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This is a re-post from The Climate Brink

I’m generally pretty measured in how I discuss climate data. There has been only one time in recent years when I was truly shocked: when global temperatures came in for September 2023 at a full 0.5C warmer than any prior September on record.1 Once until today, that is. With the July runs now in from 667 ensemble members across 14 different seasonal forecast models, it looks like this year’s El Niño is not only very likely to be the strongest event since reliable records began – it may end up the strongest by a truly mind-blowing margin.

The multi-model median for the event’s peak (measured as detrended sea surface temperature anomalies in the Niño 3.4 region of the tropical Pacific) currently stands at 3.6C, roughly 0.8C hotter than the prior record of 2.75C set in 2015-16. For context, the gap between the strongest and the fifth strongest El Niño of the past 150 years is only about 0.5C. The models are forecasting something outside the envelope of anything we have ever observed.

Peak monthly Niño 3.4 anomaly for every El Niño event since 1877, with each event measured against its own era’s centered 30-year climatology (the ONI convention, applied at monthly resolution to match the forecasts’ monthly values). Events after 1950 (blue) use ERSSTv5; earlier events (open gold) use the HadISST reconstruction. The 2026-27 forecast shows the weighted median of 667 ensemble member peaks from 14 models (July 2026 initializations, members weighted so each model counts equally), with the bar spanning the middle 80% of members.

A few things stand out in this figure. First, no event in a century and a half of observations has ever pushed meaningfully past 2.75C. The legendary 1877-78 event comes closest, in a statistical dead heat with 2015-16 (2.73C vs 2.75C, well within the uncertainty of 19th-century ship data). Second, the middle 80% of this year’s forecast ensemble sits entirely at or above that all-time record: even the low end of the plume (2.8C) grazes it. Around 91% of ensemble members exceed the 2015-16 record at their peak.

To see what this would look like as the event unfolds, we can compare the forecast trajectory against the five strongest events ever observed, month by month through the development year and into the following spring.

Monthly Niño 3.4 anomaly trajectories for the five strongest observed El Niño events across their development year and decay, against the 2026-27 multi-model forecast. Note that the expected peak (3.6C) sits slightly above the top of the dashed median trajectory (3.5C): individual models peak in different months (e.g. CFSv2 in November, ECMWF in December) so the median of the individual model peaks runs a bit higher than the peak of the median line.

What is remarkable here is not just the level but the trajectory. The 2026 event is developing faster than 1997-98, the previous gold standard for explosive El Niño onsets. And unlike 2015 which started its year already warm from a precursor event, this one launched from genuinely La Niña-ish conditions in January.

Of course, a multi-model median can hide a lot of disagreement, so it is worth looking at where each individual model puts the peak. The figure below shows the distribution of member peaks across all 14 models.

Peak 2026 Niño 3.4 forecast: model-weighted histogram of each ensemble member’s July-December 2026 maximum (top) and per-model medians with 10-90% member ranges (bottom).

Every single model’s median peak lands at very strong (”super”) El Niño intensity, and all but one (JAMSTEC’s SINTEX-F, at 2.2C) put their median above the 2015-16 record. Model agreement this strong is unusual, though I’d note that agreement is not the same thing as skill as I discuss later on.

Long-time readers may recall that in a warming world, the raw Niño 3.4 anomaly risks conflating El Niño with the broader ocean warming trend. NOAA’s answer is the relative ONI (RONI), which subtracts the tropical-mean SST anomaly to isolate the ENSO signal. In RONI terms the record holder is actually 1982-83 (a peak monthly value of 2.69C), not 2015-16. However, even using RONI the multi-model median in 11 of the 14 models shows a record event.

As above, but for the relative Niño 3.4 index (RONI): Niño 3.4 anomaly minus the 20S-20N tropical-mean anomaly, with the L’Heureux et al. (2024) variance-restoration scaling applied. The record event in RONI terms is 1982-83 (a peak monthly value of 2.69C).

Putting the two together: models give a ~91% chance of a record peak in Niño 3.4 terms and ~77% in RONI terms this year. Whichever way you slice the index, the forecast says the same thing: this is more likely than not to be the strongest El Niño ever observed.

So how did we get here? The forecast has been building all spring. The figure below shows how each model’s projection evolved from its March run through its July run, against observed monthly conditions.

Ensemble-mean Niño 3.4 forecast from each model’s March, April, May, June and July 2026 runs (blues deepening with recency; July in red with its full member range shaded), against observed monthly means from the daily OISSTv2.1 series (black). One corrupted NCAR-CESM1 ensemble member is excluded from the July run for clarity.

Nearly every panel shows the same thing: each successive run warmer than the last, across five months and thirteen independent modeling systems.2 This pattern of sustained revision as initialization improves is the classic signature of a real intensifying event rather than model noise. The reason is visible in the black line: observed conditions kept outrunning the forecasts. (Though credit where credit is due: NCAR’s CESM1 was calling ~4C back in March when that looked absurd, and I and others called it out as unrealistic at the time. The ensemble has since converged toward it.)

The combined multi-model picture makes the same point more concisely.

The model-weighted median Niño 3.4 forecast from each monthly initialization, March through July 2026 (July with its 10-90% member band), against observed monthly OISSTv2.1.

The peak median has climbed from ~2.8C in the March runs to 3.6C in July — though notably the revisions are decelerating (+0.5C, +0.14C, +0.14C over the last three cycles), suggesting the forecast is converging rather than still escalating.

It is also worth looking at what this event looks like spatially. The figure below maps each model’s SST anomaly field at its own forecast peak month.

Sea surface temperature anomaly forecasts at each model’s own 2026 peak month (the July-December month maximizing its Niño 3.4 mean), from the July 2026 initializations of 6 NMME models, 7 C3S centres, and SINTEX-F (seasonal mean, June initialization). Niño 3.4 region boxed; panels ordered warmest first.

The classic east-Pacific El Niño tongue is there in every model. I’d flag CMCC as the outlier to discount: its 5.3C peak sits a full 1.3C above the next warmest model. Because we are looking at the multi-model median, even discounting CMCC doesn’t change the overall forecast meaningfully.

Meanwhile, the ocean is not waiting for the models. Daily SSTs in the Niño 3.4 region are already running around 2C above their era-adjusted average – the threshold for a very strong (”super”) El Niño if sustained – and it is only mid-July. The figure below puts this in context, showing the daily Niño 3.4 anomaly for every year in the satellite record, with each year measured against its own era’s climatology so the long-term warming trend doesn’t mess up the comparison.

Daily Niño 3.4 SST anomaly for every year since 1982, from NOAA OISSTv2.1 (final plus near-real-time) via NOAA CoastWatch ERDDAP. Each year is referenced to its own centered 30-year day-of-year climatology (the ONI convention), removing the long-term warming trend. 2026 is shown in red; the great El Niño development years 2015 and 1997 are highlighted for comparison.

No prior year in the 45-year record has been anywhere near this warm this early: not 1997 (+1.6C at this date), the previous benchmark for an explosive onset, and not 2015 (+1.3C). And El Niño almost always peaks near the end of the calendar year – typically between November and January, occasionally as early as October – so the physics of ENSO’s seasonal phase-locking says there is likely a good deal of intensification still to come.3

What does all this mean for global temperatures? Because global temperature lags ENSO by around three to five months, most of this event’s warming will land in 2027, which is now shaping up to be a genuinely alarming year and the warmest on record by a sizable margin. But a strengthening El Niño does load the dice for late 2026: our dashboard currently gives this year a non-trivial chance (~28%) of edging out 2024 as the warmest on record, up from ~13% at the start of the month..

I want to end with an important caveat about these numbers: the models have never been verified in this territory. Seasonal forecast systems have real, demonstrated skill at this lead time for ordinary events, but no ensemble has ever forecast (and then verified against) a 3.6C El Niño, because one has never happened. Model agreement is reassuring, but it is not proof. But the uncertainties can cut both ways, and the observed ocean, not just the models, is already in uncharted waters.

As always, for daily updates on the El Niño forecast and global temperatures head over to our Climate Dashboard.

1 I referred to it as “absolutely gobsmackingly bananas” at the time, which might be the only time something I said ever went properly viral online.

2 The SINTEX-F model is not included in this plot as I only began tracking it in July.

3 The lone exception in the modern record is the unusual two-year 1986-88 event, which reached its ONI maximum in August 1987. Every other strong event since 1950 peaked between October and January.

Groups argue meaningful public participation leads to better projects and stronger outcomes, while the current proposal shifts environmental and public health costs onto taxpayers

Contact: kayla@unbendablemedia.com

Washington, D.C. – Today, Climate Justice Alliance, Earthworks, Food and Water Watch, Ironbound Community Corporation, and We Act for Environmental Justice joined 75 grassroots organizations and allies that represent thousands of communities across the nation, to send a letter to Senate democratic leadership urging lawmakers to reject any bipartisan permitting reform package that further weakens environmental protections or public participation. The coalition highlighted the dangers of passing a permitting reform package under the Trump Administration, and instead urged Members of Congress to work with environmental justice communities on a durable permitting reform package under a future administration that puts communities, transparency, Tribal consultation, and public health first.

“Environmental justice and allied organizations call on you to hold the line against any permitting package that weakens community engagement, environmental and public health analysis, Tribal consultation, transparency, or judicial review. At the same time we urge you to advance a proactive, long-term vision for modernizing federal permitting that strengthens public participation, agency capacity, scientific integrity, and coordination across government.” 

The letter also argues that, given the Trump administration’s record on environmental protections, there is little reason to believe a permitting package negotiated now would be implemented consistent with congressional intent or used to advance responsible clean energy deployment. Instead, the coalition urges members of Congress to oppose any proposal that weakens public participation, environmental review, Tribal consultation, transparency, or judicial oversight, and to engage with environmental justice communities and legal and scientific experts when pursuing long-term permitting reforms that strengthen agency capacity and community accountability under future administrations.

The full letter is available here.

Below, please find quotes from grassroots and climate organization leaders:

Mar Zepeda Salazar, legislative director at Climate Justice Alliance: “We must call this permitting package what it is: not reform, but a backroom deal that shifts risk from corporations onto the communities forced to live with the consequences. At a time when families are struggling with rising utility bills, mounting medical costs, and children are missing school because of extreme heat, wildfires and other climate-related events, Congress should be listening to its constituents, not fast-tracking yet another industry wish list. 

Administrations come and go. Corporations move onto the next project. But communities live with the consequences for decades. Congress has a responsibility to deliver permitting policies that protect public health, respect communities’ right to participate in decisions that affect them, and earn the public’s trust—not sacrifice communities in the name of speed that will only accelerate corporate profits.”

Raquel Dominguez, Earthworks circular economy policy advocate:  “All people have a right to health, dignity, and a liveable environment. Congress should never put short-term profit for corporations ahead of the long-term well-being of communities. Right now, families in America are breathing air that makes them sick, depending on dwindling or polluted water supplies, and watching public lands turn into industrial sites. Oil, gas, and mining companies are causing permanent harm to communities from the Appalachians to the desert Southwest. We cannot allow this administration to continue to gut our bedrock environmental laws. Permits are a permission slip from the government on behalf of the people. They ensure that companies act in ways that ensure our children have a healthier, safer and more prosperous future.”

Alejandra Torres, assistant director of advocacy and organizing at the Ironbound Community Corporation: “Environmental justice communities like the one in Ironbound, Newark, refuse to be sacrificed. We call on democratic leadership to build a permitting agenda that centers communities while ensuring responsible infrastructure development,” stated.

Drew Guillory, Food and Water Watch policy advocate: “‘Permitting reform’ is a disingenuous term for harmful deregulation of a polluting industry that will severely impact those that are already most vulnerable. With an administration that sprints rabidly towards corporate profit and destruction at every turn, it’s imperative that Congress stand for the American people and guard against ‘permitting reform’ and its many threats to human health and wellbeing.”

Leslie Fields, Chief Federal Officer of WE ACT for Environmental Justice: “Communities must have a say in the decision-making processes that impact their neighborhoods. While we face skyrocketing energy costs, deadly climate-driven disasters, and  Trump administration-fueled health crises, we cannot stand for deregulation that will only reinforce injustices and put people in even more danger. It is a tired lie that NEPA is to blame for permitting issues in our country. Permitting reform efforts that promote deregulation create false policy choices that miss the mark, and only further the fossil fuel industry’s use of environmental justice communities as sacrifice zones.

When communities are centered, we can make sure to protect people’s health and that projects actually benefit those communities. Environmental justice communities and advocates have long offered real solutions that ensure community input, use the best available science, and result in beneficial projects. Instead of spending time developing permitting legislation and trusting it will be implemented in good faith by an administration that boasts about historic attacks to environmental laws and public health protections, our leaders need to rebuild safeguards and democratic processes. We need to create a sustainable future that will actually provide opportunity and protect the health of everyone, not just the wealthy few.”

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The post 75 Grassroots Climate Organizations Call on Democratic Leaders to Hold the Line on Permitting Reform and Stand with Communities, not Corporations appeared first on Climate Justice Alliance.

The new solar sites include the retailer’s first store with a rooftop “community solar garden” as it looks to a 2040 net-zero target.

From the edge of a cliff in southern Peru, I watched as three Humboldt penguins made their way from their nests down a steep rocky slope, slipping at times, stopping and then starting again, tentatively navigating around sunbathing sea lions until they arrived, an hour later, on a precipice overlooking crashing waves, where they finally belly flopped into the water.

Penguins skirting sea lions. Photo: John Yunker, used with permission.

That hour was more exciting than any hour of television, their successful dive into the ocean better than any Hollywood ending.

I could see why so many people love penguins. They exhibit qualities we often see in ourselves: Penguins are social, vocal, occasionally clumsy, and organized around parental units. Penguins, like us, try to mate for life. When they young they practice co-parenting; one penguin stays at home with the chicks while the other forages. They switch roles, a child-rearing tag team, until the chicks leave home.

That’s why this journey into the sea — and back again — is so dramatic and so critical. Should one penguin fail to forage and return in time to relieve their partner, the other parent is forced to abandon the nest, leaving chicks to fend for themselves, often to die, a generation lost.

And it is here, on the desert cliffs of Punta San Juan, that penguins who were once part of the largest Humboldt colony on the planet take a valiant stand against extinction.

Punta San Juan is a small, jagged peninsula along the Peruvian coast, 320 miles south of Lima. I traveled here in May to spend time with penguin researchers at the Punta San Juan research station, which is funded by a consortium of zoos in the United States in collaboration with Cayetano Heredia University in Lima. I spent three days shadowing Kevin Farfán as he and his small team of interns monitored penguins across more than a dozen locations.

Along the way I became vividly aware of the many threats these penguins face.

A pair of Humboldts. Photo: John Yunker, used with permission. The Humble Humboldt

Unlike the remote Antarctic penguins of Happy Feet and March of the Penguins, most of the 18 penguin species on this planet live uncomfortably close to humans, along the southern coastlines of South America, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

The Humboldt penguin (Spheniscus humboldti) is one of the four “banded” penguins, known for distinctive black patterns that curve across their chests like upside-down horseshoes. The other banded species are African, Galápagos, and Magellanic penguins. Years ago I visited the Patagonian coast of Argentina where a tourist trail winds through a colony of tens of thousands of Magellanic penguins — but among Humboldts, colonies typically number fewer than 500, scattered across 20 or so islands along the coasts of Peru and Chile.

What surprised me most about Humboldts was how skittish they were around humans, as if they were trying to escape prying eyes or just terribly modest. While Magellanics are mostly unfazed by human researchers and paparazzi, Humboldts will make themselves scarce the moment they spot a human, even from a safe distance.

I couldn’t help but wonder if this was less instinct than learned behavior. Humboldts were once killed in great numbers by nearby guano harvesters in need of an easy meal. It was guano — bird excrement — that brought humans to bird colonies for hundreds of years, and this mission continues even today.

Walking on Guano

The Punta San Juan research station sits next to a mile-long, decaying wall that divides the peninsula from the mainland. It was constructed back in the 1940s to keep predators away from the hundreds of thousands of seabirds that blanketed the peninsula, primarily the guanay cormorant, named after the “white gold” the birds left behind in great quantities.

This was not an act of conservation as much a business decision. Bird guano is the one of the planet’s best fertilizers, high in both nitrogen and phosphorous. Peru has harvested guano for export around the world since the 1800s, and it was once the country’s most valuable commodity.

Even today the number of researchers at Punta San Juan is dwarfed by the number of guano harvesters. While harvesting is now strictly regulated — the central plateau where penguins cross from nests to sea remains off limits — AGRORURAL, the government agency that manages harvesting, has pushed to ease restrictions. Since avian flu decimated the seabird population in 2023, there are no more guanay cormorants on the plateau, and pelicans are only just beginning to return. This void has heightened the call for more aggressive harvesting.

While I was there, I spoke with one of the employees of AGRORURAL; when I lamented the loss of the cormorants, she said, “This is good news. Because now we can harvest more guano.”

Bags of guano ready to ship. Photo: John Yunker, used with permission.

Today most of the guano is used domestically to supply the growing international demand for organic food. While synthetic fertilizers may be far less expensive, it is the demand for organic food in wealthier countries that fuels demand for guano. The organic Peruvian coffee we enjoy — as well as table grapes, asparagus, quinoa, and more — may well have been fertilized by birds that once lived on Punta San Juan.

Counting Penguins

Every morning the penguin researchers are up before dawn to make their separate treks to more than a dozen cliffside overlooks. Each location is given a label, such as S2, for the second beach on the southern side of the peninsula. At each stop they count penguins at every nest (via binoculars or spotting scope) and, while I visited during May’s breeding season, try to count eggs within the nests. When food is abundant, a Humboldt penguin couple will raise two chicks.

Walking with Kevin across the plateau felt like exploring another planet. First there was the smell, an acrid odor of guano that stung my eyes and clung to my clothing (we were required to change out of our field clothes after every outing). Then there was the landscape, bleached white and mostly flat, the layers of dried guano spongy under my shoes. Strong persistent winds whipped dust into my face. I realized on that first morning why so many of the guano harvesters wore masks.

We stopped at the edge of a cliff, where a small wooden hut functioned as a viewing blind. Inside, intern Sandra Alcantara was doing her morning counts. Using a handmade map for reference, she zoomed in on each nest and noted what she saw on a clipboard: which nests were occupied, whether there were one or two penguins, and any signs of eggs.

A viewing blind at Punta San Juan. Photo: John Yunker, used with permission.

The scene was alive with activity and noise. Down on the beach, hundreds of sea lions were play-fighting, swimming, or snoozing. Above them darted flocks of Inca terns, while pelicans glided above me. Turkey vultures perched along the cliff edges, on alert for any dying animal below.

On the opposing cliffs we could see penguin nests carved into the guano. Nearby more than 100 artificial nests created by researchers dotted the horizon like miniature cabanas. These nests were created to make up for the harvested guano, the loss of which prevents the penguins from nesting in the ground.

View from the blind. Photo: John Yunker, used with permission.

That morning Kevin brought a drone, which he used to photograph nests from above, the penguins unbothered by the buzzing bird over their heads. He was on the lookout for the numbers on metal tags they had banded onto a small number of birds. Each number unlocks a life story: the age of the penguin, the number of chicks raised, the preferred nesting spot. But not every number returns safely to shore.

While walking back to the station, I was jolted by an explosion in the distance. Kevin pointed to a large expanse of sand-colored mounds beyond the wall, created by the largest open-pit iron ore mine in Peru. Owned by China’s Shougang Group, the mine rattles the peninsula with daily explosions that, on occasion, send the penguins scurrying to sea.

Walking on the bones of pelicans and cormorants, hearing detonations in the distance, felt like living in a dystopian future.

That made it all the more remarkable that penguins continue to nest here. Yet the reason why they have nested here for thousands of years has less to do with the land itself, but what lies just off the coast — the richest marine ecosystem on the planet.

Abandoned cormorant nests. Photo: John Yunker, used with permission. Humboldt Feast (and Famine)

The Humboldt penguin shares its name with the Humboldt current, an ocean phenomenon that runs along the coastline of Chile and Peru, pushing up cold water from the deep. The process, known as upwelling, brings rich nutrients to the surface that feed anchovies and sardines and squid, who in turn provide an easy-to-reach buffet for penguins, seals, and countless other birds. On land the current is invisible except for the ever-present wind that powers it while keeping clouds and rain at bay.

The land may be desert, but the ocean is an oasis of life.

Humboldt penguin headed out sea at sunset. Photo: John Yunker, used with permission.

Humboldt penguins are endemic to this area due to its current; however, if there’s no current, there are no penguins.

That’s why periodic El Niño weather events can be so devastating. El Niños effectively shut down the airstream and, with it, the upwelling. Sardines and anchovies are forced to move deeper into the ocean in search of nutrients, and they swim out of reach for the penguins. In 1972, a major El Niño and overfishing crashed both the anchovy and seabird populations to such an extent the government got involved, regulating fishing and making the Humboldt penguins a protected species.

But these changes were too little too late; since then, climate change has resulted in more acute El Niño events, and the fishing industry (legal and illegal) continues to take its toll.

Remains of pelicans and cormorants on the plateau. Photo: John Yunker, used with permission.

The year 2023 was particularly grim for Punta San Juan. Not only did avian flu wipe out vast numbers of birds but an El Niño left the peninsula devoid of penguins for the first time in recorded history.

Penguins began to return a year later, albeit in diminished numbers. Twenty years ago, Punta San Juan was home to more than 5,000 penguins. When I visited in May just 300 remained.

It’s not just the ups and downs of the food supply that puts penguins in further danger. It’s the humans who compete with them for that same source of food.

Of Fishing Nets and Penguins

In my brief time at Punta San Juan, I noticed several small fishing boats just offshore, despite the protected status of the waters that surround the peninsula.

Yet the larger danger lurks even farther offshore, in unprotected waters, where industrial trawlers cast nets a mile long that sweep up hundreds of tons of anchovies and mackerel — the penguins’ main source of food.

The nets also catch the penguins themselves.

As Kevin’s team knows well, penguins don’t see the borders between protected and unprotected waters; they (like the boats) go where the fish are. When a team of marine researchers surveyed about 800 small-scale fishing operators in Peru and Chile during the 2023 fishing season, they found that more than 3,000 penguins were caught up in nets. And these numbers were conservative, not just because they did not include the larger fishing trawlers, but because many operators intentionally underreport bycatch.

Peru boasts one of the most highly regulated fishing industries on the planet, which allows these fisheries to label their catches as “sustainable” — a label that makes it onto the fish oil products we see on the shelves at Costco and Walmart.

Millions of Americans take fish oil supplements including, including 1 in 5 Americans over the age of 60, according to Harvard Medical School. And more than 20% of the world’s fish oil originates from waters shared by penguins along the coast of Peru. The fisheries based in a port just a mile from Punta San Juan reported 31 dead penguins in January 2023 — a month when penguins are most actively feeding chicks.

The penguins who elude fishing nets don’t have it any easier, as they compete with the trawlers for a declining food supply. Over the past year, approximately 5 million tons of fish, mostly anchovies, were pulled from Peruvian waters, most of it to supply the growing demand for supplements.

Yet human health need not come at the expense of animal health, because we don’t need fish oil to get our allotment of Omega-3s. Alternative sources such as flax seed oil, nuts, and other plant-based foods are even better: Many experts say that fish oil supplements offer dubious health benefits because the process of extracting mercury and other toxins from fish oils renders them minimally effective. The most potent alternative is lab-grown algae, which is free of contaminants and “statistically non-inferior compared to fish oil supplements,” according to recent research published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

Humboldts returning to the sea. Photo: John Yunker, used with permission. A Species on Edge

Two weeks after returning to the United States, I emailed Kevin and learned that the colony of 300 penguins had since fallen in half, primarily due to the acute El Niño now enveloping the region.

A drop such as this naturally leads to the question: How many Humboldt penguins are there across all of Peru and Chile? The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates 23,800 globally, labeling it a “vulnerable” species; yet given how quickly penguin populations can fluctuate, this label may be more optimistic than realistic.

The truth is we don’t know exactly how many Humboldt penguins there are. There aren’t enough researchers like Kevin and his team working across all the colonies to know with confidence how stable this species is.

Humboldt penguins live on the edge — of a continent and of a species. Every year their entire world can rise or fall based on factors outside of their control — fishing vessels, warmer waters, and humans taking the guano they use for nests.

On my last day there, we visited several cliffside nests, most of them empty. Kevin remained optimistic. He found several occupied nests with eggs, a sign that this colony may rebound yet again.

The researchers themselves remind me of the penguins — tenacious and tireless. Kevin and other researchers can protect these birds on land, he told me, but “We cannot protect them out there.”

We who live half a world away do have the power to protect the penguins out there — through the choices we make. The demand for seafood and fish oil supplements ensures that some penguins will die in nets. Remove the demand and more penguins stand a chance at making it home to their nests. And we can help protect penguins on land by seeking out imported organic food that doesn’t rely on guano.

We all have a role to play in protecting penguins on land and at sea; as with all animals, for penguins, peace begins on our plates.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Previously in The Revelator:

Speak of the Devils: The Animals We Fear the Most Are Fading Away

The post The Plight of the Desert Penguin: Caught Between Extraction and El Niño appeared first on The Revelator.

More than 35 million acres of trees in the boreal forest have been cut by logging companies since 1976.

The CFS Collaborative Governance Dialogues are part of the UN Committee on World Food Security’s (CFS) four-year workstream on Collaborative Governance for Coordinated Policy Responses to Emerging Global Food Crises. Its aim is to exchange views on the evolving food security and nutrition (FSN) situation, track the actions being taken to address it, and reflect on how to improve the coordinated global response to these crises, as well as on the role the CFS itself should play in that response.

Unlike other CFS processes, this workstream does not produce a negotiated outcome, there are no Voluntary Guidelines or Policy Recommendations at the end of it. Instead, it convenes two dialogues a year where governments, UN agencies, civil society and other actors exchange experiences on issues affecting food security and nutrition, with particular attention to the constituencies and countries most affected. A summary report from the CFS Chair captures the discussion and feeds into the CFS Plenary’s debate on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World.

For CSIPM, these dialogues matter because they sit outside the consensus-driven negotiation process. They are one of the few open spaces at the CFS, and across the UN system, for direct testimony, knowledge-sharing and debate, with a focus on those most affected by food insecurity and malnutrition.

In 2026, the CFS convened two dialogues:  Affordability of Healthy Diets and Data Gaps on Food Security and Nutrition (May, 2026) . and Addressing Gaps in Information and Data Availability Through Multi-Stakeholder Processes in Food Security and Nutrition (July, 2026). The  CSIPM engaged in both as part of the Technical Task Team, alongside other actors, in the preparation of the dialogues, and by facilitating the participation of rights-holders as speakers and attendees. 

Below we share the key messages delivered by CSIPM participants. 

Affordability of Healthy Diets (7 May 2026)

CSIPM speaker: Ximena Moreno, Brasil/Chile, from URGENCI and CSIPM Coordination Committee. 

CSIPM argued that the unaffordability of healthy diets is not an isolated market failure but a structural outcome of a food system built around profit rather than sustainability, respect for culture, or the right to food. She called for a shift from input-heavy industrial agriculture toward agroecology, and for public policies, such as public procurement programs that buy directly from small-scale agroecological producers for schools and hospitals, that make healthy food both accessible and financially viable for the people who grow it. 

Read Ximena Moreno's statement

Download the PDF version

**Please note this message was delivered in Spanish;  this is not a professional translation**

FEEDING BODIES, CARING FOR TERRITORIES: RESPONSES TO THE COST OF EATING WELL

Good afternoon, everyone: 

First of all, I would like to emphasize that food must be understood in all its dimensions, not merely as a product to be consumed.

Food produced in monocultures using agrochemicals has a significant impact on the individual and collective health of those who consume it and those who grow it, as well as on ecosystems.

Food is shaped by social contracts; to be healthy, food choices must be based on the relationships established between farmers, ranchers, fishermen, shellfish gatherers, foragers, and the people who consume the food, as well as ecosystems, our traditions, and our gender roles—in contrast to ultra-processed food, which is disconnected and rife with commercial implications. Our discussions about food must highlight these relationships!

When discussing healthy diets, it is essential to understand how food relates to socio-agricultural systems—from cultivation and processing to its availability. These are key elements for affordability! 

A second point is that the unaffordability of healthy diets is a structural consequence that reflects the deepest inequalities rooted in today’s economic and socio-agro-food systems.

On the one hand, there is the commodification of food and the capitalist economic system that prioritizes profit over environmental sustainability, culture, and the right to food. On the other hand, there are powerful private and philanthropic actors who shape policies and decision-making in favor of capitalist industrial food systems, based on the agro-extractive complex.

It is unacceptable that countries with the most productive land are exporting commodities, polluting their territories, while their populations are unable to afford healthy food. 

We need to promote process-based agriculture rather than input-based agriculture, as the latter is bound to be continually affected by international crises.

Agroecological agriculture is grounded in the systemic organization of territories, fostering high biodiversity, improving ecological interactions—including those involving animals—and managing waste flows to transform them into low-cost inputs that have a high impact on soil revitalization and the maintenance of communities within their territories.

A third strategic point for us is that public policies must be geared toward addressing systemic challenges to ensure the availability of and access to food and healthy diets, especially for those who cannot afford them. 

Public food policies must be aligned with food, trade, and investment policies to support local and diversified farming, regional markets, the communities that sustain agriculture, and other forms of solidarity-based economies. 

Public funding must reach small-scale food producers who use socially and culturally appropriate agricultural practices.

They must promote living wages and social protection, and regulate misleading advertising of ultra-processed products. 

It is important to educate urban consumers to choose healthy, socially just, and environmentally sound foods. However, we must not forget that the people who suffer the most from hunger on the outskirts of cities are women of a specific skin color. For this reason, public procurement that guarantees healthy food for schools, hospitals, and other facilities—and that in turn provides financial stability for farmers—must be supported. For example, Brazil has a national school feeding program that purchases food directly from agroecological producers through its food procurement program. However, we view with deep concern the decision by government officials to eliminate school feeding programs, leaving millions of children vulnerable and destined to suffer from hunger and malnutrition.

Furthermore, we must not forget that health policies are also needed to encourage sustained action within urban food systems, both for education and for food cultivation. An example of a bottom-up public policy is the biodynamic agroforestry medicinal gardens, which serve as spaces for community interaction and the production of food and medicinal plants within public health facilities in Brasília, the capital of Brazil.

The fourth point we wish to highlight is the need to establish spaces for participatory governance within governments. 

For example, Brazil has created and funds the National Council for Food and Nutritional Security, where the government, civil society, and academics come together to analyze the best ways to ensure that healthy food reaches everyone. These types of actions have been fundamental in helping Brazil once again emerge from the ranks of nations affected by hunger.

Before concluding, I must emphasize that in 2022, this House recognized the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a fundamental human right. That is why we must work together to develop a program to reduce the production and use of pesticides and other practices that are harmful to our territories, as these are killing us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly—through various diseases.

Finally, I cannot fail to recall that the human right to adequate food is a fundamental right; that is why we cannot remain silent in the face of hunger being used as a weapon of war.

The world needs bridges of solidarity, not ruthless wars. 

Thank you very much!

Useful resources

• Watch the CFS Collaborative Governance Dialogue recording 
• Concept note and agenda are available at the CFS dedicated website
• Want to follow -up the discussion? Join the CFS 54 Plenary Session in October. 

Addressing Gaps in Information and Data Availability in Food Security and Nutrition (16 July 2026)

CSIPM speaker: Lisa Shahin, Jordan/Palestine, Arab Group for the Protection of Nature,/CSIPM Coordination Committee member. 

Lisa Shahin warned that in contexts of war and occupation data can become a weapon in itself. She pointed to the 2025 cyberattack that exposed data from roughly 600,000 Gazan households registered for humanitarian assistance, and to WFP’s data-platform partnership with Palantir, a company linked to Israeli military technology, calling for a new, rights-based, sovereignty-grounded framework for humanitarian data governance.

Read Lisa Shahin's full statement

Download the PDF version 

My name is Lisa Shahin from the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature. I am a member of the CSIPM Coordination Committee, facilitating for the West Asia region.

Much has already been said today about the importance of better data for food security and nutrition. I would like to focus instead on what is too often avoided from these discussions: the governance of data in contexts of war, occupation, and protracted crises.

CSIPM has consistently raised this concern since the negotiations on the CFS Policy Recommendations on FSN Data in 2023. We must not forget that data is never objective or neutral. Every stage of its collection, analysis, ownership, and use reflects particular assumptions, interests, and power relations. Data can be manipulated to serve political, military, or corporate objectives, at the expense of the rights and livelihoods of the very people from whom it is collected. 

Without human oversight, data collection technologies can also risk becoming instruments that entrench the appropriation and exploitation of land, water, seeds, and other resources essential to sustaining life. 

We have a collective obligation to guarantee that human rights are at the center of data governance. This means that rights holders determine how their data is produced and used. Yet across many contexts, we witness non-consensual data extraction and sharing without meaningful rights to access, correct, transfer, or delete it, and increasing surveillance by both governments and private actors. In contexts of wars and occupation, these risks become exponentially greater, where data itself can become a weapon and humanitarian information can be used to facilitate starvation, displacement, and genocide.

We are witnessing precisely these dangers in Gaza. The cyberattack targeting the World Food Programme exposed the personal information of approximately 600,000 households, collected through humanitarian assistance registration systems. This should not be viewed simply as a cybersecurity incident. It was a targeted attack against an extremely sensitive humanitarian database concerning a population enduring genocide, manmade famine, and pervasive surveillance; a population who is required to surrender personal information to access even the most basic necessities of survival, such as food, water and humanitarian aid. 

The risks do not end with the breach itself. They also raise broader questions about how humanitarian data is governed, who has access to it, and the partnerships through which it is managed. These concerns are further compounded by WFP’s partnership with Palantir, a software company with a publicly documented relationship with the Israeli occupation. In her 2025 report, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese stated that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” Palantir has provided predictive policing technology, core defense infrastructure for military software, and an AI platform enabling real-time battlefield data integration for automated decision-making. Against this backdrop, reports indicate that Palantir provides WFP’s data platform which integrates humanitarian beneficiary data, raising profound concerns about the security and potential for weaponization of this data.

Humanitarian organizations have an obligation to apply the highest possible standards of data protection and due diligence. Partnerships with entities complicit in facilitating serious violations of international law are incompatible with these obligations. Our call for accountability is directed at the institutional decisions that permit such partnerships and fail to adequately protect the highly sensitive data entrusted to humanitarian organizations by populations seeking life-saving assistance.

Finally, we call for a new governance regime for data, grounded in human rights and data sovereignty. Such a framework must define the legitimate boundaries of data collection and prohibit forms of data processing that undermine or deliberately attack individual or collective autonomy, dignity, and self-determination.

Within this framework, we urge the adoption of much stronger safeguards to prevent the exposure and weaponization of humanitarian data, together with a thorough re-evaluation of partnership and procurement processes to ensure full compliance with international law.

Thank you.

CSIPM speaker:   Tai Pelli, International Indian Treaty Council/United Confederation of Taíno People, CSIPM Data Working Group 

Tai Pelli brought to the panel an Indigenous Peoples perspective on data sovereignty, describing decades of Indigenous knowledge and resources being extracted without consent or benefit-sharing, and the growing impact of data centers on water and land in or near Indigenous Peoples’ territories. She called for Free, Prior and Informed Consent, grounded in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), as the non-negotiable foundation of any data governance framework that affects Indigenous Peoples.

Read Tai Pelli's statement

Download the PDF version 

“An Indigenous Reality and Perspective on Data Sovereignty & Governance and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”

Taigüey, ituno kena itiaono, D’iri ka Tai Pelli kena Daka Boriken Taino.  Good day sisters and brothers. My name is Tai Pelli and I am a Borikén Taíno, which you may recognize as Puerto Rico. I am currently residing in the United States. 

This past April, I attended the 2nd Indigenous Peoples Data Sovereignty and Governance Summit which was hosted by the University of Arizona. While in the essence of time, I cannot be inclusive on all the issues that we, as Indigenous Peoples are encountering when it comes to Data Sovereignty and Governance, I would like to highlight areas that are of extreme and urgent importance. I will also share with you, areas for possible solutions as Indigenous Peoples, and about actions that can assist us in ensuring that our rights are protected, including the  empowerment and education of our own Indigenous Peoples. We must protect and understand the ramifications of Artificial Intelligence; data extraction; digitalization; the impact to our water resources and other natural resources, including our Indigenous lands and territories.  We must be proactive in preparation for  the tsunami -(I am an islander)- that all of these can have for us, if we do not take measures of prevention.

Although I have been doing International Indigenous Human Rights Advocacy for a couple of decades and have been a socio-cultural advocate from  a very early age, when I started hearing about Indigenous Data a few years ago, I assumed it to be just statistical numbers. When I finally learned about all the areas that this term encompasses, I became extremely worried. Most of our Peoples have little to no idea as to how intricate this subject is and how behind we are in ensuring the Protection of our Data. 

For many decades, Indigenous Peoples have been the subject of studies with no shared benefits nor reported results back to the Peoples. If anything, they were subjects of continued studies of the studies, all without the Free Prior and Informed Consent of the Peoples involved.

While broadly or even publicly undermining the value of Indigenous knowledge, sciences and technologies, we see over and over how this same information is extracted from our Peoples and then marketed without any form of reciprocity. Our traditional medicines; our farming systems – including growing healthy crops without the use of pesticides for example, or our irrigation technologies; our spiritual practices; beadworks and other Indigenous Art forms; our ceremonies;  our midwifery practices; our songs; biopiracy…are just a handful of examples of areas that have been targeted for Data extraction.

Currently, in the United States, we are reading about the number of non-Indigenous communities that are establishing local policy to ensure that no data centers are established in their communities. Interestingly, what we are not reading about are the many Indigenous communities that are already facing the impacts of Data Centers in or near their ancestral lands and territories,  and how many are already experiencing water shortages. This is not just happening in the United States, but in other countries in Latin America as well as in other parts of the world. 

Ni toh kakuhu! Water is Life! Indigenous Peoples are already enduring the impacts of Environmental Violence and Environmental Racism as it is, and diverting the limited water resources to these Data Centers is not only detrimental to human life, but to our flora, fauna, our agriculture, and has a tremendous unfathomable impact on the economic, social and cultural aspects for Indigenous Peoples. It is a menace to our ways of life, sustainability and cultural preservation. 

During the Summit, we identified the need for:  Education – utilizing layman terms so that youth and elders understand the meaning of Data Sovereignty and Governance, what it entails and how to  establish protocols, specific to the Indigenous Peoples. Community Capacity Building and Train the Trainer sessions on targets, data collection methods, measure techniques and indicators. Integrate intersectionality – education – economics – research.

Fostering intergenerational dialogue – Elders have the gift of knowing our ways, our Youth is more comfortable in using modern technology. The elders have the stories and the knowledge and the youth and young adults possess the know-how’s, are computer savvy and can be creative with data technology.

Fostering partnerships, including those with other Indigenous Peoples who have established protocols for their Data Sovereignty and can bring insight based on their experiences.

Indigenous Peoples and Communities creating their own small Data Centers and iClouds, was one of the suggestions.  

And because time is running out, I will stress on the most important one, in my opinion: creating protocols and frameworks utilizing a rights-based approach as the foundation. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, represents the minimum standards. We shall not accept anything that goes below those minimum standards. We need to encourage and foster Free, Prior and Informed Consent Protocols based on the decisions made by the Indigenous Peoples themselves. Whether it is Artificial Intelligence, Data Extraction, digitalization, and/or anything that affects Indigenous Peoples must be done with the Consent of the particular Indigenous Peoples. I remind all of you that Consultation is the means to obtain Consent. A Consultation process without the exercise of Free Prior and informed Consent is a violation of our Rights. Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Governance can only be achieved by the full respect and application of our Rights. However, and as I always stress, “If we don’t understand what our rights are, there’s no way we can defend them.” 

I invite Member States to read the Special Rapporteur 2025 study on the recognition of Indigenous Peoples, which underscores the negative effects of conflating Indigenous Peoples with local communities. 

I hope that the rights of Indigenous Peoples are on the forefront of the decisions made on this space.

Hahom. Thank you.

Useful resoruces

• Watch the CFS Collaborative Governance Dialogue recording
• Concept note and agenda are available at the CFS dedicated website
• Want to follow -up the discussion? Join the CFS 54 Plenary Session in October. 

Join the conversation! 

If you want to follow this process, share your experience, or contribute to building the CSIPM’s positions ahead of the next dialogue, join the CSIPM Working Group on Global Food Governance. 

Read more: 

• Food sovereignty is not possible without financial sovereignty. CSIPM at the CFS Collaborative Dialogue on Financing for Food Security and Nutrition, April 2025.
• Alert, denounce, act against hunger as a weapon of war. CSIPM at the Collaborative Dialogue on Protracted Crises, July 2025.
• Saima Zia (Pakistan / La Vía Campesina) on the wheat crisis in Pakistan. CFS kick-off meeting on Collaborative Governance, 30 May 2024.
• Why this CFS workstream matters for civil society and social movements. Explainer video by Tyler Short, 2024. 

The post CSIPM at the CFS Collaborative Governance Dialogues 2026 appeared first on CSIPM.

Publications Reports collection Periodically, produces collections of reports that compile stories, accounts, experiences and “case studies” that emerge from the communities and processes of radical alternatives. You can access all our reports collections or specific issues below: 01 02 01 GTATapestryAlternativesalternativesTapestryAlternativesAlternativesTapestryAlternativesGTAAlternativesMASSAalternatives

Global of [Weavers] GTA is a “network of networks”. Each of those networks acts in different parts of the planet by identifying and connecting Alternatives. They are the Weavers. [Endorsements] Many progressive, post-developent and anticapitalist organizations around the world endorse this initiative. Also many academics, activists and referents do so.GTAGTAWeaversGTAGTAalternativesAlternatives

Radical Democracy and Autonomy: What do we mean? - A Conversation Introduction Around the world, many people feel that democracy is not working. The idea of a government based on representation through electoral systems seemed very promising, but is demonstrably failing. Perhaps the problem is deeper than simply poor implementation: what is commonly called democracy often preserves the rituals of elections, parties, representation and participation; while the actual power to shape collective l…

Scientists have found that the deadly floods across parts of West Africa in recent weeks were made more likely and intense by human-driven climate change, while the expansion of cities into flood-prone areas amplified the devastation, raising the thorny problem of how to better protect poorer urban communities. 

A report from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group highlighted how the floods hit some of West Africa’s most densely populated coastal regions, where rapid urbanisation has pushed formal and informal settlements dangerously into floodplains, while converting land into farms has reduced drainage.

Since May, West African countries including Ghana, Togo, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria have experienced weeks of torrential rain and deadly flash floods. Homes have been submerged, thousands of people displaced and over 70 people killed.

WWA scientists said climate models showed that human-induced climate change increased the intensity of the rainfall, with what was once a rare amount of rain falling in just three days – a downpour that can now be expected every two to four years.

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“The event is not rare already today and therefore the flood risk is certainly not going away but will increase in particular with additional pressures from growing populations and urbanisation,” said Friederike Otto, a professor of climate science at Imperial College London.

Impact made worse by informal settlements 

On top of climate change, scientists said urbanisation, inadequate drainage, poor waste management and the expansion of informal settlements into floodplains have left millions more people exposed to flooding.

Informal settlements are neighbourhoods which develop without authorisation from government authorities. More commonly known as slums or shanty towns, they often lack land tenure and services like running water and electricity and tend to be home to poorer communities.

Across West Africa and much of the developing world, as people have moved from rural areas to cities in search of work, these settlements have expanded into wetlands, flood-retention areas and riverbanks. This has further heightened flood risks across West African cities.

Kiswendsida Guigma, technical advisor at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, said West Africa’s coastal cities are being “squeezed between repeated flooding and rapid urban growth”, pushing infrastructure beyond its limits and making it harder for communities to recover.

Roussel Teguia, a post-doctoral research fellow at Canada’s Université Laval, said the recent floods have exposed longstanding failures in urban planning across West Africa’s fast-growing coastal cities where much of the region’s economy is concentrated.

Campaigners oppose Dangote’s planned Kenya refinery over climate and ecological risks

Teguia said the floods are deadlier due to factors including rapid urbanisation in low-lying areas, lack of affordable housing alternatives and the long-standing marginalisation of poor communities. He also condemned the destruction of wetlands, mangroves and floodplains for roads and buildings when instead these natural bodies “should be treated as critical public safety infrastructure”.

“These floods should not be understood only as natural disasters,” he said. Residents of informal settlements must stop being treated as the problem, since they are often the first victims of “an urban model that exposes them to risk and then blames them for being exposed”, he added.

Short-sighted approach to relocation

Cote d’Ivoire’s capital Abidjan recorded 59 of the deaths, with about 20 dying in the densely-settled slope neighbourhood of Mossikro. Local media reported that authorities had previously relocated residents from this area due to fears about vulnerability to deadly landslides and flooding, but some people had returned to previously evacuated sites and died when the hillside collapsed due to the rain.

Local authorities have since started demolishing houses in the area, to the anger of many locals who say they were not consulted or warned about the demolitions, which are costing them their properties and livelihoods. “If you destroy this place, where am I supposed to go?” one unnamed resident told Al Jazeera.

The government says many of the structures were built illegally in flood and landslide-risk zones and it plans to move 3,000 people first and 2,000 more later. Municipal official Yue Hilaire told the TV channel the municipality has been trying to persuade them to leave for a long time. “Frankly we are tired,” he said. “The mayor instructed us to evict them because we don’t want to witness another tragedy every year.”

Loss and damage fund delays first project approvals as needs dwarf resources

Guigma said that to avoid people returning, the government should ensure that “where people are relocated they also have relatively good economic opportunities for them to stay”.

Demolishing poor people’s homes without offering real alternatives is not prevention, Teguia argued, calling on governments to provide safe, serviced and affordable land close to jobs and transport, stop the occupation of wetlands and regulate powerful land owners and users.

Relocation programmes often fail because they are designed as land-clearing or security operations rather than social processes, he explained.

Governments must move from reactive crisis management measures to a long-term comprehensive approach to risk, Teguia said. Relocation policies need to be just, fairly compensated, include affected communities and encompass economic and social networks – otherwise they “simply move the vulnerability elsewhere”, he warned.

Finance gap limits flood response

The WWA scientists said deadly floods will continue unless governments do more to reduce people’s exposure and vulnerability, calling for investments in safe and affordable housing, improved drainage and sanitation, stronger enforcement of building regulations, more effective early warning systems and greater involvement of at-risk communities in planning.

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Joyce Kimutai, research associate in extreme weather and climate change at Imperial College London, said the study is a clear example of “the need for international cooperation on climate justice”, adding that developed countries have a responsibility to help nations like Togo, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana to adapt to a worsening problem that, as low emitters of greenhouse gas, they did not cause.

But significant financial support for countries grappling with increasing climate disasters may still be some way off. Earlier this month, the UN’s fledgling Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) postponed approving its first round of projects after requests for support far exceeded the money available.

One of the roughly 180 submissions the fund received was a Nigerian recovery and resilience project to address flood losses and damage in Lagos which is prone to yearly flooding. 

Otto of Imperial College London said such situations where the role of climate change is certain “should be the kinds of events where this fund should pay and help, but of course, that would require first money to be in the fund”. 

Ghana and Togo have also identified increasingly frequent flooding as a major climate risk in their national adaptation plans, prioritising investments in drainage, resilient infrastructure, flood management, early warning systems and climate-resilient urban planning. 

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But while these adaptation plans acknowledge that delivering the proposed measures requires more international aid, wealthy nations are likely to have missed their 2025 goal of doubling adaptation finance for developing countries. Funding reached just over $30 billion in 2024, far below the target of $40 billion by 2025.

The WWA findings underscore the urgent need to speed up support for vulnerable communities who have done little to cause climate change, said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, adding that “all climate finance commitments must be delivered in full”.

The post Flood deaths in West African cities raise fraught issue of slum evictions appeared first on Climate Home News.

CHARLESTON, SC – A new program by Audubon South Carolina will help family landowners across the state make their forests more productive and ecologically healthy. The initiative is supported by a...

Headline News:

• “Heading For The North Pole On Tara Polar Station’s First Expedition” • The Tara Polar Station, a scientific research station designed to drift with the sea ice, left the port of Lorient on its first expedition to the North Pole. The objective is a better understanding of the biodiversity of the Arctic Ocean and the effects of global warming in the region. [Euronews]

Tara Polar Station (Tara Station Foundation image)

• “Geely Unveils New EV Powertrain That Is 93.8% Efficient” • Observers like Bill McKibben note that, considering well head to engine efficiency, only about 15% of the energy that comes out of the ground actually goes to moving our cars and trucks forward. By comparison, this week Geely announced a new EV powertrain that is 93.8% efficient. [CleanTechnica]
• “Serentica Renewables Secures 58-MW Round-The-Clock Power PPA With DCM Shriram” • Serentica Renewables signed a PPA to supply 58 MW of round-the-clock renewable power to DCM Shriram’s chemicals manufacturing plant in Gujarat. A subsidiary will combine solar power from Rajasthan and wind power from Karnataka. [pv magazine India]
• “European Energy Secures Oz Hybrid Financing” • European Energy reached financial close on the Mokoan Hybrid solar and battery project in Victoria. Deutsche Bank is providing a non-recourse financing package to refinance the operational 58-MW Mokoan Solar Farm and support construction and operation of a co-located 40-MW, 80-MWh battery system. [reNews]
• “Offshore Wind Shines During Summer Heat” • America’s offshore wind farms have already shown their ability to keep electricity flowing during brutal winter storms. Now, the clean energy resource has proved it can also bolster the grid during major heat waves, as dangerously hot and humid temperatures settled over the eastern US. [Sierra Club]

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

Canada needs more electricity — fast. In part, this is due to the projected growth of data centres that can power artificial intelligence and the increasing demands of our digital services. Both the federal and Alberta governments see data centre...

"Flexibility works. The real bottleneck is scaling participation fast enough to matter."

This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist and WABE, Atlanta’s NPR station.

Just across the road from the waterfront in Brunswick, Semona Holmes lives in a house surrounded by fruit trees, potted flowers, a fish pond, and — when it rains or the tide is extra high — floodwater.

“If you can imagine this entire area here completely flooded,” she explained on her front porch on a recent afternoon. “The flooding would be — we would have, like, a river on our street.”

The floodwater has reached to her knees at times. Once, after a hurricane, her neighbor canoed down the block.

Improvements to the stormwater system have helped a bit in recent years. But Holmes’ concerns go beyond the inconvenience of an occasionally flooded street. She lives about half a mile from a former pesticide plant, which is now a toxic Superfund site — one of thousands of contaminated former industrial sites identified by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Holmes is worried about what the floodwaters contain.

“Everything from that chemical plant has flowed into our community,” she said.

Scientists want to get a better handle on what, exactly, has flowed into this community’s air, soil, water, and people. Researchers from six institutions will soon launch Georgia’s first Superfund research center, with $15 million from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Over five years, the team of scientists from Emory University, the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Morehouse School of Medicine, Spelman College, and Texas Tech University will look at Glynn County’s four toxic Superfund sites, including the one near Holmes. 

The work has two main goals, according to Emory public health professor Noah Scovronick.

“One is to understand the health effects of past chemical exposures, and the other is to try and reduce people’s future exposures,” he said.

To do that, they’ll study links between the toxic substances at the former industrial sites and possible health effects, and conduct environmental sampling to figure out how and where people may have been exposed. 

They’ll also need to model impacts of climate change, like rising seas and stronger storms. On sites that have toxic materials stored in structures or under caps, flooding could breach those containment measures, which are supposed to keep people safe from exposure.

“We want to be sure that the remediation that is ongoing at those sites is resilient to extreme weather moving forward,” Scovronick said. 

Holmes, standing in her garden, worries about pollution in the soil and water from a nearby superfund site. Emily Jones / Grist

The researchers met with community members like Holmes to plan their work, so that the studies can answer the lingering questions Glynn County residents have about the industrial pollution in their environment.

Holmes and her family already don’t drink their tap water or eat seafood from Glynn County waterways. But she said they need more information about what chemicals they’ve been exposed to, and the possible consequences. She has six grandchildren, several of whom attend an elementary school just blocks from the nearest toxic site.

“We want them to be healthy,” she said. “And you don’t want to worry that they’re playing on a playground that has contaminated soil.”

Even if the new research uncovers damage that can’t be undone or exposure to health risks that can’t be reversed, Holmes said, it’s important to have all of that documented — and acknowledged by the companies that operated the industrial sites in Glynn County.

“It shows that you care about humanity,” she said. “And that you are able to acknowledge that, ‘Yeah, by our actions, we have possibly contaminated an entire county.’”

But beyond that recognition of wrongdoing, Holmes said, “There has to be continued action.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Rising seas magnify the dangers of coastal Georgia’s industrial past on Jul 20, 2026.

This is a guest blog by Dr Michael T. David,  Founder and Executive Director of the Global Initiative for Food Security and Ecosystem Preservation (GIFSEP). GIFSEP is a non-profit organization founded on the ideals of Environmental Education, Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, Renewable Energy and Sustainable Development. They mobilize communities to build resilience to a changing climate so as to conserve and protect the environment.

For years, the people of Awo Akpali, a remote community in Ankpa Local Government Area of Kogi State in Nigeria, have lived with the painful legacy of coal mining. While the coal extracted from beneath their land generated wealth for coal mining companies, the community was left with environmental degradation, poor health, and no access to one of the most basic necessities of modern life i.e  electricity.

Community members at the training session on how to install and maintain solar pv system photo credit: GIFSEP

When night fell, so did healthcare.

At the community’s Primary Health Centre, health workers often relied on torchlights and the light from mobile phones to attend to patients. Mothers in labour, sick children, and emergency cases faced an uncertain future whenever they arrived after sunset. Essential healthcare services were severely limited, not because there were no health workers, but because there was simply no electricity.

Today, that story is changing. As part of its Solar for Communities Initiative, the Global Initiative for Food Security and Ecosystem Preservation (GIFSEP) has installed a solar power system at the Awo Akpali Primary Health Centre, bringing clean, reliable electricity to a facility that had operated in darkness for years.

Terrance,  project lead GIFSEP and hospital staff after installation is complete .Photo credit: GIFSEP

The initiative was implemented with support from 350Africa.org and the Global Greengrants Fund, demonstrating how renewable energy can improve healthcare while advancing climate justice for underserved communities.

The solar installation is more than an energy project, it is restoring dignity to healthcare. Health workers can now provide services safely at night, power essential medical equipment, preserve temperature-sensitive medicines, and offer better care to patients when they need it most.

For GIFSEP, the intervention represents the next chapter in a long-standing partnership with the community.

Through its Coal Free Nigeria Campaign, GIFSEP previously worked with residents of Awo Akpali to build awareness of environmental and community rights. Community members were trained to understand the environmental, health, and social impacts of coal mining and empowered to advocate for the protection of their land and livelihoods. Their collective efforts contributed to the eventual closure of the coal mining operations that had negatively affected the community for years.

 

Solar inverter at the hospital.   credit: GIFSEP

Rather than leaving the community with only the closure of the mine, GIFSEP sought to demonstrate that cleaner and more sustainable alternatives are possible.

Under the Solar for Communities Initiative, residents were sensitized on the benefits of renewable energy as a practical solution for communities that remain outside Nigeria’s public electricity grid. Women and young people also received hands-on training in basic solar installation and maintenance, equipping them with practical skills that can create new livelihood opportunities while supporting the adoption of clean energy within their community.

Community members at the training session on how to install and maintain solar pv system  led by GIFSEP.Photo credit: GIFSEP

This approach reflects a broader vision of a just energy transition, one that not only moves communities away from polluting fossil fuels but also ensures they benefit from cleaner technologies, improved livelihoods, better healthcare, and increased resilience.

 

The post From Darkness to Hope appeared first on 350.

Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, and the rest of that grim clan have launched their own invasion -- of planet Earth itself. They have indeed landed on the beaches of our world, armed to the teeth, and intent on turning this planet into a heat zone.

A grounded perspective is emerging that refuses both despair and denial. It accepts that we are entering an era of converging limits, yet insists the future is not fixed and asks how we can move through this transition with dignity, relationality and mutual respect.

Nate scales his exploration of civilizational futures down to the future of a single human life and analyzes how the same patterns that shape economies, power, geopolitics, and Earth systems turn inward.