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Katelynn Delos Reyes thought she knew what to expect when Typhoon Sinlaku slammed into Saipan last month. As a lifelong resident of the island, Delos Reyes had survived frequent storms, including Supertyphoon Yutu, the second-strongest in U.S. history. Eight years ago, Yutu’s 170-mph winds devastated her village in the southern end of Saipan. Just three years before that, she survived Typhoon Soudelor. 

But Sinlaku was different. “At the beginning, it was OK. But later on it wasn’t,” said Delos Reyes, who is Chamorro, Indigenous to the Mariana Islands.

A few days before it hit the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or CNMI, on April 14, Sinlaku had tropical-storm winds. That made it what is known in the Marianas as a “banana typhoon” because such storms level banana trees but leave others standing. Then over the weekend, the typhoon rapidly intensified by 75 mph in just 24 hours before becoming a 185-mph monstrosity and the strongest storm on Earth so far this year. 

Delos Reyes and her family had done what they could to prepare. They boarded up the windows. They bought gallons of drinking water and filled plastic drums to use in the shower and toilet. 

Then the storm hit, and Delos Reyes grew scared. The winds, which had weakened to 150 mph, ripped the wood from a window. Rainwater gushed through the ceiling and soaked their belongings, including Delos Reyes’ mattress. She and her partner, her mother, her daughter, and their two dogs hid in her mother’s room, where its concrete roof and walls would keep them safe. She heard sections of the roof tumbling away. Eventually, Sinlaku slowed to a crawl, forcing tens of thousands of others to remain sheltered for days. “How long is this storm going to be with us?” she prayed. “I think, Lord, maybe it’s enough, you can go and finish it elsewhere.”

More than a month after Sinlaku tore across the Western Pacific, families in the Northern Mariana Islands and beyond are still grappling with a lack of electricity and clearing debris as they pick up what’s left of their homes.

Debris litters Garapan, the center of Saipan’s tourism district, in late May, more than a month after Sinlaku hit the island. Anita Hofschneider / Grist

The region-wide death toll — including Guam and the Federated States of Micronesia — has ticked up to 17, making Sinlaku the deadliest storm in the Micronesian region of the Pacific since 2002. The deaths include a couple on Guam who succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning while running their generator indoors, as well as six crew members of the cargo ship Mariana, which was caught in the storm when its engine died. 

In Chuuk State in the Federated States of Micronesia, the storm killed nine people, including a baby whose pregnant mother couldn’t reach the hospital due to fallen trees. Other deaths were attributed to a boat capsizing and a tree falling on someone.

Strong storms are common in the Micronesian region of the Pacific but rarely this deadly. Shel Winkley, a meteorologist at Climate Central, said Sinlaku’s sudden escalation happened over ocean waters 0.6 degrees Celsius warmer than average — temperatures made 70 to 100 times more likely due to climate change, which is caused by the burning of fossil fuels like oil and gas. Scientists have long warned that rising marine temperatures can enable storms like Sinlaku to get stronger faster and hold more moisture, leading to increased flooding. “In general, climate change is making events like this more intense at their peak intensity,” Winkley said. Sinlaku was named for the Kosraean goddess of breadfruit in the Federated States of Micronesia — a cultural staple also threatened by climate change.

A https://www.climatecentral.org map rendering of Category 5 Super Typhoon Sinlaku southeast of Japan in April 2026. FrankRamspott / Getty Images

The Pacific is home to many Indigenous peoples who have contributed relatively little to greenhouse gas emissions, yet are already bearing its disastrous effects, ranging from stronger storms to rising seas. Their nations are increasingly calling on major polluters like the U.S. and China to be accountable for their carbon emissions and help bear the cost of the extreme weather wreaking havoc on their communities. The Federated States of Micronesia was among 140 countries last week that voted in favor of a United Nations resolution affirming that state governments have a legal obligation to protect the earth from the harm caused by greenhouse gases, and nations that fail to do so must pay climate reparations. The U.S., which claims sovereignty over the CNMI and Guam, was one of just eight nations that voted against the resolution. 

The latest available report from emergency officials in Chuuk State, the part of the Federated States of Micronesia hardest hit by the typhoon, estimates that the storm destroyed or severely damaged more than 7,000 homes in Chuuk and Yap and displaced more than 13,000 people. “Access to safe water is critically compromised, food reserves are depleting rapidly, and the outer islands face growing isolation as maritime supply lines remain constrained,” the report warned. 

U.N. agencies such as the International Organization for Migration, along with nonprofit organizations and countries like the U.S. and China, have been providing typhoon relief for Chuuk. The growing Micronesian diaspora in the U.S. has also mobilized to send food and money. “They’re going to need financial support to rebuild their houses. They’re going to need chainsaws to cut down trees,” Josie Howard, head of the Honolulu-based nonprofit We Are Oceania, told Hawai‘i Public Radio. 

Fallen trees line the road leading up to Marpi in the northern part of Saipan more than a month after Sinlaku devastated the island. Anita Hofschneider / Grist

In the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, officials are still counting the number of homes destroyed and people displaced. But as of last week, piles of debris still littered roadsides, and the entire island of Tinian remained without electricity. Families opened their windows to catch breezes, seeking relief from the humidity and 80-plus degree weather. Indigenous fishermen caught ti’ao, or goatfish, to feed their families fresh dinners in the absence of refrigeration. Residents of Guam bought so many battery-powered Ryobi fans to send their loved ones on more affected islands that the Home Depot ran out. In both the CNMI and Chuuk, children were missing school because their schoolhouses had been severely damaged and, in some cases, destroyed, with many not expected to return for months. 

On Saipan, people waited an average of two to three hours at the local recovery center to talk to Federal Emergency Management Agency officials about applying for aid. As of last week, more than 9,000 CNMI residents had applied for federal disaster assistance, and the recovery center was serving an average of 300 more each day. “It’s a snake, kind of like the lines at Disneyland,” JD Reyes, a CNMI Commerce Department official who has been managing the recovery center, said of the rows of dozens of waiting families, some of whom had brought their children.

The families were from all over the island, Reyes said. “Soudelor hit the north, and Yutu hit the south,” Reyes said. “This just hit everyone, and what made it worse is it just sat on top of us for more than 24 hours. So it really made sure, if you’re not affected, you will be.” His wife was working at the hospital during the storm, so he stayed home to watch their two-year-old and mop up the water that flooded their house in northern Saipan. Just before dawn, his neighbors ran to his house for shelter because their roof had blown away. “We actually are very fortunate; we just had our flooding, damage to personal property,” he said. His village went without electricity for more than five weeks. “But at least we have a roof over our head, no windows destroyed, just damage to the car.” 

For Delos Reyes and thousands of other residents, recovery remains uncertain. The deadline to apply for FEMA disaster assistance in the CNMI is June 22. Delos Reyes’ family in southern Saipan is one of more than 450 families who have so far received emergency tents or temporary roofs. A FEMA tent now sits in her yard, and a tarp partially covers her missing roof. 

For weeks after the typhoon, Delos Reyes dragged her rain-soaked mattress into the yard to dry slowly in the hot sun. The first thing she and her family did was clear the debris from their driveway so an ambulance could reach her mother in an emergency. Delos Reyes is a caregiver for the 94-year-old woman, who has dementia and has been bedridden for seven years. That’s one reason why, no matter how bad each storm gets or how many times she needs to repair her house, Delos Reyes doesn’t plan to leave. 

“One day at a time,” she said. 

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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Pacific Islanders slowly recover from the strongest storm of the year on May 29, 2026.

Dear Leslie, 

A lot of my work in therapy for anxiety has focused on recognizing catastrophic thinking and assessing what is more realistic. How would you suggest adapting this for a world where reality itself is increasingly becoming more catastrophic, and science suggests things will get worse in the future? 

—  Anonymously Anxious

Submit a question for a future Ask a Climate Therapist column

Dear Anonymously Anxious,

Your question points to something I’ve had to reckon with in my own practice as a therapist. Before I became more aware of the impacts of climate change, I used the same framework you describe — I helped clients recognize their distorted thinking and recalibrate toward what’s realistic. 

But as I came to understand the actual science, I had a striking realization: For climate-aware clients, their anxiety isn’t distorted at all. It’s a healthy response to real destruction and the inadequate efforts to address it. Shifting toward “what’s realistic” isn’t what we’re after to manage climate anxiety. Instead, it’s about navigating high-stakes uncertainty by developing new skills — helping people stay grounded and functional while channeling their distress into meaningful action with others. 

Ask a Climate Therapist tackles your questions about how to navigate the emotional side of climate change, with leading climate-aware therapist Leslie Davenport. Have a question? Ask it here!

I think part of what you’re asking is how to distinguish a clear-eyed view of the climate crisis from catastrophizing. First, we need to understand the human tendency to catastrophize. Part of what shapes our perception of reality is something less visible than the daily news. We all have cognitive biases operating mostly beneath our conscious awareness. One in particular is relevant here: the negativity bias, which causes us to register threatening situations three to five times more intensely than positive ones. That might have been useful for our evolutionary survival, but it can also have a distorting effect — especially in the age of doomscrolling, when it’s altogether too easy to overwhelm ourselves with bad news.

That’s why a balanced view also requires staying current on the real progress being made: dam removals, renewable energy growth, youth litigation wins, communities building resilience. This kind of news often gets less attention, so finding it can take some effort. But seeking out these stories may help to remind you that there are answers to the problems we face.

Still, these advances don’t diminish the urgency of the genuine crisis we’re facing, and for now, our climate problems are still outpacing solutions. Watching that unfold, watching the status quo persist, can be agonizing. In therapy terms, the cognitive goal has to shift from “accurate assessment” to “functional clarity.” Accurate assessment asks, “How bad is it?” Functional clarity asks, “Given what I understand, what can I do?” The first question keeps you spinning while the second moves you forward. It can help you channel your emotions into motivation — to get involved with a local organization, lobby your elected officials, or change your own behavior.

Learn to distinguish between threat awareness, which is necessary and healthy, and threat rumination, which exhausts without informing. When your mind is cycling through worst-case futures with no path forward, that’s your signal to use the tools you’ve been building in therapy: Take a walk, do a breathing exercise, seek out a story about climate progress.

This is also where therapy offers something that information alone can’t. Climate anxiety lives in the body as much as the mind. Therapeutic tools (somatic practices, working through grief, reining in the runaway thoughts that keep you up at night, and building confidence to act) strengthen your capacity to stay present with the shifting climate reality without being overwhelmed by it. That’s not “coping” in the familiar sense of managing symptoms until life returns to normal. It’s developing the inner resources to keep showing up, keep caring, and keep acting with an open mind and heart. That kind of resilience makes sustained engagement possible.

In this with you,
Leslie

I’m Leslie Davenport, a licensed therapist, educator, speaker, consultant, and internationally recognized voice on the emotional and psychological dimensions of climate change. If you’ve got a question about climate and mental health, please consider submitting it for a future column. Submit a question for a future Ask a Climate Therapist column More from Ask a Climate Therapist

• Ask a Climate Therapist: Why should I plan for my future when I feel we don’t have one?

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• Ask a Climate Therapist: How can I balance my travel itch with guilt about emissions?

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• Ask a Climate Therapist: How do I deal with friends and family who won’t stop polluting?

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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Ask a Climate Therapist: Is it still ‘catastrophizing’ if the threat is real? on May 29, 2026.

Headline News:

• “US Agriculture Industry Is At Risk As Drought Conditions Worsen” • Farms all over the country are bracing for the impact of drought after months of little precipitation, experts told ABC News. Over 60% of the continental US has been under moderate drought or worse conditions since April 7, according to the US Drought Monitor. [ABC News]

American farmland (Jonathan Singer, Unsplash)

• “European Energy Turns Sod On Cornwall Hybrid” • European Energy has started construction of the 68-MW Indian Queens solar and battery project in Cornwall, England. The company said construction began in May 2026 and is expected to continue for approximately one year, with grid connection scheduled in the first half of 2027. [reNews]
• “State Locks In Six Renewable Energy Zones After Final Round Of Nips, Tucks, And Rethinks” • Victoria has formally declared five onshore renewable energy zones and one “shoreline” REZ that will lay the foundations for the state’s step-change from its current share of around 45% of battery-backed wind and solar to 65% by 2030 and 95% by 2035. [Renew Economy]
• “Public Service Commission Passes Georgia Power’s Costs To Ratepayers” • Despite the efforts of two commissioners, the Georgia Public Service Commission agreed to allow Georgia Power to continue automatically passing along all of its fuel costs to ratepayers rather than creating an incentive for the utility to manage fuel costs better. [CleanTechnica]
• “235 New Clean Energy Factories Opened In Five Years As A US Manufacturing Boom Powers Through Policy Headwinds” • According to SolarQuarter, an industry report said the US added over 235 clean energy factories in just five years, with domestic production emerging as a major force in both the economy and the energy transition. [The Cool Down]

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

Environmental movements often frame injustice through race and gender while overlooking the ways class shapes power, exclusion, and whose voices are heard. The result is a climate politics that can alienate the very working-class communities needed to build effective movements.

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Architect and farmer Caitlin Taylor says communities need regional infrastructure for food security. As global agribusiness corporations contribute to ecological degradation and threaten the viability of local farms, she’s working to build a different system.

Robin Mann reports on how support for both Plaid Cymru and Reform is transforming the Welsh political landscape

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Participants from the Maritimes, Ontario, and Puerto Rico will take part in a week of farm work, discussions, and workshops.

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Meat your new gene edited food Channel News brendan 29th May 2026 Teaser Media

Plans to install a big battery with up to six hours storage in a sweet spot between a coal generation hub and major electricity demand centres have been waved through the federal green queue.

The post Huge six-hour battery gets federal green tick for grid sweet-spot at edge of coal hub appeared first on Renew Economy.

State formally declares five onshore renewable energy zones and one “shoreline” REZ, to guide its step-change to 65% renewable by 2030 and 95% by 2035.

The post State locks in six renewable energy zones after final round of nips, tucks and rethinks appeared first on Renew Economy.

A cut in emissions led by more renewables, batteries and EVs, and less coal, lower prices and a boost in new projects make for a good week for Labor's green energy plan.

The post Lower emissions, lower prices, and new investment: It’s been a good week for Labor’s green energy plan appeared first on Renew Economy.

OK, it’s not an Onion headline (except that it was 15 years ago): the state of California is studying the potential of running 140-mile-per-hour “high-speed buses” on highways, even though the state’s first high speed rail line has been in the works for decades.

We love the latest from Cities by Diana, which explores where versions of the high-speed bus concept are actually a thing around the world, and debates the pros and (mostly) cons of the model for the Golden State and beyond. It’s a big departure from her channel’s usual found-AI-urbanist-fever-dream videos (which you might have seen on Streetsblog before, because we love them), but it’s no less wild, absurd, and fascinating.

• Cities are using porous pavement, light-colored paint, and native plantings and solar panels for shade to cool down parking lots and reduce the urban heat island effect. (Associated Press)
• Suspending gas taxes hurts transportation funding a lot more than it helps drivers (NPR). Gas taxes are already inadequate, and the State Smart Transportation Initiative recommends fees based on mileage and vehicle weight.
• The Federal Transit Administration is releasing $166 million to replace aging train cars. (Metro)
• The Trump administration is loosening regulations on refrigerator trucks, which will result in millions of tons of harmful chemicals leaking into the environment. (Carbon Upfront)
• Elaborate requirements for public comment and a fear of lawsuits are paralyzing bureaucracies and making simple street safety fixes all but impossible, writes Stephanie Nakhleh. (We Can Have Nice Things)
• Car-centric cities in the Midwest and Rust Belt are redesigning their public spaces to be more people-friendly. (Common Edge)
• Salt Lake City recently completed new protected bike lanes on the South Viaduct, offering a safe route to bike and walk over train tracks and freeway approaches. (Salt Lake Tribune)
• About two out of every five pedestrians killed in Austin is a person experiencing homelessness. (KVUE)
• Crashes in the Columbus, Ohio area are down from last year, but there have still been 8,000 so far in 2026. (WOSU)
• Houston is fixing Midtown sidewalks as part of a “walkable place” pilot project. (Chron)
• Pittsburgh’s POGOH bikeshare is expanding outside the city limits. (Axios)
• Portland transit agency TriMet is lawing off hundreds of employees and cutting back bus service. (Tribune)
• Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill reorganizing the Regional Transportation District board, which oversees Denver transit. (Newsline)
• Maryland passed a law removing parking minimums near transit stops and requiring cities to zone those areas for mixed use to encourage more transit-oriented development. (National Center for Smart Growth)
• Iranian hackers were likely responsible for a March breach at the Los Angeles Metro. (Tech Crunch)
• A California city is using robots to assess sidewalk conditions. (KSBW)
• Washington, D.C. is auctioning off several unused streetcars. (DC News Now)

Jet Charge founder Tim Washington on the need for more chargers, faster machines, multiple bays and electric trucks. Plus: CIS tender results, electrification and other news of the week.

The post Energy Insiders Podcast: Plugging the holes in EV charging appeared first on Renew Economy.

Community members across Perth and the South West have today staged coordinated actions across six WA Labor electorate offices, including those of Premier Roger Cook and senior ministers, calling on the state government to rule out fracking in the Kimberley. 

Big batteries scoop the pool and sideline gas in "firming tender" designed to secure supply at times of system stress as state moves to 100 per cent net renewables.

The post Big batteries scoop the pool in grid firming tender that was also open to gas generators appeared first on Renew Economy.

Rumours. False announcements. Lies. What’s going on with immigration changes in Canada these days?!

Join us on June 10 for a free online information session just for migrants like you. Let’s break through the noise together to get the facts, and learn how migrants are uniting to take action against unfair immigration rules to win permanent status for all.

What we’ll cover:

• Recent TR to PR announcement
• Changes to Express Entry
• What to do if your permit is expiring
• & more

Don’t miss out! Sign up now and invite a friend:

The post Recent immigration changes: Free online information session first appeared on Migrant Workers Alliance for Change.

The post Recent immigration changes: Free online information session appeared first on Migrant Workers Alliance for Change.

Rule maker kicks off review that will look at role of networks in providing EV chargers, but also the broader issue of "ring fencing" in a rapidly changing energy world.

The post “Contentious piece of work:” Regulator kicks off review of EV chargers and the broader role of networks appeared first on Renew Economy.

Fox ESS announces an important step in the brand’s ongoing journey of innovation, trust, and long-term commitment to a more resilient future.

The post Fox ESS announces rebrand ahead of SNEC Exhibition appeared first on Renew Economy.