News Feeds

Mitchell Lake Audubon Center serves more than 3,000 K-12 students each year with a small team of educators led by Erin Magerl, Senior Education Coordinator. This summer, she is joined by two Seasonal...

Are you ready to learn more about how beaver coexistence can build capacity for land managers and owners in California? Join the California Beaver Coexistence Training and Support Program on June 10, 2026 from 9-11:30am for an informative webinar featuring coexistence experts and practitioners.

By the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center
– visit their website to register for the webinar on June 10, 2026.

During their 2nd annual webinar, participants will hear from Grey Hayes, Beaver Coexistence Program Manager at Occidental Arts & Ecology Center. Grey will share about the California Beaver Help Desk. This new landowner support tool provides technical and financial support for those ready to expedite beaver solutions—from neighborhoods experiencing flooding, wetland managers with clogged culverts, and ranchers looking to preserve shade-producing trees.

The webinar will also feature presentations and discussions with two of the state’s leading beaver coexistence professionals: Cathy Mueller with Connected Ecology and David Krawitz-Greenspan of Wet Meadows Institute. They will share case studies showing how their work makes living alongside beaver easy and affordable for communities. The Beaver Institute’s Aaron Hall will describe the national context of California’s beaver coexistence efforts. Additionally, Molly Alves from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Beaver Restoration Program will offer updates about that program, and Vicky Monroe of CDFW’s Human Wildlife Conflict division will discuss how her team works to resolve human-beaver conflicts. 

Participants are encouraged to watch our previous webinar, which this year’s will build upon with timely new information and insights about coexistence in California. We anticipate ample time to answer participant questions during the webinar.

For more information, visit the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center:

• Beaver Coexistence In California Webinar
• Bring Back the Beaver

SilvaBio, the corporation seeking to mass clone and sell genetically engineered American chestnut trees, released a press release on 25 April claiming “four independent studies” validate the blight tolerance of their Darling 54 (D54) trees. SilvaBio repackages limited, short-term and previously available studies to create the appearance of momentum for a deeply flawed tree.

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

I am finalizing a textbook on climate risk and am posting chapters as I finish them. I’d previously posted chapters about embedded energy and physical climate risk; this post is a chapter on transition risk, the economic and social risks of the transition to a clean-energy economy.

Introduction

In the context of climate risk, transition risk encompasses the economic and social risks associated with a shift towards a low-carbon economy. Such an effort would fundamentally reshape our world and create critical financial uncertainty for assets and industries tied to the old, carbon-intensive system.

Net zero

Reaching “net zero” is the ultimate goal of most climate policy. This means reducing greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible, with any remaining emissions that are too difficult or costly to eliminate are canceled out by an equivalent amount of “negative emissions” — processes that actively pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. These negative emissions are the “net” part of net zero and it acknowledges the practical reality that some sectors, like long-distance air travel or ocean shipping, may be incredibly difficult to decarbonize in the near future.

What are these negative emissions technologies? The two primary methods discussed are Direct Air Capture (DAC), which uses machines to filter carbon dioxide directly from the air, and Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Sequestration (BECCS), which involves growing crops, burning them for energy, and capturing and burying the resulting carbon dioxide. However, both technologies face significant hurdles, including high costs, large energy requirements, and, in the case of BECCS, immense land use needs that could compete with food production and biodiversity.

Once we reach net zero, global temperatures will stabilize — although they won’t recover to pre-industrial levels for tens of thousands of years. Getting the climate to actually cool on time scales we care about (decades to centuries) would would require pulling even more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, or deploying some type of climate engineering approach like injecting aerosols into the stratosphere.

The scale of the net zero transformation means that reaching net zero will fundamentally overhaul vast parts of the global economy. Many big sectors of our economy — energy, transportation, industry, agriculture — must be reshaped, and that reshaping will create enormous opportunities as well as painful dislocations. The transition to a low-carbon economy is not simply a matter of swapping one energy source for another; it requires rebuilding infrastructure, retraining workers, and redirecting trillions of dollars in investment.

Some industries are poised to prosper. Renewable energy is the most obvious example: in 2025, the world added over 700 GW of new capacity, and sustaining that pace for decades will require ongoing investment in manufacturing, installation, and maintenance of wind turbines and solar panels. The profits for those well positioned will be enormous.

The electric vehicle industry and its supply chains — from battery manufacturers to mining operations for lithium and cobalt — also stand to grow dramatically. Companies that build and manage electrical grid infrastructure, including new transmission lines and energy storage systems, will see surging demand. So too will firms specializing in energy efficiency, building retrofits, and emerging technologies like green hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuels. Even agriculture could see new revenue streams as farmers are paid to adopt practices that sequester carbon in soil.

Other industries, however, face serious decline. Fossil fuel producers (coal, oil, and natural gas) confront the prospect of their core product becoming obsolete, stranding assets worth trillions of dollars. Workers in these industries, from coal miners to oil rig operators, risk losing their livelihoods.

The effects extend well beyond extraction: refineries, pipelines, and petrochemical plants all face an uncertain future. The automotive sector will also see significant disruption, as the shift to electric vehicles renders the internal combustion engine and its complex supply chain of transmissions, exhaust systems, and fuel injection components irrelevant. Communities built around these industries may face economic devastation if the transition is not carefully managed.

This uneven distribution of winners and losers will create difficult economic and political challenges, particularly during the transition period. The enormous capital investment required — in renewable generation, grid modernization, EV charging infrastructure, industrial retooling, and carbon removal — must be mobilized quickly, creating the risk of supply chain bottlenecks, inflation in key materials, and financial instability. Managing this transition in a way that is both fast enough to meet climate targets and equitable enough to maintain broad public support is one of the defining policy challenges of our time.

Stranded assets

A core concept in transition risk is the “stranded asset”. A stranded asset is defined as an asset that loses significant value well before the end of its expected economic life. This loss is often sudden and unexpected, driven by changes in market conditions, technology, or policy. While this can happen for many reasons, it is a particularly potent risk in the context of climate change, arising from both direct physical impacts and the economic shifts of the energy transition.

For example, here is a house that literally fell into the ocean in North Carolina in Sept. 2025:

link

From Zillow.com, this was a pricey house:

link

 

This house could have stood for another few decades, but it collapsed into the ocean due to coastal erosion that was certainly made worse by sea level rise. When that happened, its value instantly dropped to zero, a stark, nonlinear impact that produced a stranded asset.

While physical risks can strand assets, the concept first gained prominence in discussions about transition risk and the fossil fuel industry. Oil and gas companies are valued in the trillions of dollars, with much of that valuation based on their proven reserves—oil and gas that is in the ground and ready to be produced. The transition to a net-zero economy, however, requires that a significant portion of these reserves be “left in the ground” and never burned. Once the market fully accepts that these assets cannot be produced due to climate policies, their value could drop to zero rapidly.

The danger of these fossil fuel assets becoming stranded extends far beyond the energy companies themselves. It poses a systemic risk to the broader economy because large swaths of the general public have financial exposure to these companies through their investments, including 401k programs, pensions, and mutual funds. The sudden devaluation of these energy assets could negatively affect many people’s investment and retirement funds, which in turn could have a widespread and devastating impact on the financial security of the general public.

This same principle applies to the real estate sector. Consider a commercial office building with a low energy efficiency rating located in a city that passes a new ordinance mandating high-performance standards for all buildings. The owner is suddenly faced with a difficult choice: either undertake a costly, large-scale retrofit to meet the new legal requirements or risk being unable to legally rent the space. If the retrofit is too expensive, the building’s value is stranded, as its primary function — generating rental income — has been eliminated by a policy change aimed at reducing emissions.

Another often-overlooked category of risk lies in intangible assets. For companies in the S&P 500, these assets — such as brand value, reputation, and intellectual property (IP) — can represent up to 90% of their total market value. Their non-physical nature makes them vulnerable to rapid devaluation. For example, imagine a company that holds a highly valuable portfolio of patents for a new, efficient diesel engine technology. If a major country or region, aiming to meet climate targets, decides to ban the sale of all new diesel cars, the market for that technology disappears. The intellectual property, once a significant asset, has its value evaporate almost overnight. This is a direct parallel to the risk facing fossil fuel companies, whose reserves — a tangible asset on paper — could become worthless if they cannot be produced.

A final critical category that is often overlooked is human capital. Human capital represents the skills, knowledge, and expertise that workers have developed over their careers — assets that can suddenly lose their value in the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Consider a mechanic who has spent 30 years perfecting the art of repairing internal combustion engines. This individual has accumulated expertise in diagnosing problems, understanding the mechanical systems, and maintaining gasoline-powered vehicles. As the world shifts to electric vehicles — which require fundamentally different maintenance skills — this expertise becomes obsolete. The mechanic’s human capital, built over decades, is stranded.

The scale of this challenge is enormous. Huge numbers of workers have built their careers in fossil fuel industries. Coal miners possess specialized knowledge about underground operations, safety protocols, and extraction techniques. Oil field workers understand drilling technologies, reservoir management, and petroleum systems. Pipeline operators and refinery technicians have invested years developing skills specific to a carbon-intensive economy. As these industries contract or disappear entirely, these workers face the prospect of their expertise becoming rapidly becoming worthless.

This creates both an economic and social crisis. Unlike a stranded power plant that can be written off a company’s books, stranded human capital represents real people with families, mortgages, and communities that depend on their income. A 50-year-old coal miner cannot simply retrain as a software developer overnight. The geographical concentration of these industries compounds the problem — entire regions have been built around fossil fuel extraction, creating communities where the primary source of skilled employment may disappear.

The human dimension of stranded assets also creates political risk for the climate transition itself. Workers facing the loss of their livelihoods can become powerful opponents of climate action, slowing the transition for everyone. The fear and anger generated by the transition can translate into political movements that resist or reverse climate policies, as workers vote to protect their immediate economic interests over longer-term economic reality.

The TCFD Framework: Four Key Drivers of Transition Risk

To better understand and manage transition risks, the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) developed a framework that organizes these risks into four distinct categories. This framework has become the global standard for how companies and investors think about and report climate-related financial risks.

1. Policy and Legal Risks

Policy and legal risks emerge when governments and courts take action to address climate change. These interventions can fundamentally alter the economic landscape, often with little warning.

Carbon pricing represents one of the most direct policy tools. When governments implement a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system, they make it more expensive to emit CO2. For instance, a carbon price of $50 per ton of carbon dioxide would add around $20 to the cost of a barrel of oil, fundamentally changing the economics of oil production and consumption. Companies that built their business models around cheap fossil fuels suddenly face dramatically higher operating costs.

Efficiency standards create another layer of policy risk. The UK’s Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard (MEES) provides a clear example: it prohibits landlords from renting properties with poor energy efficiency ratings. A landlord who owns an older, inefficient building faces a stark choice — invest heavily in retrofits or watch the property become unrentable, thereby creating a stranded asset.

The legal dimension adds another layer of risk through climate litigation. There are many lawsuits winding through the courts where people are taking fossil fuel companies to court because they have been or expect to be harmed by climate-change-driven extreme weather. This potential climate liability could expose fossil fuel companies to enormous financial risk, much like tobacco companies faced when the health impacts of their products became legally actionable.

2. Technology Risks

Technology risk represents the classic story of disruption — when a new, cheaper, or better technology makes existing technologies obsolete. In the climate context, this risk is accelerating as clean technologies have reached critical tipping points.

The most dramatic example is the drop in renewable energy costs. Solar power costs have fallen nearly 90% over the past 15 years. In most parts of the world, building a new solar or wind farm is now cheaper and faster than building a new coal or gas plant — even without subsidies. This is rapidly reordering energy economics and energy markets. Coal plants that were expected to operate profitably for 40 years are being shut down early not because of regulation, but because they simply can’t compete economically with cheaper energy sources. Natural gas plants will be next.

Electric vehicles present another technological disruption. As battery costs decline and performance improves, EVs are becoming not just environmentally preferable but superior products — they accelerate faster, require less maintenance, and increasingly cost less to own and operate than internal combustion engines. This technological shift threatens not just automakers who are slow to adapt, but entire ecosystems built around gasoline vehicles: gas stations, oil change shops, parts suppliers, and even dealerships whose business models depend heavily on service revenue from complex internal combustion engines.

3. Market Risks

Market risks encompass the shifts in supply, demand, and investor sentiment that can rapidly revalue assets and companies.

As an example, demand for transition minerals like lithium, cobalt, and copper is soaring as the world builds batteries and renewable energy infrastructure. Companies that secured supply chains for these materials early have gained significant competitive advantages, while those arriving late face production bottlenecks and inflated costs. Conversely, demand for thermal coal is collapsing in many regions, leaving coal mining companies with reserves that may never be extracted.

Perhaps more significant is the shift in investor perceptions. For decades, oil companies were valued based on their proven reserves — the oil and gas they had rights to extract. Now, many investors view these same reserves as worthless, unburnable carbon that will never generate revenue. This shift in perception led BP to write down its assets by $17.5 billion in 2020, with Shell following with a $22 billion write down. These companies acknowledged that much of their oil would likely remain in the ground forever.

The power of changing investor sentiment was dramatically demonstrated in 2021 when Engine No. 1, a tiny activist hedge fund, successfully won three board seats at ExxonMobil. Their argument wasn’t environmental but purely financial: Exxon’s failure to plan for the energy transition was destroying long-term shareholder value. This showed that transition risk has moved from the margins to the center of corporate governance.

4. Reputational Risks

Reputational risk reflects the changing expectations of consumers, employees, and society at large. As public concern about climate change grows, companies associated with high emissions face damage to their brands and their social license to operate.

The financial sector illustrates how reputational concerns translate into business decisions. In 2019, Goldman Sachs announced it would no longer finance new thermal coal mines or Arctic oil exploration. While framed partly in risk management terms, the bank explicitly cited reputational considerations and changing client expectations as key drivers. They recognized that being associated with these projects was becoming bad for business, potentially costing them clients and talented employees who increasingly consider environmental factors in their career choices.

Consumer pressure is also reshaping entire industries. The rapid growth of plant-based milk alternatives like Oatly directly responds to, among other things, consumer concerns about dairy’s environmental impact. Traditional dairy companies, seeing their market share erode, are scrambling to launch their own non-dairy alternatives. This shift isn’t driven by regulation or technology costs but by changing consumer preferences that make high-emission products less desirable, regardless of price or quality.

5. Putting it together

These four categories of risk — policy and legal, technology, market, and reputation — don’t operate in isolation. They interact and amplify each other, creating feedback loops that can accelerate the transition and magnify risks for unprepared economies.

Consider how technological advances in renewable energy trigger cascading effects across all risk categories. As solar and wind become cheaper than fossil fuels (technology risk), governments gain political cover to implement stricter emissions standards and carbon pricing (policy risk), knowing these policies won’t dramatically increase energy costs for voters. These policies, in turn, shift investor capital away from fossil fuels and toward renewables (market risk), further driving down clean energy costs through economies of scale. Companies slow to adapt find themselves not just technologically obsolete but facing reputational damage for clinging to outdated, polluting technologies (reputational risk), which makes it even harder to attract capital, customers, and talent.

The automotive industry provides another vivid example of these interconnected risks. As electric vehicles improve and battery costs fall (technology risk), governments implement EV mandates and phase out internal combustion engines — Norway by 2025, the UK by 2030 (policy risk). These policies signal to investors that traditional automakers without credible EV strategies are poor long-term investments, triggering capital flight (market risk). Meanwhile, young consumers increasingly view gas-powered vehicles as environmentally irresponsible, especially luxury gas vehicles (reputational risk). Each risk reinforces the others: technological improvements justify stricter policies, which shift market dynamics, which shape public perception, which in turn creates pressure for even more aggressive policies and faster technological development.

Understanding these interconnections is essential for understanding transition risk. A company cannot address one type of transition risk while ignoring the others — they must recognize that these risks compound and prepare for the systemic changes that result from their interaction.

The “Just Transition”

The recognition that the shift to a low-carbon economy will create winners and losers, particularly among workers and communities reliant on fossil fuel industries, has given rise to the concept of a just transition. A just transition is an effort to ensure that the benefits of a green economy are shared broadly and that the costs do not fall unfairly on those who can least afford them.

The core idea is to provide support, retraining, and new economic opportunities for workers and communities whose livelihoods are threatened by the phase-out of carbon-intensive industries. This is not merely an ethical consideration; it is a pragmatic one. The threat of widespread job losses can create powerful political opposition to climate action, potentially slowing down or even derailing the transition for everyone. Therefore, managing the human side of the transition is critical to its success.

In a just transition, we would repurpose skills: For example, the skills required to build an offshore oil rig are similar to those needed for constructing an offshore wind platform. A just transition would facilitate this shift through targeted programs.

The private market is unlikely to manage this process efficiently or equitably. Government action is therefore needed to fund retraining programs and help workers seamlessly switch to new jobs in the growing green economy.

Germany’s approach to phasing out coal mining in its Lausitz region serves as a prominent example. The German government is investing €40 billion to manage the process by funding new infrastructure, research institutes, and extensive retraining programs. The goal is not just to compensate for lost jobs but to actively build a new, sustainable economic future for the region.

Conclusion

Transition risk represents a fundamental restructuring of the global financial and social order. As this chapter has detailed, the journey toward a net-zero economy is far more than a simple technological swap. It is a complex, multi-dimensional shift driven by the interplay of policy, technology, and market and social dynamics. While this transition offers immense opportunities for innovation and growth in green sectors, it simultaneously creates the systemic threat of stranded assets — devaluing not just physical infrastructure and fossil fuel reserves, but also intangible intellectual property and the human capital of millions of workers.

Ultimately, the success of this overhaul hinges on the ability to manage these risks. Because the private market is not naturally equipped to solve the social dislocations caused by such rapid change, proactive governance and strategic investment are essential to ensure a just transition, so that the shift to sustainability does not leave vulnerable communities behind. Balancing the urgent need for decarbonization with the economic security of the workforce is not just a moral imperative, but a practical necessity to maintain the political and social stability required to reach our climate goals.

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

The HOME Alliance invites you to join an upcoming webinar exploring the growing risks and impacts of land-based geoengineering. Approaches such as BECCS (Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage), biochar, and enhanced weathering are gaining traction. But what do these schemes mean for communities, ecosystems, and climate justice?

Originally published by Californians for Electric Rail on April 24, 2026 In the last installment of this series, we learned about how political choices by specific counties are driving a $30M shortfall that threatens service cuts. These cuts are part of broader flaws in Metrolink governance that have stymied a more ambitious vision since its founding, and threaten to […]

Los Angeles’ Metro and Orange County’s OCTA are seeking to cut nearly $10 million from the Metrolink budget. Read more.

The City of San Francisco has published a complete application notice for the plans to redevelop the 4th and King Station into a master-planned neighborhood in SoMa, San Francisco. The notice establishes a deadline for the planning department to make a final decision by mid-June. Prologis is sponsoring the development, in partnership with Caltrain. Read […]

Seven new books on food, climate, health, rivers, communities, deniers, and energy

Source

Station construction near 19th and Q streets will begin early 2027, with a 2031 opening planned. Read more!

National Nurses United is proudly and enthusiastically taking part in May Day Strong actions on May 1, 2026. NNU recognizes that May Day presents a unique opportunity to demonstrate to the Trump administration and the billionaire class the real potential of working people’s power when we stand united.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s war against Iran has unleashed a cavalcade of global economic disruptions. Most severe is the impact of the blockage of shipping through the Straits of Hormuz on worldwide oil prices, and supply chains for other commodities (including natural gas, fertilizer, and chemicals). Even though Canada produces far more oil. Gas, and fertilizer than we use, the resulting price spike has hit us, too – as a result of our policy choice to tie domestic prices (even for our own energy) to that global roller-coaster.

In this CBC national radio interview with host Piya Chattopadhyay, Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford discusses the impacts of the war (on top of the disruptions from Trump’s tariff policies) on Canada’s economy, in the lead-up to the federal government’s spring fiscal update.

What the government's policy playbook might mean for your pocketbook.

The post CBC Sunday Morning Feature Interview: Trump’s War and the Macroeconomic Outlook appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

Ist Conference Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels 1st Conference April 24-29 Santa Marta, Columbia A Just Transition is grounded in the effective respect of our right to self-determination and must be based on the guarantee of our internationally recognized inherent and distinct collective rights over our territories, land and waters. It is not limited to […]

The post Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels first appeared on Indigenous Environmental Network.

On April 17, 2026, the Seal River Watershed Alliance, the Manitoba government, and the government of Canada released a joint proposal to designate one of our planet’s largest intact watersheds as...

Classic plays are often approached as cultural artifacts: texts to be presented, preserved, interpreted, and admired for their artistic merit or historical importance. They are staged to entertain, to educate about theatrical craft, or to fulfill curricular requirements in literature and drama. They have been seen and appreciated by countless people. They are amazing works […]

This article A peace agenda to end military madness was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Embed from Getty Imageswindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'9d200FZBSONMmdpUpWoz3Q',sig:'4H34AzCl8kk2yw3Bfvc5ip3eqnuLjohTpSMjKQiFL5U=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2272262936',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});

The president who promised to end forever wars and spoke of reducing nuclear weapons has succumbed to what David Wallace-Wells calls “impulsive warmongering.” 

After bombing Iran for 12 days last June, the U.S. and Israel launched a massive military assault that has caused widespread damage in the region and major disruption in global energy markets. In January, Donald Trump sent military forces to capture and arrest the leader of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro. The White House has proposed the largest military spending increase since World War II and plans to pay for it with draconian cuts in health care and other domestic social programs. Trump has refused offers by Moscow to preserve limits on U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals and wants to resume nuclear testing.

Opposing these policies and advocating for peaceful alternatives is essential to create a safer world. A more engaged global peace movement is needed to counter these threats and advocate for a more secure future. 

Below is a four-point agenda for political action: End the war against Iran; prevent nuclear proliferation in the Gulf; halt and reverse the global nuclear arms race; and slash military spending levels. 

Ending the war in Iran

Stopping Trump’s continued military aggression against Iran is an urgent priority. The war is increasingly unpopular. Recent polls show 58 percent of Americans opposed to the war, with disapproval of Trump’s presidency at a record high. 

Although Republicans in the Senate have repeatedly rejected Democratic attempts to invoke the War Powers Act limiting U.S. involvement, some in the GOP have signaled that the statute’s 60-day deadline on May 1 could be a turning point. Some Republicans have indicated they will not support the war beyond that date if the president does not seek Senate approval or find a way to end the conflict. These rumblings of discontent, although faint, are an indication of mounting political trouble for the White House.

The president desperately needs a way out of the quagmire he has created for himself. He claims that Iran has been defeated and the war is over, but Tehran refuses to yield. The U.S. allowed the initial deadline for the end of the ceasefire to pass last week without taking further military action, but Trump repeated his odious threat to cause the “major destruction” of Iran’s civilian infrastructure. 

Previous Coverage

The American peace movement we need today

As Trump flails about for a solution, opponents of the war must continue to demand an end to all further bombing and all U.S. military operations in the region, urging a withdrawal of American forces and negotiations for a solution to regional security issues and agreed limits on Iran’s nuclear program. 

Protests against the war are increasing. On April 20, dozens of veterans and military family members demonstrated at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Members of About Face, Veterans For Peace, Common Defense, Military Families Speak Out and other groups unveiled antiwar banners in the Cannon House Office Building rotunda. They held red tulips out of respect for the thousands of Iranians killed by U.S. strikes. They conducted a flag-folding ceremony to honor the 13 U.S. troops killed so far in the war. Chanting antiwar slogans, more than 60 of the veterans and their supporters were arrested by U.S. Capitol Police. 

That same day protesters gathered at the New York office of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand urging support for legislation introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders that would block U.S. funding for additional weaponry and bulldozers to Israel. The Sanders resolution is gaining increased support among Democrats in Congress. The actions in Washington, D.C. and New York in recent days were among many protests against the war across the U.S., around the world and in Israel. 

Opposition to the war has become a theme of the No Kings movement, which initially concentrated on saving democracy and opposing executive overreach. With Trump’s attack against Iran, the focus of the movement has broadened. Messages opposing the war and its costs were prevalent in the massive March 28 mobilizations. Posters for “healthcare not warfare” appeared frequently. 

Antiwar themes need to be front and center as activists engage in the midterm elections. MoveOn, the Movement Voter Project and other organizations are already hard at work mobilizing support for progressive candidates. By participating actively in political meetings and campaign debates, opponents of the war can deliver a powerful message: If candidates want our vote, they must take a firm stand against Trump’s disastrous war.  

Preventing proliferation in the Gulf

The stated purposes of the war have shifted constantly, but the most consistently emphasized goal is to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons. Trump has also mentioned other objectives, such as regime change and gaining control of Iran’s oil. If nonproliferation is the goal, the use of military force is the wrong approach. Most successes in nonproliferation policy have been the result of diplomatic bargaining, often utilizing targeted sanctions and incentives. 

Iran’s nuclear program was effectively contained through the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, which blocked Tehran’s pathway to developing nuclear weapons. (Details on how the JCPOA curtailed Iran’s nuclear program and the evidence of Iranian compliance with the agreement are available here.)

#newsletter-block_e7b39b95c5d4dade65c4c92918c6696e { background: #ECECEC; color: #000000; } #newsletter-block_e7b39b95c5d4dade65c4c92918c6696e #mc_embed_signup_front input#mce-EMAIL { border-color:#000000 !important; color: #000000 !important; } Sign Up for our Newsletter

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

Although the U.S. State Department reported Iranian compliance with the JCPOA, Trump claimed falsely that Tehran was cheating and reneged on the deal in May 2018. The U.S. then imposed “maximum pressure” sanctions, leading to renewed enmity, prompting Tehran to enrich uranium to higher levels and laying the foundation for the current armed hostilities. 

Iran made major compromises in the JCPOA, and it offered similar concessions in negotiations in June 2025 and February 2026. On the last two occasions, the U.S. and Israel began bombing just as conciliatory Iranian proposals were presented. Given Trump’s disdain for diplomacy, Iranians are understandably skeptical of the prospects for a negotiated agreement. 

U.S. and Israeli assaults may have stirred an impulse among Iranian hardliners to play the nuclear card they have previously held in reserve but have not used. The tragic irony is that a war supposedly to prevent Iran from building a bomb may increase the propensity to do just that. 

Worsening the danger is Trump’s commitment to help Saudi Arabia acquire uranium enrichment and plutonium separation facilities. As Washington wages war to prevent Iran from enriching uranium, it is proposing to help Tehran’s rival develop a similar and more expansive nuclear capability. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stated in a 2018 interview that if Iran develops a bomb, “we will follow suit as soon as possible.”  

A nuclear arms race in the Gulf would be a nightmare for everyone, including Israel, which adds a compelling argument for ending the war and engaging in effective diplomacy to settle the dispute with Iran and contain nuclear programs in the region. Members of Congress have introduced legislation to prevent Saudi enrichment and impose strict nonproliferation guardrails on the proposed deal. These efforts deserve public support.

Halting the arms race

Nuclear proliferation is not just a concern in the Middle East. Dozens of disarmament groups in the U.S. and other countries recently joined together to issue a global “Call to Halt and Reverse the Nuclear Arms Race.” The groups are urging a complete stop to the development and deployment of nuclear bombs and weapons systems on all sides, including the U.S., Russia and China. The organizations have unified around the message that “more nuclear weapons will not make the world safer.”

Embed from Getty Imageswindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'3bnZ3DobSUphotgTT2aXsw',sig:'-HL4zq5s1lwdnVKGZlhMSctFoNTlHG8yVwEKoquRHOM=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1246391377',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});

Disseminating the call and seeking additional endorsements from religious, scientific and social organizations are achievable action steps that can increase awareness of the nuclear danger. Building support for the call can prepare groups to oppose specific acts of nuclear development by the United States, such as the deployment of additional nuclear warheads on existing weapons platforms, and resuming nuclear explosions at the Nevada test site. 

Activists are also demanding that Washington and Moscow formalize an agreement on maintaining current strategic weapons limits and begin negotiations for a new arms reduction treaty. They advocate for the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons, as specified in the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Slashing war budgets 

The president and his Republican supporters in Congress are drastically militarizing the U.S. federal budget. Adjusting for inflation, Trump’s 2027 budget will increase military spending by more than 40 percent. Among the many alarming items in the new budget is a 65 percent spending increase on plutonium production to create 100 new plutonium pits for nuclear warheads per year. 

Even before the proposed increase, military spending is higher now than it was at the peak of the Vietnam War. It is nearly twice what it was in 1961, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about the “unwarranted influence” wielded by the military-industrial complex. 

The new budget can be regarded as a vast corporate welfare system to further enrich arms contractors. The unparalleled increase in their financial power will enable arms builders to lobby the government for even more unnecessary weapons. It will also benefit members of Congress who receive contributions from weapons contractors to create jobs in their district. It’s a legalized form of corruption masquerading as national defense. 

Decades ago, those who profited from war were branded merchants of death. Peace activists in the 1930s helped Sen. Gerald Nye of North Dakota convene widely publicized hearings on the munitions industry. The proceedings exposed the role of industrial and financial magnates in promoting the pre-World War I arms race, and fueled public disgust with capitalist greed. Perhaps an equivalent public disclosure of arms contractor corruption could be organized today.

Military spending expert Stephen Semler’s analysis of Trump’s 2027 budget illuminates America’s warped national priorities. Setting aside entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, which are funded by fixed formulas written into law and can only be adjusted through extraordinary Congressional action, Trump’s budget allocates 80 percent of discretionary spending either directly or indirectly to war: preparation for war, the consequences of past wars or militarized policing. If enacted, the new proposal would cut spending on domestic priorities and social programs by $300 billion.

#support-block_e80aed8590e5399d5a6f1ee211befbfb { background: #000000; color: #ffffff; } Support Us

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

Donate

On top of all of this, the White House has announced it will submit a $98 billion supplemental appropriation to continue the war on Iran and stock up weapons to fight similar wars in the future. The war supplemental will face stiff opposition in Congress, deservedly so. The budget debate provides an opportunity for activists to mobilize against further spending for war, and also to challenge the entire warmaking budget. Small cuts here or there will not suffice against the monstrously distorted budget now before Congress. 

If we add to the direct and indirect costs of war, the military’s share of the interest on the national debt, along with growing expenditures on prisons and immigrant detention centers, the amount of tax dollars devoted to the wars at home and abroad in Trump’s proposed budget would exceed $2 trillion per year, according to Semler’s analysis. Programs for public health, the environment, housing, scientific research, day care, nutrition and education are slashed to the bone. The Trump administration has built a garrison state that feeds weapons contractors and starves the rest of us. This is a tragedy of historic proportions, and it means there is nowhere to hide from the war machine and the surveillance state. 

More and more people and organizations now have no choice but to pay attention to overspending on the Pentagon, and to fight back as if their lives and livelihoods depend on it. Because, increasingly, they do. Among the organizations working directly against the war machine’s spending splurge are People Over Pentagon, a coalition that includes Public Citizen, Taxpayers for Common Sense, the Project on Government Oversight, the American Friends Service Committee, Peace Action, and the Friends Committee on National Legislation, and the Poor People’s Campaign, a joint project of the Kairos Center and Repairers of the Breach.

Pressure is needed to demand a fundamental restructuring of federal spending priorities. Without a wholesale shift towards more balanced budgeting, millions of Americans will suffer from untreated medical conditions, inadequate nutrition and lack of access to economic opportunity.

The peace agenda is demanding and will require an enormous mobilization of political action from millions of Americans. The challenge is daunting, but the prospects for progress are real. Trump’s warmongering is increasingly unpopular. The prospects for political realignment in November are increasing. Millions of people have participated in No Kings protests. If the political energy against Trumpism can be harnessed for a concentrated campaign to stop war and militarism, a more peaceful future will be possible.

This article A peace agenda to end military madness was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

We often talk about climate change as a problem of carbon emissions rising and the technologies needed to bring them down. But that framing leaves out something fundamental.

Brett KenCairn, founding director of the Center for Regenerative Solutions and a longtime leader in community-based climate initiatives, has spent decades advancing nature-based solutions grounded in land restoration and local action. In his keynote at Bioneers 2026, he reframes the crisis as one rooted not only in emissions, but in the widespread degradation of living systems — and points toward restoration as a path forward.

This is an edited transcript of his talk.

Brett KenCairn: 

I come from Boulder, Colorado, a community with a unique relationship to climate change. We have 11 federal research labs, including the National Center for Atmospheric Research, established there in 1967. Our community takes climate science seriously, probably because around 3,000 climate scientists actually live there. There’s a bit of an inside joke in Boulder that we have more climate scientists than therapists and personal trainers.

Boulder was also one of the first communities in the world to step up when our federal government chose not to sign onto early international agreements to reduce emissions. We said we would. We committed to reducing emissions as a community, and then we started organizing — working with other cities across the country and helping build a broader global movement.

When I joined in 2013 to help shape the next generation of our climate action plans, I was given the opportunity to collaborate with teams all over the world: Helsinki, Stockholm, Rio, Sydney, New York, Seattle, Toronto. It was an exuberant time.

But many of those cities are now quietly stepping back from this work. There’s a real sense of despair and hopelessness among many of us who’ve been at it for years, because we can see that our strategy isn’t working.

What I’ve come to understand is that it was doomed from the beginning, built on a false premise and a half-truth. The premise was that this problem was purely about technology — about machines, about energy sources. That if we just changed those sources — built more wind farms, installed more solar, deployed more electric vehicles and heat pumps — we could solve it.

That’s the half-truth.

Climate Change Has Two Drivers

The other half is something we’ve known for more than 50 years. If you go back to the early days of global climate conversations in the 1970s, they all pointed to the same thing: Climate change has two legs. Yes, one of those legs is fossil fuel emissions. Nothing I’m saying diminishes the importance of reducing them. But even then, we knew there was a second leg: the degradation of land, the desecration of living systems.

Because the atmosphere isn’t just a geochemical machine governed by CO₂ in and CO₂ out. It’s a life-mediated system. Life created our atmosphere — for life. And the breakdown of these living systems is what’s been driving instability within them.

When the world came together in the 1990s at the Rio Earth Summit, we understood that there were three existential threats we needed to address. Climate was one, and we created the Convention on Climate Change — the IPCC we’ve heard so much about.

But there were two other conventions established at that summit. Biodiversity was one. The other was meant to be called the Convention on Land Degradation, but that didn’t sound compelling enough, so it became the Convention to Combat Desertification. Unfortunately, that framing led many of us to think, well, that’s a problem somewhere else; maybe Africa, but not here.

But I can show you places right outside Boulder that are desertifying right now. Because even then, we understood that this crisis was also about land degradation.

But then we started to forget. We need to understand why we made those choices. But what I will say is this: It’s time to change our strategy, because the one we’ve been using doesn’t offer much hope.

Let me summarize this in a way that might feel familiar.

If I asked many of you what’s causing climate change and how we solve it, you’d probably describe it something like this: Over the past few centuries, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have been rising. And as fossil fuel use has increased, emissions have risen right alongside it.

Those two trends line up so closely that it feels obvious, like clear cause and effect. It’s easy to say: There’s your answer. The smoking gun — or in this case, the smoking stack. 

When you understand climate change through that relationship, it naturally leads you to believe the solutions are technological. And if you’re a financier, if you like technology, that’s a very appealing frame to work within.

But we’re starting to learn that there’s another driver here. The science is finally beginning to catch up.

A 2017 report by Jonathan Sanderman and others looked at soil loss over the past 12,000 years. For most of that time, soil loss was minimal. But with the rise of early empires and the expansion of agriculture, you start to see it increase. And then, in the last century, it accelerates dramatically.

What Sanderman and his colleagues found is striking: Somewhere between a quarter and a third of the excess carbon in the atmosphere didn’t come from burning fossil fuels. It came from the loss of soil carbon — from degrading the land itself. And it’s not just about carbon. 

When we lose soil, we also lose the capacity of living systems to hold water. We’ve forgotten that the most abundant greenhouse gas driving warming isn’t CO₂. It’s water vapor. So as we degrade the land, we’re not only releasing carbon, we’re also releasing vast amounts of water that would otherwise be held in healthy ecosystems. And that, too, intensifies climate instability.

There’s another relationship here, too: how fossil fuels, used through machinery, have reshaped the land itself. You don’t have to look far to see it. Just look at our own backyards. Take the Great Plains, once one of the most extraordinary ecological systems on the planet. In the span of just 10 years, we plowed up 30 million acres. 

And it wasn’t just in the United States. This was happening all over the world. So while we’ve told ourselves the story that climate change is about industry and fossil fuel combustion, it’s also about the widespread degradation of the living world.

And the scale of it is immense.

The UN estimates that around 70% of the Earth’s terrestrial systems are degraded. A report last year suggested that roughly half of the planet’s biological capacity has already been compromised. 

We’re living on a planet operating at roughly half its basic photosynthetic capacity — what scientists call “net primary productivity.” We don’t even know what it feels like to live on a fully functioning planet anymore. Although we’ve heard the stories.

We’ve Recovered Before, and We Can Again

Remember the stories about the passenger pigeons? Wow, when they took flight, the sky would go dark? That the rivers were so full of salmon you could walk across them? That you could stand on the Plains, look in any direction for miles, and see the land moving with millions of buffalo?

That’s what this planet looked like when it was operating at its full capacity. And that’s what we have to bring back. It’s the only real hope we have to address the climate crisis.

Now, it can feel hopeless. But there have been other moments when it felt that way. If you haven’t watched documentaries about the Dust Bowl, you should. Try to imagine what it was like on the Great Plains after we plowed up 30 million acres and turned it into a monoculture of wheat, and then the dust storms began. At first, just a few each year. Then dozens. People describe walls of dust, miles high, rolling toward them — like hell itself descending. It must have felt hopeless.

But we lived in a time when we still believed we could do something about it. When we believed we could return to the land and repair what we had broken. Millions of people went back to work restoring it. We made a living putting the world back together. And we did it.

In the span of a decade, we stopped the destruction. Within another decade, we began to restore what had been lost.

What happened during the Dust Bowl affected nearly a third of this country, but it also showed what’s possible at scale. The work people did together was extraordinary. Billions of plants were put back into the ground. Thousands of miles of contouring and check dams were built. It was simple, practical work, but deeply impactful. And it’s exactly the kind of work we need to be doing again.

I recently heard a presentation from Elizabeth Heilman at Wichita State. She shared that in parts of Kansas, regenerative agriculture has now been adopted at a remarkable scale — something like 70% of a county has returned its land to living cover, to deep-rooted systems. Do you know what they’re seeing? They’re changing weather patterns. 

We can do this. We’ve done this. We are doing this right now.

The Real Shift: An Economy That Repairs the Planet

This won’t happen just because we shift consciousness, or do more education, or launch another communications campaign for the planet. It will happen because we change the economy. We have to make it possible to make a living repairing the planet.

There’s promising research showing that if we restored just a third of degraded land globally, we could stabilize the climate while also reversing biodiversity loss. And according to the World Economic Forum, that kind of effort could generate 190 million jobs and $3.5 trillion in economic activity.

That’s the future we need to demand. So where do we start?

• First, we have to prepare and plan, just like in the 1930s. When systems begin to unravel, it’s too late to start from scratch.
• Second, we need to test and prove what works. Pilot these approaches now. Get them underway.
• Third, we need partnerships at every level — across neighborhoods, jurisdictions, countries. And we have to learn quickly and scale what works.
• And finally, we have to remember: This is a political process. I know it’s more fun to talk about whales and growing things — I like that too — but this is political.

Yes, this is daunting. I know, especially for younger leaders, it can feel overwhelming. But you can start now.

In my own community, we’re starting with a simple idea: Remove the barriers to participation. We have to de-professionalize land stewardship. This isn’t complicated work. It’s something many of us can do. But when only professionals are allowed to participate, most people are left out.

First, we need to move beyond volunteerism. That was a 20th-century model. People’s time and knowledge deserve to be paid. Even modest support — 10 to 15 hours a month at a living wage — can sustain these systems. Water the trees, mulch, care for the plants. That’s enough to keep things going.

Second, we need the infrastructure to do this at scale. We’re training local contractors, especially small and minority-owned businesses, in things like wildfire-resilient landscaping, rain gardens, and biodiversity restoration. Then the public sector can seed that capacity through small contracts.

Third, we need to fund this work at scale. Through partnerships, we’ve seen how communities can generate tens of millions of dollars through local funding measures to invest in restoration.

That’s what we need to be doing everywhere. And we can. So join in.

Start by growing something. A flower, a medicinal plant, food. Then learn how it grows alongside other plants — what it needs, what it supports. And then start to see how that small system fits into something larger. Before long, you’ll find yourself part of a much bigger community — one that’s ready to welcome you and help you find your way.

The post Climate Change Has Two Drivers. We’ve Been Largely Ignoring One. appeared first on Bioneers.

Is Premier Danielle Smith betraying her base? Her United Conservative Party (UCP) swept almost every riding outside of Calgary and Edmonton in the last election but the love does not seem to be mutual.

Smith is bulldozing the interests of small town property owners as she plows forward with aggressive plans to attract $100 billion in private sector investment for gas-fired AI data centres despite the concerns of nearby residents.

There are over 40 data centres proposed for construction in Alberta. Often opposed by local residents, these enormous installations create few jobs and require vast amounts of electricity and water – two commodities in limited supply in the province.

Important issues like carbon emissions, water availability, and noise pollution would normally be considered through a provincial environmental assessment process. However, Smith’s government has been excluding large data centre proposals from such routine oversight, including the “Wonder Valley” project shilled by celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts

Email Address What content do you want to subscribe to? (check all that apply) All International UK Sign Up (function($){ $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-us').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619D07B21962C5AFE16D3A2145673C82A3CEE9D9F1ADDABE965ACB3CE39939D42AC9012C6272FD52BFCA0790F0FB77C6442'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-vdrirr-vdrirr'); }); $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-uk').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619BD43AA6813AF1B0FFE26D8282EC254E3ED0237BA72BEFBE922037EE4F1B325C6DA4918F8E044E022C7D333A43FD72429'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-ijkidr-ijkidr'); }); })(jQuery);

The citizens of Olds, Alberta, were alarmed to learn that what could be the largest data centre in the country accompanied by the second largest power generation facility in the province was slated to start construction inside their town boundaries within two months, and without an environmental assessment.

The acting approvals manager of the Alberta Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas assured the proponent Synapse Real Estate Corp., “I have decided that further assessment of the activity is not required. Therefore, a screening report will not be prepared and an environmental impact assessment report is not required.”

Residents of Olds were not so assured, learning of the plan in late January just days before an open house meeting on February 4. Synapse proposed breaking ground in March. Many homes are within less than one kilometre of the proposed two million square foot facility that would run 24 hours a day, requiring natural gas turbines generating 1.4 GW of power and 600 backup diesel generators. As one anti-data centre post on Facebook noted, good neighbours avoid “humming at 90 decibels in your backyard at 3:00 AM”. 

The previously quiet town of 10,000 residents may soon sport 17 metre-high flare stacks from ten massive gas turbines producing as much power as is consumed by the entire city of Edmonton. While the original proposal from Synapse was rejected by the Alberta Utility Commission (AUC) for numerous deficiencies in public consultation, revised documents were resubmitted within a month.

Does Danielle Smith’s government plan to intervene on behalf of concerned citizens? Nope. Alberta’s Minister of Technology and Innovation Nate Glubish washed his hands of responsibility, relating to CBC News that “he can’t endorse, approve or deny a project as minister — that’s the regulator’s job.”

Glubish instead spun the botched initial application to AUC as a positive development. “All data centre projects with power generation must get Alberta Utilities Commission regulatory approval to proceed. Synapse’s first application was inadequate and thus did not proceed. This is evidence of the process working,” Glubish told CBC in a written statement.

The stampede of server farm proposals encouraged by the UCP would collectively consume almost the entire capacity of Alberta electrical grid, so Smith’s government is encouraging data centre companies to “bring their own energy”. This means burning enormous amounts of natural gas, a strategy that dovetails with her plans to double Alberta’s oil and gas production. 

When asked about the climate impacts of scaling up $100 billion in gas-fired AI data centres, Glubish enthused, “this is good news for Alberta because it’s going to create significantly increased drilling, exploration, and production activity in rural Alberta, it’s going to allow for increased distribution investment to get the gas to the different markets that need it, and it’s going to generate significant incremental natural gas royalty revenues for the benefit of all Albertans.” 

The baked-in bias of Smith’s alleged “free-market” government toward fossil fuels stands in stark contrast to her hands-on hostility towards the renewable energy sector. In 2023, Smith announced a surprise seven-month moratorium on wind and solar approvals in 2023, throwing $33 billion in renewable investments into limbo. Onerous land use restrictions and reclamation requirements further decimated the sector, resulting in a 93 percent decline in wind and solar installations in two years. 

Proponents pitching turbine-fired data centres instead enjoy what the gas-loving Smith government fawningly calls their “concierge program”. Companies proposing an AI server farm within municipal boundaries are publicly promised that allegedly impartial regulators will “streamline pathways to partnerships, leveraging existing infrastructure and expertise to deliver unparalleled speed to market.”  

This cozy accommodation of companies over the interests of rural Albertans does not bode well for those unexpectedly living next to a massive new data centre.

Danielle Smith has built a political career as a supposed champion of rural Albertans. Many of these non-urban voters are now learning the hard way that her true allegiance has always been the oil and gas industry.   

The post Danielle Smith Is Betraying Rural Alberta To Build Gas-Powered Data Centres appeared first on DeSmog.

A LIVE STREAM Conversation with Keala Kelly (Kānaka Maoli) and Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes) as part of our America 250: A Revolutionary Perspective series.

The post JOIN CELDF LIVE ON MAY 7TH at 4pm ET! – Discussion on Systemic Racism, Sexism, Culturecide and Genocide from America’s Beginning appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

Nurses at University Medical Center New Orleans (UMCNO) in Louisiana are gearing up for their upcoming five-day strike starting May 1, 2026. Nurses announced their intent to strike after filing an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charge against LCMC Health and UMCNO management on April 20, charging the hospital’s management has spent more than two years intentionally dragging out and frustrating negotiations through surface bargaining.