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I remember the first time I learned about Abu Ghraib in detail and being stunned at what a lacklustre aftermath took place. I felt a...

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More than a year after a devastating wildfire destroyed the Hawaiian town of Lahaina, residents were found to have high levels of arsenic and other toxic metals in their bodies.

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“For the Long Haul” diagnoses the roots of burnout among organizers and offers lessons from movement elders to combat it.

A new feeder bill for the Steady State Economy Act, the Sustainable Capital Markets Act (SCMA), is a launchpad for capital-markets reform.

Environmental struggles were still on Butler’s mind as she brainstormed in the last years of her life for what would have been her last novel, Spiritus.

These truly-through-the-looking-glass days, it seems the drunk great-uncle you really didn't wanna ask to dinner is somehow getting worse. Scarily and no longer mirthfully, the befuddled "head" of a GOP blitzed on projection daily spirals deeper into phantasmagoria - slurring words, crafting fictions, renaming oceans, rekindling grievances, losing it over trifles and consorting with imaginary friends as the world burns. An Orange-Stain plea from No Kings for the coming election: "Clean Up On Aisle USA" please. Soon.

To be clear, Trump was a lying fabulist from way back. In the glitzy 1980s and 1990s, he regularly posed as a successful businessman, savvy dealmaker and cad-about-town who'd infamously call reporters or publicists as "John Barron" to boast about his money or conquests - a ploy he admitted in later court depositions he learned from his Nazi father. In power, like "a pre-teen with a girlfriend in Canada nobody's met," he's long invented "friends," fans, sources who praise him and his dreadful policies, from cultists invariably with tears in their eyes who "thank me for saving the country" to U.S. CEOs and "one of the great people of China, from the highest echelons" who inexplicably extol his disastrous tariffs.

Lately, though, the GOP is reportedly freaking out, watching the line between fact and fiction increasingly blur in Dear Leader's mashed-potato mind as the economy keeps tumbling and vital mid-terms approach. They want him to celebrate (albeit largely imaginary) tax cuts, trade deals, safe borders, winning fights against drag shows and "transgender for everyone" (sigh). Instead, he raves about livestreamed executions, the hotness of GOP candidates, often in the wrong state - "His ass, shit, it's like a pile of muscle" - his bestie Putin who's been "fine on Ukraine," how "not a single" undocumented immigrant has entered America since he took office, how soaring gas and diesel costs are "a small price to pay," though it's unclear for what.

He garbles words or makes them up - "When we had the hurricane...We call it a watercane" - prompting excited patriots to up their expectations: "OK, cancel the Blue Wave, we want a Blue Watercane." Wearily, he jokes about creating a robot lookalike on the campaign trail- "Nobody would know the difference" - so he can stay home and watch TV, his true, small vocation. Weirdly, he fantasizes about trashing other countries: He boasts about "polling higher than anyone has ever polled in Venezuela," which is why "after I finish with this" he'll to go Venezuela, "learn Spanish quickly, it won't take long, I'm good at languages" and run for president there, and yes we are here for it.

Hopefully, Venezuela won't have pesky reporters asking him questions that drive him to melt down in "dementia anger-flare." Because he lacks both impulse control and any trace of decency, he's also lauded Vivek Ramaswamy's grotesque ad against rape survivor and Dem opponent Amy Acton, wherein her estranged, unhinged mother calls her a liar, charging the Fake News "is trying to convince everyone this Ad is bad because it’s so good!...It's called 'hitting pay dirt.’” He adds that if his "legendary" mother "said anything bad about me, (it) would go down as the Ad of the Decade — Maybe the Century!" Vivek should keep the ad up, he says, so people know Acton is "a DISASTER who, uncontrollably, lies, cheats, and steals!” Killer pot/kettle.

There are more. The racist fraudsters who got rich on corruption - and turned Minneapolis into Fallujah - want us to rat on our neighbors for...fraud under Trump's stammered "Fraud Whistle...Blower Incentive...Program" whereby "Americans (can) report theft of taxpayer dollars," with DOGE "skunk-works" stragglers helping. Turn in someone with $1 billion, you get 1%: "That's a lot of money.” Except the cap is $30K, you probs won't see it, and it's queasily akin to Nazi bounties on Jews. Stephen Goebbels was even there to smear phantom Somalis who get $30 million for a fake daycare, buy BMWs or mansions, fly their kids "first class all over the world...living the high life." What a sick fuck. Meanwhile, America urges, "Call in fraud at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."

Alas, the more loopy he gets, the more openly he flies his violent, racist, crassly unfettered flag. There are more curses and more bellicose AI slop like the video of a macho white guy put in prison with three scary black guys, by one scary black cop, who takes them all down: "Bullies Can’t Break a Strong Man." (So many pots/kettles!) The rallies grow more pugnacious too: In the second assault this month, a South Carolina sheriff's office is investigating an attack on a protester - punched in the head, neck and chest - that Trump cheered on, praising the thugs' "courage." "Who's the guy that threw that punch?" he excitedly asked. "I love that." He also mocked the victim as "a very unattractive guy," for a rare combo sick fuck and pot/kettle.

That was at a rally, in a reported “livestock arena” say what, for Darlene Graham, who’s “gonna have a big win.” If so, no thanks to his shambolic speech, which roamed from renaming the Atlantic Ocean - “I was always high end” - to insisting he doesn’t ramble while rambling - “I got - I know everything I’m doing. I got aptitude they dream about” - to again whining about the prizes he didn’t win: The Pulitzer for writing - “The people that got it shouldn’t have gotten it” - and the usual Nobel, despite being “one person who deserves it more than any yuman being." ”Not that I want it - it’s just ridiculous,“ he babbled. ”How the hell do you not get the Nobel Prize? i settled like 8 wars. The woman that got it, I don’t know where the hell she comes from.“ Losingest loser ever.

Finally, amidst all the lame, foul, daft fails, there are his deeply undignified transfers: The careening burlesque of a walk to his helicopter in Alaska. The ambling approach to his beloved, million-year helipad when he suddenly stops to acknowledge, salute and wave to a crowd of supporters, aka thin air. Eventually, the camera zooms out to show...empty space. A few seconds later, aides walk out from a different direction; other angles - here and here - show the same abyss, for which Fox would've run Biden out of town. Same for last week's event, ostensibly to honor first responders where, amidst a losing war, crumbling economy, burning planet and hungry children, Nero nattered and raved about his house projects. Nothing to see here.

“You're seeing this for the first time. This used to be grass. So if we did this, you couldn't do it. It was unusable. You know, this is built on a wetland. So the grass was always wet. Even if you were in a drought, the grass was soaking wet. And especially women with the high heels, they'd be holding their shoes. They go out and buy beautiful new high heels that go into the White House and they come back and their shoes are destroyed. But we did a job with the same stone that matches the White House stone and hasn't been totally finished. We're going with the black over here, too, because the limestone doesn't hold up well. Never, never did. Never will. But what we've done here is really amazing. We put a brand new coat over the White House, brand new coat. We fixed up the walls. They were all broken, chopped, terrible shape. A lot of the ornamentation, like around the windows, was broken. And many years ago, 30, 40, 50 years ago, probably a lot during Biden three years ago because he had no idea what the hell he was doing. But you'd look at a window and you'd see ornament on the right side. And on the left side, you'd see it was it had fallen off. Some people think that's OK, but I don't think it's OK. So we had molds made of the right side. We put it on the left side. It's all perfect now. So we re-skinned. Basically, it's a re-skinning. And that building is good to go for another 100 years or at least actually. But even this, the you see the the top sections where it was so bad, I didn't even like standing under it. The thing was all cracked and broken all over the place. We put the sign up, solid brass, half inch thick, as opposed to laminate. You ever see these laminate? They they don't want to spend the money on the brass. So they have a piece of brass laminated. It's about a hundredth of an inch thick. And they put it on a piece of wood to save a lot of money. And then in about two years, it decomposes and it's laying all over the floor. We don't do that. But up there is the Rose Garden. And then we, as you know, that wall has sat for 150 years empty. And I said, something has to be on that wall. And I just had the the notion I've often thought of it because I've never seen it before. A presidential walk of fame. So we went from George Washington to Trump. And that will be extended on this wall right up here because somebody said, oh, but you have no room for anybody else. I said, no, it extends this way. And but I'm going to have to leave that because whoever it is, maybe they won't be able to figure that out. And if they don't figure it out, I don't know what they're going to do. You know, but we have we have at least one hundred and twenty five years of extension going this way. So it's fun. But everybody loves the presidential walk of fame. Nobody knows if there is any. And we have a very generic, very good description of every president from Washington all the way down. And we get a little bit more personal as we get closer to my my year. Talk a little bit about in more detail about what we've had to put up with....All I do is write the truth.” - Donald J. Trump

Ladies and gentlemen, the President (sic) of the United StatesGetty Image

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This summer, volunteers in New Haven needed 313 valid signatures to put an independent socialist candidate on the ballot for Connecticut’s 11th Senate District. After knocking on doors, standing outside stores and at public events, and talking with people across the district about Rosa Pepper-Macias, a 23-year-old hotel line cook running on the Workers’ Voice Party ballot line, they submitted 965 signatures.

The response of the community surprised some of the people doing the campaigning. “I’ve never seen the kind of enthusiasm and support towards a socialist campaign that we’ve seen for Rosa,” said Daniel Piper, a union teacher involved in the campaign. A petition signature is not a vote, much less an endorsement of an entire socialist program. But collecting roughly three times the number required for ballot access suggests that, even in overwhelmingly Democratic New Haven, there are working people willing to listen to an argument for a political alternative outside the two major parties.

This small State Senate campaign matters beyond Connecticut’s 11th District because Pepper-Macias is not running as a socialist on the Democratic ballot line while promising independence later. She begins with independence, posing a larger question for a Left confronting Trump and the increasingly authoritarian direction of U.S. politics: what does opposition look like if it does not begin and end with returning the Democratic Party to power?

The machinery Trump is using did not appear when he returned to the White House. ICE was created under George W. Bush, and the deportation apparatus expanded under Barack Obama, and reinforced under Biden. The surveillance state grew under Republican and Democratic administrations alike. The militarization of the border, the carceral state, the Pentagon, and Washington’s capacity to wage war across the globe are permanent institutions of the U.S. state. Trump has intensified their use. He did not create them.

Treating Trump as a temporary departure from a basically healthy political order makes the solution appear straightforward: defeat him electorally and put the Democrats back in power. But Trumpism emerged from crises already developing within that order. Decades of declining working-class organization and deteriorating living standards created fertile ground for right-wing demagogy, while the relative decline of U.S. power strengthened pressures for a more aggressive assertion of American power abroad and a more coercive state at home. Trump has intensified these reactionary tendencies; he did not create the social and political conditions from which they emerged.

There is no normal to restore because defeating Trumpism requires more than replacing Republicans with Democrats. The question, then, is what it would mean for working people to develop a politics of their own. Pepper-Macias’s campaign is a small attempt to put that question onto the ballot.

Connecticut’s blue-state problem

Connecticut is a revealing place to ask. This is no MAGA stronghold: Democrats control state government, and New Haven has long been overwhelmingly Democratic. The race therefore puts decades of Democratic government in one of the country’s richest states under examination.

The wealth is not difficult to find. Yale’s endowment stood at $44.1 billion in June 2025, after earning $4.5 billion in investment gains in a single year. A few blocks beyond the university, the numbers look very different. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s QuickFacts for New Haven, median household income is about $56,851, nearly one-quarter of residents live below the poverty line, and median gross rent is $1,488 a month. Statewide, the Connecticut comptroller reported that 52.4 percent of renter households were cost-burdened in 2024, with 28.3 percent spending more than half their income on housing and utilities.

Yale is not simply a wealthy university located in New Haven. It is the city’s largest employer and one of its dominant property holders. Much of its academic property is exempt from municipal property taxes because Yale is a nonprofit educational institution. The university pays taxes on taxable commercial property and makes voluntary contributions to New Haven, including more than $230 million committed through fiscal year 2033. But an analysis published by the Connecticut Examiner estimated that Yale held roughly $4.4 billion in tax-exempt New Haven property and that, without the exemption, it could owe roughly another $146 million a year in property taxes. That makes the campaign’s demand to place Yale under public ownership more concrete: it asks who should control an institution whose wealth and property shape the fiscal and social life of the city around it.

This is the terrain on which Pepper-Macias is campaigning. Her platform calls for a shortened workweek at full-time pay, public health care, tuition-free public higher education, high-quality public housing and public ownership of utilities and internet provision. More provocatively, it demands: “Place Yale under Public Ownership!” and proposes placing “the assets of large landlords like Yale under public ownership.” The point is not simply to add another tax bracket or negotiate a larger voluntary contribution, but to raise the question of who controls the enormous concentration of wealth and property in the city.

War spending, social needs and who controls production

The campaign refuses to separate Connecticut politics from U.S.militarism. Its platform calls to “STOP the war and use the Pentagon’s trillion-dollar budget for jobs, education, housing, food, and healthcare as rights.”

The numbers give some sense of what that could mean. The campaign estimates that Connecticut taxpayers contribute $21.71 billion toward military spending. It calculates that $1.77 billion could hire 15,000 additional elementary-school teachers, $3.48 billion could provide public housing for nearly 300,000 residents, and $6.72 billion could create 50,000 jobs at top union wages. Money spent sustaining war abroad is money that is not being spent on social needs at home.

Some of those connections run directly through Connecticut. In 2024, State Treasurer Erick Russell said that roughly 56 billion investment portfolio was invested directly or indirectly in Israel, mostly through outside investment managers. The state also directly held two Israel bonds scheduled to mature in 2025 and 2026.

Yale is part of the same story. Students have protested the university’s investments in military industries and demanded divestment from weapons manufacturers. Public filings reveal only a small fraction of its endowment, so the full extent of those holdings is difficult to establish. A $1 million grant to Friends of the Israel Defense Forces was also made through Yale’s donor-advised-fund program, in which donors recommend distributions while Yale retains legal control.

But Connecticut is not connected to the war economy only through investments. It produces for war. East Hartford-based Pratt & Whitney signed a 15-year agreement with the Israeli Ministry of Defense in December 2015 to provide “100 percent daily propulsion readiness” for the Israeli Air Force’s F-15I and F-16I fighter aircraft. The campaign calls for Connecticut to divest from Israeli investments, end weapons production and sales to Israel, and support Palestinian self-determination.

That raises a harder question: what happens to workers whose jobs depend on those industries? Ending military production is not much of a program for Pratt & Whitney workers if it means unemployment. Fossil-fuel workers face the same choice: keep jobs tied to social and environmental damage, or support an antiwar or climate program that threatens their livelihoods.

But these workers know how to build things. The people who make aircraft engines and other complex machinery have the skills to build renewable-energy systems, public transit and infrastructure—and know what their plants and machines could be retooled to produce.

Conversion therefore cannot be designed elsewhere and handed down to workers. Unions would have to fight for guaranteed jobs and wages, control over how plants are retooled, and an antiwar and just-transition program rooted in workers’ knowledge of production. A State Senate campaign cannot carry out that transformation, but it can create space for workers to discuss it rather than accept that their jobs depend forever on military spending or environmental destruction.

This is where political independence becomes concrete. Republicans and Democrats disagree about many things, but neither challenges corporations’ right to decide what gets produced, where investment goes or what happens to workers when production changes.

This is where political independence becomes concrete. Republicans and Democrats disagree about many things, but neither challenges corporations’ right to decide what gets produced, where investment goes or what happens to workers when production changes. Within those limits, jobs, climate and opposition to war can appear to be competing demands. Yet they do not have to be. Workers with the skills and machinery could produce very different things. The question is whether they should have the power to decide what those things are.

The deportation machine was already there

Immigration brings the argument into sharp focus. The first demand on the campaign platform reads: “PAPERS FOR ALL! Stop all Raids, Detentions and Deportations! Equal rights for immigrants! Abolish ICE!”

But “Abolish ICE” is not presented simply as something legislators should eventually enact. Pepper-Macias proposes workers’ defense committees, organized through unions and other workers’ organizations, to mobilize demonstrations, democratic assemblies, and strikes against raids and deportations. The platform demands the closure of detention centers, an end to transporting detained immigrants out of state, and support for families torn apart by ICE.

The emphasis shifts from asking elected officials to protect immigrants to asking what organized workers can do when ICE shows up in a neighborhood or workplace. And how does ICE find people? Follow that question, and you arrive at the surveillance apparatus already operating on Connecticut streets.

And how does ICE find people? Follow that question, and you arrive at the surveillance apparatus already operating on Connecticut streets.

Pepper-Macias calls for “De-Flock Connecticut,” beginning with the 165 Flock cameras the campaign says operate in New Haven County. Automated license-plate readers feed databases and information-sharing networks extending far beyond the towns where the cameras stand. As CT Insider reported from police records, law-enforcement agencies nationwide ran millions of searches on Connecticut Flock data during 2025; thousands of searches involving data from at least six Connecticut departments were tagged “immigration,” “ICE,” or “ICE-assist.” The controversy has already produced movement at the state level: a new Connecticut law taking effect October 1 bars the use of license-plate-reader data to investigate suspected immigration violations, while Gov. Ned Lamont has urged municipalities to pause new installations pending a statewide review.

The campaign also demands closing the Connecticut Intelligence Center, or CTIC, in New Haven. CTIC is Connecticut’s designated post-9/11 fusion center, built to share intelligence across agencies and jurisdictions. Participating agencies include DHS, the FBI, TSA, Connecticut State Police, the Department of Correction, and the National Guard. A camera on a local street can therefore become an entry point into a much larger architecture of policing and surveillance.

Trump has greatly escalated immigration enforcement and repression, but much of the institutional machinery he is using was built over decades under administrations of both parties: ICE, fusion centers, mass surveillance, militarized policing, prisons, border enforcement and expanded executive powers. The point is not that Democrats and Republicans are identical. Their policies can have sharply different consequences. It is that defeating a Republican administration does not by itself dismantle institutions that predate it.

For Pepper-Macias, that history is also personal. Her father recently reminded her that he had taken her, in a stroller, to the massive May Day immigrant strike of 2006:  “I didn’t remember it, but I do remember seeing that mass movement get reined back into the Democratic Party with the Obama campaign. And then, of course, I saw California get hit by all those horrifying raids and deportations.” The connection between those experiences and the current repression is part of the political argument she makes: “The Obama era set the stage for the exacerbated oppression that we see today,” she says, “and we’ve discussed this connection every time I have campaigned at places like the Delaney Hall ICE detention center in Newark.”

Voting, organization, and political independence

Social movements in the U.S. have repeatedly encountered the same political funnel. A movement develops outside the Democratic Party, produces its own demands and organizations, and forces questions into public debate. As elections approach, the Republican candidate represents a serious threat; pressure mounts to subordinate the movement’s independent demands to electing Democrats. Afterward, much of the mobilization dissipates.

The contradiction became especially visible after Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign. Democratic socialism returned to mass politics, DSA expanded dramatically, and socialist-backed candidates won offices around the country. Yet the strategic problem remained: could socialists use the Democratic ballot line without eventually becoming part of the party they initially hoped to use?

Pepper-Macias’s campaign answers by starting with political independence rather than promising a break at some future date.

[T]he strategic problem remained: could socialists use the Democratic ballot line without eventually becoming part of the party they initially hoped to use? Pepper-Macias’s campaign answers by starting with political independence rather than promising a break at some future date.

That affects how the election is being organized. Volunteers have canvassed District 11, collected signatures, knocked on doors, and organized open meetings and public events. The campaign’s events calendar invites people into organizing rather than restricting participation to get-out-the-vote work.

Most campaigns organize people toward voting: knock on a door, make a call, raise money, turn people out. Yet U.S. elections are rarely referendums on distinct demands. Voters choose among candidates and parties offering packages of positions and often vague promises. An independent campaign does not assume every vote endorses its entire program; it can make visible political arguments otherwise lost inside the two-party competition. Winning those demands is another matter. You can vote for affordable housing without an organization capable of confronting landlords; against deportations without a network ready when ICE enters a neighborhood; for stronger unions without organizing your workplace. Much of politics lies between political support and the collective capacity to win.

U.S. elections are rarely referendums on distinct demands. Voters choose among candidates and parties offering packages of positions and often vague promises…You can vote for affordable housing without an organization capable of confronting landlords; against deportations without a network ready when ICE enters a neighborhood; for stronger unions without organizing your workplace. Much of politics lies between political support and the collective capacity to win.

Pepper-Macias’s campaign connects electoral activity to struggles already underway in Connecticut—against ICE and surveillance, around Palestine and war, in workplaces and unions, and around housing, reproductive rights and LGBTQ rights. The aim is not to channel those movements toward a candidate every two years, but to give struggles from below an independent political expression.

That distinction matters after election day. Grassroots movements and unions can enter electoral coalitions with demands generated through struggle, only to find them narrowed, postponed or displaced once governing begins; movements can be absorbed into the organizations of politicians they initially hoped to pressure.

Political independence offers no magical protection against those pressures, nor does an independent campaign automatically produce durable organization. But it allows unions, movements and working-class organizations to enter electoral politics without making their activity dependent on the politicians they support. The problem is how movements can develop a political voice without surrendering their capacity to act.

The labor-party question

The most ambitious expression of that strategy is the call for an independent labor party. The platform declares: “BUILD A LABOR PARTY! Working and oppressed people need a mass labor party, independent of the capitalist parties, to achieve a workers’ government!” It proposes an “emergency congress, organized by all unions in Connecticut” to discuss forming such a party and breaking from the Democrats.

The obstacles are formidable. Organized labor has spent generations developing institutional relationships with the Democratic Party through endorsements, funding, professional staffs and longstanding political habits. A break would require a struggle inside labor itself, not simply a resolution announcing independence.

The proposal makes more sense if a labor party is understood as more than a third electoral machine. Workers already organize collectively for contracts, higher wages, protection from firing and safer conditions; communities organize against raids, evictions and surveillance. A working-class party, in this conception, would carry that organizational independence into politics rather than asking those struggles to dissolve into an electoral coalition every few years.

Such a party would contest elections, but elections would not exhaust its purpose. It could support strikes, mobilize against raids and deportations, participate in tenant and antiwar struggles, debate political strategy internally and hold its elected representatives accountable to an organization outside the legislature. No State Senate campaign can create such a party by itself. At most, Pepper-Macias’s campaign can propagandize for the idea, accumulate experience in independent electoral work and identify some of the people interested in pursuing it.

After November

The differences between Democrats and Republicans are real, with immediate consequences for immigrants, women, LGBTQ people, unions and oppressed communities. But that does not answer the question running through this campaign: what do working people do with their own power?

Voting is only part of the answer. An independent socialist campaign can put arguments before voters that would otherwise disappear inside two-party competition and show a constituency willing to consider an alternative. But the ballot cannot substitute for the people casting it.

No vote by itself can stop an ICE raid, organize a hotel, prevent an eviction, shut down a surveillance network, convert a weapons plant or force an employer to concede a contract. Those outcomes require people acting together, through existing institutions such as unions or by building new ones.

Better politicians cannot solve that problem on their own. People need to preserve their capacity to act in workplaces, where workers can organize and strike; in communities, where they can fight over housing, schools, policing and immigration; and politically, where those struggles can speak in their own name.

People need to preserve their capacity to act in workplaces, where workers can organize and strike; in communities, where they can fight over housing, schools, policing and immigration; and politically, where those struggles can speak in their own name.

November will produce one result immediately: the vote. For a campaign of this size, it would be unrealistic to make durable new organization the measure of success. Its more immediate contribution is modest: popularizing an independent working-class program, bringing it into conversations with workers and young people, supporting struggles where it can, and accumulating experience outside the two-party system.

The fight over AI-related data-center development in Trumbull offers one example. At demonstrations against the tech industry, Pepper-Macias says, the campaign has encountered unionized workers, including some who supported Trump, alongside young activists radicalized through the Palestine solidarity movement. For her, those encounters suggest what an independent working-class politics might eventually make possible.

“The political work of this campaign does not end with the election,” Pepper-Macias says. “It will carry into ongoing campaigns for civil liberties, like the MN15, activists federally indicted over organizing against ICE during Operation Metro Surge and the fight against data centers in our state.”.

An independent campaign cannot build the organizations needed to win by itself. But it can use the electoral arena to argue for working-class political independence, strengthen existing struggles and make the case for organization in workplaces, communities and the streets as well as at the polls.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: Worker’s Voice US; modified by Tempest.

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Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is director of the China-Indonesia Desk at the Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS). Bhima Yudhistira Adhinegara is executive director of CELIOS.

Indonesia bills its plans to mix wood with coal at dozens of power plants as a way to cut electricity generation emissions as the country transitions towards clean energy. But look closer, and the biomass co-firing plan could do far more harm than good. 

Biomass co-firing involves mixing a small amount of wood or other plant matter, usually wood chips or wood pellets, into the coal that a power plant burns.

State electricity company PLN wants to use it at 52 coal-fired plants across the Southeast Asian nation – a target set out in its national electricity supply business plan and tied to Indonesia’s pledge, under its Nationally Determined Contribution to the Paris Agreement, to raise renewables to 23% of the energy mix. PLN originally aimed to secure 10.2 million tonnes of biomass a year by 2025; that target has already slipped to 2031, as the country struggles to line up enough supply. 

Most plants only mix in a small amount of wood, often between 1% and 5% of the fuel load, meaning they do not even have to change machinery. In truth, it lets coal plants keep doing what they have always done, just with a little wood added to the mix.  

That presents two big problems.  

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Firstly, creating additional demand for wood would put further deforestation pressure on the country’s thick and biodiverse tropical forests, already at risk from mining and palm oil plantations. 

Secondly, by making old coal plants look a little greener on paper, the plan could hand them a reason to keep operating well beyond when they would otherwise be retired, meaning the fleet keeps emitting for longer than a genuine phase-out would allow. 

This is not a real climate solution. It is coal wearing a green mask. 

A threat to forests

To meet its co-firing mandate, Indonesia would need more than 10 million tonnes of wood pellets every year, an area of forest equivalent to 3.27 million football fields, according to a 2024 assessment by a group of NGOs.

The same report warned this could push deforestation as high as 2.1 million hectares a year, and found that a 10% cut in coal use through co-firing could threaten 10 million hectares of untouched forest in the areas where wood is collected. At Indonesia’s biggest power plants alone, switching just 10% of coal to wood could clear an area of forest roughly 35 times the size of Jakarta. 

PLN and the forestry companies that supply it insist the wood comes from dedicated “energy plantation forests” – land set aside to grow fast-growing trees for fuel, not from clearing natural forest. But the same assessment found that of the 1.2 million hectares already designated for these plantations, more than 400,000 hectares still contain undisturbed tropical forest, which will come under growing pressure as demand rises. The claim that this wood comes from already-degraded land does not hold up to scrutiny. 

Advocates of co-firing say wood is a clean fuel because trees can grow back. But when old natural forests are cleared to make way for fast-growing forestry plantations to grow trees for fuel, they release carbon that took decades or centuries to build up. 

One study, by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), estimated that co-firing with just 10% wood across 52 power plants could create up to 26.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions each year, once the clearing of land and the production of wood pellets are counted. 

Wood pellets for export 

Government rules have made this easier, not harder. Companies that already hold industrial timber plantation permits can convert them into energy plantations, giving them a ready-made legal route into the wood pellet business without applying for new forest land.

Indroyono Soesilo, chairman of the Indonesian Forestry Entrepreneurs Association (APHI), has publicly called on the government for tax breaks and relief from state forestry levies in exchange for making that switch. 

Research by Trend Asia found that the push into energy plantations for biomass is dominated not by small or informal loggers but by large companies already notorious for deforestation, including APP Group, Korindo Group, Barito Pacific and Wilmar International. In short, some of the same companies long associated with clearing forests are being given an easier path and a green label to keep doing it. 

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Much of this wood does not even stay in Indonesia. Japan and South Korea have bought more than 99% of Indonesia’s wood pellet exports since 2021, using them to meet their own clean energy targets. 

Perhaps the biggest risk in Indonesia’s co-firing plan is what it could do to the coal fleet itself. Mixing in a small amount of wood does not require a plant to shut down or upgrade. It simply gives the plant a reason to keep running, dressed up as progress. Every year a coal plant stays open because of a paper-thin green label is a year that real clean energy, such as solar and wind, is pushed further down the road. 

None of this means biomass is always bad. Using leftover farm waste or city waste to make power can make sense. 

But the scale of Indonesia’s co-firing plan cannot be met by leftovers alone, which is exactly why forests are being pulled into the supply chain. The countries and banks funding Indonesia’s energy transition, along with Japan and South Korea, should stop counting co-firing as a climate win. 

Real progress means closing coal plants, not feeding them wood. 

The post Coal in a green mask: Indonesia’s co-firing plan will harm, not help, the climate  appeared first on Climate Home News.

Climate scientists have already established that Europe’s sweltering summer was the hottest on record. Now they are saying it was likely the deadliest as well, with their models showing that the extreme heat led to more than 50,000 excess deaths in cities alone.

The continent has endured five scorching heat waves since May, with record-shattering temperatures in several countries. On the whole, it was about 5.2 degrees Fahrenheit (2.9 degrees Celsius) above the 1991 to 2020 average. Some days exceeded the norm by nearly 22 degrees F, or 12 degrees C. Researchers modeled the impact of those extremes across 854 urban areas, representing roughly 40 percent of the population, and the 2026 data, released today, showed that this summer was by far the deadliest on record. 

“We’re seeing significantly higher modeled deaths,” said Clair Barnes, an extreme weather and climate change researcher at Imperial College London’s Centre for Environmental Policy. The next closest years were 2022 and 2003, with 29,000 and 28,000 excess deaths, respectively. 

Climate change is making extreme heat more likely, frequent, and persistent. As the mercury climbs, conditions become increasingly dangerous, Barnes said, with even fractions of a degree dramatically raising health risks. She and her colleagues attributed some two-thirds of the 50,000 deaths in their study, which the journal Nature Health will publish next week, to human-caused warming. 

“Any one of those heat waves would have been deadly, but we’ve had five,” Barnes said, compared to maybe one or two most years. “It’s not just summer. It’s been turbocharged by climate change and now it’s dangerous.” 

The teams’ method of attributing extreme heat deaths to climate change is pretty standard, said Kai Chen, faculty director of the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health, who was not involved in the study. Researchers, he explained, essentially modeled the temperatures and associated death levels Europe would have experienced with and without climate change, then reported the difference. 

“This tells people that climate change is not a distant threat anymore,” said Chen, who was also struck by how quickly the analysis was released. “That is critical information to communicate in near-real time.” 

Read Next Yes, this summer really was as hot as you think it was Matt Simon

Europe saw an especially searing stretch from June 17 to July 1, when daily average temperatures across the entire region were more than 9 degrees F, or 5 degrees C, above the 30-year average. Schools closed, public transit networks shuttered, wildfires erupted, and preparedness plans were put to the test. The heat even disrupted the Tour de France.

Overall, southern and western Europe bore the brunt of this summer’s heat impacts, with Italy seeing the greatest number of modeled excess deaths at 13,303, followed by France at 7,268. One reason Europeans are so vulnerable to heat deaths, said Chen, is that air conditioning is less prevalent than in the United States, where his research shows that the amenity can cut fatalities by more than half. 

The elderly are at a particularly elevated risk, as heat can exacerbate underlying conditions. The latest modeling reflected that, with all but about 6,000 of the excess deaths occurring in those over 65 years old. “People don’t realize how dangerous extreme heat can be,” said Barnes. “It’s really important to bring home those risks.”

The World Health Organization called 2026 a “dress rehearsal”  for what’s to come, and Barnes thinks research like this can help raise public awareness about the importance of preparing for extreme heat and the need to mitigate climate change. The research, Barnes noted, can also be used to project dangers ahead of coming heat to help authorities plan. “There’s no reason,” she said, “that the model couldn’t be run on forecast temperatures.”

Barnes hopes to expand her work to include other parts of the world too, especially historically marginalized regions such as Africa, where people often feel the effects of heat but may not attribute them to climate change. Limited data availability could impede those efforts in some places, she said. Those numbers do, however, mostly exist for the United States, where Chen is among those trying to implement this type of analysis. 

“That will be very important for the U.S. conversation too,” he said. “It can raise awareness and motivate policy action.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Europe’s hottest summer ever was also its deadliest — by far on Oct 22, 2026.

By Denise Robbins, CCAN Communications Team

Across Maryland, communities are hitting the brakes on the rapid buildout of massive data centers.

After Anne Arundel County joined the growing list of jurisdictions adopting a temporary moratorium, roughly 90% of Marylanders now live in a county or city with some form of data center ban or pause, according to CCAN Action Fund’s latest tally. The movement now stretches from Western Maryland to the Eastern Shore and across the state’s largest population centers.

Largo, Prince George’s County Data Center Rally on July 1, 2026

And Maryland is not alone. Across the country, opposition to rapid data center expansion is growing as communities confront concerns about electricity demand, utility bills, water use, noise, land use, and environmental impacts. Recent national polling has found a full seven of ten Americans oppose data centers being built in their area. 

Why communities are pressing pause

The scale of the AI boom is difficult to overstate. AI data centers require enormous amounts of electricity, and many also require significant amounts of water for cooling. In the PJM region, which includes Maryland, rapidly rising data center demand is already threatening grid reliability and infrastructure costs, with many fear these costs being passed onto ratepayers. 

Meanwhile, the rules designed to protect ratepayers, water supplies, local communities, and the climate are still catching up.

That is why so many local governments have chosen temporary pauses. Communities need time to understand the consequences and put enforceable safeguards in place.

Governor Moore acted — but Maryland still hasn’t paused

In mid-September, Maryland Governor Wes Moore said he would “absolutely sign” a statewide data center moratorium if it came to his desk. And yet he issued an executive order one week later that included no mention of a moratorium. 

Instead it created a new statewide framework for reviewing large data center projects. The order created a Maryland Data Center Task Force, required greater transparency and stronger criteria around proposed projects, barred state employees from entering certain nondisclosure agreements with developers, and established principles around ratepayer protection, economic benefits, community input, environmental impacts, and accountability.

Baltimore City Data Center Moratorium Rally June 29, 2026.

Those are meaningful reforms, but it’s not enough. On top of ignoring a statewide moratorium, Governor Moore’s order also did not establish a requirement that new data centers operate on 100% clean energy.

How can Maryland continue approving massive new projects while the state is still developing the rules meant to govern them?

The risks don’t stop at electricity and water

Concerns about AI extend far beyond electricity and water. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 62% of respondents viewed AI as capable of endangering humanity’s future, while leading AI researchers and technology executives have publicly warned that advanced AI could pose catastrophic risks.

Those long-term risks are still being debated. But one thing is already clear: the physical infrastructure powering the AI boom is arriving now, in real communities, with real consequences, and not enough has been done to protect us from those consequences. 

How to Fight Back: Join Marylanders from across the state on November 7 Frederick Amazon Data Center Rally in Adamstown on May 28, 2026

On Saturday, November 7, CCAN and Nature Forward will bring Marylanders together at the Baltimore Convention Center for People Over Data Centers: Maryland Action Summit.

The one-day conference will feature Congressman Jamie Raskin, climate activist and author Bill McKibben, state and local elected officials, environmental-justice leaders, community organizers, and advocates from across Maryland. Panels will cover data center impacts on electricity bills and the grid, water resources, farmland and open space, environmental justice, AI risks, and what stronger statewide safeguards could look like in 2027.

The summit runs from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and a $25 general-admission ticket (or $15 for students) includes morning coffee and lunch. 

The fight against Maryland’s data center boom is already statewide. November 7 is a chance to bring those local fights together, learn from one another, and decide what comes next. Learn more and sign up for the People Over Data Centers: Maryland Action Summit!

Sign up for the People Over Data Centers Summit here

The post Maryland’s Data Center Backlash Is Growing. Here’s What Comes Next appeared first on Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

CONTRACT-FUNDED ASSESSMENTS

The North Coast Water Board has been allocated $5 million in contract funds in part to evaluate the current status of sediment issues in the Gualala River Watershed and to conduct on-the-ground assessments of road-related sources of sediment.

Landowners interested in receiving contract-funded assessments are strongly encouraged to contact North Coast Water Board staff at RB1-Gualala@waterboards.ca.gov to be considered for inclusion in the early rounds of assessments.

PROJECT STATUS

North Coast Water Board staff continue to review and consider public comments received on the draft Gualala Roads Assessment Order. A summary of comment themes and staff responses will be made available in January 2027, in advance of the February 2027 adoption hearing.

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Staff Office Hours

North Coast Water Board staff continue to hold recurring staff office hours that serve as unstructured meetings during which members of the community are invited to share any questions or comments they may have about the Gualala Roads Assessment Order project.

The next staff office hour is scheduled for Tuesday, November 17, 2026, from 11:00 am – 12:00 pm. This will be a virtual meeting and Zoom details will be provided in the coming weeks through this email subscription service and on the program webpage at https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/ northcoast/water_issues/programs/gualala_roads/index.html.

January 2027 Community Meeting

North Coast Water Board staff will hold a community meeting at the Gualala Arts Center on Thursday, January 21, 2027 from 9:00 am – 10:30 am. This will be a hybrid meeting and those who are unable to attend in-person are invited to join via Zoom.

At this community meeting, staff will provide an overview of the proposed Gualala Roads Assessment Order, which will be released prior to the meeting.  

Additional details and instructions for participation will be provided at least 10 days in advance of the meeting.

February 2027 Adoption Hearing

The adoption hearing for the proposed Order has been moved from December 2026 to February 2027. This change was made to provide staff sufficient time to meaningfully consider the significant volume of public comments submitted for the draft Order.

Additional details and instructions for participation will be provided when available, at least ten days prior to the adoption hearing, on the following webpages:

Gualala Roads Program webpage: https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/northcoast/water_issues/programs/gualala_roads/index.html

Board Meeting agenda webpage: https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/northcoast/board_info/board_meetings/2027/index.html

FUTURE QUARTERLY UPDATES

North Coast Water Board staff will continue to provide quarterly updates throughout the development of the Gualala Roads Assessment Order. Please forward this email and/or direct interested individuals or groups to subscribe at the following link for timely project information: https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/CAWRCB/subscriber/new?topic_id=r1_tmdl_gualala_river_watershed

The Sonoma Resource Conservation District is soliciting Statements of Qualifications for the development of a web-based Rural Roads Technical Workshop Series.

The workshop series will be developed to increase local capacity for applying practical and applicable techniques addressing rural road-related erosion, drainage, maintenance, and resource-protection issues in the Gualala River Watershed. 

Statements of Qualification must be submitted to the Sonoma Resource Conservation District by Friday, October 30, 2026.

For more information, including how to submit Statements of Qualifications, please visit the Sonoma Resource Conservation District webpage at https://sonomarcd.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/RFQ-Web-based-Technical-Road-Workshop-FINAL.pdf or email Jason Wells at jwells@sonomarcd.org

Gualala Redwood Timber’s 269-acre Little Pepperwood Timber Harvest Plan (THP 1-26-00076-SON) is located in southern Mendocino and northern Sonoma Counties, approximately 3 miles east of the town of Gualala. Surface flow from the THP drains into Big Pepperwood Creek, Little Pepperwood Creek, and several tributaries to Big Pepperwood and Rockpile Creeks. The plan was submitted to Cal Fire on June 16, 2026. CalFire recommended approval on Aug. 27; public comment period ended on Sept. 8.

On October 21, 2026, Cal Fire rescinded their recommendation for approval of this plan, and announced that sections 2 through 5 of the plan were being recirculated due to “significant new information” which had been added. The newly added information includes protection measures and related environmental analysis for Foothill Yellow Legged Frog, proposed operations during the winter period, use of heavy equipment on steep and/or unstable areas, culvert sizing calculations, and greenhouse gas quantitative analysis.

The public comment period has been re-opened for 30 days. The new close of the comment period is Friday, November 20, 2026 at 5pm Pacific Time.

Little Pepperwood Timber Harvest Plan documents Submitted on June 16, 2026

Little Pepperwood THP Section 1 – [1 MB, 10 pages] Legal description: Cover pages, signatures.

Little Pepperwood THP Section 6 – [1 MB, 1 page] Archeological information: (confidential)

Recirculated on October 21, 2026

Little Pepperwood THP Section 2 – [18 MB, 93 pages] Operations: Silviculture, yarding, erosion hazard rating, winter operations, roads & landings, watercourse & lake protections, alternative watercourse & lake protections (in lieu of standard rules), biological resources, maps.

Little Pepperwood THP Section 3 – [2 MB, 22 pages] Supporting materials: General site description, analysis of alternatives, variable retention, discussion and justification of use of ground based equipment on unstable areas, discussion and justification of alternative watercourse and lake protection practices, cultural resources.

Little Pepperwood THP Section 4 – [3 MB, 114 pages] Cumulative Impacts: Past, present and future projects, assessment of cumulative watershed effects, soil productivity, biological resources, recreational, visual, traffic, greenhouse gas impacts, wildfire risks.

Little Pepperwood THP Section 5 – [32 MB, 313 pages] Attachments: Including soil erosion hazards, Erosion Control Plan, Greenhouse Gas calculations, landslides, roadwork, stream reports, botanical surveys, Northern Spotted Owl information.

Little Pepperwood THP: Additional Documents

“LP” THP: First Review Questions, by Dept. of Fish & Wildlife
[6/23/26, 0.2 MB, 2 pages]

“LP” THP: First Review Report, by CalFire
[6/25/26, 1 MB, 7 pages]

“LP” THP: RPF Responses to First Review Questions
[7/7/26, 5 MB, 45 pages]

“LP” THP: Pre-Harvest Inspection by Dept. of Fish & Wildlife
[7/14/26, 0.2 MB, 5 pages]

“LP” THP: Pre-Harvest Inspection by CA. Geological Survey
[7/16/26, 2 MB, 13 pages]

“LP” THP: Pre-Harvest Inspection by CalFire
[7/16/26, 1.5 MB, 15 pages]

“LP” THP: Response to Agency Recommendations, by Registered Pro. Forester
[7/30/26, 26 MB, 25 pages]

“LP” THP: 2nd Review Team Recommendations by CalFire
[8/6/26, 1 MB, 1 page]

“LP” THP: Marbled Murrelet Consultation by Dept. of Fish & Wildlife
[8/11/26, 1 MB, 7 pages]

“LP” THP: Response to 2nd Review Recommendations, by Registered Pro. Forester
[8/11/26, 2 MB, 6 pages]

“LP” THP: Remaining Question from 2nd Review by CalFire
[8/14/26, 1 MB, 1 page]

“LP” THP: Response to Remaining Question by Registered Pro. Forester
[8/19/26, 3 MB, 8 page]

“LP” THP – Recommended for approval, by Cal Fire
[8/27/26, 1 MB, 1 page]

“LP” THP – Comments on behalf of Friends of Gualala River, by Jason Holder, Esq.
[9/8/26, 2 MB, 48 pages]

“LP” THP – Comments by Friends of the South Fork Gualala
[9/8/26, 16 MB, 111 pages]

“LP” THP – Additional revisions necessary for approval, by Cal Fire
[9/29/26, 1 MB, 2 pages]

“LP” THP – Response to necessary revisions by Reg. Pro. Forester
[10/8/26, 3 MB, 14 pages]

“LP” THP – Rescission of approval recommendation, by Cal Fire
[10/21/26, 2 MB, 2 pages]

“LP” THP – Recirculation of plan due to new information, by Cal Fire
[10/21/26, 1 MB, 2 pages]

All documents regarding this logging plan are available in the new CalTREES system.

Unfortunately, CalTREES is not easy to use, so FoGR has compiled some
basic instructions for use of CalTREES to help you navigate the system.

To download additional documents for this logging plan,
if you want to follow the back & forth as agencies ask questions and the RPF replies,
visit the Little Pepperwood THP page on the CalTREES website.

Below are instructions on how to submit comments during the public comment period.
The new public comment period will close on November 20, 2026 at 5pm Pacific Time.

To submit your comments on a logging plan, email your comments to: santarosapubliccomment@fire.ca.gov
or send your comments via U.S. Mail to:

Forest Practice
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection
135 Ridgway Ave.
Santa Rosa, CA 95401

In the subject line of your email message, or at the top of your letter,
be sure to reference the THP number and name, for example:
THP 1-26-00076-SON “Little Pepperwood”

Today, visitors come to Lockridge Park on Herrington Lake for weddings, weekend getaways, covered wagons, hiking trails, and lake views. It’s hard to believe that just a few years ago, the ridge was slated to be covered in storage units.

For decades, Brian Lockhart had been preparing the property for development. He had spent 30 years building a foundation repair company across the street. Each year, they were adding fill dirt and clearing the land with the plan to build storage facilities across the property, building on his successful nearby facility called Poppy Lock.

Brian described the day he stood there on the palisades looking across the lake, “It’s too pretty; I couldn’t do it.”

Imagining Lockridge Park

Instead, Brian and his family started imagining a place where people could gather, celebrate, explore, and make memories. That vision eventually became Lockridge Park, which opened in 2022 as a family-run destination that continues to grow and evolve almost before your eyes.

They started by building five RV pads and a wedding barn. The wedding barn, known as The Rick House, drawing its name from bourbon country, sits high above Herrington Lake and has become a popular venue for weddings, reunions, retreats, and special events.

Soon, they added covered Conestoga wagons, concrete tube hotels, and cave inspired rooms built around shipping containers. From the cozy cave to a mine shaft-inspired room, each is built with a mix of creativity, craftsmanship, and repurposed materials. They love finding new uses for old things, and that spirit shows up all over the property.

Guests can grab a meal in the café, wander the trails that weave across the ridge and down toward the lake, or simply sit and enjoy the view from one of the many hottubs or seating areas.

New Ideas & Community Involvement

The park is truly a family-run business. Brian and his family live just around the corner. They’re the ones giving tours, cleaning rooms, greeting guests, and dreaming up what comes next.

“We’re always having fun, and always thinking of ideas,” he said.

On a recent visit, those ideas were taking shape in the form of hobbit houses. The park employs five people, including two full-time builders, Billy Dan and LeRoy, who were busy bringing the newest addition to life. Future plans include even more lodging options like a silo house, and, if approvals can be secured, a zipline that would stretch out over the lake.

The Lockhart family has also made community involvement part of the park’s mission. They regularly open their doors to local organizations, providing use of the barn at no cost to groups such as CASA and Hospice.

Building a Business That Will Last

That same thinking led the family to invest in solar energy. In September, PoppyLock Storage, the family company that leases buildings to Lockridge Park, completed a solar installation with financing and technical assistance from Mountain Association. The project, installed by Mann Solar, a fellow Lancaster-based company, will help reduce operating costs as Lockridge Park continues to grow.

Brian believes investments like this one will strengthen operations, helping create stable jobs for employees and ensuring the business can continue growing for years to come.

“Take care of the people who take care of you,” Brian said when reflecting on how he builds businesses for long-term success. “I’ve always built businesses like that.”

In addition to having run and sold United Structural Systems, and running the park, he operates Point Data, where he develops software, applications, and websites.

Looking around Lockridge Park today, it’s hard to imagine rows of storage units sitting on this ridge. Instead, thousands of people get to experience a beautiful corner of Kentucky each year, thanks to the vision, hard work, and entrepreneurial spirit of the Lockhart family.

The post How a Planned Storage Lot Became One of Kentucky’s Most Unique Destinations appeared first on Mountain Association.

Councillors in the North Yorkshire village of Burniston have called on the Environment Agency to reconsider its refusal to allow more time for comments on local drilling and fracking plans.

The EA told us last night it had closed the public consultation on an environmental permit – despite repeated requests for an extension to the deadline.

The parish council had now asked the EA to hold a public meeting in Burniston and extend the consultation for at least two months.

The parish council chair, Cllr Richard Parsons, told us today:

“Our request for a further public open meeting in Burniston has so far been met by a wall of silence.

“I would urge the Environment Agency to reconsider their decision and allow further time for responses and a public open meeting.”

The council, local campaigners and residents had said the EA had not allowed enough time for them to review two key documents on the permit.

The documents had been revised earlier this month following complaints about errors and inconsistencies.

The EA said yesterday people had been allowed enough time to comment on the amendments.

But some residents did not receive a letter from the EA about the changes. Others did not receive the letter until less than a week before the deadline.

Cllr Parsons said:

“The Environment Agency appears to believe that the many and substantial changes did not merit proper scrutiny.

“They appear to have decided that, in many cases, less than a week was more than sufficient for ‘interested parties’ to read, investigate and comment on those changes, despite being informed that the time given to respond in detail and with accuracy was not enough.”

He said the EA had an “overarching responsibility” to “protect and enhance the environment in England as a whole, in order to contribute to the objective of achieving sustainable development”.

He said:

“Allowing those people, who are likely to be directly affected by the proposed gas drill, hydraulic fracturing and underground waste storage, little time to respond to the changes to the EA report is not justifiable.

“The Environment Agency have left this community and the wider community with the belief that they have little or no regard for the public consultation process and equally have little or no regard for public comments.”

Food Is Medicine, a new book by Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, offers a blueprint to transform food and farming systems in a way that heals people, the economy, and the planet.

“Being a healthy American adult is an anomaly,” says Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and Director of the Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University. He notes that 94 percent of people in the U.S. over the age of 18 are “not where they should be” in terms of cardiovascular and metabolic health. 

The food system is “the top cause of death and disability in the country,” Mozaffarian tells Food Tank. “This is the top cause of preventable healthcare spending. This is the top cause of devastation to our oceans, soil, water, and climate. And if you put it all together, this is actually the top issue facing humanity.” 

His new book addresses these challenges, acknowledging their complexity. It also outlines the solutions available, revealing how the growing Food is Medicine movement can help communities produce and consume food in a way that supports public health and the environment. 

“We have the science and the evidence on what needs to change,” Mozaffarian tells Food Tank. “And we really can fix our food system in a very short amount of time.”

Mozaffarian also wants readers to understand a shift in diet shouldn’t be viewed in terms of sacrifice. For too long, he says, nutrition has been framed “in terms of deprivation and a fight against food.” He hopes the book will help people see things differently. “For me, healthy eating is about embracing and celebrating the good, more minimally processed, healthy, delicious foods.” 

Food Is Medicine is for healthcare providers, policymakers, and business leaders. “But at the end of the day,” Mozaffarian says, “this is for the general public to understand the levers we need to shift and move so that 10 years from now, we’re not having the same conversation.” 

Listen to the full conversation with Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian on Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg to hear more about Food Is Medicine: Healing Our Bodies, Nourishing Our Minds, and Transforming Our Food System, tips for eating healthy, and why the solutions we need come down to systems change rather than individual behavior change alone. 

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of David Trinks, Unsplash

The post ‘Food Is Medicine’ Shows Fixing the Food System Is a Public Health Priority appeared first on Food Tank.

Dirty Dozen™ food chemicals: Titanium dioxide Iris Myers October 22, 2026 EWG’s recommendation

Avoid or limit foods containing titanium dioxide.

Titanium dioxide is a color additive used to brighten packaged foods. Food-grade titanium dioxide contains a large amount of nanoscale particles that can accumulate in the body. 

In 2021, the European Food Safety Authority, or EFSA, concluded titanium dioxide could no longer be considered safe as a food additive due to concerns about genotoxicity, inflammation and effects on the immune system and gut.

What is titanium dioxide?

Titanium dioxide is a synthetically produced white color additive. It’s used in some foods to brighten their appearance, enhance whiteness and provide opacity.

Which foods contain titanium dioxide?

Titanium dioxide is most commonly found in candy. It is also used in salad dressings, chewing gum, ice cream, drink mixes and other food. 

Look for titanium dioxide in product ingredient lists, usually below or next to the Nutrition Facts panel, on the back of the package. 

How is titanium dioxide regulated?

The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for overseeing food additives and other ingredients. Titanium dioxide is allowed as a food color additive in the U.S. at up to 1% by weight of the food. 

The European Union removed titanium dioxide from its approved food additives list in 2021, determining the chemical could no longer be considered safe for use in food. An Arizona law bans titanium dioxide in food sold in schools, beginning with the 2026-2027 school year.

Titanium dioxide is prohibited in certified organic foods under Department of Agriculture organic standards, which bar synthetic substances.

What does the science say about titanium dioxide?

The health risks of titanium dioxide are closely tied to particle size. Nanoparticles – those smaller than 100 nanometers – are generally more toxic than larger particles. Although food-grade titanium dioxide is not entirely nanoscale, a significant fraction of its particles fall within that range. These nanoparticles can accumulate in tissues, causing oxidative stress and cell damage.

A 2023 meta-analysis found titanium dioxide nanoparticles can cause significant DNA damage in both in vivo and in vitro models. The 2021 EFSA review reached the same conclusion, finding it could not rule out DNA or chromosomal damage.

By contrast, the World Health Organization’s Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives maintains that as of 2023, the available evidence does not prove titanium dioxide is genotoxic. It isn’t completely clear how titanium dioxide nanoparticles cause genotoxicity, and evidence from studies conducted on humans is limited.

When titanium dioxide nanoparticles accumulate in the digestive tract of animals, they cause gut inflammation and damage to the intestinal lining. They can also cross the placental barrier, with animal studies linking prenatal exposure to developmental and neurological effects in offspring. Animal studies have also reported reproductive harm, including impaired sperm function and disrupted ovarian hormones.

Find out more

Learn more about recommendations relating to titanium dioxide – and the full EWG Dirty Dozen™ list of food chemicals – on EWG’s research page.

EWG’s Food Scores provides ratings for more than 150,000 foods and drinks based on nutrition, ingredients and processing concerns, and flags unhealthy ultra-processed foods to help you identify alternatives.

Titanium dioxide is also added to personal care products, including  sunscreens, as a whitener and UV filter. EWG’s Skin Deep® database helps to identify harmful chemicals in personal care and beauty products. Those bearing the EWG Verified® mark meet the strictest criteria for transparency and health. 

Titanium dioxide is safe when used on the skin as an ingredient in personal care products. It is classified as potentially hazardous if inhaled from sprays or loose powders, which permit titanium dioxide to reach deep into the lungs. EWG recommends avoiding titanium dioxide products that can be inhaled, such as spray sunscreens and loose powders. 

EWG’s Healthy Living™ app lets you take these tools with you on the go.

Areas of Focus Food Ultra-Processed Foods Food Chemicals Authors Sarah Reinhardt, MPH, RDN October 22, 2026

Just weeks before the November midterm elections, a federal judge in California ordered on Oct. 21 a preliminary injunction that stops the Trump administration in nine states from weaponizing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to harass and intimidate voters by having armed agents go door to door to question their eligibility to vote.