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by Kenyon Rupnik
A version of this article was published in the
Independent Coast Observer on April 10, 2026

Chad Watts volunteered his labor and his 40-foot bucket truck to help replace a dead battery in the weather station atop the Gualala Point Regional Park Visitors Center.

Visitors looking up at the Gualala Point Visitors Center will see a weather station on top sitting thirty feet up in the air. The solar powered station is a partnership with Sonoma County Regional Parks and Friends of Gualala River. It has sent local climate conditions to whale watchers, beach goers and kayakers for five years.

Last month the lithium backup battery wore out, signaling that it needed to be changed. It required a simple three-volt battery, but reaching the station was going to be anything but simple.

Chad Watts with his PG&E bucket truck.

Jeanne Jackson asked for help through the Gualala Trading Post, and Chad and Marianne Watts answered. Chad is a “trouble shooter” for PG&E stationed in Point Arena, and he and PG&E volunteered his forty foot bucket truck for the project.

On Friday March 27 he met Gretchen Jay, the park ranger, and Laura Baker and Kenyon Rupnik from Friends of Gualala River at the Visitors Center for unit maintenance and battery change. As the pictures show, Chad is no stranger to heights.

Chad Watts talks with Laura Baker at the Visitors Center.

Hopefully, the new battery will last another five years before needing a change. Gualala’s users of the weather station thank Chad and PGE for his expertise and the equipment that made an otherwise difficult job very easy.

The weather station is a project of Friends of Gualala River, Sonoma County Regional Parks and Further Reach. Gualala Point weather conditions can continue to be viewed at the Friends of Gualala River website. The weather link also has information from other Davis weather stations in the watershed and from real-time PG&E fire camera views.

Photos courtesy of Kenyon Rupnik

Beavers, nature’s furry water engineers, are making a comeback on a major Central Coast waterbody with help from the California Water Boards and a group of dedicated educators and volunteers.

published by California Water Boards, April 8, 2026

Beavers stand on a lodge they made in Mather Lake. Credit- California Department of Fish and Wildlife

Funding from a 2021 settlement agreement between the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is supporting the Drinkable Rivers Program in San Luis Obispo County, a program that puts elected officials, students and others on the water to witness the benefits of beaver dams and ponds.

“The program not only helps the river, wildlife and the environment, it also directly involves the public,” said Ryan Lodge, executive officer of the Central Coast Water Board. “Providing hands-on experience for people who care deeply about the environment builds support for protecting the Salinas River in the long term. Additionally, the settlement with PG&E for water quality violations illustrates how our enforcement actions can both serve as a deterrent and lead to measures that benefit the public and the environment.”

The Central Coast Water Board is one of nine regional boards tasked with overseeing water quality in their watersheds. The regional boards set water quality standards and discharge requirements and take appropriate enforcement actions when necessary.

From pests to protectors

Once viewed as pests, beavers are now recognized for their many ecological benefits and their ability to help revitalize creeks and rivers. Research has shown that beaver dams can boost groundwater levels, improve water quality, provide drought resiliency, support biodiversity and even reduce wildfire risk.

“Beavers are our original river stewards and truly a keystone species; they are worth getting excited about,” said Audrey Taub, executive director of the San Luis Obispo (SLO) Beaver Brigade, a nonprofit dedicated to improving beaver habitat. “We want people to know that beavers can improve climate, drought and wildfire resilience throughout California.”

Targeted by settlers and fur trappers, California and the West’s beaver populations declined sharply in the 1800s. Trappers desired the beavers’ valuable pelts while landowners retaliated against the giant rodents for building dams that slowed stream flow, flooded farmland and disrupted water delivery systems.

North American beaver populations were once pegged as high as 200 million, but after decades of exploitation and eradication, there are only approximately 10-15 million beavers left.

Among many other benefits, beaver dams — such as the one shown here on the Salinas River — can raise groundwater levels by slowing flows, allowing water to pool and seep into groundwater tables. Credit- California Water Boards staff A comeback story

With the help of conservationists and researchers, California beavers’ prospects are improving. In 2023, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife conducted its first beaver conservation release, returning beavers to the ancestral lands of the Mountain Maidu people in Plumas County. More releases have followed across the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

“Thanks to the leadership of our tribal partners and years of preparation, beavers are returning to their original homeland around the state,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023. “California is restoring wildlife and critical habitat by working hand-in-hand with the tribes who have stewarded these lands.”

‘Beaver believers’

Back on the Central Coast, the Beaver Brigade has one hard and fast requirement for its tour participants: they must be willing to get wet.

On a sunny summer morning, the brigade led Central Coast Water Board staff into the Salinas River’s clear and shallow waters. Surrounded by thickets of cottonwoods, willows and other native vegetation, the participants got a close look at beaver dams and ponds on a stretch of the river near the city of Atascadero.

The river is the cornerstone of the Salinas Valley’s productive agricultural industry. Its surface flows and groundwater stores help farmers grow the lettuce, broccoli, strawberries, wine grapes and other crops that have earned the valley the moniker of the nation’s “salad bowl.”

The one-day educational tours, offered in English and Spanish, are free and teach participants to identify signs of beaver activity and how the dams can reduce common aquatic pollutants such as nitrates, phosphates, metals and excess sediments.

“People that go on our tours become beaver believers instantly,” Taub said. “We offer people the chance to be comfortable in a natural setting and see the beauty and wildlife all around the river.”

In addition to tours, the brigade uses grant funding from the Central Coast Water Board’s enforcement activities to support its summer internship course that offers teenagers career preparation skills, including data collection and presentation experience. The program also helps participants prepare for college by facilitating connections with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s College Corps Program.

Enforcement supports environmental work

The Water Boards’ Office of Enforcement plays a key role in protecting water quality, water supply and water availability for present and future generations by providing technical and legal support for enforcement actions across all the Water Boards’ regulatory programs.

Staff from the state and regional water boards work with public water systems, dischargers, and other regulated parties to ensure compliance with applicable laws and permits. Most formal enforcement actions fall into one of two categories: compliance orders and monetary penalties. In fiscal year 2024/25, the Water Boards issued 2,509 informal enforcement actions, 1,293 compliance actions and 209 penalty actions, imposing approximately $29 million in penalties.

In some cases, the Water Boards allow parties to settle their enforcement matters by completing or funding environmentally beneficial projects, including the one that is educating Central Coast residents about the importance of beavers.

To resolve alleged water quality violations at its Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, PG&E agreed to pay $5.9 million to the Central Coast Water Board; the board ultimately allocated $1.2 million from the settlement to the Central Coast Community Based Water Quality Grants Program, which helps fund the Beaver Brigade.

“The funding we receive [from the 2021 PG&E settlement] allows us to broaden whom we can take out to see the re-emerging beaver habitat and educate about the importance of the health of the Salinas River,” Taub said.

Central Coast Water Board staff and board members in front of a beaver dam on the Salinas River during a Beaver Brigade tour. Credit- California Water Boards staff

New Facilitation Team Member landing document Bienvenidx and welcome! We are so pleased that you have joined the Core Facilitation Team, and we look forward to receiving your contribution to our work, and sharing ours with you. To get you started, here is some information about the team and how we work, followed by information on what GTAGTAGTAGTAGTAGTAalternativesGTAalternativesGTAalternativesGTAAlternativestapestryalternativesAlternativesendorsersGTAGTAWeaversGTAAlternativesWeaversGTAWeave…

Bellona’s new Nuclear Digest for February is out now and catalogs a number of mounting pressures on Russia’s global nuclear footprint. From stalled projects in Europe to rising strategic risks after the collapse of arms control agreements, the events of last month show a more fragmented and less predictable nuclear landscape. Among other things, our analysis shows three important fault lines: Hungary’s Paks-2 project, Europe’s struggle to replace Russian nuclear components, and the consequences of the expiration of the New START Treaty. 

Hungary’s nuclear build: ‘A sanctions meat grinder’ 

Hungary’s Paks-2 nuclear power plant, built by Russia’s Rosatom, reached a symbolic milestone with the pouring of first concrete. But behind the ceremony, Bellona expert Dmitry Gorchakov writes that the project is under strain. 

He says the milestone comes years late—and under difficult conditions. What was once planned for 2022 has only now begun, delayed by a combination of regulatory and geopolitical obstacles. More fundamentally, Gorchakov says, the project has become entangled in sanctions pressure. 

“Paks-2 has fallen into a ‘sanctions meat grinder,’” according to Rosatom head Alexei Likhachev, Gorchakov notes, placing it alongside other delayed Rosatom projects facing similar constraints.  

The breakdown of cooperation with Siemens Energy illustrates the problem. Export licensing restrictions from Germany halted delivery of key control systems, forcing Rosatom to seek replacements. While Russian or European alternatives are being discussed, their availability and compatibility remain uncertain. 

Our analysis suggests that Paks-2 is no longer just an infrastructure project. It is a geopolitical balancing act. Hungary’s continued cooperation with Rosatom stands in contrast to broader European efforts to reduce reliance on Russian nuclear technology, leaving the project exposed to political and economic turmoil. 

At the same time, in light of the results of the April 12 elections in Hungary and the departure of Viktor Orbán’s government, the position of the new Hungarian authorities toward this project may change in the near future and become less favorable. 

Kozloduy: ‘much harder than it seems’ to switch parts 

If Paks-2 shows the impact of sanctions on new projects, Bulgaria’s Kozloduy plant reveals how difficult it is to disentangle existing systems from Russian supply chains. 

Attempts to replace Russian-made components with local alternatives led to repeated shutdowns of one reactor unit, after newly installed parts failed. The episode underscores the risks of rapid substitution in highly specialized systems. 

The situation “shows how difficult it can be to find replacements for all supplies from Russia and fully abandon them,” Gorchakov writes.  

The challenge, he argues, is deeper than many policymakers assume. Europe’s dependence extends far beyond nuclear fuel to include niche components with limited or nonexistent alternative suppliers. “Many such parts are harder to replace simply because there is no market for them,” he adds.  

This creates a dilemma for Soviet-built nuclear plants in Europe—continue limited cooperation with Russian suppliers or invest in developing new production capacity. We suggest that a coordinated European approach may be necessary, including joint programs to manufacture replacement components for Soviet-designed reactors. Without such efforts, the transition away from Russian technology risks introducing new operational vulnerabilities, particularly in aging plants undergoing life-extension programs. 

The end of the New START only the latest treaty abandoned 

Beyond civilian nuclear energy, Bellona warns that strategic stability is also eroding. The expiration of the New START Treaty removes one of the last remaining frameworks for nuclear arms control between Russia and the United States. 

In recent years, Gorchakov notes, there has been “a gradual abandonment of long-standing agreements in the field of nuclear arms control,” accompanied by rising nuclear rhetoric and renewed military signaling.  

The Arctic is emerging as a key area of concern. Home to Russia’s Northern Fleet and a large share of its nuclear arsenal, the region is already heavily militarized. Without treaty limits, Gorchakov warns, there are few constraints on further expansion. 

“Only political will can restrain Russia from potentially increasing its nuclear arsenal in the Arctic,” Gorchakov says.  

According to Bellona’s estimates, Russia could relatively quickly increase the number of deployed warheads on existing naval platforms, adding roughly 100 more without major technical hurdles. The loss of transparency and verification mechanisms raises the risk of miscalculation, with implications far beyond the Arctic. In our analysis, this marks a broader weakening of the global nuclear order. 

A System Under Strain 

Taken together, these developments point to a nuclear sector under growing stress. Projects like Paks-2 are slowed by sanctions and political friction. Existing plants like Kozloduy struggle with the legacy of technological dependence. And at the strategic level, the collapse of arms control agreements is increasing uncertainty. 

Bellona’s experts see these trends as interconnected. The same geopolitical tensions reshaping energy supply chains are also undermining long-standing security frameworks. Read about these developments and many more in our new Nuclear Digest.  

The post ‘Sanctions meat grinder,’ fragile supply chains, and nuclear risk—the February Nuclear Digest shows growing strains appeared first on Bellona.org.

One nurse’s experience running for township trustee reveals how local governance shapes water, land, and community health.

Ann M. Stalter, PhD, RN, M. Ed. | Professor | Wright State University |College of Health, Education, and Human Services | School of Nursing, Kinesiology, and Health Sciences

Key Takeaways to Consider

• Local government decisions shape health. Land use, infrastructure, and environmental stewardship affect air quality, water systems, food security, and climate resilience.
• Governance is a nursing practice setting. Nurses can bring population health expertise to planning boards, township meetings, and elected leadership roles.
• Planetary health leadership starts locally. When nurses participate in governance, prevention and environmental protection become part of community decision-making.

One evening not long ago, I stood outside a local polling place explaining something unusual to voters.

“You have to write my name in.”

I was running as a write-in candidate for Township Trustee, something this nurse never imagined doing. But as I explored planetary determinants of health, I realized: 

Decisions shaping community health are often made by local governments, not in hospitals.

Long before someone develops asthma, cardiovascular disease, or heat-related illness, local governments have already shaped the environment where they live. Decisions about land use, water systems, infrastructure, and development influence air quality, food systems, transportation patterns, and climate resilience. Yet nurses aren’t present to influence decisions. Running for office became an extension of health promotion. 

You might ask, “What does the township government have to do with health?”

Township governments make decisions about land use, agriculture, infrastructure, stormwater, and public resources. Each affects air, water, food systems, biodiversity, and climate resilience– planetary determinants of health.

When farms are replaced with sprawl, communities experience cascading impact—more traffic emissions, flood risk, and reduced food production. Participating in these decisions is prevention and health promotion.  

In my township, development pressure is increasing rapidly. Residents voiced their concerns– a farmer worried about losing land, and a mother about speeding traffic. Yet these concerns were not systematically translated into policy. Planning discussions included consultants, government staff, but lacked meaningful  community engagement. As a nurse, I recognized a familiar pattern: 

Policy decisions were being made without a comprehensive community assessment.

Listening to communities, identifying shared values, and translating evidence into action are core nursing skills and essential to governance.

Land as a Public Health Issue

Nurses understand that health is shaped long before clinical care is needed. Land use decisions determine access to nutritious food, safe activity, toxins exposure, and climate resilience. Local officials make these upstream decisions daily. Nurses bring a prevention lens that guides equitable, sustainable, and healthy outcomes.

My Story: Nursing Praxis in Action

Running as a write-in candidate required persistence and listening. At the same time, nursing students conducted a community assessment to inform land-use planning. Students completed surveys, observations, and interviews. Their role was assessment, not advocacy.

Two concerns surfaced repeatedly: Groundwater and Traffic Safety. Residents worried about wells running dry and aquifer contamination. In rural areas, aquifers take decades to recover. Residents also described fatal crashes involving teenage drivers on roads lacking safety improvements. 

Students also identified priorities such as agricultural preservation, responsible growth, and environmental sustainability. Their findings demonstrated how local governance can serve as a real-world setting for nursing practice.

Why Should Nurses Participate in Local Governance?

Nurses bring a perspective often missing in decision-making. Our training emphasizes prevention, population health, environmental exposure, and equity across generations. Participating in governance allows nurses to move beyond advisory roles and directly influence community health outcomes.

Protecting farmland, planning sustainable development, and investing in resilient infrastructure are forms of public health prevention. These choices help preserve food systems, reduce exposure, protect biodiversity, and strengthen climate resilience. 

Nurses can advance planetary health at the local level.

You don’t have to run for office to begin engaging in governance. Nurses can start by:

1. Attending local government meetings,
2. Serving on planning commissions or advisory boards,
3. Bringing public health evidence into policy discussions,
4. Supporting community health assessments, and/or
5. Considering appointed or elected leadership roles.

Local governments need leaders who understand how environmental decisions affect population health.

Author Reflection

Running for township trustee reshaped my view of nursing. It made clear that health is shaped by land, water, and local decisions. Listening to residents revealed governance and care intertwine, showing politics is an extension of nursing practice. Township planning reflects prevention, ethics, and community voice. If planetary health begins locally, nurses belong in spaces where those decisions are made.

This blog reflects my professional experience and perspectives; I used an AI tool for drafting support and to assist with word count reduction, organization, clarity, and grammar.

Bio 

Nurse leader and advocate for planetary health, this author is a full professor at Wright State University School of Nursing and Co-Chair of the Association of Community Health Nursing Educators (ACHNE) Research Committee. Her work integrates population health, environmental stewardship, and community engagement, emphasizing the role of local governance in shaping health outcomes and advancing sustainable, community-centered nursing practice. Contact: drannmariestalter@gmail.com or ann.stalter@wright.edu

The post Planetary health is local: Why nurses belong in township meetings appeared first on ANHE.

On April 8, dairy producers and advocates from CalCAN and the California Dairy Campaign met with more than twenty legislative offices...

The post Dairy Producers Show Policymakers that AMMP Funding is Critical to Meeting Methane Reduction Goals and Staying Viable in California appeared first on CalCAN - California Climate & Agriculture Network.

They were a thriving family until a single hunter changed everything.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Date: April 17, 2026 
Contact: Andy Moderow | 907-360-3622 | andy@alaskawild.org 

Trump Administration Moves Forward with Arctic Refuge Lease Sale, Ignoring Public Opposition and Threatening Indigenous Communities

Washington, D.C. — Today, the Trump administration announced plans to hold a new oil and gas lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, advancing efforts to industrialize one of the nation’s most iconic and ecologically significant landscapes.

The coastal plain of the Refuge is often called the biological heart of the Arctic Refuge. On top of critical polar bear habitat, it is the calving grounds of the Porcupine Caribou herd, which the Gwich’in people rely on for their culture, food security, and way of life.

Despite this, and despite consistent polling showing that a strong majority of Americans oppose drilling in the Arctic Refuge, the administration is moving forward with a plan that prioritizes oil industry interests over people, wildlife, and long-term economic stability.

“For decades, the American people have recognized that the Arctic Refuge is not an industrial zone for oil development, and this sale simply runs counter to common sense,” said Andy Moderow, senior director of policy at Alaska Wilderness League. “Any oil and gas company that is even thinking about buying these leases should know that, if they do, they will be sending a clear message to the American people—that no place in Alaska is too sacred to drill in a quest for corporate profits. We urge companies to take a pass on the Arctic Refuge lease sale, and we look forward to rightfully restoring protections for this landscape in the years to come.”

Previous lease sales in the Refuge have struggled to attract interest, underscoring the growing financial and reputational risks associated with Arctic drilling. Major banks and insurers have distanced themselves from such projects, and energy markets continue to shift toward cleaner alternatives.

Alaska Wilderness League will continue to stand with the Gwich’in people and partners across the country to oppose drilling in the Arctic Refuge and protect America’s public lands and waters for future generations.

###

Photo: Florian Schulz / www.florianschulz.org 

United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples Side Event: Resisting Digital Colonialism | Alto al Colonialismo Digital​

One evening last winter, I sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic on an eight-lane highway. It was rush hour but felt much later, with dark gray clouds hanging low in the sky. Red LED taillights blinked on and off as the traffic inched forward alongside a mass of dirty, day-old snow on the shoulder. Exhaust from the idling cars floated skyward, and I imagined it getting trapped under the low clouds, contributing to the sooty darkness.

Itching to get home, I turned on CBC News, the local radio station. The voice of Dr. Holli-Anne Passmore, associate professor of psychology at Concordia University of Edmonton, cut through the hum of the motor and the neighboring car’s stereo bass.

Passmore recounted how she had spent years studying how to move the needle on emotional wellbeing. Particularly during the winter, she said, many people find themselves struggling with the dreary days and shorter daylight hours. The gloomy suburban landscape through my windshield offered little in the way of contradictory evidence.

Passmore’s research on improving mental states pointed to something extremely simple: noticing nature. In a study involving 395 undergraduate students in Edmonton, and later replicated among 173 undergraduate students in China, she showed that simply taking a moment to truly notice everyday nature (such as a tree on a street corner, a bird pecking at feed, or a squirrel racing along the top of a fence) can trigger feelings of joy, wonder, and gratitude. No sweeping wilderness vistas are required: Participants in her studies reported feeling more satisfaction with life and more connected to nature even in largely urban environments.

It was an appealing idea, though my own relationship with the natural world felt somewhat complicated.

Like many of us, I’ve spent my entire adult life under the shadow of the climate crisis, weighed down and sometimes paralyzed by climate despair. Pursuing a master’s degree in environmental policy at the University of Cambridge only made me feel more hopeless — how could I, an insignificant piece of an extractivist society that seemed hell-bent on self-destruction, ever hope to do anything about it?

While there’s no use in burying one’s head in the sand, there’s also an inherent tension between seeking out knowledge to inform oneself about the climate crisis and the emotional burden that comes with it.

Those who frequently read the news know this feeling all too well. Every day is like watching the ship approach the iceberg, seeing it looming just ahead but having no power to force the captain to chart a different course. It’s a deeply exhausting experience.

Today such eco-anxiety is common. While not a formal medical diagnosis, feelings of fear, rage, and sadness over rapidly rising global temperatures and resulting climatic crises can have significant mental health effects. The impact of eco-anxiety is greatest for young people, but it can affect people of all ages. Though it may sometimes drive positive behaviors such as activism, information-gathering, or efforts to reduce personal environmental impact, all too often it provokes a sense of helplessness.

How, then, can we as environmentalists immunize ourselves against this grief? How can we understand and care about what’s happening to our beautiful planet while still taking care of ourselves?

Passmore’s words lingered in my mind as I pulled into my driveway later that evening. Just inside my front door was my Monstera deliciosa houseplant. While I’d had the plant for a few years and was careful to water it regularly, I had seen it as more of a decorative, static object than a living thing.

But that night I bent down to observe it at eye level and saw a new, light green leaf just beginning to emerge from another stem. Without any intervention or attention on my part, this tiny miracle was taking place in my living room, creating life from sunlight, air, and water.

And so began a habit of truly noticing and marveling at the nature around me.

As the days grew longer and the months grew warmer, I found myself enchanted by dozens of small caterpillars inching across a hiking trail, by the leaves emerging slowly and then all at once from the maple tree on my street, and by the woodpecker that took up residence outside my window and woke me up in the wee hours of every morning. A walk by the lake was no longer solely for the purpose of getting fresh air but also an opportunity to examine the goose and goslings bobbing along beside the rocky shore. A sunny autumn afternoon on my grandfather’s hobby farm left me in awe of the gift of apple trees, heavy with fruit brought forth from the earth.

With this change in perspective came a change in my actions. I began having more positive and hopeful conversations with other environmentalists, felt compelled to donate to new conservation causes, and, perhaps most therapeutically, started writing.

As our planet continues to warm, an ever-greater number of people will be affected by eco-anxiety and environmental grief. However, we as environmentalists can and should combat this. Defending ourselves from environmental grief and apathy by choosing to notice the wonder of everyday nature can not only improve our mental health but also help us reconnect with the world we love so deeply.

Despair is not productive; it prevents us from taking the actions we need to seek change. A recent piece in The Revelator by Rick MacPherson said it well:

“But despair isn’t neutral. It doesn’t just describe reality. It shapes it. Despair hands momentum to the forces counting on our fatigue. To the industries that benefit when we withdraw. To leaders who flourish when we believe we are powerless. It masquerades as honesty. Underneath it is permission — not to feel, but to quit.”

We cannot afford to give ourselves this permission. We regain our power by allowing the wonder of nature to ground us and guide us, to cut through the fog of grief, to inspire our resolve, and to remind us why this matters.

If this simple act can help motivate us to demand something different, count me in — and in the meantime, I’ll be paying close attention to my houseplants.

Previously in The Revelator:

Dr. Green: A Wildlife Researcher Asks About Trauma and Grief

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy.

The post The Antidote to Your Eco-Anxiety May Be Right Outside appeared first on The Revelator.

“The Hub” is a weekly round-up of transportation related news in the Philadelphia area and beyond. Check back weekly to keep up-to-date on the issues Clean Air Council’s transportation staff finds important.

Join Transit Forward Philadelphia for events and actions to fight for transit funding and other wins in the City Budget. Attend City Council Budget Hearings, and learn how to advocate with Transit Forward Philadelphia.

Are you interested in improving the health and built environment of Philadelphia? The Nutrition and Physical Activity Team in the Health Department of Philadelphia is hiring a Built Environment Coordinator, and a Community Health Infrastructure Coordinator. Click the links in the titles to learn more about these roles and their impact!

Image Source: BillyPenn

BillyPenn: ‘Pop-up concrete’ event shows what bike lane protection on Spruce and Pine could be – Philly Bike Action (PBA) members set up their ideal bike lane protections, eight-in tall concrete barriers. Models made of cardboard were placed out on Spruce and Pine on Saturday, along with four pop-up stands, handing out coffee and pretzels for free, as well as information about safety improvements. The event’s goal was to highlight what proposed safety measures would look like and dispel common misunderstandings of cyclist and pedestrian safety initiatives.

Image Source: The Inquirer

The Inquirer: SEPTA will keep $2.90 fare for World Cup transit rides. Boston is charging $80 – There is no plan to increase the base fare of $2.90 for SEPTA riders on the Broad Street Line to Lincoln Financial Field for World Cup matches. This is different from other World Cup host cities in the United States. NJ Transit will be charging over $100 for the 18-mile train ride from NY Penn Station to NJ Meadowlands. Boston transit will be increasing its prices from $20 to $80. SEPTA will be handling demand by operating extra trains to support sports complex lines, but regular service hours and open stations can be expected. Additional buses are also being dispatched to serve the FIFA Fan Festival in East Fairmount Park from mid-June through mid-July.

Image Source: The Philadelphia Tribune

The Philadelphia Tribune: SEPTA reports progress on crime, need for capital funding – SEPTA reported on Wednesday that the system has seen 51 consecutive months of rider growth. They also reported crime is down 30% for the first quarter of 2026, and fare evasion dropped 37%. Over the next decade, billions in improvements are planned, including new fleets for the Market-Frankford Line, trolleys, and regional rail lines. The New Bus Network will streamline bus service across the city, and these changes will result in 660 service hours to the system.

Other Stories

NBC: PennDOT crews to repair potholes on more than 35 highways in Philly region

PhillyVoice: NJ Transit unveils first of 40 new train cars expected to enter service this year

The Inquirer via MSN: Waymo robotaxis are helping cities map potholes. Could Philly be next?

PhillyVoice: Speed cameras activated on stretch of Route 13 in Northeast Philly

The Inquirer: Comcast Spectacor reveals new location for Sixers and Flyers arena

Amtrak Media: Amtrak Joins SEPTA to Celebrate Completion of Ardmore Station Improvements

NBC Philadelphia: SEPTA Transit Police welcoming four new K-9 recruits this spring

In the quiet of late winter, tracks in the snow across Rahesuo and Valkeasuo peatlands reveal the hidden movements of wildlife. This field survey offers insight into how species survive the coldest months and how restoration in the Koitajoki Watershed is supporting boreal ecosystems.

Please see the news here.

Three decades after one of the largest lead mines in the world closed down, people in Kabwe, Zambia, are still dealing with the aftermath. Facing pervasive lead contamination that continues to endanger their children, families in Kabwe, with a coalition of human rights groups, are calling on the African Union to force Zambia to clean up the site.

Read more on E360 →

Since Donald Trump moved into the White House for his second term as president in January 2025, you’d be forgiven for thinking the US has abandoned all action to tackle climate change and is working aggressively to undermine the efforts of other countries towards that end.

This week, at the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington DC, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent cast doubt on the scientific consensus around global warming and pressured the two institutions to reverse what he called their “mission creep” and “myopic focus” on climate.

But this hostile rhetoric from the Trump administration and its withdrawal from the UN climate regime – coupled with its support for fossil fuels – doesn’t tell the whole story of what’s happening in the US, according to Lou Leonard, the first dean of the School of Climate, Environment, and Society at Clark University.

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At the state, city and community level, as well as in business and higher education, efforts are resolutely continuing to reduce planet-heating emissions, boost clean energy and adapt to climate shocks, Leonard, an environmental lawyer, told Climate Home News in an interview from Massachusetts.

Thanks to impetus from coalitions such as America Is All In – whose predecessor group he helped launch – the US can still make significant progress towards its 2035 goals to cut emissions, research shows. Leonard, who worked as senior vice president for climate and energy at the World Wildlife Fund for over a decade, explains how US climate action and the Paris Agreement can survive Trump’s wrecking ball.

Q: Has the effect of the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine global climate action and the UN climate process been worse than you expected? 

A: A thing that is striking to me, looking at the decade of the Paris Agreement… is that over the course of that decade, the United States had a hostile sort of leadership in Washington, and the agreement has endured.

And it has endured despite the United States, not because of the United States – at least from a federal standpoint. The US was really important in the formation stage but has not been as vital to the endurance of the agreement.

Q: Is it not fair to say though that the current US abandonment of the UN climate process could reduce the impact and influence of the Paris Agreement?

A: The nature of an international cooperative framework means that the aggregate ambition is as strong as the countries that make up it, right? I’m not saying that, in the dream scenario where every country was in a really aggressively positive place that we would not get more out of the international framework. There’s no question that that’s true.

I think it’s just when we’re thinking about the singular role of one country – even the United States – there’s much more in play here than that theory of how things were going to work; the centrality of the United States to all this, especially at the Washington level. I think that turned out to be wrong – at least in the longest sweep of the progress that we’ve made.

Fossil Free Zones can be on-ramps to the clean energy transition

I think the reason why what’s happening in Washington didn’t have as great an impact as it might have in the rest of the world is because the story of what’s happening in the United States is not limited to what’s happening in Washington.

And that’s the second part – which is the things that sometimes frustrate people about the American political system – the sharing of power and the federal system, and all of those things which were intentionally built into the US system.

In these moments, that structure has helped create a reality… and then the rest of the world can see for itself that there’s all these efforts through America Is All In and in other places to bring those actors and that leadership and analysis of the impact of that effort to the rest of the world. I think that that has been an important part of the story of why the Paris Agreement has endured.

Lou Leonard, Dean of the School of Climate, Environment, and Society, speaks at an America Is All In event. Lou Leonard, Dean of the School of Climate, Environment, and Society, speaks at an America Is All In event.

Q: What have some of the most important of those subnational efforts been in your view?

A: California’s the most obvious example, because it’s the world’s sixth largest economy and it’s certainly one of the most aggressive states moving forward on climate action. But it’s more than that: if you look at the America Is All In analysis that was released at COP30 in Belém, it shows a roadmap to maintain US trajectories, as a way to keep things from really collapsing when you have these changes in federal leadership.

There’s a parallel there to what’s happening globally – this is a distributed effort. We need all of society, all over the world, to be moving in this direction in order to reach our most ambitious goals.

And I think the fact that the US has over half of the economy, at least, really leaning in this direction really helps. And then if you just look at the energy transition in the US, we have begun to reach this tipping point where the role of the markets and the role of politics are shifting to some degree.

We really needed the policy incentives, and a lot of that [earlier] signal coming from Washington and then the states to get us to a point where renewable energy penetration was significant enough to begin to have momentum on its own, and I think we’re starting to see that. In just the last two years, over 90% of the new generation capacity in the United States has been renewables.

Q: Where do you see real momentum on US climate action continuing or gathering pace despite what Washington is up to?

A: What I really think is going to take us to another level than just relying on state governments… is the catalysing of more of a collaborative “all of society” approach here.

That’s what led me to higher education. I felt like there was an understanding and an alignment within higher education of the importance of these topics – and then the bench within higher education is filled with some of the top experts in the world on climate who were already leading as it related to climate science and talking about the problem. But if we could take that capacity and bring it into more direct relationship with businesses, municipalities and states, then that has the potential to unlock more of the impact of those actors together … that’s the reason I made the move.

The thing that drew me to [Clark] was you had a small university with really a national research capacity. And in Massachusetts, you have the only state in the country that has a chief climate officer that reports to the governor. You’ve got policy that’s been put in place related to green banks and zoning rules related to decarbonisation of buildings. And a state-based climate law that’s aligned with the Paris Agreement goals and has decarbonisation or net zero emissions by mid-century. You’ve got that policy piece in place, and then it’s how can you begin to catalyse some more of the collaboration that’s going be necessary to actually meet those goals? I think that’s really exciting.

Iran war could boost fossil fuel phase-out push, says Colombian minister

Another place where we’re seeing these ingredients come together is Pennsylvania. Just a month ago, the state of Pennsylvania created a new programme called Prepare PA, which is both about preparing for climate impacts and reaching goals related to the energy transition and the like. And they’re putting Penn State University at the centre of trying to help them implement a plan that involves businesses and municipalities. I think you’re seeing more and more of this kind of experimentation.

… This was always going to be an all-of-society effort, and the more we can see that, and the more we can make it real – how we all have roles to play at the local level, at the state level, in the private sector, in universities, in civil society, the more we have the opportunity to avoid this sense of powerlessness [about climate change] that can lead us to nihilism.

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Candidates and campaigners debate alternative local offers to Labour and Reform, through future alliances and those already underway

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Vijay Prashad and Tings Chak’s article in Monthly Review, “The Idea of the ‘Uyghur Genocide’ and the Realities of Xinjiang,” is among the more substantial recent efforts on the international Left to defend China’s repressive policies in Xinjiang and dismiss the grievances of local Muslim peoples. Their article strikes a similar tone to the Chinese government sources that they often rely on, featuring the same questionable historical narratives and narrow focus on a few individual critics and their affiliations. By the end of the piece, I was noting signs of intellectual sloppiness. As I did my due diligence and dug into its sources, my suspicions were confirmed.

Prashad and Chak now edit the international edition of the journal Wenhua Zongheng 文化纵横. This has brought them into dialogue with Chinese intellectuals such as Wang Hui 汪晖, and it was unsurprising to see the article’s conclusion riffing off Wang’s critique of technocratic governance in the PRC. Wang was cited here for the view that “[g]enuine ethnic unity cannot be achieved through depoliticization, but must be built on recognition of history, diversity, and substantive equality.” I found this a well-meaning note to end on, even if the article itself had done little to advance these objectives.

But as has now been confirmed through an exchange with Prashad online, Wang did not write these lines. The “landmark essay” attributed to him was made up. It also emerged that the authors had invented a book by Wang Ke 王柯, a scholar of Xinjiang who works in Japan, and a Grayzone article by Max Blumenthal.

I’m unsure how much weight to give all this. Needless to say, I found it dismaying to find a left forum like Monthly Review infected by the same fake sourcing that I now must watch out for in the undergraduate essays I receive. Prashad says that there was no AI use involved in their article. Only he and his co-author know the truth of that. He has also said that the flaws in its referencing do not materially impact the substance of the article. Here we agree. Let us note this shortcoming and move on. Any debate should indeed focus on points of substance. On that, I’m afraid to say, my conclusion is that the article’s substance is as deficient as its referencing.

Misusing history

Take the authors’ sketch of Xinjiang’s history. Like every State Council White Paper, they repeat a version of the mantra that this territory has been part of China since ancient times. They claim that not only Xinjiang, but Tibet as well, were part of China during the Eastern Han dynasty (25–229 CE)—and also during the Tang (618–907), Yuan (1271–1368), Ming (1368–1644), and Qing (1644–1912) dynasties.

Before going on, I must pause to note how absurd it is for Prashad and Chak to drag us onto this terrain of debate at all. Since when has the Left considered the political status of a territory millennia in the past to have any bearing on the justice of its political configuration in the present? What business is it of today’s radicals to plumb dynastic chronicles to decide whether this or that piece of land rightfully “belongs” to a modern state? Prashad and Chak would not appreciate the comparison, but the similarity between this kind of argumentation and the logic of Zionism is striking.

Since when has the Left considered the political status of a territory millennia in the past to have any bearing on the justice of its political configuration in the present?

Space precludes a full dissection of the specific claims. Briefly, though, the Han and Tang participated in multisided rivalries in the Tarim Basin, both establishing intermittent control there across a century or so—i.e., for less than half their existence. As for the “Yuan,” this was the Chinese name for the “Great Mongol Empire,” i.e., it was a Mongol, not a Chinese dynasty. In any case, the Toluid family ruling the Yuan were mostly kept out of Xinjiang by their Ögedeid and Chaghatayid cousins. The Ming then garrisoned Hami, on the very eastern edge of Xinjiang, for a century or so before the Islamised Chaghatayid Mongols drove them out. Finally, while maintaining that Xinjiang “belonged” to the Qing, the authors acknowledge that it was only after the destruction of the Junghar khanate (1634–1758) that this empire was able to tax it. The admission brings them close to recognizing the obvious reality: that the Qing dynasty’s mid-eighteenth-century incorporation of Xinjiang was an act of imperial conquest.

The difficulty for the authors is that the Chinese government line on Xinjiang has evolved in the last decade, in line with the heightened repression. The official position today is not that some dynasties had control of Xinjiang, but that they all did. The State Council report that Prashad and Chak cite says that Xinjiang became “Chinese territory” in the Han Dynasty and that all dynasties since “exercised the right of jurisdiction” there. This is where things get truly awkward for anyone interested in preserving their credibility as a historian, and Prashad and Chak decide to dodge the issue by shifting to questions of ideology. “Chinese political thought,” they argue, “is not rooted in fixed territory but in a more abstract idea of belonging.” All Chinese empires had documents that “suggested” their rule in Xinjiang, grounded in the civilizational notion of “all under Heaven”, i.e. Tianxia.

There is a term for a style of analysis that rests on a stark binary between Eastern and Western ways of thinking and doing. Edward Said once wrote a book about it. But the fact is, there is nothing particularly unique about the universalist pretensions exhibited by China’s dynasties. The Holy Roman Empire once claimed to rule all “Christendom,” even though its actual writ was far more limited.

What the imperial self-aggrandizing of the past might have to do with the rights and wrongs of policies in the present is again something the authors entirely fail to explain.

At this point Prashad and Chak add a final disclaimer: that the historical literature on Xinjiang is vast and “beyond our command to interpret.” Were they genuinely so perplexed, the appropriate thing to do would be to present various sides of the debate. But this they have studiously avoided doing. The only version of history they have presented is the distorted one preferred by Beijing. Their closing gesture towards the inscrutable Orient is a last-ditch effort to restore some distance between themselves and the obviously false claims they have rehashed.

Are we reinventing here the category of “non-historic” peoples, destined to be swept aside by those with more viable national movements?

We move from here to an equally common talking point in official publications: that the notion of “East Turkistan” was a foreign invention. I can assure the authors that well before any Russian influence, the notion that Xinjiang was part of “Turkistan” was commonplace. It is also true that modern nationalism came relatively late to Central Asia, and that when it did, local imaginings of nation and place were part of a trans-Eurasian dialogue, connecting to intellectual trends among Muslims and non-Muslims in Russia and the Ottoman Empire. There is nothing particularly unique in such a story. Entering the twentieth century, activists in or from Xinjiang laid claim to the territory using a mixture of old and new vocabulary: Uyghuristan, East Turkistan, Altishahr, occasionally even the archaic “Moghulistan.”

So what? Again, I am reminded of the way that Zionists try to discredit the Palestinian cause by claiming that “Palestine” was not a well-defined, or meaningful geographic unit for the inhabitants of the region at the time of Zionist colonization. Those facts are in dispute, but even assuming this was the case, what follows? Are people to be punished for arriving late to a fully elaborated nationalist program? Are we reinventing here the category of “non-historic” peoples, destined to be swept aside by those with more viable national movements?

The fact is, Prashad and Chak show no serious interest in the complex political history of the region they are discussing. They skip the entire history of Islamic reformism and Soviet-aligned Uyghur nationalism; there is no mention of Comintern strategies towards Xinjiang, which saw various schemes to extend the Russian revolution there; nothing on Uyghur labor organizing or cultural radicalism in Soviet Central Asia. Their “left” analysis sets all this aside to commence a narrative of “secession” movements at the time of the Sino-Soviet split, aligning with a trend in China today to reduce Uyghur nationalism to a tool of Russian/Soviet intrigue. They devote two long paragraphs to the relatively insignificant figure of Yusupbek Mukhlisi (1920–2004), with only a brief nod to the Second East Turkistan Republic as part of his life story. They inform us that Mukhlisi’s Kazakhstan-centered network claimed responsibility for attacks in China in the 1990s, neglecting to mention that not even the Chinese government took these claims seriously. Prashad and Chak’s narrative of more recent militancy likewise zooms in on individuals and organizations at the expense of any consideration of social conditions. No one denies that jihadists have emerged from discontented sections of Xinjiang’s populace, and that some of these have engaged in unconscionable attacks on ordinary Chinese civilians. But simply recycling official narratives on the scale and nature of these attacks adds little clarity to the discussion.

Counter-terrorism and repression

The authors’ master narrative of recent years is of a Communist Party gradually shifting from a counter-terrorism crackdown to recognizing the social and economic grievances that generated support for Uyghur militancy and addressing these through development schemes. There is a grain of truth here, and recent improvements in basic living standards in Xinjiang have indeed been impressive. But the party has long had grand designs for Xinjiang’s economy. The relevant policy shift between the first and second decades of the twenty-first century was not from counterterrorism to development, but from militarized counterterrorist policing to a far more wide-ranging “de-radicalization” paradigm. This involved a panoply of War on Terror techniques: predictive policing (on the basis of Islamophobic “indicators” of radicalization), surveillance of social media and domestic space, public loyalty ceremonies, and of course mass ideological re-education carried out through detention centers.

At the same time, a Stalinist purge hit Xinjiang’s institutions, targeting non-Han elites deemed insufficiently loyal. As one Chinese commentator described it in 2020: “Xinjiang has punished a large number of ‘two-faced people’ and ‘two-faced factions’ in the fields of public security, prosecution, law, education, publishing, propaganda and culture.” The Chinese government has itself publicized stories of Uyghur intellectuals imprisoned for publications that were once approved by state censors, but which now fall foul of tightening ideological standards. Alongside this, there is ample evidence of people receiving devastating sentences for acts as simple as providing religious instruction at home or maintaining contact with relatives outside China.

The authors would have us believe that stories of repression in Xinjiang originate in a narrow circle of U.S.-aligned diaspora activists.

All this is grossly minimized by Prashad and Chak. In the only mention of formal incarceration in their entire article, they note in passing that “several people” were imprisoned from 2014 to 2019 for “violent activities.” “Several people”? Total prosecutions in Xinjiang soared during this period, jumping from 41,305 in 2016 to 215,823 in 2017, and increased in average length. China has not hidden the fact that thousands have been convicted for “terrorism” offenses—keeping in mind that a UN review of available judicial documentation described “judgments referring to conduct being ‘extremist’ despite none of the formal charges being related to terrorism or “extremism.’” This was seen as indicative “of an approach that considers any type of violation of law committed by a Muslim person as presumptively “extremist.’”

The authors would have us believe that stories of repression in Xinjiang originate in a narrow circle of U.S.-aligned diaspora activists. But some of the most chilling stories I have encountered—of family members ripped from their beds at night, eventually returning months or years later as broken individuals—have been from people who studiously avoid all involvement in diaspora politics. Against such narratives, the authors counterpose the glowing reports that China has received from bodies such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. I suppose if China’s State Council is a trustworthy source on human rights in Xinjiang, then why not Egyptian or Indonesian diplomats?

In the end, Prashad and Chak fall back on a form of whataboutism: Sure, the camps might have been coercive, but China’s counter-terrorism policies were still preferable to Russia’s in Chechnya, America’s in Iraq, or Israel’s in Palestine. This is true enough. China has not engaged in the mass slaughter of Uyghurs and Kazakhs. Gaza stands in ruins, while Xinjiang’s modern infrastructure grows. But the comparison strikes me as odd, given the earlier insistence that Xinjiang has been part of China for millennia. If so, why are imperialist wars and colonial genocides the points of reference here?

The question of “genocide”

Which brings me to the question: Is this genocide? This often sits at the center of debate on Xinjiang, but in my opinion it need not. When public discourse shifted to talk of “genocide” in Xinjiang, I was among those who were wary. The hope that accusing China of the crime of crimes might prompt international action was understandable, if misplaced. But it was equally obvious that the claim would serve as a lightning rod for skeptical critique, and risk obscuring the wider question of mass repression and cultural erasure. Some adopt capacious definitions of genocide that may arguably capture the Xinjiang case. Personally, I use the term in its common-language sense of the deliberate destruction of a people. While some have died in China’s camps and prisons, I am not convinced that “genocide” best describes the situation.

I can also concur with the authors that talk of genocide in Xinjiang has been cynically exploited by governments that have no business lecturing anyone on human rights, implicated as they are in their own horrific crimes. Liberal human rights organizations have often been too quick to make common cause with China hawks. The Left should have no truck with any of this.

Aligning as they do with official Chinese government positions, Prashad and Chak’s argumentation draws more on the logic of nationalism than left traditions of debate on the national question.

But equally, the Left should not allow criticism of genocide claims to smuggle in an attitude of indifference to the human suffering that those claims point to—precisely what Prashad and Chak are trying to do. In their hands, talk of genocide is reduced to the work of a handful of individuals affiliated with right-wing think tanks, a move that allows them to focus on cultivating a sense that the entire Xinjiang issue is a construct of funding sources and self-interest. This will pass for “materialism” in some circles, but it is the sort of analysis that Gramsci had in mind when he complained of the reduction of Marxism to “economic superstition.” In such thinking, “‘Critical’ activity is reduced to the exposure of swindles, to creating scandals, and to prying into the pockets of public figures.”

Sadly, far too much of today’s China debate has this feel to it. Prashad and his co-thinkers are often enough on the receiving end themselves of critiques focusing on funding sources. It is a pity that instead of elevating the discussion above this level, they choose to descend to it.

Concluding

Aligning as they do with official Chinese government positions, Prashad and Chak’s argumentation draws more on the logic of nationalism than left traditions of debate on the national question. They are quite often wrong, but just as often they present talking points with little obvious relevance to determining where the Left should stand on  the situation in Xinjiang. Wang Hui’s critique of “depoliticization,” which the authors embrace in their conclusion, expresses a desire for more dialogue and debate to build trust among the peoples of Xinjiang. Well and good. But who do they imagine participating in this dialogue? Minzu University Professor Ilham Tohti once tried to initiate such an exchange, and is now serving a life sentence in prison for separatism. Any comment from the authors on that?

Marxists have always insisted that the only way to build trust amid national antagonisms is through the forthright defense of national rights—something that is entirely missing from Prashad and Chak’s lengthy presentation. In the absence of this, what is the import of a call for more “politicized” governance in Xinjiang? After all, Xinjiang has seen plenty of politics in the last decade: relentless ideological bullying, the constriction of non-Han languages and cultural expression, and life-destroying punishments for anyone who steps out of line. The full implications of China’s new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress remain to be seen, but it looks likely to involve more of the same. Some may choose to keep downplaying all this in the name of anti-imperialism. I think the Left needs to tell the truth.

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: Preston Rhea; modified by Tempest.

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