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World Bee Day – May 20, 2026 This #WorldBeeDay lets take a moment for the pollinators. They work behind the scenes of every meal, every meadow, every medicine. Protect the bees! For more information, events, and updates from the IEN Teaching Garden, Click here.

VICTORIA — Evan Pivnick, associate director of public affairs at Clean Energy Canada, released a statement in response to BC Hydro’s release of its new energy efficiency strategy, Power Smart 2.0:

“BC Hydro has a strong history of using energy conservation to reduce electricity use in B.C. as well as prepare for the growing demands for electrification. However, while this new plan makes meaningful investments and continues in this tradition, it falls short of fully harnessing the opportunities that household technologies have to save families—and BC Hydro—money.

“A recent study from Dunsky Energy + Climate Advisors found that distributed energy resources (electric technologies that can generate or store energy or control demand) could meet more than 10% of B.C.’s total peak electricity demand by 2040, saving ratepayers money by avoiding more expensive infrastructure build-outs while improving grid reliability. 

“As such, it’s good to see support for consumers to adopt clean solutions, from energy-efficient appliances to battery storage, that help realize this potential. But this is only a first step. B.C needs to follow the lead of other jurisdictions across North America that are going much further in advancing changes to their electricity systems and standing up new programs that can help households save on their energy bills.

“Beyond energy-efficient appliances, new technologies have unlocked much greater opportunities to save, like managed EV charging, smart panels, controllable water heaters, and household batteries that work in harmony with the grid. The new plan lays out a vision for using these technologies, but more should be done to encourage British Columbians to make the switch. The Dunsky study found that greater financial incentives, like rebates, and other ambitious installation programs, were key to realizing the full potential of distributed energy resources for reducing both household bills and costs to the utility. 

“What’s more, heat pumps will be vital to reducing power demand, offering the ability to displace power-hungry baseboard heating and air conditioning. With another hot summer around the corner, the provincial government should introduce regulations that ensure new permanent air conditioning systems are heat pumps. Our analysis shows that a province-wide switch to heat pumps could save a cumulative $675 million in annual energy bills: that translates to average savings of approximately $170 a year for those currently using natural gas with A/C.

“Already, B.C. has some of the lowest electricity rates in North America, making the switch to EVs and household electrification especially enticing for British Columbians. And while today represents a positive step, at a moment when the cost of living is top of mind for most families, there is much more we could be doing to lower electricity bills across the province—while simultaneously building a smarter, more cost-efficient electricity system.” 

The post Response: New BC Hydro plan maintains key programs, but the province and utility are leaving larger household savings on the table appeared first on Clean Energy Canada.

By Gracia Ramirez and David Vergara-Moreno

This photo essay looks at Isla Grande, the largest coralline island of Nuestra Señora del Rosario Archipelago, which is part of the Parque Nacional Natural Corales del Rosario y de San Bernardo, in the Colombian Caribbean. The essay considers the environmental beauty and the violence that underpin Black lives on the island, and the ways in which they have resisted as a community to go forward into the future.

DOCKS

La Bodeguita dock in Cartagena de Indias is the tourists’ gateway to the promised paradise of white-sand beaches and turquoise waters of the Rosario Islands. The docks and other hard boundaries of the port witness an encounter with the polluted waters around Cartagena. This port is responsible for 70% of the country’s maritime trade and has been categorized as the third most efficient port in the world.

Although rarely mentioned by the early chroniclers, it is reasonable to infer that —prior to and during the early centuries of colonization— Cartagena’s Bay was a lush mosaic of abundant coral reefs, dense mangrove forests, and towering tropical dry forest trees.

Today, however, the bay reveals another face: murky waters, laden with sediments, polluted by centuries of maritime traffic, urban and industrial waste, and dredging works that have radically transformed its ecological cycles.

While the departure of tourism to the islands is mainly managed from La Bodeguita dock, the journey out of the bay and into the sea allows visual contact with other docks along the coast.

This is a layered cartography of memories, economies, and spatial regimes: tourist piers, logistical cargo yards, shipyards, naval bases, and private marinas. The bay is not merely a coastal landscape, it is a friction zone between multiple socio-economic and political logics: tourism, military operations, goods trade, and the communities whose ways of life are subordinated to those regimes. This is a liquid frontier: a place of circulation, exclusion, and resistance.

LOGISTICS

The archipelago of the Rosario Islands is connected not just to the Atlantic but also to another body of water, the Canal del Dique. The Spanish colonizers began its construction in the 16th century using enslaved Indigenous and African labor, with the goal of linking the Magdalena River —the nation’s main fluvial artery— with the Cartagena Bay.

Map of the Northern part of Bolívar Department, Republic of Colombia 1886-1903 (Edward Stanford, 1899, cropped). It is possible to see Cartagena de Indias, Barú island below, the Canal del Dique and the Calamar-Cartagena Railway (red line). Source: Mapoteca Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia.

Since then, the Canal has played a strategic role in both domestic and foreign transport and trade, evolving from wooden barges in the 17th century, to the advent of steam-powered boats in the 19th century.

For over three centuries, the Magdalena River and its canal were the only connection between Colombia’s Caribbean and its Andean provinces, linking a nation divided by three mountain ranges and a wide variety of thermal floors and ecosystems. Socially, the Canal became the route to freedom, as many runaway enslaved people (cimarrones) followed its waterways and founded Maroons communities (palenques) in the surrounding wetlands and hills during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Until the late 19th century, the Dique was merely a narrow, shallow ditch less than 15 meters wide, which was impossible to navigate during droughts. But throughout the 20th century, the canal was radically transformed. U.S. companies carried out major dredging and straightening projects that widened it to 100 meters, reducing its original 270 meanders to only 55, dramatically increasing its flow and sediment loads, altering the ecological balance of Cartagena and Barbacoas Bays and surroundings.

Despite these efforts, the canal became almost obsolete after the construction of two major highways that linked the Caribbean to the Andean region of the country in the 1950s. However, around the same time, Colombia’s largest oil refineries were established in Barrancabermeja and Cartagena.

As human geographer Austin Zeiderman argues, such infrastructures articulate geo-racial regimes and hierarchies of white and black, urban and peripheral, central and insular, that become sedimented into both Cartagenian landscapes and bodies.

MATERIALS

Excavations on the ground reveal the coralline stone, compacted after centuries of pressure and erosion. Isla Grande is a coral reef fossil itself. Coral reefs are vital ecosystems: they protect shorelines from storms, sustain local fisheries, support biodiversity, and form the ecological backbone of a tourism industry that underpins much of Cartagena city’s economy. Yet their very skeletons have been quarried and consumed. Entire islets were built for elite leisure by filling the sea with broken coral, the moneyed class literally manufacturing new islands from the bones of the reef.

Coral grounds. Photo by Gracia Ramirez.

The Canal del Dique continues this slow and silent violence. Each rainy season, it expels plumes of sediment-laden freshwater that spread across several square kilometers, covering turquoise waters with brown stains. These pulses reduce salinity and block light, suffocating photosynthesis and interrupting coral reproduction cycles that coincide with the wet months. In fact, the deposits of sediment have turned the formerly island of Barú into a peninsula, following the interventions of USA engineering companies in the twentieth century.

The history of Isla Grande is intimately linked to that of Barú. Around the time of the Spanish colonization, these territories were called Bahaire after the indigenous chief that ruled them before the conquest. The Spaniards used enslaved labour to excavate quarries in Barú and Tierra Bomba, extracting coralline stone used in Cartagena’s colonial architecture. They also built kilns to burn coral stone, producing mortar for the city’s fortifications and lime for its characteristics whitewashed walls.

In the eighteenth century, the nearby island of Barú became a strategic point for cimarrones and Dutch and English smugglers who used enslaved workforce for the logistics related to trafficking. Some enslaved workers, in turn, were secretly saving money to buy their freedom to their masters –mostly Spaniards–.

Over the nineteenth century, with the crisis of slavery and the independence wars, Barú became an instance of a horizontal community formed mostly by cimarrones, freed slaves and mestizos. Their economy was based on subsistence agriculture, fishing, bartering and mutual support.

Wooden house. Photo by Gracia Ramirez.

On June 7 of 1850, groups of neighbours from Barú bought an old hacienda to its then owner for 1.200 COP and finished their payment on May 19, 1851. Just two days later, the abolition of slavery was signed in the country. Thus, Barú become a Black community with collective property before the establishment of the modern-day Republican State. Coconut became the main crop and some families from Barú moved to the neighbouring Rosario Islands to extend the plantations.

Islander dwellings echo this layered material history. Traditional houses rely on wooden boards and palm-thatched roofs, fragile yet renewable. Modern constructions import thin red bricks and cement from the mainland, materials that, as they degrade, seep into the calcareous soil and alter its composition.

Seashell. Photo by David Vergara.

Cement itself is ambivalent: it raises luxury resorts that displace the community, yet it also fortifies schools and homes through collective labor. In their very texture, these materials tell two stories at once—of extraction and restriction, but also of resilience and re-creation.

ORIKA

Right at the centre of Isla Grande is now the town of Orika. An old rubber tree guards the town’s square and provides shelter from the sun. The Cultural House is the gathering place where local council meetings (juntas) take place. The story of Orika is one of socioecological struggle and resistance.

Over the twentieth century, Barú started supplying agricultural goods to the growing Cartagena population, shifting toward intensive production of coconut, fish and mangrove charcoal. Up until the 1950s –when roads were constructed to connect Cartagena with other inland cities– the Rosario islands and Barú were the main providers of food sold at the city’s Getsemani market.

Rubber Tree in Benkos Biohó Square, Orika, Isla Grande, PNNCRSB. Photo by Gracia Ramirez.

The first tourists were members of Cartagena’s urban elite. They arrived at the Rosario Islands between the 1930s and 1940s and started building recreational homes. While tourist infrastructure was consolidating around Cartagena and the islands, a beetle plague destroyed the coconut plantations in the 1950s.

In order to “protect” the islands, the government declared them National Natural Park in 1977, but the National Park mainly considered the sea, not the ground islands themselves. The decree sought to “conserve flora, fauna, landscapes, and historical and cultural manifestations with scientific, recreative or aesthetic goals”, but omitted any mention of the Blacks communities that already inhabited the territory (Rosario Islands, Barú, Santa Ana and Ararca).

New prohibitionist environmental policies, coupled with the rise of tourism, relegated local families to the hinterlands of Isla Grande and to the backs of hotels and resorts, where they worked as subordinate labor.

In the 1980s, the government declared the Rosario Islands to be State-owned vacant lands, unrecognising the community as a “organized population” for the use of land but allowing other economical uses such as tourism and recreation. This enabled a wave of land grabs by private investors that further marginalised the community. However, the 1991 Constitution and the ensuing law 70 of Black Communities of 1993 provided legal tools to transform the memory of dispossession into a fight for recognition.

The community used environmental education programs to strengthen social organizations and articulate their historical demands into a juridical argument. In 2001, after years of legal limbo, the Colombian state began the land restitution process.

Fearing expulsion from the territory, the families decided to establish a new village in the center of Isla Grande: Orika, in honor of the daughter of Benkos Biohó, a cimarron leader and hero of San Basilio de Palenque, the first Black free village in the Americas (1714). In just two months, the community cleared the land and built their houses, a gesture of dignity and memory, affirming their right to exist as a Black community in their ancestral territory. After collecting evidence and going through endless administrative hurdles, in 2014 the Constitutional Court recognized the collective deed title for the Black community of Isla Grande, becoming the only community having achieved that so far within the national park.

UNBOUNDEDNESS

Sunset horizons and native trees may meet the tourist’s gaze as landscapes ready for easy consumption— postcards of “untouched nature.” Yet the town of Orika unsettles this commodified view. Its soundscape resists containment: sound systems (picós) blasting loud music reverberates from the main square, echoing through every coralline ground cavity, vibrating as much in bodies as in stone.

In language, too, survival leaves its trace. The word Dios circulates as the name of the Christian god, but within it hides the untranslatable presence of African spirits, invoked yet unconfined by letters. This is not syncretism as tourist folklore, but the deep mimicry of African cosmologies that persisted beneath colonial surveillance.

In the Colombian Caribbean, enslaved Africans lived not in the vast monocultures of the sugar plantations of Brazil or Cuba, but in smaller, multiethnic communities tied to haciendas, cattle ranches, mines, and urban centres under the close watch of the Inquisition tribunal of Cartagena.

Cut off early from eighteen century renewed arrivals of African captives, these populations developed distinctive spiritual practices, an instance of what Sylvia Wynter called “black indigenization”— that in intertwining African, indigenous, and Christian forms, found ways of being human when colonial hegemony ruled otherwise.

Orika inhabits this layered spiritual geography. It is not simply a village bounded by its streets, but a porous space where music, light, and faith exceed enclosure—an unlimited terrain of survival, memory, and reinvention.

ROOTS

Mangrove forests form the living roots of Isla Grande. They are among the most resilient trees on Earth—thriving where others would perish. Their bodies adapt to saline soils and shifting tides, standing firm where land is not yet land.

Propagules germinate while still attached to the parent tree, dropping into the water as living seedlings that drift across lagoons and channels, anchoring themselves wherever conditions allow. Each root is a promise of survival, each forest a nursery that shelters fish, crabs, and birds in any of their stages of life. Mangroves breathe through aerial roots that rise above the mud, searching for oxygen in conditions too harsh for most species. Always green, they embody endurance.

The mangrove is never alone. Its leaves, roots, and fallen branches decompose into nutrients that sustain fish and crustaceans; its tangled roots interlace with seagrass meadows and coral reefs in a single inter-ecosystemic web. Together, these systems form the ecological triangle of the Caribbean coast: corals buffer waves, seagrasses filter and stabilize sediments, mangroves hold the shoreline while feeding both sea and land. In Isla Grande, these roots not only prevent erosion but also connect the island’s fragile ecology to Cartagena’s coastal mangroves, weaving life across waters.

For Orika, the mangrove is more than ecology—it is a metaphor for community. Like the red mangrove that elevates itself above its roots, the people rise from centuries of exclusion, rooted yet expansive. Their history drifts like propagules, carried by tides of resistance until finding ground to grow.

The mangrove teaches resilience, interconnection, and renewal: lessons for a community that continues to defend its territory while imagining futures where culture and ecology flourish together. Roots here are not only in soil, but in memory and struggle, anchoring Orika to both the Caribbean Sea and to its own unfolding horizon.

DRIFT

There are no roads in Isla Grande, only sandy footpaths weaving through the tropical dry forest and the mangroves. No motorized vehicles circulate within the island, people walk or ride bicycles, while boats and yachts, arriving from Cartagena, leave trails of oil shimmering over the turquoise surface.

Caribbean Sea water around Isla Grande. Photo by Gracia Ramirez.

Plastic bottles and rubbish drift ashore, carried by tides that remember more than the islanders would wish. Drift here is both material and historical: traces of empire, slavery, tourism, and extraction wash against the reef, staining waters once clear. The islands themselves are a coral body in constant erosion and recomposition, a living drift of stone, memory, and survival.

Plastic and vegetable waste. Photo by Gracia Ramirez.

Yet drift is not only decline—it is also possibility. Orika, born out of dispossession, has become a node of reorganization and creativity. The community council anchors collective life, negotiating with agencies and hotels that now contribute resources for communal projects.

Every weekend, and on national and local holidays, happiness brightens the whole town in shared spaces like the main Plaza (Benkos Biohó Plaza), the picós, the cockpits, houses and the Casa Cultural. A new foundation works with children and youth, teaching them to stage traditional dances and music, reweaving ancestral ties to the palenques and to African rhythms long suppressed.

Ecotourism initiatives, led by younger generations, form alliances with older community projects, offering alternatives that value culture and ecology together.

Buildings around Benkos Biohó Square in Orika. Photo by Gracia Ramirez.

Drift, then, also gestures toward a different horizon. In Orika, the tides carry not only the weight of history but also the seeds of futures yet to come. The Rosario Islands are a historical drift still evolving—where coral, memory, and community recombine into new forms of life.

 

The post Notes on Isla Grande: Figurations of Environmental Violence and Beauty in the Colombian Caribbean appeared first on Undisciplined Environments.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has won deserved praise for standing firm against the Trump administration’s threats and imposition of tariffs. But political credit is only as good as the strategy that follows, and Canada now faces a genuine opportunity to do something more ambitious than weather the storm.

Carney’s approach has sparked a broader conversation among the world’s ‘middle powers’ – countries with significant economies like Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the U.K. that share a commitment to rules-based trade but sit outside the U.S.-China superpower axis. These are countries that are actively looking for a different economic path forward, one that doesn’t simply mirror the nationalism coming out of Washington and Beijing.

Keep reading this post, co-authored by Ryan Mulholland and Ollie Sheldrick, in Policy Options.

The post A Canada-led clean trade pact would show that middle powers mean business appeared first on Clean Energy Canada.

May 14, 2026:

See CBS TV coverage of

Greenaction Blasting Navy’s latest radioactive scandal at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Superfund Site

Click here to watch

May 14, 2026—Politico’s Eric He reports on Gov. Newsom’s May Revise budget proposal, which calls for deferring $3.9 billion in Proposition 98 school funding despite revenues coming in $16.5 billion above projections. The move has drawn swift condemnation from teachers unions, school boards, and Democratic lawmakers who argue the constitutionally-guaranteed funding is urgently needed — including by Los Angeles Unified, which is counting on state dollars to honor $1.2 billion in new union contracts. On the positive side for education advocates, the governor preserved $1 billion for community schools expansion. Public Advocates Managing Attorney John Affeldt weighed in on the deferral, saying that while restraints are warranted, it’s “not a crazy maneuver given the volatility of our revenue picture.”

Read the Story

The post Politico Pro: Newsom sticks with controversial funding deferral in mixed-bag schools budget appeared first on Public Advocates.

By Simon Pirani Russia’s political prisoners are “outcasts in their own land,” Sergei Dudchenko, a biker tortured and framed by the security services, told his trial judges this month before being handed a seven-year prison sentence. Those arrested for opposing the war on Ukraine had “fewer rights than a stray dog, and on top of […]

Red Stone Movement Goes Public: Tribal Nations Demand Protection of Sacred Pipestone Site FLANDREAU, SD – The controversial Magellan Pipeline issue is heating up again. The pipeline, owned by OneOk of Tulsa, Oklahoma, had its construction permit rescinded by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission on January 7, 2025. The proposed route would build a new […]

May 15, 2026 Read the story on MSN.com Greenaction blasts the Navy over continued botched “cleanup” at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Superfund Site Click here to read the Article on MSN.com

May 14 2026

Bay City News Article on the Latest Scandal with the U.S. Navy and the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Superfund Site

Click Here to read the Bay City News Article

“SF: Cabinet Storing Radiological Materials Discovered At Former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard”

May 15, 2026 Read Capital & Main news story with Greenaction and allies: California Hazardous Waste Rules Criticized as Years Late and Polluter Friendly

May 1, 2026—EdSource reporter John Fensterwald covers Governor Newsom’s May Revision and its mixed implications for California schools—including a higher COLA, a historic $2.4 billion special education increase, and a $5 billion discretionary block grant, offset by the governor’s continued withholding of $3.9 billion in Proposition 98 funds that school groups say belongs in classrooms now. Managing Attorney John Affeldt is quoted warning that the budget’s reliance on AI-driven tax revenues is not a stable foundation: “Our state cannot continue to rely on temporary AI stock market bubbles.” Affeldt calls for more robust, permanent revenue streams—and makes clear that the same teachers being asked to transform students’ lives are being priced out of the communities they serve.”

Read the Story

The post Edsource: California schools could get billions more in Newsom’s final budget plan — with one catch appeared first on Public Advocates.

TORONTO — Rachel Doran, executive director at Clean Energy Canada, made the following statement in response to the Implementation Agreement for the Canada-Alberta MOU:

“The long-awaited agreement between the federal government and Alberta was promised to strengthen Canada’s competitiveness and the effectiveness of key climate policies—but is, in reality, a step backward. This is true not only when it comes to reducing climate-change-causing emissions from big industry, but also on the aspiration laid out yesterday to double Canada’s electricity grid as the economic backbone of our future.

“Indeed, the federal government’s goal of a net-zero grid by 2050 may be fundamentally at odds with the details in this MOU. Alberta, once the Canadian capital of renewable investment, has not made any concrete commitments to unleash its once-booming free market. It has, conversely, secured a commitment that natural gas generation will be expanded and is likewise not dropping its legal challenge against Canada’s Clean Electricity Regulations. Furthermore, the federal government’s suggestion that the regulations will be ‘in abeyance’ until after all court cases have been finalized—a process that may take years—will create significant investment uncertainty. 

“Alberta policy changes have already undermined tens of billions in renewable energy investments in the province. Despite leading the country in wind, solar, and energy storage deployment early this decade, private investment in renewables has fallen by nearly 99% since 2023 due to changes introduced by Premier Smith’s government. 

“On the Clean Electricity Regulations, Alberta has agreed only to negotiate an equivalency agreement if courts uphold the policy’s constitutionality. If Alberta does not negotiate in good faith and the agreement has no teeth to prevent future debate, the result could be a provincial race to the bottom, leaving Canada’s vision of a competitive, unified electricity grid back where it started: fragmented and increasingly failing to realize its potential.

“And while the government’s press release and implementation agreement suggest that Alberta will make changes to its Restructured Energy Market to facilitate more investment in renewables, the MOU makes a far weaker commitment: that changes will only be considered if warranted.

“None of this adds up to meeting the vision laid out by the federal government only yesterday to double Canada’s relatively clean electricity grid as a way to electrify industry and Canadian homes: an essential play both for the future of our economy and household affordability.

“The agreement similarly falls short in delivering on effective industrial carbon pricing, which modelling by the Canadian Climate Institute found to be doing the most heavy lifting toward our climate targets. While changes to Canada’s industrial carbon pricing system were meant to strengthen the actual impact of the policy, if not the optics of it, the dials here are turned too low to result in the better outcome that was promised. 

“The agreement makes an attempt to ensure the real carbon price that companies pay comes closer to the so-called ‘headline price,’ and yes, setting a carbon price floor is a good idea, as is signing contracts for difference to ensure governments stick to their promises for an effective carbon price. But when it comes to the actual numbers needed to empower these changes, the agreement offers too little, too late. 

“An industrial carbon price serves as an incentive for companies to invest in cleaner methods of production. If increasing this price to meaningful levels is pushed down the road, then so will be any related investments. Industrial carbon pricing is tied to over 70 major projects worth more than $57 billion. And this does not just affect Alberta. By striking this deal with one province, the federal government has potentially opened the floodgates for a lowering of ambition across all provincial industrial carbon pricing systems, affecting the incentives for steel mills in Ontario, potash mines in Saskatchewan, and cement plants in B.C.

“Canada is falling out of step with key trading partners in the transition to a global clean energy economy. Whereas the agreement aims for an effective carbon price of $130 by 2040, the European Union carbon price is close to that amount already today. And while the agreement sets tightening rates of 2% or lower, the EU has set rates of over 4% every year. 

“The EU knows where it needs to go, launching a comprehensive set of new measures—including electricity tax cuts and investments in renewables—that cement clean energy as the path to energy security. EV sales are unsurprisingly skyrocketing globally, including here in Canada: March EV sales were up 75% year-over-year. 

“More than 40 countries are currently rationing energy, and it’s no wonder. As International Energy Agency head Fatih Birol put it, ‘the damage is done…. There will be a significant boost to renewables and nuclear power and a further shift towards a more electrified future,’ adding that ‘this will cut into the main markets for oil.’

“In other words, the same forces driving up oil prices today are destroying the fossil fuel demand of tomorrow. This government has suggested that it’s making certain short-term concessions while keeping its eye firmly on building for the future. But the reality is that, once again, Alberta is making promises while the federal government is making commitments. Canadians need policies that strike a better balance.”

The post Response: Lopsided MOU undermines yesterday’s clean electricity strategy appeared first on Clean Energy Canada.

May 13, 2026,

Moab Times Independent article
“Protest Planned near La Sal over Uranium Mining Concerns”

https://www.moabtimes.com/articles/protest-planned-near-la-sal-over-uranium-mining-concerns/

Like The Price Of Gas? Trump Did That!

Thursday, May 14, 2026
Press Contact: Sumeet Bal, Director of Communications, 917-647-1952, sbal@publicadvocates.org

California Can’t Lead the World While Leaving Workers Behind

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—California enters this May Revision in a moment of unexpected abundance—and familiar avoidance. 

Tax revenues are more than $16 billion above forecast. The state’s cash position has hit record highs. California dominates the global technology economy, leading the world in IPOs, artificial intelligence, Fortune 500 companies and innovation. But California cannot claim to lead the world while its teachers, nurses and essential workers are being priced out of the communities they sustain. Dominating in technology while losing ground on economic security for working families is not a strong legacy—it is a contradiction that demands solutions. The question this May Revision must answer is not whether California can dominate. It already does. The question is who that dominance works for.

California already knows how to build the things families need—the governor’s commitment to increasing per-pupil funding, investing in our educators, and expanding community schools proves that. When the state chooses to invest directly, boldly and consistently, it changes lives. Community schools are doing that now, in the communities that need it most. 

Housing and transit deserve the same commitment—not threats, not red tape reduction alone, but direct state investment that meets the scale of the crisis. Without substantial and sustained funding for affordable housing, low-income Californians will continue to struggle, regardless of how much development streamlining or local government oversight the state pursues. Meanwhile, the state’s basic protections against rent gouging and arbitrary evictions, the Tenant Protection Act, will expire in 2030 unless a governor with the courage to fight for and strengthen it steps forward. At the same time, without an infusion of state money, our public transit network is in danger of collapse. 

Abundance is not the same as security—AND it is not the same as justice. The working families at the center of our state’s story are experiencing a cost of living crisis that no IPO can solve—and they are waiting to see whether California’s record revenues will reach them, or pass them by once again. The question is made more urgent by federal cuts stripping millions of Californians of healthcare, food assistance, and housing support, and a proposed restructuring of Cap-and-Invest revenues that could cut affordable housing, transit, and clean air programs in half—redirecting dollars from low-wealth communities to fossil fuel companies. Seven years ago, the governor promised to fix the state’s boom-and-bust tax system. The boom is here. The question is whether he will use it for the Californians who built this state—and can no longer afford to live in it.

Education: A Legacy Built, A Problem Unaddressed

“Governor Newsom’s historic community schools investments will cement one of his enduring legacies, just as LCFF defined Jerry Brown’s,” said John Affeldt, Managing Attorney for Education Equity. “The research is showing that California’s community schools have cut chronic absenteeism by 30% compared to similar schools, reduced suspensions by 15% overall and delivered learning gains in English equivalent to 151 extra days of instruction for Black students.”

“But the governor’s May Revise failed to address one of the key equity challenges remaining for him—the state’s unconstitutional discrimination against low-wealth school districts in modernizing facilities. The State’s program for renovating dilapidated schools substantially favors high-wealth communities who are able to raise much more in matching funds, leaving students in poor districts in overheated portables and leaky classrooms amidst black mold and unremediated asbestos. The governor has acknowledged ‘you can’t look in the eyes of these kids,” but today, he chose to look away—and to keep fighting them in court,” added Affeldt, a lead counsel in a Public Advocates’ lawsuit suing the State over the issue.

“As far as moving forward into the future, our state cannot continue to rely on temporary AI stock market bubbles. To his credit, the governor proposed some modest new taxes, but to build a budget that will enable our residents to thrive, California needs more robust permanent revenue streams to support our schools and healthy communities. We cannot ask teachers to transform students’ lives while those same teachers are being priced out of the communities they serve.”

Higher Education: Affordability Crisis Threatens College Access & Completion?

“California’s economy is growing because generations of students had a path to affordable higher education. But too many low-income students are still being left behind as the cost of education and living continue to rise. If we want a future powered by innovation, we need to make sure opportunity isn’t reserved for those who could afford college anyway. We call on the governor and the legislature to strengthen and expand Cal Grant to keep the door to economic mobility open for the students coming after us—and ensures California’s future includes everyone,” said Sbeydeh Viveros-Walton, Director of Higher Education.

“For low-income Black and Latinx students, affordability is the difference between access, completion and attrition,” said Jetaun Stevens, Deputy Director of Higher Education Equity & Senior Staff Attorney. “Housing is the largest cost students face when pursuing higher education, and California’s housing crisis makes higher education out of reach for many low-income students. With 60% of community college students facing housing insecurity and nearly a quarter of community college students facing homelessness, we need greater investment in housing. We call on the governor and legislature to invest in additional projects through the Higher Education Housing Grant program—including reinvesting funds from withdrawn projects—and open up access to part-time community college students. We encourage the governor and legislature to make greater investments in affordable housing and homelessness prevention to improve economic opportunity for all low-income Californians, including supporting the Senate’s proposal to invest $1 billion in Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention Program 7 (HHAP) and an additional $1 billion for HHAP 8.”   

Housing Relief Deferred, Renters Left Behind

We welcome the inclusion of $500 million in HHAP 7 funds—California’s primary homelessness assistance program—in the governor’s proposal, but we are concerned about new requirements to receive that funding. Requiring a local funding match will shut out many jurisdictions. Requiring a Prohousing Designation is even more limiting: only 47 jurisdictions would currently qualify. Further, a Prohousing Designation is substantially based on how friendly a jurisdiction’s development environment is for market-rate developers—a standard which should not impede aid to people experiencing homelessness. Consistent, predictable funding is what moves people from the streets to stability. The Senate’s “Foundation for the Future” budget priorities letter reflects this, committing $1 billion for HHAP 7 and $1 billion more for a subsequent 8th round of funding. The governor should match that commitment—without the barriers.

Governor Newsom’s proposal also fails to address what his administration’s proposed changes to Cap-and-Invest would do to the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities grant program (AHSC), the largest source of affordable housing funding in the state. When asked directly, the governor said it wouldn’t be addressed in his proposal. That is not an answer. Redirecting Cap-and-Invest money away from affordable housing and transit to fossil fuel companies and other polluters is a choice—and it demands a response.  Now is the time, however, for Governor Newsom to propose funding to backfill the affordable housing and transit funding that will be lost if his proposal to redirect AHSC money to polluters moves forward.

The human cost of inaction is not abstract.  More than half of California’s 6.1 million renter households spend more than 30% of their income on rent. Nearly a third spend more than half. Evictions have now surpassed pre-pandemic levels. “Housing is the largest item in a family’s budget and the governor’s housing proposals in his final budget do not address the problem or deliver the help renters desperately need,” said Michelle Pariset, Director of Legislative Affairs. “Governor Newsom will leave office without securing his legacy on rent stabilization and just cause for eviction, as the state’s basic protections against rent gouging and arbitrary evictions are set to expire in 2030. He could have worked with the legislature to remove this sunset on the Tenant Protection Act—permanently shielding renters from gouging and no fault evictions. Instead, renters will face that fight with a new governor and a legislature freshly-drenched in real estate industry campaign spending.”

Transit: When Transit Fails, Working Families Pay

The future of public transit in California hangs in the balance at the same time the rising costs of transportation is hurting low-income families. Citizens in multiple regions are collecting signatures for ballot initiatives to maintain critical service, but the state must do its part. “The governor’s proposed CARB regulations for the Cap-and-Invest program would eliminate over $600 million a year in critical state transit funding—funding for service, lower fares for seniors and students, electric buses, and infrastructure upgrades. These are cuts that the Californians who depend on transit cannot afford,” said Laurel Paget-Seekins, Senior Transportation Policy Advocate. “This governor’s proposal would leave a massive multi-year budget hole for transit and affordable housing at a time when Californians need additional investment to address rising costs of housing and transportation.” 

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Public Advocates Inc. is a nonprofit law firm and advocacy organization that challenges the systemic causes of poverty and racial discrimination by strengthening community voices in public policy and achieving tangible legal victories advancing education, housing, transportation equity, and climate justice.

The post Press Statement: California Can’t Lead the World While Leaving Workers Behind appeared first on Public Advocates.

VANCOUVER — Joanna Kyriazis, director of policy and strategy at Clean Energy Canada, made the following statement in response to newly released federal vehicle sales data for March:

“We knew March would be an important month for EV sales: it was the first month that fully captured the return of the $5,000 federal EV rebate in February, and it was the month the war in Iran began driving up gas prices. 

“The anecdotal evidence that Canadians were increasingly looking to go electric was strong, but today’s numbers are unmistakable: Canada saw a 75% increase in EV sales in March compared to the same month last year.

“Regionally, this was a phenomenal 136% year-over-year increase in Quebec, a 53% increase in B.C. and the territories, and a 40% increase in Ontario.

“That amounts to 12.2% of new vehicle sales in Canada (compared to 6.5% last March), but provincial numbers tell another story. Roughly a quarter of British Columbians and those in the territories (23.5%) purchased an EV in March, 21.8% of Quebecers did likewise, while Canada’s largest province, Ontario, continues to catch up with EV sales at 8%.

“While price matters, clarity is similarly important. Last year’s EV rebate pause caused many would-be EV buyers to wait on the sidelines, artificially deflating normal EV demand. That is now being rectified.

“To build on this momentum, Canada must ensure that it’s not only providing consumers with rebates but also access to affordable models. The introduction of a limited number of Chinese EVs is already having an impact, with Tesla recently significantly dropping the price of its popular Model 3 after shifting production back to Shanghai. Hopefully, new models from Chinese companies will give Canadians even more budget-friendly options and, critically, keep other automakers on their toes. The forthcoming $35,000 import price quota for a sizable percentage of these vehicles can help realize this important goal.

“Likewise, ensuring Canada’s forthcoming tailpipe standards are designed to achieve roughly 75% EV sales by 2035 is the other, massive piece of this puzzle. Like improving competition, the regulation will compel automakers to meet the market with more affordable EVs.

“Affordable EVs exist, and Canadians are hungry for good options that make financial sense in the short term as well as the long term. Recent Clean Energy Canada analysis found that EVs still save typical drivers about $23,000 to $32,000 over 10 years of ownership. But not everyone can afford to save money a few years down the road. Upfront price matters, and where it works, Canadians are ready to hit the accelerator.

“The proof is in the numbers.”

The post 75% EV sales spike in March a strong signal that 2026 will be Canada’s EV comeback year appeared first on Clean Energy Canada.

TORONTO — Evan Pivnick, associate director of public affairs at Clean Energy Canada, made the following statement in response to the release of Powering Canada Strong: A National Strategy for an Electrified Canadian Economy: 

“Today’s strategy sends an important signal that electrification and growing our electricity system is the nation-building effort we need to enhance our country’s economic competitiveness and energy security in a rapidly changing world. But while the strategy highlights the strength of Canada’s existing and relatively clean and affordable electricity system, it overstates the role of natural gas and understates the long-term energy security and affordability benefits of clean energy.

“We are pleased to see Canada’s focus on doubling Canada’s electricity grids.  Electrification offers a transformative opportunity to improve the lives of Canadians: it underlies affordability, energy security, and competitiveness. As consultations proceed, it’s critical that Canada does not lock in its exposure to fossil fuels as the rest of the world takes fuller advantage of the affordability and energy security benefits of clean power.  

“Clean electricity accounts for the majority of new demand growth globally not because it’s clean, but because in most markets around the world, solar or wind represent the cheapest available source of new electricity generation. Renewables are set to meet about 95% of global electricity demand growth between 2025 and 2027. Backed by the rapidly falling price of batteries, these resources are able to meet an ever-increasing share of the growing demand for electricity. The government’s focus should be on maximizing the cheapest resources available.

“The strategy contains some strong signals regarding forthcoming initiatives for everyday Canadians. We welcome the commitment to introduce measures to retrofit and electrify one million Canadian homes. Clean Energy Canada analysis consistently finds that Canadian households across the country can save hundreds of dollars per month by switching to clean energy options, including  heat pumps. These measures must apply broadly across households and heating types to help more Canadians access cost savings and cooling in a warming world. Young families must also not be forgotten in policy design, which should be careful not to exclude them, for example by setting overly strict income or housing type requirements.

“We also welcome the government’s commitment to provide further financial support to help double Canada’s electricity grid by 2050 at the lowest cost to ratepayers. The inclusion of demand-side measures (also known as distributed energy resources) such as heat pumps and two-way EV chargers is critical. As our research shows, these technologies play an essential role in meeting growing power demand and lowering the costs of grid build-out by allowing the electricity we have to be managed smarter, especially during peak periods.

“Transmission is rightfully prioritized in the strategy, and we welcome the referral of a new Transmission InterConnect Investment Strategy to the Major Projects Office, alongside the extension of the Clean Electricity ITC to major high-voltage intra-provincial transmission ties, complementing existing support for provincial interties. The strategy also gets the details right about the role the federal government must play in supporting new interties between provinces.

“Doubling the size of Canada’s electricity system is also an economic opportunity in its own right. Underpinning this goal are the wires, components, and technologies that a modern electricity system requires. Supply chains that Canada’s manufacturing sector could feed into. It is vital that the government move quickly on its planned analysis of Canada’s electricity component supply chain and on its commitments of further support for domestic manufacturers.

“But the details will be important. The strategy includes a worrying focus on natural gas, including proposing major changes to the Clean Electricity Regulations. Natural gas has a specific short term role, but only after we’ve maximized clean power solutions. “Renewables offer greater security and lower cost and, when paired with batteries and transmission lines, can address many of our energy system needs. Natural gas prices are subject to continental and global price fluctuations.

“This strategy will work in tandem with the further details promised tomorrow on the government’s plan to strengthen carbon pricing and incentivize industry to electrify. We look forward to Budget 2026 announcements supporting this strategy.

“As Prime Minister Carney recently stated, ‘Canada has a clean energy advantage.’ Let’s make sure the implementation of this strategy adequately capitalizes on it.”

The post Federal electricity strategy recognizes electrification is the name of the game—but misses the bullseye  appeared first on Clean Energy Canada.

Ashish Kothari

Originally publish by Meer on 13 May 2026.

Grassroots movements from across the Global South gather in Indonesia to confront war, inequality, and ecological collapse through collective alternatives.

Hope. Esperanza. Harapan. These words were frequently invoked by …

May 13, 2026 For Immediate Release:
Ute Mountain Utes, Navajos/Dine, Greenaction & Allies to Protest Energy Fuels’ uranium mines and the mill/dump next to White Mesa Ute Community – Saturday, May 16, noon

 

 

Click Here To Download the Press Advisory –> PRESS-ADVISORY_WMCC_La-Sal_Protest (1)

Click Here to Download Flyer –> May 16 No Uranium Protest at La Sal Junction