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Popularitas Spaceman tidak hanya didukung oleh tampilannya yang menarik, tetapi juga karena permainan ini memberikan pengalaman interaktif yang berbeda dibandingkan permainan digital lainnya. Hal tersebut menjadikan Spaceman sebagai salah satu pilihan hiburan yang banyak dibicarakan oleh berbagai kalangan.

Terbang Tinggi Bersama Spaceman Raih Kemenangan Melalui Strategi

Keberhasilan dalam bermain Spaceman bukan hanya dipengaruhi oleh keberuntungan semata. Pemahaman terhadap mekanisme permainan menjadi faktor penting yang dapat membantu pemain mengambil keputusan secara lebih rasional.

Salah satu pendekatan yang banyak diterapkan adalah menentukan target sejak awal sebelum permainan dimulai. Dengan memiliki batas kemenangan maupun batas risiko, pemain dapat menjaga konsistensi tanpa mudah terbawa emosi ketika permainan berlangsung.

Selain itu, pengelolaan modal juga memiliki peran yang sangat penting. Mengatur nominal permainan sesuai kemampuan akan membantu menjaga keseimbangan sehingga pengalaman bermain tetap terasa nyaman. Pendekatan ini sering menjadi rekomendasi dari pemain berpengalaman karena mampu mengurangi keputusan impulsif yang berpotensi meningkatkan risiko.

Pentingnya Memahami Pola Permainan

Setiap permainan digital memiliki karakteristik tersendiri, termasuk Spaceman. Oleh sebab itu, memahami pola permainan menjadi langkah yang bijak sebelum mulai bermain secara aktif.

Banyak pemain meluangkan waktu untuk mengamati ritme permainan terlebih dahulu. Walaupun hasil setiap putaran bersifat independen dan tidak dapat dipastikan, proses observasi dapat membantu pemain lebih memahami dinamika permainan sehingga keputusan yang diambil terasa lebih terukur.

Pendekatan analitis seperti ini menunjukkan bahwa pengalaman dan pemahaman terhadap mekanisme permainan memiliki nilai yang tidak kalah penting dibandingkan sekadar mengejar hasil instan.

Pengalaman Bermain yang Bertanggung Jawab

pengalaman bermain yang positif selalu didukung oleh pengambilan keputusan yang bertanggung jawab. Menentukan batas waktu bermain, mengelola anggaran, serta memahami aturan permainan merupakan bagian dari praktik yang lebih bijaksana.

Pemain yang memiliki disiplin umumnya lebih mampu menikmati setiap sesi permainan tanpa tekanan berlebihan. Dengan demikian, aktivitas bermain tetap menjadi bentuk hiburan digital yang menyenangkan sekaligus terkendali.

Selain itu, memilih platform yang memiliki sistem keamanan yang baik, layanan pelanggan responsif, serta informasi permainan yang transparan juga menjadi aspek penting dalam menciptakan pengalaman pengguna yang lebih terpercaya.

Kesimpulan

Tema “Terbang Tinggi Bersama Spaceman Raih Kemenangan” menggambarkan semangat untuk mencapai hasil terbaik melalui persiapan, strategi, dan pengambilan keputusan yang tepat. Memahami mekanisme permainan, menerapkan pengelolaan modal yang disiplin, serta bermain secara bertanggung jawab merupakan fondasi penting dalam memperoleh pengalaman bermain yang lebih optimal.

As the foundations of the transatlantic alliance strain under the weight of the US’s growing unilateralism, Europe is being forced to imagine a defence of its own. But what would that defence look like – and what would it cost, financially and politically? Green leaders Franziska Brantner and Rui Tavares talk to Edouard Gaudot about how Europe can protect itself without losing sight of why it’s worth protecting.

Edouard Gaudot: Amid heightened geopolitical tension and the growing prevalence of military conflict, can you briefly describe the state of Europe and the world today? 

Rui Tavares: I’d say there’s a general crisis of imagination. Usually, imagination comes after war. But today, the challenge is finding imagination before conflict. 

Franziska Brantner: For me, it’s confusion and a lack of courage from Europeans, and from the Americans and the rest of the world, it’s the return of madness and “might makes right.” 

Rui Tavares: Exactly. There’s a form of madness that comes with this absence of imagination, as if we’re living in a parallel reality. 

What does green leadership look like in a world plunged into chaos and conflict? 

Rui Tavares: We need to educate people but stay calm at the same time. We must avoid scaring them and instead prepare them for political debates and tough choices. Public opinion matures: 10 years ago, it would have been impossible to talk realistically about a European defence community. Now, with Trump, everyone can see that if the Europeans don’t create one, they’ll be defenceless at the decisive moment. 

Franziska Brantner: I’m rather proud to have seen this debate taking shape in a country like Germany. Previously, everyone would say to me, “You’re just an anti-Atlanticist,” even as I explained that my emphasis on defence autonomy had nothing to do with the United States but was about our responsibility. Now, it’s become very clear that the Americans won’t always be there for us. The task for Europe, then, is to step up and take responsibility for its own defence and security.  

For the Greens, defending Europe means safeguarding peace and freedom. Therefore, Europe’s defence can only be European. I note that many German Green party members (of whom there are over 180,000 today) have far fewer reservations than the party’s leaders do about the need for a stronger military capability.  

That’s surprising for a party that was founded in the 1970s on, among other things, pacifism and non-violence. 

Franziska Brantner: There’s a profound difference between pacifism and non-violence. Of course, we must promote non-violent education and a non-violent society, but that isn’t pacifism. In our party, it was Joschka Fischer [German foreign minister from 1998 to 2005] who started this cultural shift at the time of the Kosovo conflict. But with Ukraine, everything changed. Today I find myself in the party’s centre, because some Greens have gone so far that they need reminding that weapons are not necessarily the only answer, nor the best. 

For the Greens, defending Europe means safeguarding peace and freedom. Therefore, Europe’s defence can only be European.

Rui Tavares: Ideally, we would be having this debate on a European army after making sure that we really have a European democracy, with full tax-raising powers and a parliament that could oversee this army. But the war in Ukraine has brought urgency and upended priorities. I sense it in my voters [in Portugal], too: when I suggest moving cautiously, they reply that Putin is at the gates and that Trump could threaten to annex the Azores – where there is already an American base – just as he threatened Greenland. This question was even put to the prime minister, whose answer was: “It’s best we don’t talk about it.” 

So, to those who want to accelerate Europe’s militarisation, we must point out that Europe is not yet ready because it lacks the mechanisms for oversight and funding. 

Franziska Brantner: Among German Greens, there’s a debate about funding at the European level. Some insist that European treaties prohibit military spending. And even if the resources were there, they would rather defend the institutional framework than find ways to move ahead on funding and democratic oversight. This is a problem, because once we find the path forward, it would be better if all this remained under parliamentary oversight. 

What about the “alliance of middle powers” proposed by Mark Carney, the global security architecture, and the French nuclear umbrella? How should European defence fit into the current geopolitical landscape?  

Franziska Brantner: We need a European budget for common defence, with common goals. I’d rather this were created within the institutions, but if it’s impossible for reasons of legality or majority, let’s devise ad hoc institutions. As for alliances, it’s absolutely essential to include the United Kingdom, and maybe Norway. Turkey and Canada also have roles to play, but on a broader level. 

When it comes to nuclear weapons, let’s be clear-eyed: neither the United States – especially today – nor France nor the United Kingdom will agree to sharing responsibility, in the sense of sharing the power to press the “red button”. That said, Europeans must talk to each other, to France and the United Kingdom, about a European nuclear doctrine. In return, we will obviously have to increase funding for conventional weapons. 

A nuclear guarantee would entail a sort of strategic leadership from France that its partners may not be willing to allow, and that Paris may not be willing to accept.  

Franziska Brantner: That’s possible, but we don’t have a choice. Putin’s threat is real, and so is Trump’s retreat. I really wish we lived in a better world, but we don’t. If Europe can’t do it, there are already German conservatives proposing a German nuclear deterrent. I think this is a very bad idea, even if Germany has the capability. It would violate both our constitution and international treaties. 

Rui Tavares: On the French nuclear guarantee, the speed of the debate is astonishing. These things usually move forward at a glacial pace, but this is now actually being considered. I think we need to do something very simple, but very visible: expand French nuclear doctrine to include Article 42.7 of the Treaty on European Union. It talks about coming to the aid of threatened member states with all available resources. That would mean nuclear weapons, too. 

As for this alliance of middle powers, it always bothers me a bit that we stop at Canada. What about Brazil, Mexico, and other countries? There’s some strategic partners for you. 

Franziska Brantner: I think that our approach to them is primarily driven by economic and political interests. 

Rui Tavares: True, but Europeans also ignore what these countries say about the state of the world, about development and UN reforms. They don’t want to listen to what Brazil might also have to say about the remembrance of slavery, for example. If Europe wants to counter authoritarian powers by courting middle powers that are not particularly invested in the UN-led rules-based international order, we need to listen to them. These potential partners are fed up with European arrogance, and that’s why we failed to secure their full backing for Ukraine. Europe must challenge its assumptions and get out of its comfort zone. 

Franziska Brantner: I still think there’s a distinction to be made between economic ties – political and strategic ties even – and defence ties. I completely agree with you on the first three, but when it comes to European defence, I’m less convinced. 

Rui Tavares: But to fight drug trafficking in the South Atlantic, for example, you’ll have to speak to the South Americans. 

Alliances aside, a European defence of Europe means grappling with questions of industrial policy. A military budget is all well and good, but what for? 

Rui Tavares: When the Americans built up their military power after the [Second World] War, they made colossal public investments in research through the likes of MIT and special programmes. As we all know, the Internet was a direct result of this type of research. So I find it worrying that the revolution in artificial intelligence, fundamental in the realm of defence, is completely driven, shaped, and dominated by the private sector, with no public involvement. Here, Europe has an enormous historic opportunity to make massive public investments – especially in research, science, and technology – with ambitious goals. 

If we show that military research produces civilian advances, we can escape this pernicious trap that forces voters to choose between funding a welfare state and funding its defence.

Franziska Brantner: In Europe, it’s the Ukrainians who are doing this. They are the most creative and innovative. Even more so than the Americans. 

And how should we respond to those who claim social spending is being sacrificed on the altar of military expenditure? 

Franziska Brantner:  First of all, we need a single, integrated defence market with economies of scale and the capacity to develop our own technological sovereignty, in AI for example. This must be done in a way that delivers technological and economic benefits – “defence dividends” for European industrial productivity and sovereignty.  

But it’s obvious that in the long run we can’t fund defence through borrowing. Germany already spends 80 billion euros a year on servicing debt. An extra 40 billion euros of debt is expected to be added just for defence. For younger generations, it’s unsustainable. And there’s also the risk that unsustainable borrowing could cost us dearly, both economically and socially. So at some point, we must either increase resources or make cuts somewhere.  

We also have to become more economically efficient. If productivity stops growing, it will put more pressure on the budget. We got lucky for 80 years, but the peace dividend is gone. 

That said, there will be dividends from public spending on defence, though we’ll have to make sure that they’re not pocketed by the richest. That’s another way of asking how we draw the line between public and private.  

Let’s be clear about this: we need a European defence industry to protect our peace and our way of life – and in the long run, this will pay fresh dividends from a new and sovereign peace.  

Rui Tavares: This is where I disagree with you. I don’t want to reopen arguments from the Eurozone crisis, which was extremely painful. But there’s a difference, perhaps cultural, between north and south on the question of debt. When I’m told that we must invest in defence spending to meet global challenges and that doing so without cutting social spending is unrealistic, my response is that investing in defence without borrowing is what’s unrealistic. Military investment has always been expensive. If we take an existential threat seriously, we don’t fret about debt. Especially given that, in the past, military investment has always been accompanied or followed by new social investment. 

Just take into account the fact that there’s a housing crisis in Europe, an issue that’s very real for many people. If we developed construction technologies, with new materials invented through research and development, and if we had a European housing agency, we could build on this progress. And since armies have always been full of engineers, this might be another benefit of military spending – a war dividend. 

If we show that military research produces civilian advances, we can escape this pernicious trap that forces voters to choose between funding a welfare state and funding its defence. This is where Germany has a key role to play: Germans must understand that Europe is willing to invest in safe debt. Now that American debt is no longer safe, if Europeans were to finally opt for the famous Eurobonds, there would be billions of euros ready to invest. 

Franziska Brantner: So long as these are really investments. Otherwise, they’re a waste of resources, and future generations will have to pay for them. We’ve taken on almost 100 billion euros in defence debt, and 99 per cent of this money has gone into stuff that’s obsolete. 

So, we need to develop a European military-industrial complex, one that builds for the future, not the past. 

Franziska Brantner: Exactly. We must break free from past inertias. It’s also the case for our welfare state in Germany: there are reforms that will improve the quality of services while also making savings, and they have to be implemented. We can’t just refuse to make savings. It’s impossible, especially with an ageing society. We can’t hide behind false pretexts. I think we have to invest in defence while also reforming the economy and public services.  

How do we prepare people for the reality of the security threats facing Europe and the responses they require? 

Rui Tavares: I loved the Niinistö report [drawn up by Sauli Niinistö, former president of Finland and special adviser to the president of the European Commission] because it shares with the rest of Europe Nordic know-how on defence, which is based around society, families, and bonds. Some materials – like booklets on preparedness and local defence – can be reproduced, printed, and distributed to all European households. But it’s important to take into account cultural and social realities: you’re supposed to have two weeks’ supplies in the house to be prepared, but in Portugal, where wages are often spent by the 10th of the month, I’m sure the survival kit won’t last. 

So, we should perhaps think about distribution networks, mobilise local councils, and even involve the fire service. These are also opportunities to make Europe tangible. When devastating fires or floods break out, people expect a European response. With a European war and disaster survival kit that could be distributed to citizens, Europe’s role in helping people would be clearer to see. 

Franziska Brantner: I fear that it won’t work – that without a sense of urgency, people won’t be ready. 

Besides the European defence technological and industrial base, what industrial policy should be implemented at the EU level? 

Franziska Brantner: I believe European competitiveness rests on three pillars. First, resilience, which requires a reduction in our dependencies, especially on China and the United States. Next, innovation. Not just in defence, but in tech, medicine, the bioeconomy. And the third is sustainability, which is a necessary response to climate change and inequality.  

To succeed, we need education that develops our young people’s skills and capacity for innovation. It’s competitiveness in the service of social wellbeing and a better quality of life.  

Going forward, what objectives do you think Europe should prioritise? How can the European project gain more relevance and foster cohesion?  

Franziska Brantner: I think the question we must ask ourselves first is: “Why do we want peace, freedom, and democracy?” For us Europeans, the challenge is to give a meaning to freedom that isn’t JD Vance’s, and a substance to peace that isn’t Putin’s. It’s up to us to do this, because it’s Europe that upholds these values. And without them, the European project is hollow. 

Rui Tavares: I couldn’t agree more, and I’d like to add another idea: quality of life. Seen from the outside, Europe is defined by a way of life and a standard of living. Our notion of freedom is built on a universal right to this quality of life. It doesn’t mean that everybody is rich, but it does mean that nobody is poor. When we put this idea at the core of European policies, we soon see that it touches on everything: the economy, social policy, the environment, culture, security, and defence. 

What worries me is a sense that the quality of life has stopped being a goal of politics. We keep hearing calls to sacrifice this or that service to save money. But I think that saving for saving’s sake doesn’t appeal to Europeans. Nobody wants to stay competitive just to win an economic war they don’t see any benefits in. Europeans are proud of their quality of life and are deeply attached to it – and for good reason. If we manage to convince them that the policies that affect them take this quality of life seriously, I think people will be more willing to make sacrifices. 

In the northeastern corner of the department of Tolima, on the banks of the Magdalena River,  Colombia's main waterway, stretching more than 1,600 kilometers, lies a colonial municipality called...

“MAGA Inc.: A Guide to Trump’s World of Crypto Czars, Tech Titans and Prison Profiteers” – CorpWatch’s latest report – is a deep dive into the companies that have bankrolled…

A group of former United States government employees recently relaunched the defunct website Climate.gov as Climate.us, reviving the nation’s leading online platform for climate data after it was shuttered by the Trump administration in 2025.

Climate.us is now home to 15 years’ worth of climate-related news, visual reports, educational tools, and more that were once found at Climate.gov. The government website was shut down last June shortly after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on federal science research. Just four months prior, the Trump administration also fired hundreds of staff members at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), including all of Climate.gov’s full-time staff. 

Over the past 12 months, a handful of those laid-off NOAA employees—led by Climate.us Managing Director Rebecca Lindsey, who served as Climate.gov’s head editor—have been rebuilding the website as an independent, nonprofit platform, tediously working through thousands of articles, links, and datasets. Among those efforts was the digital recovery of key resources such as the Fifth National Climate Assessment. The report was conducted by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, whose website the Trump administration also took down last year.

“Trusted climate information should not disappear when politics change,” Lindsey writes in a press release. “Climate.us is building an independent, durable platform so people can continue to find the data and information they need to understand and talk about climate, and to teach, report, plan, prepare, and make informed decisions.” 

Launched in 2010, Climate.gov provided the public with easy-to-understand climate resources, including interactive maps, robust curriculum materials for educators, and a dashboard of global climate change indicators. The Climate.us team continues that mission with the support of volunteers and donations, including over 80 scientists who review its content and around US$280,000 from crowdsourcing.

“Climate.gov was never about—and Climate.us will never be about—telling Americans what to do about climate change,” Lindsey tells NPR. “The site will continue to be nonpartisan but will be focusing on the science and explaining science and showing people what the data show.”

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 Tina Rolf, Unsplash

The post Climate.gov is Back With a New Name—From Employees Fired by Trump appeared first on Food Tank.

We talk with Survival International researcher Paul Renaut about the model of “fortress conservation,” that is driving forced evictions of Maasai people in Tanzania and how the UNESCO World Heritage status is amplifying that pressure.

More than 350 gas-powered generators could soon be operating just outside Philadelphia as part of Amazon’s proposed data center in Fairless Hills, Bucks County. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is hosting a public meeting about this proposal July 14. 

Over the July 4 holiday heatwave, existing data centers were instructed to run their gas generators on already polluted days, severely endangering local public health. We need our elected officials to prevent this from happening again.  

On hot summer days, when the region is already struggling with unhealthy air quality, those generators could add significant pollution to the air we breathe. Unless elected officials act now, this proposal could become a model for future data center development across southeastern Pennsylvania. 

Meeting growing electricity demand doesn’t mean building more fossil fuel infrastructure.

Data centers rely on massive amounts of electricity, and how we meet that demand will shape Pennsylvania’s energy future. Electricity costs are rising in Philadelphia, but expanded solar deployment has helped moderate those increases. 

Rather than responding to growing electricity demand with more fossil fuel development, city residents should demand that new data center development bring more solar onto our grid, making it easier for homes and commercial spaces to electrify while reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. 

The City is already taking steps in this direction. A planned 1.5 megawatt solar farm near the Northeast Philadelphia Airport would give the City government a set electricity rate for 25 years, in addition to a 20-year contract with a solar farm in Clearfield County, PA, further locking in long-term electricity rates for municipal operations, but not for residents.  

This should be extended to include Pennsylvania households. Pennsylvanians are still waiting for the state legislature to pass House Bill 1155, which would allow households to benefit from community solar projects and see savings on their electric bills while supporting clean energy.   

We can’t allow data center growth to become an excuse for slowing the transition away from fossil fuels. 

Regardless of nearby industrial development, residents can take action on their own. Moving from gas cooking and heating appliances to electric devices will improve air quality inside your home and throughout the region.

In the middle of a polluted, summer heat wave, it doesn’t make much sense to heat a tank of water with an open flame so you can wash your hands. Tankless, electric water heaters that only heat the water you need could have a massive impact on the city’s public health while reducing energy bills.  

Nationwide, electricity consumption is increasing, yet new solar generation — not additional gas-fired power — is meeting much of that demand. Pennsylvania should follow that example.

Courts have affirmed that states have the right to set a standard for the air pollution that’s emitted by gas appliances in buildings. Transitioning away from your own household gas appliances is one way to remove gas pollution from your life. Contacting your elected officials to ask them to push back against the hundreds of gas generators proposed in the region is another. 

Click here to tell your state and local officials to support a three-year pause on data center development.

 In a world where sustainability and agricultural efficiency are more important than ever, we present an essential guide that will transform your vision of field production: the Sugarcane and Rice...

As the world's most bird-diverse country, Colombia is home to 1,969 recorded bird species. Many of these birds inhabit landscapes that overlap with nearly 1.5 million acres of oil palm plantations...

Statement from Executive Director Jim Warren —

Don’t be surprised if Duke Energy soon reduces power generation from its nuclear fleet in the Carolinas as record-breaking drought and heatwaves continue across the region.

It’s happened in Europe. It happened in the US South a few years ago.

Each of Duke’s nuclear plants requires a vast amount of cool water – as much as a city – each day, both to produce steam for power and to prevent the reactor core from overheating.

When river and lake water get warmer and the levels drop, safety limits can require Shearon Harris and other plants to stop generating power.

The irony: As air conditioning becomes more vital to health and business in a rapidly warming world, the Achilles Heel of new nuclear is its need for massive amounts of cool water.

Duke leaders propose to bank our future on up to ten very large AP1000 reactors – the same model Duke failed six times trying to build between 2005 and 2017.

By contrast, solar plus battery storage (SPS) requires no water, is far cheaper and fairer to the people of North Carolina. Yet Duke leaders continue to stifle SPS.

We again call on Governor Josh Stein to press Duke Energy to finally begin a transition to renewable power.

###

Now in its 38th year, NC WARN is building people power in the climate and energy justice movement to persuade or require Charlotte-based Duke Energy – one of the world’s largest climate polluters – to make a quick transition to renewable, affordable power generation and energy efficiency in order to avert climate tipping points and ongoing rate hikes. 

The post Nuclear Plants Could Fail During Heat and Drought — Statement from Executive Director Jim Warren appeared first on NC WARN.

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler

I am finalizing a textbook on climate risk and am posting chapters as I finish them. I’d previously posted chapters about embedded energy, physical climate risk, and transition risk. This post is a chapter on attribution of extreme weather to climate change. It is an emerging battleground in the public debate over climate change, so this chapter is an opportunity to get up to speed on the science.

Introduction

In the aftermath of any major weather disaster, the question inevitably arises: “Did climate change cause this disaster?” However, this is a bad way to think about the problem.Climate change does not cause a rainstorm, a heatwave, or a hurricane in a direct sense. These hazards would still occur in a world without human influence on the climate: hurricanes would still form over warm ocean waters, heatwaves would remain a product of stationary high-pressure systems, and low-pressure systems will always generate rain and the occasional flood.

But climate change can make these events more intense. It takes a heatwave and pushes the temperature higher. It adds moisture to a rain event, generating more intense rainfall, enhancing flooding. Warmer oceans make a hurricane’s winds stronger and its rainfall more severe.

Therefore, the scientifically interesting question is not “Did climate change cause this?”, but about influence:

1.How much morelikely did climate change make this event?

2.How much moreintense did climate change make this event?

Answering these questions is the work of a rapidly advancing field of science called Extreme Event Attribution. This chapter will explore the methods scientists use to disentangle the roles of natural variability and climate change.

To understand the two different ways of looking at the problem, let’s examine a hot 38°C (99°F) day in a hypothetical city (like Houston, Texas) and examine each question in turn.

1. How much more likely has climate change made a 38°C day?

This figure sets up how scientists look at the problem.It shows two hypothetical distributions of daily temperature for the city. The red curve is the present-day distribution: the climate as it actually is today. The distributions tell you how often each temperature occurs in that world.For example, today’s temperature distribution peaks around 35°C with a value of 17%, meaning that 17% of days have temperatures around 35°C.

The blue curve is a counterfactual: the distribution that would occur in a world without climate change. For this hypothetical example, climate change has shifted the climate a few degrees toward warmer temperatures.

Given the two distributions, we can now answer the question of how much more likely a 38°C day is.In the counterfactual no-climate-change world, a 38°C day occurred on roughly 1.5% of days; in the present-day climate, it occurs on about 6% of days.

We define the relative risk to be the risk of the event in today’s climate divided by the risk in the counterfactual climate:

where Pa is the probability of the event in the world with climate change (6%) and Pc is the probability in the counterfactual world (1.5%). Thus, the relative risk in this example is 6%/1.5% = 4. We can therefore say that, “Climate change made this 38°C day four times as likely” or that, “The relative risk of a 38°C day is four.”

Because of the shape of the distributions, the relative risk increases with temperature.Using the same curves, a 42°C day occurs on 0.013% of days in the counterfactual world and 0.19% in the world with climate change, implying a relative risk of 15.This confirms that the hotter the day, the more the relative risk of that day has increased.In fact, we are approaching a world (if we’re not already there) with so much climate change that events occur that could not have occurred in the counterfactual world (Pc ≈ 0).For those events, the risk ratio is infinity.

Temperatures near average have a risk ratio around 1, meaning their probability isn’t changing much due to climate change.Below average temperatures (e.g., 27°C) have risk ratios less than one, indicating that they are occurring less often than in the counterfactual world.

2. How much did climate change warm this day?

This is a different way to ask the same question: how much hotter was the day because of climate change?To answer this, we look at the graph horizontally. We find the probability of a 38°C day on the present-day curve and trace it back to the same probability on the counterfactual curve.

In this example, we find that the same probability for today’s 38°C corresponds to a temperature of 36°C in the counterfactual climate. In this case, we can say, “Climate change made this hot day 2°C warmer.”

While some economic actors (e.g., governments, insurers) may focus on probability, most impact evaluations are clearer when examined through magnitude changes. In other words, it may be of more practical use to know that climate change warmed this day by 2°C or increased total rainfall by 30% than knowing that climate change increased the probability by a factor of four.

Thus, we can express climate change’s contribution to this hypothetical 38°C day in two ways.We can say that 1) climate change made the event four times more likely, or that 2) climate change added 2°C to the temperature.

Determining the counterfactual world

As discussed in the last section, estimating the impact of climate change on a meteorological event requires assessing the distribution of those events in the present-day world and in a counterfactual world without climate change.

To establish the present-day distribution of climate events (red curves in the plots above), researchers rely primarily on a combination of real-world observational records and numerical climate-model simulations of the present-day climate. To estimate the counterfactual climate (blue curves), the world that would have existed had human activities not altered the climate system, scientists will often run these same climate models but with human influences removed (e.g., carbon dioxide and other climate forcers set at pre-industrial values).

Researchers can also use historical observations to estimate the counterfactual climate. In some cases, researchers can use observations from a time period when human influence on the climate was small, such as the late 19th or early 20th century. As an example, this is a plot of Houston’s daily maximum temperature in the 1970s and 2016-2025:

There is a clear shift in the climate between these two periods, much — but not necessarily all of it — due to climate change.This shift made a day with a maximum temperature of 37°C (99°F) about 6.5 times more likely (i.e., risk ratio = 6.5); alternatively, it increased the temperature of this day by 2.3°C (4.1°F).

Notably, in the 1970s, daily maximum temperatures above 40°C (104°F) never occurred in Houston, but they did occur in the 2016-2025 period.Such days would therefore be considered virtually impossible without climate change.

One thing to look out for: After every extreme event, fossil-fuel interests will take to social media to point out that a more severe event — e.g., more rain, higher winds, and higher temperatures — occurred in, e.g., 18XX (some year in the late 19th century). They use this to incorrectly imply that climate change therefore could not have influenced the event.

But that’s a logical error.If you look at the probability distributions from Houston, you’ll see that you could have had a 39°C day in the counterfactual 1970s world (it’s just very unlikely). But the existence of a 39°C day in the 1970s doesn’t contradict the conclusion that the 37°C day you just lived through was enhanced by climate change.

Traditional detection and attribution

There is another way scientists connect climate change to extreme events known as detection and attribution.This approach focuses on trends in some quantity — for example, the trend in the annual maximum 1-day precipitation amount, with units of mm/decade.This is different from extreme event attribution, which focuses on individual extreme weather events.

As a simple example, suppose we have an observational time series of the aforementioned maximum daily rainfall at a station in the U.S. This gives us one number each year: the maximum daily rainfall in 1950, the maximum daily rainfall in 1951, and so on:

We want to know whether the variations in in this observed (synthetic) time series can be attributed to greenhouse gases from human activities, aerosols (basically air pollution and dust, this is partially due to human activities), or some combination of them. These different drivers have different trends over time: greenhouse gases have been steadily increasing, while aerosols in the U.S. increased until around 1970 and have declined since then.

The first step in detection and attribution is to run climate models to estimate the fingerprint of each process. To do this, scientists run climate models with just the increase in greenhouse gases, and then run the models again with just the changes in air pollution.These runs tell us what the observations would look like if just this forcing was present in the atmosphere.

We then compare the observed time series to the model fingerprints. A simple way to do this is with a regression model:

Here, obs(t) is the observed time series. G(t) is the greenhouse gas fingerprint timeseries, and A(t) is the aerosol fingerprint timeseries.

We then use regression techniques to estimate the coefficients bGHG and bAER, which tell us how much of each fingerprint is present in the observations. e is the residual, the part of the observations not explained by the fingerprints.

Here are the results:

In the left panel, the blue line is the synthetic observations and the orange line is the fit:

where G(t) and A(t) are the fingerprints above.As you can see, we can closely fit the observations with the fingerprints for greenhouse gases and aerosols.

Next, we examine the estimated coefficients (bGHG and bAER) and their uncertainty ranges (right panel). If a coefficient is statistically different from zero, we say that fingerprint has been detected. That’s the case here — the uncertainty bars do not cross zero — so the fingerprints for greenhouse gases and aerosols are detected.

This is the basic logic of detection and attribution.

Importantly, detection and attribution does not allow us to link specific events (e.g., Hurricane Harvey) to climate change.Rather, it allows us to connect the trend in some type of extreme weather (hurricanes) to human activities.

If you want to play around with a simple demonstration that shows how this works, click here.

This is an extremely powerful technique that has laid the foundation for much of our understanding of how climate change is affecting extreme weather.Here are some key results:

• Hot extremes and heatwaves: Humans are clearly making hot extremes more frequent and more intense through human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

• Heavy precipitation: Human influence, especially greenhouse gas emissions, is likely the main driver of the observed global-scale intensification of heavy precipitation over land.

• Flash flooding due to extreme rainfall: Scientists have high confidence that stronger extreme precipitation leads to more frequent and larger surface-water and flash floods.

• Drought: Scientists have medium confidence that human-caused climate change has increased drought1 in some regions.

• Tropical cyclones: Scientists have medium confidence that human influence has contributed to extreme tropical cyclone rainfall.In addition, the global proportion of the strongest tropical cyclones has likely increased over the past four decades, a change that cannot be explained with natural factors alone.

• Fire weather: Scientists have concluded with medium confidence that compound hot, dry, and windy conditions have become more likely in some regions.

Confidence in attribution studies

In reading the previous section, you saw that scientists have varying levels of confidence in the attribution statements.Some conclusions are termed likely or very likely, and confidence may be medium or high.How is this confidence determined?

The foundation of any attribution study is a solid physical understanding of why climate change would affect a particular type of event. If we can’t provide a mechanism, you really can’t believe an attribution study.

For many extreme events, the physics is well-understood and there is a clear connection between the climate and the severity of the events:

• Heatwaves: Greenhouse gases trap heat, shifting the distribution of temperatures toward warmer values, thereby making extreme heat more probable.

• Rainfall: The connection is the physical fact that a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor. This means that when a storm system develops, there is more available moisture to convert into rain, leading to more intense downpours.

• Wildfires: Warmer temperatures produce a drier atmosphere, dry out vegetation and make it more flammable.Thus, wildfires are expected to be bigger and more intense in a warmer climate.

For other phenomena, the physics is murkier. For example, there is no robust theory explaining how the total number of tropical cyclones will change as the climate warms (tropical cyclone is the general term for storms known as hurricanes in the Atlantic, typhoons in the Pacific, and cyclones in the Indian Ocean).Right now, there are around 80 tropical cyclones per year around the planet, and we can’t explain why that’s the number.Why isn’t it 8?Or 800?We don’t know.Without such an understanding, we can’t really trust climate models’ counterfactual world for this.

But this doesn’t mean that we know nothing about tropical cyclones.There are strong physical arguments that tropical cyclones will get more intense (higher wind speeds) and rainier as the climate warms, which will cause more damage.As an example, severalgroupsanalyzed the impact of climate change on Hurricane Harvey’s enormous rainfall totals over Houston, Texas and they found that climate change increased rainfall by ~20%.The increase in wind speed means that we expect the fraction of tropical cyclones reaching the major storm category (cat 3-5) will increase as the climate warms, in general agreement with our observational record.

Once you have a physical mechanism, the other factors that determine confidence are things like:

• How good is the observational record?For some things, like temperature, we have good observations going back to the 19th century.For others, like tropical cyclones, good observations are only available during the satellite era, i.e., since the 1970s.With a shorter dataset, your confidence in any attribution study will be lower.

• How good are climate models at simulating the weather phenomenon?Most attribution studies require climate models to generate the various counterfactual worlds (the world without climate change).Climate models do a really good job with temperature, which is a large-scale atmospheric phenomenon.But they do a much poorer job with precipitation, which is a very small-scale process that models struggle with.

• How many independent studies have confirmed an attribution statement?In science, the gold standard for a rigorous conclusion is that it has been multiply replicated by independent scientific groups.While any individual study might be flawed, the odds of a major error go down significantly if several groups have independently reached the same conclusion.

It is also worth noting that there may be times when detection and attribution studies fail but extreme event attribution studies can still identify a contribution of climate change to an extreme event. For example, high quality time series of some extreme events (e.g., tropical cyclones) may go back only a few decades, which may be too short for confident detection and attribution. Extreme event attribution approaches, which do not rely on long time series of observations, are nevertheless able to conclude that climate change is making specific hurricanes stronger.

Conclusion

The science of extreme event attribution has transformed our ability to discuss the impacts of climate change. We can now make statements about how climate change affected the likelihood and intensity of individual events as well as the trends in extreme events. This helps demonstrate that climate change is indeed increasing the ‘hazard’ component of climate risk.

As the science of extreme event attribution has developed, it has increasingly moved into the legal and public policy arenas. Fossil fuel interests are terrified that someone will use extreme event attribution science to sue them for their contribution to a natural disaster, or that policymakers will use extreme event attribution science to justify policies to restrict fossil-fuel use.

Because of this, the legitimacy of extreme event attribution is frequently contested by fossil-fuel interests. So don’t be surprised if you hear a lot of misinformation about extreme event attribution in the future.And don’t think that, just because people are criticizing these studies, that criticism is legitimate.

Note that the techniques described in this chapter deal with the effects of climate change on hazards.A new subfield, extreme event impact attribution connects climate change to the actual impacts (e.g., number of houses burned down in a wildfire, dollars of flood damage).This is an emerging area of research, and I expect that this is something we’re going to hear a lot more about in the future.

This is a draft of a section of my climate risk textbook (slightly edited & reformatted to make it appropriate for Substack). I’d very much like to identify errors now, so if you see any, please let me know in the comments.

1 Different types of drought respond differently to climate change. In this case, we are talking about agricultural and ecological droughts.

Very often, in cities, rural areas, and along roads, we see birds perched on power lines. For many people, this image is part of the everyday landscape: a bird resting on a power line, or small...

More than 600 financially vulnerable hospitals across the United States are set to experience an aggregate increase in financial deficits of between 50 and 75 percent. The financial losses, estimated in a new research study, present an extreme risk of cuts and closures of essential health care services for millions of people across the country.

This article The strategic satire of India’s Gen Z ‘Cockroach’ movement was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

On June 29, thousands of people gathered at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar — the capital’s designated site for public demonstration — in the second week of a growing sit-in accompanied by a wave of online dissent. What is being called India’s first “Gen Z protest” was spurred by an education system that many young Indians believe has failed to offer fair opportunities.

Protesters arrived carrying the Indian flag, copies of the constitution and red roses, which they handed to police officers stationed at the venue. Volunteers reminded participants to remain disciplined, avoid confrontation and document events on their phones.

“The truth has no spokesperson except your camera,” organizers told the crowd.

Many participants carried signs reading “Main Bhi Cockroach,”  or “I too am a cockroach,” and wore cockroach masks, reclaiming the label that inspired the movement.

From simmer to outrage

On May 12, the government invalidated the results of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), India’s highly competitive medical entrance examination, citing allegations of exam paper leaks and widespread irregularities.

Nine days after taking the exam, more than two million students found themselves back to where they had started — preparing for one of the world’s toughest examinations with less than a month’s time, competing for fewer than 130,000 undergraduate medical seats. Reports of severe student distress, including at least 13 cases of student suicides, emerged from across the country.

The cancellation reignited longstanding criticism of how India’s examination system is administered and the mounting psychological pressure placed on students seeking professional careers. Since 2021, at least 93 suicides linked to the intense competition and financial burden of the NEET exams have come to light. Meanwhile, the NEET papers have leaked at least 89 times over the last 10 years, affecting 65 million students. 

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Amid growing public anger, Supreme Court Chief Justice Surya Kant made a remark on May 15 that turned an already simmering online conversation into a wave of collective outrage. 

While questioning the conduct of lawyers he suspected of having fraudulent degrees, he turned toward the country’s unemployed youth, describing them as “cockroaches” and “parasites.”

“There are youngsters like cockroaches, who don’t get any employment or have any place in the profession,” he said. “Some of them become media, some of them become social media and activists, and they start attacking everyone.”

Justice Kant later said that his comments referred to individuals accused of obtaining fake degrees, and not the nation’s youth, whom he called the “pillars of a developed India.” 

But by then, the discussion had moved past the clarification.

In the midst of the online uproar, Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old Indian student based in Boston, casually posted a question on X, “What if all cockroaches came together?”

​The birth of Cockroach Janta Party

​Dipke’s call quickly sparked a wave of responses, with millions of young Indians embracing the cockroach as a symbol of resilience.

On May 16, Dipke announced the launch of Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, a satirical political outfit. It was widely seen as a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political party, the Bharatiya Janta Party, or BJP, which has been in power since 2014.

“The CJP began as an idea after we saw millions of youth were repeatedly being denied a voice,” Dipke told me. “When authorities suppress people’s voices, that’s exactly when people should come together and raise their voices.”

The party introduced itself as “the voice of the burnt-out youth” and “a political party for the people the system forgot to count.”

DipkeHe set up a party website, outlining its objectives and inviting supporters to pledge their membership. Its requirements reflected the movement’s irreverent tone. Prospective members, the website joked, should be unemployed, lazy, chronically online and possess “the ability to rant professionally.”

Within a few days, tens of thousands of people had signed up through an online registration form, while the hashtag #MainBhiCockroach (“I too am a cockroach”) spread widely across social media. The movement also drew public support from several opposition politicians.

The party’s Instagram account has now surpassed 22 million followers, overtaking the official BJP account, which has around 9.4 million followers despite being widely regarded as the world’s largest political party by membership.

Its presence on X, however, has faced restrictions multiple times. The CJP account, which has attracted more than 200,000 followers, has been inaccessible twice within India, with users receiving a notification that “the account has been withheld in response to a legal notice.”

The manifesto

Behind the satire lay serious political concerns.

“We are not here to set up another PM CARES, holiday in Davos on the taxpayer’s salary slip or rebrand corruption as strategic spending,” the website said. “We are here to ask — loudly, repeatedly, in writing — where the money went.”

Its mission statement speaks directly to the generation driving the movement — a cohort that came of age amid economic uncertainty, competitive examinations and near-constant political engagement online.

“Build a party for a generation raised on promises, notifications and low battery warnings,” the statement reads. “A generation that is overqualified, frustrated, angry at what’s broken and financially confused,” the website further explained.

For supporters, the satire succeeded because it gave voice to frustrations that had been building for years. Behind the absurdity of a political party named after one of the world’s most resilient insects was a manifesto addressing issues that have long dominated public debate in India: the lack of judicial independence, doubts over free and fair elections, growing corporate control of media, frequent party defections and the underrepresentation of women in politics.

One proposal called for retired Chief Justices of India to be barred from accepting seats in the Rajya Sabha — the upper house of Parliament — after leaving office. The demand reflects concerns raised by critics that post-retirement appointments to political office blur the separation between the judiciary and the executive.

Another focused on electoral integrity. In deliberately hyperbolic language, the manifesto declared that election officials responsible for removing legitimate voters from electoral rolls be arrested under India’s principal anti-terror law — a key tool that the Modi administration uses to silence its critics — because “taking away voting rights of citizens is no less than terrorism.” The proposal referred to a recent controversy in which 9.1 million names were stripped from voter rolls in the West Bengal state elections won by the BJP in April.

Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke leads chants during a CJP protest on June 6, 2026. (Getty/Arun Sankar)

Gender equality also features prominently. While India’s Parliament passed legislation in 2023 reserving one-third of parliamentary seats for women — a reform that has yet to be implemented — the CJP argued that women should instead hold half of all cabinet positions and seats in Parliament.

The manifesto also took aim at India’s media, proposing that television channels and news organizations owned by some of the country’s largest business conglomerates lose their broadcasting licenses to make way for independent journalism. Although framed satirically, the proposal echoed longstanding criticism from media watchdogs and opposition groups that growing corporate ownership has weakened the independence of India’s mainstream press.

It also targeted one of the country’s most persistent political problems: party defections. The manifesto proposed permanently disqualifying elected lawmakers who switch political parties after winning office, a practice that has repeatedly altered governments at both the national and state levels despite existing anti-defection laws.

Taken together, the manifesto is less a conventional political program than a vehicle for expressing public frustration through humor. Its proposals were intentionally exaggerated, but the concerns they referenced were familiar to many Indians.

From meme to movement

“Time to turn this tiny joke into a revolution,” the official CJP account on X posted after Dipke announced he was returning to India from Boston.

Upon his return on on June 6, Dipke travelled directly from the airport to New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, the capital’s designated site for public demonstration, where the party held its first protest, demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the repeated paper leaks and other alleged failures in conducting competitive examinations that affect millions of students and job seekers.

Despite the movement’s massive online reach, fewer than 2,000 people attended the inaugural rally, according to media reports. The turnout highlighted the gap that often exists between digital support and physical mobilization.

Standing before the crowd in Delhi’s summer heat, Dipke gave Pradhan until 5 p.m. that day to resign. When no response came, he extended the deadline by another week.

“But this doesn’t end here. Dharmendra Pradhan has wronged an entire generation. If he is not removed or does not step down within the next seven days, we will be forced to continue our protest on the ground,” he wrote later on X.

Rather than fading, the movement continued to gain momentum and has now entered into its second month.

“So far, we have not seen any substantial and meaningful effort from the government to address our demands,” Dipke told me. “If our demands are not met, our movement will still remain peaceful and continue through constitutional and democratic means.”

Beginning June 11, CJP supporters organized demonstrations across cities like Pune, Lucknow, Amritsar, Hyderabad and Bangalore. The demand remained unchanged: Pradhan must quit.

When the minister refused, the organization escalated its campaign, announcing an indefinite sit-in at Jantar Mantar beginning June 20. “This protest will go on for as long as it takes,” Dipke declared. “Nobody will move till Dharmendra Pradhan resigns.”

“I am appealing to all cockroaches, parents and teachers from Delhi to come and join us at Jantar Mantar,” he continued. “We will stay put for as long as we can, but we will not be able to pull this off unless we have your support.”

Students, teachers, parents, lawyers, activists, trade union members and farmers began arriving from across the country. Volunteers coordinated food, water and medical assistance, while supporters continued to amplify the movement online. So far, 800,000 online petitions have been signed demanding Pradhan’s sacking.

Major support has come from student organizations such as All India Students Association and Students Federation of India, or SFI. SFI has been protesting against examination irregularities since early May, with several members detained during demonstrations in different parts of the country. 

“The students and youth have been frustrated for quite some time,” said Aishe Ghosh, joint secretary of SFI. “The repeated incidence of paper leaks and rising unemployment has made the students and youth hostile towards the government.”

India is home to the world’s largest population of youth between the ages of 15 to 29, and has recorded the highest unemployment rate among graduates, estimated at 15.2 percent.

For Ghosh, the demonstrations reflected more than a single policy failure. “The ongoing protest is just a combination of the long-term anger and frustration,” she said.

Among those who answered Dipke’s call was Dr. Dighe, a Mumbai-based physician whose son took the NEET examination in May.

He said the cancellation of the results had taken a significant toll on his son’s mental health, but that his decision to protest also came from his experience as a doctor.

“I understand how important this examination is for the medical students who later become doctors,” he said. “I am here at the protest for my son, for the future of several other NEET aspirants and to save the medical profession of this country.”

The protest was also expected to draw support from several farmers’ unions, which announced plans to join the demonstration on June 28. However, on the morning of the protest, several leaders were reportedly placed under house arrest, preventing them from reaching the site.

“If leaders are placed under house arrest before joining any peaceful democratic movement, it is a matter of grave concern,” Dipke told me. “In a democracy, every citizen and organization has the right to express their views peacefully. We believe that dialogue and participation strengthen democracy, while restrictions and oppression do not.”

A distinctly Gen Z protest

As the protest grows, the CJP has developed a style of resistance that looks very different from the traditional political demonstrations in India. Memes and satire heavily drawn from internet culture are becoming central to how young people express political anger. Videos shared across Instagram, X and YouTube show protesters blending humor with dissent, creating a protest culture that feels distinctly Gen Z while addressing long-standing concerns over education, unemployment and government accountability.

The movement’s online identity quickly spilled onto the streets. At Jantar Mantar on June 29, protesters carried hand-painted placards filled with political criticism with meme culture, Bollywood references and internet humor. One sign read, “We asked for ‘Make in India,’ you gave us ‘Leak in India,’” referring to Modi’s flagship manufacturing campaign and the repeated examination paper leaks that triggered the movement. Another simply read, “Bro is still employed,” alongside a photograph of the Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, while others promoted the campaign “Pradhan Go Back.”

Between speeches and performances, groups of students were also seen playing cricket, giving the protest the feel of a community gathering as much as a political demonstration.

The familiar slogan of “Azaadi” (freedom) was reinterpreted to express frustration with the education system. Organizers also asked demonstrators to bring candles “in memory of each student who committed suicide, and the ones whose government failed to protect.”

Thousands of young people and activists gather at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar for the Cockroach Janta Party’s indefinite peaceful sit-in. (Samrat Sonawane / CJP)

Visual symbolism has become another defining feature of the movement. Groups beat steel plates and spoons, reversing Modi’s 2020 call for Indians to bang utensils in support of frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. This time, the gesture became a demand for accountability from the government. Organizers launched  a “Diaper Donation Drive,” encouraging supporters to write messages on diapers demanding the education minister’s resignation and send them to his office.

Despite these colorful tactics, Ghosh said the movement has received little attention from the mainstream media.

“The state is careful and alert to any eruption of collective anger or dissent,” Ghosh said. “Hence, it is using all mechanisms to control the narrative of the ongoing protests. Except for a section of social media, mainly the mainstream media has been blacked out from coverage.”

But throughout, students documented the protest as it happened, filming Instagram Reels, livestreaming speeches and posting photographs that carried the movement beyond the protest site and onto social media in real time.

Under state surveillance

As the CJP protest gathers momentum, the police presence has become increasingly visible. Protesters arriving at Jantar Mantar were required to show identification and pass through a scanning machine before entering. 

The security arrangements extended well beyond the entrance. Plainclothes police photographers and videographers blended into the crowd, documenting the gathering from within. CCTV cameras have been installed and around 270 body cameras are being used by Delhi Police. Several police buses remained parked outside the protest site throughout the day, while drones hovered overhead, keeping a close watch on the demonstration from the air. The CJP alleges that the government is also monitoring protesters’ phone calls and chats. 

“If people participating in peaceful protests are placed under excessive surveillance or made to feel intimidated, it is contrary to democratic values,” Dipke said.

As evening fell, the atmosphere grew more tense. Police repeatedly announced that protesters would have to vacate the site.

Soon after, electricity to the stage was cut, silencing the sound system. Demonstrators allege that police then temporarily blocked food and drinking water from entering the venue and cut off the water supply in nearby restrooms.

Several hours later, electricity was restored, food and water supplies resumed and restrictions on movement in and out of the protest site were eased. Yet the sit-in continued under heavy police surveillance as it entered its third week.

Police intimidation extends beyond the protest site itself. Delhi Police put up a notice declaring the protest unlawful and has tracked down organizers in person to intimidate and interrogate them.

“Many supporters who have been helping the protesters with food and water are being targeted by the authorities,” said Samrat Sonawane, a CJP volunteer. “Large teams from the Delhi Police and Crime Investigation Department have been visiting homes of several Delhi-based protesters in the early hours of the morning.”

“The authorities are also going to protesters’ relatives’ homes and warning them not to participate in the protest, claiming it is linked to terrorist activities,” Samrat added.

Despite the growing restrictions, CJP organizers continued to seek dialogue with the government. They say they have received no response. “The government has become totally deaf, dumb and blind to the demands of the youth,” CJP spokesperson Sourav Das said.

Ghosh believes the government’s reluctance to engage with the protesters is deliberate.

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“The government is actually avoiding engaging with the ongoing protest as a tactical strategy to further avoid antagonizing the larger student community,” she said.

On June 28, the education reformist, climate activist and Ramon Magsaysay Award recipient Sonam Wangchuk, who had been at Jantar Mantar since June 6, announced an indefinite hunger strike — a form of nonviolent protest with a long history in India. 

“Hunger strike is not the first but the final democratic expression of a movement,” Dipke said of the strategic decision to move toward hunger strikes. “The purpose of this strike is not to confront anyone, but to seriously draw the attention of the government and society towards this issue.” 

Democracy in question

Many protesters spent their nights sleeping on roads and pavement despite Delhi’s sweltering summer heat. For many, it was the first time they had ever participated in a public demonstration. Several students chose to remain at the protest site even after retaking the examination on June 21, saying the movement had grown beyond the paper leak and had become a fight for accountability in India’s education system.

For much of this generation, Modi’s government is the only political administration they have known. Their protest unfolded against the backdrop of a decade in which demonstrations over issues ranging from the Citizenship Amendment Act to the years-long farmers’ movement have faced heavy policing, legal action against organizers and administrative restrictions. Civil liberties groups and opposition leaders have argued that these measures reflect a shrinking space for peaceful dissent. 

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“This government doesn’t want the coming generation to question it,” Samrat said. “The more the public turns towards illiteracy, the easier it becomes for the BJP to continue running the government.”

When asked about the ongoing protests, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan dismissed the CJP as a “B team of disruptive elements,” a remark that fueled further criticism from protesters, who said the government was choosing confrontation over conversation.

The heavy surveillance at Jantar Mantar, combined with repeated attempts to end the sit-in, reinforced the students’ belief that the government was unwilling to engage directly with their demands. Yet despite the barricades, police presence and administrative restrictions, they continue to return each day, insisting that their struggle was no longer only about a leaked examination, but about the future of public education and the right to be heard.

“Our protest is fully nonviolent and falls within the scope of our constitution,” Dipke said. “Instead of breaking the morale of the protesters, this situation has created more awareness towards their rights.”

Whether the protest ultimately compels political action remains uncertain. But for the hundreds of young people who have spent days and nights at Jantar Mantar, it has already become something larger than a demand to reconduct an examination or remove a minister. 

It is a test of whether peaceful dissent can still compel those in power to listen. As Dipke said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi must decide whether [ten million] students or one incompetent minister is more important.”

This article The strategic satire of India’s Gen Z ‘Cockroach’ movement was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

GARNER, N.C. – North Carolina lawmakers included a major investment in farmland preservation in the budget passed on July 2, including a $46.9 million nonrecurring allocation to the Agricultural...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is considering a proposal to increase line speeds in pork and poultry processing plants. Its goal, they say, is to increase efficiency, lower grocery costs, and strengthen the supply chain. But policymakers, workers groups, and advocacy organizations are voicing concerns about worker and food safety, animal welfare, and negative economic consequences.

“As Secretary, my responsibility is to ensure that American families have access to affordable, safe, and abundant food,” says U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins. By updating slaughterhouse regulations, the USDA aims to lower production and grocery costs, create a stronger food system, and remove barriers to efficiency.

If adopted, the proposal will raise line processing speeds to a maximum of 175 chickens per minute (from 140) and 60 turkeys per minute (from 55), and remove the limit for pigs entirely. It also eliminates the requirement that New Swine Slaughter Inspection System (NSIS) plants submit an annual attestation that documents working condition monitoring. This effectively leaves all worker safety regulation and reporting to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

“Lifting the cap on the rate of meat slaughter shows a disturbing lack of care by USDA for the safety of the men and women working in meatpacking plants,” U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) tells Food Tank. He adds, “Increased slaughter line speeds are inhumane for the animals and will make workers collateral damage to the meatpackers’ relentless drive toward ever higher profits.”

An average of 27 workers a day sustain severe injuries, including the loss of a body part, or require an overnight hospital stay, according to an article by Debbie Berkowitz and Patrick Dixon. The USDA’s own study finds that piece rate—a metric of job-specific line speeds and staffing levels—can cause an increase in musculoskeletal disorder, which 81 percent of plant workers are at high risk for. Of the 40 percent of workers who experience moderate to severe work-related pain, almost half did not report it to their supervisor, according to the USDA report.

These injuries are a result of supervisors pressuring employees to work as fast as possible, according to Axel Fuentes, the Executive Director of the Rural Community Workers Alliance. He says that workers have no time to sharpen and sheath their knives, causing them to stab themselves or their coworkers. Workers do not get bathroom breaks, putting them, especially pregnant individuals, at risk for developing a urinary tract infection. While OSHA is meant to protect workers, it cannot regulate line speeds. The USDA, which oversees line speed regulation, will only do so to ensure food safety. 

But Fuentes tells Food Tank that plant workers have seen USDA inspectors “just turn their eyes away” at food safety violations. Current line speeds are so fast that “meat gets piled, it can fall on the floor. [Workers] have even seen supervisors coming and picking up the meat from the floor and putting it back on the conveyor belt when it’s already contaminated,” says Fuentes. Because of the pressure to maintain line speeds, workers are unable to stop the conveyor belt to clean it.

Increasing line speeds can also negatively affect rural economies, Mark Lauritsen, International Vice President and Director of the Food Processing, Packing, and Manufacturing Division at the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), tells Food Tank. He says that this proposal can lead to further industry consolidation, causing plant closures and eliminating jobs. 

“When you take that kind of revenue out of the town, the tax base diminishes, the businesses diminish, the school gets diminished… and that’s going to really have a bad impact on rural America,” Lauritsen explains. He points to the Tyson plant closure in Lexington, Nebraska as an example and adds that greater efficiency means fewer working hours and smaller paychecks for plant workers.

Rules and regulations are in place that protect meat processing workers and ensure food safety, but these measures largely fail, especially under the current administration, Lauritsen says. With the increase in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, undocumented workers are reluctant to report job-related injuries out of fear of deportation. These individuals make up an estimated 30 to 50 percent of the meatpacking workforce, according to a study in the Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

In the Missouri plants where Fuentes organizes, workers are now less likely to complain when they are mistreated by a supervisor, including women who experience sexual harassment. Without the NSIS annual attestation requirement, he expects that workplace injuries are likely to be further under reported. Fuentes is also receiving more phone calls from workers experiencing mental distress since the administration change as stress levels rise.

“This government is not protecting workers at all,” says Fuentes. “The only way to tackle this is getting organized… and [using] the collective power to make sure that the company can treat the workers better and can avoid violating workers’ rights.”

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Photo courtesy of U.S. Government Accountability Office, Wikimedia Commons

The post Worker Advocates Challenge USDA Proposal for Faster Slaughterhouse Lines appeared first on Food Tank.

Video: Ian Angus speaking at the Canadian launch of Metabolic Rifts: Capitalism’s Assault on the Earth System

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Developers are asking Pittsburgh City Council to vote on another major tax giveaway scheme – giving up to $200 million dollars to a handful of Downtown private real estate companies, without any requirements around public benefit. This vote to implement the Downtown Transit Revitalization Improvement District (TRID) will divert tax revenue from the Strip District, Downtown and the North Shore for the next 40 (!) years into the coffers of private corporations.

Right now, when working people and our public agencies are struggling to make ends meet, Pittsburgh City Council is being asked (via the Urban Redevelopment Authority) to hand the Golden Triangle yet another golden ticket.

Take Action: Tell Council to fund neighborhoods, not developers What is the TRID proposal?

A TRID is a type of legislation intended to fund transit improvements—but this one won’t do that. Instead, here’s how this proposal would work: 

• The City (i.e., taxpayers) would initially borrow $50 million to invest exclusively in the TRID area: the Strip District, parts of the North Shore, and Downtown. This money would effectively be a grant paid to wealthy developers, with the City gambling on future tax revenue to pay down the debt.
  • Many Downtown developers are concurrently challenging their commercial property assessments, so that they could pay lower taxes in the future.
    
• Only 20% of this money would be invested in public infrastructure—but they’ve not named any particular public projects that would benefit. By contrast, the remaining 80% has been earmarked for specific, private, for-profit real estate developers.
  
• All future public tax dollars from Downtown, the Strip District, and the North Shore for the next 40 years would be diverted to a “Golden Triangle Reinvestment Fund”, exclusively financing development in a small pocket of Downtown. This fund would be controlled by the non-elected Urban Redevelopment Agency (URA)—not City Council, a public body that is accountable to the public.

Members of Pittsburgh City Council and the Mayor’s administration have said that we are facing a massive City budget crisis. So why are they fast-tracking a $200 million handout to Downtown developers, with almost no public process? 

What’s at stake

We have already given almost a billion dollars to Downtown developers in tax breaks over the past 5 years. Enough is enough. 

Our communities deserve so much more: public transit infrastructure, affordable housing, local food initiatives, street and sidewalk repairs, childcare programs and more. These are critical investments for the well-being of our City—and we cannot fund them if our City Councilmembers signs away millions in tax dollars to private developers for the next four decades.

Transit riders must tell our elected officials to vote NO on implementing the Downtown Transit Revitalization Investment District (TRID). Public dollars – whether borrowed or generated from tax revenue – should be invested across all communities – from Fairywood to Fineview, Brookline to Bloomfield. Our resources should be allocated through the annual City budgeting process, with robust public input to ensure that our tax resources are distributed equitably and address the needs of the moment.

We say: no more handouts to Downtown corporations until our neighborhoods, our small businesses, our workers and our students are given their fair share!

Take Action Now

After you send a letter, CALL your City Councilmember to urge them to vote NO (find your councilmember here):

• District 1 (Northside, Strip District, Parts of Downtown):
  Bobby Wilson (412) 255-2135
• District 2 (West End, Sheraden, Elliott, Banksville):
  Kim Salinetro (412) 255-8963
• District 3 (Oakland, Southside, Arlington, Allentown):
  Bob Charland (412) 255-2130
• District 4 (Beechview, Brookline, Carrick, Overbrook):
  Anthony Coghill (412) 255-2131
• District 5 (Greenfield, Hazelwood, Lincoln Pl, Swisshelm Park):
  Barb Warwick (412) 255-8965
• District 6 (Manchester, Downtown, The Hill, Uptown, Perry Hilltop):
  Danielle Lavelle (412) 255-2134
• District 7 (Bloomfield, Lawrenceville, Polish Hill, Stanton Heights) :
  Deb Gross (412) 255-2140
• District 8 (Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Oakland):
  Erika Strassburger (412) 255-2133
• District 9 (East Liberty, Larimer, Homewood, Garfield):
  Khari Mosley (412) 255-2137

The post ACTION ALERT: Pittsburgh City Council Considers New Slush Fund for Downtown Developers—on our Dime appeared first on Pittsburghers for Public Transit.

CALGARY — Janetta McKenzie, director of the Pembina Institute’s Oil and Gas program, made the following statement in response to the new proposed crude oil pipeline from Hardisty, Alberta to Sarnia, Ontario:“The proposed 3,300-kilometre pipeline...