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A few years ago, I watched my neighbor carefully drop a shiny penny into a vase of fresh tulips. “Keeps them alive longer,” she said with absolute confidence. I nodded along – because I’d heard the same thing from my grandmother, who heard it from hers. The problem? It doesn’t really work the way people think it does. And that got me wondering: how many other “flower facts” are we all repeating without ever questioning them?

Turns out, quite a few. Some of these myths are harmless old wives’ tales. Others actively shorten the life of your bouquets or lead gardeners down the wrong path entirely. Whether you grow flowers in your backyard, keep houseplants on your windowsill, or just want your grocery-store roses to last through the week, separating fact from fiction makes a real difference.

Let’s dig into the most persistent flower myths – and the science-backed truths behind them.

Vase-life myths that might be killing your cut flowers The penny trick: copper savior or pocket change?

This one pops up on nearly every flower-care list, and the logic sounds reasonable. Copper has antimicrobial properties, so dropping a penny in your vase should fight bacteria and keep stems healthy. Here’s the catch: pennies minted after 1982 are 97.5% zinc with only a thin copper plating. That tiny amount of copper barely dissolves into the water at all.

Even with an older, solid-copper penny, you’d need significantly more surface area to create a meaningful antibacterial effect. What actually fights bacterial buildup? A few drops of household bleach – roughly a quarter teaspoon per quart of water – combined with the flower food packet that came with your bouquet. That little sachet contains a biocide, an acidifier, and sugar in carefully measured proportions. It does what a penny only pretends to do.

Sugar, lemonade, and other kitchen “hacks”

Adding sugar to vase water is another classic recommendation. The reasoning isn’t entirely wrong – commercial flower food does contain sucrose because cut stems need an energy source once separated from the plant. But dumping table sugar or pouring lemonade into a vase without a biocide is like setting out an all-you-can-eat buffet for bacteria. The sugar feeds microorganisms just as effectively as it feeds the flowers, and within 24 hours your water turns cloudy, slimy, and foul-smelling.

If you’ve run out of flower food, a better DIY solution is mixing one teaspoon of sugar, one teaspoon of white vinegar (which lowers pH), and a quarter teaspoon of bleach per quart of lukewarm water. This mimics the three-ingredient formula of professional flower preservatives far more reliably than soda or lemon-lime drinks.

Do cut flowers really prefer a sunny windowsill?

This myth seems intuitive. Flowers grow in sunlight, so they must want sunlight after being cut, right? Actually, once a stem has been cut from its root system, direct sunlight and heat become enemies. Warmth accelerates respiration, causing petals to open faster and wilt sooner. It also heats the vase water, encouraging bacterial growth.

Professional florists store arrangements in coolers for a reason. At home, the sweet spot is a cool room – ideally between 65°F and 72°F – with indirect light, away from heating vents, appliances, and fruit bowls. That last detail matters more than most people realize.

The banana problem – and why your fruit bowl location matters

Here’s one that sounds like an urban legend but is absolutely true: bananas (and apples, avocados, and other climacteric fruits) release ethylene gas as they ripen. Ethylene is a plant hormone that signals aging. When your cut flowers sit near ripening fruit, they absorb that gas and deteriorate noticeably faster – sometimes losing two to three days of vase life.

This isn’t speculation. Ethylene’s effect on floral senescence has been documented in horticultural research going back decades. Carnations, roses, and delphinium are especially sensitive. So if your kitchen counter has a fruit basket right next to your flower arrangement, simply moving them apart can make a measurable difference.

Garden and houseplant myths worth rethinking Orchids are only for expert gardeners

Orchids have an undeserved reputation as high-maintenance divas. In reality, the Phalaenopsis orchid – the variety you see at most grocery stores and garden centers across the U.S. – is one of the most forgiving houseplants around. It thrives in the same temperatures we keep our homes, needs watering only once a week or so (when the potting medium feels dry), and blooms for months at a stretch.

The biggest mistake people make is overwatering. Orchid roots are adapted to periods of drying out, and soggy conditions lead to root rot faster than almost anything else. Water less, worry less.

Bigger pots = faster growth?

It feels logical to give a plant more room by potting it in a much larger container. But most houseplants – and many garden flowers – actually prefer to be slightly root-bound. An oversized pot holds excess moisture around roots that haven’t grown into the surrounding soil yet, creating conditions ripe for fungal disease and rot.

A good rule of thumb: when repotting, go up only one or two inches in diameter. African violets, peace lilies, and many succulents actively bloom better when their roots are a bit snug.

Cacti don’t need water

This is one of the most widespread misconceptions, and it leads to a lot of slowly dying succulents on apartment shelves across America. Cacti are drought-tolerant, not drought-proof. In their native habitats, they receive seasonal rains and absorb moisture from nighttime condensation. A potted cactus sitting indoors in dry, air-conditioned air with zero supplemental water will eventually shrivel from the inside out.

During the growing season (spring through early fall), most cacti benefit from a thorough watering every one to two weeks, allowing the soil to dry completely between waterings. In winter, you can cut back to once a month or even less.

Botanical misconceptions that fool almost everyone Are those red poinsettia “flowers” actually flowers?

No – and this one surprises a lot of people. The colorful parts of a poinsettia are bracts, which are modified leaves. The actual flowers are the tiny yellow clusters at the center of the bract rosette, called cyathia. This same bract-not-petal situation applies to bougainvillea and dogwood trees, too. What we call the “bloom” is really a set of colored leaves designed to attract pollinators to the small, inconspicuous true flowers.

And while we’re on poinsettias: they’re far less toxic than their reputation suggests. The ASPCA and Poison Control data show that a child or pet would have to consume an enormous quantity of poinsettia leaves to experience anything beyond mild gastrointestinal discomfort. They’re irritants, not poisons. Holly berries and mistletoe, common during the same holiday season, are actually more dangerous.

Can hydrangea colors really be changed by soil?

This one is true – and it’s one of the most fascinating examples of plant chemistry in action. Hydrangea macrophylla varieties shift color based on aluminum availability in the soil, which is controlled by pH. In acidic soil (pH below 6.0), aluminum becomes soluble and accessible to the plant, producing blue blooms. In alkaline soil (pH above 7.0), aluminum stays locked up, and blooms turn pink.

Gardeners can influence this by adding aluminum sulfate to encourage blue flowers or garden lime to push toward pink. White hydrangeas, however, stay white regardless of soil pH – they lack the pigment that responds to aluminum entirely.

Do lilies really pose a danger to cats?

This is one myth that is absolutely, critically true – and it doesn’t get enough attention. True lilies (Lilium species like Easter lilies, tiger lilies, and Asiatic lilies) and daylilies (Hemerocallis) are extremely toxic to cats. Every part of the plant – petals, leaves, pollen, even the water in the vase – can cause acute kidney failure. As few as two or three petals can be fatal if a cat ingests them.

The ASPCA’s Animal Poison Control Center fields thousands of lily-related calls each year, with a significant spike around Easter and Mother’s Day. If you have cats, this isn’t a myth to shrug off. Consider safer alternatives like roses, sunflowers, snapdragons, or zinnias, all of which are non-toxic to felines.

What about removing lily anthers and rose guard petals?

Two persistent myths in one section, because they both involve the fear that touching a flower will kill it faster.

Removing lily anthers: Those orange, pollen-heavy stamens stain everything they touch – clothing, tablecloths, skin. Carefully snipping or plucking them off does not harm the lily or shorten its vase life. It simply prevents messy pollen stains. Florists do this routinely.

Peeling guard petals from roses: Guard petals are the outermost layer of a rose – they often look bruised, greenish, or slightly torn because they’ve been protecting the inner bloom during shipping. Gently removing them doesn’t damage the flower. It reveals the pristine petals underneath and gives the rose a polished, fuller look. Think of them as nature’s packaging material.

What really extends flower life – a quick recap

Rather than relying on folklore, focus on these proven practices:

• Use the commercial flower food packet – it’s the single most effective thing you can do.
• Re-cut stems at a 45-degree angle every two to three days to keep water uptake channels open.
• Change the water completely when you re-cut, adding fresh flower food each time.
• Keep arrangements in cool spots away from direct sunlight, heat sources, and ripening fruit.
• Remove any foliage that falls below the waterline – submerged leaves breed bacteria rapidly.

These steps aren’t glamorous, but they consistently add three to five extra days of vase life – far more than pennies, aspirin, or vodka ever could.

The takeaway: trust science, not grandma’s pennies

Flower myths persist because they sound logical and they’ve been passed down through generations with total conviction. But botany, like any science, rewards curiosity over tradition. The more you understand about how cut stems take up water, why ethylene matters, and which plants genuinely pose risks to your pets, the better your flowers will look – and the longer they’ll last.

If any of these truths caught you off guard, you’re in good company. Most people are surprised by at least a few. The next time you bring home a bouquet or pot a new houseplant, try applying what you’ve learned here and see the difference for yourself. And if you want to go deeper – into floral biology, soil science, or plant care techniques – there’s a wealth of research-backed horticultural material out there worth exploring.

The plantation was established on land won through peasant struggles, and the cooperative forms part of SPI’s strategy to strengthen peasants’ economic institutions.

The post Indonesia: SPI inaugurates Coffee Plantation Cooperative, Reinforcing the Agrarian Reform Struggle appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Over the past week, hundreds of thousands of people in France and Spain fled their homes, many in the dead of night, carrying only what they could. In the coming days and weeks, as evacuation orders lift, some will come home to partially destroyed towns. Others will only find ash. 

The fourth heat wave of a broiling summer is underway this week, and Europe has already seen one of its most destructive wildfire seasons on record, leading to one of the largest evacuation of people on the continent since World War II. It’s also the latest consequence of climate change, according to a study released on Thursday by World Weather Attribution, a scientific nonprofit that analyzes the role of global warming in extreme weather events. Human-induced climate change made the likelihood of fire-prone conditions in France at least twice as likely, and at least 20 times as likely in central Spain. 

“This is not an isolated event, it is part of a pattern,” said Maria Alcazar Castilla, the deputy regional director of the International Federation of Red Cross in Europe. The Red Cross is helping coordinate the disaster response effort in both countries and providing supplies and temporary shelter for thousands.

For months leading up to the recent wildfires, Western Europe had been scorched by back-to-back heat waves and an extended drought that dried out trees, shrubs, and farmland, turning the landscape into a tinderbox. Climate change makes the confluence of these extremes more likely, scientists say.

Last year, similar conditions created Europe’s worst wildfire season in history, with more than 2 million hectares burned by September. This year could be on track to surpass that: Some 430,000 hectares have burned so far — roughly 100,000 more than this time last year with two months left to go. In Spain alone, the burned area is roughly equivalent to the size of London.

With heat waves projected to continue in the coming weeks, the risk of more fire looms over the continent. Other research on Southern Europe, also released on Thursday, found that summer days with conditions making them prone to extreme fires have more than doubled in recent decades.

At the height of the disaster this week, more than 300,000 people had been displaced across France and Spain. Rural areas that rely on farming and tourism have been the worst hit, Alcazar said. “The impact to the livelihoods of people will be huge.”

Wildfire evacuees from the Bordeaux region of France rest at a temporary shelter on July 25.
Alain Jocard / AFP via Getty Images

The high temperatures that set the stage for these fires had their own devastating consequences. This June was the hottest ever recorded in Western Europe. In addition to causing nuclear reactors and train lines to shut down, the oppressive heat killed thousands of people across the continent in the span of a few weeks. 

This summer has shown that climate change is a “national security emergency facing Europe and threatening our way of life,” said officials from the United Kingdom and Spain in a joint statement on Thursday. 

Scientific research that links climate change to weather events is a relatively young field known as attribution science. Groups like World Weather Attribution skip the typical publishing process in science and use rapid analysis methods to get answers faster. The goal is to give the public an understanding of the role climate change plays in an extreme event before the news cycle has moved on. 

Clair Barnes, a research associate at World Weather Attribution who led the analysis, said this particular study was completed more quickly than the organization’s usual studies. It drew from the group’s earlier research on heat and drought, which, along with wind speed, are key components in so-called fire weather. The group also analyzed historical weather data to compare this year’s fire conditions with those from past summers, as well as with simulations of a world without climate change.

“As long as we continue to emit fossil fuels into the atmosphere, those greenhouse gases are going to continue to warm the planet more,” Barnes said. “This is just the beginning of how bad it’s going to be.”

One significant factor, the group found, was a rainier than usual winter in January and February, which prompted a burst of vegetation growth in the spring. Then, as the monthslong drought set in, those plants dried up, becoming the tinder that fueled these fires.

This phenomenon, sometimes called “weather whiplash,” is a direct result of climate change. As the atmosphere warms, it gets spongier and thirstier, sucking up more moisture from the land and holding onto it for longer periods of time. That, in turn, leads to more intense rainfall that happens less frequently.

Bystanders watch the smoke and flames from a wildfire on July 21 in Cotignac, France.
FBM Media / Getty Images

How people use the land can also make wildfires conditions significantly worse, said Robert Field, a fire and climate researcher at Columbia University in New York. 

In both France and Spain, abandoned farmland and a shift away from cattle, which graze on plants, might have played a role in fueling the fire. In France, the wildfire outbreak was centered in the Landes de Gascogne, a coastal region with an abundance of planted pine forests. Research on wildfires worldwide has shown that timber plantations like these can be twice as flammable as natural forests. 

“I don’t think it’s an issue of firefighting capacity or investment,” Field said. “It’s fundamentally an issue of landscape management in the face of global warming.”

Since Tuesday, firefighters have managed to partially contain many of the fires and authorities have more than 100,000 evacuees to return home in southwest France. A weak cold front is also on its way to Europe, potentially providing a small window of relief, according to Jason Nicholls, a meteorologist and international forecasting lead at AccuWeather. 

But another surge of heat could come as soon as this weekend, with more heat expected by mid-August, forecasts show. “I don’t see any drought relief in the near term, which would mean the wildfire risk will stay very elevated,” Nicholls said. The drought and heat will continue to smother France, Spain, and other parts of Central and Western Europe, like Germany and Hungary.

“I’ve been doing international forecasting for 20 years,” Nicholls said. “These wildfires have been some of the worst I’ve ever seen.”

toolTips('.classtoolTips3','Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and other gases that prevent heat from escaping Earth’s atmosphere. Together, they act as a blanket to keep the planet at a liveable temperature in what is known as the “greenhouse effect.” Too many of these gases, however, can cause excessive warming, disrupting fragile climates and ecosystems.');

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Here’s what supercharged the monster wildfires in Spain and France on Jul 31, 2026.

More than half the world’s population depends on rice to survive. But this year’s El Niño weather pattern and the ongoing climate crisis are intensifying dry, hot weather that could cause yields to plummet.

Globally, rice production is set to fall for the first time in more than a decade, according to projections by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In the U.S., where most rice is grown in the Mississippi Delta, production for the upcoming season is expected to fall by more than half, to the lowest levels in 40 years. 

“High temperatures can substantially reduce the rice yield,” said Atul Jain, a professor of climate, meteorology, and atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois. “Farmers are going to be hit hard during these extreme climate events.”

How much rice farmers can produce depends on a range of weather conditions, such as precipitation and temperature. Climate scientists have predicted that this year’s El Niño will be the strongest on record, describing it as a “super El Niño.” The naturally occurring phenomenon, which happens roughly every two to seven years, will continue to drive extreme weather, including intense drought, in regions across the globe. 

Researchers at Columbia University’s Climate School shared this week that the current El Niño has already reached “very strong” levels and will continue to intensify in the coming months. During a given El Niño year, trade winds weaken and warmer ocean water in the Pacific drifts eastward, leading to convection, or warm air rising off the ocean. “That acts like ringing a bell,” said Radley Horton, a professor at the Climate School. “It sends out waves that resonate all across the globe.” The result is that some areas experience much wetter seasons than usual, while others see much drier months.

As this El Niño intensifies, the world could experience major disruptions to food systems dependent on staple crops like rice. “Drought,” said Jeremy Zwinger, president and CEO of The Rice Trader, an industry analysis company, “kills commodities.”

Read Next The ‘super El Niño’ is here. What happens next could upend food systems worldwide. Frida Garza

The good news, though, is that many countries are more prepared than ever for the variability that climate change brings to food production. In recent decades, governments, nongovernmental organizations, and corporations have invested billions of dollars in improving agricultural technologies, especially irrigation systems and new, heartier strains of rice (some of which actually slash planet-warming emissions). 

Recent advancements in irrigation and plant-breeding are an insurance policy of sorts that has been useful in years like this, when the rainy monsoon season in parts of South Asia has been delayed and unpredictable. India has been especially successful at using new technology to boost production, which has pushed it to the top of the list of rice-growing countries this year.

In some ways, the agricultural gains have worked almost too well. The world is now oversupplied with rice, said Zwinger, which has resulted in falling prices and less money for farmers. “It’s a mind twist,” he said, “because you’re penalizing somebody for success.”

In another twist, the very carbon dioxide that is causing global warming also makes it easier to grow rice. Higher concentrations of CO2 in the air enhances photosynthesis and improves water-use efficiency, said Jain, calling it “the primary environmental factor” contributing to the surge in worldwide rice productivity.

Still, the increasingly warmer and dryer conditions that climate change will bring are expected to inhibit rice growth. A new study found that climate models have generally underestimated the production loss by as much as half. For every degree of warming Celsius, it said, rice production will fall about 8 percent. 

“Climate change amplifies these pressures through higher temperatures, erratic rainfall, floods, salinity intrusion, and longer dry spells,” said Alisher Mirzabaev, senior scientist and policy analyst on climate change for the International Rice Research Institute. 

Another worry is that some advanced irrigation systems, especially in India, are depleting long-term groundwater stores in order to meet short-term needs. “For this season, the rice growers have basically used groundwater,” said Sampriti Baruah, the head of sustainable agriculture for the environmental think tank WRI India. This type of excess withdrawal will eventually catch up with farmers, she said, “but that’s the fallout of the irrigation system.”

These risks are why experts say a continued focus on adaptation measures remain critical. “These different management practices help us offset some of these climate impacts,” said Jain. Of farmers, he added, “if they are very well prepared for that, definitely they can overcome all these issues.”

On the whole, Zwinger said he isn’t too worried about El Niño causing a slump in rice production this year. The excess in the system should be able to satisfy demand, and less supply could improve pay for many growers. But, at the same time, he certainly isn’t cheering for El Niño, either. 

“I know certain countries will really suffer,” said Zwinger. “What you’re going to have is the have and the have-nots.”

Zwinger is especially worried about the Philippines, where rice makes up half of the typical meal, and sub-Saharan Africa, both of which are major rice importers. An extra-strong El Niño would also worsen food security in other vulnerable regions around the world, including southern Africa, South Asia, and parts of Brazil. 

In Indonesia, one of the globe’s top rice producers, a weaker monsoon season due to El Niño would mean less rainfall. This could delay the planting season for rice, ultimately leading to reduced yields. In 2015, another very strong El Niño year, the country had already seen significant drops in rain totals by the early fall, said Horton. Resulting fires blanketed the parched country, as well as Singapore and Malaysia, in heavy smoke. That in turn impacted public health, particularly for outdoor agricultural workers. This year, “we’re concerned about seeing all these effects at once,” Horton said. 

Whatever El Niño and climate change bring, Jain’s research suggests that technology can help mitigate rice production problems — at least for now. “The challenge for the future is whether these management improvements can continue to keep space as the climate intensifies,” said Jain. “It will be the key scientific and the policy question.”

toolTips('.classtoolTips7','A powerful greenhouse gas that accounts for about 11% of global emissions, methane is the primary component of natural gas and is emitted into the atmosphere by landfills, oil and natural gas systems, agricultural activities, coal mining, and wastewater treatment, among other pathways. Over a 20-year period, it is roughly 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.');

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Why rice crops could be in for a weird year on Jul 31, 2026.

Officials from the Trump administration and members of Congress walked along the burn scar from Utah’s devastating Cottonwood Fire last week and saw the damage from the rain and flood that followed the flames.

The wildfire is among the country’s largest, charring more than 97,000 acres. It started on June 22, and is only 95 percent contained as of late Thursday, according to Utah Fire Info.

After surveying the destruction, lawmakers laid blame on a lack of forestry management. If the forest had been thinned, with “a lot fewer trees per acre, and maybe even some controlled burns to take the underbrush out, there’s just not the fuel there when these fires start to make them catastrophic fires,” Representative Bruce Westerman, a Republican from Arkansas, told Salt Lake City’s FOX 13 News. 

But these traditional fire prevention methods may no longer work, one researcher cautions, with a changing climate that makes hot, dry weather increasingly the norm.

“Weather and climate override the effects of fuels in determining what happens in forested landscapes,” said Dominik Kulakowski, a professor of geography at Clark University in Massachusetts whose research focuses on climate and mountain ecosystems. “The implication of that is that we’re losing our ability to manage forest fires.”

Larissa Yocom, a professor of fire ecology at Utah State University, agrees that today’s extreme wildfires defy the usual approaches to prevention, but she doesn’t think they are the West’s “new normal — yet.”

Climate change, which stokes intense heat, longer droughts, and extreme weather, has been the primary driver of wildfire risk in the Western United States for the last two decades, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The severe snow drought that afflicted Utah over the winter is 14 times more likely in Utah and other Upper Colorado River Basin states compared to the start of the industrial period when humans began releasing climate-altering pollutants into the atmosphere, according to research published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Forests in the West evolved in response to fire, and fire has long been part of their normal ecological function, Kulakowski said. But fires are now changing faster than forests can adapt.

Fuels like dry shrubs and drought-stressed trees are a secondary factor that contributes to wildfires, and they’re what most forestry treatments have focused on — like creating buffers around homes known as firebreaks, thinning forests, and scheduling prescribed burns. Yet fast fires can jump interstate highways and blow past firebreaks hundreds of yards wide, Kulakowski said.

“We’ve seen examples that embers from these dangerous megafires can travel … about a mile,” he said. “What we can do to protect ourselves is becoming increasingly difficult.”

The country’s most expensive, deadly, and destructive fires in recent decades moved extremely fast. Utah’s own Cottonwood Fire exploded by 20,000 acres overnight in late June as firefighters evacuated homes and struggled to keep the blaze contained.

As long as the trend of warmer and drier weather conditions continue, so will the megafires. And as extremely hot and large fires increase, the ability for forests to regenerate decreases, Kulakowski said. “The soil is being sterilized,” he said. “There are fewer surviving trees.”

Fewer trees mean fewer seeds to help forests regrow. In some cases, the types of forests that do re-sprout may look different — aspens may dominate where conifers once thrived, for example. But in parts of the West, Kulakowski said, it appears no forest vegetation is regrowing at all.

“In which case, we’re talking about ecosystem collapse,” he said. “We’re talking about forests disappearing from parts of the landscape.”

Eagle Point Resort, one of the smallest ski and snowboard areas in Utah, was one of the first areas to fall victim to the Cottonwood Fire in late June.
Francisco Kjolseth / The Salt Lake Tribune

Other fire experts in Utah say traditional fire-treatment methods still work and should be deployed across forests. “We have a lot of examples where managing fuel is still beneficial and makes a difference,” said Yocom, the professor at Utah State.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers from Western states, including Senator John Curtis, a Republican from Utah, and Senator John Hickenlooper, a Democrat from Colorado, have sponsored the Fix Our Forests Act after spending months negotiating the best ways to manage woodlands and prevent catastrophic wildfire. The bill creates “fireshed management areas” — fire-prone lands that pose the biggest risk to communities — where federal agencies would streamline and speed up fuel treatments. It has yet to receive a full vote in the Senate.

Yocom acknowledged, however, that there’s little forestry managers could have done to prevent some of the large wildfires that have burned across Utah this season.

“In the most extreme conditions, those on-the-ground factors get overwhelmed,” she said. 

If forestry managers allowed more fires to burn in shoulder seasons in the spring and fall, during cooler weather and milder conditions, wildfires might be less intense and have different effects on forests, Yocom said.

“It’s not preordained that we are stuck with this kind of fire,” Yocom said. “The only type of fire we’re ‘allowing’ to happen right now are the ones that are burning in the conditions where we literally can’t do anything about it.”

Read Next Nebraska wonders which is riskier: The fires it starts, or the fires it fights Anila Yoganathan

The Trump administration issued a directive this year calling on federal agencies to aggressively suppress all fires — including the smaller, milder ones that forests evolved with to keep them healthy.

“We have an imbalance within our natural environments because, basically, almost every ecosystem within Utah has developed out of an adaptation of fire,” said Bradley Washa, a firefighter and professor of wildland resources at Utah State, “and we have removed that fire from those ecosystems.”

A warming climate is taking a toll on Western forests, Washa said, but it’s difficult to pin any single fire event to climate change.

Through his work on the ground, he continues to see how small things — like removing a firewood pile or clearing overgrown brush — can make the difference between a home surviving a wildfire or burning to the ground.

Still, “some of our fuel treatments and defensible space concepts are designed for your average fire,” Washa acknowledged, “not these extreme events.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Wildfire prevention has always been a challenge in the West. Hotter, drier weather is making it worse. on Jul 31, 2026.

I feel so deeply grateful to have known him, and for the support and enthusiasm he showed for the Transition movement as it emerged. He was a sensitive and thoughtful man who knew that human beings could do so much better.

A debate between Bill McKibben and Mark Roller highlights a central question: Can a “green transition” address a crisis rooted in ecological overshoot?

If collective survival is possible, there will be a lot of work ahead. We’ll be more effective in that work if we’re unburdened by hate and recrimination, and are instead rooted in gratitude for life, nature, and community.

From the occupied West Bank, Farah, Noah and Calico examine how Israel uses water to dispossess Palestinians of their lands and livelihood – and how they are resisting

The post Water apartheid and green colonialism appeared first on Red Pepper.

dikenal berkat tampilan visual yang menonjolkan nuansa malam penuh cahaya serta efek animasi yang dirancang untuk menciptakan pengalaman bermain yang menarik. Meskipun demikian, setiap pemain tetap perlu memahami bahwa permainan semacam ini pada dasarnya merupakan bentuk hiburan yang mengandung unsur peluang, sehingga hasil yang diperoleh tidak dapat dipastikan.

Bright Night menawarkan konsep permainan yang sederhana sehingga mudah dipahami oleh pemain baru. Tata letak simbol, kombinasi warna, dan efek suara dirancang untuk memberikan pengalaman yang nyaman selama permainan berlangsung. Pendekatan tersebut menjadi salah satu alasan mengapa banyak orang tertarik mencoba permainan ini. Namun, pemahaman terhadap mekanisme permainan tetap menjadi langkah awal yang penting sebelum memutuskan untuk bermain.

Dari sudut pandang edukatif, pemain sebaiknya mempelajari setiap fitur yang tersedia. Informasi mengenai aturan permainan, nilai simbol, hingga fitur bonus biasanya telah disediakan oleh pengembang. Membaca panduan tersebut dapat membantu pemain memahami cara kerja permainan secara menyeluruh. Langkah sederhana ini juga mengurangi kesalahpahaman ketika permainan sedang berlangsung dan membuat pengalaman bermain menjadi lebih terarah.

Istilah “kemenangan” dalam Bright Night sering kali menjadi daya tarik utama. Akan tetapi, penting untuk dipahami bahwa kemenangan berasal dari sistem peluang yang telah ditentukan oleh mekanisme permainan. Tidak ada strategi yang mampu menjamin hasil tertentu pada setiap putaran. Oleh sebab itu, pemain perlu memandang setiap sesi permainan sebagai aktivitas hiburan, bukan sebagai cara memperoleh keuntungan yang pasti.

Prinsip bermain secara bertanggung jawab menjadi bagian penting dalam menikmati permainan digital. Pemain dianjurkan menetapkan batas waktu dan anggaran sebelum mulai bermain. Dengan cara tersebut, aktivitas bermain tetap berada dalam kendali dan tidak mengganggu kebutuhan sehari-hari. Sikap disiplin juga membantu pemain menjaga keseimbangan antara hiburan, pekerjaan, maupun kehidupan sosial.

Selain itu, memahami istilah seperti volatilitas, fitur bonus, atau persentase pengembalian kepada pemain (Return to Player/RTP) dapat menambah wawasan mengenai karakteristik permainan. Pengetahuan tersebut tidak menjamin kemenangan, tetapi membantu pemain memahami bagaimana sebuah permainan dirancang. Semakin baik pemahaman terhadap mekanisme permainan, semakin realistis pula harapan yang dimiliki selama bermain.

Pada akhirnya, sensasi yang ditawarkan Bright Night berasal dari perpaduan desain visual, fitur permainan, dan unsur hiburan yang dikemas secara menarik. Pengalaman tersebut akan terasa lebih bermakna apabila pemain memahami cara kerja permainan sekaligus menyadari adanya unsur peluang di dalamnya. Dengan pengetahuan yang memadai serta sikap bermain yang bertanggung jawab, Bright Night dapat dinikmati sebagai sarana hiburan digital yang tetap mengedepankan kesadaran, kendali diri, dan pemahaman yang baik terhadap mekanisme permainan.

Sea into the future Channel Comment brendan 31st July 2026 Teaser Media

Streetsblog is, officially, dubious on autonomous vehicles because our coverage focuses on all of the deleterious effects of cars on cities, not just the safety effect. As a media outlet devoted to presenting news about how to reduce car dependence, we are skeptical that AVs will move the needle on that. But our recent coverage has spurred many AV boosters to demand the space to make their arguments. Today, we present one such piece.

Roughly two New Yorkers die in traffic crashes every three days. The state’s own comptroller traced most of those deaths to the same preventable causes: speeding, distraction, impairment. So when a technology promises to take human error out of the driver’s seat and save lives, New Yorkers should pay attention.

Autonomous vehicles have incredible potential to save lives and prevent injuries. Waymo’s own safety data shows a remarkable record. Compared to a human driver over the same distance and environment, Waymo’s autonomous vehicles had 94-percent fewer serious injury crashes, 93-percent fewer pedestrian crashes with injuries, and 82-percent fewer injury-causing crashes.

Critics often point to a recent Hunter College analysis to argue autonomous vehicles are less safe than advertised. But even the study’s lead author acknowledged the limits of the evidence, saying Waymo is like “a rookie hitter who goes two for five in his first game and claims to be a .400 hitter.”

Meanwhile, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an independent group with no stake in the outcome, once again found that autonomous vehicles were far safer than human drivers: 68 percent fewer police-reported crashes, 85 percent fewer single-vehicle crashes, and 81 percent fewer injury crashes.

Even if you believe the evidence on autonomous vehicles is mixed – which it is not – should embrace a measured rollout built around pilot programs, public reporting, and clear safety benchmarks.

A responsible autonomous vehicle policy for New York would be to target the exact risk of distracted, drowsy, and impaired driving.

The case for autonomous vehicles is also a mobility one. Residents of transit deserts, seniors, people with disabilities, and overnight shift workers could all gain from transit options that don’t depend on owning a car or staying awake to drive. A Chamber of Progress poll shows that residents believe AVs can benefit seniors and residents with disabilities. In addition, AV deployment is already creating manufacturing, maintenance, and fleet-operations jobs, most paying above the national median wage and requiring no college degree. We should embrace this shift, not slam the brakes.

New York is right now in a pause after allowing Waymo’s testing permit to expire in March. Two pilot programs — a supervised AV program on New York City streets with trained safety drivers and a cold-weather test upstate in Buffalo — should not be one-offs. City Hall, the Taxi and Limousine Commission, and the New York City Department of Transportation should expand the city pilot with more vehicles, a longer timeline, and public reporting to let the data speak for itself. State legislators should also turn evidence from these pilot programs into a statewide framework for testing, insuring, and deploying AVs, which would replace the patchwork of waivers currently in place.

New York already has the mechanisms in place to measure safety, mobility, and the economic benefits of AVs. Let’s not let skewed studies halt a technology that saves lives.

• The Trump administration’s designation of bike lanes as woke is drawing a lot of ridicule from the likes of Rolling Stone (paywall), which calls Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s war on whatever he considers DEI “monumentally stupid.” Despite calling bike projects “hostile to motor vehicles” (The Guardian), the U.S. DOT’s own data — now scrubbed from its website — says bike lanes reduce crashes by 53%, including both cars and bikes (Fast Company).
• States are falling further and further behind on road maintenance, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. (Governing)
• Uber is investing $1.2 billion in electric automaker Rivian and could purchase up to 40,000 robotaxis. (Motley Fool)
• The D.C. Metro has reached an agreement with the Washington, D.C. government to fund transit improvements around the new Commanders football stadium. (ABC 7)
• A day after the head of the Maryland Transit Administration stepped down, Gov. Wes Moore appointed a former state delegate to replace her. (Maryland Matters)
• Work is advancing on Amtrak’s replacement of a 150-year-old Baltimore rail tunnel. (Smart Cities Dive)
• MIlwaukee’s Bublr Bikes opened a new lakefront bikeshare station. (WTMJ)
• Philadelphia is expanding its automated speed camera program. (NBC 10)
• The public is mostly opposed to an Asheville proposal to add frequency to busy bus routes while cutting those with low ridership. (Mountain XPress)
• Wannabe architect-in-chief Donald Trump is overseeing plans to renovate Dulles Airport, including a massive 32,000-space parking garage. (Politico)

Xochill es miembro del equipo de facilitación del TGA, que forma parte de Crianza Mutua México () y del grupo de trabajo de CLACSO «Cuerpos, territorios, resistencias». Ha vivido, trabajado y luchado en el sur de México durante más de cuatro décadas y, en las últimas tres, ha formado parte de redes transnacionales de alterglobalización.CMM

Informe de los grupos temáticos y de trabajo Grupo temático sobre Democracia Radical El Grupo temático sobre democracia radical ha estado impulsando varias líneas de trabajo interrelacionadas, desarrollando tanto la profundidad conceptual como las vías organizativas.MASSAMASSAMASSA

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