News Feeds

This article In danger of statelessness, Bhutanese refugees build power against deportation was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

When Robin Gurung was 3 years old, his family was forced out of Bhutan. Today, as a 37-year-old organizer and co-founder of Asian Refugees United, or ARU, the reality of that exile remains carved into the landscape. On a recent trip to India’s border with Bhutan, just 20 miles from his family’s former home, Gurung encountered a sign reading, “Please do not cross the borderline.” In a photograph he took, the blue-tinted mountains of Bhutan rise in the distance behind the sign. Yet Gurung still could not cross that border line. 

The photograph captured the strange closeness of a place that had shaped his life from a distance: the country that forced his family out. He spent nearly two decades in a U.N. refugee camp in Nepal before coming to the United States in January 2012 to rebuild his life.  Now, he helps lead a community-wide effort to defend former Bhutanese refugees who are suddenly facing detention and deportation in the country they have come to call home.

Gurung kept his exact location private. “I am not scared, but I am very cautious,” he said when I asked whether he feared retaliation for his advocacy work. During our interview, he joined me from a dimly lit room during a power outage. We first connected on Facebook Messenger, but a weak connection forced us to switch to WhatsApp. From there, he spoke about the advocacy and organizing work he and his colleagues at ARU have led to protect the rights and future of the resettled Bhutanese community.

The border was close, but so was the history it represented. Gurung knew what it meant to lose a home because his family had lived through it. He also knew what it meant to rebuild after displacement. That history now informs his response as members of the same refugee community face a new threat of displacement in the U.S.

As of the filing of this report, upward of 75 former Bhutanese refugees have been deported to Bhutan, only to be taken to the Indo-Nepal border and left stateless once again.

#newsletter-block_d669842feade61d634a4ac5d6e776468 { background: #ECECEC; color: #000000; } #newsletter-block_d669842feade61d634a4ac5d6e776468 #mc_embed_signup_front input#mce-EMAIL { border-color:#000000 !important; color: #000000 !important; } Sign Up for our Newsletter

We’ll send you a weekly email with the latest articles.

A primary motivation for Gurung’s advocacy work stems from his own history and his acute awareness of how his grandfather, alongside thousands of others, had endured severe injustice at the hands of the Bhutanese regime. “It is actually a privilege to advocate on behalf of the community.”

Gurung’s family was among 100,000 Lhotshampa, a Nepali-speaking ethnic minority in southern Bhutan, who were driven from their homes during a campaign of discriminatory citizenship policies, arrests, torture and forced evictions.

In the early 1990s, Gurung’s grandfather endured 18 months of imprisonment and severe torture that broke his jaw and left him so badly injured that others assumed he had died. After his release, he spent time in a hospital, where his injuries had changed him so much that his own son barely recognized him. The family fled Bhutan in early 1992. Gurung remembers fragments of their escape: leaving behind their dog, Bittu, and riding on a truck as they crossed out of the country. His grandfather never fully recovered from the torture and later died at a regional hospital in Morang, Nepal.

After years in refugee camps in Nepal, Gurung and thousands of others eventually found a new home through a third-country resettlement program. Beginning in 2008, countries, including the U.S., resettled more than 90,000 Bhutanese refugees. For many, resettlement offered the possibility of finally leaving displacement behind.

That sense of security shattered in March 2025, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, began detaining former Bhutanese refugees in the U.S. For people who had already lost citizenship and spent years in refugee camps, deportation carries a deeper threat. It raises the possibility of returning to the statelessness that began with their expulsion from Bhutan.

But fear has not defined the community’s response. Across the diaspora, ARU has worked to turn individual emergencies into collective action.

When ICE came knocking

ARU formed to build community power and intergenerational leadership among Asian refugee communities. Before the deportation campaign began, the organization worked on political engagement through a partnership with civil rights group Asian Law Caucus, and as a coalition member of the Asian American Leaders Table, a grassroots network uniting local groups to build collective political power. 

That organizing infrastructure became critical when the detention began.

In the second week of March 2025, while launching a youth program and media studio, Gurung learned that ICE had detained community members. Days later, as he drove to the United Nations to renew his annual pass, Bhutanese community activist Bishwa Chhetri sat in the passenger seat calling community leaders and members across Pennsylvania and Ohio, where many of those detained lived, to find out more about the detentions.

The calls revealed the scale of the crisis, but they also exposed a problem: The community had no national system for coordinating information, legal support or immediate assistance to families.

Chhetri said that there was a severe lack of organized mechanisms to track factual information on ICE detentions. In addition, “finding legal representation was a bit of trouble,” he noted, emphasizing that a vast majority of the detainees had no legal representation at all. Recognizing the overwhelming scale of the situation, he and his peers quickly concluded that a single organization could not manage the emergency on its own. Although some community groups in Pennsylvania and Ohio got involved during the early phase, ARU eventually became the sole organization within the community dedicated to carrying out this specialized advocacy work.

What began as an emergency response soon became an organizing project. After returning home from New York, Gurung reached out to the Asian Law Caucus and launched a rapid response partnership. Regarding this collaboration, Aisa Villarosa, manager of the Asian American Leaders Table at Asian Law Caucus, said, “Without community organizers like ARU, the law and lawyers alone cannot provide the holistic support, empowerment, education and creativity to explore every possible avenue for justice.” Rather than simply referring cases to lawyers, ARU built a community-based system around the legal response. Organizers reached families quickly, explained developments in familiar languages and helped people navigate an unfamiliar system.

Previous Coverage

Atlanta offers a model for building sanctuary

The approach reflected a central principle of ARU’s work: People most affected by state violence should have a leading role in fighting it.

“I was exercising these freedoms because of the movement leaders from the generation before me, so I feel a sense of responsibility and gratitude to continue doing the same,” Gurung said. “If we don’t fight back, those in power will continue to suppress others — power has to be checked and balanced because we need to create a system of accountability.”

Young community members in their 20s stepped into organizing roles. They translated for elders, tracked detentions, communicated with relatives, arranged transportation and accompanied people to court. What started as an improvised response gradually became a network capable of mobilizing when another person was detained.

Building a community defense network

ARU granted me access to an August 14 virtual staff meeting, offering a direct look at the day-to-day logistics of this rapidly expanding defense network. On screen, seven young organizers, including Gurung, sat before webcams, coordinating cases across regional hubs in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Their conversation moved fluidly between Nepali and English, blending the language of home with the cold shorthand of the legal system: “FOIA,” “public defender.” At one point, a team member used the word “habeas,” prompting another organizer to ask what it meant. The first organizer paused to explain it in plain language, even though he had no legal training himself.

The exchange captured something essential about the group: They were learning the language of a system they had not been formally trained to navigate, teaching one another as they went. Between key clicks and routine case updates, the stakes came into sharp focus: A juvenile in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania was being tried as an adult and facing up to five years; families were reaching out in panic; green card holders were confronting the possibility of an eventual deportation. 

As this rapid response effort grew, ARU faced another lingering challenge. Fear and confusion were spreading just as fast through the community as the detentions themselves.

To counter this, the organization held virtual mass meetings, organized Know Your Rights sessions and conducted outreach in ways that reflected the linguistic and cultural realities of former Bhutanese refugees. Volunteers also became a bridge between families and legal organizations.

“We had to be alert 24/7 to be available for the families of deportees,” Gurung recalled. “In the meantime, media visibility was imperative.”

The intensity came with a personal cost. “It was mentally too much pressure, but we had no choice,” Gurung said. Having struggled with his own mental health issues since 2024, Gurung experienced a severe mental health crisis during the height of the organizing campaign in 2025, even as new cases continued to emerge. 

His experience points to a broader reality of grassroots defense work. The people creating safety for their communities often do so without the institutional resources available to larger organizations.

The partnership with the Asian Law Caucus helped address some of that gap. Attorneys provided legal expertise while community organizers reached families, built trust and helped connect legal strategies to the realities people faced.

For ARU, the distinction between legal defense and community organizing remained fluid. A family facing deportation might need an attorney, but it might also need someone to translate, arrange transportation or accompany a relative through court.

Mohan Karki’s case illustrates that reality. ICE detained Karki in mid-2025 and separated him from his pregnant wife. She decided to fight the removal order. ARU organizers, including Gurung, traveled to Ohio to pick her up and drove her to federal court proceedings in Michigan. While Karki remained in custody, she gave birth to their baby in June 2025 and continued attending court hearings through December.

“When I first met her, I was very much inspired,” Gurung said. “She had to give birth while her husband was in custody.”

For organizers, cases like Karki’s show why community defense cannot stop at the courtroom door. Families need sustained support as they navigate a system that can reshape their lives overnight.

From individual cases to a broader movement

Those experiences have also pushed ARU beyond individual deportation cases. The organization has built relationships with groups working on statelessness, including United Stateless, connecting the experiences of former Bhutanese refugees to a broader movement of people who lack recognized citizenship or face the threat of statelessness. 

For Gurung, that connection is personal.

“This was very personal in terms of knowing what it means to become stateless, what it means to become a refugee,” Gurung said. “We came to this country after being well-vetted. The idea of deportation to Bhutan was not safe for community members — that idea was very wrong.”

Robin Gurung pictured at the India-Bhutan border with Bhutanese mountains in the background. (Robin Gurung)

The campaign, Gurung said, is about more than protecting individual families. It is also about preventing one generation’s displacement from becoming another generation’s future. Highlighting the systemic barriers that worsen this crisis, Villarosa points out that the U.S. immigration laws and courts lack a uniform, comprehensive definition of statelessness.

“If we don’t fight back, we are giving license to those in power to decide our fate,” he said.

That belief has pushed ARU toward broader coalition building while keeping the Bhutanese community at the center of its work. The organization is strengthening relationships with groups confronting related forms of state violence and working to ensure that the experiences of former Bhutanese refugees inform wider organizing around statelessness and immigrant rights.

That work now shapes ARU’s next phase.

What comes next?

More than a year after the first detentions, ARU continues its rapid response work while building longer-term community power. Gurung said ARU continues to respond to developments affecting former Bhutanese refugees while coordinating a coalition effort to bring Bhutanese organizations together around a joint response.

Community education has also become a central priority. ARU is working to educate and organize community members so they have the knowledge and collective capacity to respond when new challenges arise.

The organization is also pursuing legal and international advocacy. A Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, lawsuit by the Asian Law Caucus remains underway, seeking government records, policies and communications from ICE and the Department of State regarding the sudden detention and deportation of Bhutanese-American refugees. Alongside this domestic legal pressure, representatives from ARU recently met with U.N. Refugee Agency officials from Geneva, Washington, D.C., and the Asia branch to address the ongoing crisis and statelessness risks facing former Bhutanese refugees. 

Locally, ARU is participating in a collective effort to pass a Welcoming County resolution in central Pennsylvania’s Dauphin County that would prevent cooperation with ICE.

These efforts show how a rapid response campaign can grow into a broader organizing strategy. ARU is combining community education, coalition building, legal action, international advocacy and local policy work to challenge the conditions that leave families vulnerable.

Still, the community has built something that did not exist when the first detention calls arrived. Organizers have established rapid response channels, trained community members, accompanied families through court and connected the Bhutanese struggle to broader movements addressing statelessness.

For Gurung, that work remains rooted in the freedoms he gained after nearly two decades in a refugee camp.

“It is a rollercoaster ride,” Gurung said, describing the challenges and complexities of ARU’s ongoing advocacy work.

Reflecting on why he continues organizing, he returns to the experience of people whose freedoms were denied for years, much like his own.

“Having spent close to two decades in refugee camps in Nepal without rights, I finally gained my freedom,” he said. “When a fellow community member faces deportation, it motivates me to keep fighting for their rights as well.”

#support-block_32f26a48e00ef9c9e3d1546f7d822789 { background: #000000; color: #ffffff; } Support Us

Waging Nonviolence depends on reader support. Make a donation today!

Donate

Those freedoms came after decades of displacement. Now, community members who understand the cost of losing them are fighting to protect them. ARU’s response continues to evolve, but its central strategy remains clear: build collective power so families facing state violence do not have to face it alone.

Standing just 20 miles from the home he lost, Gurung was reminded of how easily a line on a map can divide a life. Today, as ICE attempts to redraw those same boundaries of exile in the U.S., ARU is drawing a line of its own. By transforming personal trauma into collective defense, they are making one thing absolute: their community will not be forced backward, and no one will ever face statelessness alone.

This article In danger of statelessness, Bhutanese refugees build power against deportation was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Rachael Marsh, chief legal officer at the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, said in an emailed statement to Utility Dive that the group supported the repeal of the carbon capture and storage-based standards.

09-24 * 13:00 - Toolkit for Weaving (Bea)

09-17 * 14:00 - Energy and Alternative Thematic Group (Bea)

09-16 * 11:30 - GARDA Webinar series preparation (Bea)

Olivia Sanderfoot hadn’t been too worried about the wildfire risk warnings on the morning of January 7, 2025. Such alerts were a part of California life. But when her husband texted her a photo of...

24 September | New York

A strategy discussion at New York Climate Week 2026, bringing together frontline actors fighting data centers in communities and the policy advocates fighting for guardrails to prevent their economic, social, and climate harms. In this time of relentless attacks on people and planet, our strength is our aligned action. Just as the carbon bubble analysis equipped a generation of climate activists, bringing together community, economic, and political AI expertise can strengthen the fight on the ground.

If interested in attending, please contact events@carbontracker.org

SPEAKERS & TOPICS

• The AI bubble could burst — and take the economy with it
  • Matthew Scherer, Open Markets Institute
• Federal principles for data centers and AI governance
  • Clara Vondrich and J.B. Branch, Public Citizen
• The Investor Dilemma
  • Danielle Fugere, As You Sow
• How communities are stopping data centers
  • Abre’ Conner, NAACP
• Private equity financing of data centers
  • Ashlee Thomas, Private Equity Stakeholder Project
• Big Tech: now Big Oil’s #1 Accomplice
  • Holly Alpine, Embedded Emissions
• Data Centers and Democracy
  • Saul Levin, Hum podcast

The post NYCW 2026: AI Data Center Roundtable appeared first on Carbon Tracker Initiative.

24 September | New York

A breakfast strategy session at New York Climate Week 2026, aligning Amazon, Congo Basin and Coral Triangle strategies ahead of COP31. The aim: moving Fossil Free Zones from community-led demands into formalised, low-cost policy tools that governments can integrate into national energy transition and deforestation roadmaps.

PROGRAMME & SPEAKERS

If interested in attending, please contact events@carbontracker.org

The post NYCW 2026: Fossil Free Zones Breakfast appeared first on Carbon Tracker Initiative.

24 September | New York

What can we celebrate? What can we challenge?

A Laudato Si’ and Carbon Tracker panel at Climate Week NYC 2026. With overshoot of 1.5°C now called unavoidable and a stable climate recognised as a legal obligation, we ask what the Season of Creation gives us to celebrate, what it demands we challenge, and whether honest realism or optimism better serves the fight ahead.

If interested in attending, please contact events@carbontracker.org

THEMES FOR DISCUSSION

1. Limiting overshoot
   • UNEP’s September 2026 report: at least 1.8°C even in the most optimistic future. “There are no good
     outcomes above 1.5°C.”
2. A stable climate as a human right
   • The ICJ advisory opinion of July 2025, endorsed by the UN General Assembly 141–8 in May 2026,
     with the COP31 host among the abstentions.
3. A decade of COPs without “fossil fuels”
   • From Paris to COP30, outcomes that consistently omitted the phrase, and the Santa Marta coalition of
     the willing formed in response.
4. The growing cost of delay
   • Over 35,000 excess deaths across Europe in the summer 2026 heatwaves; seven of nine planetary
     boundaries already exceeded.
5. Optimism or realism?
   • “What if we stop pretending?” against communities that rise to the occasion, and Laudato Si’s reminder
     that the cry of the Earth is the cry of the poor.

SPEAKERS

 

The post NYCW 2026: Season of Creation appeared first on Carbon Tracker Initiative.

Registered nurses at Orange County Global Medical Center in Santa Ana, Calif. voted overwhelmingly in favor of ratifying their inclusion into the existing union contract covering KPC Health registered nurses represented by California Nurses Association. This first contract for Orange County Global nurses secures them important new protections to improve patient safety and nurse retention.

A strategic supply agreement with Waymo and rising EV adoption rates will expand the company’s access to older batteries still fit for use in stationary storage, CEO Freeman Hall told Utility Dive.

While the challenges of building new power infrastructure are real, some of the obstacles that need to be overcome are self-limitations embedded in a deeply rooted mindset, writes Robb.

Photo: François Brochot | Rally outside the ADP Group’s headquarters on Monday 14 September, calling for the cancellation of the Roissy expansion project and a ban on night-time flights. On Monday 14 September, members of the public, organisations and elected representatives gathered in the late afternoon outside the headquarters of the Aéroports de Paris (ADP) Group to express their opposition…

Source

In a worst-case scenario, the modeled loss of load expectation is “over 100 times worse than PJM’s planning criterion,” indicating an expectation of “more than 13 days with loss of load events per year,” said the study commissioned by the Pennsylvania PUC.

EWG opposes rewrite of proposed ASTM standard that could still classify hazardous amphibole particles as non-asbestos Anthony Lacey September 15, 2026 Attached are EWG’s comments to ASTM International opposing a second proposed standard for classifying elongate amphibole particles. EWG remains concerned that the method’s binary classifications may obscure health-relevant particle characteristics, exclude particles counted by established methods and produce results inconsistent with existing asbestos-counting approaches. File Download Document astm-comments2.pdf Areas of Focus Asbestos Authors Tasha Stoiber, Ph.D. September 10, 2026

At the foot of Njeza Mountain in Zimbabwe’s Mutare district, newly discovered lithium deposits have turned a quiet, small-scale farming enclave into the next frontier of the country’s mineral rush.

But more than a year after residents learned of the project, it remains shrouded in secrecy and has become a source of constant anxiety for farmers living in villages surrounding the proposed mine.

“We don’t know much about this project,” says Kwadzanai Nicholas Mukundidza, a farmer in the area. “We were not consulted, and there is a lot of fear among farmers. These projects are linked to powerful people in [Zimbabwe’s ruling party] ZANU PF. We are afraid we might lose our land, our pastures, our rivers, and our water.”

Farmers were resettled in this part of the country in the early 1980s, during the first phase of Zimbabwe’s land reform program after independence from Britain.

The farmers have every reason to fear the new lithium mining project: Similar mining ventures elsewhere in the country have displaced communities from their lands, polluted water and air, and disrupted livelihoods.

Coveted Minerals, Poisoned Communities

As the world races to secure lithium for the clean energy transition, Zimbabwe has emerged as one of Africa’s largest suppliers, attracting billions of dollars in foreign investment. Chinese companies — many with close ties to Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s ruthless regime — have acquired much of the country’s lithium sector.

Although President Mnangagwa promised sweeping sociopolitical and economic reforms after seizing power from long-time dictator Robert Mugabe in a 2017 military coup, civic space continues to shrink. Activists, journalists, and community and political leaders have faced intimidation and arrests when challenging powerful political or commercial interests.

In lithium-mining communities this climate of fear has profound environmental consequences.

In Zimbabwe’s Buhera district, for example, Sabi Star Mine’s lithium project has already upended the lives of many local people. James Mupfumi, director of the investigative NGO the Centre for Research and Development, says drinking water around the lithium mine has been contaminated by chemical disposal.

Mupfumi says Zimbabwe’s Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Environment, Climate and Wildlife carried out a fact-finding mission on July 12, when community-based organizations such as Buhera Residents Network Trust gave oral evidence, including testimonies from affected villagers on the dust and water pollution and resulting health problems.

“Latest information from Tagarira [in Buhera] community leaders indicates stomach-related challenges from drinking contaminated water. The Tagarira community is the worst affected,” he says.

He adds that at least 120 30-ton trucks use the dust road daily in the area to transport lithium from Sabi Star to Beira through either Beira or Durban ports. Six villages spread along the 30-kilometer (18-mile) dusty stretch from Tagarira to Gaza in Buhera are the worst affected.

A truck carrying lithium from Sabi Star Mine in Buhera, Zimbabwe- Photo: Leonard Mabasa

“These villages have five schools, and an average of 5 to 7 pupils visit the clinic every day seeking treatment for various illnesses caused by dust pollution,” Mupfumi says.

He says there have been very few efforts at dust suppression by the mining company to alleviate the suffering of communities.

“Villages in Tagarira and Mukwasi are also affected by dust from blasting and crushing, and as soon as the dust is cleaned, it soon settles again,” he says.

Official Threats

Buhera Residents Network Trust — an organization representing the interests of local people —presented oral evidence before the Parliament Portfolio Committee on Environment, Climate and Wildlife raising concerns over environmental pollution, water insecurity, worker injuries, community displacement and mining operations at Sabi Star Mine.

The Trust’s leader, Leonard Mabasa, told legislators that the community was not opposed to mining itself and acknowledged that Zimbabwe’s mining sector remained a cornerstone of the national economy, with lithium among the country’s most valuable mineral exports.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Shore.Africa (@shore.africa)

But the residents want to ensure that mining is carried out responsibly and that affected communities receive adequate protection. However, after the presentation President Mnangagwa’s spokesperson George Charamba came out swinging, warning the residents to be “very careful” and not “wreck a good thing for a dime.”

Chengxin Lithium, the company that operates Sabi Star Mine, has maintained that it undertook extensive community engagement before developing the project and provided adequate water, electricity, and sanitation facilities. The company says it compensated villagers who suffered from the mine’s activities.

Charamba’s threatening X post prompted a consortium of Zimbabwe NGOs to issue a statement condemning the intimidation and publicly rallying behind the Buhera residents.

“Communities living alongside mining operations are not enemies of development. They are constitutional rights holders entitled to safe environments, meaningful participation in decisions affecting their lives, and access to effective remedies where harm has occurred. Responsible mining cannot exist without transparency, accountability and respect for human rights,” the NGOs said in the statement.

I asked Mabasa whether he still feels safe after his presentation to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee. He says Zimbabwe Parliamentary privileges — special rights and powers granted to lawmakers so they can do their jobs safely and independently — should protect him from any threats during and after the submissions before Portfolio Committee on Environment Climate and Wildlife, “[But] what happens after that usually becomes too personal and uncontrollable. Smear campaign can make you feel insecure. Certain actions are shrewdly done to psychologically wean you off from the struggle. Safety is delicate. Physical and digital security can be issues of great concern which need not to be breached.”

Community Rights

Mabasa says the community needs to be aware of their economic social cultural rights — which include housing, health, education, and fair work — so compensation on relocation is anchored on “Free Prior Informed Consent.”

“I also think that legal support ecosystem is key for communities to be able to understand the terms and conditions of voluminous documents produced during the … Environmental Social Impact Assessment,” he says. This legal requirement, previously known as an Environmental Impact Assessment, evaluates how major projects affect ecosystems, health, and communities before they start.

Donald Nyarota, communications and advocacy officer for the Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG), a Zimbabwe-based NGO, says they have observed a degree of fear and reluctance among community members in lithium producing areas to speak openly about their concerns.

“These concerns include environmental pollution, loss of agricultural lands, loss of livelihoods, water and security, particularly displacement,” Nyarota says. “These are issues that communities are afraid to speak about because [they’re linked to] very powerful government officials. Sometimes they just say ‘government officials’ — they don’t even want to name them because of the fear that they could be victimized and conflict with these powerful interests associated with mining operations.”

At CNRG, Nyarota says, they’re addressing these issues through creating spaces where communities can raise their concerns collectively and safely under their “do no harm principle,” where they protect the identity and maintain anonymity of the communities.

Nyarota says they place a lot of emphasis on community-led evidence gathering, where communities send evidence anonymously through their safe and secure social networks.

A Just Transition

Mupfumi says Zimbabwe requires a just energy transition for its green minerals such as lithium.

“There is a need to secure the supply chain from corruption and criminality that are negatively impacting the rights of host communities. These negative impacts also pose a direct threat to climate action,” he says.

Political elites’ participation in the industry, like what is happening in Buhera, Mupfumi says, seeks to mask these violations and shield extraction from accountability.

“It is therefore important that global measures, such as supply-chain exclusion under clean energy laws, are applied to companies operating in Zimbabwe,” he says.

He adds that the processed lithium from these companies enters the global electric vehicle and green-energy battery supply chains, so markets and laws must prevent automotive companies from receiving green subsidies or selling vehicles where their raw materials are linked to human-rights abuses or toxic pollution.

“For communities to fully benefit from lithium resources, extraction must be linked to human rights protection, environmental accountability, transparent supply chains and meaningful community benefits, rather than allowing communities to bear the environmental and social costs of extraction while global markets benefit from the resource,” Mupfumi says.

He says Buhera demonstrates that communities must recognize lithium as a critical mineral whose extraction should contribute to transforming host communities in line with a just energy transition, rather than leaving them to bear the social and environmental costs.

“This makes community unity, transparency and accountability critical, particularly in securing fair benefits, protecting rights and ensuring responsible extraction. Communities must also recognize their vulnerability under Zimbabwe’s insecure land regime, where state power and corporate interests can weaken their bargaining position,” he says.

At the same time, communities should organize early and seek independent legal support on compensation and relocation, ensuring that displacement only occurs when livelihoods, living conditions and adequate compensation have been properly addressed.

“Community exchange visits, such as the one already facilitated by CRD, remain critical in enabling communities to share experiences, build solidarity and learn from each other’s struggles,” Mupfumi says.

“Ultimately,” says CNRG’s Nyarota, “the issue is not whether the communities support or oppose mining. It’s about whether mining takes place in a way that respects their rights, protects the environment, and ensures that they have meaningful voices in decision-making on issues that are affecting their lands and livelihoods.”

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

Anthrax in Zimbabwe: Caused by Oppression, Worsened by Climate Change

The post How Zimbabwe’s Regime Is Fueling a Dirty Lithium Boom appeared first on The Revelator.

What humans have wrought is heavy. In a new study, researchers calculated the weight of more than 600 million buildings in cities across the world and came up with a total of 835 billion metric tons, or gigatonnes (Gt) [1]. That’s almost as much as the weight of all the world’s plants.

All of that weight—in steel, wood, glass, cement, stone, and other materials—means carbon emissions. “If rapidly urbanizing regions follow historical development pathways, this stock could grow by another 419 Gt by 2050,” says study team member Jinchao Song, a research fellow at the University of Michigan’s Center for Sustainable Systems.

Conventional life-cycle analyses and green building certification programs like LEED are built on the principle of material efficiency and less is more. But reducing the environmental impacts of buildings isn’t just about making them lighter, according to a second paper [2].

In that work, Fernanda Cruz Rios, a built environment scientist at Drexel University in Pennsylvania, argues that what matters is how resilient a building is to fires, earthquakes, storms, floods, and so on —especially in the current age of increasing climate disasters.

Consider two otherwise identical buildings: one built directly on the ground and one on a raised concrete platform. The concrete platform increases the carbon emissions involved in construction. But when a major flood comes, the building on the concrete platform stays high and dry, while the one on the ground is inundated requiring costly and time-consuming repairs.

When all the impacts of the flooding are added up—new materials, mold remediation, the need for the building’s occupants to decamp to an alternate location for months—the building on the concrete platform may well come out ahead.

“Once you account for what happens when a building actually gets hit by a disaster, designing it to stay functional can prove to be the sustainable choice, not a trade-off against it,” says Cruz Rios

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:These new building materials are alive, photosynthetic— and carbon hungry

 

Existing life-cycle analyses sometimes account for the impact of the materials necessary for repairs. But when Cruz Rios analyzed 40 previously published life-cycle analyses focusing on flood, wind, heat, and seismic hazards she found that none of them captured all dimensions of building resilience.

“Almost no studies look at what happens during a disaster response (the emergency actions like evacuations, temporary fixes, and workarounds a building or community relies on while the event is unfolding),” says Cruz Rios. “Those actions clearly carry environmental costs, but they’re essentially invisible in the data.”

In the paper, Cruz Rios sketches out a new approach to life-cycle analysis that foregrounds resilience, making the benchmark of sustainability a building’s material use in relation to the function it delivers over its lifetime. Cruz Rios reports that her lab is now “working to gather the kind of data that could make this analysis fully usable in practice.”

At the same time, no building is an island. According to the first study, urban form—meaning the height, density, and uniformity of buildings across a city—makes a big difference in material use. Cities with a dense, uniform arrangement of low-rise buildings maximize per capita floor space per pound of building material.

“I was also surprised by how much urban form could influence future material demand,” Song says. Going forward, if rapidly growing cities in the Global South adopt the dense, low-rise arrangement they could require about 30% less material than if they were to adopt the least efficient urban form (a sparse arrangement of uniformly high-rise buildings).

The finding “suggests that early urban planning decisions can substantially shape a city’s long-term material needs,” says Song—underlining the need to consider building sustainability across multiple levels of space and time.

Sources:

[1] Song J. et al.  “Weighing 600 million buildings reveals global urban material inequality and efficiency paths.” Nature Cities 2026.

[2] Cruz Rios F. “Resilience in building life cycle assessment: a critical review and framework for time‐integrated functionality.” Journal of Industrial Ecology 2026.

Image: John Fleck/FEMA.

You know those memories of childhood that catch you decades later when you are doing something entirely different, thinking about something entirely different? For me, one that frequently finds me is waking to the call of the vegetable pushcart walla while visiting my grandmother’s flat in Karachi.

Aloo-ooo, Py-azzzz, Tamatarrrr, Baiṅgan. Sabzi! Sabzi! Sabzi!

(Potato, onion, tomato, eggplant. Vegetables! Vegetables! Vegetables!)

Warm summer morning air filling the room, the fan turning overhead. Waking next to my sister, the two of us insisting on sleeping in my grandmother’s beautiful salwars that were probably not ready to be turned into pajamas. The sounds of traffic humming from the dusty streets below.

I could not see him, but he was ever present as his voice crisscrossed the neighborhood announcing fresh vegetables. And he always called out the price. His call made clear that price was part of the enticement. A good deal was passing by.

That unseen vegetable pushcart was a pocket of possibility.

Each day, Dadu, my grandmother, would sit with Sherbano, who worked in her home, and methodically go over what would be cooked. Dish by dish, they discussed who would be eating, what ingredients were still needed, the cost of the meal in relation to the week’s budget, and what else had been cooked that week. Sometimes Sherbano would double-check what remained from Juma Bazar (the Friday farmers market) or from the supermarket, where shelf-stable foreign goods like canned cheese were available.

Sherbano and my grandmother discussed what to look for when purchasing each vegetable: its appearance, size, texture, freshness, and aroma. Let’s not buy it if it’s not fragrant. The potatoes should be this size. Always the freshest. We’ll only know how many curry leaves and chilli peppers we need once the cooking starts. The aroma should pop.

Planning the day’s meals was a priority. Dadu and Sherbano held these discussions with seriousness, and occasionally argument, as each brought her own knowledge and skill to food procurement and meal preparation. These conversations brought out the most serious side of my grandmother. At most other times, there was always an excuse for a little fun, let’s paint the town red!

Sherbano returned with the day’s purchases to my grandmother’s tiny kitchen. There were a few pots. She sat on a low woven stool and cut vegetables on a cutting board on the ground. With her knowledge, skill, and labor, she transformed whole food ingredients into meals that brought joy. Meals that were festive and nourishing. Meals I long for.

That kitchen in my grandmother’s home was another pocket of possibility.

The vegetable pushcart walla was one of many who started around 3:00 a.m., purchasing vegetables from the Sabzi Mandi before dispersing across neighborhoods. Without a storefront, they helped keep fresh vegetables within reach. Across generations and geographies, mobile vendors have carried fruits, vegetables, grains, and more toward people in baskets, bundles, and pushcarts.

Most of us do not experience the food system in its entirety; we experience it through food environments. Food environments are the living confluences where climate, biodiversity, agriculture, markets, policy, culture, economics, nutrition, and health come together in our daily lives. Collectively, these relationships shape food availability, affordability, convenience, promotion, quality, and sustainability.

The Sabzi Mandi, Juma Bazar, supermarket, and vegetable pushcarts were all part of the built food environment my grandmother accessed. Built food environments extend from traditional markets and mobile vendors to supermarkets, restaurants, schools, hospitals, workplaces, and digital marketplaces. People also obtain food directly from wild and cultivated food environments, from forests, rivers, and coastlines to farms, fields, and home gardens.

I have delighted in co-creating frameworks, tools, metrics, and surveys to understand diverse food environments. What we define and characterize determines what we see and measure, and what we measure determines what we can manage. If we only measure food available in markets, we miss extraordinary pockets of food diversity in wild and cultivated food environments and the knowledge and relationships that make them accessible.

Food can be available but unaffordable. It can be affordable but poor quality, culturally irrelevant, or undesirable. Diverse foods can persist in a landscape while the knowledge to recognize, harvest, prepare, and value them disappears.

Food environments are dynamic. We are living through a profound global food-environment transition, with growing availability of ultra-processed and ready-to-eat foods and more food consumed away from home. These shifts bring convenience while distancing us from food knowledge and agency once practiced in our kitchens.

A pocket of possibility can shrink. It can also be expanded.

My grandmother’s kitchen reminds me that access to fresh and affordable ingredients was only part of what made those nourishing meals possible. Dadu had support. She and Sherbano brought knowledge, skill, labor, and time to making those meals, discerning quality, working within a budget, minimizing waste, and adjusting ingredients until the aroma popped. Nourishment requires an enabling environment inside the home, too. Today, many of our kitchens have vacancies in time, labor, knowledge, skills, and support.

But we are not going back to our grandmothers’ kitchens, nor the labor arrangements that helped make them possible. The opportunity is to carry the best of that knowledge and intention forward while finding new ways to fill some of the vacancies.

Policies can support mobile vendors in bringing fresh, affordable food closer to home. They can also help community gardens flourish, while hunting, fishing, and foraging can enhance food access. Food education can help navigate increasingly complex food and information landscapes. Where Dadu and Sherbano brought knowledge and collaboration to the meal, better food-quality data and emerging AI tools for meals can offer new forms of support. One possibility we are exploring is Swap It Smart, powered by data from The Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI).

The meal itself becomes another pocket of possibility.

Meals can heal. Evidence is growing that interventions centered on meals can improve diet and health. Providing convenient access to minimally processed meals improved dietary quality and mental health symptoms in a randomized controlled trial. Medically Tailored Meals can improve health outcomes and reduce hospitalizations and healthcare costs. Culinary medicine and cooking interventions can build knowledge and skills to prepare healthier foods. Universal school meals can improve children’s health at population scale, while school meals from regenerative agriculture extend those benefits to planetary health.

Across interventions and scales, the same fundamental possibility emerges: creating the enabling conditions and support for good food to become a nourishing meal.

As leaders and advocates gather in New York around the U.N. General Assembly and Climate Week, conversations about climate and health unfold at planetary scale. We do not have to invent every solution anew. Food environments are powerful levers because so much of the food system converges there. Some of these solutions have been moving through our streets for generations. Others are growing in home gardens. Some emerge from tiny kitchens, where what is available meets knowledge, skill, care, and imagination.

Bring good food within reach.

As we pursue planetary-scale solutions, some of the largest pockets of possibility may already be within reach.

From the dusty streets rises the familiar call.

Sabzi! Sabzi! Sabzi! (Vegetables! Vegetables! Vegetables!)

This essay is part of Food Tank’s Flourish Series: Food and Health from Molecules to Systems, authored by Selena Ahmed, exploring how food connects us to the living world while asking what it means to flourish. For more in the series, click here.

The post Op-Ed | Pockets of Possibility: From Food Environments to Nourishing Meals appeared first on Food Tank.

Human rights lawyer Julian Aguon explores how warming threatens not only the survival of small island nations but also the traditions of their Indigenous peoples. He is citing these injuries in legal actions, including in a major victory at the International Court of Justice last year.

Read more on E360 →

CALGARY — DAVID PICKUP, Director of Electricity at the Pembina Institute, made the following statement in response to the expansion of Saskatchewan’s Bell AI Fabric centre.Yesterday’s announcement from the Saskatchewan and federal governments...