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At 192 years old, Jonathan the giant tortoise is the oldest known living land animal. A new study offers clues as to his incredible longevity.

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DENVER—A new analysis by the Center for Western Priorities found that 99.1 percent of the 370,238 public comments posted on the U.S. Forest Service’s (USFS) proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule oppose the Trump administration’s plan. The comment period closed October 6.

The 2001 Roadless Rule prohibits most road construction and commercial logging on more than 44 million acres of national forest land outside of Colorado and Idaho, where state-specific roadless rules apply. The proposed rule, published August 20, would rescind those protections nationwide and leave the management of roadless areas up to individual forest plans. USFS argues that removing the rule would help reduce wildfire risk and give local managers more flexibility, claims that are undercut by the agency’s own environmental analysis of repealing the rule.

Key findings:

• 99.1 percent of posted comments opposed rescinding the Roadless Rule
• 0.5 percent supported the rescission
• 0.3 percent were neutral or off-topic

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Creative Content and Policy Manager Lilly Bock-Brownstein:

“For the second year in a row, Americans have flooded the Forest Service with comments telling it to keep the Roadless Rule. If the Trump administration moves forward with this proposal, they will be blatantly ignoring the wishes of the American people.

“The Trump administration keeps claiming that repealing the rule is about wildfire, but the public isn’t buying it—our comment analysis confirms that Americans know this is about giving private industry easier access to our public lands.”

These results track previous CWP analyses that found near-universal opposition to the Trump administration’s public lands rollbacks. In September 2025, more than 99 percent of approximately 183,000 comments opposed repealing the Roadless Rule. In November 2025, 98 percent of comments opposed rescinding the Bureau of Land Management’s Public Lands Rule. And last month, 99 percent of 134,312 comments opposed the Forest Service’s rewrite of the Travel Management Rule, which would open national forest roads and trails to motorized vehicles by default.

Methodology:

CWP downloaded all 370,238 comments posted to docket FS-2025-0001 on regulations.gov as of October 7, 2026, 7:06 AM MT. CWP also downloaded and read the 17,857 attachment files submitted with 3,924 of those comments, so that letters submitted as PDFs or images were classified by their content. Those attachments represent an estimated 296,000 additional individual comments or signatures. Each comment was classified as supporting, opposing, or neutral/off-topic using a combination of keyword matching and a large language model. CWP staff manually audited the labels on a sample of 300 comments, which oversampled “support” and “neutral/off-topic” comments. The audit found a labeling accuracy rate estimated at 99.9 percent.

The comments posted to regulations.gov reflect a portion of the massive public outcry against rescinding the Roadless Rule. Conservation organizations have tracked more than 1 million letters and signatures asking the Forest Service to keep the Roadless Rule in place. The General Services Administration does not post every comment submitted to each agency; CWP’s analysis covers all of the comments that are available online.

Learn more:

• USFS’s own analysis shows Roadless Rule repeal would harm wildlife, water, and rural communities — Westwise

• Commenters overwhelmingly oppose Travel Management Rule rewrite — Center for Western Priorities

• Comment analysis finds over 99% opposition to repealing 2001 Roadless Rule — Center for Western Priorities

The post STATEMENT: New analysis finds 99.1 percent of public comments oppose repealing the Roadless Rule appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

A Dutch NGO has filed the first climate complaint under the European Union’s trade rules, arguing that New Zealand violated the environmental provisions of its free trade agreement with the bloc by weakening its climate regulations.

The case will test whether binding climate provisions in the EU’s free trade deals can be enforced to hold governments accountable to their climate obligations, experts told Climate Home News.

The EU-New Zealand free trade agreement, which came into force in 2024, was the first in the world to include legally-binding climate provisions and possible sanctions for violating them, as the EU seeks to use its trade partnerships to advance greater environmental protection.

Under the deal, both parties committed not to weaken their environmental law to promote trade or investment and to “refrain from any action or omission that materially defeats the object and purpose of the Paris Agreement”.

• Aug 24, 2026 Business New Zealand moves to protect business with law curtailing climate litigation A new bill prevents corporations being sued for the climate damage their emissions cause, as the government says climate action should be handled at the national level not in court Read more
• Sep 15, 2026 Business International trade linked to 20% of global emissions – but imports ignored Researchers say governments should discuss how to tackle emissions linked to globally traded goods and services, especially in large importing countries Read more

At the time the agreement was signed, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the agreement included “unprecedented social and climate commitments”. But experts warned it was unclear how the Paris Agreement provisions would be enforced.

The EU included a similar “trade and sustainable development” clause in 14 other bilateral trade deals in recent years, with several others, including with China, awaiting ratification or being negotiated.

Climate activists at the Dutch NGO Both ENDS argue that the New Zealand government breached these terms by reopening its waters to offshore oil and gas exploration, releasing a climate plan that barely requires any emissions reductions, and passing a law that prevents corporations from getting sued over climate damages.

“Here, we have a so-called gold standard for free trade agreements with sustainability provisions but we have a trading partner that is doing exactly the opposite: regressing, as all the evidence points to, away from the Paris Agreement,” said Marius Troost, a senior policy advisor at Both ENDS.

Can the EU enforce its climate trading rules?

The Dutch environmental group filed the complaint under the EU Commission’s Single Entry Point, a mechanism that allows civil society to request enforcement of the bloc’s trade commitments.

The EU-New Zealand trade deal includes the possibility of suspending beneficial trading arrangements between the two parties in response to serious violations of its climate provisions. This, Troost said, is a “unique” tool to enforce both parties’ obligations under the deal.

“This is an opportunity for the EU and New Zealand to show that they are actually serious about these commitments,” he told Climate Home News.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon visits a school in Tonga, August 30, 2024. (AAP Image/Ben McKay)

A spokesperson for New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade denied any violations of the agreement and said the government hadn’t received formal notice of the complaint. The country, they said, “takes its commitments under the NZ-EU Free Trade Agreement seriously, including the agreement’s environment and climate-related provisions”.

An EU Commission spokesperson said it will start a preliminary assessment of the complaint and engage with NGO Both ENDS. “Sustainability is a central pillar of the EU-New Zealand relationship,” they added.

The EU is New Zealand’s second-largest trading partner after China, with about 14% of the country’s exports going to the European market. Agricultural products like meat, diary, fruit and vegetables are the country’s biggest exports to Europe.

New Zealand is ‘having its cake and eating it’

Eliza Prestidge-Oldfield, a senior legal researcher at the New Zealand-based Environmental Law Initiative, which is supporting Both ENDS’s claim, told Climate Home News that if the EU upholds the complaint, both parties would begin a negotiation process.

“The idea is to try and resolve this positively with the New Zealand government acknowledging areas where it needs to change its actions in order to comply with the agreement, and get that change in place as soon as possible,” she said.

But New Zealand’s right-wing coalition government said it won’t take any directives from foreign actors regarding its policies. Trade minister Todd McClay told local media that it was “not for overseas countries, organisations or lobby groups to tell New Zealand how to meet its obligations”.

• Oct 6, 2026 Comment Coal mines and hypocrisy must not be Australia’s COP31 legacy Still without a coal phase-out plan, Australia must course-correct to earn the mantle it has been given and do right by the Pacific nations that backed its bid for COP’s co-presidency Read more
• Oct 6, 2026 News Pacific leaders rail at climate finance failures after pre-COP trip to Tuvalu Island nations seek invest in their own Pacific Resilience Facility, as they struggle with the red-tape of international climate funds Read more
• Oct 2, 2026 Comment As COP31 co-host, Australia should make its polluters pay for climate damage With UN climate funds running short on cash, now is the time to start taxing the companies whose emissions are driving harm in the Pacific and other vulnerable parts of the world Read more

Prestidge-Oldfield argued the complaint isn’t about “Europe telling anyone what to do at all”, but rather stressing the conditions under which they are willing to import goods from New Zealand. “The New Zealand government is trying to have its cake and eat it too,” she said.

If New Zealand refuses to adjust its policies in line with the agreement, the complaint will be assessed by an independent panel, which can require the country to make changes. If those changes are not implemented, the panel could decide that New Zealand should lose its preferential EU market access.

A negotiated resolution is more likely, however, with no prior labour-related complaints to the EU having ever reached the panel stage.

Alexander Gillespie, a law professor at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, said sanctions would be a “last resort”. “This is a test case, which will generate considerable attention – as it is not just about climate change, but how free trade and environmental sustainability have been woven together,” he said in a statement.

Trade deals as tool for climate accountability

Experts said the case could set a precedent for how trade deals can be used to hold governments accountable on climate action. The EU has enacted similar “trade and sustainable development” clauses in its trade agreements with Canada, Japan and South Korea.

While still pending ratification, the EU’s 2024 trade agreement with Mercosur – which encompasses Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay – also includes climate provisions, including a commitment to “effectively implement” the Paris Agreement and promote low-carbon trade.

In addition, legal researcher Prestidge-Oldfield noted that last year’s landmark advisory opinion on climate change by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) laid out stronger climate obligations for developed countries like New Zealand and could strengthen allegations of violations of the terms of the trade deal.

“It will be an interesting area to watch how the EU free trade agreement is interpreted in the light of this advisory opinion,” she said.

The post New Zealand accused of breaching EU trade deal over climate rollbacks appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Virginia State Corporation Commission approved fuel cost securitization for the second time since 2023, adding additional interest costs for customers.

Australia and Türkiye have agreed to take forward a “presidency-led decision for COP31” after consulting with different countries and groups, Australia’s climate change and energy minister said on Wednesday at the pre-COP meeting in Fiji.

The announcement that November’s climate conference will produce what is known among negotiators as a “cover decision” lays to rest the annual speculation over how the main outcomes of the UN climate conference will be presented this year.

Unlike other formal decision texts at COP, cover decisions are not negotiated word by word between governments. They are often summaries crafted during the proceedings by the presidency, although they still need to be adopted by consensus. Cover texts bring together key elements and initiatives emerging from the discussions at the two-week UN climate talks and give a sense of the political direction of travel for the coming year.

Australian minister Chris Bowen, who will preside over the negotiations at COP31 in the Turkish seaside resort of Antalya, said the presidency did not want to negotiate “a lengthy political statement”. The two countries are sharing the presidency in an unusual arrangement, although Türkiye has the formal title of COP31 President.

The decision, he explained, will be one that “captures the global moment and calls for action”, adding that it would offer “a focused and concrete response to the challenges and opportunities of our time”.

• Oct 6, 2026 News Pacific leaders rail at climate finance failures after pre-COP trip to Tuvalu Island nations seek invest in their own Pacific Resilience Facility, as they struggle with the red-tape of international climate funds Read more
• Oct 5, 2026 Politics At pre-COP, UN climate chief warns of heat threat to mothers and babies The spotlight on maternal health came on the first day of the pre-COP31 meeting in Fiji, where Pacific concerns are set to top the agenda as ministers gather for talks Read more

Bowen said the text could recognise the recent UN report acknowledging that an overshoot of the 1.5C warming limit is now inevitable, but temperatures could be brought back down to that level. The decision could also stress “the urgent need for climate action, support and international cooperation to go further and faster”, he added.

With COP31 President Murat Kurum sitting next to him, smiling and nodding, Bowen said the joint presidency aimed to be open and transparent, giving governments an early idea of what to expect from the COP31 process.

Earlier in the week, they published a second joint letter laying out key areas for progress at the negotiations, from setting up a just transition mechanism to putting science at the centre of the next global stocktake of climate plans and focusing governments on the need to increase adaptation finance.

Cosima Cassel, climate diplomacy lead at think-tank E3G, said a COP31 cover decision should send a clear political signal that accelerating climate action is central to global security, prosperity and resilience, show that faster implementation can help address 1.5C overshoot, and support developing countries to put their climate plans into practice.

EU keen to know “what success looks like”

Earlier on Wednesday, Europe’s climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told journalists in Fiji that the European Commission had asked the UN and COP31 organisers to provide clarity on the summit’s agenda and “what success would look like” in Antalya.

That is why, he added, “I… like it a lot that the organisers are pushing for electrification and are already clear about it upfront”.

A voluntary goal for electricity to provide 35% of the world’s final energy consumption by 2035, up from 23% today, was announced by Türkiye at the Bonn mid-year climate talks. It has since been garnering support for the target, which was developed with the backing of international energy agencies. Australia said on Wednesday it would sign up for the goal.  

However, it remains unclear if or how this goal will be reflected in the COP31 cover decision, as including it in a document that has to be endorsed by all countries could influence its form.

COP31 electrification pledge leaves out clean power commitment

In recent years, blocking tactics by powerful fossil-fuel producing countries like Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia have made it difficult for COPs to make headway on a 2023 decision to transition away from fossil fuels (TAFF).

At COP30 in Belém, Brazil had to offer to develop a voluntary TAFF roadmap at the last minute after failing to secure support to launch the process as part of the formal UN talks. There was also confusion over whether COP30 would produce a cover decision, with Brazil holding its cards close to its chest until the second week, when it decided to put together the “Mutirão Decision”.

Electrification goal in cover decision?

This time around, it is now practically certain that COP31 will produce a cover decision, but a key question is whether the co-presidency will somehow try to anchor the voluntary electrification pledge in that text.

Doing so could make it hard to specify that the electricity to meet the target should come from clean, renewable sources, due to potential objections from some countries. The proposed text for the electrification pledge, unveiled on the sidelines of the General Assembly last month, did not make that commitment.

E3G’s Cassel said the COP31 cover decision needs to specify that electrification will be clean “otherwise there is a strong risk that fossil fuel projects are supported by the pledge”. It also must outline the support needed to enable the 35×35 goal to be met, rather than just the top-line target, she added.

On Wednesday, the EU’s Hoekstra said “the whole main effort” towards the electrification goal “should be focusing on renewables”, while nuclear could also be part of the solution.

The energy transition, he added, “is about making sure we transition away from fossil fuels, as the world has already agreed on – so then doubling down on solar, on wind, on battery capacity, on all these elements should be at the very heart of it”.

The post Australia says COP31 co-presidency will work on a cover decision appeared first on Climate Home News.

We are excited to welcome two new conservation assistants, funded by Dr. Allyn Golub. Their main focus is assisting with field and office activities associated with the Sanctuary’s Western...

“We are disappointed by the lieutenant governor’s decision and respectfully disagree with it,” Neil Nissan, a spokesperson for NextEra Energy, told Utility Dive. State regulators are set to hold their first local hearing on the case Wednesday.

Renew Home is now Everyday Electric. CEO Ben Brown told Utility Dive its flagship Everyday VPP can reduce the need for new centralized generation and mitigate costs for all ratepayers.

An investigation by ABC News has shed new light on the problem of abandoned mines in the Western U.S. and across the country. The investigation compiled records from the Office of Surface Mine Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), part of the Department of the Interior, to create an interactive map of more than 230,000 documented abandoned mine sites.

Many of the documented abandoned mines are in coal-producing regions in the eastern U.S. The investigation points out that since the 1970s, coal mining companies have been required to develop and execute remediation plans to restore the land after coal mining operations have ended, and OSMRE’s Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Program, established in 1977, addresses legacy coal mines using fees on current coal production. However, there is not a similar funding source for reclaiming hardrock mines, which are much more common in the West. The ABC News map shows just how many documented abandoned mines are concentrated across Western states.

OSMRE officials also acknowledge that there may be many more abandoned mine sites that are not documented or identified. “Mining back in 1865 or 1880 or 1890, there are no records of that. No one kept records,” Lanny Erdos, an OSMRE official, told ABC News. “There potentially can be mines out there that we would have no idea that they are there until they express themselves in some adverse way.”

Quick hits As Pitkin County looks toward management of the Maroon Bells, what does it mean for the iconic place?

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Quote of the day

What’s it going to be? ‘The Maroon Bells brought to you by Budweiser’?”

—Victor Valinskas, visitor to the Maroon Bells Scenic Area, CPR News

Picture This @greatbasinnp

On a cool September evening, sundown reveals the Great Basin one layer at a time: rock and rabbitbrush, sagebrush and pinyon-juniper, the broad basin below, and distant mountain ranges rising beyond it.

These isolated ranges are sometimes described as “sky islands”—higher, cooler habitats surrounded by lower, drier country. Each change in elevation brings changes in temperature, moisture, plants, and wildlife.

But this landscape offers something that cannot be measured by elevation alone.

Quiet. Distance. Room to breathe.

Great Basin National Park preserves not only mountains, caves, ancient trees, and dark night skies, but also opportunities to experience solitude. Sometimes the landscape’s quietest moments tell its story best.

What do you notice first when you look across the Great Basin?

Photo Credit: NPS/G. Zierdt

 

Featured image: An abandoned mine in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, D&RG Railfan via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 3.0

The post Abandoned mines ‘a constant problem’ across the West appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

This article is part of Food Tank’s primer series, “Food Tank Explains.” Each installment unpacks the ideas, innovations, and challenges shaping today’s food and agriculture systems, offering clear insights into complex topics. To explore more articles in the series, click here.

Food labels provide information about food products and their contents. Most identify the product and list its ingredients and net quantity. Labeling requirements generally apply to packaged and prepared foods, although the information required—and how manufacturers must present it—varies across countries and food categories.

Food labeling has expanded beyond identifying a package’s contents. Today, labels communicate information about nutrition, allergens, food safety, preparation and storage, production practices, and other product characteristics.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) identifies nutritional information as a central feature of food labels. Nutrition labels typically provide a product’s energy content and levels of nutrients including carbohydrates, protein, fat, sugars, sodium, vitamins, and minerals, typically reported per serving or specified quantity.

Labels also communicate food safety information. Allergen disclosures identify ingredients that may trigger reactions, while storage, preparation, and handling instructions help consumers use foods safely. Date markings such as ‘sell by’ and ‘best before’ can provide information about a product’s safety or quality over time. But date labeling can also be confusing to consumers, leading to safe food going to waste.

According to the European Commission and the FDA, food labels are intended to help consumers make informed choices by explaining what a product contains and allowing them to assess dietary needs and compare products.

They aim to provide clear comprehensible information to enable efficient decision-making at the point of sale, describes the World Health Organization (WHO). Data from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute shows that the majority of in-store shoppers spend an average of 13 seconds evaluating a brand before purchasing, with most decisions taking less than 10 seconds.

Food-labeling requirements vary globally. Research published in Frontiers in Public Health has identified mandatory nutrient-declaration policies for processed foods in at least 95 countries, with differing requirements for front-of-package labels and health and nutrition claims.

The FAO and WHO develop international standards through the Codex Alimentarius Commission, including baseline principles for labeling prepackaged foods that can inform national regulations.

In the United States, the FDA and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) share primary responsibility for food labeling. Federal regulation dates to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which targeted adulterated and misbranded foods. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 expanded labeling requirements, while the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 established mandatory nutrition labeling for most FDA-regulated foods.

The European Union takes a more centralized approach, establishing common labeling requirements across its member states. The United Kingdom’s voluntary ‘traffic light’ system uses green, amber, and red to identify nutrient levels, while Chile requires black, octagonal ‘high in’ warnings on products exceeding thresholds for calories, sugar, sodium, or saturated fat.

As food labels communicate more information, they can also become more difficult to interpret. Consumers must navigate nutrition and ingredient information alongside claims, certifications, warnings, and other disclosures, making relevant information harder to identify and understand.

Government labeling resources often target producers and use technical language that consumers may struggle to interpret, Laurie Beyranevand, Director of Vermont Law School’s Center for Agriculture and Food Systems and Professor of Law, tells Food Tank.

And because the pages contain technical jargon, consumers may not always understand what they read.

A study published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior finds that 89 percent of respondents believed they understood date labels, but just 24 percent correctly identified their meaning.

“I think there are real trust issues with our food supply. Having access to information and having clarification of what those things mean is really important,” Dr. Roni Neff, Professor at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for a Livable Future, tells Food Tank.

Confusion around date labels can also contribute to food waste. A European Commission study estimated that confusion and other practices surrounding date marking contribute to approximately 10 percent of food waste in the EU. Consumers may discard food that remains safe to eat after misinterpreting ‘best by,’ ‘sell by,’ or ‘use by’ dates.”

Public health organizations increasingly identify food labels as a potential policy tool. The World Health Organization (WHO) identifies nutrition labeling as one approach to helping consumers make healthier food choices, while UNICEF reports growing evidence that nutrition labels can improve consumers’ understanding of nutritional quality.

But labels can only serve that purpose if consumers can understand and use the information they provide. WHO recommends that front-of-package labels present nutrition information in a convenient and readily understood format, while the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) emphasizes the need for clear, reliable labeling as global food supply chains increase the distance between consumers and producers. For policymakers, Beyranevand says, that means prioritizing accessibility and comprehensibility when developing labeling requirements.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia

The post Food Tank Explains: Food Labeling appeared first on Food Tank.

Coyotes, it seems, prefer the roar of the garbage truck to the call of the wild.

While pigeons, rats and cockroaches might be more emblematic city-dwelling wildlife, coyotes have shown an aptitude for urban living. In just the last year they’ve made the news for taking up residence in such places as West Hollywood, Chicago and suburban Miami. Their presence near cities is so routine that it takes something unusual to generate headlines.

Much as humans pack together in cities, it turns out coyotes inhabit at least one urban area at roughly 9 times the density they do in the wild, according to research in Washington state published recently in the journal Environmental Research: Ecology.

“That might surprise people who think of coyotes as afraid of humans, but I think it just shows how ideal the urban setting is for coyotes,” said Laura Prugh, a University of Washington wildlife ecologist who led the new research.

This isn’t the first time scientists have noted that cities boast higher concentrations of coyotes, nor is the phenomenon confined just to these canines. Other research has found that raccoons, red foxes and (improbably) leopards live in cities at densities five times that of their counterparts in the countryside.

But in the case of coyotes, much of the evidence is incomplete, without the scientific rigor that could get at just how coyote life varies between paved streets and remote forest.

To get a more accurate comparison, Prugh and her collaborators tracked coyotes through their scat. In 2021, they repeatedly scoured 34 green spaces in Seattle, such as parks and cemeteries, for feces left behind by coyotes. They did the same in forests and open country in a mountainous north central part of the state, some 120 miles away from Seattle.

 

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All told, they gathered more than 800 samples. Genetic analysis told them the scat came from 48 different Seattle coyotes and 213 wildland coyotes.

While that might make it seem like there were more coyotes in the wild, that’s not adjusting for the size of the locations where they looked for scat. Relying on statistical techniques commonly used to estimate wildlife population demographics, the scientists found that urban coyotes were, in fact, much more closely packed together.

There are a host of reasons why coyotes might thrive more in a city. They are much less likely to encounter animals that prey on them, such as wolves, bears and mountain lions. Among radio-collared wolves in the wildland  study area, 3 were killed by cougars and one by a black bear. Coyote pups were also killed by wolves.

While cars present a danger on city streets, armed humans bent on killing coyotes in rural areas might well be more lethal than any vehicles. Of the 47 collared wildland coyotes whose deaths could be confirmed, slightly more than half were killed by hunters or trappers. A single coyote was killed by a vehicle.

Then, there’s the urban smorgasbord of food. Between overflowing trash cans, fast-food burgers dropped in the gutter and ubiquitous urban bunny rabbits, Seattle coyotes have a far more diverse, and potentially much more abundant, food supply. The same research group found that coyote scat in Seattle contained genetic matches for more than twice as many species or groups of species than their wild counterparts±64 to 27.

Despite these results, coyotes appear conflicted about urban life. While there are more of them per square mile, the scientists found that when you compared different parts of Seattle, the places with the highest coyote density were the ones with the fewest people. They’re drawn to much of what the city offers, just not the humans that built it.

So how should we react to the idea that coyotes appear to thrive more in cities than in the wild? Perhaps acceptance or resignation are best. It’s repeatedly been shown that the animals defy efforts to control their numbers, said Prugh. We might just need to add them to the pantheon of urban animals.

“Whether there are too many or too few coyotes is sort of a societal question, but ultimately our answer might not matter,” said Prugh. “Coyotes are here to stay in cities, and it is up to us to learn how to live with them.”

Prugh, et. al. “Urbanization increases coyote density 9-fold in Washington state despite negative effects of human density within Seattle, USA.” Environmental Research: Ecology. Sept. 10, 2026.

Image: ©Robert McGouey/Alamy

Headline News:

• “Invasive Plant Spreads Across Portugal And Lengthens Allergy Season” • Pampas grass, Cortaderia selloana, has large feathery plumes that make it a familiar in decorative arrangements in gardens. But what many regard as a showy plant is, in Portugal, an invasive alien species that can spread rapidly with potential consequences for health. [Euronews]

Pampas grass (Arnim Littek, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped)

• “Physicist Raises Alarm Over Proposed Massive Nuclear Power Project” • A proposal for a huge industrial project in Utah would be powered by over 450 nuclear reactors. Dr Robert Davies, a professor of physics at Utah State University, worries that current regulations do not consider the massive thermal footprints that facilities like this can leave behind. [KSL News]
• “Von Der Leyen Turns To Europe’s Refineries As Shrinking Capacity Raises Energy Security Concerns” • President Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission announced a new “strategic dialogue” on European refineries, drawing attention to a growing vulnerability for the EU: Its refining capacity has been declining since 2009. [Euronews]
• “GWEC Alliance Unveils Floating Wind Action Plan” • The Global Wind Energy Council and more than fifty companies and organizations have set out an industry action plan aimed at commercializing floating wind. The plan focuses on reducing costs and demonstrating value, scaling the supply chain and expanding access to finance and insurance. [reNews]
• “Heart’s Electric Airliner Still Needs Fuel” • For 27 minutes, batteries flew a machine roughly the size of the regional aircraft Heart Aerospace eventually wants airlines to operate. There was no engine aboard aside from the electric motors, but by adding a turbogenerator, the airplane can fly as a hybrid aircraft. Further development will doubtless come. [CleanTechnica]

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

When antibiotics stop working Channel News brendan 7th October 2026 Teaser Media

NAZA, the new documentary by Yuval Abaraham and Rachel Szor, is a movie about Israelis. Their previous movie — the critically acclaimed No Other Land...

The post Eichmann in Tel-Aviv: NAZA and the banality of evil first appeared on Spring.

Protests against data centers have exploded across the US, with communities revolting against a multitude of proven damaging effects and the devastation of agricultural land.

The post USA: Data Centers Aren’t the Only Threat to Farmland appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

MST training on the impacts of El Niño brought together science, agroecology, and grassroots organizing to discuss a scenario of climate extremes, the limits of adaptation policies, and ways to protect food production.

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Cindy O’Neil understands the boom-and-bust cycles of industry. Her husband spent years working in Carbon County’s namesake coal mines. In this pocket of central Utah, energy and the economy have long been intrinsically linked, at great sacrifice to county residents.

“We’ve had the coal. We’ve dealt, the whole community, with black lung,” O’Neil said. “The explosions, the fires, and all the things that came along with it.”

But a new industry and type of energy production is about to move near her rural home. And she says it has her and her neighbors even more worried than they were about the dangers that came from their long history with coal. 

“It’s all descending, these data centers,” said O’Neil, who tracks mysterious new projects in the works and shares updates on Facebook community pages. “They’re setting these things within a couple of miles of homes.”

Her latest updates involve a lot of chatter about Valar Atomics, a nuclear startup. The company plans to build a mega-complex of 456 small modular reactors — a still largely untested and unproven technology in the United States — on the vast tracts of Bureau of Land Management land in the county. The project will store radioactive waste, according to a report from National Public Radio, and power an array of industrial activities, including data centers. “Project Beehive” has support from the state of Utah, and will include a square mile of state-owned trust lands.

Another data center complex planned for the county, Altigen Energy’s “Jurassic Spark,” will cover hundreds of acres and include a massive natural gas plant. 

It’s an abrupt shift. Carbon County’s coal mines produced nearly 10 million tons of coal in 2006. But a shift to cheaper energy sources, like renewables and natural gas, along with depleted supplies in the coal seams, sank the region’s main economic engine in just a few decades. Since 2023, not a single pound of coal has been mined in Carbon County.

“They say everything’s left us, and if we don’t grab these table scraps we’re not going to get anything,” said O’Neil. “I don’t think our county has to take the table scraps.”

Empty coal cars sit idle along U.S. Highway 6 near Wellington in Carbon County, Utah, in 2022.
Francisco Kjolseth / The Salt Lake Tribune

None of Carbon County’s new data center plans call for coal. The Utah Trust Lands Administration recently agreed to lease a square mile of its state-owned land for up to 100 years to Valar Atomics. The nuclear startup intends to use that lease to run some of its small modular reactors, process its uranium TRISO-fuel to feed the reactors, build water desalination, manufacture steel, refine critical minerals — and support data centers.

The Valar site is expected to generate $35 million in lease rents over 50 years, according to information the Trust Lands Administration staff presented to its board last month. Revenue collected from the project benefits Utah schools. (The state agency declined to comment on the Valar project.)

During that September board meeting, three Carbon County residents who are employed or expected to be employed by Valar spoke in favor of the project. All three of the Carbon County commissioners also voiced their support.

“[We] realize that this topic is a hot button now, along with data centers,” said Larry Jensen, one of the commissioners. “It’s important that you understand that the Carbon County commissioners are committed to allowing these things to move forward. Even with the pushback — we realize that there are a few in our community who will push back — but the silent majority are the ones that we really represent.”

Cheryl Lupo, a longtime resident of the county, balked at that assertion. She is running for a seat on the county commission this year. As an unaffiliated candidate, she had to collect 300 signatures to land on the ballot. She said the opinions she heard during that process were overwhelmingly opposed to data centers and nuclear plants.

“People are up in arms,” Lupo said. “Torches and pitchforks. Because they’re not being heard.”

Governor Spencer Cox, U.S. Senator John Curtis, and other high-ranking Utah officials welcomed Valar to the state earlier this year, allowing it to test its “Ward250” microreactor at the San Rafael Energy Lab in neighboring Emery County. Valar announced it had achieved “self-sustaining criticality” in June — a process where atoms split and maintain a steady fission chain reaction without being fed more neutrons. The company has plans to power a 30-megawatt nuclear-powered AI data center in Emery County, too, in partnership with the computer-chip giant Nvidia.

Small modular reactors have yet to be deployed for commercial use in the United States. During last week’s Trust Lands Administration meeting, Mike Nelson, the board’s chair, seemed to acknowledge that the deal with Valar came with some unknowns. “We weren’t always sure what to ask about,” Nelson said, while offering praise for the nuclear startup, “and probably still aren’t sure of everything to ask about because this is a first, right?”

Utah has a troubled history with nuclear testing. Lupo’s mother was 38 years old when she died, and Lupo believes the cause was downwind effects from radioactive weapons testing in nearby Nevada during the 1950s. Her mother lived in Carbon County at the time. She believes the fallout caused her grandfather’s death, too.

“I will never, ever be a proponent of nuclear,” Lupo said.

Empty coal cars sit idle along U.S. Highway 6 near Wellington in Carbon County, Utah, in 2022.
Francisco Kjolseth / The Salt Lake Tribune

Even before the proposal to build Valar’s complex started causing a stir, rumors swirled about the possibility of another data center campus in Carbon County.

Altigen, a company that builds natural gas power plants for data centers, has selected an area east of Wellington for its 1,200-acre “Jurassic Spark” project — nearly double the size of the Valar campus, according to meeting minutes from the local Community Economic Development Board. Plans call for building a 250-megawatt gas plant to power the complex initially, but it could eventually produce 3 gigawatts of electricity, according to Jensen. For the sake of comparison, the entire state of Utah uses about 4 gigawatts. (Altigen did not respond to a request for comment.)

Data center developers are increasingly turning to natural gas to power their projects since utilities have struggled to supply the intense electricity demands of AI servers.

Last year, the Utah Legislature passed SB 132, allowing private companies with energy demands of 100 megawatts or more to build their own self-contained generating stations. The idea was to support business development, including data centers, without putting a strain on the grid used by nearly everyone else. The result was a surge of builders issuing plans and applying for permits to build gas-fired power plants.

Natural gas, however, is a potent greenhouse pollutant mostly composed of methane. It helps fuel climate change and pollutes the air in surrounding communities. And natural gas plants can produce immense amounts of heat.

But nuclear plants can produce even more heat than natural gas plants because they are less efficient, according to Robert Davies, a professor of physics at Utah State University. “If you’re in a contained valley, it concentrates the problem,” he said.

As it happens, the Wellington area sits in a valley, hemmed in by the Wasatch Range to the west and the Book Cliffs to the north and east.

“The heat island that the data centers produce, that concerns me,” said Aspen Westenskow, who has lived in Carbon and Emery counties all her life. “They go clear all this land, the brush, the trees. What helps cool the planet down? Not flat dirt.”

Westenskow said water remains her biggest source of distress. The region is water-strapped, with every drop spoken for.

Valar says its reactors use closed-loop helium cooling which requires little water, and data developers have asserted they will also use closed-loop cooling systems with low water demands.

On July 3, Carbon County issued a statement responding to their residents’ concerns. The region faces a difficult economic reality due to the decline of the coal industry, the statement said. That has shifted more of the county’s property tax burden to homeowners and remaining businesses. Data centers have earned the commissioners’ support because of their potential to infuse tax rolls with much-needed revenue.

The statement also addressed concerns over the non-disclosure agreements that some residents have questioned. “Without these agreements,” the statement reads, “some companies would choose not to explore projects in Carbon County.”

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It’s not clear whether the county had nondisclosure agreements with Altigen or Valar. But they’re common for companies looking to do business in Carbon County. Oran Stainbrook, one resident, said he was aware of several when he served on the county planning commission and economic development board. He resigned from those positions a few months ago to take a job in Colorado, he said.

Although he wasn’t aware of any agreements involving the data center projects, Stainbrook said he believed the commissioners were looking out for the county’s best interests, trying to lure jobs and investment.

O’Neil, from her home on U.S. Highway 6, sees things differently.

“You shouldn’t be hiding what you and the company are going to bring to a community,” O’Neil said, “and not tell the community until it’s too late and a done deal.”

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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Powering data centers on nuclear? That’s a tough sell in Utah’s coal country. on Oct 7, 2026.

There are many markers of fall: vibrant foliage, apple picking, and pumpkin-spiced everything, to name a few. Cranking up the heat is another. With record-setting energy prices, everyone is bracing for higher bills. For the more than 4 million households that rely on heating oil, this winter could be particularly devastating.

The war with Iran has pushed the cost of heating oil, which is essentially diesel, higher than it ever has been. It is hovering around $6 a gallon across much of the Northeast, where about 82 percent of homes that burn the fuel are located. That’s compared to the mid-$3 range in February. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association, or NEADA, projects that the cost of warming a home with that fossil fuel will go up 50 percent across those states. That amounts to $878 per household, or some $3.8 billion overall. 

“The volatility of this product right before winter is scary,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the organization, which had projected a lower increase just weeks earlier. “This is part of the cost of the war.” 

The stalemate in the Mideast has curtailed ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a tenth of the world’s water-borne diesel once flowed. Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries, another major source of diesel, have further curbed the global supply. That has sent prices up, with colder states expected to see heating oil hikes well above the NEADA average. Vermont and Maine, for example, face the prospect of a 76-percent jump. 

These increases threaten to overwhelm the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, a federal safety net for those who cannot afford to heat or cool their homes. With existing aid buying far less fuel than it did before the war, Republicans and Democrats alike are pressing the Trump administration to release assistance quickly while Congress weighs whether to put billions more into the program. The situation is so dire that the governor of Massachusetts declared a state of emergency on Monday.

For people with oil furnaces, there are few easy alternatives. They could turn to space heaters because electricity rates haven’t climbed as fast as heating oil, but the devices are inefficient and could lead to higher bills. Burning wood is another option for those with a fireplace or stove. Although natural gas prices have remained relatively low, installing a new furnace is costly and it could take years for any savings in energy costs to recoup the investment.

Another route is to invest in weatherizing a home by adding insulation or sealing windows, for example, which can help lower bills, and many states have funding available to help with energy-saving projects. 

The EI Niño weather pattern could bring a relatively warm winter to the Northeast, which would help ease the burden of higher prices. Still, as winter approaches, people who rely on it are concerned.

“I just had my boiler cleaned/serviced for the coming season and honestly I’m terrified of the oil bill,” one person noted on Reddit. Others are weighing whether to pre-buy fuel to lock in current prices, though some are finding that dealers aren’t offering that option given the uncertainty. An especially dejected person simply said, “I have no plan and I’m all out of ideas.”

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Wolfe is especially worried about the more than 1 million low-income households that rely upon heating oil. Those families may end up having to choose between filling the tank and buying necessities like food and medication. “This could be a public health crisis,” he said. “The problem is that the administration has said nothing.” 

President Donald Trump has repeatedly targeted the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, for elimination. It has survived so far, though the administration did temporarily hold back payments last spring. Some lawmakers worry fall funds could move slowly, too. 

“A quick release of funding will ensure no gaps in assistance,” a bipartisan group of 31 senators wrote in a letter last month to Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The program currently has roughly $4 billion, and the agency has until November 1 to release at least 90 percent of that money to states, with the rest coming in the spring. But the legislators want the payments to reach people as soon as possible. “Given the extraordinary pressure consumers will face this winter,” they wrote, “we ask that you make this distribution well before the deadline.”

The White House referred a request for comment to the Department of Health and Human Services, which told Grist that it will meet the deadline. “HHS has staff and capacity to distribute these funds in a timely manner,” the agency wrote in an email. 

Even if that money arrives quickly, it won’t go as far with fuel prices this high. Increasing the program’s funding would require congressional approval — a step legislators have taken in the past, including during President Trump’s first term. A House bill introduced last week would add $1 billion to the LIHEAP budget, though any action on the legislation won’t happen before midterms. Without more of a buffer, families may not have enough heating oil to last the winter.

“People’s benefit would have less purchasing power,” Miranda Gray, the deputy commissioner at the Vermont Department for Children and Families, told Grist. Her agency distributes the state’s LIHEAP distribution. If assistance were to run out, she said people might have to turn to other options, like community nonprofits. 

On Monday, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey declared a state of emergency to prepare for a rough winter ahead. Her executive order boosts assistance to 156,000 low-income households and expands access to 50,000 middle-class families. It also activates legal protections against price gouging, the state said in its press release. Healey also called on Congress to pass an additional $3 billion in funding for LIHEAP. For now, both officials and consumers are hoping for the best. 

“I try to have an optimistic attitude that things could change,” Gray told state legislators at a hearing last month. One Reddit user put it more bluntly: “I feel like I’m playing chicken with fuel prices and the impending cold weather.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The Northeast’s reliance on heating oil is turning into a crisis on Oct 7, 2026.

Barrier islands like Tybee Island, off the coast of Georgia, should naturally accumulate sand from islands farther north, but human activity — development on the island, building sea walls and jetties, creating shipping channels — has disrupted that process. As a result, barrier islands are constantly losing sand, and the beaches are constantly being washed away by the relentless tide.

To address the problem, the Army Corps of Engineers has, since the 1970s, been dredging up sand and depositing it onto beaches up and down the east coast. On Tybee, which sits just south of the mouth of the Savannah River, beach renourishment happens every seven years. The natural sand-sharing there is further interrupted by the shipping channel that cuts between Tybee and its neighbors to the north.

In the winter of 2019 and 2020, the Corps placed 1.3 million cubic yards of sand on the Tybee Island beach. More than half of that sand is gone now. On one stretch near the DeSoto Beach Hotel, the dune looks like it’s been chopped in half with a giant knife, ending in a 5-foot cliff instead of a gradual slope.

“It’s extremely stark and startling to see up close and personal,” said city manager Bret Bell. “You can see the vegetation. It’s bisected in half. You can see the roots coming out of the dune system.”

It’s not just the dune grasses. In some places, the tide and storms have cut into sea turtle nests buried in the dune. Businesses are feeling the pinch too. The dramatic erosion has forced chair and umbrella rental operations off the beach in some places, Bell said, and the DeSoto has lost bookings due to the poor state of the beach in front of its doors. 

All told, the erosion puts the island itself — and the mainland — at risk. The sea level is rising about half an inch a year due to climate change.

“It is really our only protection against the encroaching oceans,” Bell said. “Storm surge would inundate our island if it weren’t for the mitigating effects of the beach and our dune system.”

Tybee Island is due for renourishment again this winter. Planning began when the last renourishment ended, Bell said, and the city, Chatham County, and the state of Georgia have worked since then to set aside enough funds to cover 40 percent of the $20 million price tag — the required local match funding for the federal beach renourishment program. But Congress underfunded that program, according to Bell, and Tybee was left off the project list.

“All of a sudden, all of these beach communities started really competing for the limited amount of funding that there was,” he said.

City officials continued to lobby, residents launched a letter-writing campaign, and members of Georgia’s congressional delegation visited the island to see the stark beach erosion. Then, in September, came a development Bell called a “miracle”: The Corps redirected leftover funds from other projects to Tybee. Work is slated to begin this winter.

When it does, the Corps plans to try something new. When the agency dredges the Savannah River shipping channel, it will deposit that sand in the shallows off Tybee’s beach instead of pumping it offshore. The goal is to minimize the wave action that eats away at the beach and allow the sand to travel more like it naturally would without the interruption of the shipping channel.

“That really is expected to extend the life of our nourishment,” Bell said. “So instead of the next nourishment happening in seven years, it might be 10 years.”

Update: This story has been updated to reflect how the Army Corps of Engineers is funding the Tybee Beach renourishment.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The never-ending struggle to protect Georgia’s most popular beach on Oct 7, 2026.

An Arizona community’s plan to reuse an invasive weed to construct low-income housing shows that when we can't pressure the top, we can rebuild from the bottom.