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One month into the US and Israel’s war on Iran, at least 60 countries have taken emergency measures in response to the subsequent global energy crisis, according to analysis by Carbon Brief.

Countries attending a first-of-its-kind summit have walked away with plans to develop national roadmaps away from fossil fuels, along with new tools to address harmful subsidies and carbon-intensive trade.

The cruise ship departed Ushuaia, Argentina, in April with plans to ferry 147 passengers and crew members to some of the most remote places on earth, including Antarctica. But the ship, named the MV Hondius, had its voyage cut short by a rare virus that has killed three and infected several others. 

Hantaviruses are an ancient family of rodent-borne pathogens that likely caused disease in humans long before they first appeared in medical records in the 1950s. The viruses infect people via rodent waste — often through the inhalation of dust containing trace amounts of the excreta. Andes hantavirus, the strain that gripped the MV Hondius on its polar cruise, is one of a few hantaviruses known to cause hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rare but often deadly illness.

The Andes strain is also the only known hantavirus that can be transmitted human-to-human — a characteristic turning a rare rodent-borne infection into a multinational emergency, just a few years after the world was caught flat-footed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The good news is that the Andes hantavirus, while uniquely deadly, is likely nowhere nearly as transmissible as COVID-19. Nevertheless, the outbreak is illuminating the complexity of responding to infectious disease outbreaks as international cooperation on public health issues has become fractured and contentious — all while global pandemics are only becoming more likely overall. A month before the first patients onboard the MV Hondius became symptomatic, Argentina officially completed the process of withdrawing from the World Health Organization, joining the U.S. in leaving a global health alliance that exists in large part to coordinate responses to these very kinds of cross-border disease outbreaks. 

The emergency also points to another growing challenge for global public health: Climate change is altering the rainfall, vegetation, and habitat conditions that influence rodent populations — changes that experts say boost the odds that the pathogens these animals carry will spill over into human populations.

While the hantavirus’s one-to-six-week incubation period means the outbreak could have originated in any of the passengers’ home countries, a possible culprit is the ship’s stop for a birding expedition near Ushuaia, which is home to a landfill that attracts rodents looking for food. Argentina’s health authorities have already documented a sharp rise in hantavirus this season: 101 infections have been recorded since June 2025, about twice as many as there were in the same period a year earlier.

The country’s health ministry hasn’t yet determined what’s behind the surge, but research suggests that climate change may play a role. Argentina and neighboring countries in South America endured years of severe drought between 2021 and 2024, including Argentina’s worst dry spell in more than 60 years in 2023, followed by extreme rainfall last year. Weather extremes exacerbated by global warming change how rodents behave, according to Kirk Douglas, a senior scientist who studies hantaviruses and climate change at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, in Barbados.

Prolonged drought sends rats and mice into populated areas in search of food, which can put people at higher risk of contracting the virus. Sudden rainfall following drought causes trees and shrubs to produce a windfall of nuts and seeds, which tend to benefit rodents and boost their numbers — all the while increasing the risk of transmission from animal to human.

That doesn’t mean there’s a one-to-one relationship between global temperature rise and rodent-driven risk, however, and climate change is hardly the only force at play. A complex web of natural and human-made landscape changes can increase or decrease contact between humans and rodents. Increased temperatures and humidity, for example, don’t seem to influence the disease ecology of hantavirus in the same way that drought and precipitation do.

“Hantavirus is sensitive to the changes climate change will bring,” Douglas emphasized. “It’s all dependent on what the prevailing climate impact is.”

That complexity makes hantavirus risk difficult to predict — and easy to overlook. In the United States, hantavirus has been rare since federal surveillance began in 1993. There were fewer than 1,000 total confirmed cases up to 2023, the latest year that data is available. About 35 percent of those cases, almost all of which occurred west of the Mississippi River, resulted in death. 

As in South America, the dynamics of hantavirus in the U.S. may be shifting. The places most at risk, federal scientists reported in a study published last year, are dry landscapes where homes are spread out, many kinds of rodents live nearby, and communities may have fewer resources to prevent or respond to disease — conditions that describe broad swaths of the American West.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How climate change could help hantavirus find more hosts on May 12, 2026.

Built on the assumption that price is the best measure of value, modern economics has never adequately grasped non-transactional exchange – care relationships and reproductive work above all. Declining birth rates and ageing societies are now laying bare the limits of a framework that feminist thinkers have long critiqued. An interview with economist Emma Holten.

This article is part of the Green European Journal’s upcoming print edition on demographic futures, out in early June. Subscribe now and get it delivered straight to your door.

Green European Journal: The history of modern political theory is marked by a major omission – of bodies, their needs, and the necessity of caring for them. How did this omission come about?  

Emma Holten: Enlightenment thinking was very much about liberating the individual – from hierarchy, from the ties of religion and superstition, from the bounds of class. Thinkers like Thomas Hobbes, for example, were very progressive in their belief that the individual has value in and of itself. That conviction became the building block of modern political theory, and it has been hugely important for feminism, too. However, it overlooked that individuals are connected not only in oppressive systems but also in positive relationships. Human beings exist only in the context of other human beings. But that interdependence disappeared.  

This omission was most striking in the context of birth and family relationships. The whole story of what it takes to give birth and raise an individual completely disappeared, and we started making political theory about well-educated adults, as if they sprang up like mushrooms. 

How did this original sin become so entrenched in modern economics? 

Economics, too, had a noble ambition: to provide a clear description of the political system and to be able to quantify it. In the 1870s, this ambition culminated in the marginalist revolution, which was probably the most influential shift in the history of economics. Marginalism is based on the idea that you can use market prices to establish value. According to this theory, the market-clearing price is the perfect balance between supply and demand, between how much one wants to be paid for a product or service and how much someone else is willing to pay for it.  

Many of us grow up thinking that economics is like physics or chemistry […] We don’t question it because it would feel like questioning gravity.

The obvious corollary is that if something doesn’t have a price, it doesn’t have value. Economics loses the ability to speak about things that don’t have a price, such as time spent with friends or in the home. The only way to measure the value of time spent at home caring for others or being cared for by others is to calculate how much you would make if you used that time in the market instead.  

However, I don’t think price is a good measure of value in the market either. I spend a lot of time talking to nurses, caregivers for elderly people, and social workers, and when I tell them that economics measures their value by their salary, they are either shocked or start laughing. When you receive care, you don’t necessarily know what the value of that interaction is going to be; it only becomes visible in the long term. And if this interaction happens in the public sector, then the market is all the more unable to grasp its value. Economic methods find it much easier to understand the value of a car than the value of care, both paid and unpaid.  

 Why is this way of thinking about value so difficult to dispel?  

Many of us grow up thinking that economics is like physics or chemistry. That it has always been the same, and we’ve always looked at value the same way. And this is a huge part of economics’ power. We don’t question it, because it would feel like questioning gravity. American economist Paul Samuelson famously said that he didn’t care who held political office as long as he got to write economics textbooks. Economics conditions the way we think about politics.  

The rise of Thatcherism, of neoliberalism – the idea that the market comes before the state, and that the state’s responsibility is to take care of the market, not the people – has reinforced this influence. We let economists decide how much we should work, how much time parents should be able to spend with their children, what the optimal way to provide childcare is, or how to take care of nature. But these are fundamentally political questions. Their depoliticisation has exacerbated the dynamic whereby things that economics can value tend to be overvalued, while those it cannot value become completely valueless. 

Dominant theories may be unable to account for the value of care in the economy, yet they assume a steady and abundant supply of care to sustain the economic system. How do you make sense of this paradox?  

This is probably the central paradox in how modern economics deals with care. It has the idea that people are rational agents, act in their own self-interest, and are oriented towards the market. And so the provision of care, which largely falls outside the market, remains a blind spot. Economic theories tend to assume an endless supply of care, without a clear theory of how it is sustained.  

Based on their own reasoning, women would never have children because it is completely irrational from a market perspective. Yet when birth rates decline, suddenly shock ensues. I sometimes wonder whether economists are angrier at women when they have children or when they don’t. If they do have children and need to work part-time, that’s expensive and doesn’t create enough value. But if they don’t have children, that suddenly becomes a huge issue for the economy.  

When you study economics, the first thing you learn is the production function. How does a product come to be? In that function, there’s a variable called “L”. That’s labour power. But there is no acknowledgement of where it comes from; it’s just there. And I think that tells you everything you need to know about the poverty of the theories. 

 I sometimes wonder whether economists are angrier at women when they have children or when they don’t. 

Feminist thinkers have challenged the approach that treats care as entirely outside the economic equation, but they haven’t always agreed on how best to make the case for it.  

Feminist theorists, particularly Italian feminists like Silvia Federici, have been instrumental in showing that the undervaluing of care is a central part of capitalism. This applies to paid and unpaid care, to the public and the private sector alike.  

The big question was: to price or not to price? Should we speak the devil’s language? Some feminist economists, especially in the early days of the field, argued that we should price unpaid care so we can include it in GDP and measure it. This was based on the reasoning that we can’t change the system, and so we need to use its language and its rules in our favour.  

We’ve seen a similar logic at play in the environmental movement, where putting a price on a tree or a marsh seems to be the best way to protect it. But pricing ignores the relationships; it isolates and splits things up. And when you talk about nature, you cannot isolate and split. The same goes for care. The value of a mother, just like that of a tree, is not visible at the time of the exchange; it is long-term, and it is reciprocal: mother and child are changing one another. You cannot say that one is giving something to another, as if it were a simple transaction.  

 The home, in particular, has been a subject of controversy within feminist thought. Is it a prison or a shelter, a site of oppression and exploitation or one of liberation? 

It is both. Historically, the home has been a site of extreme violence against women, and we can understand why so much of feminist thought was focused on getting women out of the home and getting them to make their own money. The dominant type of feminism, middle-class feminism, places a strong emphasis on achieving workplace equality between women and men. You can see this in EU strategies for gender equality, for example. That’s what takes up all the space. But many women, especially lower-class or migrant women who face exploitation, are actually fighting to get into the home, to have enough money to see their own children, to have time to rest. This is the double vision we need when we deal with care. The fight goes both ways. And for many people, home is also a place of liberation. 

Meanwhile, we haven’t made a big enough effort to get men into the home. Sometimes, we have fallen into the trap of idealising men’s lives and framing them as free, equating paid work with freedom. But paid labour isn’t necessarily freedom. There are many men who are exploited or work in terrible conditions. Where’s the policy to liberate them?  

Could the resurgence of “traditional” gender roles – as promoted in the “manosphere” and the “tradwife” online movements – be partly understood as a reaction to these failures rather than simply a backlash against women’s emancipation?  

When it comes to care, many of the distinctions between right-wing and left-wing positions tend to collapse. Sometimes I see overlaps in places I didn’t expect. “Tradwives” and other socially conservative people often ask for the same things that progressive people ask for: more community, more time with children, less market dominance in our lives, more focus on love and social relationships, and a reaction against individualism. When I hear a conservative woman say that life is more than work, that what matters are the people we love, I find myself nodding. Then she might add that the man’s role is to dominate, and that’s where she loses me.  

But we should not underestimate the potential to speak about these issues across differences. When I speak to nurses in hospitals, they suddenly realise they find common ground on this, even with people they usually disagree with politically. The devaluation of care is the core of both right- and left-wing anger right now.  

 Does the devaluation of care help explain Europe’s consistently low birth rates over the last few decades?  

If I were to speak to a politician who cares about economic growth and wants women to have more children, I’d tell them to start by offering better childcare and longer parental leave. I was brought up in the 1990s and 2000s, thinking that we had gender equality, and women would live lives that were completely like men’s. Many of us were more educated than most men and made more money than many men. But when they had children, many in my generation were shocked to find out how much gender still mattered.  

But I don’t think it’s just a matter of affordability. Birth rates are declining worldwide, regardless of the cost of living situation. This can be a good thing from a feminist perspective, especially if very young women are waiting longer to have children. But it also has to do with the types of societies we have created, where having children can be quite lonely and make it very difficult to spend time on anything else, including work and hobbies.  

Do pro-birth policies focusing narrowly on economic incentives miss the point?  

Economic theory and policymaking lack a theory of culture, but economics and culture go hand in hand. What we value economically tends to spill over into what we value culturally, and vice versa. The decision to have or not to have children is influenced by both cultural change and economic considerations. Yet when economists speak about demographics, they are at the limit of their theoretical capabilities because culture is simply not something they’re used to dealing with. In their market theory, there is no place for family choices. In a way, you could say that economics is supremely feminist in that rational market agents have no body and no gender. For many economists, I’m a consumer in the same way that a man is, at least until I become pregnant.  

You could say that economics is supremely feminist in that rational market agents have no body and no gender

There are, of course, exceptions. Alice Evans, for example, has done a lot of empirical work, interviewing women around the world about their choices to have or not have children. She found that cultural factors, such as social media use, can have a major impact on reproductive choices because they give access to different types of women’s lives and different female cultures, showing that options other than having a family also exist. She calls this phenomenon “cultural leapfrogging”.

The Left seems more reluctant to talk about demographic crisis or decline. Is there a way of reframing the issue in a more progressive way rather than surrendering it to right-wing narratives and cultural panic?  

Demographic decline is an umbrella term for many things, some of them good and others concerning. We should be extremely concrete in how we talk about decline and what we are worried about. My biggest worry is that, if the state retreats, the ever-expanding group of elderly people will have to be cared for by their daughters, as is already the case all over Europe.  

But there’s also an opportunity to think creatively about how we adapt to the new demographic situation. We cannot leave these big decisions to the market – the state needs to play a big role, too. All over Europe, we’re already seeing major recruitment issues in hospitals because pay is so low. From a green perspective, more jobs in care can be good news because it is a very sustainable type of work, and one that is extremely useful to society.  

Maybe the best way is to understand what we are going through as a care crisis, not a demographic one. It’s a new situation, and we need to adapt.  

Pro-birth policies tend to focus on heterosexual couples or, at best, the nuclear family model with two parents raising children. Is it time we question this norm?  

The family organisation of two parents raising children is actually quite unique in human history. It is the configuration that takes the least time away from the market because it is very steady and small; it requires little organising.  

If you ask any feminist economist what her main policy goal is, she will probably choose a shorter working day, which means more time in the home. Of course, there can be downsides, and we see it in countries where family care has a bigger cultural role: women tend to make less money and be less independent, which in turn creates a patriarchal family structure. However, there’s also the upside that families are more connected and have closer relationships, so we need to strike the right balance.  

This isn’t just about raising children. In Scandinavia and other parts of northern Europe, we tend to just hide elderly people away. When someone cannot work anymore or is no longer self-sufficient, we don’t really want to see them; we don’t want them in the home. When I speak with Muslim feminists who have migrated to Europe, they tell me they find this to be extremely inhumane; they have a much more integrated relationship with elderly people in day-to-day life. 

In the new demographic reality, opening up the home means not only more care for those who need it, but also more help with raising children – and this doesn’t mean the state shouldn’t play its role in providing care. But we have closed off the home too much, and I think we see it in the crisis of loneliness that many adults are facing.  

 

Angela Chukunzira, Tyler Finken and Finn Jetses highlight multinational resistance to AI’s social and ecological impact

The post Behind the ‘intelligent’ chatbot appeared first on Red Pepper.

'All politics is theatre' Channel Comment brendan 12th May 2026 Teaser Media

The emergence of a strong El Niño weather pattern this year in a world that is warming as a result of human-caused climate change could fuel “unprecedented” weather extremes, climate scientists have warned.

Meteorologists expect El Niño – the natural climate phenomenon characterised by unusually warm sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean – to develop as early as this month. Some forecasters say that this time around the event could become particularly powerful.

Scientists say the combination of El Niño and rising global temperatures could push 2026 to either the warmest or second-warmest year on record. A previous El Niño helped drive average global temperatures in 2024 to a record 1.55C above preindustrial levels.

Researchers warn that a strong El Niño risks supercharging extreme weather conditions, contributing to more severe fires and droughts in some regions and storms and floods in others.

El Niño meets global warming

Friederike Otto, professor in climate science at Imperial College London, said El Niño itself is “not the reason to freak out” but rather the fact that it is now happening on an increasingly warmer baseline.

“El Niño is a natural phenomenon that comes and goes,” she told journalists this week. “What makes it so dramatic is not the event itself and whether it’s a ‘Super El Niño’ or not, but that it is happening in a dramatically changing climate.”

“The records will still be broken because of human-induced climate change and the continued burning of fossil fuels,” Otto added.

The World Meteorological Organization will issue its next update on the prospects for an El Niño in late May, which it says will provide more robust guidance for decision-making on how to protect people and nature from associated impacts.

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Even before the likely arrival of the El Niño pattern, 2026 has already been an “extraordinary” year for weather extremes, scientists at the World Weather Attribution (WWA) research group said.

Sea surface temperatures neared all-time highs in April, while Arctic sea ice reached its lowest level for a second-year running. In March, the United States saw a record-breaking heatwave that would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change, according to WWA analysis.

Dramatic wildfire risk

Across the globe, the wildfire season got off to a dramatic start. Record-breaking fires in Western Africa and the Sahel, as well as big outbreaks in India, Southeast Asia and parts of China, contributed to the world recording its largest burned area ever for the January-April period, according to Theodore Keeping, a WWA researcher.

He noted that the emergence of a powerful El Niño event could have a major effect on supercharging wildfires by increasing the likelihood of seeing “severe” hot and dry conditions in Australia, the US and Canada, as well as the Amazon rainforest.

“The likelihood of harmful extreme fires potentially could be the highest we have seen in recent history, if a strong El Niño does develop,” Keeping added.

The post Scientists warn El Niño could intensify climate extremes in 2026 appeared first on Climate Home News.

Release The Files, Unity Is Power, Support Unions They Gave Us Weekends.Your Labor Is Your Leverage.

The Association on American Indian Affairs is seeking a full-time Cultural Sovereignty Director to lead and grow one of their core program areas!

The post Job Opening: Cultural Sovereignty Director, Association on American Indian Affairs appeared first on Native Organizers Alliance.

Climate Watch Bird Surveys Commence May 15 Looking for an opportunity to make your bird sightings meaningful to Audubon’s climate scientists? Consider adopting a Climate Watch plot and visiting it...

Between now and 2030, the increase in electricity demand for air conditioning systems alone will exceed that for data centers, one of the fastest-growing energy uses globally. By 2050, cooling electricity demand is expected to match the combined annual electricity consumption of the United States, China, India, Germany, and Japan today. Yet, cooling hasn’t made it to the top of energy transition conversations and receives far less attention than is needed.

This year is proving to be yet another hot and humid one. But this comes as no surprise, as it joins the warmest decade in recorded history. Just last month, several regions in South Asia and the Southwest United States already experienced pre-summer heatwaves, with temperatures exceeding historical averages by several degrees.

Now more than ever, tackling extreme heat is about more than just comfort. It’s also about productivity, survivability, and safely being able to operate outdoors and live inside our homes and other essential buildings and facilities such as data centers, factories, hospitals, and schools.

The scale of the cooling challenge

In 2022, cooling equipment consumed an estimated 5,000 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity globally — about the same as the entire electricity consumption of the United States today. By 2050, this demand is projected to triple to 18,000 TWh.

Cooling also carries a significant emissions impact due to the use of electricity (still generated from fossil fuel-based power plants in most regions) and refrigerants that leak into the environment during servicing or at the end of life. It already accounts for 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions — roughly equal to the cement sector — and could rise to 15% by 2050. As increasing cooling drives energy and peak power demand and need for refrigerants , it will create more emissions and warming, feeding a dangerous cycle.

An integrated approach to solving the cooling challenge

No one technology can solve this unprecedented cooling challenge. An integrated approach is foundational to ensure that people can better respond and adapt to extreme heat events as well as adopt sustainable cooling solutions that reduce planet warming emissions.

RMI and our partners around the world have prioritized three core pillars to tackle the rising heat stress issue and enhance thermal comfort for people: build resilience, enhance comfort, reduce emissions.

• Build Resilience — Build urban heat resilience through heat mitigation strategies, including nature-based solutions such as urban greening and reflective materials.
• Enhance comfort — Enhance affordable thermal comfort through passive design strategies and other low-cost, scalable solutions that reduce cooling needs and make cooling accessible to more people.
• Reduce emissions — Reduce energy use and emissions through super-efficient technologies, improved system design, and better refrigerant management, while scaling next-gen, innovative solutions that lower life-cycle costs and emissions.

When key actors across policy, technology and market align around this framework, it helps create the conditions needed to scale the right solutions that benefit the people and the planet.

Putting the approach into action

Build Resilience — Mitigating urban heat at the source

Reducing cooling demand effectively begins with understanding where heat poses the greatest risk. In many cities, responses are still guided by temperature thresholds rather than real-world impacts on people, infrastructure, and livelihoods.

But cities also need tools that help identify priority hotspots and target interventions to help prepare communities and infrastructure in advance, reducing exposure and managing cooling demand during the hottest periods when grids may otherwise fail. To address this, India’s National Disaster Management Authority developed the Heat Impact Assessment (HIA) Framework and a digital dashboard, empowering cities to identify priority hotspots and target interventions where they can deliver the greatest benefit.

Additionally, urban areas are often hotter than surrounding regions due to the urban heat island effect, where buildings and infrastructure trap heat. Expanding tree cover, improving ventilation, deploying heat-rejecting surfaces, and using thermally efficient materials can help reduce the impact of heat.

At scale, these solutions offer broader system-level benefits by reducing heat buildup across urban areas, lowering neighborhood temperatures, and helping mitigate the urban heat island effect.

Insights from work in communities highlight how combining building-level interventions like cool roofs with neighborhood-scale strategies — and including heat-sensitive urban design — can reduce heat exposure more effectively than stand-alone solutions. Layering interventions like cool corridors across neighborhoods using nature-based solutions, building materials, and urban form is critical to delivering sustained cooling at scale. Together, these approaches are key to improving heat resilience while easing grid stress during extreme heat days.

Enhance comfort — Reducing cooling needs affordably

Enhancing thermal comfort for people begins with helping people stay cool without relying on mechanical cooling systems. One key solution is to use materials that not only reflect sunlight but also actively shed heat. Pilots in Chennai, India, have demonstrated how “cool” roofs and surfaces can significantly reduce indoor temperatures, improving comfort — especially for those without access to air conditioning.

RMI’s climate tech accelerator, Third Derivative, is advancing passive daytime radiative cooling (PDRC) technologies, including specialized paints, films, and membranes. Unlike conventional cool roofs that primarily reflect solar radiation, PDRC materials are engineered to both reflect sunlight and emit heat as mid-infrared radiation that passes through the atmosphere into space. This dual mechanism enables them to cool surfaces below ambient temperatures, with the potential to lower indoor temperatures by up to 18°F (10°C) on hot days — without using electricity.

Passive design strategies, including PDRC, cool roof coatings, efficient building envelopes, solar shading, and proper ventilation, reduce the need for active cooling solutions, improving comfort and making cooling more affordable and accessible for all.

Reduce Emissions — Advancing efficiency and accelerating innovation

Today’s air conditioners (ACs) need to be re-designed to fully optimize the refrigeration cycle and deliver better comfort and energy performance using high-efficiency components. The Global Cooling Efficiency Accelerator, supported by RMI and partners, conducted extensive prototype field testing in Palava City, India, where super-efficient AC prototypes maintained consistent comfort (below 27°C/80.6°F and 60% relative humidity) even in extreme conditions, while cutting peak power demand by up to 50%. Additionally, they used 60% less energy than today’s common models and delivered better dehumidification, reducing the need for overcooling the indoor spaces, which means dramatically lower total cost of ownership for consumers. This is particularly important as many households buy their first AC to seek respite from high wet-bulb temperatures that are reaching critical human survivability thresholds.

However, scaling these improvements requires more than better technology. Updated testing and performance standards are needed to enable fair comparison and clear differentiation of efficient technologies. At the same time, aligned procurement specifications and strong demand signals from like-minded buyers give manufacturers the confidence that the market is ready — helping drive a fundamental shift in how technologies are produced and purchased.

RMI and partners are actively working across both the demand and supply sides to help shape the market for products that ease the tension between people’s comfort, grid reliability, and emissions.

As ACs get widely adopted globally, addressing refrigerant emissions is as critical as improving energy efficiency. Transitioning to low-GWP and natural refrigerants, as well as improved life-cycle refrigerant management — including leak reduction, recovery, and reclamation — is essential to prevent significant climate impacts from cooling systems.

And as we improve today’s AC technology to become super-efficient, there is an opportunity to go even further. Innovation across the cooling sector is essential to unlocking the full range of solutions needed to address this challenge. For example,  desiccant-based systems and hybrid solutions using membrane technologies can separately and independently manage dehumidification from cooling, enabling more efficient operation in humid climates.  Solid-state technologies, which use an applied field or pressure instead of refrigerants, can offer improved efficiency and comfort, quieter operation, lower energy costs, and reduced emissions.

RMI’s Third Derivative program is actively sourcing and supporting these emerging cooling innovations, working with eight startups globally that are developing innovative active cooling technologies, from optimized system design to highly efficient humidity management with liquid desiccants and refrigerant-free solid-state cooling.

The path forward

In the coming years, we will continue to deepen our engagement with key stakeholders to support them in implementing national and sub-national policies and to adopt low-cost scalable passive design strategies and solutions that reduce cooling demand at the source.

We will also continue working to accelerate the development and scale of super-efficient cooling technologies, advance refrigerant management efforts, and unlock next-generation innovations. We aim to deepen our understanding of the rapidly evolving cooling technology landscape to identify the most relevant and impactful opportunities for intervention. We will work closely with policymakers, manufacturers, buyers, and startups to pilot solutions, strengthen performance standards, and build the market confidence needed to drive widespread adoption.

Taking a holistic, whole-systems approach — build resilience, enhance comfort, and reduce emissions — can deliver significant impact, on both the building level and across the entire cooling sector. This could translate into electricity savings of up to 8,500 TWh by 2050 — more than the current annual consumption of the United States and the European Union combined — while reducing peak demand and avoiding the need for thousands of new power plants. And improving AC efficiency levels by over 50% means people can cool their homes when they need to without stressing the grid, driving up electricity bills, or adding to emissions.

In a warming world where heat stress is rising and rapid urbanization and increasing incomes will drive significant growth in cooling demand, accelerating these efforts is critical. By working collaboratively, we can ensure cooling needs are met for all without accelerating the warming of our planet.

We would like to thank Ankit Kalanki, Tarun Garg, and Tess Healy for their contributions to this article.

The post Tackling the World’s Surging Cooling Demand appeared first on RMI.

Hi everyone! CCEJN and VISIÓN partners are in the process of hiring a manager for the VISIÓN (Voices In Solidarity Against Oil In Neighborhoods) coalition. VISIÓN is an environmental justice coalition representing frontline communities impacted by neighborhood oil drilling in Kern and Los Angeles Counties. The coalition works to phase out all neighborhood oil drilling […]

If you take a stroll down Flores Trail to Los Nogales Nursery, you will spot a small patch of blue flags along the hillside to your left. And much like the rest of our restoration sites, the flags...

By: Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla

Our team has been working tirelessly to defend the Delta and our communities against the Delta Conveyance Project (DCP). 

While we have secured victories in the courts regarding bond financing, the Delta Stewardship Council (DSC) has unfortunately approved the California Department of Water Resources’ (DWR) Certification of Consistency for the proposed the DCP, even though the project fails to meet the co-equal goals of protecting the Delta and reducing water reliance on the Delta.

Last week, Restore the Delta along with Tribes, expert witnesses and multiple coalition partners also filed rebuttal testimony with the Administrative Hearing Office for the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB). In our testimony, we disputed numerous claims made by DWR regarding the “merits” and planning for the DCP. 

A revelatory point in our case elucidates how hundreds of thousands of impacted water users, both local residents and Tribes, were written out of the footprint of the project as a way for DWR to bypass investigating any harm and having to provide the appropriate level of mitigation. Our argument is that DWR must prove that with the Change in Point of Diversion they are proposing – allowing for two new intakes along the Sacramento River in the North Delta – would not negatively impact water users in the Delta watershed.

But importantly, the effort doesn’t end there if we are to prevent the tunnel from being frontloaded in continuing business for the next Governor, whoever that may be. 

We have two important items that you can help take action on by calling your State Senators and Assemblymembers.

Supporting a DWR financial audit

Assembly Member Rhodesia Ransom has been the primary legislative proponent of an audit of DWR for its spending on the DCP. To date, DWR “has spent over $700 million on planning and public engagement related to the Delta Conveyance Project and past iterations of the project. Despite this substantial expenditure, critical public information remains inaccessible, and significant questions remain unanswered—particularly regarding whether DWR has done its due diligence to ensure the fiscal integrity of the project, and whether hundreds of millions of dollars are being appropriately allocated,” alleviating financial pressure and impact on ratepayers, and any risks that could be attributed to California ratepayers and property taxpayers. 

The next Joint Legislative Audit Committee is scheduled to meet June 1.  Although the hearing time and agenda have not yet been made public yet, we are asking our supporters to call their State Senator and Assembly Members to express their support of the audit, even if they are not part of the Audit Committee since elected officials should ALL be advocating for financial accountability of DWR.  

If you don’t know who your representatives are, you can find them here. Next, call their office to voice your support for the DWR Audit. Here’s a script that you can opt to use: 

“I expect Senator/Assembly Member [Official’s Name] to support the audit of the Department of Water Resources and their spending on the Delta Conveyance Project. Please urge your colleagues on the Audit Committee to support this important audit. The Delta Conveyance Project is set to financially mirror the out of control spending on High Speed Rail, and without benefit for increased water delivery.”

It is our duty to keep the legislature accountable, and we must make sure they hear us and our concerns about the impact of failed water planning. A bad project like the DCP should not be left on the books for our next governor.

We are also hoping that our supporters can take the time on June 1 to join us to voice support with the committee. Although these hearings can be long and difficult with the public usually being relegated to only stating whether or not they support the item without additional commentary, it is important for us to have a sizable presence. We know that water contractors and special interest water industry leaders will all appear in large numbers (as they did last year) to oppose financial transparency. We’ve learned time and time again that “big water” provides fat paychecks for those who thwart public interest, protection of the Delta, and responsible water management in California.

A huge thank you to Assemblymember Ransom for her efforts to lead and bring accountability to the project. Once we learn more, we will continue to share updates about the audit and the hearing schedule.

Opposition to AB2215

The State Water Contractors are advancing AB2215 as a legislative solution to DWR’s expired water rights for the State Water Project and the DCP, rather than through proper procedure at the State Water Board. The bill, authored by Assemblymember Calderon, is moving for a floor vote in the Assembly and could happen at any time. If it passes, it will then move to the State Senate.

Now that you know who your State Senator and Assemblymember are (if you didn’t already), here’s a script you can use to call their office about opposing AB2215:

“I am calling to ask that you oppose AB2215 and legislative interference in water rights, especially in relation to the Delta Conveyance Project. The Delta Conveyance Project is a $100 billion boondoggle that California cannot afford. I ask that you side with our community that will be negatively impacted by this project rather than State Water Contractors who continuously work to undermine transparency and full inclusion of Californians in water management. The tunnel is a dangerous symptom of ineffective California water management.”

The Legislature, in many ways, is still beholden to Governor Newsom, and the special interests that have driven his failed water policies for the Bay-Delta watershed, urban water users, and San Joaquin Valley drinking water communities. His intent is clear – leave the system filled with bad projects and programs to drive this failed water agenda forward, despite whoever becomes the next Governor. 

In a recent press release, Governor Newsom provided more political spin that falls short of stating what the true devastating impact of the DCP would be and what it really means for Californians. While the administration celebrates restoring salmon habitat on the Klamath River, it also champions a massive tunnel project that would divert freshwater away from the Delta and further threaten fish populations and the communities that rely on a healthy bay-delta with adequate water flows.

It is time to stop the machine. Raise your voices and help us fight for the watershed, the Delta, fisheries, Tribes, Delta farming communities, the San Francisco Bay, and the people throughout the state who are impacted one way or another by the Delta Tunnel Boondoggle.

Outside of PJM’s annual meeting, speakers called out grid mismanagement, rising electricity costs, and failure to bring cheaper clean energy online

 

BALTIMORE, MD — PJM Interconnection (PJM), the regional grid operator for Maryland and a dozen other states, is holding its annual conference at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront from May 11 to 13. State lawmakers and advocates held a press conference today on the sidewalk outside the hotel to call out PJM’s mismanagement of the grid, which has led directly to surging energy prices. 

“Maryland families are already seeing higher electric bills, driven in part by rapid growth in energy-hungry data centers. Ratepayers shouldn’t have to compete with global corporations for power,” said Senator Katie Fry Hester (D-Maryland). 

“Pennsylvania produces the energy that powers much of the PJM region, yet our residents should not be asked to subsidize the explosive growth of private data centers,” said Rep. Danielle Otten (D-Pennsylvania). “We need fairness and accountability — making sure new industrial demand brings new supply with it. Protecting reliability while keeping electricity affordable is essential for our households, our manufacturers, and our economic future.” 

“Clean energy is chomping at the bit to lower energy bills, but PJM is artificially slowing clean energy from coming onto the grid in order to benefit fossil fuel interests,” said Delegate Lorig Charkoudian (D-Maryland).  

“PJM needs to more swiftly and efficiently greenlight clean energy projects and hold data centers responsible for paying for their own energy needs instead of further burdening already stretched ratepayers,” said Senator Shelly Hettleman (D-Maryland) 

PJM’s policies are delaying lower-cost clean energy projects while keeping more expensive power sources on the system – contributing to higher electricity bills across the region. A recent analysis found that if PJM were to allow more clean energy to connect to the grid, it would save each of its customers $500 a year in reduced energy bills. Advocates shared recent cost savings from clean energy in other regions, such as Massachusetts’ recent announcement that residents are saving $1.4 billion over the next 20 years with the completion of the Vineyard Wind offshore wind project. Meanwhile, PJM is forcing ratepayers to pay coal plants just south of Baltimore hundreds of millions of dollars to stay open, when cleaner alternatives would be less expensive. 

“PJM is failing us not by accident, but by design. It has been co-opted by fossil fuel energy generators and utilities and is quickly being overtaken by Big Tech and their data center companies as well. All the while, PJM’s members have been raking in massive revenues due to energy market dysfunction. PJM won’t help energy bills decrease until there is meaningful governance reform within PJM. And, they missed an opportunity by selecting their Board Chair and interim President as their new President and CEO just last month,” said Jake Schwartz, Federal Campaigns Manager for Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

“If PJM were truly focused on lowering soaring energy bills, the solution would be clear: invest in clean energy. Instead, PJM continues to prioritize energy sources that are neither clean nor affordable, while Marylanders face growing pressure from rising utility, fuel, and healthcare costs. It’s time for PJM to listen to its customers and deliver the reliable, affordable clean energy Maryland families deserve,” said Rebecca Rehr, Director of Climate Policy & Justice for Maryland LCV.  

Find a recording of today’s press conference here.

# # #

The post Lawmakers and Advocates Demand Reforms from PJM, Regional Grid Manager appeared first on Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

*The essay below draws upon the authors’ research article, ‘Just’ cruising in liberal Denmark: ambiguities at the nexus of queer intimacy and public green area management, recently published in the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. When we introduce the topic of our recent collaborative research, most people assume that we are attending to the […]

This is part two of a two-part series on the Trump Administration’s mineral trade deals. Read part one here.

New mineral trade “deals” that the Trump administration is pushing are extortion, not foreign policy. A deal being considered between Zambia and the United States that would make lifesaving medical aid contingent on access to minerals is just the latest in a series of these exploitative deals, including between the U.S. and Indonesia and the U.S., Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Holding a sustainable future hostage

The minerals that the Administration demands, often called critical minerals, are used for renewable energy and military technologies. Mining and processing minerals has severe negative impacts on communities, Indigenous Peoples, ecosystems, the climate, and water. Making sure a renewable energy future is truly just and sustainable means cutting back on the need for newly mined minerals wherever possible, and investing in recycling, reuse, and other circular economy solutions. But the Trump administration seems more interested in profits for mining companies and a limitless supply of minerals for war.

Exploiting a war in Rwanda and the DRC

Earthworks and allies in civil society voiced our concerns in a letter to an administration forcing critical minerals deals upon other countries. Like the Zambian proposal, many of these “deals” more resemble extortion than equitable trade policy, much less how one would treat a partner nation. 

For example, the Strategic Partnership Agreement between the DRC, Rwanda, and the United States tries to leverage a peace deal in the recent war between Rwanda and the DRC as a means to secure exclusive rights for mining companies to access DRC’s minerals–namely cobalt. The war has killed at least 7,000 people and displaced at least 600,000 (as of March 2026).

According to Public Citizen, the core purpose of this Agreement is to make sure mining companies access the DRC’s minerals the United States government wants for war, energy, and other applications. The Agreement is arguably unconstitutional in both countries, and the process is deeply undemocratic. It creates a shopping list of mine sites where the United States subsidizes companies and investors to choose, or refuse, DRC’s minerals. The deal worsens the DRC’s economic reliance on industrial-scale mining, without suitably consulting the artisanal miner collectives who would most stand to benefit from high labor, environmental, and human rights safeguards that could be implemented as part of a truly equitable trade deal.

Exploitation disguised as trade agreements

Before the Supreme Court struck down the Trump administration’s so-called reciprocal tariffs, the Administration signed Agreements on Reciprocal Trade (ARTs) with many nations. These deals generally insisted on several commitments that tend to benefit various pharmaceutical, tech, mining, and oil companies. 

For minerals, the most recent ART with Indonesia removes any trade restrictions for U.S. imports and compels Indonesia to “facilitate U.S. investment in its territory to mine, extract, refine, process, transport, distribute, and export critical minerals.” Unlike the DRC SPA, the Indonesia deal did not give U.S. companies the right of first refusal to Indonesia’s nickel. Yet, the deal clearly encourages U.S. companies to invest in more Indonesian nickel. As of this writing, Indonesia has neither ratified nor annulled their ART. 

Increasing Indonesian nickel production also increases risks to communities. Earthworks recently released research on the risks to communities, workers and the environment of mine waste from nickel processing. Multiple tailings failures at nickel industrial parks have resulted in flooding and multiple worker deaths. We are calling for a moratorium on permitting new tailings facilities until the Indonesian government can hold operators accountable and achieve proper oversight. Nickel production in Indonesia has also been connected with displacement, deforestation, and water contamination.

Building off centuries of inequality

Trade between countries in the Global North and Global South has been unequal for centuries. Even though many Asian, African, and Latin American countries won their independence from colonial governments, the economies designed to extract resources from some countries while making profits for others remain. The result is that residents of our trading partners live with mining impacts while mining companies make a profit and the U.S. sells weapons to its military and others’.  

A future built on something better

Equitable and sustainable trade policy requires acknowledging that the US government, historically and regularly, prioritizes companies that take advantage of extraction-affected communities, including in Global North countries. The status quo remains fundamentally unjust. In building a better system, governments must, among other things, prioritize Free, Prior, and Informed Consent for Indigenous Peoples; community consultation; best available technologies; low- and zero-waste plans; and enforceable high labor, environmental, and governance standards. We must demand reparations for chattel slavery, colonialism, and the climate crisis, and ensure newly-generated wealth stays within the communities and countries with whom the U.S. trades. 

People in the DRC, Indonesia, and everywhere else have the right to healthy, dignified lives. They have the right to governments responsive to their interests. Advocates in the Global North must commit to solidarity with mining-affected communities and their organizations, like those in the DRC, Indonesia, and elsewhere are fighting for that future and standing up to irresponsible mining that threatens their homes and families. As the Trump administration intensifies that threat, people and organizations in the United States must speak up for our shared future too.

The post Trump’s deals extort trade partners for mining company profits. There is a better way. appeared first on Earthworks.

This is part one of a two-part series on the Trump administration’s mineral trade deals. Read part two here.

A trade deal proposed by the United States could end life-saving humanitarian aid to Zambia unless the United States gets access to minerals, which are useful for renewable energy, military technology, and more. Like the other so-called critical minerals “deals” that the Trump administration is signing, this agreement would be extortion, not foreign policy. 

On 16 March, The New York Times broke the story that the Trump administration was considering withholding foreign aid–specifically HIV treatment and tuberculosis and malaria medications. More than 1 million Zambians rely on these medications. According to a draft U.S. State Department memo, the administration is considering cutting off decades of life-saving medical aid unless the Zambian government gives the United States more access to their minerals. 

An economy dependent on mining

Zambia, a country of about 20 million people located in south-central Africa, is largely dependent on mining as an economic driver dating back to the beginning of British colonial rule. Reliance on a destructive and dirty extraction-based economy is common in formerly colonized countries, which also often rely on humanitarian aid due to the inequality established by centuries of imperialism.

Now, Zambia is seeking to capitalize on the increased demand for mining linked to minerals for the renewable energy transition. Currently, Zambia produces 3% of the global copper supply and it aims to triple that by 2031. It is also investing in and expanding production of other key minerals for the renewable energy transition, including cobalt manganese, nickel, lithium, and graphite extraction.

Cutting a lifeline for millions

The threat to cut lifesaving medical aid programs is devastating and dangerous. The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which was founded by George W. Bush, has saved more than 26 million lives and prevented 8 million babies from being born with HIV. Access to medicine, driven by grassroots advocates around the world, has changed HIV from a death sentence to a treatable condition. Medications are expensive, but reliable treatment can transform lives and stop the spread of the virus.

In Zambia, more than 1.2 million people have received lifesaving medications through PEPFAR. Cutting that lifeline would be in line with previous Trump administration policy: DOGE’s cuts to USAID could needlessly result in death for more than 14 million people by 2031. 

Threatening the lives of millions of people in a foreign country is not a trade deal. Reducing PEPFAR and other aid would guarantee worsening poverty and mass death in Zambia and surrounding areas. These cuts would have disastrous consequences not only for Zambia, but for other African countries, and U.S. interests in the region for decades. 

Pushback from global civil society

On March 26, more than ninety public health, environmental, development, and faith organizations, including Earthworks, signed onto a letter criticizing the Zambia “proposal” and arguing that any critical minerals policy should prioritize job creation and environmental and sustainable development for both countries. Four days later, the State Department responded in a predictably antisemetic and condescending way, saying we are “a predictable roster of woke advocacy groups, George Soros–backed organizations.” 

Denial and insults from the Trump Administration

Shortly after The New York Times broke the story, the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs, called it “fake news.” The State Department went on to say, “unequivocally, we are not seeking anything at Zambia’s expense” only to later demand that “the Government of Zambia must make accountability reforms and take steps to modernize its key industries, including mining. Otherwise, private sector investment in Zambia will not happen.” This condescending tone is unsurprising from an administration that regularly insults Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color, and Global South (particularly African) countries. 

On 20 April PEPFAR’s chief science officer Mike Reid resigned from his post in protest of the extortion proposal. Reid explained his reasoning in a Substack post. He wrote, “When access to treatment or prevention becomes entangled with access to critical minerals or geopolitical positioning, the work is no longer what it claims to be…It is a different model. And I do not believe that model is consistent with the purpose of global health. I do not believe it serves patients, or countries, or ultimately even the long-term interests of the United States.”

And on 5 May the foreign minister of Zambia, Mulambo Haimbe, criticized the U.S. for the proposed deal. Zambia, he said, “takes the view, first and foremost, that Zambians must have a say on how her critical minerals are used.”

A call for solidarity

People in Zambia, like people everywhere, have the right to healthy, dignified lives. They have a right to a sovereign government that can respond to their needs. Communities on the frontlines of mining in Zambia are standing up for a more sustainable future built on respect for human rights and the environment. As the Trump administration’s actions intensify the threat of increased harms from mining, people and organizations in the United States must add our voices.

The post Demanding minerals in exchange for lives in Zambia appeared first on Earthworks.

On May 13, 2026, The Henry Ford is hosting a screening of their new film documenting the success of their Farm to School Lunch Across America initiative in New York City. 

The event, taking place at the Tribeca Film Center, begins at 6:30PM ET. A panel discussion featuring author and nutritionist Marion Nestle, Chef Michel Nischan of Wholesome Wave, former USDA Midwest Public Affairs Director Alan Shannon, and journalist Kate Bittman will kick off the evening. This will be followed by a screening of the documentary “The Henry Ford’s Farm To School Lunch Across America” and a reception. 

“This documentary is more than a film—it is an invitation. Through Farm to School Lunch Across America, we are shining a light on communities proving that school meals can nourish students, strengthen local economies, and support farmers caring for the land,” Spence Medford, Senior Vice President and Chief Advancement Officer for The Henry Ford, tells Food Tank. “Our hope is to spark a national conversation around school-supported agriculture and inspire more communities to adapt what’s already working.”

The Henry Ford’s program brings together culinary experts and chefs, farmers, food advocates, and policymakers to amplify the importance of fresh, seasonal meals for students across the United States. Through this work, they try to underscore the need for free, regeneratively grown school lunches for all. 

The pilot program, launched in 2024, reached seven schools in six communities to connect farmers, chefs, and fresh food resources during National Farm to School Month in October. During visits, a film crew captured model school meal programs and interviewed chefs, including Alice Waters and Rick Bayless, along with school meal leaders and innovators.

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 the U.S. Department of Agriculture

The post The Henry Ford Brings Farm to School Film to New York City appeared first on Food Tank.