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Bang for your buck: Lip gloss JR Culpepper February 2, 2026

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Finding a lip gloss that delivers the perfect glass-like finish shouldn't require a compromise on your health — or your budget.

Whether you’re preparing for a date or just touching up your look, the right lip gloss will leave your lips looking refreshed, healthy and youthful. But crowded shelves and confusing ingredient labels can make finding the ideal product difficult. 

This winter, EWG is here to help. We combed through our Skin Deep® database to find options that are not only $22 or less but also carry a rating of 2 or lower, meaning they’re low hazard.

Products that are EWG Verified® have been vetted by our scientists and meet our strictest standards of safety and transparency. 

Want to explore on your own? Scan products on the go with our Healthy Living App to see their hazard rating and other information. 

EWG Verified

Well People Poutlove Peptide Lip Balm, Pink Grapefruit

Available for $14 on Amazon and Ulta.

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View details Qet Botanicals Lip Gloss with Olive & Avocado

Available for $9.99.

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View details Rejuva Minerals Organic and Vegan Lip Gloss

Available for $16.95.

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View details ATTITUDE Oceanly Lip Gloss, Silky Pink

Available on Amazon for $22.

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Rated 1 in Skin Deep

Pacifica Enlightened Gloss, Vanilla Bean

Available for $4 on Amazon and Ulta.

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View details Girlactik 3-in-1 Lip Sparkle Balm, Periwinkle

Available for $18.95 on Amazon.

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View details KimChi Chic Beauty High Key Gloss, 18 Raindrop

Available for $11 on Amazon.

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View details Physicians Formula Mineral Wear Diamond Gloss – Crystal Clear

Available for $6.98 on Amazon, Target and Walmart.

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View details L.A. COLORS High Shine Lipgloss, Clear

Available for $2.48 on Amazon.

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View details Joah Beauty Glassify High Shine Lip Gloss, Ice Queen

Available for $9.95 on Amazon.

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View details Laura Geller New York Treat N Go Tinted Lip Oil, Runner Up

Available for $12 on Amazon and Walmart.

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Rated 2 in Skin Deep

Nyx Professional Makeup Fat Oil Lip Drip, My Main Fold

Available for $9.49 from Amazon, CVS, Ulta and Target.

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View details

 

Areas of Focus Personal Care Products Cosmetics February 3, 2026

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: February 2, 2026
Contact: Anja Semanco | 724-967-2777 | anja@alaskawild.org 

As Trump Administration Opens Arctic Refuge to Oil Industry Nominations, Alaska Wilderness League Warns: “Smart Companies Won’t Bid on a Losing Bet” 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the Trump administration announced it is opening the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas nominations, the next step toward another lease sale in one of the most iconic and ecologically important landscapes in the United States. 

Alaska Wilderness League is urging energy companies and their investors to sit this one out. 

“Serious companies don’t gamble their future on the most remote, expensive, and controversial oil on Earth from one of the most unparalleled ecosystems left on this planet,” said Kristen Miller, executive director at Alaska Wilderness League. “If companies are still looking to drill the Arctic Refuge in 2026, it’s a sign that they can’t read the writing on the wall: smart money has already walked away.” 

The Refuge lease program has already proven to be a market failure. Previous Arctic Refuge lease sales attracted virtually no industry interest, generating minimal bids and leaving taxpayers holding the bill. Meanwhile, major oil companies and financial institutions have publicly backed away from Arctic drilling, citing high costs, legal risks, and growing investor concerns about stranded assets. 

A Bad Bet in a Changing Market 

Arctic drilling faces steep financial and logistical hurdles: 

• Some of the highest production costs in North America 
• Extreme weather and infrastructure challenges 
• Ongoing legal and regulatory uncertainty 
• Growing global competition from cheaper renewables 
• Escalating reputational and climate risks from rapid warming for companies and investors 

Energy analysts increasingly warn that long-term, high-cost oil projects like those in the Arctic risk becoming stranded assets as markets shift toward cleaner, cheaper energy sources. 

Wildlife Refuge, Not Oil Field 

The Arctic Refuge is home to the Porcupine caribou herd, polar bears, migratory birds, and the coastal plain that the Gwich’in people call “the sacred place where life begins.” The coastal plain serves as the primary calving grounds for the Porcupine caribou herd, which sustains Indigenous communities and supports one of the longest land migrations on Earth. It also provides denning habitat for threatened polar bears and nesting and breeding grounds for millions of birds that migrate to every U.S. state and six continents each year. 

For decades, Americans across the political spectrum have supported protecting the Refuge from industrial development, recognizing it as one of the last intact ecosystems of its kind left on the planet. 

### Photo Credit: Courtesy of Florian Schulz / protectthearctic.org

Last week, Gov. Lujan Grisham issued a legislative message for House Bill (HB 207), sponsored by five Republican legislators and one Democrat, calling for the discharge of produced water to our state’s rivers, streams, and ground water. Produced water is a highly toxic wastewater byproduct of oil and gas operations. The governor’s message allows the bill to be considered by the legislature, even though it had been ruled non-germane to this 30-day budgetary session.

The bill would mandate the Water Quality Control Commission (WQCC) allow the discharge of oil and gas industry wastewater, as well as its use for irrigation of crops, on rangeland, and for manufacturing and other industrial uses, such as data centers. The bill also requires use of treated produced water for dust control on roads, and for hydrogen production. According to the proposal, the WQCC would be mandated to allow these various uses and discharge by the end of 2026.

The bill is yet another attempt by Big Oil at an end-run around sound science and protecting public health and the environment. In May 2025, after an 18-month science- and evidence-based legal proceeding, the WQCC promulgated a rule – proposed by the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) – that would prohibit discharge of treated and untreated produced water into our streams, rivers, and groundwater for five years. After hundreds of pages of testimony and thousands of pages of evidence from NMED scientists, industry witnesses, and experts from environmental non-profits, the WQCC ruled that there is insufficient evidence that the toxin-laden and potentially radioactive wastewater can be treated to standards that are safe for public health and the environment. The WQCC’s rule does, however, allow non-discharging “pilot projects” to research and evaluate the toxicity of produced water and the efficacy of treatment technologies and to allow the science to move forward.

“Data is lacking from sufficiently scaled pilot studies operated for required durations to determine the capabilities and limitations of treatment technologies to treat produced water,” said Dan Mueller, PE, and member of the New Mexico Produced Water Consortium. “In short, there is currently insufficient information on the efficacy, reliability, and economics to assess the feasibility of beneficial reuse of treated produced water. Progress is being made to narrow the critical knowledge gaps and pilot studies are being conducted, but there is still work to be accomplished. Water is a big deal but it is important to get this right – not to rush a potential solution to one problem only to create others.”

“Big Oil’s relentless drive to discharge treated produced water risks New Mexico’s most precious resource,” said Tannis Fox, senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center. “Protection of human health and the environment must be based on sound science, not profit-driven industry spin. The best science tells us the technology to effectively treat oil and gas wastewater at scale does not exist. Discharging treated produced water is a false solution to our state’s water scarcity challenge. However, the rule currently in place allows scientific research to move forward. Treated produced water should not be introduced to New Mexico’s surface and ground water resources unless and until the scientific evidence demonstrates it’s safe.”

Big Oil now wants to overturn a science-based decision, and won’t settle for anything less than being given license to discharge its waste to New Mexico’s water resources. Big Oil already tried to push the WQCC to undo its recent rule, but its efforts failed after an exposé in the Santa Fe New Mexican revealed the governor’s office pressured her cabinet to get a new, industry-sponsored rule “across the finish[ed] line.”

“Don’t be fooled by the allies of industry that say that treated produced water is a solution to the state’s water scarcity problems,” said Haley Jones, Citizens Caring for the Future. “New Mexicans are not fooled by this attempt by industry to profit off their own waste while putting our rivers, streams, and groundwater at significant risk. ”

“Industry still uses far too much water from our aquifers for fracking,” said Sarah Knopp, Policy Specialist with Amigos Bravos. “Oil and gas should focus first on recycling its own wastewater. Further, the energy costs and carbon footprint from the treatment processes the industry is proposing are exceedingly high. Industrial scale treatment of produced water will accelerate our sprint toward catastrophic climate change.”

A partner memorial to HB 207, Senate Memorial 11, introduced by Sen. Bobby Gonzales from Taos County, echoes recent messaging from the oil and gas industry heard around the state. The memorial presents produced water as necessary to support data centers and AI, and includes unsubstantiated representations about the efficacy and safety of produced water treatment.

The memorial asks the Senate to “affirm the scientific evidence enabling the beneficial reuse of treated produced water and the importance of produced water as an asset for economic development, reducing poverty in rural communities and protecting freshwater resources in Taos county and throughout the state.” That would be hard for the Senate to do, given that NMED scientists have evaluated the treatment technologies for the toxins in produced water and determined there is insufficient evidence to support its safe discharge to surface and ground water.

At issue in the WQCC rulemaking was, first, whether all toxins and contaminants in produced water had even been identified. The WQCC determined they had not. The next issue was whether existing treatment technologies could effectively remove all contaminants to a level where discharge to New Mexico water resources would be safe. The WQCC determined they could not. None of the peer-reviewed literature published since the hearing record closed changes these conclusions. Finally, the WQCC considered whether standards, or levels of safe exposure, had been put in place for the 1,000+ potential contaminants in produced water. Such standards had not been put into place and are not in place now for all potential contaminants. The state of New Mexico does not currently have surface water quality standards for at least 180 potentially toxic chemicals found in oil and gas wastewater.

Contacts:

Tannis Fox, Western Environmental Law Center, 505-660-7642, fox@westernlaw.org

Sarah Knopp, Amigos Bravos, 505-795-2106, sknopp@amigosbravos.org

The post House Bill 207 would require discharge of oilfield wastewater to New Mexico waters, crops, industrial applications appeared first on Western Environmental Law Center.

BHP (ASX: BHP) has selected its largest intake for the annual Xplor program aimed at supporting companies involved in early stages of mineral exploration.

On Monday, the Australian miner announced that the 2026 cohort will feature 10 companies — the most ever — with a total seed funding of $5 million. These include six early-stage exploration companies and four technology companies, signaling the growing importance of data analytics in the discovery process.

According to BHP, this is a reflection of a “more connected approach to early-stage exploration, where geological insight, data and emerging technologies increasingly intersect, and where collaboration across disciplines is becoming central to how discovery evolves.”

The tech start-ups to receive funding are Australia’s RadiXplore, Canada’s Mineural and Discovery Genomics, and US-based VectOres Science. The first three are developing technologies designed to support the discovery of copper, a mineral that is expected to have an outsize role in the energy transition.

The remaining cohorts include: Canadian uranium miner FrontierX; Australia’s Litchfield Minerals, which is exploring for copper, zinc, lead, gold and silver; South Africa-based copper-zinc miner Orion Minerals; Otrera Resources, which has copper projects in South America; Indonesian copper-gold explorer PT GeoFix; and the Utah Geological Survey (USA), which is the state’s primary geoscience organization.

“The 2026 cohort reflects how broad and dynamic early-stage discovery has become. We’re seeing exciting ideas emerge across exploration, data, and technology, often at the same time and in the same places,” head of BHP Xplor Marley Palin said in a press release.

Launched in 2023, the BHP Xplor program has supported 21 companies across its first three cohorts. Each selected participant is eligible to receive $500,000 in equity-free cash, along with access to mentoring and networking with BHP specialists.

Kazatomprom (LSE: KAP), the world’s top uranium producer forecasts output will rise about 9% to 71.5 to 75.4 million lb. this year compared to last year.

The increase is mostly due to ramp up at the Budenovskoye joint venture in southern Kazakhstan, which Kazatomprom holds with Russia, the company said in a release on Monday.

That uranium oxide (U3O8) production range is 5% lower than its state-granted amount but 6% higher than BMO Capital Market estimates, analyst Alexander Pearce said in a note.  

“The update could see some modest pressure on uranium prices via a slightly reduced supply deficit near-term,” Pearce said.

The Kazakh state-owned miner forecasts sales guidance in 2026 of 50.7 million to 53.3 million lb. U3O8, which is close to BMO’s forecast of 52 million lb. of uranium.

Spot price up 5%

The guidance rise positions Kazatomprom to take advantage of rising spot uranium prices, which grew about 5.5% over the full year to close at $63.50 per lb. U3O8 at the end of December. Sitting at $99.25 per lb. on Monday, the spot price is at its highest level in two years. The price movement last year was in contrast to 2024, when it fell by about 14%.

Increases in the spot price help incent uranium exploration, nuclear energy development and physical holdings of the energy metal, with the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust (TSX: U.U for USD; U.UN for CAD) last week buying 500,000 lb. of U3O8. That, along with several other uranium purchases in the quarter marked its highest first-quarter buy in three years.

Uranium entering multi-year structural bull market: report Output up 10%

In last year’s fourth quarter, the miner booked 9.6 million lb. of U3O8 in attributable output, 10% higher than in the previous quarter and 6% higher than BMO estimates, Pearce said. 

However, Kazatomprom’s average realized price of $64.18 per lb. for the quarter was 9% under BMO estimates and came at a 20% discount to the average spot price of about $80 per lb. in the quarter.

“This likely partially reflects timing of shipments and volatility of spot in the quarter,” Pearce said.

Kazatomprom’s shares were down about 4% to $78.60 apiece on Monday afternoon in London, for a market capitalization of $22.7 billion.

JPMorgan is maintaining a bullish outlook on gold prices by setting an end-of-year price target of $6,300 an ounce amid a broader shift towards hard assets.

In a note published late Sunday, the bank’s analysts cited the “ongoing diversification” trend that has driven gold to record highs in recent weeks. Gold has “further to run amid a still well-entrenched regime of real asset outperformance vs paper assets,” they wrote.

The forecast follows gold’s biggest decline in decades last week, with the yellow metal cratering by more than 10% during Friday’s trading session after setting a record of nearly $5,600 an ounce a day earlier.

Gold price craters in worst decline since 80s, silver drops 36%

In the same week, JPMorgan strategists led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou said prices could push towards $8,000 an ounce by the end of this decade if private sector investors allocate more funds into gold.

Alongside private sector investment, central banks are also expected to remain major buyers of gold to keep prices elevated, the bank highlighted. In its note, analysts see central bank gold purchases reaching 800 tons again in 2026.

Gold prices continued to decline on Monday, down 4% by midday to around $4,600 per ounce. Still, the metal remains up 12% year to date.

Silver riskier

Meanwhile, JPMorgan analysts offered a cautious stance on the more-volatile silver, which skyrocketed to records last week before crashing down from $120 an ounce to $70 an ounce in just two days.

“The drivers of the continued rally have become harder to pinpoint and quantify, making it more cautious,” they wrote.

“Without central banks as structural dip buyers as in gold, there remains the risk for a further move back higher in the gold-to-silver ratio in the coming weeks,” the brokerage added.

For now, analysts see a floor of $75-$80/oz. for silver prices, which is higher than previous expectations, but warned that the metal is “unlikely to fully relinquish its gains.”

For centuries the Elwha River on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula supported some of the West Coast’s most impressive salmon runs. The river’s cold waters, fed by alpine glaciers on the surrounding mountains, flowed 45 miles from the heart of what is now Olympic National Park to the Salish Sea.

Ten distinct runs of salmon and oceangoing trout, including all five North American Pacific salmon species, spawned in the Elwha watershed — until a pair of dams built in the early twentieth century blocked salmon from 90% of the river.

More than a century later, advocacy by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and conservation groups led to the dams’ removal. With the Elwha flowing free again and other habitat restoration in progress, the Olympic Peninsula is regaining its status as a salmon hotspot. Olympic National Park lies at the center.

“Olympic is probably the greatest salmon sanctuary in the national park system outside of Alaska,” says Colin Deverell, acting Northwest regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association. “We’re talking over 3,000 miles of rivers and streams in an area bigger than Rhode Island — most of it wilderness.”

 

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The future of salmon in this vast region is far from assured, however. In fact staff and funding cuts at the National Park Service have jeopardized habitat restoration work in the Elwha and other park watersheds at a crucial time. Olympic Park’s fisheries team has dropped from five staff at the beginning of the second Trump administration to one intern by the start of this year.

“There’s no way one person could possibly fulfill all the responsibilities the national park has toward its fish and communities who rely on healthy fisheries,” says Deverell.

This hollowing out of staff has meant salmon returning to the Elwha go uncounted, hindering work to establish sustainable fisheries. Efforts to end illegal fishing in the Quillayute River are languishing, while a restoration project on the park’s Ozette Lake is in danger of being put on hold. Tribal nations and nonprofits who partner with the Park Service are struggling to fill the gaps.

“The near obliteration of Olympic Park’s fisheries program means it’s all but impossible to do the science that supports restoration work,” Deverell says. “It makes managing fish for people and communities that much harder.”

Staffing Exodus

When Congress passed the Elwha River Ecosystem and Fisheries Restoration Act in 1992, it set in motion a long process meant to restore Elwha salmon to something like their former glory. The law authorized the Department of the Interior to acquire and decommission the river’s Elwha and Glines Canyon dams, a project completed in 2014. This was only the beginning for salmon recovery, however.

 

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The newly freed Elwha transported sediment that had been trapped behind the dams for a century downstream, where it replenished the river delta. Restored river and estuary habitat supported not just returning salmon, but other species from Dungeness crabs to lampreys.

In 2023, for the first time since the dams came down, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe held a ceremonial and subsistence fishery for coho salmon on the Elwha. Supporting treaty-protected Tribal fishing rights is a major objective for salmon recovery. However, setting science-based parameters for fishing requires reliable data about salmon numbers — data the Park Service is best equipped to provide.

“There are now almost no fisheries staff left to do this work,” Deverell says.

The federal hiring freeze of 2025 put seasonal additions to Olympic Park’s fisheries staff on hold. Though the freeze expired in fall, uncertainty over possible future hiring directives from the administration continues to pose challenges. Budget cuts compound the problem.

“The freeze may be technically over, but there’s still very little hiring going on,” Deverell says. “Writ large, the reason comes down to budget issues and personnel directives from the Trump administration.”

Last year Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” cancelled $267 million in funding for staff at the already chronically underfunded Park Service. The departure of all Olympic National Park’s permanent fisheries biologists follows a larger pattern of staff exoduses caused by lack of funding and untenable conditions.

“These are experienced biologists we’re losing,” says Tim McNulty, a board member of Olympic Park Advocates, one of the organizations that pushed for removal of the Elwha dams. “They’re people who have spent years working with the park’s many important salmon streams.”

The void left behind may not be visible to most visitors, but it puts Tribal nations and others who collaborate with the Park Service on fisheries in a difficult situation.

“It’s a predicament, because we share the load of conducting certain salmon and steelhead surveys with the Park Service and Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife,” says Frank Geyer, natural resources director for the Quileute Tribe.

For centuries the Quileute have fished in the Olympic Peninsula’s Quillayute watershed, which includes the Sol Duc, Calawah, and Bogachiel Rivers. The watershed is one of the few places that supports year-round salmon and steelhead fishing, thanks to the Tribe’s sustainable stewardship.

“Going into last fall, we were trying to figure out how to cover work the park would normally do,” Geyer says. “Soon we’ll be starting winter steelhead surveys. If the park doesn’t have staff to help, it’ll be up to the comanagers — Quileute Tribe and WDFW — to cover the gap.”

With basic monitoring of salmon runs barely getting done, many habitat restoration efforts have fallen by the wayside. Most of these projects are far less visible than removal of the Elwha River dams. However, they are part of the same legacy of restoration — one that’s now in danger of faltering.

Struggling Restoration

For the past few summers, Liz Allyn has worked to restore the edges of Olympic National Park’s Ozette Lake, home to a population of Endangered Species Act-listed, genetically distinct sockeye salmon.

Logging near the lake in the 20th century caused erosion that led to sediment building up in the shallows, burying gravel beds where sockeye once made their spawning nests, called redds. Plants took root, further changing the environment in ways that made life harder for salmon.

“Huge areas that used be spawning sites are now covered in native vegetation,” Allyn says. “It’s not an invasive species situation, but it’s a human-caused impact that negatively affects salmon.”

 

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Removing the vegetation would allow sediment to wash away, restoring spawning opportunities. It’s a relatively simple project with big payoffs that is currently being spearheaded by the Makah Tribe with support from the Coast Salmon Partnership, where Allyn works. However, with almost no park resources going toward it, the effort is in danger of collapsing.

“The park has been underfunded for a long time, so their engagement was always limited,” Allyn says. “But in the past, park staff were there to handle permits and certain logistics. Last summer we didn’t even have that.”

Throughout the park similar examples of restoration falling through the cracks amid short staffing abound. In a tributary of the Quinault River, efforts to remove a pile of rubble from a dilapidated bridge that impedes salmon swimming upstream have been delayed. Along the Sol Duc River, Tribal elders can’t access traditional fishing grounds because of a washed-out road.

Even more worrying, there’s often no one on hand when a crisis hits.

Disaster Response

On July 18 a petroleum tanker truck ran off U.S. Highway 101 on the northern Olympic Peninsula, overturning and spilling 3,000 gallons of diesel into a tributary of the Elwha. While the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and Washington’s Department of Ecology rushed to respond, the ability of the Park Service to assist was hamstrung by lack of staff.

Thousands of salmon fingerlings died in the disaster. A more robust initial Park Service response wouldn’t have prevented this, but it could have helped provide vital information as multiple agencies struggled to assess the damage and calculate penalties for the company involved. It’s yet another example of how Trump administration cuts are impeding continued salmon recovery in a dynamic landscape.

At more than 922,600 acres, Olympic National Park is a big place. Ninety-five percent is Congressionally designated wilderness, much of it consisting of steep mountains and valleys. Keeping tabs on salmon throughout such a vast area, let alone outside the park boundaries, is an enormous undertaking that requires deep understanding of the watersheds involved.

When long-time fisheries staff depart, they take years of valuable experience and institutional knowledge with them. This means any new hires will have a lot of catching up to do before they can fill the same roles.

“The decisions we’re making today are built on decades of science that’s given us a picture of how salmon populations are succeeding or failing over time,” Deverell says. “All of that is informed by data from the park. But now we’re at a point where the Park Service can no longer fill that function.”

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

The Monumental Effort to Replant the Klamath River Dam Reservoirs

 

The post Trouble on the Elwha: Trump’s Budget Cuts Undermine Iconic Salmon Restoration Project appeared first on The Revelator.

In virtual briefing, clean energy advocates highlight California’s ‘balcony solar’ bill to cut electric bills for millions Iris Myers February 2, 2026

SACRAMENTO – State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and clean energy advocates last week outlined how a bill he introduced would make it easier and more affordable for millions of Californians to lower their electricity bills by generating their own solar power.

During a January 29 virtual press briefing, supporters of the bill, SB 868, explained how it would expand access to safe, plug-in solar systems, also known as “balcony solar.” If enacted, the legislation would cut unnecessary red tape and establish clear statewide safety standards for the systems. 

SB 868 aims to expand access for renters, apartment dwellers, and residents of small homes currently paying some of the highest energy bills in the U.S.

Plug-in systems are small, portable panels that plug into a standard wall outlet. They can be mounted on apartment balconies, patios or fences, and use a home’s existing wiring to immediately power everyday household essentials, like air conditioners, computers and refrigerators.

 The Environmental Working Group is sponsoring the legislation.

The briefing featured remarks from Wiener; EWG’s Senior Vice President for California Bernadette Del Chiaro, Utah State Rep. Raymond Ward, author of Utah’s 2025 balcony solar law and Cora Stryker, co-founder of Bright Saver.

“California’s sky-high electricity rates are putting real pressure on household budgets across the state,” said Del Chiaro. “By allowing simple, affordable plug-in solar, this proposal would help families save money immediately while strengthening California’s clean energy leadership.”

If enacted, SB 868 would help to deliver immediate savings on energy bills by allowing Californians to safely generate electricity using portable solar panels that can be set up and plugged in without lengthy permitting or costly installation.

NOTE:  The full virtual webinar can be found here, and Del Chiaro is available for media interviews by contacting the communications department at: press@ewg.org

###

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.

Areas of Focus Energy Federal & State Energy Policy Renewable Energy California Press Contact Alex Formuzis alex@ewg.org (202) 667-6982 February 2, 2026

The sprawling grasslands of western India are, in the popular imagination, the remains of woodlands that were leveled under British rule — areas to be reforested, rather than conserved. But a recent analysis of stories, songs, and poems from centuries past reveals that western grasslands predate British colonization.

Read more on E360 →

Eldorado Gold (TSX: ELD) (NYSE: EGO) has agreed to buy fellow Canadian miner Foran Mining (TSX:FOM) (OTCQX:FMCXF) in a transaction that values the copper-focused developer at about C$3.8 billion ($2.8 billion).

The acquisition will expand Eldorado’s copper footprint while adding a second near-term growth project as demand for the metal rises alongside electrification and clean energy investment.

The deal brings Eldorado’s Skouries gold-copper project in Greece and Foran’s McIlvenna Bay copper project in Saskatchewan into one portfolio, both targeted for commercial production in mid-2026. Eldorado said the enlarged group could produce about 900,000 gold-equivalent ounces in 2027.

Once combined, the company’s asset base is expected to have roughly 77% exposure to gold and 15% to copper, with operating mines and development projects in Canada, Greece and Turkey.

Eldorado expects the merged business to generate about $2.1 billion in core profit and $1.5 billion in free cash flow in 2027. The miner also plans to increase exploration spending across the portfolio, including at Foran’s Tesla zone in Saskatchewan.

Shares in Eldorado closed 8.9% lower in New York while Foran Mining was down 5.2% at the Toronto close.

Deal insights

Under the terms of the agreement, Foran shareholders will receive 0.1128 Eldorado shares plus $0.01 per share, giving them about 24% of the combined company. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026.

“This transaction gives McIlvenna Bay the scale and financial strength to fully realize its potential, including the ability to accelerate phased expansion opportunities over time,” Foran chief executive Dan Myerson said in the statement.

The combined company will remain headquartered in Vancouver under the Eldorado Gold name. 

McIlvenna Bay is expected to become a cornerstone Canadian asset alongside Eldorado’s Lamaque Complex in Quebec, supporting long-term employment and economic activity in Saskatchewan and across Canada, the company said. 

The project has been recognized by the federal government as a critical minerals development and referred to the new Major Projects Office as a project of national interest.

Both boards have unanimously approved the transaction, and shareholder votes are scheduled by April 14, the companies said.

Fred Pearce is a freelance author and journalist writing on behalf of Wetlands International Europe.

Everybody knows that saving the Amazon rainforest is critical to our planet’s future. But the Pantanal? Most people have never heard of Brazil’s other ecological treasure, the world’s largest tropical wetland – let alone understood its importance, as home to the highest concentration of wildlife in the Americas, while keeping a billion tonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere, and protecting millions of people downstream from flooding.

Hundreds of millions of euros are spent every year on protecting and restoring the world’s forests. Wetlands are just as important, yet don’t get anything like the same recognition or investment. That, scientists insist, has to change. And Europe can lead the way.

For forests, the EU already provides financial and technical assistance for a series of Forest Partnerships with non-EU countries, as part of its Global Gateway strategy for investing globally in environmentally and socially sustainable infrastructure. Such partnerships operate in Guyana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mongolia and elsewhere.

I believe the time is now right to establish a parallel EU Wetland Partnerships, framing wetlands as a strategic, cost-effective investment offering high financial, environmental and social returns.

Wetlands store a third of global soil carbon

Wetlands come in many shapes and sizes: freshwater peatlands, lakes and river floodplains, as well as coastal salt marshes, mangroves and seagrass beds. They are vital natural infrastructure, maintaining river flows that buffer against extreme weather events such as floods and drought, as well as protecting biodiversity, and providing jobs and economic opportunities, often for the most vulnerable nature-dependent communities.

Wetlands cover just six percent of the land surface, but store a third of global soil carbon – twice the amount in all the world’s forests. Yet they have been disappearing three times faster than forests, with 35 percent lost in the past half century.

A just agricultural transition takes root in Brazil

Their loss adds to climate change, causes species extinction, triggers mass exoduses of fishers and other people whose livelihoods disappear, and depletes both surface and underground water reserves. Continued wetlands destruction is estimated to contribute five percent of global CO2 emissions – more than aviation and shipping combined.

EU Wetland Partnerships can be critical to unlocking finance to stem the losses and realise the benefits by promoting nature-based economic development, such as sustainable aquaculture, eco-tourism, and forms of wetlands agriculture known as paludiculture, while contributing to climate adaptation by improving the resilience of water resources.

Pantanal faces multiple threats

The Pantanal would be a prime candidate for a flagship project. The vast seasonal floodplain stretching from Brazil into Paraguay and Bolivia, is home to abundant populations of cayman, capybaras, jaguars and more than 600 species of birds. It is vital also for preventing flooding on the River Paraguay for some 2000 kilometres downstream to the Atlantic Ocean.

The Pantanal faces multiple threats, from droughts due to upstream water diversions and climate change, invasions by farmers setting fires and a megaproject to dredge the river and create a shipping corridor through the wetland.

But EU investment to achieve partnership targets agreed with Brazil on restoration, conservation and sustainable management could reinvigorate traditional sustainable land use – including cattle ranching that helps sustain the Pantanal’s open flooded grasslands.

A delegation from the Pantanal Association for Organic and Sustainable Livestock Farming, pictured in the Pantanal wetland, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. (Photo: Wetlands International Brazil office) A delegation from the Pantanal Association for Organic and Sustainable Livestock Farming, pictured in the Pantanal wetland, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. (Photo: Wetlands International Brazil office) Accounting for wetlands carbon in national emissions targets

Africa, a main focus of the Global Gateway, has abundant potential for early partnership initiatives. They include the Inner Niger Delta in Mali, which sustains some three million inhabitants, but is threatened by upstream dams and conflicts over resources between farmers and herders.

Another is the Sango Bay-Minziro wetland, a region of swamp forests, flooded grasslands and papyrus swamp straddling the border between Uganda and Tanzania on the shores of Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake.

The two countries have agreed to cooperate in pushing back against illegal logging, papyrus extraction and farming, and Wetlands International has been working with local governments to encourage community-based initiatives. But an EU partnership could dramatically expand this work, helping sustain the wider ecology of Lake Victoria and the Nile Basin.

Deep in the Amazon, forest protection cash must vie with glitter of illegal gold

National pledges to bring wetlands to the fore of environmental action are proliferating rapidly, especially since the 2023 global climate stocktake at COP28 in the UAE emphasised the importance of accounting for wetlands carbon in national emissions targets.

Since then, more than 50 countries have signed up to the 2023 Freshwater Challenge to protect freshwater ecosystems; more than 40 governments with 40 percent of the world’s mangroves have endorsed the 2022 Mangrove Breakthrough that aims to protect and restore 15 million hectares by 2030; and the newly established Peatland Breakthrough aims at rewetting at least 30 million hectares and halting the loss of undrained peatland by 2030.

Such ambition will almost certainly be endorsed at the 2026 UN Water Conference to be hosted by the UAE and Senegal in December this year. But the key to turning targets into reality on the ground lies in finding the billions of Euros needed to deliver on the ambition. EU Wetlands Partnerships could help seal the deal.

The post The EU should partner with Global South to protect carbon-storing wetlands appeared first on Climate Home News.

Join us for the second annual International Plastic Pellet Count to help identify plastic pellet pollution and make a case for action.

US President Donald Trump is preparing to launch a strategic stockpile of critical minerals backed by $12 billion, aiming to protect manufacturers from supply disruptions as the US accelerates efforts to reduce dependence on Chinese metals.

The White House confirmed on Monday the start of “Project Vault,” which would combine $1.67 billion in private capital with a $10 billion loan from the US Export-Import Bank to buy and store minerals for automakers, technology companies and other industrial users. 

The model mirrors the country’s emergency oil reserve but focuses instead on materials such as gallium and cobalt used in products ranging from smartphones to jet engines.

The project spans the automotive, aerospace and energy sectors and underscores Trump’s broader push to rewire US supply chains away from China, the world’s dominant producer and processor of critical minerals.

More than a dozen companies have reportedly signed on, including General Motors Co., Stellantis NV, Boeing Co., Corning Inc., GE Vernova Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Commodities traders Hartree Partners LP, Traxys North America LLC and Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. will handle purchases to fill the stockpile.

“Project Vault is a clear signal that US critical‑mineral policy has moved to deployment,” US Critical Materials chairman, Harvey Kaye, told MINING.COM. “It says unequivocally that secure supplies of rare earths and heavy minerals like gallium are now treated as strategic infrastructure for our economy and defense industrial base, to establish US sovereignty.”

Kaye noted that for companies like US Critical Materials, it confirms that high-grade domestic supply is no longer optional.

“The project is exactly the kind of serious, industrial-strength action America needs right now,” Adam Muellerweiss, President of the Responsible Battery Coalition, said in an emailed statement. “Even two years ago, this idea would have been unthinkable. The Trump Administration has made this a national security priority.”

Analyst Dmitry Silversteyn at Water Tower Research said that while the announcement is a step in the right direction, is not a quick solution to China’s control of critical materials. “[I see] continuing to encourage development of domestic and friendly nations’ critical elements resources and metal processing capabilities and infrastructure, as the ultimate and required goal to end, or at least significantly reduce, dependence on China’s goodwill,” he wrote.

Baker Botts lawyer Rebecca Seidl said that for mining and minerals companies, the move is not simply a one-time stockpile but rather a broader shift in federal posture. 

“The federal government is preparing to behave like a repeat buyer, market stabilizer, and strategic counterparty, particularly where China’s dominance in mining and processing creates price and availability risk,” Seidl wrote. “As such, projects able to demonstrate reliable production, domestic or allied processing, and credible clean supply-chains will have an easier path to financing and offtake.”

Beyond defence 

Trump is scheduled to meet Monday with GM chief executive officer Mary Barra and mining entrepreneur Robert Friedland, representing both consumers and producers of critical minerals. 

While the US already maintains a national stockpile for defence purposes, it lacks a comparable reserve for civilian industry. That gap has taken on urgency as the Pentagon ramps up its own accelerated stockpiling campaign, targeting up to $1 billion in mineral acquisitions in the near term.

The drive is supported by Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which allocates $7.5 billion for critical minerals, including $2 billion to expand the national stockpile by 2027, $5 billion for supply-chain investments and $500 million for a Pentagon credit program to encourage private projects.

US agrees to buy 10% of USA Rare Earth in $1.6B deal

The administration has also taken the unusual step of investing directly in domestic mining companies to boost US rare earths production and processing.

Last month, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers introduced a bill to create a $2.5 billion stockpile of critical minerals, a move aimed at stabilizing market prices and encouraging domestic mining and refining.

Senior administration officials told Bloomberg News Project Vault was oversubscribed, citing investor confidence in the credit quality of participating manufacturers, their long-term purchase commitments and the backing of the US export-credit agency. Under the plan, companies can draw down their allotted materials as long as they replenish them, with full access permitted during major supply disruptions.

Manufacturers that commit to buying set quantities at fixed prices will also agree to repurchase the same amounts at the same cost in the future, a structure the administration says will help stabilize prices and dampen market volatility.

Bloomberg News was the first to report the creation of the critical minerals strategic reserve.

Last spring, the Environmental Protection Agency made a surprise announcement: President Donald Trump would consider giving some polluters exemptions from a handful of Clean Air Act rules. To get the ball rolling, all it would take was an email from a company making its case. The EPA set up a special inbox to receive these applications, and it gave companies about three weeks at the end of March to submit their requests for presidential exemption. Hundreds of companies wrote in, including coal plants, iron and steel manufacturers, limestone producers, and chemical refiners. 

One industry was particularly eager for exemption: medical device sterilizers. About 40 of the roughly 90 device sterilization plants that operate nationwide, along with their trade association, wrote in, arguing they shouldn’t have to comply with an air quality rule limiting how much toxic material they could emit. That’s because these facilities sterilize medical equipment with ethylene oxide, a potent carcinogen that studies have linked to cancers of the breast and lymph nodes.

In 2024, the Biden administration issued regulations requiring sterilizers to cut their emissions by about 90 percent. Companies were given two years to comply, and many had begun installing new monitoring equipment and pollution-control devices to meet the standard. But last year, after President Trump took office, the EPA gave these companies a way out; they could request a presidential exemption. About 40 facilities, many of which are located in residential neighborhoods close to schools and day cares, took advantage of the offer and were granted the exemption through a presidential proclamation last summer.

Now, a coalition of national environmental groups and community nonprofits is suing Trump and the EPA, seeking to overturn the ongoing exemptions. Maurice Carter, president of the Georgia-based environmental advocacy group Sustainable Newton, which signed on to the suit, told Grist that financial interests of sterilization companies shouldn’t override public health concerns about ethylene oxide. Any policy change should account for that, he argued. 

“You have to do that in ways that are not harmful to the people that live here and to the planet that our children are going to inherit,” he said. Carter lives about a mile away from one of the exempted facilities.

Read Next How medical supply warehouses poison workers with ethylene oxide Naveena Sadasivam & Lylla Younes

The suit was filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C., and assigned to Judge Christopher R. Cooper, an Obama appointee. Trump’s Justice Department, which represents federal agencies in court, has 60 days to respond.  

Taylor Rogers, a spokesperson for the White House, told Grist that the president had used “his lawful authority under the Clean Air Act to grant relief for certain commercial sterilization facilities that use ethylene oxide to sterilize critical medical equipment and combat disease transmission.” The Biden-era rule would’ve forced facilities to shut down, Rogers argued, “seriously disrupting the supply of medical equipment and undermining our national security.” A spokesperson for the EPA said the agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation.  

A provision in the Clean Air Act does allow the president to grant facilities narrow exemptions from one section of the law. But presidents can only grant an exemption if the technology to meet the standard is not available and the exemption is in the country’s national interest. The sterilization facilities claimed they met both criteria. In a letter to the president the Ethylene Oxide Sterilization Association, the industry’s trade organization, claimed that companies would not be able to meet the 2024 rule “due to the limited number of equipment manufacturers and workforce shortages.” Supply chain constraints and the time it would take to install and validate equipment meant that the control technology needed “is functionally unavailable within the required timeframes,” the group said. 

When the EPA finalized the rule in 2024, it determined that only 7 out of a total of 88 sterilizer facilities “already met the emission standards and will not need to install additional emission controls.” Several others met one or more requirements of the rule. Nearly 30 facilities would be required to install so-called Permanent Total Enclosures, which are among the most expensive pollution-control technologies and seal facilities so that ethylene oxide can be trapped and burned.

Georgia has the highest concentration of exempted sterilization plants; all five of the state’s facilities were granted exemptions. By comparison, only two of the facilities in California, which has the largest number of sterilizers in the country, received exemptions. According to records submitted to the state environmental agency, nearly all California facilities already meet the vast majority of requirements laid out in the 2024 rule. One facility in Atlanta met the standards as early as 2022 — yet it nevertheless received an exemption. 

“These are facilities that have been making changes to their processes in their facilities to comply, and yet they received exemptions anyway,” said Sarah Buckley, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the environmental groups suing. (Editor’s note: The Natural Resources Defense Council is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.)

“That shows that the president was not making any good faith determination, was not basing this on an actual assessment of the facts on the ground and the capabilities of these facilities, but instead was just looking for excuses essentially to hand out free passes to avoid the rules,” Buckley added, calling the exemptions a “get-out-of-jail-free card.”

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James Boylan, head of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division’s air protection branch, said the agency had been working with companies to install upgraded control equipment and revise permits to comply with the 2024 rule before President Trump announced that Georgia’s sterilization facilities would be exempted. Some of those updates have since been delayed because of the exemption, Boylan told Grist in an email.

If companies exceeded the Clean Air Act emission limits and faced state action or lawsuits by community groups, they could use the exemption to claim the rules don’t apply to them. Companies that are exempted will also be relieved of the cost of complying with regulation. The EPA estimated that it would cost $313 million for all of the roughly 90 sterilizers to meet the new standards. But even those already in compliance could benefit from an exemption, because monitoring and pollution-control equipment require regular maintenance and oversight.

“There is a monetary incentive to not operate equipment even if you already have it,” said Buckley.

Sterilizers aren’t the only industry benefiting from these exemptions. Last year, President Trump issued a series of proclamations exempting more than 150 facilities, including dozens of coal plants and chemical manufacturers. Environmental groups have sued over several of these exemptions, claiming that Trump had exceeded his statutory authority. Many of these cases are winding their way through the courts. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump’s ‘get-out-of-jail-free card’ for polluters faces its latest test in court on Feb 2, 2026.

Kristi Noem faces intensifying public scrutiny over her leadership of the Department of Homeland Security. Criticism of the former South Dakota governor has focused on her handling of the killing of Alex Pretti by a federal immigration agent and her oversight of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The controversies have prompted calls from Democratic lawmakers — and a small but noteworthy group of Republicans — for her resignation or impeachment.

The immediate flashpoint has been the January 24 killing of Pretti, which occurred during ongoing protests in Minneapolis. Noem initially described Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, as a “domestic terrorist,” a narrative repeated by others in the Trump administration. Her account was almost immediately contradicted by numerous videos that showed Pretti was unarmed and restrained when federal agents shot him repeatedly.

“She should be out of a job,” Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, said after the videos emerged. While President Donald Trump has publicly said Noem’s position is secure, a number of potential successors have reportedly emerged, including Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and Lee Zeldin, who leads the Environmental Protection Agency.

Noem’s handling of the killing — which came two weeks after a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis fatally shot protestor Renee Good — follows sustained criticism of her management of FEMA. Lawmakers, disaster response experts, and disaster survivors say her policies have slowed emergency response and delayed recovery funding. Long before the crisis in Minnesota, concerns were building over her approach to FEMA preparedness and spending and its response to calamities like last year’s devastating floods in the Texas Hill Country.

“It’s a policy of chaotic austerity,” said Sarah Labowitz, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who studies disasters and adaptation. “It’s magic-wand policymaking, where you need a crisis in order for something to happen.”

FEMA helps coordinate the response to major disasters like last year’s Los Angeles wildfires, but the agency more often acts like a bank, reimbursing states and cities for their disaster preparedness and recovery spending. When Noem took office, she throttled that spending by, among other things, requiring her personal sign-off on all expenses over $100,000. The pace of disbursements has since slowed to a trickle.

Read Next FEMA’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year Rebecca Egan McCarthy

Those restrictions reportedly hindered the agency’s response to emergencies like July’s floods in Texas because officials could not pre-position search and rescue teams. The acting head of FEMA at the time, David Richardson, was reportedly unreachable for several hours, and the agency did not answer two-thirds of calls to its hotline. More than 130 people died in the floods. 

On Thursday, a coalition of disaster survivors released a “report card” that gave Noem’s leadership an “F.” Brandy Gerstner, a member of that coalition, lost her home and belongings in the Texas flood. She and her family live in the rural community of Sandy Creek and spent three days without power or water waiting for federal assistance.

“Official help was scarce,” she said. “Despite that, Kristi Noem and Texas Governor [Greg] Abbott have described the response as exceptional, a lie that insults the memory of those lost in the floods.”

Beyond floods in Texas and fires in Southern California, the United States experienced relatively few major disasters last year. Even so, Noem’s restrictions on FEMA spending has also slowed payments to local governments still recovering from past catastrophes. The reimbursement backlog has reached $17 billion, according to The New York Times — more than the agency spends on such things in a typical  year. 

Delays have also affected FEMA’s efforts to reduce the impact of future catastrophes. A Grist analysis found that the agency’s net spending on resilience grants declined over the past three quarters, even as climate-driven disasters intensified nationwide. The nonprofit news outlet NOTUS identified a $1.3 billion backlog of such allocations, the primary source of federal funding for states and cities seeking to harden infrastructure. FEMA terminated another climate resilience program last year, though a court has ordered it to reinstate that program.

Former FEMA chief of staff Michael Coen Jr. said Noem’s departure could ease the logjam.

“I don’t see another secretary coming in that is going to want to review every single grant,” said Coen, who served in the Obama and Biden administrations. “I would think that most executive leaders … are gonna find that that is micromanagement.”

Beyond Noem’s leadership lie other questions about the agency’s direction. The Trump administration has yet to nominate a permanent administrator, leaving Karen Evans, a former cybersecurity official, in charge since Richardson departed in November. Agency leaders have suggested firing more than 11,000 employees, many of them contract workers involved in local response and recovery efforts. 

The Trump administration’s touted “review council” was set to produce a report on FEMA’s future, but Noem reportedly pared the council’s final report to a fraction of its original length. The panel abruptly cancelled its plans to present the findings in December, and its deadline has been pushed to March.

“I think whether she stays or goes, there are huge issues that have been created in the last year at FEMA that have to be resolved quickly ahead of hurricane season,” Labowitz, said, referring to the season to come.

Noem appeared to soften her approach last week. The agency paused its planned terminations, and Noem hosted her first in-person briefing with agency employees, whom she attempted to rally ahead of Winter Storm Fern. She also appeared to respond to mounting criticism on Thursday when she announced the release of $2.2 billion in disaster response funds. The money will reimburse states and local governments for repair costs associated with events like Hurricane Helene, the 2023 floods in Vermont, and coastal erosion in Louisiana. A press release frames the allocation as “additional” recovery money, but recipients told Grist that FEMA is merely following standard procedure in granting reimbursements.

“We were all quite surprised yesterday when we were informed that the payment was coming as quickly as it came,” said Joe Flynn, the secretary of the Vermont Agency of Transportation. FEMA told his agency that it would provide $22 million to help rebuild a fleet garage destroyed in the 2023 floods. “There’s plenty of towns in Vermont that would still say they’re waiting.”  

The offer was less than the state had requested, but Flynn accepted it given uncertainty about future funding. “With everything going on in the federal government, an adequately granted award is a bird in the hand,” he said. 

The press release appeared to have been composed in haste. It contained multiple typos, including a misspelling of Louisiana as “Louisianna.” The director of the Greeneville Water Commission, after confirming that FEMA will reimburse the cost of rebuilding infrastructure lost to Helene, noted that her own town’s name was spelled wrong as well. 

“By the way,” said commission director Laura White, “they spelled Greeneville wrong!”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Turmoil at FEMA adds to the revolt against Kristi Noem on Feb 2, 2026.

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Donald Trump’s recent threat to impose 100 percent tariffs on Canada if it “makes a deal with China” is making more people in the Canadian state1This term coined decades ago by socialists in Quebec makes the point that “Canada” is a multinational state composed of Indigenous nations, Quebec, and the dominant Canadian nation. worry about his “America First” administration’s bullying. Some also fear that in the future, Trump might try to act on his past talk about Canada becoming part of the U.S.

This fear can easily lead people to support the “elbows up” Liberal Party federal government headed by Mark Carney in spite of its commitment to austerity targeting public services and the workers who deliver them, expanding fossil fuel extraction and mining, implementing anti-migrant policies, and dramatically boosting spending on the military. To help us navigate these increasingly stormy political waters, the Left needs a compass.

While Trump is unlikely to follow through on his latest tariff threat, we can expect that this won’t be the last time that his administration or a more coherent future MAGA government in Washington uses economic pressure to try to get Ottawa to comply with its desires. So, how should the Left respond to “trade war” or other forms of economic friction between the two countries?

John Clarke lays out the basic approach:

The working class has to operate in a context that is dominated by its class enemies. We didn’t generate the rivalries among them or draw the borders between states, but we have to advance our interests under the conditions imposed upon us. Our class has nothing to gain from the trade war and no responsibility to find solutions for Canadian capitalism. Our viewpoint should be shaped by hostility to ‘our’ capitalists and robust solidarity with workers in the U.S. and Mexico.

People in the U.S. and Mexico should adopt the same viewpoint: hostility to their employers and working-class solidarity across borders. International solidarity, not competition!

Our viewpoint should be shaped by hostility to “our” capitalists and robust solidarity with workers in the U.S. and Mexico.

Helping “our” bosses and governments compete with their rivals in other countries is a road to lower wages, worse jobs, weaker workplace rights, social programs, and environmental protections, and attacks on the rights of Indigenous nations. Once we accept that capitalist goal, anything seen as a barrier to higher profits becomes a problem. Nationalist fervor also leads to more hostility–often racist–against anyone who’s “unpatriotic” or who “doesn’t belong.”

The federal Liberals’ approach to the Trump administration, “despite being represented as the alternative to U.S. dominance… in fact mirrors core elements of Trumpism. It proposes a militarized economy that will require the gutting of social, education and health services,” as James Cairns and Alan Sears point out. Any meaningful left politics must oppose and organize against this, “refus[ing] to reproduce Trump’s agenda of militarization, resource extraction and attacks on working-class people.” 

It can’t be said too often that it’s not the Left’s job to help Canadian business owners or whoever governs in Ottawa. Our task is to foster the power of unions and social movements to defend people against them and fight for a better world, with the ultimate aim of revolutionizing the society they rule. We shouldn’t propose policies to help them manage capitalism. Instead, “The left must develop and fight for an alternative political and economic vision,” as Todd Gordon argues.

When economic turbulence hits, we should fight for better income support measures for laid-off workers. We should challenge workplace closures, inspired by the example of Ex-GKN workers in Italy: Faced with layoffs, they occupied their car parts plant and have been campaigning for its conversion into a workers’ cooperative that would recycle solar panels and make cargo bikes.

We should demand the creation of well-paying secure public sector jobs as part of a radical Green New Deal, along with other reforms that chip away at social and ecological injustice. In Gordon’s words, “Such an agenda… can be realized only if we develop a strategy centred on mass struggle, and only if we refuse to limit our collective vista to the defence of Canada.”

That’s how the Left should respond to economic bullying by the U.S. But what about any future U.S. moves to alter the political relationship between the U.S. and Canadian states?

The first thing that needs to be said is that despite Trump’s bluster, it’s very unlikely that the U.S. will try to annex Canada. There would be a lot of downsides to annexation for a MAGA government even if the new arrangement gave Canada a status similar to Puerto Rico’s, in which citizens wouldn’t have the right to vote in U.S. elections. MAGA leaders definitely wouldn’t want nearly 30 million new eligible voters, most of whom would support public health care, same-gender marriage, abortion rights, trans rights, and other rights that the far right hates. Fearmongering about a U.S. invasion and annexation has bad effects: it stokes Canadian nationalism and makes people more likely to accept whatever the government in Ottawa says it needs to do for the good of Canada.

Less unlikely than annexation but still improbable is a future U.S. move to impose some kind of political arrangement short of annexation that formally ties the hands of the government in Ottawa in some ways, rather than just relying on economic pressure to get what it wants.

Even if they’re improbable, the Left needs to have an orientation to such possibilities because of how many people in the Canadian state are talking about them.

In the U.S., it’s obvious: The Left should oppose any and all such moves by Washington. They’d be imperialist aggression against a junior partner.

In the Canadian state, the starting point should be recognizing that the Canadian state is a settler-colonial capitalist society built on and sustaining the dispossession of Indigenous peoples. In addition, it is a state built through the conquest of what is now Quebec, which still does not have the right as a nation to freely determine its relationship to the multinational federation. Although most Canadian nationalists deny it, so-called Canada is also an imperialist power within the global capitalist order. The record of what Canadian companies and governments do in relation to countries of the Global South is damning.

Happily, more people on the Left at least partially grasp that the country we live in is a predator in relation to most of the people of the world than was the case during 1960s through the 1980s, the heyday of Canadian left-nationalism. It’s when people consider Canada in relation to the much more powerful country to its south that they often lose perspective.

The first socialist principle that’s relevant here is that in conflicts between imperialist powers like the U.S. and the Canadian state, the Left shouldn’t back either side. What’s true about conflicts between the U.S. and China or Russia over resources for their capitalists and the political influence of their governments is also true about conflicts between the U.S. and the Canadian state (or another country that’s weaker than the U.S. but still in the imperialist tier of the global system).

From the standpoint of the working class and oppressed people globally, such conflicts can only be harmful. Aligning with Canada’s rulers in their disputes with the U.S. is always to the detriment of working-class people here. “When elephants fight it’s the grass that gets trampled,” as the saying goes.

The first socialist principle that’s relevant here is that in conflicts between imperialist powers like the U.S. and the Canadian state the Left shouldn’t back either side.

This means that the Left shouldn’t champion “Canadian sovereignty.” Everyday people don’t rule the Canadian state – the owners of corporations and top state officials make up the dominant class in this capitalist society. “Canadian sovereignty” is their rule, not ours. It’s exercised at the expense of Indigenous nations, Quebec, and workers of every nation it touches.

Opposing annexation–incorporating one country into another by force–is also a socialist principle. It’s not that we’re in favor of defending nation-states, their borders, their flags, or their myths. Everyone who’s against the power of capital should be an internationalist who aims to build solidarity between  working-class people of every nation. Opposition to annexation is a basic question of democracy: the merger of countries should only happen when the people who live in them democratically decide to merge.

Opposition to annexation is a basic question of democracy: the merger of countries should only happen when the people who live in them democratically decide to merge.

Any future move by the U.S. to directly dominate the Canadian state–changing the relationship between what are now two independent states, one much more powerful than the other, with jurisdiction over societies that are extensively economically interconnected–or even annex it should be opposed by the Left. Why? Because its practical effects would include more attacks on social programs, union rights, equality rights, and other gains won by the past struggles of workers and oppressed people. In spite of being utterly inadequate from a socialist perspective, for the most part these are stronger north of the Canada-U.S. border than south of it.

Many workers, women, queer, trans, and racialized people who live north of the border know that conditions for people like them are worse in the U.S. They don’t want to live in a country run by the hard-right Conservative Party of Canada who like a lot about MAGA politics even if they think it goes too far. They really don’t want to live in a country much more subordinated to the U.S., let alone in an expanded U.S.A. Fear of their lives getting worse can easily lead them to buy into maple leaf nationalism and support the Liberals as a lesser evil than the Conservatives.

The Left should respond to that fear by organizing against what the Liberals are doing today to manage capitalism and by popularizing a radical alternative agenda. Mostafa Henaway is right: “The strategic question now is how to build a mass, multiracial, working-class resistance to Carney at the scale required, capable of sustained confrontation.” 

We should also oppose, in an internationalist way, any future move by a far-right U.S. government for direct domination or annexation. If the U.S. ever makes such a move, people north of the border should rise up against the aggression with mass protests, strikes, and occupations and fight for a better society–not to defend the status quo–and call on everyone in the U.S. who’s against the far right to do the same. Such opposition mustn’t involve allying with any of Canada’s rulers. Instead, we would argue for it to be conducted in an internationalist spirit, fighting for a world in which ordinary people can flourish, a world of freedom and ecological rationality. Our allies are everyday people in the U.S. and elsewhere who are fighting the far right and the liberal capitalist decline that fuels it.

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: heblo and Jude Joshua; modified by Tempest.

The post How should the Left respond to Trump’s threats against Canada? appeared first on Tempest.

Socialists shouldn’t force reality to fit our theory. If some new development casts doubt on an element of political analysis that served us for many years, then we should reconsider the analysis—both its continued strengths and relevance and the weaknesses that require new thinking.

The election of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani and his inauguration as New York City mayor present the left with just such a challenge: to think imaginatively about how to understand this political moment and how to better contribute to a stronger left and working class movement. This article first takes issue with Ashley Smith’s formulations and statements in a recent Tempest article about Mamdani and DSA and his subsequent response to Todd Chretien’s reply. I’ll then consider some strategic assumptions that Smith and I shared ten years ago about socialists, the Democratic Party, and organizing to win reforms under capitalism.

In his articles, Smith repeatedly labels Mamdani as a “conciliationist.” Is that accurate? I’m betting most of you reading this started paying serious attention to Mamdani (as I did) when he was smeared as an antisemite for opposing Israel’s genocide and defending Palestine. This was supposed to destroy his campaign, but Mamdani not only refused to retreat, he became a national voice defending opposition to genocide. A good stance on one issue doesn’t prove that Mamdani won’t conciliate on others. But I think it shows the actual political figure is more complicated than Smith’s repeated generalization. (I’m finishing this article just after Mamdani’s inauguration, a day of remarkable actions and statements that are the opposite of conciliatory.)

In similar fashion, Smith tells us that “most of [the 100,000 campaign volunteers] are very new to politics, follow Mamdani’s lead, and in the absence of an alternative, will accept the compromises he has already made and, given his unfavorable balance of class power in the city, the many more he will be forced to make.” This is condescending and ill-informed. Are the young activists against genocide in Gaza who worked for Zohran “new to politics”? Did their support for the campaign turn them into dupes? Should we assume the immigrant community organizers from Desis Rising Up & Moving will just “follow Mamdani’s lead,” no matter what?

And what about the initial core of the campaign: NYC-DSA, of which Mamdani has been a member for nearly a decade? It doesn’t seem fair to describe the organization as “very new to politics.” According to Smith, DSA has a “reformist strategy” (his hyperlink for that phrase, which supposedly defines DSA, goes to a 32-year-old article) that “advocates running candidates on the Democrats’ ballot line, winning elected office, using that position to transform the Democratic Party, and attempting to enact social change from within the capitalist state.” As a member of DSA, I’d take issue, to some degree, with every part of this statement. Smith has created a caricature that no one in today’s DSA would recognize.

It’s perhaps telling that the only DSA members or Mamdani supporters whom Smith quoted in his response were Todd Chretien and Bhaskar Sunkara (and their writings are, on any fair reading, at odds with Smith’s depiction of DSA politics). When I followed many of the links in Smith’s reply, I found they went to the New York Times, USA Today, Politico, and, yes, even Fox News. Fortunately, a number of left publications (see this, this, this, this, and this, for starters) can give us a better understanding of the campaign.

What I took from these articles and interviews and from discussions with comrades is that the people who volunteered for Mamdani are not a faceless army with few political ideas of their own who will just follow the leader. If you listen to the cadre of the campaign, you learn that some had disagreements with Mamdani or DSA and found ways to raise them while still working together. When they saw weaknesses in the campaign’s strategy and organizing, they took the initiative to do things differently. One of the most hopeful things for me was learning how individuals and groups were preparing for the fight after the election (see this, this, this, and this).

Like any movement, it’s better if socialists are involved organically, not setting themselves apart from it.

My point is that winning any part of the agenda Mamdani articulated depends not only on him but on these individuals and organizations, connected in the first instance by their participation in the campaign. Do these ties—to each other and to the new Mamdani administration—need to be cut for the left to fight for a reform agenda? Smith believes this is a necessary condition for exerting pressure on Mamdani through “independent” mass struggle. I disagree. I think the left will be more effective in building the movement we all agree is necessary by starting with the connections and alliances made during the campaign. There will be debates about priorities and how to organize, about whether Mamdani should be criticized or whether he took the best course he could under the circumstances. That’s to be expected in any living movement. And also like any movement, it’s better if socialists are involved organically, not setting themselves apart from it.

The origin of Smith and Chretien’s exchange was Mamdani’s White House meeting with Trump, and I wholeheartedly agree with both that it was “surreal.” I think this was one time when Zohran’s unflappable good nature didn’t serve him as well—when it would have been nice to see a little fire (which he’s certainly capable of).

Still, I don’t agree with Smith’s characterization that the Oval Office visit was aimed at “conciliating” Trump. Mamdani didn’t reverse any position that I’m aware of. As Chretien wrote, “If sidestepping verbal fireworks in the Oval Office wins a couple months’ respite for his new administration to get down to work, it’s a reasonable gambit.” On balance, this seems to have worked so far. More importantly, when the war on New York City does escalate, Trump’s bizarre admiration for Mamdani a few months earlier will help undercut whatever unhinged hate he spews.

But let’s consider what Smith thinks Mamdani should have done. He approvingly quotes liberal Boston Mayor Michelle Lu rejecting a “bromance” with Trump and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson calling for a “general strike.” Smith’s preferred script for the meeting shows the limitations of what he thinks could be accomplished. For him, electoral campaigns are predominantly propagandistic, useful in raising socialist politics in a hostile arena and contributing to further class organization. As he puts it, “We support running socialist candidates on our own ballot lines. But we argue that such campaigns must not be viewed as the vehicle to win social reform, but as a means to raise mass consciousness, increase the combativity of workers and the oppressed, strengthen existing mass organizations, and forge new ones.”

First, does Smith’s use of “we” mean he is speaking for the Tempest Collective? I was under the impression that Tempest members were debating some of these questions—in the case of Brandon Johnson’s CTU-backed campaign, for example. Also, is Tempest currently committed to any campaigns run on independent ballot lines? Or is this an aspiration?

I think Mamdani, DSA, and others on the left have a different approach that deserves to be understood as more than “conciliationism.” In sum, running socialist candidates can do other things Smith advocates and be a vehicle to win social reform—not the vehicle, not even the most important vehicle (depending on the individual), but a vehicle nonetheless.

If running for an elected office and holding one can be more than a platform for propaganda and party-building, then questions of strategy need to come into play. To start with, someone like Mamdani has to think about how to win over a wider audience. That means articulating an agenda in ways that engage and activate people who may be attracted to some socialist ideas but not the full program. As Ramsin Canon wrote in the Socialist Call, “The worst mistake you can make when you’re facing down the forces standing in the way of your agenda is to misunderstand the nature and strength of the forces backing you up.…[D]o not make the mistake of confusing people who voted against your opponent for the people who voted for your vision. The latter group you should be able to rely on; the former group you still need to win over.”

Despite being elected to the most powerful office any US socialist has ever held, the constraints on Mamdani are massive: the hostility of the capitalists; an inevitable conflict with a slumping-toward-fascism federal government; a Democratic Party establishment, in control of the state government, hoping to undercut him; and, above all, a working class that may have elected Mamdani but isn’t yet prepared and mobilized for the fight that it will take to win his program. Accomplishing something in these circumstances requires not just good politics but strategy: deciding when to make a compromise; when and on what issues to advance and when to retreat; when to pick a fight and when to avoid one until your side is strong enough to win it, etc.

On this latter point, Mamdani’s decision to reappoint Eric Adams’ police commissioner, the billionaire Jessica Tisch, may come back to haunt him. But is it really just “curry[ing] favor with those who hold the real levers of political and economic power” as part of a strategy “that inevitably leads to conciliation with our class enemies”? Or can it be understood as a strategic decision not to pick a difficult fight for now (one not likely to do more in the near term than install a different figurehead without changing anything about the NYPD)? Maybe Mamdani should have fired Tisch anyway. But the debate about that should acknowledge that Mamdani is facing many battles at once, and his other actions—his first-day executive orders, his cabinet appointees, his inauguration speech—point in a different direction than “conciliation.”

It is now ten years since Bernie Sanders’ first campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, followed by the election of AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and many more socialists and leftists at the local, state, and federal level—running mostly, but not always, on a Democratic Party ballot line. Meanwhile, DSA has become the largest socialist organization in the US in many years. Smith is at pains to insist that they are merely beneficiaries of an “underlying radicalization and waves of struggle” since the Great Recession. But after ten years, I think it’s fair to say that the electeds and DSA have contributed to that radicalization—especially some of its organizational form and the socialist and class language it wouldn’t have otherwise.

My question is this: Is it now necessary to reconsider any part of the analysis that Smith and I shared a decade ago? In 2016, that analysis would have warned that campaigns within the Democratic Party would fail; that left candidates and their supporters would be co-opted into a subservient relationship to the party apparatus; and that DSA would be drawn to the right by the Democrats’ “gravitational pull,” becoming a tame junior partner.

Smith’s articles about Mamdani contain all these same warnings in nearly unchanged form. But do they provide an accurate assessment upon which to build a strategy? I don’t think so.

Left campaigns using the Democratic ballot line haven’t all failed. They haven’t all won either, but the win-loss percentage isn’t bad, and Mamdani’s victory is the most impressive yet.

First, left campaigns using the Democratic ballot line haven’t all failed. They haven’t all won either, but the win-loss percentage isn’t bad, and Mamdani’s victory is the most impressive yet. This doesn’t mean the end of the Democrats or the two-party system, but it does mean there are fissures at the top on a different scale from ten years ago.

Second, left candidates and their supporters haven’t become universally co-opted and subservient within the Democratic Party. AOC may have gone the furthest down this road, although her importance as an oppositional figure in national politics can’t be dismissed. But it’s hard to see why “co-opted” should be applied to other electeds like Rashida Tlaib.

I think Smith is on pretty weak ground in trying to show Mamdani’s co-optation in the making. Was “[opposing] a primary challenge to Hakeem Jeffries” a show of deference to the party establishment? Mamdani attended an NYC-DSA forum in mid-November to oppose the chapter endorsing a primary campaign against Jeffries by City Council member Chi Ossé. This intervention was part of an intense debate in the chapter, and while the final vote went against endorsement, the margin was close. I know of comrades on both sides. I think I probably would have voted “yes” if I was in the chapter, but I also think Mamdani and his supporters made a case I can defend: that NYC-DSA shouldn’t devote a significant part of its limited resources to an unlikely campaign by someone who had just joined DSA, when it could work on other efforts that were strategically more likely to help win the reforms he campaigned on.

As for the supporters of these candidates, from Bernie to Zohran, I don’t see the evidence that they have been, on the whole, co-opted and made more subservient to the Democratic Party. On the contrary, I think the people drawn to these campaigns are more likely, not less so, to see themselves as opposed to the Democratic Party and in favor of an alternative. That alternative isn’t universally understood as an independent working class party, though it is for more people than Smith would acknowledge. But to put the immediate question starkly: Does anyone seriously believe that Mamdani supporters have become more susceptible to Chuck Schumer as a result of the campaign?

Lastly, I likewise don’t believe that DSA has been pulled to the right, at least in general terms. It’s telling that Smith has to reach back to the Jamaal Bowman controversy—specifically the disbanding of a national working group four years ago—as evidence of the organization’s “allegiance to electeds” over socialist principles. Whatever you think about that conflict, it doesn’t, by itself, define DSA four years later. To consider a more prominent question of “allegiance to electeds”: both Sanders and AOC urged a vote for Biden in 2020 and Harris in 2024. DSA notably did not. I certainly have disagreements with my DSA comrades, but Smith’s one-sided generalizations don’t do justice to the organization.

None of us would have expected questions like these ten years ago. I must have written a hundred times over the years about how the “gravitational pull” of the Democratic Party inevitably sucks in leftists who get too close. That may have been true in the past, but I think the force at work now and since 2016 is centrifugal, not gravitational. The socialist and left campaigns using the Democratic ballot line have had a polarizing effect, drawing a wide layer of what could be considered the Democratic base further to the left. And not just temporarily. Whatever criticisms you have of it, the 90,000-strong DSA is evidence that participation in or sympathy with left electoral campaigns—not only those, of course, but electoral questions are the focus of this discussion—has won significant numbers of people to an organization explicitly opposed to the Democrats and committed to the goal of an independent working class party.

I agree with Chretien that Smith’s case for “independence and mass struggle” puts too many restrictions on how to build a movement to fight for the Mamdani agenda. “Restrictions” aren’t the same thing as “prohibitions.” I’m confident that comrades in New York City Tempest and around the country will engage, individually and as a collective, with all the struggles for change they can. But as a small organization, Tempest’s profile is mainly defined by the politics expressed on its website. In my opinion, the website’s articles on Mamdani and DSA seek primarily to set apart and differentiate, rather than to engage, with common struggle as the aim. The unfortunate result of articles like Ashley’s is that the organization as a whole has gotten a reputation for being one-sided critics on these questions.

I agree in general terms with a lot of what Smith writes about the Democratic Party, the state under capitalism, the pressures on elected officials, the threat of the far right today, etc. That is common ground for us—and also, to a greater extent than Smith acknowledges, for most members of DSA and many supporters of the Mamdani campaign (even Mamdani himself to a great extent). I think Smith and other Tempest comrades have a lot to offer in the fights to come, including socialist electoral campaigns—all the more so if they are able to see themselves as organic participants in the movement, and not set apart from it. But I will also say, based on my own experiences and conclusions, that the last ten years of left electoral work and the rise of DSA have offered me something in return: the opportunity to reconsider the strengths and weaknesses of previous ideas and approaches by learning from a living movement.

The post Organizing for reform and socialism in the Mamdani era appeared first on Tempest.

By Hailey Smalley, Daily Inter Lake The proposed expansion of an open pit coal mine in British Columbia is raising concerns about downstream water pollution in the Columbia River Basin. Elk Valley Resources Operations Limited, which operates five coal mines in the Elk Valley, argues that the proposed expansion of its Fording River Mine is necessary …

The post Proposed mine expansion revives selenium pollution concerns appeared first on Montana Environmental Information Center - MEIC.

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, January 25, 2026 thru Sat, January 31, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category:

Climate Change Impacts (11 articles)

• Thailand’s endangered ‘sea cows’ are washing ashore – pointing to a crisis in our seas "The Andaman Coast has one of the largest concentration of dugong in the world, so why are numbers falling dramatically and what can they tell us about a biodiversity warning cry" The Guardian, Gloria Dickie, Jan 23, 2026.
• How the polar vortex and warm ocean are intensifying a major US winter storm The Conversation US, Mathew Barlow & Judah Cohen, Jan 24, 2026.
• Heat Dome Fuels Extreme Heatwave across Australia as Temperatures Surge Toward a Scorching 50 °C Severe Weather Europe, Marko Korosec, Jan 25, 2026.
• Sea Levels Are Rising—But in Greenland, They Will Fall Columbia Climate School, Staff, Jan 26, 2026.
• Number of people living in extreme heat to double by 2050 if 2C rise occurs, study finds "Scientists expect 41% of the projected global population to face the extremes, with ‘no part of the world’ immune" The Guardian, Jonathan Watts, Jan 26, 2026.
• Scientists Push for More Ambitious Climate Targets "Researchers say a line has been crossed. For systems like coral reefs and ice sheets, the climate is already past safe." Inside Climate News, Bob Berwyn, Jan 27, 2026.
• Doomsday Clock 2026: Scientists set new time CNN, Kristen Rogers, Jan 27, 2026.
• What happens to forests when the planet warms up too fast earth.com, Eric Ralls, Jan 27, 2026.
• The UK government didn’t want you to see this report on ecosystem collapse. I’m not surprised "It took an FOI request to bring this national security assessment to light. For ‘doomsayers’ like us, it is the ultimate vindication" The Guardian, Opinion by George Monbiot, Jan 27, 2026.
• Climate change and La Niña made ‘devastating’ southern African floods more intense Carbon Brief, Ayesha Tandon & Yanine Quiroz, Jan 29, 2026.
• Powerful bomb cyclone to deliver snow and hurricane-force winds to Southeast this weekend CNN, Briana Waxman, Jan 30, 2026.

Climate Policy and Politics (5 articles)

• Why environmental policy struggles to value the future earth.com, Eric Ralls, Jan 25, 2026.
• Democrats are shying away from climate messaging. One of their own is fighting back. "There’s a schism within the Democratic Party about whether talking about climate change is the right message to win back control of Washington." Politico, Amelia Davidson & Kelsey Brugger, Jan 25, 2026.
• Arctic scientists 'feel pretty uncomfortable' on Greenland "Science in the Arctic — and Greenland — is on the frontline of pressing challenges facing humanity, like climate change and genetics. Some researchers worry international collaboration is at risk." DW (Deutsche Welle), Matthew Ward Agius, Jan 28, 2026.
• US leads record global surge in gas-fired power driven by AI demands, with big costs for the climate "Projects in development expected to grow global capacity by nearly 50% amid growing concern over impact on planet" The Guardian, Oliver Milman, Jan 29, 2026.
• How Trump’s EPA rollbacks could harm our air and water – and worsen global heating "Experts say administration has launched ‘war on all fronts’ to undo environmental rules – here are the key areas at risk" The Guardian, Dharna Noor, Jan 30, 2026.

Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation (4 articles)

• Trump claims China doesn’t use wind power - but the world’s largest wind farm is there "Trump used the WEF in Davos to double-down on his attacks against renewable energy. But was anything he said accurate?" EuroNews, Liam Gillver, Jan 22, 2026.
• UK POLICY 23 January 2026 14:05 Q&A: What UK’s ‘warm homes plan’ means for climate change and energy bills "The UK government has released its long-awaited 'warm homes plan”, detailing support to help people install electric heat pumps, rooftop solar panels and insulation in their homes." Carbon Brief, Daisy Dunn, Josh Gabbatiss & Molly Lempriere, Jan 23, 2026.
• The European summit that will really wind up Trump "Wind turbines are for 'losers,' says Trump. Europe’s leaders beg to differ at a high-level meeting in Hamburg." Politico, Karl Mathiesen, Frederike Holewik, Ben Munster & Charlie Cooper, Jan 26, 2026.
• Judge Revives Wind Farm That Trump Halted Off Martha’s Vineyard "The project, known as Vineyard Wind, was already 95 percent complete when the Trump administration ordered construction to stop." The New York Times, Maxine Joselow, Jan 27, 2026.

Climate Education and Communication (2 articles)

• Whistleblowers Warn That Ad Industry Is Fuelling Online Hatred and Climate Crisis "Anonymous group of senior executives say major ad agencies are 'enabling harm rather than doing good'.” DeSmog International, TJ Jordan, Jan 26, 2026.
• Help needed to get translations prepared for our website relaunch! This blog post is a call for help to get our translations ready for the planned website relaunch. Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler, Jan 30, 2026.

Climate Science and Research (2 articles)

• Post-COP 30 Modeling Shows World Is Far Off Track for Climate Goals "A new MIT Global Change Outlook finds current climate policies and economic indicators put the world on track for dangerous warming." Inside Climate News, Ryan Krugman, Jan 24, 2026.
• Skeptical Science New Research for Week #5 2026 Skeptical Science's weekly summary of academic and other climate research. Skeptical Science, Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack, Jan 29, 2026.

Health Aspects of Climate Change (1 article)

• Climate change could lead to 500,000 `additional` malaria deaths in Africa by 2050 Climate change could lead to half a million more deaths from malaria in Africa over the next 25 years, according to new research. Carbon Brief, Ayesha Tandon, Jan 28, 2026.

International Climate Conferences and Agreements (1 article)

• ‘Abdication’: Trump takes US out of Paris climate agreement for a second time "Experts are watching for how other countries will react as the ‘real economy’ shifts to cheaper, cleaner energy" The Guardian, Dharna Noor, Jan 27, 2026.

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Solutions (1 article)

• Fact brief - Are solar projects hurting farmers and rural communities? No - The largest land use scenario for solar development would occupy only 1.15% of the 900 million acres of U.S. farmland. Many would not be sited on farmland at all. Skeptical Science, Sue Bin Park, Jan 27, 2026.

Miscellaneous (1 article)

• 2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #04 A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, January 18, 2026 thru Sat, January 24, 2026. Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler, John Hartz & Doug Bostrom, Jan 25, 2026.

If you happen upon high quality climate-science and/or climate-myth busting articles from reliable sources while surfing the web, please feel free to submit them via this Google form so that we may share them widely. Thanks!