me, is the true subject here. The values-led flotilla and the light of humiliation it casts upon the official power structures. When private citizens must hazard sea and reprisal in order to bring food and medicine to the trapped, the failure has entered the marrow of public life. Whole systems, immense in apparatus and loud in self regard, stand exposed by a handful of human beings willing to cross water for strangers. The Greeks gave us words for it: demos, the common people, and kratos, their strength. A flotilla is democracy at its source.

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In a relentless news cycle of death and destruction, there is something almost scriptural in the image of small craft setting out to relieve the besieged. A boat is a modest thing, rising and falling with the sea, vulnerable to delay, interception and fear. Perhaps that is why it can bear mercy so well. Mercy is among the most beloved names by which God is remembered in Islam, and these volunteers carried aid in their hold along with a quality of heart that official life has steadily thinned out.

The word sumud deepens the meaning further. For Palestinians, it has long meant steadfastness, a staying put in the face of erasure, a fidelity to land, memory and the human shape of one’s life. Here, steadfastness took to the sea. It left the olive grove and entered the waves. One remains steadfast by moving toward the wounded. One keeps faith by refusing distance.

By getting on those boats, the volunteers insisted that strangers are still our concern. A flotilla closes distance in the oldest human way, by drawing near, by consenting to inconvenience and risk because another people’s hunger has become unbearable to the soul.

To set out under such conditions is already a kind of testimony. One imagines the small practical gestures that attend such a voyage: the checking of ropes and provisions, subdued talk, private negotiations of fear, inward glances toward loved ones who would be left behind for a time. Heroism appears in a humble guise, the simple refusal to let danger relieve one of this duty. Those who boarded these vessels consented to exposure, and that consent lent the voyage its moral splendor.

There is something else that stirs the heart in such gatherings. The people who come together for a mission of mercy bring different languages, prayers and burdens of memory. Yet, for a brief and difficult passage they agreed to become answerable to one another and to those waiting beyond the horizon. This, too, is part of the beauty. A world daily instructed in difference and division still contains people capable of forming, under pressure, a fellowship. The boats carried supplies, certainly, though they also carried a living refutation of the lie that people are finally ruled by self-interest or tribe or fear.

Perhaps that is why maritime images can carry such spiritual force. The sea strips away illusion. No one sets out upon open water and remains wholly enclosed within self-regard. One enters a domain older than empires, where frailty and dependence are undeniable. To cross such waters in order to relieve the afflicted is to recover something ancient in the story, something older than diplomacy. It recalls the old belief that mercy is a labor asking something of the body. It must travel and bear fatigue and uncertainty. It must keep watch.

The greatness of the souls on this journey lies precisely in the fact that they remain recognizably human. They will be tired and perhaps seasick, maybe even afraid. They will carry their private griefs with them, along with the larger grief that summoned them to sea. Yet hope does not wait until the heart is free of trembling. It makes use of trembling and gathers what courage it can from love and shame, from prayer and the stubborn unwillingness to let the brutal terms of politics become the final measure of what is possible between us. Amid the daily grief, this is a welcome ray of light.  Hope as an act of resistance, with wet sleeves and a steady hand on the rope. Hope that has looked at the world and, despite every inducement to resignation, continues to choose the human bond.

Those who sailed in April had already paid for this cause. In October 2025, Israeli forces arrested over 450 participants from the last flotilla attempt, among them the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and Mandla Mandela, grandson of Nelson Mandela. Those survivors set out again, undeceived about what might await. Their willingness to return lent the voyage a grave authority. Events confirmed its cost.

The answer came in the early hours of April 30, in international waters west of Crete, 600 miles from Gaza. Israeli naval vessels surrounded the fleet, ordering activists to their knees at gunpoint. Twenty-two of the 58 boats were seized. One hundred and seventy-five people were held aboard an Israeli frigate for up to 40 hours, denied adequate food and water, the floor beneath them repeatedly and deliberately flooded. They were punched, kicked and dragged across the deck with hands bound. Shots were fired, live and rubber both. Thirty-four people were hospitalized in Crete with broken ribs, broken noses and serious neck injuries. Sixty went on hunger strike, before being released.

Two steering committee members were then taken separately to Israel: Saif Abu Keshek, a Spanish-Swedish Palestinian who had been on an observer boat that never planned to sail to Gaza, and Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila. Abu Keshek was forced to lie face-down from the moment of his seizure, kept hand-tied and blindfolded, his face and hands bruised. Ávila was dragged face-down across the floor and beaten so severely he lost consciousness twice. The Brazilian embassy, visiting under glass, observed visible marks on Ávila’s face and noted his significant pain. Both are in Shikma Prison in Ashkelon and still on a hunger strike. A court has now extended their detention until May 10.

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Spain called the detention illegal; Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez addressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly, saying his country would always protect its citizens and defend international law. Brazil stood with Spain. Turkey’s Foreign Ministry called the interceptions an act of piracy. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani called them a brazen violation of international law. The Trump administration called the flotilla pro-Hamas and threatened consequences for any who had offered support.

Power has answered mercy with boots and bound hands. One wants to call this a surprise, but it is more precisely a revelation: something that was always there, now brought into the open. What the interception has laid bare, beyond the suffering of those detained, is the shape of the blockade itself. What kind of order must travel 600 miles from shore to intercept civilian vessels that are carrying bandages? What does a law protect when it meets unarmed people at sea with firearms and drags them face-down across wet decks?

Thirty-two boats remain anchored in Crete, where the organizers are regrouping and considering their next steps. The flotilla was seized in part. It was not silenced. And that refusal has done what no press release could: made the condition of Gaza impossible to look away from, at a cost borne by those who were willing to bear it.

The boats are small enough to be dismissed by cynics, and large enough to shame the world. They carry the old lesson that power does not hold a monopoly on reality. Power cannot produce the moral beauty that appears when human beings gather themselves for the sake of others. That beauty remains one of the last unpurchased things.

I think, in these dark years, about the difference between authority and worth. The first may be conferred by the world; the second is earned in the secret place where the heart decides whether it will remain human. Those who set out from Barcelona hold no office at all. Even so, they carry more of the world’s honor than many governments assembled beneath their flags. They carry it at sea, in the dark, with their hands bound, still keeping watch.

The lantern is still on the water. Mercy has been met with force, and answered the force with the deeper testimony of the body’s willingness to remain. Thirty-two boats sail on. The heart still knows the way.

This article The Global Sumud Flotilla is a mission of mercy, met with cruelty was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

The campaigner challenging consent for lower-volume fracking in East Yorkshire has added a new ground to his case.

Photo: Used with the owner’s consent

Peter Lomas, from Hornsea, is taking the first legal steps against the Environment Agency (EA), over its issue of a permit at the West Newton-A site in Holderness.

The site operator, Rathlin Energy, had said lower-volume fracking is required to allow commercial exploitation of a well at the site.

The new ground is based on the Finch Ruling, a successful case at the Supreme Court brought by Sarah Finch and the Weald Action Group on climate emissions from onshore oil and gas.

In a legal letter in early April, solicitors Leigh Day set out four grounds for Mr Lomas’s challenge:

• Risk of induced seismicity
• Risk to groundwater pollution
• Impact on the Lambwath Meadows site of special scientific interest
• Failure to consider international guidance on climate change

But a second letter has recently added that the EA failed, when making its decision on the permit, to consider and undertake a detailed environmental impact assessment (EIA).

The planning permission for production at West Newton-A was passed without an EIA, in March 2022.

This was more than two years before the Finch Ruling, which stated that decisionmakers must consider the downstream carbon emissions from using oil or gas produced onshore.

The Finch ruling also emphasised the importance of public participation in the EIA process and public understanding of the environmental impact of developments.

Mr Lomas’s lawyers argued there had been no environmental information about the downstream emissions from oil or gas produced at West Newton-A.

They said the EA was obliged to assess the environmental impact of oil and gas production resulting from lower-volume fracking.

Information was needed, they said, on emissions from using hydrocarbons from the well to ensure the public could properly participate in the process.

The lawyers have also revised the fourth ground in the case. It now argues that the EA failed to consider the impact of lower-volume fracking on climate change, under its duties in the Environment Act 1995.

Leigh Day has asked for further information from the EA on the first three grounds.

FDA finds toxic ‘forever chemicals’ in baby formula but won’t set enforceable limits Monica Amarelo May 5, 2026

WASHINGTON – The toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS were found in baby formula sold across the U.S., according to test data recently released by the Food and Drug Administration. 

The findings underscore an urgent and long-overdue need for legal limits on PFAS in food. One year ago, the Environmental Working Group urged the FDA to develop action levels for PFAS in food. 

Monitoring without action does not protect children. A PFAS action level would let the FDA take legal action to remove products from the market if they exceed that limit.

The FDA tested 312 infant formula samples from 16 brands for 30 PFAS compounds as part of its Operation Stork Speed initiative. Five PFAS compounds were detected. 

PFOS was most commonly detected, found in half of all samples at concentrations ranging from 0.51 to 6.0 parts per trillion. PFOS is one of the most toxic and well-studied PFAS and the Environmental Protection Agency says it’s likely to be carcinogenic to humans.

The FDA characterizes these levels as low and concludes the infant formula supply is safe.

“No safe level of PFAS exposure has been established, and that is especially true for infants,” said David Andrews, Ph.D., EWG chief science officer. 

“PFOS bioaccumulates in the body and it damages the immune system, including reducing the effectiveness of vaccines in babies and children. Detecting it in half of all formula samples and characterizing these findings as a proof of safety is not a conclusion the science supports,” said Andrews.

“Formula is the sole nutrition source for millions of American infants and toddlers. The FDA’s safety claim is not acceptable, given these detections of a known cancer-causing chemical. The agency must set enforceable PFAS action levels for food, as other nations already have done."

“Congress gave the FDA the authority to set limits on contaminants in infant formula. The agency has chosen not to use it,” said Scott Faber, senior vice president of government affairs at EWG. 

“Every day the FDA delays setting enforceable PFAS limits is another day American infants are exposed to toxic PFAS with zero legal protection. That is a policy choice, and it is the wrong one,” he said.

Not just trace contamination

PFOS was phased out of U.S. manufacturing under pressure from the EPA after evidence emerged of significant health hazards. It was used in 3M’s Scotchgard and widely deployed in firefighting foam at military bases and airports, contaminating groundwater systems across the country. 

EWG’s PFAS contamination map documents PFOS in the drinking water supply of nearly half the nation’s water systems. 

The EPA regulates PFOS in drinking water at a maximum contaminant level of just 4 parts per trillion, set because of PFOS’s classification as a carcinogen. 

The FDA has established no equivalent limit for infant formula, so infants and toddlers may continue to be exposed to PFOS in food, as well as in tap water.

“Most of the formula samples the FDA tested were powdered, and most parents mix powdered formula with tap water,” said Tasha Stoiber, Ph.D., senior scientist at EWG. “Depending on where you live, your tap water may be contaminated with PFAS.

“That means babies could be getting a double dose – PFAS already present in the formula powder, and additional PFAS from the water used to prepare it. That compounding exposure is exactly why we need enforceable limits, not just monitoring,” she added.

The FDA findings closely mirror Consumer Reports’ 2025 investigation, which found PFAS in almost all of the 41 popular baby formula brands it tested, including Enfamil, Similac and Bobbie. 

Consumer Reports also identified PFOS as the most concerning compound detected. 

Two independent investigations, the same alarming result – and still no enforceable federal standard for PFAS in food.

Food may be the primary route of PFAS exposure

For millions of Americans, food – not drinking water – is the main route of PFAS exposure. These chemicals enter the food supply through multiple pathways federal regulators have failed to close.

“PFAS are clearly infiltrating our entire food system as a direct result of regulatory failure,” said Andrews. 

“PFAS-containing pesticides are being applied to crops. Biosolids contaminated with PFAS are being spread on farm fields. Contaminated water is being sprayed on food crops. Every one of these pathways is preventable, and every one of them remains legal,” said Andrews.

“We need to ban all nonessential uses of PFAS, starting with these agricultural applications, before the contamination gets any worse,” he added.

Stakes are highest for the most vulnerable

PFAS exposure, with its health stakes, begins before birth. 

PFAS are toxic at extremely low levels. They are known as forever chemicals because once released into the environment, they do not break down and can build up in the body. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has detected PFAS in the blood of 99% of Americans, including newborn babies. 

PFAS readily cross the placenta and have been detected in umbilical cord blood, confirming that the developing fetus faces direct prenatal exposure. 

When PFAS are detected in the infant formula that millions of American babies depend on as their sole source of nutrition, the exposure does not begin at the first feeding. For many infants, it has already been accumulating for months.

A recent study also links prenatal PFAS exposure to premature birth, low birth weight and infant mortality. The full range of documented harms extends further still: thyroid disruption, harm to the male reproductive system, pregnancy-induced high blood pressure, reduced fertility and shorter duration of breastfeeding. 

Very low doses of PFAS have been linked to suppression of the immune system. Studies show exposure to PFAS can also increase the risk of cancer, harm fetal development and reduce vaccine effectiveness. 

The impact on infants and toddlers is especially pronounced. “Babies are not small adults when it comes to chemical exposure – they are categorically more vulnerable,” said Stoiber. 

“Babies’ bodies are smaller, their organs are still developing, and their immune systems are not yet fully formed. When PFAS accumulate in an infant’s body, the proportional impact is far greater than it would be in an adult exposed to the same amount.

“Parents are often limited in the type of formula that is available to them and the FDA’s testing did not disclose the brand names tested. The FDA must act to protect all children,” she added.

“The administration says it wants to make America healthy again,” said Faber. “Here is a straightforward way to start: Set enforceable limits on PFAS in baby formula today. 

“The science is clear, the authority exists and the harm has been documented. American families cannot wait any longer for the federal government to do its job,” he added.

What parents can do right now

No parent should have to navigate this alone. Until the FDA establishes enforceable PFAS standards in infant formula, here are practical steps to reduce your baby’s exposure:

• Use filtered water when preparing powdered formula. A reverse osmosis system provides the most effective PFAS filtration. Countertop pitcher filters have also shown meaningful effectiveness in EWG testing. 
• Check EWG’s PFAS contamination map to see whether your local water supply has documented PFOS or other PFAS contamination.
• Make your voice heard. Contact the FDA and your elected representatives and demand enforceable PFAS limits in infant formula. The FDA’s Operation Stork Speed is an ongoing testing program. Sustained public pressure from parents is one of the most effective ways to accelerate the regulatory action.

###

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.

Areas of Focus Food & Water Food Children’s Health PFAS Chemicals Press Contact Monica Amarelo monica@ewg.org (202) 939-9140 May 5, 2026

Hosted by Covering Climate Now

Thursday, May 7 12:00 p.m. EDT

REGISTER

In April, a climate denial conference hosted in Washington, D.C., and boasting US Environmental Protection Agency head Lee Zeldin as a keynote speaker signaled a new era in US politics: from a slow but growing embrace of climate science in federal policy to outright rejection of the scientific consensus.

Join Covering Climate Now for a special webinar, with DeSmog reporter Rei Takver alongside Manon Jacob, Climate Digital Investigation Reporter for Agence France-Presse, and Maxine Joselow, Climate Policy Reporter for The New York Times, as they explore how the Trump administration’s overt embrace of climate denialism in Washington is creating a permission structure for more denial at the highest levels of government in the US and beyond.

Rei will discuss her story, co-published with The Guardian, “Climate Deniers Expected More Resistance to Trump’s Fossil Fuel Blitz,” which covers Donald Trump’s assaults on the legal foundation for U.S. regulations on global warming emissions, and how climate deniers have been celebrating what they claim is the “silent” acquiescence of billionaires, Democrats, climate activists and even reporters to the president’s aggressive pro-fossil fuel agenda.
 
“In my 26 years of being focused on climate, I’ve never seen anything like this. Trump is gutting everything they ever stood for,” Marc Morano, a long-time climate denier, said in January at the “World Prosperity Forum,” a five-day event in Zurich, Switzerland, Rei reports.

The World Prosperity Forum’s sponsor was The Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank that has been at the forefront of spreading climate disinformation for decades, and was also a contributor to Project 2025, the policy blueprint for President Trump’s second administration.

“Billionaires are silent. Democrats in Congress have been silent. Climate activists. There has been no push-back on this,” Morano said — and he may have a point, according to some experts who research the climate denial movement.

Join in on Thursday, May 7, at 12:00 p.m. EDT for this virtual conversation about the Trump administration’s embrace of climate denialism, what that could mean for the future of US climate policy, and how to cover it

You won’t want to miss it.

Register and submit your questions here.

The post Event | How Climate Denialism Is Evolving With Trump in Office appeared first on DeSmog.

When I moved to Richmond 25 years ago, Chevron was so entrenched in Richmond’s politics that it was rumored that they had a desk in the city manager’s office.

For ordinary folks—especially immigrant and refugee families—who lived here, the message back then was clear: Richmond isn’t really yours.

But for the past three decades APEN members — driven by courage, creativity, and a fierce love for our city— have challenged Chevron’s power, proving that Richmond belongs to us.

I spent the last 30 years working with national organizations on issues of climate justice and corporate power. Across that time, much of my own political thinking was shaped by the organizing I saw APEN leading in Richmond.

I joined APEN as Co-Director because I know that the reality of a Just Transition is possible. What’s more – I’ve seen it happen, right in my backyard. 

As a new Richmond resident, I knew I had to stand up to Chevron’s toxic policies.

I knew APEN as a neighbor first. I met APEN staff as our children ran around together while we packed the Richmond city council chambers during meetings.

One experience that sticks out is a meeting in 2020. The council was deciding on whether Richmond’s port would continue to store and handle coal and petroleum coke, a carbon-rich solid byproduct of oil refining.

The tension in the air was palpable as activists and residents packed the chambers.

When APEN members arrived in a sea of green shirts, I knew that our community had shown up: organized, informed, and ready.

But we weren’t the only ones turning people out – fossil fuel interests had brought speakers to give old and misleading arguments. 

The lack of empathy was at a fever pitch; I even overheard someone scoffing and rolling their eyes at “yet another” resident testifying about suffering from asthma. 

APEN members gave essential and powerful testimony to combat the misinformation parroted by fossil fuel representatives. The passion and dedication to Richmond was crystal clear. 

Together, we moved the city council to vote to end storage of harmful substances in our city.

Over the past three decades, APEN members have inspired me with their tenacity and bold presence.

So much has changed in Richmond in the last 25 years.

In 2024, grassroots organizers won a $550 million settlement from Chevron—a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in a Just Transition for Richmond. 

And, Chevron is on the defensive, going so far as to fund their own newspaper to parrot their talking points, because they know that ordinary, working-class people are transforming Richmond and taking back control. 

This is the transformative power of grassroots organizing. The energy of Fire Horse year reminds us that bold, courageous action is needed to ignite lasting change. 

APEN members are exactly that – passionate and fearless – as they continue to raise their voices in Richmond, Oakland, and Los Angeles’ South Harbor.

I’m excited to draw on my experience and build grassroots power alongside Co-Director Vivian Huang.

This month, we are raising $28,000 to fund the crucial work of our bold members.

In the coming weeks we’ll share victories from youth in Richmond and LA’s South Harbor, as well as milestones in Oakland’s Chinatown—all are a testament to the transformative power of APEN’s long-term grassroots organizing.

We have received a generous matching grant of up to $25,000! This means when you give today, your gift will be matched dollar-for-dollar; that’s double the impact!

I’m honored to join the team at APEN to support our members and build a Just Transition that makes sense for poor and working class communities of color in California.

In Solidarity,

Michelle Chan, Co-Director, APEN

The post My front row seat to the power of grassroots organizing appeared first on Asian Pacific Environmental Network.

As record heat waves threaten workers from report sites and warehouses to farmlands and delivery routes across the country, a new report from Groundwork Collaborative, Workshop, and Harvard Law School’s Center for Labor and a Just Economy outlines a coordinated campaign by corporations, trade groups, and their political allies to block enforceable heat protections for America’s labor force. The report’s authors, Adam Dean and Jamie McCallum, find that a nationwide heat standard could save thousands from heat-related illnesses and deaths each year.

Building on previous research published in Health Affairs, the authors find that California’s heat standard, which requires common-sense workplace protections including access to water, shade, and regular rest breaks for workers, resulted in a 51% reduction in heat-related deaths compared to neighboring states that lack similar protections. If a similar heat standard was adopted federally, the authors estimate these basic regulations could save up to 1,500 lives annually.

But, the paper’s authors find that corporate and industry interests are preventing federal action to protect their workforces from heat exposure. Attempts at regulation in Washington have stalled while worker safety and wellbeing relies entirely on geography and political will. As the Biden administration’s life-saving heat rule remains stalled, Trump has failed to extend protections, instead siding with corporate interests.

In the paper, the authors write:

“As extreme heat intensifies, the cost of inaction will be measured in lives lost. The question facing policymakers is no longer whether effective protections exist, but whether they have the political will to stand up to unscrupulous employers lobbying hard to block them.”

Background

Extreme heat threatens thousands of workers each year with no relief in sight.

• Extreme heat is rapidly becoming one of the most dangerous and least regulated workplace hazards in the United States. As climate change drives hotter, longer, and more frequent heat waves, millions of workers – especially in agriculture, construction, warehousing, and transportation – face increasing risks of injury, illness, and death.
• In 2024, nearly 3,000 heat-related deaths were recorded among outdoor workers, and in 2023, high temperatures contributed to an estimated 28,000 injuries on the job. These estimates likely understate the true extent of heat-related incidents in the workplace.

Common-sense heat protections are proven to improve worker safety and decrease the risk of heat-related deaths, but the lack of a federal standard leaves workers at the whims of their employers and reliant on uneven state policies.

• California’s robust heat protections were associated with a 51% reduction in worker deaths between 2015 and 2020, compared to neighboring states without protections.
• Meanwhile, governors in Texas and Florida have signed legislation to bar municipalities in their states from implementing heat protections for workers following stringent opposition from business groups.
• A long-term, coordinated pressure campaign from industry lobbyists, including Amazon, UPS, and the Associated Builders and Contractors, have blocked efforts at state and federal levels to enact worker protections, while companies tout their “commitments” to worker safety.

In the absence of a uniform standard, an ineffective patchwork of state-by-state protections has emerged, leaving the lives of thousands of vulnerable workers in the hands of policymakers captured by their corporate backers and at the mercy of changing political tides. The only way forward, the authors argue, is a strong, enforceable national standard.

The post Big Oil spends record $10 million on lobbying CA officials in first quarter of 2026! appeared first on Last Chance Alliance.

The Senate Judiciary Committee released its reconciliation bill, tacking $1 billion for Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project and $70 billion for Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP).

Public Citizen Co-President Lisa Gilbert issued the following statement:

“The idea of using a simple majority process to fund billions more in ICE cruelty is abhorrent, but now the Senate has piled corrupt absurdity on top of that inhumane move, by adding in 1 billion dollars to fund the grandiose, bombastic, vanity project—the golden White House ballroom. Using taxpayer dollars to toady to a wannabe-dictator is both pandering and pathetic.”

The Ann Arbor Sustainable Energy Utility will use locally sited solar, batteries and other resources to improve reliability and lower costs for subscribers, city officials say.

The company behind the suspended oil site that is subject of a landmark Supreme Court ruling has reported declining assets and revenue.

UK Oil & Gas plc (UKOG) revealed today in delayed annual accounts that it has interests in just one hydrocarbon site.

The value of the company’s total assets and its revenue both fell by more than 60% in the year to September 2025.

During the same period, the accounts show that UKOG gave up an onshore PEDL (production, exploration and development licence) and two exploration sites.

It also sold its stake in two more UK production sites in southern England and exited from its Turkish licence interests.

The company’s remaining oil and gas site at Horse Hill – once called the Gatwick Gusher – has been mothballed since October 2024. The Supreme Court stripped the site of its planning permission in what became known as the Finch Ruling in June 2024.

A separate statement this morning announced UKOG had submitted a retrospective planning application for the reinstatement of production consent at Horse Hill. The application announcement was not mentioned in the accounts and the details have not yet been published online.

But the accounts admitted:

“There is no certainty when consent will be reinstated or that production [at Horse Hill] will recommence.

“The Group continues to evaluate available technical data and maintain cost discipline; however, the timing, level and economic viability of any future production remain uncertain.”

Loss of oil and gas assets

The accounts confirmed that in June 2025 the company relinquished PEDL246, which included the Broadford Bridge oil exploration site in West Sussex and the planned Loxley gas site, near Dunsfold, in Surrey.

UKOG said it had plugged and abandoned the Broadford Bridge wells, BB-1/1z, in February 2026, despite discussions on their geothermal potential.

The company said:

“This milestone confirms the Company’s compliance with its regulatory obligations, demonstrating its continued commitment to responsible operations and asset stewardship during its transition into clean energy.”

But it did not mention the planning requirement to restore the site to farmland, which has not yet happened, nor the planning contravention notice issued against UKOG’s subsidiary, the site operator, and the landowner.

UKOG said it relinquished PEDL246 because representatives had failed to find a farm-in partner to drill at Loxley.

UKOG also sold its subsidiary, UK (GB) Ltd, which had stakes in the Horndean (10%) and Avington (5%) oil fields in Hampshire.

It exited its Turkish licence in October 2024 and later received a claim of $100,000 from its former partner, the accounts reveal. They said UKOG directors considered there was “no remaining formal legal or contractual basis for the claim”. To date, UKOG has received nothing further, the accounts added.

Finances

UKOG said the 2025 financial year “marked a period of strategic realignment for the Group as the Group continued its transition from legacy oil production towards hydrogen storage and clean energy infrastructure”.

But according to the accounts, the company remains largely dependent on revenue from hydrocarbon sales. The auditor noted a “material uncertainty exists that may cause significant doubt on the group’s ability to continue as a going concern”.

Revenue, entirely from Horse Hill and Horndean crude oil sales, fell to £432,000 in 2025, from £1.1m in 2024. The accounts said the decline reflected lower volumes from Horse Hill, which voluntarily suspended production in October 2024.

Total UKOG assets fell from £3.361m (restated) in 2024, to £1.136m in 2025. Cash and cash equivalents were down from £1m to £40,000.

Net liabilities rose from £2.471m in 2024 to £5.684m in 2025.

Total annual losses were reduced compared with 2024, when the balance sheet included £32.544m in impairment of oil and gas assets.

Key figures

Revenue: £432,000 (2024: £1.1m)

Cost of sales: £423,000 (2024: £912,000)

Gross loss: £20,000 (2024: £189,000)

Total comprehensive loss: £4.09m (2024: £38.490m)

Admin expenses: £2.636m (2024: £1.716m)

Decommissioning provision at 30 September 2025: £1.591m (2024: £1.253m). Of the £1.591m, £1.184m was for Horse Hill and £407,000 was for Broadford Bridge.

Non-current assets: £337,000 (2024: £1.705M)

Total assets: £1.136m (2024 restated: £3.361m)

Cash and cash equivalents: £40,000 (2024: £1m)

Total liabilities: £6.822m (2024: £5.832m)

Net liabilities: £5.684m (2024: £2.471m)

Operating loss: £3.9m (2024: £3.8m)

Loss before tax: £4.098m (2024: £38.490m)

Stephen Sanderson total earnings from UKOG: £243,000 (2024: £314,000

Total payments to directors: £504,000 (£457,000)

Loan interest payments: £152,000 (2024: £128,000)

Total finance cost: £202,000 (2024: £172,000)

Loans payable to non-controlling interests: £3.462m (2024: £3.310m)

Outstanding loan balances owed to HHDL shareholders at 30 September 2025: Alba Mineral Resources £2.8m (2024: £2.6m), Doriemus plc £0.6m (2024: £0.6m), UK Oil & Gas plc £18m (2024: £17.8m)

This article is provides a critical analysis of the Río Indio Dam and peasant resistance.

The post Panama: Río Indio, an eviction carried out under the banner of neoliberalism appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum has directed national recreation areas, seashores, wildlife refuges, and other public lands to immediately lift dozens of restrictions on hunting and trapping, according to internal documents reviewed by the New York Times.

The directive, which takes effect this week, targets rules at 76 Interior sites that allowed hunting but had restrictions designed to protect habitats or public safety, such as prohibitions on firing weapons across trails or cleaning game in public restrooms. Burgum ordered the changes in an April 21 memo, asserting that any restrictions not strictly required by law must be the “minimum necessary for public safety or resource protection.”

The Interior department framed the move as a way to expand access for sportsmen and women, but critics are concerned that the administration is bypassing environmental studies and public consultation to implement major rule changes, and warned against a “one size fits all” approach to land management. “What we’re really concerned about is, that memo didn’t say, ‘do analysis,'” said Stephanie Adams of the National Parks Conservation Association. “It didn’t say ‘engage the public,’ and it didn’t say to be sure to focus on that key part of the Organic Act, which is to manage in a way that leaves the parks unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

Senator Ben Ray Luján: Reform the 154-year-old mining law

In a letter to the editor in the Washington Post, New Mexico Senator Ben Ray Luján calls for an overhaul of the General Mining Act of 1872, arguing the law prioritizes industry over the safety of community drinking water. In a response to claims that permitting takes decades, Luján notes that the most delayed projects were due to the current law causing opposition and distrust with local communities and Tribal nations.

Quick hits Bison have grazed these lands for centuries. Trump wants to evict them

New York Times

June lease sale will offer over 150,000 acres in Colorado

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

These rural towns are banking on outdoor recreation to boost their economies

Deseret News

Trump administration falls behind on wildfire prevention with risky fire season ahead

NPR

How the rush to mine the metal of the future echoes America’s colonial past

Inside Climate News

Editorial: New tactic to come after public lands must be stopped

Arizona Daily Star

Twin Metals paid former Trump officials $380K. Their Boundary Waters mine is now advancing against public opinion

Outdoor Life

8 victories that give hope in the fight to protect public lands

Outside

Quote of the day

At a certain point, operating these mines and establishing these settlements stopped being about pure capitalism, pure greed, and it started to be about harming Indians. The wealth accumulated from all that extraction was a self-awarded prize for harming Indians, which was at the time, and possibly still is, the most American patriotic thing.”

—Lakota Sioux member Taylor Gunhammer, Inside Climate News

Picture This @yellowstonenps

“That’s no moon.” Actually, it is. We had a beautiful moonset this morning over Terrace Mountain in Mammoth Hot Springs. May the 4th be with you!

 

Featured photo: Mesa Trail at Curecanti National Recreation Area. mlhradio, CC BY-NC 2.0

The post Trump administration orders rapid end to some hunting rules on federal lands appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

This article May Day was even more important than you think was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

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On May 1, organizers reported over 5,000 May Day Strong actions across the country — the most widespread distribution of U.S. May Day actions ever. Numbers are interesting — but they’re not nearly the whole story here. Because this May Day was even more important than you think.

With No Kings, millions were activated into the streets. May Day had another goal in mind — to stretch our mass mobilization skills to include more, to quote Martin Luther King Jr., “creative tension.” 

The need for escalation became all the more urgent in light of the MAGA Supreme Court’s ruling eviscerating the Voting Rights Act, the legal crown jewel of the civil rights movement. This heavy blow is aimed at the most reliable voting bloc for a just democracy in America — Black voters. So, in response, we have to return to risky tactics that wage struggle for our democracy.

So in New York, protesters with the Sunrise Movement shut down entrances to the New York Stock Exchange — a daring tactical escalation. In Raleigh, North Carolina, 20 school districts closed for the largest statewide teacher rally since 2019. In each of the thousands of May Day protests, people spoke to specific local conditions — North Carolina ranks 43rd in average teacher pay — but tied to the overall frame of workers over billionaires.

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At Kent State University in Ohio, students honored previous generations who braved bullets, standing in the rain and wind to protest the closing of DEI offices and scholarships. They were part of the fast-moving and underreported growth of students organizing against this regime: Sunrise estimates 100,000 students participated in this weekend’s May Day strikes.

It’s important to note what we saw. Escalated tactics were trialed — this wasn’t just sign-waving. The May Day Strong coalition was also consciously moving in a unique formation with National Nurses United, AAUP, NDWA and dozens of local unions, including SEIU, AFSCME and UNITE HERE locals, joining with the likes of Indivisible and 50501. 

But perhaps most importantly and consequentially, it was a structure test for future economic disruptions. In a structure test you’re testing to see who is with you — who is ready to move and who just says they’re ready to move. So in real time we get to assess which groups are ready for further boycotts, strikes and other kinds of economic disruption. These tactics are important to build up for because they are not symbolic, but have a material impact on the authoritarian regime.

As a wise group, this coalition was testing what capacity we have for this kind of collective power. And that capacity was significant (with room to grow!). All consciously organized by a group that has a vision for building to rolling, wildcat and general strikes.

Finding the right yardstick

One of the hazards of living under an authoritarian attempting to consolidate power is that most of our victories will not come from government interventions. As civil resistance scholar Hardy Merriman has observed, we are facing a leader who can wake up each morning and do something terrible — kidnap Nicolás Maduro, fire competent federal workers, bomb Iran, cancel contracts, tear down part of the White House — and in the immediate term, we are not able to stop it.

Therefore “Did we stop him today?” cannot be our yardstick for growth — though obviously, it is an ultimate aim.

So May Day did not stop the Iran war, despite May Day Strong’s strong antiwar demand. It did not fulfill its goal of taxing the rich or guarantee that Trump will honor the “hands off our vote” demand. That’s not the right yardstick.

Previous Coverage

What’s next after the historic No Kings protest?

A different yardstick could be numbers. But of course No Kings blows that out of the water with an impressive 8 million people taking action this March.

But No Work, No School, No Shopping is not sign-waving — it’s economic pressure. In preliminary data from the event, 89 percent of participants refused to shop that day, 14 percent didn’t go to school and 32 percent participated in “No work.” We’re now expanding our ability to materially disrupt the regime.

Yes, we need to go further. Yes, we need more than one-day actions. Yes, we need many more groups to participate, but critics don’t make movements — doers do. And the doers were off doing a lot of things.

They were turning out for public demonstration in small towns where showing up at all takes courage. Towns like Idaho Falls, Idaho, Lewisburg, West Virginia and the ranching town of Dillon, Montana.  

In San Francisco, as elsewhere, protesters were arrested doing direct action, among them  elected officials (and several vying for office). In their case, they blocked the airport — the site of a recent high-profile confrontation with ICE forcibly detaining a woman and her child. While being arrested, Sanjay Garla, first vice president at SEIU United Service Workers West, said, “It’s a good day for the movement. ICE out of SFO!”

Memphis showed up boldly. They now face the triple threat of an ongoing National Guard deployment, new redistricting due to the Supreme Court ruling and an enormous Elon Musk xAI data center. Protesters blocked the entrance to Musk’s Colossus I supercomputer, with its massive turbines polluting air and water. 

“We want xAI to turn the turbines off,” protester Jasmine Bernard told Channel 3 news in Memphis. “We know the consequences of xAI being here far outweigh any benefits that somebody may be able to conjure up.” In city after city, protesters were making visible the story of how billionaires are wrecking our lives — and making clear that we’re not going to put up with it.

In Washington, D.C., people blocked numerous intersections, demanding core values of democracy: no more attacks on workers, peace and the long-delayed D.C. home rule. Keya Chatterjee of Free DC explained where the escalation is headed in an AFSCME press release: “Millions of people across the country rose in solidarity today and that’s what it’s going to take to end this regime and their attacks for good. The next step is to flex our economic muscle.”

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And if you hadn’t heard much about May Day in your community, obviously that means there’s more to do. But also it’s a good sign, as it means people outside your immediate circle were organizing and moving things. If you’re reading this and realize you’re not yet in the boat, join May Day Strong’s list so they can reach you as they plan what comes next.

May Day Strong proved the organizing phenomenon that getting people in motion is difficult, but once people stay in motion, getting them into greater motion becomes easier. And that is a different kind of victory, measured by different instruments.

The research on what actually determines success in civil resistance makes a stark point: 83 percent of successful anti-authoritarian campaigns win when they have strong participation of labor — without labor, the percentage that wins plummets to 29 percent. 

May Day Strong put together one of the widest coalitions yet: a mix of national and locals of National Nurses United, AAUP, NDWA, NEA, AFT, SEIU, Chicago Teachers Union, Starbucks Workers United, the United Electrical Workers, and APWU, alongside Indivisible, 50501, DSA chapters, immigrant rights organizations, and hundreds of local groups. All under a broad set of sensible demands: 

• Tax the Rich: Our families, not their fortunes, come first.
• No ICE. No war. No private army serving authoritarian power.
• Expand democracy, not corporate power. Hands off our vote.

Movement research is also very clear on another point: Movements that wage economic disruption succeed at dramatically higher rates than those that stay in the realm of courts, elections, rallies and petitions alone.

That’s why testing out the operational capability of days of “No Work, No School, No Shopping” is critical. It may be needed in the future if there are attempts to steal elections or other inflection moments — so it’s important for us to get in shape now. 

It’s worth recalling this particular tactic’s history and what happened in Minneapolis.

Minneapolis gave us the blueprint

Operation Metro Surge placed 3,000 armed, masked federal agents throughout Minnesota, leading to ICE agents killing Renée Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7. Families hid. Children were afraid to go to school. ICE agents unleashed chemical sprays on students and staff.

Out of that terror, something else was born. Unions, faith leaders and community organizations made a call: Jan. 23 would be a day of “No Work, No School, No Shopping.” We, as workers and students and consumers, would use our power to stop business as usual. 

The day started at a negative 40 degree wind chill. Despite that, over 100,000 people showed up in the streets. Notably, the action was backed by the executive board of the Minnesota AFL-CIO. Subsequent polling found that nearly one in four Minnesota voters either participated or had a loved one who did.

At the AT&T call center in the Twin Cities, “they only have about 20-30 people, out of over 100, who are still working,” Lori Wolf, a CWA Local 7250 member, told Labor Notes. Across many sectors — SEIU 26, UNITE HERE Local 17, ATU bus drivers, IATSE stagehands, AFSCME municipal workers and OPEIU office workers — people made the choice to stay home.

I have written extensively about the “pillars of support” as a way to understand authoritarian power — the institutions whose cooperation an authoritarian needs to govern, and whose withdrawal of cooperation can crack that power open. On Jan. 23 in Minneapolis, we saw pillars from media to small businesses crack — not break, but crack — across almost every dimension at once. 

Over 1,000 businesses closed. The faith pillar moved, activating new national networks, with over 700 faith leaders participating and roughly 100 arrested in an action at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, blockading the departure lanes used for deportation flights. Across the country, police — long a backbone of state enforcement — began to break ranks, with chiefs publicly condemning ICE tactics and others moving beyond words to support legal distance from rogue, unaccountable and untrained agents. 

Minneapolis Federation of Educators showed up in force with their sea of blue hats — while the following week, University of Minnesota students called for a nationwide walkout. Tens of thousands of students were activated, and they helped spark thousands of largely unreported protests by students nationwide.

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This was not a spontaneous eruption. It drew on networks built after the murder of George Floyd, labor councils shaped by years of relationship, and immigrant rights organizations that had been organizing long before most people noticed. What Minneapolis gave us was not just inspiration. It was a blueprint — and a question. Could it spread?

A structure test

Much of the country does not have the resources, history of organizing and relatively healthy movement ecosystem that Minnesota has. We need more practice moving in more unity with each other. 

In that sense, this May Day was what unions call a structure test. A structure test is not an action you take because you’re ready. It is an action you take to find out whether you’re ready — and where you’re not.

In labor organizing, a structure test is any ask you make of people that is deliberately lower-stakes than the final big ask. It’s designed to reveal the real shape of your organization: who will put their name on a petition, who will wear a sticker to work, or who will attend a public meeting, before you ever ask anyone to walk a picket line. “In the lead up to today’s most successful strikes,” wrote the great Jane McAlevey, referring to historic 2018 teachers’ walkouts, “countless structure tests are conducted in advance of knowing a workplace or workplaces are actually ready to strike to win.” 

Her model of building to win requires doing small tests to both exert power and to identify organizing weaknesses. Each May Day locale hopefully is doing a debrief to assess what networks were activated. Nationally we can see groups who came on board and did turn out, and others who did not.

“We are asking people to take a step into further exerting their power in all aspects of their lives — as workers, as students, as members of local organizing hubs,” Leah Greenberg of Indivisible told The Guardian. “It’s important as it builds muscles towards greater non-cooperation.”

A structure test is very different than wishful thinking (“why can’t everyone just do a general strike?”) — it is testing the capability of institutions and their resolve. It is the practice of honesty about where you are. It is the act of asking, in public and under conditions of real pressure: Who is actually with us?

That question, asked in thousands of cities on May 1, is the most important thing that happened that day. Not because we have the final answer. But because now we know more about the shape of the answer than we did on April 30.

Power, unity, leadership: an honest accounting

Researchers often converge on some key measures to assess movements resisting authoritarianism: unity, planning and nonviolent discipline.

The scale of coordination — thousands of events, major national unions, official city holidays in Chicago, teacher actions statewide in North Carolina, airport actions in the Bay Area, nurses on strike in New Orleans — represented unity and planning, in a real and measurable expansion of what this movement can do. 

“The way we build power is by flexing power,” said Martha Grant, one of the May Day Strong organizers.

In Chicago, the birthplace of May Day, the Chicago Teachers Union recently won the concession that all public school children learn about May Day, creating what CTU president Stacy Davis Gates called “academic freedom for all of us to understand where our empowerment comes from.” Thousands rallied at Union Park alongside a day of economic blackout with SEIU Healthcare Illinois and Indiana, Indivisible Chicago and the Chicago Federation of Labor. 

Previous Coverage

What’s it going to take to get to mass strikes?

There are real tensions in any broad front. There are more groups that need to be brought in. And because institutions like unions have been so gutted, there are many more individuals that need to be connected, too — hence one reason organizers created “Strike Ready” to capture individuals wanting to participate who weren’t connected to some of the big organizations.

In Minneapolis this January, what was most striking was not the headline number but the distributed leadership underneath it: union shop stewards who had built trust over years, faith leaders who had organized their congregations, neighborhood organizers who knew every door on their block. 

May Day 2026 built some of that model into its design, encouraging people to register their own events and lead their own actions. But we also know that thousands of communities had nothing on the map: places where the networks are thin, where people are activated and angry but not organized. That gap is the next frontier. The work of the next months is not another rally. It is building into those communities — finding the people who will knock on the next door.

We are training for something larger

May Day 2026 was, in the language of Freedom Trainer’s Community Strike Readiness workshops, not just a day of action. It was one structure test — because we have some big inflection moments coming up. Perhaps the biggest test of this year may be preparing for enforcement of election results — something that the tactic of the strike is well suited for.

A general strike is not a valve we can just turn on and off. It requires groups ready to move in formation with each other — and May Day Strong is positioning itself to be the entity that tells us it’s time to strike if the election is stolen. This is critical.

Cliff Smith, a Roofers Local 36 official and May Day Strong organizer in Los Angeles, said plainly what many are saying privately: “We should not depend on the November midterm elections to provide us with any solutions to this problem. We should have contingency plans in the event that there are not free and fair elections.”

Of course, between now and the election we need a lot more public action and pressure. And the civil disobedience that May Day Strong incorporated is crucial. 

This is just a beginning. The May Day Strong campaign is hosting dozens of planning and debrief sessions and turning its attention towards defending the right to protest, right to vote and the right to have a free and fair election.

May Day 2026 wasn’t perfect — but it was a real exercise of power. We learned where we stand, not in theory but in motion. The muscles are there — maybe stiff, maybe uneven — but real, alive and ready to grow for more escalation, more economic disruption, more clarification of the billionaire opponents who are threatening the existence of all of us. That matters. Now we just have to keep building on it.

This article May Day was even more important than you think was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

As mentioned in the recently published prolog to EGU2026 article, I submitted an abstract to talk about the results of the experiment we ran on Skeptical Science to gauge the effectiveness of our rebuttals. This blog post is a "companion article" to that presentation in session EOS4.1 Geoethics: Linking Geoscience Knowledge, Ethical Responsibility, and Action and will go into somewhat greater details than is possible in the 8 minutes available during the oral session for my presentation about Results of the Skeptical Science experiment and impacts on relaunched website.

Introduction

Skeptical Science (SkS) is a website and non-profit science education organization with international reach founded by John Cook in 2007. Our main purpose is to debunk misconceptions and misinformation about human-caused climate change and our website features a database that currently has more than 250 rebuttals based on peer-reviewed literature. SkS has evolved from a one-person operation to a team project with volunteers from around the globe.

Why set up an experiment?

We wanted to find out how effective our rebuttals are at reducing belief in myths and how effective they are in increasing acceptance of facts. We hoped to find out if there was a need to improve our rebuttals, whether we could identify key features of effective rebuttals, learn who is interested in reading our rebuttals and even if we could measure real-world impact of them.  

Design of the experiment (1)

Users arriving via an organic Google search at an English language rebuttal were invited to participate in a short survey via a modal screen. If they provided informed consent they were shown a pre-rebuttal survey and after reading through the rebuttal and reaching its end they were shown the same survey again as the post-rebuttal part. We also tracked their start and end times to measure how much time they spent on the page. 

Design of the experiment (2)

For both the pre- and post-rebuttal survey participants were shown the same statement related to the rebuttal they accessed. They randomly either saw a fact or a myth statement. The full list of statements used in the experiment is available in Appendix A of our published paper.

Here is an example:

• Rebuttal: "How reliable are climate models"
• Fact statement: "Scientists' computer models have been successful at predicting global warming over long time periods."
• Myth statement. "Scientists' computer models are too unreliable to predict future climate."  

Participants then selected their level of (dis)agreement with either of those statements on a 6-point Likert scale from "Strongly agree" to "Strongly disagree".

Experiment by the numbers

The data analysed for our recently published paper spans the period from November 2021 to July 2025. During that time, 858,016 visitors were shown the initial invitation, 13,432 consented to participate and filled out the pre-survey. 6,261 of them also completed the post-rebuttal form. 3146 participants were shown a factual statement in the survey quiz while 3115 were shown a myth statement.

Results - incoming climate perceptions

The majority of participants came to the website already convinced about climate change with nearly half of them (46.3 %) showing either full agreement with the climate fact or full disagreement with the climate myth. We may therefore either be just "chanting to the choir" or - what we hope is the case as it's a more constructive interpretation - our content is “teaching the choir to sing” by providing resources that empower people to respond to climate misinformation. Our survey also reached a significant number of undecided or dismissive users. 

Results - change in accuracy

We also looked at the change in accuracy - the difference between the pre- and post-rebuttal surveys. And the results are a bit of a mixed bag:

The good news is that overall, the belief in myths decreased and that we saw improved climate perceptions even among "dismissive" readers, those who either agreed strongly with the myth or disagreed strongly with the fact in the pre-survey.

The not so good news is that for a small subset of visitors and specific rebuttals, percpetion actually decresased. Those who were already highly certain (strongly agreed with facts) sometimes saw a slight dip in accuracy after reading a rebuttal. Certainly, not what we had hoped to see!

A bit of a guessing game

We had decided to keep the survey short with only one question asked to maximize participation, and therefore didn't include a question to learn why participants selected one of the options. Because of that we had to play a bit of a "guessing game" to find out what might have led to the decrease in perception for some rebuttals.

We decided to look at rebuttals which had received at least 50 completed surveys and devided them into two groups of top vs bottom performing rebuttals. We then compared the Top 3 (positive shift) to the Bottom 3 (negative shift) performers:

• Top performers: Always articulated a replacement fact and frequently identified the logical fallacy used in the myth.
• Bottom performers: Failed to provide a replacement fact and only rarely explained the underlying fallacy.

What's next?

In parallel to running our experiment, we have been working on a complete relaunch of the Skeptical Science website (see related companion blog post for EOS1.1). One new feature will be the inclusion of the fallacy employed by the climate myth. The results of our experiment indicate that moving to the fact-myth-fallacy structure in our rebuttals is a pretty good idea to increase chances of a successful debunking.

Future plans

We plan to restart the experiment some time after the relaunch of the Skeptical Science website. When we do, we plan to improve the survey design based on what we learned during this first run. We will most likely also add a few targeted and potentially open-ended questions to avoid having to guess what brought people to our website or what influenced their rating.

The team setting up the experiment

The setup for the experiment was implemented by members from our volunteer team, bringing their respective experience and knowledge to the table:

• John Cook provided the research know-how and the fact/myth statements related to the rebuttals.
• Doug Bostrom setup the necessary technical underpinnings in the backend.
• Collin Maessen and Timo Lubitz did all of the needed programming and made sure that the current website worked together well with the server running the experiment.

Our paper in Geoscience Communication

Our full results were published open access in Geoscience Communication on April 2, 2026 in Quantifying the impact of Skeptical Science rebuttals in reducing climate misperceptions.

 

You can download the full presentation in PDF-format here (2.5MB).

Reference: Winkler, B. and Cook, J.: Results of the Skeptical Science experiment and impacts on relaunched website, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-4110, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-4110, 2026. 

Computational loads pose “immediate risks,” the grid watchdog said. Certain grid participants must take seven actions by Aug. 3 in response.