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I was originally told to speak on the theme of “reform vs. revolution” for this conference. So my talk will be based on this topic, which I hope also provides a structure for understanding how critical theory can meaningfully inform one’s own activism. When I heard the theme, my instinct was to return to a text I first read as a newly radicalized undergraduate here: Rosa Luxemburg’s classic text, Reform or Revolution. I want to kick us off today with a few lines from Luxemburg responding to this theme. She writes:

It is contrary to history to represent work for reforms as a long-drawn out revolution and revolution as a condensed series of reforms. A social transformation and a legislative reform do not differ according to their duration but according to their content … people who pronounce themselves in favor of the method of legislative reform in place and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer, and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal. Instead of taking a stand for the establishment of a new society, they take a stand for surface modifications of the old society.

Luxemburg had quite a clear vision of what this new society would be: a socialist system, where society is democratically and collectively managed, realizable only through the seizure of political power by the working classes.

This is a positive and comprehensive vision of politics. By positive, I don’t simply mean good vibes, and by comprehensive, I don’t simply mean aspiring to have the blueprints for solving all of the world’s problems. I mean understanding how you define and give content to the alternative system you are fighting for, and how to get there. This concrete political horizon allows Luxembourg to distinguish revolution from reform. According to Luxemburg, the difference between revolution and reform isn’t merely a quantitative one—as if there were a universal yardstick to determine which reform is revolutionary or not, or as if winning a certain number of reforms determined how revolutionary you are. Instead, Luxemburg tells us, it’s a qualitative difference: revolutionary politics will include struggles for reforms of some kind, but those reforms will always be part of a larger strategy to replace the capitalist system with a concrete political alternative in the form of socialist governance, rather than simply winning reforms without a larger end goal in mind.

In school, we learn many different ways to tear things down, to critique, to dismantle. This is the bread and butter of critical theory, and this method allows us to begin making sense of the world. This is an essential starting point for any radical politics. But what actually is the content of the political alternative we want, and how do we fight for it? Those of you with experience navigating the challenges of forming and running any new organizational space, whether it’s figuring out a decision-making process for a Palestine solidarity encampment or setting ground rules for a union’s core committee, may begin to grasp the difficulty. These questions are all the more urgent now as we consider what world we want beyond one consumed by authoritarianism and empire. They are also all the more urgent because many of you are confronted with the question of life after college, and have to make some concrete decisions about what to do now. Luxemburg’s ideas of revolution, socialism, and class conflict may seem too grandiose and abstract to be immediately relevant to the question of what to do after college. But I want to argue today not only that these ideas are relevant, but also that Luxemburg’s Marxism is one example of how a critical framework and method can cohere the different threads of life.

Considering life after college, let alone pursuing social justice work, can be daunting. Most of you will have to balance your ideals with pressing practical matters, namely, finding a job and paying your bills. Those of you who are baristas for the school cafe,  RAs, tutors, office assistants, or prospective student tour guides are already getting a taste of this balancing act. Unless you go on to work for some social justice organization, like a union or nonprofit, you won’t have the time to do all the political and organizing work that has animated you in these few years. And even if you work for a social justice organization, the chances are your organizing will inevitably be narrower, more constrained by the interests of external entities that fund you (through grants and foundations), and likely filtered through the more limited terrain of electoralism. Many of these organizations are tied to the very state you want to confront. There is the added pressure of organizing being tied to your source of income. An old Polish Marxist, Isaac Deutscher, once told a room full of college students during the sixties that it is quite easy to be radical at school. He said school is like a bus. You hop on for a few years and get off. You are unattached, like kites in the sky, he says, “without any ropes tying [you] to the earth. Very soon you will feel the rope.” Student movements have played a monumental role in history in pushing for social change, but Deutscher argued that student activism ultimately has an unstable role in politics because it’s not fully “anchored in the realities of social life.”

For Luxemburg, life under capitalism in general is also unstable. It is a system constantly teetering on the edge of collapse, one that sacrifices people to the bonfire of profit before repeating the cycle to re-stabilize itself.

For Luxemburg, life under capitalism in general is also unstable. It is a system constantly teetering on the edge of collapse, one that sacrifices people to the bonfire of profit before repeating the cycle to re-stabilize itself. Whether we like it or not, we keep this system running when we work. And we have to do this because we, as the working class, must participate in it to survive, and our livelihoods and working conditions are mostly subject to the whims of our employers. Luxemburg’s good news is that this wretched system has also laid the foundation for a better world. Capitalism, by thrusting most of us into some shared conditions of exploitation, whether you work for a nonprofit, a cafe, a school, a factory, or remotely for a corporate office, gives us the experience of collectively running something together. From that experience, we can practice exercising collective power to change our conditions through unions and other movements. This can become the basis for running a society together, collectively and democratically.

After graduation, most of you will join the ranks of this working class. According to Luxemburg, because of this class position, you can be part of a greater struggle for a different way of organizing society. The daily discontent and routines you will register at work, which will occupy most of your waking hours, can become the very seeds of a revolutionary politics grounded in the reality of social life, not a distraction from it. Whether you consciously work to organize this class toward Luxemburg’s vision of revolution, this class will continue to play a pivotal role in the development of history, helping to determine the state of capitalism, whether in influencing systemic cycles of stability and crisis or in ending these cycles.

Luxemburg’s endorsement of revolutionary politics builds on this specific theory of historical development. History is characterized by the contest for political power between different classes, and revolutions have always been how this contest has played out. Revolutions are simply a fact of history. Any kind of legislative reform, she argues, is limited by the political framework of the regime we live under, whose constitution itself is a product of some kind of revolution. Her theory of revolution rests on the perspective that the system we live in is riddled with contradictions that constantly threaten it, and that these cannot be resolved simply by the gradual accumulation of legislative reforms. But at the same time, fighting for reforms has an important place in social movements, as it provides us with avenues to gather and count our forces, and build our confidence through the practical experience of collective struggle.

And so, revolution is not opposed to reform. It is opposed to reformism, which, at its core, is an aimless collection of reforms that requires no political alternative to the current order that revolution demands. Reformism is organizing for its own sake, with the ultimate goal of simply making things less bad than they are. Instead, Luxemburg directs us to situate our activism in a larger political project and strategy. This vision and strategy will nearly always include fighting for some kind of reform, whether it’s fighting for a wage increase or pushing the city council to change a policy, in the context of a larger political strategy and project, rooted in the perspective that the system is fundamentally unstable and unreformable. Reforms can be opportunities for movements to practice confronting power directly. But the trap of reformism is the illusion that reforms can ultimately offset the system’s underlying instabilities. History teaches us two truths that we must reckon with. On the one hand, any accumulation of reforms will eventually trigger some violent reaction by the state against movements. On the other hand, there are few, if any, revolutionary movements that have ever won power without engaging in the slow grind and spadework of building their forces by fighting for certain reforms. We need a critical method that can orient us toward a political strategy that synthesizes these two contradictory truths. Luxemburg’s outlook doesn’t offer a one-size-fits-all answer for what to do next, but it provides a critical framework for asking the right questions.

Luxemburg’s Marxist perspective yields evergreen questions that are salient at every stage of our political life. What is the state of capitalism at any given moment? Is the capitalist system finding a way to stabilize itself once again, or is it in another era of crisis and stagnation? In any case, be it stability or crisis, how does that limit and open certain political possibilities? What is the state of the working class and other communities marginalized by capitalism, which must be sufficiently organized in order to fight capitalism? How are specific conditions—the strength or weakness of capitalism, or of the working class—a product of a whole host of historical reasons? Are working-class movements waging offensive struggles and building power against capital, or are they mostly fighting defensive battles, struggling to protect existing rights under threat? Most relevant, what is the best role for you at any given moment to effectively change social conditions around you as they exist? How does your analysis of world conditions inform how you situate your organizing work in the broader fight against the system?

What is the best role for you at any given moment to effectively change social conditions around you as they exist? How does your analysis of world conditions inform how you situate your organizing work in the broader fight against the system?

I’ve been speaking quite abstractly up to this point, so I’ll use my own experience as one example of what this journey can look like. When I was a student here, I was overwhelmed by everything I read in and out of class. I read and wrote papers on all kinds of random topics, just as I became radicalized to the left as Trump won his first electoral campaign. But there was little direction connecting these two aspects, my reading and organizing. I just read anything that interested me, and organized where I felt I had the most use. I joined a socialist group because I considered myself a socialist. I became active in immigrant justice spaces because I am an immigrant. Later, I became active in tenant organizing in Chinatown, because I spoke Cantonese, and that ability was useful there. I engaged in international solidarity work when mass protests erupted in Hong Kong, because that’s where I’m from.

I don’t think there was anything wrong with doing any of this then. But one day, a political mentor of mine asked me, how do you determine where and what you spend time and resources on in your political life? I said: I don’t know, just wherever I can be useful, whatever I’m interested in? He reminded me that engaging in politics as a Marxist is not just about my skills or interests. It’s also about how I recognize the objective conditions of the world at any given moment, and, from that analysis, figure out the most pressing political questions and tasks that need to be worked on. Then, consider how my skills and interests can contribute to these. This doesn’t mean just aimlessly hopping from one popular movement to another, but rather analyzing how different events and movements relate to one another, and how they reveal an internal logic in how the system functions as a whole. This is not a mere academic exercise, but a way to seriously make sense of our material conditions in order to change them.

For example, I understand the capitalist system today as being in a state of crisis. This is related to the capitalist class struggling to maintain the same rate of profit, unlike, say, the 1990s when neoliberalism appeared stable. On a global level, this manifests as competition and violent rivalry among imperialist and capitalist powers, which have also renewed wars of national oppression, like the US and Israel’s neocolonial wars against Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran. This free rein of imperialist powers is only possible because of the scaling back of social reforms won by working-class movements decades ago and the overall decline of their power. Indeed, working people are resisting these forms of violence—Palestinians’ defensive war against Israeli settler-colonialism, everyday Americans forming rapid response groups to defend against ICE, or workers forming unions to defend their workplace rights. But this resistance is still too weak and/or isolated to mount a united, offensive fight against the system as a whole. The working class is not yet a clearly articulated force in these movements.

There are historical reasons for this. We can explain why many of us feel powerless in stopping our government’s imperialist militarism. It relates to the decades of neoliberalism that have crushed working-class institutions and movements everywhere that had once fought against capital and empire with decisive power. It relates to how the state has insulated foreign policy, corporate power, among other spheres of politics, from democratic oversight, a reactionary process that also took years.

This analysis informs my life choices. It helps me determine what to read (or reread), what organizing spaces to be in, and how to divide my time between work, politics, and leisure. I’m active in my union because I believe that building collective power at work is foundational to the larger task of rebuilding working-class power to effectively fight capitalism. I continue to organize tenants in Chinatown because I believe the tenant movement is key to strengthening the LA Left. It is also one of the few sites today where I believe the Left can begin to rebuild some presence in the immigrant Chinese working class. To better understand the state of global capitalism and geopolitical flashpoints, I read about political economy, finance, and the histories of other countries. Last and most importantly, my socialist politics ties all of these threads together. This means I believe that social movements, which are, by definition, politically eclectic and limited in scope, are not sufficient to help us win a better world. To win a socialist system, we need socialist organization that can organize the best revolutionaries from these movements toward a definite political program. We must contest power on the basis of this program to win the world we want. I hope to play a part in continuing the work of people like Luxemburg in fighting for a socialist system, so I remain in a socialist organization.

To win a socialist system, we need socialist organization that can organize the best revolutionaries from these movements toward a definite political program.

My key question for everyone today is what would it look like for you to situate your social justice work within a larger critical structure and method, to articulate a positive vision of a political alternative to replace what we have today? Yours may be different from mine. But what I want to leave you all with is a definition of revolution that is about not just imagining, but also fleshing out, developing, and fighting for a positive vision of politics. This is not just a matter of subjective will, as in simply the desire and drive to make revolution. Elsewhere in her book, Luxemburg faults those who neatly separate pursuing reforms as “action of intelligence” from pursuing revolution as “action of feeling.” Revolutionary politics is the union of intelligence and feeling. It is grounded in a bold alternative to existing politics and guided by a rational strategy for achieving that alternative and realizing its ultimate goals. It helps us bridge critical theory with social justice by framing our theory and activism within the larger drama of history. It allows us to locate ourselves in a long historical lineage of class struggle that precedes and will succeed us, with other revolutionaries struggling for the same world.

Featured Image credit: Plakat; modified by Tempest

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The post Revolutionary Futures appeared first on Tempest.

Roseville, Minn. (July 28, 2026) — Earlier this month, Audubon Upper Mississippi River was awarded $840,000 from the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund to launch the Adopt-a-Flyway...

PFAS may be in your kid’s favorite plush animal – what parents need to know Monica Amarelo July 28, 2026

Give a beloved teddy bear or other stuffed creature to a baby or toddler and they might try to put it in their mouth. A new study suggests that this typical behavior could expose them to the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS used in making the toys.

Levels of the most notorious forever chemicals PFOA and PFOS – linked to cancer and other serious health harms – in stuffed animals were below European health guidelines, the study found. But 100% of the toys tested released detectable levels of short-chain “replacement” chemicals, specifically perfluorohexanoic acid, or PFHxA.

PFAS can migrate from stuffed toys and into a child’s mouth during normal play. The study, by Swiss researchers, raises concerns about the next generation of chemicals quietly replacing “legacy” PFAS like PFOA and PFOS, which are banned from children’s products. 

The study was published recently in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology. 

Whack-a-mole regulatory gap

Researchers tested 18 stuffed toys marketed for infants and toddlers. To measure how chemicals leach into the artificial saliva used in the study, the scientists simulated the kind of prolonged mouthing and chewing babies do naturally when playing with plushies.   

As federal and state regulators banned older PFAS compounds like PFOA and PFOS, manufacturers pivoted to making products using short-chain alternative forever chemicals. But because these replacement chemicals are often more water-soluble and mobile, they can easily migrate into a small child’s saliva when the stuffed toy is chewed or sucked on, the study found.

While a small study – just 18 toys – cannot represent every product on the market, the research highlights a persistent regulatory loophole: chemical companies replacing one unsafe compound with another substance that has received far less scrutiny. This whack-a-mole approach to tackling PFAS means current policies don’t adequately cover the chemicals replacing PFAS in stuffed animals. 

It doesn’t mean every plushie in your home is a hazard. But the fact that short-chain replacements were found in each toy is a concern. Washing toys before play can help, as can shopping for stuffed animals made from natural fibers and avoiding those labeled “stain resistant.”

And the study further underscores the need to regulate PFAS as a class rather than one by one, the current approach. 

Health risks of PFAS exposure

PFAS exposure and health risks start before birth. They’re toxic at extremely low levels and known as forever chemicals because they don’t break down in the environment and can build up in the body. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has detected PFAS in the blood of 99% of Americans, including newborn babies.

PFAS readily cross the placenta and have been detected in umbilical cord blood, confirming that the developing fetus faces direct prenatal exposure. 

Detections of PFAS in the infant formula millions of American babies depend on as their sole source of nutrition means the exposure did not begin at the first feeding. For many infants, it has already been accumulating for months.

A recent study also links prenatal PFAS exposure to premature birth, low birth weight and infant mortality. It can also cause thyroid disruption, harm to the male reproductive system, pregnancy-induced high blood pressure, reduced fertility and shorter duration of breastfeeding. 

The impact on infants and toddlers is especially pronounced. Babies are not small adults when it comes to chemical exposure – they are categorically more vulnerable.

Does washing help?

For years, standard advice for parents was simple: Throw new plush toys in the washing machine before handing them to a child.

Washing helps for some of the PFAS that are well-linked to harm.

In the study, washing reduced detected amounts of the forever chemicals PFHxA and PFOS by 95% to 100% in most toys. While a simulated water rinse lowered overall chemical migration in most toys, it actually increased the release of certain short-chain chemicals in a subset of products. 

For the forever chemical PFBA, washing increased migration in some toys. Researchers suspect mechanical agitation during washing may break down synthetic coatings or loosen fibers, making these chemicals more accessible on the fabric's surface.

What else parents and caregivers can do

Parents shouldn’t need a degree in toxicology to buy a safe stuffed animal.

While parents cannot shop their way out of a systemic chemical regulation problem, there are small, practical steps that can help minimize exposure during critical developmental windows: 

• Skip “stain-resistant” or “easy clean” claims. Avoid plush items, nap mats, or baby gear marketed as “spill-proof,” “stain-resistant” or “easy-clean.” These marketing labels are often red flags for fluorinated treatments and a common way PFAS gets intentionally added to textiles.
• Opt for untreated, natural fibers. Choose plush toys made from certified organic cotton or wool, rather than synthetic materials, which are far more likely to feature stain- or water-repellent chemical treatments.
• Swap teethers. During peak mouthing phases, offer teethers made from 100% natural rubber, untreated wood or solid organic cotton, instead of synthetic plush toys.
• Tackle household dust: Since textile coatings break down over time, chemicals migrate into household dust where infants crawl and play. Regular vacuuming with a HEPA filter and damp-mopping floors helps reduce household dust that may contain PFAS. 

Areas of Focus Household & Consumer Products Family Health Children’s Health Toxic Chemicals PFAS Chemicals ‘Forever chemical’ replacements in toys also prompt safety questions Authors Monica Amarelo July 29, 2026

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Grosvenor Arch, Grand Staircase-Escalante. Photo by Tim Peterson.

Tim Peterson

Today is World Nature Conservation Day, which is dedicated to protecting Mother Earth and ensuring a sustainable future. 

Here at Native Organizers Alliance, we work in partnership with Tribes and Native leaders to protect sacred and ancestral lands and waters, including these national monuments that are currently under threat: Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah, Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, and Pipestone Monument in Minnesota. 

Corporate polluters and government agencies are endangering these sacred places, along with nearby communities and people living downstream. Our communities are on the move against oil and gas sales, fossil fuel pipelines, and toxic mining.

Together, we’ve helped secure crucial Tribal-federal co-stewardship agreements, including plans for sustainable land, energy, and water management for generations to come. 

But some of those agreements — and the national monuments they protect — are currently under attack. 

Working with Tribes and Inter-Tribal Coalitions protecting these lands, we’re defending their inherent right to co-manage their ancestral lands and waters as their ancestors did — living in balance with the natural world. 

Tribes have played a big role in revitalizing the buffalo population of the U.S. They are vital to Indigenous identity, spirituality, and creation stories. Buffalo are also better for prairie ecosystems and land conservation than cattle, but the Bureau of Land Management is trying to deny our buffalo populations access to federal lands. 

We will keep supporting the movement to protect Mother Earth, all beings who depend on her, and Indigenous peoples’ rights and cultures. Strengthening Tribal sovereignty is a major pathway to effectively conserve natural resources and mitigate the impact of climate change.

Hawwih (thank you) for helping to defend Mother Earth’s sacred lands and waters, and all beings that depend on them. 

Together, we can keep building a powerful movement to re-Indigenize public lands and our society, including restoring our relationships with — and responsibilities to — Mother Earth and all living beings. 

The post On World Nature Conservation Day, We Protect Mother Earth appeared first on Native Organizers Alliance.

The Kaska Nation has spent years developing a vision for a proposed Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA) in Northwest British Columbia called Dene K’éh Kusān, which means Always Will Be...

As Congressional leaders prepare to negotiate a final pipeline safety reauthorization package, more than 75 national, state and local organizations urged Congressional leaders to reject any legislation that fails to meaningfully protect communities from the rapid expansion of carbon dioxide pipelines. The groups warn that the current proposal leaves in place significant safety gaps unaddressed despite years of warnings following a 2020 pipeline rupture in Satartia, Mississippi. The pipeline buildout is backed by what the U.S. Treasury estimates will be nearly $70 billion in industry tax credits authorized in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that passed last year.

While Congress is considering legislation in the name of pipeline safety, the coalition points out the current legislation fails to establish minimum protections for communities and first responders that are necessary before the industry is allowed to build tens of thousands of miles of new carbon dioxide pipelines. The letter also points out that the administration is actively weakening existing pipeline safety oversight and enforcement, making all pipelines less safe.

The letter comes as Congressional leaders must reconcile differing pipeline safety bills that passed through House and Senate Committees, and the White House is cutting oversight and enforcement for pipeline safety across the board.

“Congress is telling communities to shoulder all the health and safety risks while pipeline companies are making off with billions in taxpayer dollars. Communities deserve more than empty promises about stronger rules at some point in the future. If lawmakers are serious about pipeline safety, they should stop drafting bills to benefit the pipeline companies and start drafting them for people who have to live with the consequences of these dangerous projects,” said Jim Walsh, Policy Director, Food & Water Watch.

"There’s no pipeline safety when the regulations are drafted by the oil and gas industry. For decades, fossil-fuel infrastructure including pipelines have dictated lifespans across Black, Brown, Indigenous, and low-income neighborhoods, exposing these communities to higher rates of disease and early mortality. As the Trump Administration dismantles more and more safeguards, we will see even more chronic illnesses and dangerous pipeline disasters that harm our neighbors and families. Congress must pass comprehensive pipeline safety standards that actually safeguard people’s lives and livelihoods — not cut corners for industry profit," said Mar Zepeda, Legislative Director at Climate Justice Alliance.

“Landowners should not be criminalized for protecting their private property rights,” said Emma Schmit, Bold's Pipeline Fighters Organizing Director. “Farmers who have been waiting on federal regulations for years now should not be forced to accept potentially deadly CO2 pipelines on their farms through eminent domain. Without any adequate federal rules, the industry is plowing forward seeking state authorizations for dangerously unregulated projects while keeping the public in the dark with regard to the full scope of potential risks.”

This article Indigenous women already have the climate solutions was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

“I didn’t enter activism through theory,” explained activist Hillary Semeyan Lenantoiye in an email. “I entered through lived experience.”  

When Lenantoiye was growing up in northern Kenya’s Samburu County, the rain became less and less frequent. The river ran dry and the livestock, the lifeblood of her Indigenous pastoralist community, shrunk to bone. For the Samburu, cycles of drought, which have intensified with climate change, drive food scarcity and foster conflict and violence as people struggle with fewer economic resources. Families are forced to migrate, girls drop out of school due to household duties and the pressure to marry early, and women, who walk longer and longer distances for water and firewood, bear the weight of an entire family’s survival.

Over the years, Lenantoiye realized that while Indigenous peoples were often researched, spoken of and targeted by climate mitigation programs, they were not included in sharing possible solutions or accessing resources to support those solutions. This lack of meaningful inclusion led Lenantoiye to found the Inclusive Culture Action Network, or ICAN, — a Samburu-led climate and human rights organization with an emphasis on women, youth and traditional Indigenous knowledge. 

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“Indigenous communities already have the solutions,” she wrote in an email to Waging Nonviolence. “They just need to be trusted, empowered and included.”

In 2025, Lenantoiye joined the Nobel Women’s Initiative’s Sister-to-Sister Young Feminist Leadership Program. Through the initiative, which fosters solidarity and support among emerging feminist leaders focused on peace-building, human rights and climate justice, Lenantoiye has been connected with young leaders from around the world, including Karen Bailón, an Ecuadorian climate and gender justice activist and Daniela Alba, an Indigenous activist originally from Bogotá, Colombia. Though each of the three comes from a unique background, they agree on a central principle: the importance of empowering women, youth and Indigenous peoples in climate action and mitigation efforts both locally and internationally. 

On centering intergenerational impact and equity

Karen Bailón came to climate activism via feminism. 

Raised by a single mother in Ecuador’s Manabí Province, where female-headed households are common, Bailón saw the challenges women faced and became involved in spaces dedicated to empowering young women. It wasn’t until college, she wrote in an email, that studying of environmental defenders — and the violence often perpetuated against them — revealed how protecting nature and protecting people are one and the same struggle. 

“It was through that understanding that gender and climate became inseparable for me,” she wrote. “Especially as Indigenous women are disproportionately affected by both.”

Previous Coverage

Ecuador voted to stop drilling in the Amazon — a year later they are still trying to kick the oil industry out

In particular, she cites the story of Indigenous environmental defender, Alicia Cahuiya, founder and president of the Association of Waorani Women of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Despite threats, Cahuiya not only helped Waorani women have a bigger stake in decision making but led a resistance against oil exploration and extraction in Yasuní — one of the world’s most biodiverse regions. At the center of this resistance, Bailón describes, has been Cahuiya’s journey to “recognizing herself as a political subject with the right to demand water, food, education and a living forest for her children.” 

One thing Bailón has taken from Ecuador’s Indigenous communities is the importance of centering intergenerational conversation — something she has found lacking in larger forums around climate solutions. 

In 2024, when Bailón attended the sixteenth Convention on Biological Diversity as a delegate from Latin America and the Caribbean, she realized that the increasing participation of youth in the climate justice movement hadn’t translated into a real voice at the international level. Despite references to “intergenerational equity” in official documents, young people, much like women and Indigenous peoples, continued to be excluded from spaces where binding decisions are made. 

Ecuadoran youth climate activist Karen Bailón attends the Convention on Biological Diversity as a delegate.

“Young people are not mere observers,” she wrote. “We are the generation that will live with the consequences of today’s decisions.”

This understanding led Bailón to begin working with GreenCheck, a youth-led nonprofit that redistributes resources to community-led climate initiatives around the world. Through her work, Bailón has connected and co-created climate solutions with more than 200 young people across climate-impacted Global South communities. It is a role she finds “deeply meaningful,” as it helps those closest to the climate crisis to lead the response.  

“What we call ‘climate solutions’ in the realm of international politics often already exists, in practice, within Indigenous and local communities,” Bailón wrote. “They simply haven’t been recognized.” 

On resisting tokenism

For Daniela Alba, another young leader in the Nobel Women’s Initiative’s Sister-to-Sister Young Feminist Leadership Program, climate justice is grounded in her upbringing in Bogotá, Colombia, and in the teachings of her Indigenous Muisca grandmother and the cosmology of her people. For the Muisca, she explained, Mother Earth and Bachué, the creator of water, are the first spirits you encounter in life. 

“It is not then that the land belongs to us,” she said. “It is that we belong to her.” 

As an Indigenous woman and a survivor of gender-based violence and forced displacement, Alba’s vision of climate justice has not only been shaped by indigeneity and ancestral knowledge but also the “deeply wrapped and intertwined” scars of both personal trauma and colonial violence, she said. It is these multiple truths, often contradictory to Western binary thinking, that not only underpin her activism but have led to her work as the advocacy coordinator for Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat, a Rome-based Jesuit organization. 

Tracing the Roman Catholic Church’s long and brutal history of violence, capitalism and colonization, Alba described her focus on the faith-based sector as a step toward reconciliation for historical and institutional acts of violence undertaken with so-called good intentions.

“The harm that causes reverberates throughout many, many centuries,” she said. “So I honor the sacrifices my ancestors made so someone like myself, against all odds, could exist in these spaces.”

But institutional harms, Alba noted, persist today.

In November 2025, Alba attended the 12-day COP30 conference in Belém, Brazil — the first such climate conference in the Amazon. Outside the “blue zone,” where official negotiations take place, she witnessed how despite peaceful protests, Indigenous peoples were denied both entry and dialogue with Brazil’s President and were instead barred by security and military personnel. Meanwhile, during the events themselves, Alba felt there was a level of tokenism she described as “out of hand.”

Alba has seen this contradiction across multiple conferences, organizations and institutions. The voices of Indigenous peoples, women and other marginalized groups are often promoted for press briefings before being “tossed to the side,” she said. Given her relative access to a powerful institution, Alba has worked to counter this erasure by centering the voices of local communities in her work as well as her approach to climate justice. 

“My duty is not to speak for them,” she said. “But to listen to their voices and from that, create momentum within faith-based organizations at an international level.”

Indigenous ecofeminist activist Daniela Alba (center) stands with leaders of the Nobel Women’s Initiative at the Rooted and Rising Convening in Nairobi.

At COP30, against the backdrop of state violence and marginalization, when many people, Alba said, were “sick and tired” of witnessing the same thing happen again and again. Nature, she felt, had other plans. In the Amazon, and in Belém, in particular, the rain often fell with such intensity that delegates could barely hear one another above the roar. As Alba sat on a panel, the group debating whether to postpone the event, she explained that she would cede her time to listening to the Earth.

“There’s nothing I can tell you that she won’t,” she said. “But do you know how to listen?”

On Indigenous knowledge for contemporary climate solutions

Five years ago, when Lenantoiye founded her organization, ICAN, she knew the best approach to climate action in Samburu County would be community-led, practical and grounded in response to the realities of pastoralist communities. Since then, ICAN programs have included promoting sustainable rangeland management through Indigenous grazing systems, using local knowledge of weather patterns to foster climate awareness, and facilitating more than 100 intergenerational community dialogues. 

“Rather than replacing traditional systems, we build on them,” Lenantoiye wrote,  “integrating Indigenous knowledge with modern climate solutions to create approaches that are both culturally relevant and sustainable.”

Hilary Lenantoiye (center) stands with Samburu participants in her climate action and empowerment organization, ICAN.

Lenantoiye’s work has also focused extensively on Samburu women.

Across the region and globally, drought, conflict and resource scarcity not only impact women economically but can increase their risk of gender-based violence. A 2018 study, for example, found that during a heat wave, the risk of intimate partner femicide can rise by as much as 40 percent. Similarly, in drought-stricken Samburu county, women face increased risk of violence as limited resources place additional stress on families, Lenantoiye said.

Addressing environmental challenges without considering gender dynamics only risks reinforcing existing inequalities, Lenantoiye wrote. Within the Samburu community, ICAN has supported women, who are often excluded from decisions about land and resources, to organize savings groups and start small businesses.

“I have witnessed once invisible women and youth now speaking up about land, livelihoods and climate solutions,” Lenantoiye wrote. “The resilience and determination of young girls in my community continues to inspire me.”

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For Lenantoiye, the same goes for Samburu youth. 

Much like women, young people bear many of the consequences of climate change and extreme weather. Boys guarding livestock are often placed on the frontlines of resource violence while girls, due to decreased food and income, are at higher risk of child marriage. This increased vulnerability prompted Lenantoiye to involve youth in tree planting, rangeland restoration and cultural storytelling. 

To date, ICAN has mobilized over 2,000 youth on climate action, governance, culture and socioeconomic empowerment. These projects have included establishing high school environmental peace clubs, offering community radio training opportunities, and facilitating intercultural and intergenerational forums focused on climate adaptation and peacebuilding. Involvement in local climate action, Lenantoiye believes, not only gives young people a voice in their community, but helps shape a different kind of climate leadership. 

“When women and youth are given space, knowledge and opportunities, they don’t just adapt,” she said. “They lead transformation.”

This article Indigenous women already have the climate solutions was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

A new report from Oil Change International shows that the Trump administration, the fossil fuel industry, and Big Tech are creating a perfect storm for rising energy prices as nearly 80 million people in the U.S. struggle to pay their electric bills. The administration has thrown its weight behind a massive expansion of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports and AI data centers that largely run on fossil gas. Alongside Trump’s attacks on affordable renewable energy, these policies are likely to drive demand for fossil gas to unprecedented heights, raising energy bills for families in the U.S. and the countries that import U.S. LNG.

The wholesale price of U.S. fossil gas is likely to double by the late 2030s, relative to the 2020 to 2025 average, if Trump’s AI and LNG policies succeed in pushing gas demand to levels that can only be met by more expensive gas production. New production in the Appalachian and Permian Basins can meet a portion of rising demand for fossil gas, but these relatively low-cost basins cannot produce enough gas to meet the surge in demand created by Trump’s policies.

One region in particular, called the Haynesville shale play, is expected to fill the gap. Production in the Haynesville shale play in western Louisiana and eastern Texas is expected to soar by over 130%. However, because it’s more expensive to drill in the Haynesville, where gas is harder to access, this aggressive production growth would require prices to rise.

Over the past decade, the annual average wholesale gas price (Henry Hub) was $3.18 per Million British Thermal Units (MMBTU). But analysts estimate that for gas supply from the Haynesville to grow to meet surging demand, prices will have to rise above $5. Several analysts, as well as the U.S. Energy Information Administration, project that Henry Hub prices will reach annual averages of $7 by the late 2030s.

Decisionmakers in the U.S. and across the world can protect families from out-of-control energy costs by stopping the buildout of expensive gas projects, and investing in clean, affordable renewable energy instead. Transitioning to a just renewable energy system is also critical to creating good green jobs, reducing toxic fossil fuel pollution, and safeguarding communities from deadly climate disasters.

Lorne Stockman, Research Director at Oil Change International, said:

“Trump's policies are making everyone's lives more expensive while Big Tech and the fossil fuel industry cash in. Our research shows that the cost-of-living crisis will only escalate in the coming years if Congress and government agencies don’t intervene. Our leaders must stand up to Trump, phase out LNG exports, stop the reckless data center buildout, and transition the U.S. economy off of fossil fuels to make energy affordable again.”

Gas drilling in a small village in the Yorkshire Wolds would cause “unacceptable harm”, a leading campaign organisation has said.

Entrance to the proposed gas site. Photo: DrillOrDrop

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has strongly objected to the plan at Foxholes, about nine miles from Scarborough, in North Yorkshire.

CPRE said a planning application by Egdon Resources should be refused.

A detailed response by the organisation’s North and East Yorkshire branch said:

“The proposal is inappropriate in this rural location, would cause unacceptable harm to countryside character and amenity, raises unresolved environmental and water protection concerns, would generate significant traffic and operational disturbance, and is inconsistent with the direction of travel required by climate change policy and responsible rural planning.”

It added:

“The proposal would introduce an intrusive industrial hydrocarbon exploration operation into a rural landscape, with associated drilling, testing, heavy goods vehicle movements, lighting, noise, emissions, water protection risks and long-term landscape and climate implications.

It said the operation, if approved, would “erode the local character and tranquillity of the area and would be at odds with the public interest in protecting the countryside for its landscape, amenity, ecological and cultural value”.

The organisation also said the application was “contrary to both national and local planning policies, inconsistent with the protection of rural character and amenity, and fails to demonstrate that the development can be made acceptable in this sensitive location.”

The earmarked site is on the edge of the proposed Yorkshire Wolds National Landscape, a designation that would bring the same level of protection given to national parks.

Egdon proposes to drill an exploration well through the chalk drinking water aquifer and next to the Gypsey Race, a rare chalk stream. Both the aquifer and the stream are considered internationally significant.

6CPRE formal response to Foxholes gas drilling planningk application Download Key issues

CPRE said the proposal would generate some short-term construction work, possibly increase exploratory knowledge and may contribute to future gas production.

But the organisation said there were many disadvantages, including:

• climate conflict and lack of need for new gas
• harm to the Yorkshire Wolds and proposed National Landscape sensitivity zone
• unacceptable noise risk in a quiet rural area
• unresolved highway safety, congestion and emergency-routing issues
• risk to the Gypsey Race and chalk aquifer
• disturbance to residents, vulnerable road users, agriculture and tourism
• uncertainty over restoration and future production pressure

“Undermine protection of the Yorkshire Wolds”

CPRE said the site is in the setting of the proposed Yorkshire Wolds National Landscape, a distinctive region of open, rolling farmland, dry valleys, historic villages and relative tranquillity. The site is also within the 3.5km sensitivity zone of what would be a protected area.

The organisation said:

“approving hydrocarbon exploration in this landscape would set an undesirable precedent for further industrialisation of the Wolds and their rural setting”.

It said North Yorkshire Council, which will decide the planning application, should “attach ‘substantial weight’ to landscape protection, rural amenity and the conservation of countryside character”.

CPRE added:

“The council should not ignore the national significance of the landscape evidence or permit development within its immediate sensitivity zone that would prejudice, undermine or conflict with the purposes of designation”.

“Traffic risks on rural roads”

CPRE said the scheme should be refused because of the impact on local roads from a “significant number of heavy goods vehicle [HGV] and operational vehicle movements”.

It said:

“Rural roads in and around Foxholes are not designed to accommodate sustained industrial traffic without harm to local amenity, road safety, verges, agricultural access and quiet enjoyment of the countryside.

Increased HGV traffic would add noise, vibration, emissions, perceived danger for residents, walkers, cyclists, horse riders and other road users, the organisation said.

It added:

“the rural road network should [not] be used to support fossil fuel exploration where the claimed public benefit is speculative and limited.”

CPRE also raised concerns that the proposed lorry route to the Foxhole site crossed Staxton Hill, 515ft high with a 1:4 gradient.

It said Egdon Resources had not provided sufficient detail of any alternative or emergency route if Staxton Hill were closed or unavailable.

“Without a fully assessed and consulted-upon emergency routing plan, the council cannot lawfully or rationally conclude that safe and suitable access has been demonstrated for all phases of the development”.

The organisation said the impacts of the scheme on local roads “should therefore be treated as severe, or at the very least inadequately assessed, and permission should be refused until the applicant has demonstrated safe and suitable access for all users and the absence of unacceptable or severe cumulative transport effects”.

“Unresolved risks to water resources”

CPRE said the application had not “demonstrated that standard mitigation, monitoring and regulatory controls are sufficient to overcome the planning objection in this sensitive rural and hydrogeological context”.

It said the Yorkshire Wolds chalk aquifer was particularly vulnerable because groundwater can move through fractures and fissures and contaminants may travel unpredictably and rapidly.

It urged the council to apply a precautionary approach and “require clear, independent evidence that serious or irreversible harm can be ruled out”.

CPRE said North Yorkshire Council should not defer “fundamental questions of water protection to later permitting regimes where those matters are also relevant to land use planning.

The organisation added it would be “perverse” for the planning system to support a project to restore the Gypsey Race, “while simultaneously permitting a new fossil fuel drilling operation” nearby “without a compelling need and without eliminating the risk of harm to the chalk aquifer and chalk stream system”.

“Disturbance to residents”

CPRE said of the drilling proposal:

“it would introduce noise, lighting, dust, odour and industrial activity harmful to residential and rural amenity”.

It said planning conditions would not “adequately protect residents and the rural environment”.

CPRE said the current night-time noise levels were very low. It specifically opposed Egdon’s suggested night-time noise limits.

It said:

“the Council should require Egdon to show why materially lower night-time limits cannot be achieved and why the operation cannot be designed to avoid night-time drilling noise impacts altogether.”

“Climate change and fossil fuel dependence”

CPRE said it objected in principle to new hydrocarbon exploration because this would prolong dependence on fossil fuels when national policy, scientific evidence and public interest required accelerated transition to renewable and low carbon energy.

It said the planning case for the Foxholes proposal was “weak”. The development was not needed to meet a compelling local or national requirement for new gas extraction, the organisation said.

“The claimed economic benefits here are limited and temporary, while the proposal would enable a form of energy development that is inconsistent with the direction of national climate policy and the urgent need to decarbonise. On that basis, the development is not sustainable development and should be refused.”

Link to planning application

Air pollution and other climate risks – time to ramp up the pressure

Photo by fabian jones on Unsplash

In July we witnessed a flurry of activity highlighting the need for action on air pollution. With a new Labour administration there is an opportunity to stop the political foot-dragging and get on with tackling the biggest environmental health risk facing the UK.

The recent heatwaves have only served to highlight the importance of this. The link between air pollution and extreme heat has never been clearer. Wildfires are the visible product of this. Firefighters are in the frontline, but other workers face increased exposures. That is why the Trade Union Clean Air Network (TUCAN) call for a focus on occupational health is so important.

TUCAN attended a range of events in July where we made the case for greater recognition and the need for policy change.

UK 100 ‘Breathing Life’ Report – This conference launched a guide for strategic authorities and local authorities to support clean air delivery in England. TUCAN welcomes the report and supports the recommendations which include one of our demands – a new Clean Air Act with WHO-aligned statutory targets. It also calls for national government to introduce a National Indoor Air Quality strategy.  This is important but limits itself to housing, transport and planning policy. The focus is on homes. Workplaces are not directly included.  In fact, there is nothing in the guide that directly addresses occupational health.

Moving to cleaner buses will have a beneficial impact on bus drivers, but the additional exposures faced by workers are not directly covered in any policy proposals. Equally, reducing pollution in homes will help those working from home. What is needed is a lever which promotes action in both indoor and outdoor workplace settings. Local and regional authorities as employers can do this, and as advocates, they should also be calling on other employers to do the same.  The calls on national government should include amending regulations and guidance that reflect current research and standards, rather than relying on the totally outdated framework in current health and safety law.   Minister hails local leadership as research finds almost 14,000 lives saved by local clean air action | UK100

MACC Hub Conference – The Role of local authorities in climate adaptation. This conference brought together climate and sustainability officers to consider the implications of the Climate Change Committee’s ‘A Well-Adapted UK report. The need for a statutory duty on local authorities to address climate change was stressed. This is particularly important to introduce policy certainty, but it must also be accompanied by adequate funding if it is to have any meaningful impact. The priority risks in the report are extreme heat, flooding, and drought and wildfire risk. Air pollution intersects with all of these but is not referenced in the report which TUCAN sees as a weakness.    The Role of UK Local Authorities in Climate Adaptation (CAG consultants) – UK Climate Risk

CBI / CAF Report The Clean Air dividend of net-zero – This does focus on the occupational health implications and indicates that climate measures could generate an estimated £7.7 billion in productivity gains by 2050 through improved workforce health, reduced illness-related absences and longer working lives. The report touches on the social justice aspects of air pollution but still fails to call for employers to conduct air pollution audits and risk assessments. A duty to identify their own contribution to the problem and ensure control measures are introduced in consultation with the workforce would provide a much-needed focus.  Net zero measures will deliver cleaner air that could provide £7.7 billion boost to UK economy by 2050 – Clean Air Fund

Labour Climate and Environment Forum – Breathe Easy report. One opportunity to address our concerns on occupational health is to intensify the lobbying of the Labour Government.  The report highlights that air pollution is not only a publicly salient and cross-partisan issue that people want to see more done to address, but that action carries political benefits for Labour – particularly among the progressive switcher groups who Labour need to win back ahead of the 2029 General Election and local and mayoral elections in between.

It doesn’t contain any detailed proposals for occupational health but does provide evidence to press for these changes, including full implementation of ‘The Well-Adapted UK’ recommendations at Labour Party Conference and other forums.  [object Object] | Publications | Labour Climate and Environment Forum

Next steps – The stage is set to push for occupational air pollution to be at the centre of the climate risk debate. This autumn the Hazards, TUC, and party conferences are an opportunity to shine a spotlight on this. The TUCAN Steering group meeting being held on August 11th will be a chance for unions to start shaping this campaign.

Graham Petersen

August 2026

TUCAN TUCAN – Greener Jobs Alliance

The post Air pollution and other climate risks – time to ramp up the pressure first appeared on Greener Jobs Alliance.

Pescadero, Calif. (July 27, 2026) — TomKat Ranch, based on California’s Central Coast, has achieved the National Audubon Society’s Bird-Friendly Land Certification. Earned through...

Organizing Fellowship Manager

The Native Organizers Alliance (NOA) is a unique Indigenous training and organizing network dedicated to building the capacity of tribal nations and Native communities to make transformational system change. It also provides a forum for tribal and Native leaders and organizers to collaborate and strengthen relationships with non-Native allies. NOA supports grassroots-driven social change rooted in traditional practices and values to advance sovereignty and the health and well-being of Native people across Indian Country.

The NOA Organizing Fellows program is a year-long on-the-ground organizers training program that contributes to building a durable, organized, and powerful Native grassroots movement. The goal of the NOA Fellows program is to support the development of Native leaders and organizers who will play a role in their state and communities in deepening a traditional values-driven strategy for achieving structural reforms that will lead to an end to systemic racism and the fulfillment of treaty rights and sovereignty.

Job Description

The Organizing Fellowship Manager reports to the Managing Director and is responsible for coordinating NOA’s Organizing Fellowship Program and Fellows.

In partnership with NOA staff members, the Organizing Fellowship Manager will mentor the NOA Fellows while facilitating co-learning opportunities with the cohort. The goal is to strengthen their commitment and skills in community organizing grounded in traditional practices and values.

Key responsibilities include:

• Manage and mentor Fellows who will work with NOA staff and advance the organization’s goals.
• Collaborate with host tribes, tribal entities, or community groups to develop work plans and leadership development plans for their Fellow(s).
• Establish partnerships with tribes, tribal entities, host organizations, and other national Native organizations to expand outreach and mobilize support for C3 voter education and engagement.
• Work with the Managing Director, Policy Director, and Training Circle to coordinate weekly cohort meetings for Fellows, host organizations, and NOA staff, providing political education and skills building, and facilitating the sharing of challenges and learnings.
• Provide oversight and direction for fellows through potential national NOA projects or initiatives, such as C3 non-partisan voter engagement, National Indian Country initiatives or NOA projects like community surveying and advocacy.
• Lead the planning, coordination, and delivery of the annual NOA Fellows in-person training event, either in coordination with the NOA National Training or as a standalone training event.
• Lead the coordination and delivery, in partnership with the Director of Operations, in contract design and payment processing.
• Lead the development and implementation of data collection strategies for the Fellows’ work each year.

Qualifications:

• Strong supervisory and managerial experience—including demonstrated experience effectively managing teams and the ability to build rapport among their team while challenging staff to achieve ambitious goals.
• Commitment to NOA’s mission—Commit to racial and social justice and grassroots community organizing.
• Strong interpersonal skills, high emotional intelligence, and awareness of interpersonal dynamics to work with diverse colleagues, building support and consensus.
• Ability to work across multiple infrastructure and programmatic teams with staff.
• Strong oral and written communication skills, including superior writing, copy editing, and proofreading ability.
• Highly organized and able to complete many tasks and priorities with solid adherence to detail. Work effectively on a tight schedule and be able to set and meet realistic deadlines.
• Honoring Native cultures and practices is the guiding principle of NOA’s organizational culture, ways of working with the staff, and all our relations.
• Deep knowledge of intertribal Native history and culture, and the politics and issues impacting tribal and Native communities.
• Understand the decisive role tribal governments play in achieving sovereignty and systemic change in nation-to-nation relations with the federal government.
• Experience as an organizer, campaigner, or in tribal government is a plus.
• Experience with G-Suite, Microsoft Office Suite, and project management platforms.
• A desire to grow and develop personally and deepen our collective Indigenous frameworks. You want to learn from others in an exciting moment in Native history with an organization committed to movement-building for transformational change.

Compensation

Salary: $70,000

Benefits include: health, dental, and vision insurance, paid holiday time off, and a generous vacation and sick policy.

Location: Remote (travel for staff gatherings, campaigns, and events)

Native Organizers Alliance is a fiscally sponsored project of the Alliance for a Just Society (501c3) and is an equal opportunity employer and women, people of color, persons with disabilities, and LGBTQI people are strongly encouraged to apply. We do not discriminate based on race, color, sex, age, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other basis protected under law. We embrace the full spectrum of humanity and the intersectional nature of our existence and imaginative energies. We embody diversity in our staff, board, the artists and partners we work with, and the audiences we attract.

All applicants will be considered for employment without considering race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, or disability status.

Application Procedure

• Interested applicants are asked to please email:
• Cover letter
• Resume
• Three references

Please email the subject line “Your Name: Fellowship Manager” to jobs@nativeorganizing.org. Only those whose applications are being considered will be contacted. Position open until filled. Incomplete applications will not be considered.

The post Organizing Fellowship Manager appeared first on Native Organizers Alliance.

Three new Little Nature Playgrounds are planned for Cobbs Creek Park. Designed with input from local residents, these welcoming spaces will encourage children and families to explore the park, learn about its history and ecology, and safely access the trail from nearby neighborhoods.

Each playground will feature a combination of nature-inspired elements, colorful asphalt art, and wayfinding maps that help connect visitors to Cobbs Creek Park.

Clean Air Council is partnering with Philadelphia Parks and Recreation, Tiny WPA, Amber Art and Design, and community organizations to bring this vision to life.

How does the Little Nature Playground Project help the surrounding community? 

• Connect neighbors to park resources and the physical, social, emotional benefits of green space.
• Offer fun, nature-based play and learning opportunities that encourage repeated visits to the park.
• Welcome  the community into Cobbs Creek Park through safe, accessible entrances 

Designed With the Community 

Community input has shaped every step of this project. Over the past six months, Clean Air Council and community partners have presented the Little Nature Playground Project at almost a dozen in-person meetings and events.These conversations were designed to gather design and location feedback while ensuring the project reflects the community’s vision.

Partnering with the Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Center and area libraries, the Council shared updates through community meetings, educational programs, and events. The Council also held a series of “dinner and design workshops” to gain perspectives from neighbors and distributed flyers to encourage participation.

Workshop attendees offered feedback and insight into the project’s themes. Initial project locations were identified by using  existing pedestrian safety infrastructure, including traffic signals, crosswalks, and pedestrian crossing signals. Community members voted on their favorite locations and the top three crossing sites were selected.

Throughout the last six months, online surveys and meetings with community stakeholders have helped refine the three playground locations and their themes. Project consultants are currently designing initial project sketches.  

Little Nature Playground Proposed Locations

• Woodland Ave. and Cobbs Creek Parkway (north side)
• Market St. and 63rd St. (north side)
• Spruce St. and Cobbs Creek Parkway (south side)
   

Location: Woodland Ave. and Cobbs Creek Parkway 
Theme: Lenape history and connecting to the creek

“Karakung” is the Lenape name for Cobbs Creek and translates to “the place of the wild geese.” One element of the play structure could be different geese that people can climb and sit on. Above is a mock up of what one of the geese could look like.

Location: 63rd St. and Market St.
Theme: Nature of Cobbs Creek Park (native plants, flowers, animals)

Many neighbors talked about wanting a place to rest along the trail during different community feedback sessions.  Above is an image of a mock up of a bench in the shape of a creek. Elements that may be highlighted in the play structure design include local animals, native flowers, and the creek.

Location: Spruce St. and 63rd St.
Theme: Celebrating Cobbs Creek communities

Inspired by conversations with community groups and neighbors, this location will celebrate the collective energy put into supporting and caring for the community. The design will recognize that  supporting young people is a key part of the neighborhood’s success. The creek bench may also be included in this location. 

How can the surrounding community continue to inform this project and lead the vision? 

Community members are encouraged to sign up to attend one or all of the upcoming Cobbs Creek Neighbors RCO community meetings, where we will be giving project updates and continuing to gain community feedback. These meetings will take place Monday evenings at the Blanche A. Nixon/Cobbs Creek Library, 5800 Cobbs Creek Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19143. Register for free below to keep updated on any changes!  

• September 14, 5:30 – 7 p.m. Register
• November 2, 5:30 – 7 p.m. Register
• December 7, 5:30 – 7 p.m. Register

Follow @CobbsCreekWatershedCoaltion on Instagram and Facebook for updates! 

Questions? Email Trails@cleanair.org 

Istanbul’s Northern Watersheds provide drinking water to sixteen million people. Stretching across forests, reservoirs, wetlands, and agricultural landscapes on the northern edge of the metropolitan region, they perform ecological functions without which the city simply could not survive. They regulate floods, recharge groundwater, support biodiversity, and sustain water security for one of Europe’s largest urban […]

This article Announcing the first Waging Nonviolence Fellowship was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

The Waging Nonviolence Fellowship is a five-month journalistic training program that offers the opportunity to work closely with experienced editors and generate a body of clips on an undercovered movement beat. Fellows will each write five monthly feature articles (at least 1,500 words long) for Waging Nonviolence over the course of the program. 

This is a remote (U.S.-based) position with a flexible, self-determined schedule. Fellows will receive an initial stipend of $500, and then $250 per published story.

With mentorship from senior editor Jessica Stites and editor-in-chief Eric Stoner, participants will fine-tune their ability to pitch, report and write compelling movement stories. Fellows will have an initial meeting with the editors and additional meetings as needed throughout the program. 

Fellows are expected to take initiative in seeking out stories, reliably meet deadlines and respond quickly over email while working on a piece.

This is an opportunity to pursue stories of true substance (not clickbait) that are read by leading movement thinkers, organizers and activists. Our writers have gone on to write and work for Democracy Now!, Vox, The Guardian, The Intercept, The New Republic, Rolling Stone and elsewhere.

Requirements

• Experience in reporting or reported analysis on social movements
• Excellent writing skills; ability to turn in clean copy
• Passionate about movements organizing for peace and justice

Preferred

• Established connections to groups, activists and communities at the forefront of today’s social movements, such as racial justice, labor or democracy defense.
• Knowledgeable on the history, theories, strategies and tactics of civil resistance/nonviolent action.

Waging Nonviolence welcomes people of all backgrounds and encourages people from groups that are underrepresented in media to apply. 

How to apply

We are now accepting applications for the Fall 2026 fellowship. Resume/CV not required. To apply, please fill out this form by August 10, 2026. 

Who we are

Since our founding in 2009, Waging Nonviolence has become the leading source for news, analysis and original reporting on social movements around the world. 

We tell in-depth, compelling stories about how ordinary people are fighting for a broad range of social, economic, racial and environmental justice issues — and challenging authoritarians around the world. To demystify the work of social change, we get behind-the-scenes with organizers to unpack the strategies and tactics they use to build a more just world. While most media focus on why protests are happening, our stories seek to uncover the how.

We have been called “an indispensable platform for exploring creative and strategic resistance” by journalist Naomi Klein, and “the essential journalistic resource on civil resistance” by Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth.

This article Announcing the first Waging Nonviolence Fellowship was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.

Do solar plants require backup from fossil fuels?

Solar plants require backup, but it doesn’t have to be from fossil fuels.

A combination of renewables, energy storage, and long-distance transmission can reliably power the majority of the U.S. without relying on coal, oil, or natural gas, as one 2017 research paper describes. Renewables like wind can generate under cloudy conditions, while surplus solar from brighter weather can be stored in utility-scale batteries for rainy days. Additionally, transmission from neighboring regions can assist solar capacity drops.

The Department of Energy and Princeton have outlined decarbonization scenarios projecting expansion of solar and decrease in fossil fuels while maintaining reliability. Analysis of real-world outcomes has found that renewables growth has actually outperformed projections.

California is an example of improving reliability while transitioning from fossil fuels to solar. From 2015 to 2025, in-state generation saw a jump in solar reliance from 8% to 27%, while natural gas dropped from 60% to 36%.

Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact

This fact brief is responsive to quotes such as this one.

Sources

The Electricity Journal Reliably integrating variable renewables: Moving grid flexibility resources from models to results

The Alliance for Climate Transition Institute Solar energy requires 100% fossil fuel backup

Princeton University Net-Zero America

University of Virginia Decarbonization by 2050: Are We on Track?

California Energy Commission CA Electric Generation 2001-25

California Energy Commission California Energy Leaders Report Progress on Grid Reliability Ahead of Summer 2026

MIT The Future of Energy Storage

Columbia Law School Sabin Center for Climate Change Law Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles

Please use this form to provide feedback about this fact brief. This will help us to better gauge its impact and usability. Thank you!

About fact briefs published on Gigafact

Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer "yes/no" answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact — a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all of our published fact briefs here.

Buying cookware? A California law makes it easier to spot PFAS in kitchen products Monica Amarelo July 28, 2026

For years, the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS were used in many products that touch food, including popcorn bags, pizza boxes, pans and other cookware. Concerns about PFAS’ health harms then led many states to either restrict or outright ban the chemicals in specific items.

Eventually, outcry over these toxic substances led to manufacturers phasing out their use in food packaging nationwide. But they’re still allowed in kitchen products.

That doesn’t mean you’re stuck with PFAS when you’re shopping for pots and pans.

Thanks to a California law that banned PFAS in paper-based food packaging, it is now possible for consumers across the country to find out which companies use PFAS in their products. That’s because the law also included language ordering companies to disclose on their websites if they use PFAS in their cookware – information anyone can see, not just Californians.

Which companies use PFAS?

Last week, the environmental group Defend Our Health compiled this data and released a public directory detailing PFAS usage claims by over 200 cookware companies. You can check the directory to see if a product you are interested in purchasing is labeled PFAS-free.

Of the 210 companies, about 40%, or 82 companies, disclosed their products contained PFAS. A total of 44 companies clearly disclosed through the California requirements that they don’t use PFAS in their products. 

Another 23 companies stated that they do not use PFAS, but these claims could not be verified because the companies either did not provide a disclosure in keeping with the California requirement or may have been exempt from the disclosure requirement under California law. 

Widespread contamination

Teflon and other PFAS-coated cookware are the poster child for a contamination crisis that extends across the globe, with the chemicals detected in soil, water and air. 

Exposure to PFAS at incredibly low concentrations can lead to health harms that have been documented in nearly every system in the body. The chemicals have been linked to cancer, reproductive and immune system harm and other diseases.

When pans coated with the forever chemical PTFE are heated above roughly 400 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit, they can release hazardous fumes. Overheating has been linked to a documented condition called polymer fume fever, sometimes known as “Teflon flu.”

PFAS in nonstick cookware and other consumer and industrial products remain a concern throughout their lifecycle – from manufacturing and use to disposal – because they can pollute the environment and contribute to human exposure.. 

EWG for over 20 years has recommended consumers avoid nonstick pans. EWG commissioned tests of nonstick pans in 2003 and published a report, “Canaries in the Kitchen,” showing that pans can overheat and off-gas pollutants within minutes of use. 

In 2021, EWG scientists summarized peer-reviewed studies showing that PFAS can migrate from containers and cookware into food. Our recommendation still stands: Seek out cast iron, stainless steel or carbon steel cookware.

States are leading the way

States are taking steps to tackle PFAS in kitchen products.

In 2025, California Senate Bill 682, authored by state Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), would have banned the sale of cookware containing intentionally added PFAS beginning in 2030. Despite passing the Legislature, the measure was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, meaning the chemicals can still be used in products sold in the state. 

That veto didn’t slow other states from banning PFAS in cookware outright. 

Amara’s Law ended the sale of PFAS cookware in Minnesota, the first state to do so. The law took effect in 2025. Maine and Colorado PFAS cookware bans took effect in January 2026. Connecticut, Vermont and Washington have bans on the use of PFAS in cookware set to take effect in the coming years.

States also set the first PFAS drinking water standards, and they continue to lead on tackling other sources of forever chemicals contamination.

According to the SaferStates PFAS tracker, 17 states have legislation pending that would end the use of PFAS in categories ranging from textiles and dental floss to cookware and firefighting foam.

This state-driven action is leading to real change. Online disclosure of PFAS use is an important first step for consumers, but more change is still needed. Some companies already go beyond what is required in California by independently verifying their products are PFAS-free.

Reducing your exposure to PFAS

PFAS exposure is widespread, because this class of chemicals has found its way into hundreds of products used every day by consumers. 

Research indicates the source of  exposure comes from food, water and PFAS that have migrated into dust from household products. No single step will completely eliminate exposure, but small changes matter. 

Start with the sources you can control, including:

• Choose PFAS-free cookware
• Filter PFAS from your tap water
• Cook fresh food at home as much as possible and limit takeout
• Vacuum frequently with a HEPA-filter vacuum to remove household dust 
• Avoid purchasing products marketed as “stain resistant,” “water proof” and “long lasting.” 

Areas of Focus Food Household & Consumer Products Cookware & Food Containers PFAS Chemicals California Authors David Andrews, Ph.D. Tasha Stoiber, Ph.D. July 28, 2026

At the western edge of Florida, just miles from the Alabama border, Shorebird Stewardship Senior Coordinator Brian Cammarano hops out of his National Audubon Society truck with a camera, scope, and...

SINCE 2006, like other jurisdictions, the Northwest Territories (N.W.T.) has received funding through Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) via the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program, established as part of the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement. Through organizations like the Indian Residential School Survivors Society (IRSSS), the program offers cultural, emotional, and mental health support services, including counselling, to Residential School Survivors, Intergenerational Survivors, and their families.

The impact of residential schools continues to have a negative intergenerational impact on Indigenous Peoples across many aspects of their lives. Residential School Survivor funding support allowed me to attend a full year of counselling during the aftermath of a challenging intimate relationship. Through a trauma-informed lens, the program supported my healing alongside my diagnosis of acute post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and toward an autism diagnosis. Through intersections in disability advocacy around neurodivergence, colonialism, and medical feminisms in the mental health field, it helped me to make sense of decades of my own frustrating misunderstanding of my patterns, gifts, and limitations.

In the 2025 Budget breakdown, the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program received $48 million dollars from ISC. According to Cabin Radio, ISC approved a renewal of funding in March 2026 for $630 million over two years, designated to support the availability, accessibility, quality, and effectiveness of mental wellness services for Indigenous Peoples across the country. 

Yet, as of May, despite the approval and flurry of new funding announcements, patients, therapists, and service organizations have been put on hold — waiting for administrative renewals, intakes, and funding approvals for IRS counselling supports to resume. The Politics of Healing

When my cousin, Catherine Blondin, posted a personal account on Facebook regarding the impacts of the pause in funding, it went viral: 

The IRSS counselling program is on HOLD. For those who don’t know, this is the mental health support meant for survivors of the residential school system and their families. It exists because that harm didn’t stop when the schools closed. It moved into our homes, our bodies, and into the next generation.

My dad is a survivor. My grandparents were survivors. I grew up with the after shocks of this. Counselling through this program has been one of the only supports that actually understood what I was carrying and where it came from. I have been seeing a psychologist for the past 2.5 years [who] is amazing. She’s helped me heal deep seated trauma and change patterns within myself I could have never done on my own. I can’t access this program right now. Soon, my child won’t be able to either.

This isn’t a policy debate to me. This is my dad. This is me. This is my kid. This is a program that exists because of a documented, government-acknowledged harm, and it’s not there right now.

Dozens of cousins, aunties, uncles, and parents shared and reshared Catherine’s post. The post called attention to what Indigenous Peoples have become familiar with — seeing a necessary, beneficial program focused on our needs and healing being revoked by the very system that created those harms to begin with. This interruption of services is one more devastating moment of many, and the quick uptake of Catherine’s post demonstrates the frustration that so many have lived with for generations. 

Survivors Need Support 

In late May 2026, IRSSS presented a petition to the House of Commons calling on the federal government to honour its commitment to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action:

IRSSS programs provide critical support during moments of profound vulnerability, including mental health and emotional crises, community emergencies, and environmental disasters — services that are uniquely tailored to the needs of Survivors and Indigenous communities. Any disruption or loss of these well-established supports would significantly impact community wellbeing and undermine reconciliation efforts.

This funding crisis is coming to the fore as First Nations across Turtle Island bear the brunt of climate injustice in their home communities — like my cousin, whose original post was made during an evacuation of her home community, Lı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́, due to wildfires. Lı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ was evacuated to my hometown of Yellowknife at the end of June, and community members were finally able to return to their homes over the third weekend in July. 

This is just one of multiple evacuation orders that have been issued for many of our communities (Yellowknife included) over the last four years — a pattern that persists across the country as First Nation communities in Northern Ontario are evacuated at best, and burned to the ground at worst.

As a part of the relief effort, I put Lı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ organizers in touch with the IRSSS to seek emergency funding for mental health support for evacuees. I later heard that those organizers were not only denied, but informed that there was no support available at the time — not even emergency relief.

Bureaucratic Reconciliation Indian Residential School Survivors have been pushed into bureaucratic processes where the reality of support begins with invoices, budget lines, and the limitation of “the fiscal year.”

In this space of bureaucratic reconciliation, what is the function of governments when our systems fail us in such simple, practical, human ways and which, in turn, have such devastating, wide-spread results?

The funding will continue, but for how long and through which criteria and eligibility frameworks remain to be seen. For Canada to take reconciliation seriously, dedicated, ongoing mental health support for Indigenous Peoples must be stable and predictable. Otherwise, the flames of colonialism continue on, one spreadsheet at a time. 

Citation:

Blondin Burt, Cassandra.”Reconciliation on Hold: The Impact of Pausing Residential School Survivor Funding,” Yellowhead Institute. July 28 2026. https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2026/reconciliation-on-hold-the-impact-of-pausing-residential-school-survivor-funding/

Artwork by Bree Island @bree.island, Miyonakwan Studio, Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation

 

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