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This article Automatic draft registration undoes a victory decades in the making was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Young people in the U.S. have won a major unsung victory: Starting in December, they will no longer be required to register or report their addresses for a possible military draft. But Congress has given the agency tasked with “readiness” for a draft a second chance to find a way to sign young men up for a future draft involuntarily and “automatically.”

To understand how this victory was won and how young people and their allies can fight the plan for “automatic” registration, we need to look at 45 years of forgotten history of draft registration and resistance during a time when there was no active draft.

In December 2025, Congress finally voted to end the requirement in effect since 1980 for male U.S. citizens and residents to register with the agency that would administer any military draft — the Selective Service System, or SSS — within 30 days of their 18th birthday and report to the SSS within 10 days of any change of address until their 26th birthday.

This is an extraordinary and largely unrecognized victory for pervasive noncompliance with the registration law. This spontaneous, silent resistance has been sustained by generations of young people for 45 years, during which there has been essentially no visible or organized anti-draft movement. 

But Congress remains so unwilling to admit to failure in the face of popular resistance, and so intent on preserving the fiction of readiness to activate a draft, that it included a provision in this year’s annual “defense” bill, at the urging of the SSS, that gives the SSS a second chance. The agency is instructed to try to register potential draftees “automatically” by using information from other federal agencies. 

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The SSS has already drafted regulations for “automatic” registration that are currently under review by the White House. The change in the law will take effect in December 2026 unless Congress takes action before then to repeal the Military Selective Service Act. 

“Automatic” registration will be a fiasco. Mining data collected by other federal agencies for other purposes won’t produce a list of young men and their mailing addresses that’s any more accurate or complete than self-registration. But it will enable continued planning for endless, unlimited wars without the need to consider whether enough Americans will be willing to fight them, and will create a database that can be weaponized against vulnerable young people. 

Because only men are subject to the draft, the SSS must track gender, and because the agency interprets “male” to mean “as assigned at birth” for the purposes of the draft, it may seek to obtain information on the sex assigned at birth of all young people. And since U.S. residents are subject to being drafted regardless of citizenship, the SSS will have a mandate to try to compile a list of the names and addresses of all male immigrants ages 18-25, including undocumented immigrants. Those lists will likely be available to ICE, DOGE and other agencies.

Why, though, is the SSS getting a do-over from Congress despite such abject failure? And if there’s been such widespread resistance to draft registration, why haven’t we heard about it? 

The power of silent resistance

The dynamics of draft resistance and anti-draft activism since 1980 follow a pattern that was articulated perhaps most clearly by the late James C. Scott. Scott was a political scientist and ethnographer who backed into anarchism through his fieldwork on the forms of subaltern resistance to authority and oppression. Scott situated his work within the “subaltern studies” movement, which seeks to center and uplift the voices, actions and interests of those who make up the underclasses in structures of domination and subordination.

Throughout his work on the forms of resistance, Scott took it for granted — as have many others — that resistance is a phenomenon defined by actions, not by ideology or organizational affiliation. As Joan Baez described it while introducing her band at Woodstock, “We … are members of the Resistance, which simply means that you have to turn your [draft] card in, or put ketchup on it and eat it, or burn it or flush it or whatever you want. … So, that’s what it takes to be in the Resistance.”

Acts of resistance are sometimes open, organized and accompanied by protest — but not always. One of Scott’s key points is that too narrow a focus on elite organizations and open defiance can blind us to the underlying phenomenon of quiet resistance, its subaltern character, and its power. 

“Quiet, unassuming, quotidian insubordination, because it flies below the archival radar, waves no banners, has no officeholders, writes no manifestos, and has no permanent organizations, escapes notice,” Scott notes in “Two Cheers for Anarchism”. “[But] more regimes have been brought, piecemeal, to their knees by … the silent, dogged resistance … of millions of ordinary people, than by revolutionary vanguards or rioting mobs.”

Scott describes as typical a symbiosis between a small, visible, vocal, organized, largely elite “movement” and a vast, mostly silent, largely subaltern phenomenon of mass resistance. And he defends the meaning and significance of “self-serving” acts of resistance, such as desertion from the military or draft “evasion,” that may have no explicitly political intent.

How this played out with draft registration is a case study in the effectiveness of quiet, passive direct action, and of the need for organized solidarity and allyship to realize the full potential of that otherwise invisible undercurrent of insubordination.

The response to  draft registration

When President Carter proposed resuming draft registration in 1980, the response was an immediate wave of public protest. There were rallies on campuses across the country within days, and tens of thousands of people took part in marches against the draft in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco just two months later — a remarkably rapid mobilization in the pre-Internet era.

For understandable reasons, only a few thousand young people publicly announced that they wouldn’t register. (I was among them.)

Protesters mobilize against the draft and draft registration in San Francisco on March 22, 1980. (Chris Booth for Resistance News)

The erroneous impressions this gave were that 1) opposition to the draft could be equated with protest or complaint, and 2) most of those who opposed the draft would, despite their objections, comply with the law.

The reality, though, is that most of those who didn’t want to be drafted stayed home. They didn’t protest or publicly confess to a crime, but neither did they sign up for the draft. Most remained uncommitted, taking a wait-and-see attitude toward whether they would register. 

There were many exceptions, but the broad pattern was what Scott has described as typical: Those with the least financial or social capital to lose were generally those least likely to register. Those with more privilege were more likely to decide that they could afford to take the risk of publicly refusing. The press looked for visible anti-draft protest — and found it, initially, in the early 1980s — among the most privileged potential draftees at elite colleges. But few observers looked for, noticed, or recognized the significance of the passive resistance of much larger numbers of marginalized youth.

Registration began in July 1980. At the start of the school year that September, The Boston Globe — in the first independent attempt to collect compliance statistics — reported that perhaps a million men, a quarter of the initial cohort, hadn’t registered. By June 1982, even the SSS admitted that at least half a million potential draftees had failed to register.

Faced with an unexpected crisis of noncompliance, the Department of Justice had little choice but to make examples of a few of those whose public statements could be used to prove in court that our refusal to register was “knowing and willful,” as the law required. One DOJ strategist expressed the hope that “an initial round of well-publicized prosecutions” might “yield sufficient registrations to maintain the credibility of the system”. 

That didn’t happen. I was one of just 20 non-registrants who were prosecuted in the early 1980s (perhaps 1 percent of those who had publicly announced our refusal to register). Those of the 20 who didn’t register after being indicted were all convicted, and nine of us were eventually imprisoned. But these show trials called attention to the extent of the resistance and the inability of the government to enforce the law against those who stayed home, stayed quiet, and didn’t publicly confess to criminal intent.

These trials were highly publicized, as the government wanted to achieve maximum intimidation. But the legal issue that dominated press coverage for the next several years was whether the government could constitutionally prosecute only those who had publicized their refusal to register.

In 1985 the Supreme Court, in a poorly-reasoned decision over a dissent by Justice Thurgood Marshall, upheld this selective prosecution scheme. For the government, this was a legal victory but a practical loss. The silent majority of non-registrants got the message loud and clear that there was safety in silence as well as safety in numbers. The risk was in speaking out, not in skipping registration.

Decades of noncompliance

After this brief and counterproductive experiment, the DOJ abandoned any attempt to enforce the registration law against even the most flagrant violators. Nobody has been prosecuted since 1986, and nobody could be prosecuted without proof that their noncompliance is “knowing and willful.” The SSS sends a hundred thousand or more threatening letters every year to names and addresses obtained from data brokers and others sources. As decades passed, however, these empty threats were less and less effective.

In the aftermath of the test cases, fewer and fewer people either registered with the SSS or spoke publicly about their refusal. This was a rational response to the government’s pattern of selective prosecution. Organized opposition to the registration requirement also faded away. Why would activists prioritize organizing against a law that isn’t being enforced?

The public and most of those who could have been allies to the resistance wrongly interpreted the disappearance of public proclamations of resistance and visible anti-draft protests as indicating that the vast majority of potential draftees had been cowed into compliance.

This misimpression was heightened by measures to require registration with the SSS as a condition of eligibility for federal student loans (a requirement that was quietly repealed in 2020) and, in some states, driver’s licenses.

These laws were less effective than most people thought, especially because not all states have enacted laws like this. “California does not share driver’s license [information with the Selective Service System] — so, hey, move to California and you’re basically exempted from being drafted,” as a former director of the SSS testified in 2019. 

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Nevertheless, these laws helped prop up the myth of compliance as the norm, even while compliance continued to fall. By 2023, fewer than 40 percent of men turning 18 had registered by the end of the year, much less within 30 days of their 18th birthday. “Absolutely nobody” tells the SSS when they move, as the chair of the House Armed Services Committee noted at a hearing in 2021.

The failure of draft registration was obvious to anyone who scrutinized the program. Yet in the absence of a movement shouting, “The emperor has no clothes!”, it took another 40 years for Congress to seriously consider admitting failure. It was only a misguided push to expand draft registration to include women as well as men (prioritizing a false notion of “equality” in war over real equality in peace and freedom) that drew enough attention to the issue to prompt Congress to seriously consider action. The bipartisan Selective Service Repeal Act to abolish the SSS was introduced in 2019 and reintroduced in each session of Congress since.

In response to this existential threat to their own jobs, the staff of the SSS — not the Pentagon or anyone in Congress — came up with the idea of trying to “automatically” register potential draftees.

Congress approved the SSS proposal without any hearings or debate. Most Republicans and most Democrats in Congress want the draft available as a “fallback” when their party is in power, just as most of them want to keep nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal of threats. The availability of a draft enables planning for larger, longer wars, without having to consider whether enough people will be willing to fight them. This, of course, is why it would be so significant a constraint on “forever” wars to take the draft off the table as an option for any president.

Stopping “automatic” registration

Well-meaning but ageist older people often conceptualize anti-draft activism as protecting weak and vulnerable young people against being drafted. In reality, it’s the young people on whom the government depends to fight its wars who hold the power. They are wielding their power of noncooperation to protect us all against military adventurism. We should thank them for their service.

Previous Coverage

Uncovering Americans’ long history of hostility to conscription

More concretely, if we want to be allies to young people in their struggle against conscription and war and for youth liberation, we should work to expose the dangers of “automatic” draft registration and its inevitable failure.

In the event of a draft, the government will have the same difficulty enforcing induction orders that it has had enforcing registration. But if young people are registered involuntarily, their unwillingness to fight old people’s wars won’t become visible until after the country is militarily overcommitted and a draft is activated. That’s a dangerous scenario, even if you support U.S. plans for wars and a draft.  

“Automatic” draft registration is a bad idea, and it won’t work. But it’s not yet a done deal. We still have a chance to get Congress to repeal the draft law before the attempt at “automatic” registration begins in December. On May 14, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Sens. Ron Paul of Kentucky and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming reintroduced the Selective Service Repeal Act.

A diverse coalition of anti-war, religious, feminist and civil liberties organizations has already announced its opposition to “automatic” registration and its support for the Selective Service Repeal Act. Much more educational outreach and organizing is needed to get this issue on the agenda and into the demands of antiwar organizations and activists.

Young people have done the heavy lifting. They have brought us to the brink of victory over the draft and the threat it poses to everyone around the world against whom draftees would be weaponized. Our task as older allies is to amplify their continued resistance, whether it takes public or quiet forms, and to pressure Congress to include the Selective Service Repeal Act in this year’s defense bill.

This article Automatic draft registration undoes a victory decades in the making was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

“Who remembers the four rules?” I ask, holding up my ready-to-count fist to the group of toddlers, preschoolers, and parents gathered for this week's Nature Playgroup. “Scoop them!” one...

By: Green Knowledge Foundation

Every morning in Nigeria’s Benin City, before traffic builds up and markets awaken, faint plumes of smoke rise from heaps of waste scattered across open spaces. In Jos, plastic bags cling to drainage channels after heavy rains. On the outskirts of Abuja, government-approved dumpsites quietly ferment under the sun. In Lagos, Africa’s most populous city, towering landfills on the city’s fringes swell daily as trucks unload tons of mixed waste, while clogged canals and lagoons trap floating debris beneath the humid coastal air.

What appears to be ordinary waste is, in reality, an invisible climate threat: Methane.

Across Nigeria’s rapidly growing cities, unmanaged organic waste is releasing one of the most potent greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The Multi-Solving Action to Methane Reduction in Nigeria (MAMRN) Project was conceived in response to this urgent environmental challenge.

When organic waste, food scraps, green waste, and agricultural residues decompose in oxygen-deprived conditions, such as open dumpsites, they produce methane (CH₄). Methane is not just another greenhouse gas. It is over 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the short term, responsible for nearly half of the global warming already experienced, and the second-most-important anthropogenic greenhouse gas after Carbon dioxide (CO₂).

Municipal solid waste landfills globally account for approximately 11% of anthropogenic methane emissions. For every tonne of waste sent to landfill, an estimated 50–100 kg of methane may be released; equivalent to roughly 1,610 kg of Carbon dioxide (CO₂) per tonne due to methane’s high global warming potential.

Nigeria generates over 32 million tons of municipal solid waste annually, yet only about 20–30% is formally collected. More than 90% of waste in many developing regions ends up in open dumpsites, waterways, unused land, or is openly burned. 

Nigeria’s waste composition is particularly significant: approximately 50–60% of municipal solid waste is organic. This means that a large proportion of waste entering dumpsites is actively generating methane. In 2021, methane accounted for 44.6% of Nigeria’s total greenhouse gas emissions, making it one of the country’s most critical climate pollutants.

With Nigeria’s population estimated at over 223 million and projected to rise significantly by 2050, urban centres such as Benin City, Jos, Lagos, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) are expanding rapidly. Urbanisation, rising consumption patterns, and limited infrastructure have widened the gap between waste generation and effective management.

Globally, about 2.01 billion metric tonnes of municipal solid waste are produced annually, and this is expected to increase by 70% by 2050. Sub-Saharan Africa alone is projected to reach 269 million tonnes of waste per year by 2030. Nigeria mirrors this trajectory.

Nigeria is already experiencing the effects of climate change, including increased flooding and stormwater runoff, coastal erosion and sea-level rise, rising temperatures and heat waves, agricultural productivity losses, food insecurity and water scarcity, and increased disease outbreaks. Open dumpsites worsen these impacts. During heavy rainfall, flooding dislodges waste, spreading pollutants into homes, schools, and water bodies. Methane buildup within dumpsites also presents explosion hazards.

Rather than treating waste as a burden, the MAMRN project reimagines it as a resource. Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) are being established to divert organic waste from dumpsites, process it into compost, sort recyclables such as plastics, glass, paper, and e-waste, integrate and strengthen the role of waste pickers, and reduce methane emissions at the source. Each facility is initially designed to manage approximately 260 tons of waste annually.

By converting organic waste into compost, the project improves soil health, reduces dependence on petroleum-based fertilisers, supports climate-smart agriculture, and minimises methane emissions from decomposition. Farmers are trained through the My Zero Waste Farm Project, with at least 20 farmers per state serving as trainers to expand adoption across communities. Organic waste is also processed through Black Soldier Fly (BSF) farming to produce high-protein animal feed, organic fertiliser, and new livelihood opportunities. This model strengthens local food systems while reducing methane emissions from landfills.

Methane reduction through improved waste management delivers multiple benefits, including lower greenhouse gas emissions, reduced flooding and pollution, improved public health outcomes, job creation for waste pickers and farmers, strengthened urban food systems, and contributions to SDGs 1, 2, 6, 7, and 13. The project aligns with Nigeria’s long-term low-emission development strategy, aiming to reduce emissions by 50% by 2050 and to transition to a circular economy.

Methane may be invisible, but its impacts are not. The rising temperatures, flooded streets, polluted waterways, and strained agricultural systems across Nigeria tell a visible story of climate vulnerability. The MAMRN Project represents a shift from open dumping to resource recovery, from unmanaged emissions to data-driven reductions, and from environmental degradation to circular-economy solutions.

By diverting organic waste, empowering communities, integrating informal waste workers, and influencing policy, Nigeria takes a practical step toward reducing methane emissions and building climate resilience. The future of Nigerian cities depends not only on how much waste is produced, but on how wisely it is managed. 

The path forward requires action from everyone.  Policymakers can strengthen regulatory frameworks that recognise waste pickers as formal climate workers and prioritise waste-sector investments in national climate plans. Development partners and funders can direct climate finance toward community-led Material Recovery Facilities and methane monitoring infrastructure. 

Businesses can adopt circular procurement practices, reducing organic waste across supply chains and supporting compost markets. Farmers can integrate compost and Black Soldier Fly products into their practices, improving soil health while cutting dependence on chemical fertilisers. And as a reader, you can start where you are: composting at home, supporting local waste initiatives, or simply sharing this blog post to grow awareness. 

In that transformation lies the power to slow global warming, protect communities, and build a cleaner, more sustainable future.

This article is the second in a series on the Methane Reduction in Nigeria (MAMRN) Project, implemented in collaboration with CfEW Jos, SraDev Lagos, Pave Lagos, CODAF Epe Lagos, and SEDI Benin City.

The post Nigeria’s 32 Million Tonnes of Annual Waste Is Doing Something Far Worse Than Polluting Streets first appeared on GAIA.

Most discussions of plastic pollution say the problem is that plastic never breaks down. A new study turns that assumption on its head, arguing the problem is that it always does – at least to some degree.

In the study, researchers introduce the concept of the “plastic particle footprint,” the mass of plastic micro- and nanoparticles that will eventually enter the environment when a given item disintegrates. Mounting evidence indicates that these plastic particles pose a risk to human and environmental health, but until now there has been no way to incorporate those concerns into standard study methodologies.

Applying their concept to four everyday manufactured objects, the researchers demonstrate how the plastic particle footprint can radically change our understanding of the sustainability of different consumer choices. “The carbon footprint only tells part of the story,” says study team member Valérie Guillard, a researcher at the University of Montpellier in France.

The plastic particle footprint is the mass of virgin plastic required to produce a given item, minus the amount of plastic that will be molecularly destroyed (such as by incineration or in the rare case of truly biodegradable plastics, by microbes) at the end of the item’s lifetime.

No one has ever proven that macro-plastics won’t crumble into micro-plastics in the medium to long term, so we must assume that they will, the researchers argue. In the long run, in other words, all plastic becomes microplastics. “The irreversibility of this pollution requires a precautionary approach,” Guillard argues.

The researchers analyzed data from published life cycle analyses of four common objects: kettles (one made of 30% plastic and another made of 50% plastic), beverage containers (glass, plastic, or aluminum with plastic liner), crates (wood or plastic), and T-shirts (cotton or polyester—a form of plastic).

 

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When carbon footprints are comparable as in the case of the two kettles, different plastic footprints can help guide consumer choices, the researchers suggest.

The item with the smallest carbon footprint does not always have the smallest plastic footprint. A cotton T-shirt has a slightly larger carbon footprint than a polyester one—but virtually no plastic footprint. Plastic bottles and aluminum cans have smaller carbon footprints than glass bottles because they take less energy to manufacture. But glass bottles and aluminum cans have smaller plastic particle footprints. And the plastic lining inside aluminum cans can leach into beverages and be ingested by consumers – making glass bottles look better and better in the final reckoning.

Sometimes the tradeoffs are not so clear. A reusable plastic crate saves 280 grams of greenhouse gas emissions compared to a wooden one, but results in 21 additional grams of plastic particle pollution. Which is worse in the big picture? How many grams of carbon dioxide is a gram of plastic pollution worth?

In order to weigh up the choices quantitatively, future research will need to link a given mass of plastic particles to a given cost to society from health impacts and so on. The time scale of impact also requires careful thought. While the carbon footprint of items is often concentrated during the manufacture and use phases, for plastic bottles and polyester clothing more than 90% of the plastic particle footprint comes after an item is discarded. “We are building a reservoir of plastic, with a toxicity debt that future generations will inherit,” Guillard says.

Source: Guillard V. et al. “A pioneering plastic particle footprint concept for addressing the challenges posed by plastic pollution.” Science Advances 2026.

Image: © Anthropocene Magazine. AI-gnerated.

A decade ago, illicit gold miners in the Brazilian Amazon began invading the lands of the Yanomami people. New research finds a clear link between the rush of illegal mining and a surge of malaria among the Yanomami.

Read more on E360 →

Washington, D.C. | May 18, 2026— Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a proposed rollback, removing 4 PFAS from their 2024 national, legally enforceable, and scientifically supported Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) drinking water standards while also proposing a two year delay, until 2031, for drinking water systems to comply with the enforceable limits.

The four PFAS slated for removal from the drinking water regulations include “GenX,” the forever chemical that replaced PFOA, which is widely used and has contaminated the drinking water source of 500,000 people in North Carolina and the Ohio River; PFHxS and PFNA, which are found in the blood of more than 95 percent of people living in the U.S., and PFBS which is a replacement for PFOS and still actively being produced and used in the U.S. These four PFAS have been linked to adverse effects on the liver, kidneys, and immune system, developmental and reproductive harm, and hormone disruption. 

In response to the announcement of today’s standard, the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments Executive Director Katie Huffling, DNP, RN, CNM, FAAN issued the following statement: 

“PFAS chemicals are associated with many expensive, harmful chronic diseases and there are a myriad of PFAS in drinking water besides PFOA and PFOS, including the 4 PFAS whose standards EPA is proposing to repeal. There are thousands of additional PFAS that could be contaminating our drinking water that EPA does not currently monitor for. The EPA cannot be confident that simply monitoring and treating for only PFOA and PFOS will be sufficient as this is not supported by the evidence. With the Administration simultaneously proposing a 52% cut in EPA’s budget and the Drinking Water State Revolving Funds receiving an 87% cut, these actions will result in a huge step backwards and will not make America healthy again. Nurses will continue to fight for health protective science-based regulations.”

Most people are exposed to mixtures of PFAS and there is sufficient evidence that certain PFAS are associated with negative health outcomes including decreased antibody responses and dyslipidemia in both adults and children as well as decreased infant and fetal growth and increased risk of kidney cancer in adults. There will be a 60-day public comment period, and EPA will hold a public hearing on July 7, 2026. 

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Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments (ANHE) is the leading global nursing organization focused on the intersection of human and planetary health.  ANHE champions nurses as critical to promoting and protecting human health from environmental harm associated with degradation and disruption of Earth’s natural systems, especially for populations that are disproportionately exposed and overburdened. ANHE leads in engaging, educating, and mobilizing nurses in support of environmental health equity and justice.

http://enviRN.org

The post Nurses Oppose EPA’s Proposal to Rollback and Delay PFAS Drinking Water Protections appeared first on ANHE.

A new company YumLit is working to bring joy to family mealtimes through interactive light-up plates. As a social venture, they plan to share proceeds with nonprofit organizations committed to tackling food and nutrition insecurity in their communities and around the world.

The inspiration for the company came to Janet Lawson and her husband Seth Coan during a family dinner. After finishing his meal, their three-year-old son expressed excitement when he discovered the cartoon lion on his plate.

“It was a fun reward,” Lawson tells Food Tank. She and Coan wondered if they could inspire that same joy in other children by making plates come to life in some way.

This question led to the development of colorful, screen-free dishes that light up when a child reveals the design underneath. Lawson and Coan hope that the plates encourage children to build healthy eating habits while reducing stress at mealtimes.

“We created YumLit to make meals feel more fun and encouraging for kids,” Lawson says.

The launch of YumLit is a pivot for the couple, who recently moved to Washington State after living in Morocco. Lawson worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where she focused on building more resilient food and agriculture systems. Coan, an environmental engineer, was focused on climate solutions and sustainability.

Funding cuts and the dismantling of USAID led to job losses and big transitions for the family. But even as she moves into the world of entrepreneurship, Lawson says that she is still driven by the same goals she’s always had: ending food and nutrition insecurity and advancing climate resilience.

“I was very interested in how…we could have some type of social impact,” Lawson says.

YumLit created the YumLit Luminaries Program, which allows organizations to convert the sale of a plate into a donation for their community. When anyone purchases a plate through a luminary’s unique link, 10 percent of proceeds will go to a nonprofit focusing on food access, hunger relief, or nutrition support. They are also planning to donate US$1 from every plate sold to nonprofit partners working to tackle childhood hunger.

“We know that a lot of organizations are experiencing the fallout not just from USAID grants, but other federal funding that has been reduced, and they are really struggling as well,” Lawson tells Food Tank.

The reception to the plates has been positive, says Lawson, with pediatric nutritionists and feeding specialists excited by the idea.

YumLit just launched a Kickstarter campaign to help the company scale and she expects plates will be in supporters’ hands toward the end of this year.

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

Photo courtesy of YumLit

The post YumLit Combines Playful Mealtimes With a Mission to End Food Insecurity appeared first on Food Tank.

3 June | Online | 16:00 London | 11:00 New York | 11:00 Boston | 8:00 San Francisco

Automotive companies are widely positioned as transition leaders. But new analysis suggests investors may be significantly underestimating their exposure to oil demand and carbon risk.

Join Carbon Tracker and InfluenceMap for a 45-minute investor briefing on our forthcoming Oil Companies in Disguise – 2026 Edition report.

Our research finds that:

• Across major global automakers, reported Scope 3 emissions may underestimate real-world emissions by 33% on average.
• This “Carbon Gap” is driven by optimistic assumptions on vehicle lifetime, hybrid usage, and emissions boundaries.
• When adjusted for real-world conditions, some automakers exhibit carbon intensity levels comparable to, or exceeding, oil and gas companies.
• Hybrid-heavy strategies may be prolonging oil demand and increasing long-term stranded asset risk.
• Diverging electrification strategies are creating clear winners and laggards in the transition.

For investors, this raises a critical question: Are automotive portfolios carrying hidden oil exposure that is not being priced in?

What this webinar will give you:

This session is designed to provide practical, decision-relevant insights for investors, including:

• How to identify hidden carbon liabilities in automaker disclosures.
• What the “Carbon Gap” means for risk and portfolio alignment.
• Which OEM strategies are reducing vs extending exposure to oil-linked revenues.
• How to incorporate BEV sales share and emissions realism into investment analysis.
• Key questions for engagement, stewardship, and voting decisions.
• What evolving carbon accounting debates could mean for future disclosure reliability.

This webinar is a high-impact briefing for investors assessing climate risk, transition credibility, and capital allocation in the global automotive sector.

Speakers:

• Ben Scott, Head of Energy Demand, Carbon Tracker
• Ben Youriev, Director of LobbyMap Research on Energy, Mining and Transport, InfluenceMap

The post Oil Companies in Disguise: Are Investors Mispricing Automotive Climate Risk? (Americas Session) appeared first on Carbon Tracker Initiative.

3 June | Online | 9:00 London | 16:00 Hong Kong | 17:00 Tokyo | 18:00 Sydney

Automotive companies are widely positioned as transition leaders. But new analysis suggests investors may be significantly underestimating their exposure to oil demand and carbon risk.

Join Carbon Tracker and InfluenceMap for a 45-minute investor briefing on our forthcoming Oil Companies in Disguise – 2026 Edition report.

Our research finds that:

• Across major global automakers, reported Scope 3 emissions may underestimate real-world emissions by 33% on average.
• This “Carbon Gap” is driven by optimistic assumptions on vehicle lifetime, hybrid usage, and emissions boundaries.
• When adjusted for real-world conditions, some automakers exhibit carbon intensity levels comparable to, or exceeding, oil and gas companies.
• Hybrid-heavy strategies may be prolonging oil demand and increasing long-term stranded asset risk.
• Diverging electrification strategies are creating clear winners and laggards in the transition.

For investors, this raises a critical question: Are automotive portfolios carrying hidden oil exposure that is not being priced in?

What this webinar will give you:

This session is designed to provide practical, decision-relevant insights for investors, including:

• How to identify hidden carbon liabilities in automaker disclosures.
• What the “Carbon Gap” means for risk and portfolio alignment.
• Which OEM strategies are reducing vs extending exposure to oil-linked revenues.
• How to incorporate BEV sales share and emissions realism into investment analysis.
• Key questions for engagement, stewardship, and voting decisions.
• What evolving carbon accounting debates could mean for future disclosure reliability.

This webinar is a high-impact briefing for investors assessing climate risk, transition credibility, and capital allocation in the global automotive sector.

Speakers:

• Ben Scott, Head of Energy Demand, Carbon Tracker
• Ben Youriev, Director of LobbyMap Research on Energy, Mining and Transport, InfluenceMap

The post Oil Companies in Disguise: Are Investors Mispricing Automotive Climate Risk? (Asia-Pacific/Europe Session) appeared first on Carbon Tracker Initiative.

On 30th April, The Guardian published an article ‘Germany was largest exporter of plastic waste in 2025, sending 810,000 tonnes overseas, analysis finds’ based on a deep dive by Leana Hosea, of Watershed Investigations. It spotlights work by BFFP members, Basel Action Network and Jan Dell of The Last Beach Cleanup.

The headline is stark: Germany was the world’s largest exporter of plastic waste in 2025, shipping over 810,000 tonnes abroad, with the UK close behind at more than 675,000 tonnes. Much of this waste continues to flow to countries like Türkiye, Malaysia and Indonesia, where repeated investigations, like those conducted by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), link imports to environmental harm, illegal dumping and burning and wider social impacts.

This is exactly why sustained, evidence-based advocacy matters. It is encouraging to see the foundations laid by years of campaigning beginning to translate into policy shifts, particularly with tighter controls in Europe.

But the story doesn’t end with an export ban to non-OECD countries slated for  November 2026.

As export restrictions evolve, there is a very real risk of displacement rather than reduction. The EIA is already watching this closely in Türkiye, the UK and across eastern European countries, where capacity constraints and enforcement gaps could once again concentrate harm. The reality in Türkiye, despite its claim to be a "zero waste" champion and government-led greenwashing, is that many regions are overwhelmed by huge amounts of waste that far exceed recycling capacity, with shocking imagery and harm, and citizens bearing the brunt of this pollution.

https://www.breakfreefromplastic.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/WhatsApp-Video-2026-05-19-at-12.45.07-PM.mp4

At the same time, it is genuinely encouraging to see the proactive energy emerging from European enforcement authorities as they work collaboratively across borders to address illegal waste trade and strengthen oversight. That momentum will be critical in the transition away from exports.

Because ultimately, this is not just a waste management issue. It is a systemic failure in how we produce, use and externalise the costs of plastic. And it is one we can no longer afford to export.

Yet every time such a media story appears on the international plastic waste trade, a familiar pattern follows. A highly presentable, data-heavy, modelling-oriented academic voice appears and says, in essence: “Actually, this is not quite correct, because our calculations show something else.” Then comes the usual lecture: we need “accurate information”, we need to be “consistent”, we need to “look at the data properly”.

Of course, accuracy matters. Data matters. Consistency matters.

But there is a serious problem when this type of intervention systematically ignores the most important part of the story: the environmental harm, the human cost, the occupational deaths, the illegal practices, the invisible pollution, and the fact that plastic waste trade is not merely a technical trade-flow issue.

We saw this pattern again after The Guardian article. Our views were included in that article, specifically on the environmental pollution dimension. And that is exactly where we think the discussion must remain focused. Because this is not simply a matter of whether one database, model, or trade-flow estimate is more elegant than another.

The data landscape itself is already deeply problematic: Comtrade, Eurostat and WTO-related datasets do not always capture the full picture. 

In fact, in a recent presentation by officials from the Turkish Ministry of Trade, we saw figures indicating that Türkiye imported around 1.3 million tonnes of plastic waste from the EU in 2024. You cannot find these figures anywhere else, they are very unlikely to be fabricated. So when there are such major discrepancies between different datasets, it is not intellectually serious to dismiss investigative journalism by simply saying: “Your data are incomplete; our model is better.”

That is not scientific rigour. That is selective framing. And selective framing becomes especially problematic when it repeatedly comes from people who are very comfortable defending industry collaboration, while directing most of their criticism toward civil society, investigative journalists, and environmental advocates.

The plastic waste trade is not just an economic transaction. It is a pollution issue, a human rights issue and also a colonial issue.

Imported plastic waste washes up on beaches, thick as snowdrifts. Yet unlike snow, they break down into harmful microplastics and leach toxic chemicals into the water and soil. Image credits: Vedat Örüç.

Therefore, any commentary on this issue that reduces the debate to a technical dispute over datasets, while ignoring the environmental and human consequences, should be treated with caution. Science is not a decorative shield for political convenience. And “data” should not be used as a smoke screen to obscure pollution, injustice, and accountability. The real question is not only how many tonnes were traded. The real question is: who pays the environmental and human price for this trade?

These thoughts were originally shared as posts on LinkedIn.

Authors:

Amy Youngman (International Environmental Attorney, Environmental Investigation Agency)

Sedat Gündoğdu (Professor at Cukurova University | Head of Microplastic Research Group | Marine Pollution Researcher | Researcher at Istanbul Policy Center/Sabancı University)

The Stay Grounded Network has launched a new project: The Red Lines for Airports project aims to unite groups across Europe – and beyond – in their struggle against airport expansion projects. As part of this, we’re also running a European Tour, going directly to local struggles, building connections, and supporting with workshops and skillshares. Here, Charlène Fleury, explains how people came…

Source

Headline News:

• “Worst-Case Global Warming Projection Cut By 1°C” • The fall in the cost of solar and wind energy puts a high-fossil-fuel future increasingly out of reach, and climate policies are helping drive emissions down. Some top climate scientists reduced the upper limit of their worst-case global warming scenario to 3.5°C above pre-industrial levels, down from 4.5°C. [Euronews]

Nuuk Greenland (Aningaaq Rosing Carlsen, Unsplash)

• “Wind Leads Ireland Electricity Mix In April” • Wind was the largest contributor to Ireland’s electricity mix in April, making up 38% of total generation. EirGrid said renewables generated 48% of electricity during the month, including 6% from grid-scale solar, for the third consecutive month where renewables met around half of electricity demand. [reNews]
• “UPDATED: NextEra, Dominion To Form $420 Billion Power Giant” • NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy are set to merge, the two companies announced today. The move will create the world’s largest regulated electric utility, and one of the world’s largest energy infrastructure companies. The transaction creates a mammoth utility. [reNews]
• “NTPC adds 5,488 MW Renewable Energy Capacity In FY26” • NTPC Group has added 5,488 MW of renewable energy capacity in FY26, including solar, wind, and pumped storage projects, strengthening its clean energy portfolio. Beyond conventional generation, NTPC has also diversified into such emerging energy businesses as storage. [pv magazine India]
• “Electricity Generation From Solar Could Exceed Coal In ERCOT For The First Time In 2026” • In its most recent Short-Term Energy Outlook, the US EIA forecast that annual electric power generation from utility-scale solar plants will surpass that from coal plants for the first time in 2026 within the electricity grid that covers most of Texas. [CleanTechnica]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

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Conceptualizing Security in a Time of Deep Civilizational Crisis Date and time * Date: June 4th, 2026 * Time: 1pm GMT * Registration Link: Here * Speakers: Manuel Rozental (Colombia), Dipa Sinha (India) and (TBC) * Moderation: Introduction This is the first of a series of webinars that will open the series with a conceptual discussion on security in a time of deep civilizational crisis. It will examine how security has traditionally been framed through the international order, the n…

Packing a lunch should be quick and fun. Simple meals keep the body strong and the mind clear. Eating well at work or school helps keep energy levels steady all day long. Small portions of fresh food make a big difference for health. Using a wooden or plastic Japanese bento box makes every meal look beautiful. In this article, we look at easy ways to pack food in a bento box.

Pick a base:

Start with a grain to stay full. White or brown rice works well because it stays soft. You can also use small noodles or a piece of flatbread. This part of the meal gives you the fuel to keep going until dinner. Keep the portion small to leave room for other colorful items.

Add clean protein:

Protein helps muscles stay healthy. Boiled eggs are a great choice because they are easy to peel and pack. Slices of grilled chicken or pieces of firm tofu also work perfectly. Try to keep the pieces small so they fit easily inside the small compartments.

Fill with color:

Vegetables make the meal look bright and happy. Steamed broccoli, sliced carrots, or snap peas add a nice crunch. Green leaves or red peppers create a beautiful look that makes you want to eat. Fresh vegetables provide vitamins that keep the immune system strong.

Include a fruit:

A little bit of natural sugar is good for a quick afternoon boost. Slices of apple, a few grapes, or orange wedges fit well in small gaps. Fruit acts as a healthy dessert that keeps you away from candy. It adds a refreshing taste after eating savory items. Choose fruits that do not get mushy easily during the day.

Keep it tight:

Pack the food closely so nothing moves around. Use small dividers or silicone cups to keep flavors separate. When there are no gaps, the meal stays looking neat until lunchtime. A tight pack also means you get a good variety of different nutrients in one sitting. It is a simple way to make a small amount of food feel like plenty.

Keep it cool:

Safety is important when carrying food. A small ice pack kept near the container keeps everything fresh and crisp. Cold air prevents food from spoiling while you work or study. This ensures every bite tastes exactly as it should. Taking care of your meal means your body gets the best quality food every single day.

Since coming to power in 2019, Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s conservative government has overseen an illiberal turn, largely unchallenged by a divided opposition and a compliant mainstream media. Civil society organisations have stepped up to fill that gap – but at considerable cost. Whether they can sustain that role will depend on stronger public participation and structural support. 

For many Europeans, democratic backsliding is no longer something that happens elsewhere. In V-Dem’s Democracy Report 2026, five European countries – Croatia, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the UK – have been added to the list of autocratisers. Greece, on the other hand, has been on this list for several years: its episode of democratic decline, ranking seventh globally in terms of the magnitude of democratic deterioration, began in 2020. The country remains an electoral democracy, but it has lost its status as a liberal democracy, and its trajectory has been consistently downward. 

While Greece’s democratic decline is clearly part of a larger wave, what makes it distinctive is the speed and the method with which it’s unfolding. The fact that it’s happening inside the European Union, in a country that had, within living memory, emerged from a military dictatorship, makes it particularly concerning. 

Democratically unravelling a democracy  

In July 2019, Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his centre-right party Nea Dimokratia (“New Democracy”) won a strong parliamentary majority and unseated left-wing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who had been in power since 2015. Among the first pieces of legislation the new government passed was the so-called Executive State (“Εpiteliko Κratos”), which placed the National Intelligence Service, the EYP, under the direct control of the Prime Minister’s Office. Political oversight of the EYP was handed to the PM’s Secretary General and nephew, Grigoris Dimitriadis. At the same time, the government quietly amended the qualification requirements for the head of the EYP, removing the prerequisite of holding a university degree – a change widely seen as tailor-made to allow the appointment of Panagiotis Kontoleon.  

Meanwhile, the public broadcaster ERT, along with the national press agency AMNA, was also brought under tighter government control, while independent auditing bodies, such as the General Inspector of Public Administration, were disbanded.  

None of this was hidden. It was done through legislation, in plain sight, with an outright parliamentary majority that made institutional opposition powerless. The mainstream media, owned by a handful of oligarchs with conspicuous ties to the ruling party, looked the other way. 

The Covid-19 pandemic handed the government another opportunity to centralise power. The distribution of public health state advertising funds to media outlets through a scheme that became known as the “Petsas list” made visible a system of government influence over the media that had until then been less openly discussed. Public money was flowing to outlets that were sympathetic to the government; outlets that were critical received disproportionately smaller amounts and in some cases nothing at all. No law was broken, but the effect on a media landscape, already strained by the economic crisis, was significant. 

Then came a spying scandal. In 2022, it emerged that a powerful spyware called Predator had been used to monitor opposition politicians, journalists, senior military figures, and even government ministers. The Hellenic Data Protection Authority (DPA) eventually confirmed that at least 87 individuals had been illegally targeted with this spyware, and 27 of them had also been simultaneously monitored by the EYP through legal channels. Dimitriadis resigned, and so did the head of the EYP, but Mitsotakis denied knowledge. Two prosecutors who had been tasked with investigating the case were removed from it after submitting a second formal request for information to the DPA. In February 2026, four executives involved in supplying Predator were convicted in connection with the scandal. No government official has been charged to this day. 

The Predator affair was not simply a surveillance scandal, but a stress test that revealed the full architecture of a system in construction since 2019: an intelligence service with no meaningful independence from the executive, a media landscape too compromised to perform serious scrutiny, a parliamentary majority capable of rewriting inconvenient rules on short notice, and a justice system whose handling of these and other landmark cases left open questions that remain, to date, publicly unanswered.  

In February 2024, the European Parliament adopted its first-ever resolution on Greece, citing grave concerns about threats to democracy, the rule of law, and fundamental rights. That it took EU institutions five years and a major spying scandal to react tells its own story about the limits of European oversight. 

By then, the question was no longer whether Greek democracy was under pressure – that much was settled – but who, if anyone, was actually doing the work of accountability that formal institutions had either abandoned or been stripped of the capacity to perform. 

The state pushes back 

History has taught that governments that capture institutions rarely stop there. Once the formal mechanisms of oversight have been hollowed out, the next target is whoever has taken up the slack. Greece has been no exception: as a small ecosystem of civil society organisations (CSOs) and independent journalists grew more visible and more effective at holding power to account, the state responded by exerting pressure to make their work as difficult as possible. 

Some of that pressure has worn the face of bureaucratic procedure. The NGO registry created in 2020 by the Ministry of Migration and Asylum, presented as a transparency measure, became in practice an instrument of selective exclusion. Refugee Support Aegean, one of the most established legal aid organisations working with refugees and asylum seekers in the country, was denied registration despite meeting all legal requirements, on the stated grounds that providing support to persons facing deportation orders contradicted Greek law. Even though the right to legal representation for persons facing deportation is enshrined in Greek, EU, and international law, the rejection stood. It was overturned before the Council of State. Whether intended or not, the message to other organisations operating in the same space was clear. 

In early 2026, the Migration Ministry pushed further still, passing amendments to the Migration Code that elevated routine humanitarian work – such as providing food, shelter, or assistance to migrants – to a serious criminal offence. Membership of a registered NGO is now considered an aggravating circumstance. The proposals were introduced days after 24 humanitarian workers in Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos, had been acquitted of charges they had spent eight years fighting. Five years of formal recommendations from the EU, the Council of Europe, and the UN, all calling on Greece to lift arbitrary restrictions on civil society in the migration field, had apparently registered as a reason to accelerate, not reverse, the squeeze. 

Legal intimidation has reached well beyond the migration sector. When journalists at Reporters United and Efimerida ton Syntakton published their investigations into the Predator scandal, and specifically the role played by Grigoris Dimitriadis as the one who held political oversight of the EYP, the response came on the same day as Dimitriadis’s resignation: a lawsuit demanding close to one million euros in damages from the journalists and their outlets. International press freedom bodies were unambiguous in their characterisation of the action as a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP), aimed not at winning in court but at putting economic strain, stress, and uncertainty on independent media. In 2025, after years of proceedings, an Athens court dismissed the case entirely, ruling the reporting accurate and finding nothing defamatory in any of the articles. 

Once the formal mechanisms of oversight have been hollowed out, the next target is whoever has taken up the slack.

The more insidious form of pressure has been reputational. In early 2026, Vouliwatch (a democracy watchdog organisation I co-founded) and the investigative outlet Solomon published the “Consultocracy Report”, a systematic study of the Greek public administration’s use of private consultancy services, built entirely from official public procurement data. The findings were concerning: a dramatic rise in contracts, the majority of which were awarded without competitive tendering, and documented cases of private consultancy firms involved in drafting legislation. The government chose not to engage with the report. Instead, at an official press briefing, government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis made false claims about the report’s methodology and insinuated, also falsely, that Vouliwatch was politically motivated and funded by the European Left.  

Publicly discrediting CSOs and journalists who challenge the dominant narrative, question policies, and shed light on political scandals has been a recurrent tactic of the Mitsotakis government over the past years. The prime minister himself has publicly attacked journalists during speeches in parliament and press briefings, while ministers have repeatedly questioned the integrity of well-established international organisations such as Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International. 

Taken individually, each of these tactics – registry exclusions, criminal law amendments, SLAPP litigation, public smear campaigns – might be dismissed as isolated incidents of overreach. Taken together, they point to something more deliberate: an environment in which accountability work is made increasingly costly, legally fraught, professionally risky, and personally draining. The goal of all this is not necessarily to destroy the organisations in question, but to ensure that the cost of scrutiny is high enough to deter the next investigation, the next campaign, the next report that asks uncomfortable questions. 

Civil society on the front line 

Against this backdrop of chronic underfunding, legal harassment, and coordinated public delegitimisation, something unexpected has happened: the civil society ecosystem has held and, in some respects, even grown. 

This is not a given. Greek civil society as we know it today is young. Much of it emerged directly from the wreckage of the financial crisis, built by people who watched the formal political system fail catastrophically and decided, for various reasons, to try a different approach. These organisations were never well-resourced. They have always been viewed with suspicion rather than respect: in Greece, the concept of an independent, non-partisan civic sector sits uncomfortably against a political culture in which virtually every collective endeavour has traditionally been understood through a partisan lens.  

State funding is either unavailable or comes with obvious strings attached. Domestic philanthropy remains thin, while international foundations rarely take notice of Greece. The EU project funding that sustains much of the sector is a lifeline but comes at a heavy cost: it requires staff to spend significant proportions of their time on compliance bureaucracy and deliverables that, more often than not, have little to do with the purpose that brought them into the sector in the first place. 

What Greek CSOs have achieved despite these constraints is worth taking seriously. In the years since democratic backsliding accelerated, together with independent journalism outlets, CSOs have fulfilled a role that formal democratic institutions have been either unwilling or unable to perform. They have monitored government practices, pursued freedom of information requests that ministries ignored, and taken legal action when they were ignored. They produced investigative work on the Predator scandal, on the Petsas list, on the concentration of media ownership, on procurement irregularities, on pushbacks at sea – work that was subsequently picked up by European institutions, informing  resolutions, rule of law reports, and parliamentary inquiries.  

They have reported Greece’s situation to EU bodies not because they expected immediate countermeasures, but because building a documented, evidenced record of what is happening counts as accountability work in a context where domestic channels are blocked. The personal cost of this work has been real and is not discussed enough. Staff in these organisations are, with very few exceptions, overworked and underpaid. They have been targets of coordinated social media harassment. Some have faced SLAPP litigation that drags on for years, even when it ultimately fails. Many have been named in government press briefings, dismissed by ministers, characterised as foreign agents or partisan operatives in oligarch-owned media. Operating under these conditions requires a particular kind of stubbornness that should not be romanticised. Burnout is endemic, and the sector is bound to lose good people and repel new entrants as these adverse conditions persist.  

Authoritarian tendencies do not consolidate only by weakening organisations; they consolidate when societies become convinced that collective action is futile.

Unfinished business 

What has changed – and this may be the most significant development of recent years – is that these organisations have started to work together. In the Greek context, such collaboration is harder than it sounds: fragmentation and competitive individualism are deeply rooted cultural tendencies that civil society has reproduced faithfully. The reflex to guard organisational territory, to duplicate rather than collaborate, to approach partnership with wariness: while these barriers are not unique to Greece, they have been particularly pronounced here.  

But something has shifted. Joint investigations, shared advocacy campaigns, coordinated submissions to European institutions, and co-signed public statements have become the norm. Through this cooperation, a closely knit community has formed, held together not by formal structure but by a shared understanding of what is at stake and, frankly, by the practical recognition that no single organisation is large enough to do this work alone. 

Importantly, this collaboration has not remained entirely confined to the civic sector. The work of CSOs has resonated with broader segments of society, particularly younger people who have grown up amid overlapping crises and whose trust in political institutions is often fragile or absent altogether. For many, these initiatives increasingly function less as traditional civil society and more as visible demonstrations that public participation, democratic accountability, and the defence of rights are not abstract ideals delegated to institutions, but collective responsibilities that citizens themselves can exercise. 

That may ultimately prove to be the decisive terrain. Authoritarian tendencies do not consolidate only by weakening organisations; they consolidate when societies become convinced that collective action is futile. In that sense, it could be argued that the state’s various harassment strategies are aimed not only at exhausting individual organisations, but at fracturing the fragile sense of civic possibility that has begun to emerge around them. So far, they have not succeeded. 

Greece’s civic sector has demonstrated, under pressure, that it is capable of doing things that matter. What is still lacking is the structural backing that would allow it to do those things sustainably, without relying indefinitely on individuals’ willingness to absorb costs that institutions should not be asking them to bear.  

That is the unfinished business. And it’s a European question as much as a Greek one. 

For decades, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, worked across many of the world’s most food-insecure and climate-besieged regions, funding thousands of humanitarian, healthcare, food, and disaster relief programs. That all changed last year when, days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, his administration issued a stop-work order that suspended nearly all of USAID’s overseas programs. Then, last July, the administration informally dissolved the agency — leading to the largest withdrawal of American international development aid in more than 60 years. 

A new study published May 14 in the journal Science suggests the sudden USAID shutdown could have been linked to an uptick in violent conflict across much of Africa, with some of the most politically fragile regions seeing the largest spikes. Outside experts, however, caution that the findings are preliminary and may not capture the bigger picture. 

Farming and agricultural markets are easily disrupted by conflict, and when conflict occurs food security worsens because it can limit communities’ access to food. At the same time, deepening food insecurity in fragile political states contributes to social unrest. Climate impacts then layer onto this fragility. Extreme weather is second only to conflict in having the greatest effect on global hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition, according to a U.N. report. That’s in part because it increasingly causes people to migrate as they flee places destroyed by rising seas and cataclysmic storms, which, in turn, can fuel conflict. 

“It is undeniable that USAID programming around food aid, including emergency food kitchens, therapeutic foods, and health and water programming on which basic food and nutritional security is built, provided a critical lifeline to millions of women, children, and families in severe nutritional deficits,” said Zia Mehrabi, a food security and climate change researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder. “Who in their right mind would retract healthcare and food so abruptly, in so many places, when the direct result is people suffering and dying?”

In analyzing the impact of funding cuts on conflict across 870 subnational African regions that had been receiving different levels of USAID services, the Science paper’s authors found that in the roughly 10 months that followed the administration’s immediate withdrawal of aid, areas that had previously received more USAID support may have experienced more or different types of conflict. Using two global datasets that track funding disbursements and violent conflict, the study suggests that, in areas with high historical USAID funding, there was a 12.3 percent increase in conflict overall and a 7.3 percent surge in armed battles; protests and riots in these areas rose by 6.8 percent and battle-related fatalities by 9.3 percent after the shutdown. 

According to Austin Wright, a University of Chicago researcher who studies the political economy of conflict, and a co-author of the paper, the effects have been swift and destabilizing. “There is nothing that we’re aware of in recorded human history of the magnitude of that shutdown, in terms of ending a country’s commitment at a global scale,” said Wright. 

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Established in 1961, USAID was created to encourage economic and social development in emerging nations while countering the Cold War influence of the Soviet Union. Building resilience in foreign political systems has, in recent decades, been “one of the main goals of the work of USAID,” said Chelsea Marcho, a senior director for research and policy at the Food Security Leadership Council and former USAID official under former President Joe Biden, who was not involved in the Science paper. The study showing that violence may have been less severe in places where USAID had helped build stronger institutions, she said, only underscores the value of those aid investments. One example is the largely discontinued work to develop more resilient food systems across sub-Saharan African nations facing higher rates of poverty, hunger, and malnutrition. 

But what many tend to forget, said Marcho, is that USAID also funded the bulk of pivotal data collection efforts across much of the world’s most food-insecure and climate-vulnerable regions. The dissolution of the agency has prompted widespread disruptions in everything from localized weather monitoring to one of the primary global famine early-warning systems. Although some of these systems have since been restored, the gaps in monitoring coupled with the decreased capacity across aid organizations means it is all the more difficult to understand what is happening on the ground. 

Indeed, the end of USAID has buckled our ability to measure the very outcomes of the end of USAID. “The visibility that we have around food security is potentially in decline at the same time that the risks to the system are increasing,” said Marcho. “How do we actually get the data we need?”

Mehrabi finds the new paper creates “more questions than answers.” He argues the mechanisms of measurement are unclear, the analysis period is too short, and the authors don’t adequately disentangle USAID’s specific effects from Trump’s simultaneous cuts to other U.S. international funding sources, such as the State Department. “The results are clearly early and tentative,” he said. “I think it is a leap to say this is all attributable to USAID.” 

Wright, for his part, acknowledged the study has limitations, including a short post-shock observation window of just 10 months, a disbursement baseline drawn from the first Trump administration rather than the period immediately before the cuts, and a geographic scope confined to Africa — leaving much open to future research. He says the team ran extensive robustness checks addressing these concerns, detailed in the paper’s appendix. 

After running his own reanalysis of their data, Mehrabi, however, remains unconvinced. What’s more, he warns against the possible takeaway that the presence of American developmental intervention equates to stability. The U.S., he argues, could more effectively help deter widespread conflict and hunger in nations like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, through more equitable benefit-sharing of natural resource extraction from critical mineral supply chains. This would “far outweigh any benefits from foreign aid,” proposed Mehrabi. 

Nevertheless, with an annual budget of tens of billions and an institutional history spanning 64 years, USAID’s developmental footprint throughout the African continent was no small thing. “One cannot simply create USAID all over again, or give it a mandate and give it funding and assume that we have waved a wand and we can reverse the damage done,” said Wright.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump gutted USAID. Hunger and violence followed. on May 19, 2026.

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