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Dan Kittredge is an organic farmer in Massachusetts following in the footsteps of his parents who are organic farming movement pioneers. As a farmer, he became interested in the flavor and aroma of food, and turned his attention to researching the complexities of food quality and nutrient density. Dan has worked with researchers, NGOs, and farmers in India, Russia, and Central America. In 2010, he founded the Bionutrient Food Association to educate and empower people to make healthy food choices based on research and science. This article is an edited transcript of Dan’s talk at a recent Bioneers Conference.

My parents were back-to-the-land homesteaders starting in the early 1980s. They bought land and built a farm. Their day job was running the Northeast Organic Farming Association, commonly referred to as NOFA. They wrote some of the first organic standards in the country and produced a conference; that was their day job, but their lifestyle was the farm.

After working on their farm through my teens and 20s, I got married and realized I needed to make a living. Like a lot of farmers, I wasn’t able to because the farm suffered with pest pressure and disease pressure. So I started studying beyond the organic rubric because organic was not providing me the success I was looking for. I looked to nature and saw plants flourishing, but didn’t see plants flourishing in my fields.

I did a lot of research and shifted my farming practices, still staying within an organic framework. I got to a point where pests were dissipating, diseases were dissipating, yields were going up, flavor was going up, shelf life was going up, cost of production was going down, and I was making a living farming, working 20 hours a week. At that point, I felt obliged to start talking about what I was learning. I knew the permaculture, biodynamic and agroecology communities, but none of them were focusing on the nutritional caliber of food, so in 2010, I founded an organization called the Bionutrient Food Association, focusing on the nutritional quality of food as the objective.

By quality, I’m talking about flavor, aroma, and nutrient value, not aesthetics and uniformity, which is how a lot of food is defined by the industry today. Our initial work for a number of years focused on education: conferences, courses, workshops, etc. We found a lot of success in educating people about how nature evolved things to grow, as opposed to a narrow focus on NPK fertilizers and soil pH, which are the things that people are taught in universities about agronomy. We decided to teach people how nature has been growing plants for hundreds of millions of years, and as we did that, we found success across multiple ecosystems, with various scales, and with different crops, and tried to figure out a way to bring that to scale.

Economics is a powerful force in today’s age. Our goal was to figure out how to align economic incentives with ecological benefits and human health benefits. If we could provide a dynamic where people buying food could differentiate between a higher and lower nutritional content of, for example, carrots, our supposition is that people will choose the higher and leave the lower quality on the shelf. The work we’ve been doing for the last eight years from a research standpoint is characterizing that variation, identifying what causes it, and developing ways to assess it.

Dan Kittredge

From a foundational standpoint, our vision is to go beyond labels and certifications. It’s not about if you are organic or not, if you are regenerative or not, if you are local or not. We want to give people the ability to actually measure the nutrient levels of the food in real time, and the science with which you would do that is called spectroscopy. That’s how the Hubble space telescope works. It’s how the James Webb telescope works. We can read the atmosphere of a planet 10,000 light years away and determine that it has methane in it. If we can do that, we should be able to tell what a carrot a few millimeters away is made up of.

We built our first handheld meter in 2017 and our first lab a year later. We had people send in carrots and spinach from across the U.S., from grocery stores, farmers’ markets and farms, organic, and non-organic. We wanted to survey the supply chain, to find out how much nutrient variation there is. In 2019, we set up our second lab in California at Chico State University. That year in both of our labs in Michigan and Chico State, we had farmers send in crops from the field in triplicate. They would harvest the crops, they would pull samples of the soil, and they would answer management data questions: What was the variety? When did you plant it? How did you prepare the soil? What’s your fertility program? So we could overlay nutrient variations in food against managing practices and causal factors against soil metrics to see what patterns we could find.

In 2020 we set up our third lab in Europe. Farmers sent in crops from their fields for testing and citizen scientists sent in crops from grocery stores and farmers’ markets. We tested samples for four years – 10,000 crop samples, 25 different crops, hundreds of farms, from four continents – to understand the nature of the supply chain and what causes nutritional variation in foods. All the data is available on the Bionutrient Food Association website and is in the public commons.

As an example, let’s look at sulfur, which is an element or nutrient the body needs to function. In carrots, the lowest level we found was 8.41mg per 100g. The highest level was 33.19. That’s a 4x variation. If we assign 100 to the highest level, the vast majority of the samples were between 20 and 40 out of 100. Most carrots have relatively low levels of sulfur in relation to what they could have.

Phosphorous in carrots, we found an 8x variation. Most carrots tested in the 27th percentile. The vast majority of the sample sets were below the 50th percentile. Most crops have relatively low levels of nutrients in them in relation to what they could have. There is a presumption that all food is uniform. We have found that that is absolutely not the case.

What about antioxidants? Antioxidants are known to protect cells against free radical damage and help prevent disease. Antioxidants are measured in FRAP (Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power) units. In carrots, 4.92 FRAP units per 100 grams is the lowest we found, 195 is the highest we found. That’s a 40 to 1 variation.

In the old days, before they invented pharmaceuticals, medical practitioners talked about medicinal plants, which have intense flavor and aroma that are associated with compounds such as polyphenols, terpenoids, and alkaloids which promote good health.

Humans have evolved with a capacity to discern relative nutrient levels in food through flavor; a whole bunch of our DNA is associated with discerning nutrient levels with our noses and our tongues. It’s the high flavonoid compounds that are understood to be anti-cancer, anti-diabetes, and protect against heart disease, etc.

Our testing showed a 20x variation in flavonoids. Most samples were in the 7th percentile. The vast majority of the samples were below the 20th percentile. Almost everything out there in the supply chain is relatively poor in relation to what’s possible.

What causes that variation? Some people say genetics. We tested different carrot varieties–Napoli, Bolero, Nantes, Mokum. We found a wide range in nutrient levels in the same crop variety, and have not found any connection between genetics and nutrient levels.

Then we tested soil type and have not seen any connection between soil type, bioregion, or climate zone, and nutrient levels.

Some people say point of purchase: we tested crops from farm stands, CSAs, farmers markets, home gardens, and stores and saw quality variation in all categories. We see variation everywhere. None of these dynamics is sufficient to predict quality.

Based on our testing, regenerative, organic, biodynamic, and permaculture also do not seem to, from a scientific standpoint, connect to increased nutrition. None of these various individual factors seem to correlate with increased nutrient levels.

The first question we started with was: What is the spectrum of nutrient variation? We found that the spectrum of nutrient variation was large. Second question: What causes it? What seems to cause it is functionality of the biological system, not individual practices or certifications. Third question: Can you build a handheld, consumer priced, flash-of-light nutrient meter at a consumer price point?  

We published the answer to that question in a peer-reviewed journal called Nature: Scientific Communications. The Bionutrient Food Association developed a handheld spectrometer, which is open source technology, to prove the concept. You can flash a light in the store on a vegetable or fruit and get a reading of its nutrient density and discern relative quality. Because nutrient density is associated with flavor, that may be helpful in encouraging your children to eat more fruits and vegetables.

From our research we now know that nutrient variation exists. And we can go beyond labels, certifications, and claims to measure it on a continuum of 1 to 100. That way consumers can make choices based on the nutritional quality of the food.

The challenge is to arrive at an accepted definition of nutrient density for different foods. We focused on beef first because it has a larger ecological footprint than any other food on the planet. More acres of land are used to produce beef than anything else. The hypothesis is if cows eat what they have evolved to eat rather than an unnatural diet of grains, they will be healthier, the land will be healthier, and the people who eat them will be healthier.

Agriculture has a significant effect on climate and ecosystem function, and if we can inspire a shift in the way the land is managed to improve its function that will have beneficial impacts for everyone. In researching beef, we looked at a number of different metrics: in the soil, management practices, feed stocks, and assessments of the microbiome of the animals. Our thesis is that there’s going to be patterns between soil function, ecosystem function, animal welfare, and human health. We are using a scientific method to look for the patterns of nature.

Finally we did human trials. Feed humans this meat and see what happens to them. Take the data from the meat, and the microbes, and the management, and the human health trials, give it to statisticians, and see what patterns they can find.

This is where we’re at right now. It looks like there are eight biomarkers that predict overall system function. Those eight biomarkers are measured and scored 1-100 and that information becomes public. Our understanding is that sensors to measure nutrient density can be built into phones; the cameras in your phone could be a spectrometer. Chinese phone companies have already built spectrometers into the backs of phones. Consumers will be able to test the food at point of purchase. Food can be tested by the grower or in the supply chain. We can have a completely open dataset sharing and learning, where the market can be incentivized to focus on nutrition as opposed to volume and aesthetic.

We feel that this project is important enough that one small NGO should not be doing it solely. A broad coalition of allies should be working on this globally. We’ve proposed a treaty on the definition of nutrient density. We engaged in a listening tour on six continents, and met with nutritionists, agronomists, chefs, corporations, government people, farmers, and eaters and asked them to tell us what you think about our plan. This is a process we think could potentially have a massive impact on the planet, and we welcome peoples’ engagement.

The feedback I’m getting from some of the biggest global food corporations is they want help to transform their supply chain before the public knows about this. They want to get ahead of this before they are threatened by it. We’ve done our market research, we understand that consumers want flavor, nutrition, and are concerned about the well-being of their children. So this is an economic advantage for any food company that is a first mover in the space.

Working in harmony with nature seems to be the best way forward to accomplish the goal of optimizing nutrient density in food. The question is how do we align economics with that, and how do we empower the transition. Most people have been trained in a reductionist paradigm, but they need to be supported in that transition to a holistic perspective. Some of the simplistic talking points such as if you cover crop, all will be well, is detrimental. It is incomplete and it is reductionist. You have to optimize soil health, which is all the levels of life in the soil. There are many tools in the toolbox, cover cropping is one, minimal tillage is one, biochemistry is one. Farmers must be empowered with a full toolbox, without dogmas and empiricism to support them in the process.

We are in the process of collecting the metadata to share and learn together in a mycelial fashion.

Our organization has been educating farmers for 18 years about how to work with nature. We’ve got hundreds of hours of content on our YouTube page, freely available. Now we teach courses. It takes a shift of consciousness required to understand that you are serving nature, you are in right relationship with nature, not that you’re applying practices. If you think that you can go out and do one practice and that’s all it takes, you’re missing the point. The biggest issue is understanding your role in the process.

It’s a shift in paradigm from recommending practices to humble, gentle listening and service. It’s a shift of perspective from a colonized approach to a more Indigenous perspective. The colonized perspective is thou shalt grow a cover crop; thou shalt use compost. In contrast, the Indigenous perspective is: I’m in service to the land, what does it need now? And only when we can get into that place of humility should we expect to be proper stewards.

The post Not All Food is Created Equal appeared first on Bioneers.

As the legal battle continues over access to Mifepristone, commonly known as the abortion pill, National Nurses United demands an end to what nurses say is “an all-out class war against health care for women.” On May 4, the Supreme Court restored nationwide access to mifepristone by mail, pausing until at least May 11 a lower-court ruling in Louisiana v. FDA that had restricted it.

As extreme weather worsens, FEMA Review Council recommendations weaken federal disaster response and shift costs to states

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. —  The Trump Administration’s FEMA Review Council released yesterday its final report of recommendations to overhaul FEMA. These recommendations, which include privatizing the National Flood Insurance Program, increasing qualifying thresholds for disaster aid, and responding to fewer major disasters, leave states, localities, and tribal governments to navigate climate-fueled catastrophes with fewer federal resources.  

FEMA is the backbone of the nation’s disaster response system. As the climate crisis drives more frequent, unpredictable, and destructive disasters, the need for preparation and response from all levels of government and vulnerable communities has never been greater. At this critical moment, communities need lawmakers to strengthen FEMA’s capacity to prepare and respond to emergencies, not weaken or restrict the very resources that save lives and help communities recover. 

Gabrielle Walton, the Federal Campaigns Coordinator at the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, issued the following statement: 

“The FEMA Review Council’s proposed changes fail to offer the needed certainty that the government will provide aid when Americans need it most.  As drought grips the county, hurricane season approaches, and the climate crisis worsens, extreme weather events, communities need a government that commits to enhancing safety and preparedness, not one that proposes restricting access to critical, life-saving resources. The Council’s proposed reforms would leave states, localities, and disaster survivors with less funding and fewer resources to prevent, mitigate, and respond to disasters. Congress must take the lead in creating comprehensive FEMA reforms that will protect our communities as the climate crisis worsens.”

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Chesapeake Climate Action Network is the first grassroots organization dedicated exclusively to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in the Chesapeake Bay region. Founded in 2002, CCAN has been at the center of the fight for clean energy and wise climate policy in Maryland, Virginia, Washington, DC and beyond.

The post Trump’s FEMA Reform Proposal Would Leave Communities to Face Climate Disasters Alone appeared first on Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

Maryland Public Service Commission asked staff to conduct further analysis despite evidence that ending gas line extension allowances would provide $1 billion in savings to gas customers over next decade

 

BALTIMORE, MD —The Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) today delayed finalizing regulations to end gas line extension allowances (LEAs), preventing gas customers from having to pay for the expansion of the gas system to new homes and businesses. When finalized, the new rules are expected to save Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE) and Washington Gas Light (WGL) customers nearly $1 billion in the next decade. The Commission asked staff to conduct further analysis, with an unclear timeline for when the Commission will make a decision, adding to advocates’ concern that regulator delays from the PSC are putting customer savings at risk.

“The analysis is already in: allowing gas utilities to pass on the cost of new gas lines to their existing customers unfairly drives up energy bills and locks us into polluting fossil fuels for decades to come. Maryland gas customers shouldn’t have to wait a day longer for regulators to take action to address rapidly rising gas delivery rates,” said Emily Scarr, Senior Adviser at Maryland PIRG Foundation. “Whether it’s finalizing rules to save customers $1 billion or ending multi-year ratemaking, the Commission is creating a habit of unnecessary delays that harm customers and benefit utilities.”

Under the draft regulations, new customers and developers can still choose to connect to the gas system, but will be responsible for the cost of doing so. The hearing comes just weeks after the Maryland General Assembly rejected attempts by housing developers and gas utilities to prevent the PSC from finalizing rules to end LEAs.

“Today’s decision by the Public Service Commission is disappointing and continues to place burdens on front-line communities and Marylanders already struggling to pay costly energy bills,” said Sari Amiel, Staff Attorney at Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program. “Ongoing reliance on costly gas infrastructure impacts our health and financial well-being, while utility companies reach record profits. We will continue advocating for the state to move away from reliance on fossil fuels and towards more affordable and efficient clean energy.”

Initially petitioned for by the Office of the People’s Counsel (OPC), the rulemaking is the first to come from the “future of gas” proceeding, a venue for short and long-term gas planning. The proceeding aims to protect customers from skyrocketing costs by smoothing the transition away from gas heat and appliances and the outsized infrastructure costs that come with it. 

“Seeing the commission delay such an important consumer protection at the 11th hour is exceedingly disappointing. Gas utilities use line extension allowances to boost their profits while locking in decades of pollution and costs,” said Bryan Dunning, Senior Policy Analyst at Center for Progressive Reform. “Each day we delay, utilities are incentivised to further build out the gas system, undermining state climate goals.” 

For decades, existing gas customers have covered some or all of the costs to extend gas lines to new customers, driving up delivery rates and adding to utility profits over a decades-long payback period. Connecting a home to the methane gas system hooks it onto fossil fuels for years, contributing to climate pollution in the state and creating new risks for deadly explosions.

“Maryland gas customers shouldn’t be incentivising housing developers to build housing with dual fuel sources, when electric heating is safer, cleaner, and more affordable for renters,” said Monica O’Connor of Grassroots Maryland Legislative Coalition’s Climate Justice Wing. “Today’s decision by the PSC to delay the end of incentives for new gas lines not only fails to align regulatory policy with fiscal prudency, but sets back our state climate goals.”

In 2025 alone, BGE planned to spend $103.5 million on gas pipeline expansion, costing customers $397 million, while Washington Gas Light (WGL) planned to spend $56.25 million, costing customers $238 million.  Utility spending on gas pipelines has caused energy bills to rise in Maryland. Since 2010, Baltimore Gas & Electric and Columbia Gas customers have seen their delivery rates more than triple, far outpacing the rate of inflation, due to excessive gas utility spending. This rise in delivery costs is why BGE gas customers now pay $2 to BGE for delivery for every $1 they spend on gas. A recent analysis found that gas delivery charges account for more than 60% of the average Maryland customer’s gas bill.

“We’re very frustrated to see the Commission needlessly delay a clear action to align state climate goals, consumer protections, and lower gas ratepayer costs,” said Brittany Baker, Maryland Director of Chesapeake Climate Action Network. “We need strong leadership from the PSC to act in the best interest of ratepayers and transition Maryland off the gas distribution system. Today, they missed the mark.”

The Upgrade Maryland campaign is calling on the PSC to swiftly finalize regulations to end LEAs, both to protect customers from the rising costs of the gas system and to ensure utility regulation is in line with state climate policy.

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Chesapeake Climate Action Network is the first grassroots organization dedicated exclusively to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in the Chesapeake Bay region. Founded in 2002, CCAN has been at the center of the fight for clean energy and wise climate policy in Maryland, Virginia, Washington, DC and beyond.

The post Advocates Warn Utility Regulators’ Decision to Delay Puts Customer Savings at Risk appeared first on Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

We reject the US-Israel War on Iran. We stand in solidarity with all those fighting back against the US’ escalating aggression – unnecessary, avoidable, and already unleashing profound destruction in global energy and food systems.

As fertilizer and energy prices surge, smallholder food producers bear the brunt of skyrocketing production costs, while large industrial agriculture corporations are positioned to capture windfall profits. This crisis has once again demonstrated that industrial agriculture is unable to reliably feed the world, echoing the disruptions seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Industrial agriculture – marked by fossil fuel-based synthetic fertilizers, import-dependence, export-orientation, deforestation driven global commodity chains – is fundamentally ill-equipped to cope with the recurrent shocks that now define our global reality. 

At the same time, the environmental costs of this system are becoming impossible to ignore. The widespread use of synthetic fertilizers drives ecosystem degradation, contaminates waterways, fuels harmful algal blooms, harms wildlife, creates dead zones in aquatic ecosystems, and contributes to soil degradation and biodiversity loss. Fertilizers are also responsible for some of the most dangerous agricultural emissions, releasing potent greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide and methane. 

Far from enhancing resilience, fertilizer-dependent industrial agriculture is actively undermining the ecological foundations on which food security depends. Fertilizers don’t feed people; they sustain an extractivist approach to food production where nearly half of the world’s grain, instead of feeding millions of hungry mouths in the Global South, is diverted to animal feed, propping up global industrial livestock production. 

The current crisis is a long-overdue indictment of the very foundations on which food economies are built, and a critical opportunity for transformation. What we are facing is no longer simply a matter of urgency. It is a question of survival. The continued reliance on fertilizer-intensive industrial agriculture is neither sustainable nor resilient. 

We must urgently phase out this model and transition toward equitable, humane and agroecological food systems, an approach based on food, land, and water recognised as fundamental rights–not mere commodities- that puts people, animals and our environment at the center. It can restore ecosystem health, reduce dependence on fossil-based inputs, and build resilient and locally adapted food systems. Only by making this shift can we secure true food security through food sovereignty and ensure that nutritious, affordable food remains accessible to all.

The post Statement: US-Israel War on Iran is Having Devastating Impact on Agriculture in Global South appeared first on Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

This article Mothers are the most underestimated force for change was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

When Trump won the first time in 2016, I drank shots of tequila in front of my computer and then passed out in anguish. When Trump won in 2024, I couldn’t do that. This time around, I was a mom. 

By afternoon on election day, the red shifts on the map became overpowering — and yet I still had to pick up my son from childcare. I had to get him dinner, sing songs in the bathtub and make up stories for his stuffed animals. I still had to create a world that was joyous, delicious and full of love even though I was horrified by the political present.  

This is a very particular muscle I have had to build since becoming a mother. It’s different than building a practice of hope. It’s beyond feelings and all about the tangible needs of life. It’s being able to turn hope into something physical even when deeply worn down. Moms, aunties, grandmothers and other caretakers — we have to pull ourselves off the couch and make the sandwiches and brush the hair. 

Every day, in the face of whatever the greater world holds, we build our own pockets where injustices are righted, love is given and joy is present. We calm down tantrums with love and humor. We teach lessons on sharing and taking turns. This complicated dynamic mothers must hold, of nurturing children while social injustice rages, is something I’ve seen resonate across social media recently, with many women commenting on the realities of keeping children loved and happy while the world burns. 

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Mothers are the everyday weavers of utopia. Philosophers, journalists, tech experts, Hollywood writers and pundits may throw up their hands and proclaim that our species is doomed, and yet in millions of homes around the world, mothers and caregivers are ensuring that on the contrary, we do live in a world of joy where resources are shared. The past few years of being a new mom have taught me we need to do more than survive; the real magic comes with what we co-create with our children — the evidence that a better world is possible. 

One of the unique aspects of motherhood is that, even while you’re dealing with the immediacy of food, shelter, joy, love, raising a human also means having one foot in the future. The writer and healer Prentis Hemphill said in a recent podcast episode, “Children as Sacred,” that “our culture actually seems to be anti-children and to me therefore anti the future. … What a child compels you to do is create, what a child compels you to do is nurture, to plant a seed, to think about what will grow beyond your life.”

This is no small feat, and might be one of the most underexamined sources of social change out there. Mothers are inherent futurists, just as gardeners are. Even when our children are in the womb, we have to be mindful of every chemical we come in contact with and what it could do to their development down the line. When our kids are growing up, we are constantly aware of how much of their future self is molded from the compendium of all the lessons we teach them. 

“Almost all of parenting is digging really deep for reserves when you are out of it,” said Jenny Zimmer, the co-executive director of the group Mothers Out Front. “Like you’re out of energy, you’re out of time, you’re out of patience, you’re exhausted, and you’re still finding the reserves to set [your kids] up for success.” 

It is this deep commitment to not just hoping for a better future, but knowing that it is formed through the actions we choose today, that directly links what we do now to what will become.

A better future is being built by the everyday work of caretakers to instruct the next generation that love and goodness can exist.

There’s nothing quite like the early years of motherhood for forcing people to realize they can’t do it all on their own. If you try to do all the things yourself, you will quickly break. It is with the village, the community that life gets a bit easier. “Mothers can do more because we know how to work together,” Zimmer noted. 

My formative activist years were working with the Burmese pro-democracy movement, and I remember witnessing women’s meetings where heavy discussions were held on moving aid to refugee camps, or monitoring elections — all while someone’s baby was being passed around from woman to woman. A group of women would chop up fruit to share, and others would help clean up. Communal care was the fundamental driver that allowed more women to step into leadership and peace-building. 

In Minneapolis and other cities besieged by ICE recently, it’s regularly mothers who are organizing food to deliver to those in need, raising money for affected families, forming safety patrols at kids’ schools and participating in ICE watches. Ashley Fairbanks helped start the group Stand with Minnesota, which is a center point of a lot of the mutual aid. In a recent interview with The Guardian, she said “We’re building a helper reflex where, instead of encountering a problem and saying that we can’t do anything, we’re just trying to do it.” 

There is so much to learn from mothers in Minnesota who are showing that the future can be better — by moving their anguished bodies to attend protests, deliver diapers and pick up their neighbors, and showing our children and our communities that we can operate with more humane ways of being. 

America does not have the best track record with positive visions of the future. The vast majority of films set in the future are dystopian, with a stalwart hero making their way through techno-fascism. In fact, when I tried to find films with a positive vision of the future, where humanity was able to come together and create something better — it’s pretty much just the “Star Trek” movies and “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” and even in those the vision of the future Earth is limited (“Star Trek” mostly takes place off Earth, and “Bill & Ted” gives us just a  few minutes’ glimpse of the peaceful future). 

What we need are the mother-filled stories of creation. How from small seeds, wondrous things can be born. Constructing a better future won’t come from some miracle technology that propels us forward. It comes from the everyday work of caretakers to instruct the next generation that love and goodness can exist.

Two directly opposed worldviews vying with each other in America right now are the much-publicized, hyper-individualized ideology of pseudo-macho tech oligarchs, and the quieter reality of mothers leaning into collective movements for a better world. A patriarchal worldview tells us that social change comes through highly publicized “wins” or technological silver bullets. 

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In my conversation with Zimmer, she spoke about how working with mothers has shifted her understanding of what social progress looks like. “I had to reframe victory in my mind from a big win to basically like a journey. There’s always going to be opposition,” she said. “And so when I think about bringing my kids into organizing spaces with me, it’s less that I want them to see my team win something. And it’s more that I want them to see that a good life is spent in a collective project of trying to make things good for everybody.”

A mother’s commitment is incalculable. Rebecca Solnit wrote to me that the concept of motherhood comes down to the idea that “there is a superpower in being absolutely unshakably committed to something/someone morally and in every other way, to your last breath, and because that commitment wants to see goodness all around, doesn’t it manifest goodness?” The future of this planet is being deeply shaped every day by caretakers moving forward with love and an unfeigned commitment to a better future. Once we recognize this for the superpower it is, we can build more systems that embrace its potential. 

If we start accepting that mothers are a powerful force for good, then we need to support systems that can scale their engagement. Mexico City has built 15 “Utopias,” large community centers aimed to take some of the burden off of low-income caregivers. Bogota, Colombia is experimenting with manzana del cuidado, or care blocks, which support caregivers by clustering services together. Many other countries are enacting policies like extended maternity and paternity leave, subsidized child care and health care benefits that help mothers be more able to engage with public life. 

It would be hugely beneficial to society if instead of isolating and limiting people who have a “helper reflex” superpower, we instead built more ways to expand the utilization of this skillset. Mothers are a crucial force for change, not only in our homes and communities, but on a much wider scale — if they have the support they need to unleash their superpowers.

This article Mothers are the most underestimated force for change was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

In a filing made public on Friday, ABC accused Federal Communications Commission regulators of violating its free-speech rights and called out FCC Chairman Brendan Carr for attempting to punish the broadcaster for airing political content that displeased the Trump White House.

The FCC had reportedly ordered Houston station KTRK-TV, which ABC owns and operates, to file a formal request asking whether The View qualified for the Equal Time Rule exemption when it booked an interview with Texas senatorial candidate James Talarico. The request wasn’t warranted as the FCC had specifically granted The View this exemption in a 2002 order.

The Equal Time Rule, under Section 315 of the Communications Act, requires that broadcast stations provide equal access and airtime to all legally qualified political candidates if they permit any one candidate to use their facilities. The rule does not apply to bona fide newscasts, news interviews, news documentaries or on-the-spot news events (like political debates).

“The Commission’s actions threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to The View and more broadly,” reads ABC’s filing. “It is therefore imperative that the Commission act quickly to assure broadcasters that it will uphold its long-established standards protecting broadcasters’ good faith news judgment in including political candidates in bona fide news programming.”

ABC has not always defended its free-speech rights. In December 2024, the company paid $15 million to resolve a meritless Trump defamation lawsuit against the network and its anchor George Stephanopoulos. In September 2025, Disney decided to temporarily suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night program after Chairman Carr threatened to take action following comments the comedian made during his opening monologue.

Free Press Co-CEO Jessica J. González said:

“I’m pleased that ABC has finally learned that bullies don’t stop when companies cower in a corner. The FCC chairman has blatantly and repeatedly abused his power to silence speech that displeases Trump. This doesn’t just violate the First Amendment rights of broadcasters on the receiving end of Brendan Carr’s tactics; it also harms the broadcasters’ audiences. People deserve access to diverse viewpoints over the airwaves, and the ways in which ABC and other broadcasters have repeatedly capitulated to the administration has chilled free expression and access to information.

“Chairman Carr’s overreach is startling and unpopular across the political spectrum. After Donald and Melania Trump demanded that ABC fire Jimmy Kimmel for making a joke they didn’t like, Carr announced that he would conduct an early review of ABC’s broadcast licenses — an abuse of power that Senator Ted Cruz and people of all political stripes condemned. I urge ABC and its parent company Disney to continue fighting for free speech. Doing anything less deprives audiences of the diversity of viewpoints that are critical to the health of a democracy.”

ABC is accusing the Federal Communications Commission of violating the First Amendment and chilling press freedom, in a regulatory filing in its dispute with the FCC over whether “The View” is a bona fide news program exempt from the agency’s equal time requirement.
The following can be attributed to Freedom of the Press Foundation Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern:

“We commend ABC for standing up for itself and the First Amendment. The legal theories the FCC asserts against broadcast licensees are frivolous and unconstitutional, and FCC Chair Brendan Carr knows it, but he hopes broadcast licensees will nonetheless self-censor rather than pick a fight.

“It’s about time news outlets start telling Carr and his Donald Trump lapel pin to kick rocks. Otherwise, he’ll continue manufacturing bogus pretexts to harass and jawbone licensees that air content his boss doesn’t like. News outlets should be emboldened after seeing The New York Times, Media Matters, The Washington Post, and others go on offense against the administration in court and win. Carr won’t stop until a judge forces him to, and hopefully ABC plans to make that happen, both here and in Carr’s equally ridiculous retaliatory license renewal proceeding in response to comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s jokes.”

Demand for key grid hardware has soared since 2019, due to large load growth, integration of new energy generation resources, and investment to modernize the aging grid. This demand is driving up equipment lead times and prices. In fact, if you need a large power transformer, you may have to wait up to four years. The stakes are high for American businesses and consumers: the grid supply chain crunch is already impacting utility bills, threatening reliability, and stalling critical projects, from power plants and data centers to new housing construction.

While recent investment announcements in domestic grid component manufacturing will help ease shortages in the coming years, these developments on their own are not enough to secure America’s grid supply chain. Policymakers can leverage a range of proven industrial policy tools to boost the capacity, coordination, and competitiveness of US grid component manufacturing. Addressing the gridlock is an opportunity to reinvigorate domestic manufacturing, strengthen US energy security, improve energy affordability, and propel economic growth.

The post Solving the Gridlock: America’s Electric Supply Chain Opportunity appeared first on RMI.

For over a decade, the biomass industry has sold a lie. They’ve been lying to Southern communities and decision-makers. This is especially true of the UK company Drax. They’ve violated […]

The post Communities Across the South Unite Against Drax first appeared on Dogwood Alliance.

Registered nurses at Bay Area Kaiser facilities will hold a rally at Kaiser San Francisco Medical Center on Monday, May 11, to protest Kaiser’s plan to terminate nurses who are DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, recipients waiting for the federal government to renew their work documents.

Every spring and fall, millions of migratory birds cross the American continent along major natural corridors known as flyways. These flyways connect ecosystems, economies, and cultures from the...

On Monday, we partnered with Wells Fargo workers to deliver union gift bags to 200+ bank branches across the country. The gift bags included coffee, candy – and an invitation for workers to learn about the union by talking with unionized bank workers.

The goal? Support more bank workers getting involved in the fight to unionize Wells Fargo.

But, maybe you’re wondering why we, a climate coalition, are spending our time supporting worker power. So I thought I’d use this month’s newsletter to explain our strategy.

Over 150 years of labor organizing has demonstrated that organizing workers can be an incredibly effective strategy, one capable of moving corporations in huge and meaningful ways. We’ve even glimpsed this within the climate movement. 

In 2019, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice organized more than 8,000 Amazon employees around climate demands, and nearly 2,000 employees walked out of work to join a climate strike. In response, the company committed to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040, announced the $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund, and ordered 100,000 electric delivery vehicles.  

Yes, there’s still a heck of a lot of work to be done to make Amazon a responsible social actor, but those were remarkable victories – and they wouldn’t have happened without a critical mass of organized workers.

So, that’s part of the reason we’re supporting workers’ fight for a union. By building with bank workers, we can build the power to win real concessions from Wells Fargo. But it’s about much more than that, too.

We’re living in an age of truly grotesque wealth inequality. America’s richest twelve billionaires are now worth $2.7 trillion, their combined wealth quadrupling since 2020. And while your average school teacher (or bank worker) pays around 25% of their income in taxes, Jeff Bezos pays a true tax rate of 1%.

This level of inequality is poisoning our politics. In 2024, just 300 billionaires and their families were responsible for $3 billion in political spending, making up nearly 20% of all political spending in federal elections. 

This is what oligarchy looks like: a small number of billionaires buying politicians and reaping the rewards. It’s why we got Musk’s DOGE, which literally killed hundreds of thousands of people and stole the data of every living American. It’s why Trump’s budget bill cut taxes for billionaires while spiking healthcare premiums for everyday Americans. 

And it’s, in part, why tackling the climate crisis is so damn hard. Many of MAGAs largest donors are billionaires from the oil and gas industry. In 2024 alone, the fossil fuel industry contributed $445 million to support Trump and his climate denier buddies.

Which brings me back to why a climate group is supporting a labor union struggle like the Wells Fargo Workers United campaign: we can’t tackle the climate crisis without taking on the billionaire class and the wealth inequality poisoning our political system. 

And you know what the single greatest antidote to extreme wealth inequality is? It’s labor unions.

So, yes, we’re supporting the union fight at Wells Fargo because we think it’s a good strategy to win on climate in the long run. 

But more broadly, building a fighting labor movement is perhaps the greatest antidote to the power of the billionaire class that’s undermining our democracy and our ability to tackle the climate crisis. 

So, if you know anyone who works at Wells Fargo, pass it on: they can get in touch with a union organizer here. 

In Solidarity
– Alec Connon, Stop the Money Pipeline coalition director

 

News & Updates from the Coalition

–  Stop the Money Pipeline celebration and online gala: you’re invited!

On Thursday, May 21st, we’re hosting Brighter Futures: An online celebration and fundraising gala for Stop the Money Pipeline! It’s gonna be great!

RSVP here and join us Brighter Futures. Together, we’ll celebrate our progress, build community, and help fund a fighting climate movement.  

– Holding Elon Accountable

On April 14th we launched the Investigate DOGE campaign with our partners at Communications Workers of America and Tesla Takedown. 

DOGE destroyed vital government agencies, left 300,000 dedicated public servants jobless, exposed the personal data of nearly every American, and resulted in hundreds of thousands of needless deaths. But accountability is coming. Sign the petition to call on Congress to investigate Elon Musk and the DOGE Bros, and receive all the updates about the campaign. 

–  Big update from the Insure our Communities New York campaign

Very big update in the Insure our Communities New York campaign: Senate Insurance Committee Chair, Jamal Bailey, has signed on as the new lead sponsor of the Insure our Communities Act.

This is a huge deal. Not only is Senator Bailey the Chair of the Insurance Committee and therefore a critical vote, but he is also widely considered a frontrunner for the Senate Majority Leader position. We’re very excited to build on this progress and work with Senator Bailey’s office to advance this landmark bill. 

– And progress in Connecticut, too!

For 3+ years now, our partner, Connecticut Citizens Action Group (CCAG) has been campaigning for a bill called Insuring Connecticut’s Resiliency. The bill would place a surcharge on  insurance premiums paid by fossil fuel companies, and use the money to pay for climate programs.  On March 13, when the bill was introduced into the Environmental Committee, we joined many others in voicing support of the bill. 

Despite the short legislative session, CCAG and allies secured a huge win: the bill passed out of the Environmental Committee and the Appropriations Committee with an overwhelming majority vote. Next year will hopefully be the year the bill gets pushed over the finish line.

– Now that’s a lotta emails

The Spanish bank, Santander, is the world’s largest funder of fossil fuel expansion in Latin America. So, after Santander ignored European and Latin American campaigners’ requests for a meeting, we organized a coalition of groups to flood their top executives’ email inboxes with messages. So far, 33,000 people have sent more than 530,000 emails. I reached out to their Global Head of Sustainability, Lara de Mesa, to request a meeting yesterday – I’ll let you know what we hear back. 

– No immunity for Big Oil

Big Oil companies have knowingly fueled catastrophic climate damages for decades — but they lied about the danger to protect their profits. Now, as communities are taking action to make polluters pay, Congress has introduced a bill that would give the fossil fuel industry blanket immunity from any laws or lawsuits that could hold them accountable.

Call your Member of Congress here to demand No Immunity for Big Oil.

– How your pension votes matters

In the world of campaigning against the financial industry, spring is what we call shareholder season. That’s because this is the time of year major companies hold annual meetings to vote on critical issues, including hundreds of climate-related proposals that shape their sustainability practices. One of the best ways we can push them to act is through public pension funds, which invest trillions of our tax dollars and have a significant voice in these shareholder meetings.

Our partners at the Sierra Club have done great work flagging critical climate votes for pension funds – and you can sign their petition to pension managers here. 

– Seattle’s First Peoples’ Climate Fund

In Seattle, STMP Steering Committee member and Mazaksa Talks co-founder Matt Remle, played a key role in winning the First Peoples’ Climate Fund, a new funding source to fund Indigenous-led climate adaptation and mitigation efforts in the region.  

– And to finish: a goofy photo…

Finally, to close out this month’s newsletter, here’s a goofy photo of me and my buddy, Tushar, outside a Wells Fargo branch. Remember, if you know anyone who works at Wells Fargo, let them know: they can get in touch with a union organizer here.

The post May Newsletter: Unions, inequality, and the climate crisis. appeared first on Stop the Money Pipeline.

Click the icon at the bottom right to view the issue full screen. March 2026

The post Down to Earth: March 2026 appeared first on Montana Environmental Information Center - MEIC.

Don’t be fooled by NorthWestern Energy and the PSC’s spin on the latest rate increase to Montanan’s energy bills. In November 2025, the Montana Public Service Commission (PSC) announced it denied $43 million in rate increases to NorthWestern Energy “to the benefit of Montana customers.” So why are Montana customers still paying more? MEIC’s Energy …

The post MEIC’s Nick Fitzmaurice Explains How NorthWestern Energy Keeps Getting Away with Raising Montana Customer’s Rates appeared first on Montana Environmental Information Center - MEIC.

Indigenous leaders from across the Amazon have warned that stopping the expansion of oil drilling into their territories will be a crucial test for a growing international coalition committed to transitioning away from fossil fuels.

As 60 countries discussed at a landmark conference in Santa Marta, Colombia, pathways to end the world’s reliance on fossil fuels, Indigenous groups said the process risks losing credibility if governments continue opening new oil frontiers in the Amazon.

Their central demand was the establishment of fossil fuel “exclusion zones” across Indigenous territories and biodiverse areas of the rainforest, permanently barring new oil and gas expansion in one of the world’s most critical ecosystems. Indigenous representatives proposed establishing protected “Life Zones”, which they said would provide legal safeguards against governments and companies seeking to expand extraction into their lands.

But Indigenous delegates left the conference frustrated as the final synthesis report drafted by co-chairs Colombia and the Netherlands failed to include the proposal.

In a statement at the end of the conference, Patricia Suárez, from the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (OPIAC), said formally declaring Indigenous territories – especially those inhabited by peoples in voluntary isolation – as exclusion zones for extractive industries was “an urgent measure”.

“If the heart of the conference does not begin there, it risks remaining a set of good intentions that fails to respond to either science or our Indigenous knowledge systems,” she added.

Pushing for a new oil frontier

Campaigners say the pressure on the Amazon is intensifying just as scientists warn the rainforest is nearing irreversible collapse. Around 20% of all newly identified global oil reserves between 2022 and 2024 were discovered in the Amazon basin, fuelling renewed interest from governments and companies seeking to develop the region as the world’s next major oil frontier.

Ecuador has moved ahead with the auction of new oil blocks in the rainforest, while the country’s right-wing president Daniel Noboa has promoted the region as a “new oil-producing horizon” and backed efforts to expand fracking with support from Chinese companies.

• Apr 30, 2026 News Santa Marta summit kick-starts work on key steps for fossil fuel transition The conference offers some 60 nations help to develop roadmaps to shift their economies away from coal, oil and gas, and make international trade green Read more
• Apr 29, 2026 Comment Six nations at Santa Marta could shape fossil fuel futures A small but critical handful of countries attending the conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels remain deeply committed to expanding their output Read more
• May 6, 2026 Investigations How Shell is still benefiting from offloaded Niger Delta oil assets Shell used its exit from onshore operations in Nigeria to boost its climate credentials, but new reporting shows that the firm continues to trade oil from its former business Read more

In Santa Marta, a coalition of seven Indigenous nations from Ecuador issued a declaration condemning the government, which did not participate in the conference.

“While the world talks about energy transition, our government is pushing for more oil in the Amazon,” said Marcelo Mayancha, president of the Shiwiar nation. “Throughout history, we have always defended our land. That is our home. We will forever defend our territory.”

Indigenous groups also warned that Peru – another South American nation absent from the conference – plans to auction new oil blocks in the Yavarí-Tapiche Territorial Corridor, a highly sensitive region along the Brazilian border that contains the world’s largest known concentration of Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation.

COP30 host under scrutiny

Indigenous leaders also criticised Brazil, arguing that despite its international climate leadership, the country is simultaneously advancing major new oil projects in the Amazon region.

Luene Karipuna, delegate from Brazil’s coalition of Amazon peoples (COIAB), said the oil push threatens the stability of the rainforest. Not far from her home, in the northern state of Amapá, state-run oil giant Petrobras is currently exploring for new offshore oil reserves off the mouth of the Amazon river.

Brazil participated in the Santa Marta conference and was among the countries that first pushed for discussions on transitioning away from fossil fuels at COP negotiations. Yet the country is also planning one of the largest expansions in oil production in the world, according to last year’s Production Gap report.

Veteran Brazilian climate scientist Carlos Nobre told Climate Home that the country’s participation at the Santa Marta conference contrasted with its oil and gas production targets. “It does not make any sense for Brazil to continue with any new oil exploration,” he said, and noted that science is clear that no new fossil fuels should be developed to avoid crossing dangerous climate tipping points.

He added that the Brazilian government faces pressures from economic sectors, since Petrobras is one of the countries top exporting companies. “They look only at the economic value of exporting fossil fuels. Brazil has to change.”

The COP30 host also promised to draft a voluntary proposal for a global roadmap away from fossil fuels, which is expected to be published before this year’s COP31 summit.

“In Brazil, that advance has caused so many problems because it overlaps with Indigenous territories. Companies tell us there won’t be an impact, but we see an impact,” Karipuna said. “We feel the Brazilian government has auctioned our land without dialogue.”

For Karipuna and other Indigenous leaders, establishing exclusion zones across the Amazon is no longer just a regional demand, but a prerequisite to prevent the collapse of the rainforest.

“That’s the first step for an energy transition that places Indigenous peoples at the centre,” she added.

The post Indigenous groups warn Amazon oil expansion tests fossil fuel phase-out coalition appeared first on Climate Home News.

The company says it remains “the nation’s largest distributed power plant operator,” with about 4.3 GWh of networked storage capacity as of March 31 — a 50% increase year over year. It aims to have 10 GWh of dispatchable capacity by the end of 2028.

Editor’s note: This edition of our ‘Protect This Place’ column is produced in collaboration with the Climate Listening Project, whose short film appears below.

The Place:

We’re in West Marion, North Carolina, in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, pronounced Appa-latch-an, and known locally as the Blue Ridge Mountains — a biodiversity hotspot where communities are still recovering from Hurricane Helene and coming together to build a Resilience Hub.

Why it matters:

This area is home to the greatest diversity of salamanders on Earth, including the giant eastern hellbender. Varying elevations throughout the mountains create unique ecosystems for more tree species than anywhere in North America, and the region serves as an important migration corridor for species from the North and South.

The Appalachian Mountains are known as the oldest mountains in the world, and Marion is famous for its annual Bigfoot Festival. West Marion is a historically Black community, which lost its school after desegregation and community connectivity after the new interstate was built right through the middle.

West Marion community / Photo by Dayna Reggero The threat:

Hurricane Helene was a traumatic event that carried endless rain that widened little streams, creating thundering rivers that pulled down trees and everything else in their path and tore apart communities.

West Marion Inc has already been listening to the communities’ needs for years and were ready to help. Now they’re planning a Resilience Hub. My new film, “Climate Change And…” tells their story, where the hurricane is just one chapter and enduring struggle is not new, yet climate change and hope coexist.

This community is building solutions and taking care of each other and this place that they love. The Resilience Hub is being built in an old school that has been donated back to the community. There are also plans to build a bridge over the interstate, reconnecting the town. A capital campaign is underway, with big plans for the Resilience Hub to be able to help the community in times of climate impacts, as well as serve as a local health center, technology hub, food incubator, and community center.

My place in this place:

I lived in the Appalachian foothills for many years. I began my Climate Listening Project after 2013 became the wettest, rainiest year on record in western North Carolina. My first listening project was called “Asheville Rain,” in which I listened to a scientist who discussed the importance of preserving Appalachian bogs. I saw record after record broken as hurricanes traveled from the coasts to our mountains, dropping so much rain and causing mudslides.

Dayna Reggero / Photo by Zachary Kanzler

I attended my first West Marion Community Forum meeting almost 10 years ago and met inspiring women, including director Paula Swepson. Shortly afterward I was invited to host a climate forum where people from across the community came together to listen and plan for adaptation from floods or fires, connecting solutions around food security, transportation, and community health. We’ve continued to collaborate and share the messages from their book, Shift Happens in Community. Then Hurricane Helene hit the mountains, and I was invited to listen. The women of West Marion Inc. are inspiring to me because of their work to listen and adapt.

Paula Swepson / Photo by Dayna Reggero Who’s protecting it now:

West Marion Inc. is listening in Southern Appalachia with the Old Fort and West Marion Community Forums and planning for the Resilience Hub.

What this place needs:

“The best thing about the forum is that it allows you to dream,” says Paula Swepson, founder and director of West Marion Inc.

See more:

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Previously in The Revelator:

Protect This Place: Connected Communities on the U.S. Gulf Coast and the Philippines

The post Protect This Place: Southern Appalachia appeared first on The Revelator.

Critical grid work becomes harder for utilities to keep on budget when schedules are repeatedly disrupted by missing or delayed equipment, writes ULE Group President Danielle Pirrone.

Data centers are of “no value to our residential customer — actually, any customer,” said Eversource Energy CEO Joe Nolan. “It's only going to drive up the price of energy.”