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It has been a hard-fought year for Alaska’s public lands, and few places have felt the pressure more intensely than the Western Arctic. 

Stretching across more than 23 million acres of federal public land, what is formally known as the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska (NPRA) is one of the largest expanses of public land in the country. It is also one of the most ecologically important places in the Arctic, supporting caribou herds, migratory birds, fish, polar bears, and other wildlife, as well as the Alaska Native communities whose cultures, livelihoods, and traditions are deeply connected to these lands and waters.  

For decades, the NPRA—or what we call the Western Arctic—has been a place where the public has fought to balance the demands of development with the extraordinary ecological and cultural values of the region. 

This year, that balance has been under relentless pressure. 

The Lease Sales 

In March, the Administration held an oil and gas lease sale in the Western Arctic that was devastating to witness. Industry showed up with the money and interest to claim huge portions of this public landscape, with more than 1.3 million acres ultimately leased.  

Familiar names were among the bidders, including ConocoPhillips, which has previously talked about pursuing a “smaller footprint” in Alaska and has relinquished leases in the Western Arctic in the past. ExxonMobil also bid on tracts along the shores of Teshekpuk Lake, one of the most important and ecologically sensitive places in the entire Western Arctic. The largest spender at the sale was Repsol, a foreign Spanish oil company. 

For a region so often invoked in conversations about American energy independence, it is worth taking a close look at who is actually lining up to develop these public lands, and who stands to benefit from doing so. The companies placing bids may have different histories and different corporate strategies, but they share an interest in securing access to some of the most consequential public lands in the Arctic.  

You can read more details in our press release here.  

For those of us who care deeply about public lands, the lease sale was a crushing day. These places are more than mere acreage or parcels available for companies to acquire. The Western Arctic is a landscape of extraordinary scale and ecological importance, and decisions made there reverberate far beyond the boundaries of individual lease tracts. 

But we did not let the lease sale silence us. 

Instead, Alaska Wilderness League and our supporters launched a corporate accountability campaign aimed directly at the companies that had chosen to pursue oil and gas development in the Western Arctic. Thousands of people took to social media to make their views known, flooding corporate accounts with comments and questions and demanding that these companies answer for their plans in the Arctic. It was one way for people across the country to remind these corporations that public lands come with a public interest — and that the American people are paying attention to what happens on them. 

We’re still bringing that energy. Unfortunately, so is Big Oil. 

Opening The Door Wider 

In July, the Bureau of Land Management proposed another major change that could have consequences across the Western Arctic. The proposal, developed with significant input from the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, would make it easier for companies to advance development projects in the Western Arctic while limiting opportunities for public oversight and participation. 

The proposal comes with the familiar trappings of public engagement: a 60-day comment period, public meetings, and virtual hearings. Those opportunities matter, and people across the country have made use of them. But the substance of the proposal raises much larger questions about what meaningful public participation looks like when the rules governing development are being rewritten to make development easier in the first place. 

The Western Arctic deserves careful review of major projects because the stakes are enormous. The region contains wetlands, rivers, lakes, coastal areas, migration routes, and critical habitat that sustain wildlife and communities across the Arctic. Changes to the way development is reviewed can affect far more than a single project or lease block, particularly when they reduce opportunities to evaluate cumulative impacts and hear from the people who know these lands best. 

So we showed up. 

Members of the public packed hearings and meetings, submitted comments, and made their voices heard. More than 80 people testified during the public hearings, calling in from across the country — from Alaska to Maine and communities in between. Their messages varied, but the concern was unmistakable: decisions about the future of the Western Arctic deserve meaningful public scrutiny, and people expect the federal government to listen before making changes that could shape this landscape for decades. 

Those comments have been submitted to the Bureau of Land Management, and the public comment period remains open through November 9. 

If you haven’t yet weighed in, you can take action here. 

A Familiar Playbook 

The proposed BLM rule is only one piece of a much larger effort to change how development happens in the Western Arctic. 

The Administration has also moved toward codifying a categorical exclusion for certain exploratory activities in the Western Arctic, a step that could allow these efforts to move forward without undergoing the full environmental review typically required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). 

Environmental review is one of the primary ways the public gets to understand what a proposed project could mean for wildlife, habitat, communities, and the broader landscape before decisions are made. It provides a process for identifying impacts, considering alternatives, and bringing information into the public record. 

Eliminating that review means reducing opportunities to ask hard questions before bulldozers, roads, drill rigs, and other industrial infrastructure arrive. 

Taken together, these changes point toward a broader shift in how the Western Arctic is being managed. Longstanding safeguards are being reconsidered or dismantled, opportunities for public participation are being narrowed, and the rules governing development are being rewritten in ways that could make it easier for industry to move forward. 

The Western Arctic has spent decades at the center of debates about how much development is appropriate on public lands and where the lines should be drawn to protect places that are especially important for wildlife and communities. Those debates are not going away, but neither should the public’s role in them. 

This is Public Land 

It can be easy, after another lease sale or another proposed rule change, to feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of threats facing Alaska’s public lands. But the scale of the challenge is also a reminder of why public engagement matters. 

The Western Arctic belongs to all of us. 

It belongs to the people who live closest to it and depend on its lands and waters. It belongs to the caribou that travel across it, the birds that migrate thousands of miles to reach it, and the fish and other wildlife that depend on its interconnected wetlands, rivers, lakes, and coastal waters. And as public land, it belongs to the millions of Americans who may never set foot in the Arctic but still have a stake in what happens there. 

That public interest deserves a voice in every decision that shapes the future of this extraordinary place. 

Sometimes that means showing up when the government hands us the microphone. Sometimes it means creating enough public pressure that decision-makers have to listen. Sometimes it means holding corporations accountable for the choices they make on public lands. And sometimes it means doing all three at once. 

The fight for the Western Arctic has been long, and this year has brought more than its share of difficult days. But across the country, people continue to speak up for these lands. They are submitting comments, showing up at hearings, calling out corporate actions, and reminding decision-makers that the Western Arctic is worth protecting. 

We are deeply grateful to everyone who has stood with us through this fight. 

There is still a long road ahead, and there is still plenty of work to do. But we’re here for it — and we’re not going quietly. 

Photos: © Florian Schulz / visionsofthewild.com

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes presided over an unusual holiday hearing on Monday that stretched to almost four hours following the Trump administration’s actions to cut down hundreds of trees at the East Potomac golf course in Washington, D.C. over the weekend.

The administration provided just a few hours advance notice to the court before moving ahead with a plan to clear more than 400 trees on Saturday. Preservationists are suing to block President Donald Trump’s plan to transform the site into a championship-level course. Reyes said the abrupt move violated an understanding she had with Justice Department lawyers that no major renovation work would proceed without giving the court time to address it. Reyes imposed a short-term restraining order, blocking the National Park Service from taking down any more trees through 2 PM today.

During the hearing on Monday, Reyes demanded immediate testimony on the matter, summoning officials from the National Park Service to testify via Zoom. Frank Lands, the park service’s deputy director of operations, said his instructions came from Greg Wischer, a senior official at the Department of the Interior. Wischer could not be located Monday, so Reyes recessed the hearing with plans to reconvene today.

“I trusted you all not to do precisely what you have done,” Reyes said to the Trump administration attorneys at the hearing, declaring that they had “lost credibility” by defying her clear instructions. “I actually don’t think courts should be playing Parks and Rec,” Reyes said during the hearing. “There is no excuse for this.”

Quick hits Judge halts Trump’s tree demolition at D.C. golf course

Politico | Associated Press | Washington Post | WTOP News

Tohono O’odham Nation fights saguaro removal in borderlands on Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Arizona Republic

In New Mexico’s oil country, people ask: What happened to our water and air?

Capital & Main

Hundreds of thousands of commenters support maintaining the Roadless Rule

Utah Public Radio

Federal judge bars group from fencing off 1,400 acres of Colorado public land

Colorado Sun

One acre of Yosemite has kicked off a battle over the future of national parks

Wall Street Journal

Interior cancels maintenance, programming at New Mexico national park sites

SourceNM

Opinion: The U.S. public is losing its say on environmental policy

Yale Environment 360

Quote of the day

Trespassing on our land to remove the sacred saguaros is like having masked men break into your house and take away your children. The ha:sañ are our family, as much a part of us as any blood relative. To destroy them by the thousands carves a wound in our hearts that will not heal. We call on all people for solidarity as we work to protect our culture and our land from this useless, destructive wall.”

—Verlon Jose, Tohono O’odham Tribal Chairman, Arizona Republic

Picture This

@u.s.forestservice

Granite Peak rises above Buttermilk Meadows on the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest — a stunning backdrop in one of northern Nevada’s most treasured landscapes.

The Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest supports local recreation and plays an important role in the rural economy.

With an elevation of 9,732 feet at Granite Peak, visitors can explore rugged granitic formations, sweeping basins, and vibrant high-desert vegetation including large aspen stands, mountain mahogany, sagebrush, and native grasses.

Plan your visit and experience the beauty of Nevada’s basin-and-range country. The Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest is your starting point for adventure!

(Forest Service by Mark Dallon.)

Featured image: East Potomac Park Golf Course, just South of the National Mall in Washington D.C. Source: Ken Lund, Flickr.

The post Judge halts Trump’s tree demolition at D.C. golf course appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Registered nurses across the country continue to build our union movement, asserting our collective power against a profit-driven health care system and a corporate-aligned federal government. CNA/NNOC announced today that nurses at four hospitals – which in total employ 4,500 nurses and serve more than 1.7 million patients annually – filed petitions over the past week with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for union elections.

Food technology platform Wonder said it is saving about 5% on energy expenses using stationary plug-in batteries. “Our No. 1 goal was to figure out how we can reduce our utility bills, shave the peaks off of our utility usage,” a senior VP for the company said.

When oil and gas shipments stopped flowing through the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the Iran war, Southeast Asian nations were left reeling as the supply crunch laid bare their acute reliance on fossil fuel imports.

As prices soared, governments in the region scrambled to introduce emergency energy-saving measures – from a four-day work week to curbs on air conditioning. Thailand revived decommissioned coal plants while the Philippines, which imports nearly all of its oil, declared a “national energy emergency”.

But the crisis has also prompted renewed resolve to find a long-term solution to their vulnerability at a time when electricity demand is booming to power the region’s growing industry, cooling needs and the mushrooming of energy-hungry data centres.

At the heart of Southeast Asian nations’ response is a longstanding infrastructure project to connect the region’s power grids by 2045 and enable cross-border trading of clean electricity through a network of underground and subsea interconnectors.

• Aug 5, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier Southeast Asia’s fragile grids threaten billions in clean energy investment Renewables developers need reliable electricity infrastructure and stable policies to help the region meet climate goals and surging demand for power Read more
• Sep 23, 2026 News UN backs push to upgrade grids slowing clean power uptake in Africa and SE Asia The Global Grids Accelerator will help turn national and regional plans to expand electricity infrastructure into viable projects on the ground Read more
• Aug 20, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier China keeps Indonesia’s battery dream afloat but future less certain Chinese capital and technology turned Indonesia into the world’s top nickel supplier, but its dependence on China and the rise of nickel-free batteries could upset its battery ecosystem plans Read more

The plans will allow nations with high renewable energy generation potential to trade surplus power to their neighbours and major demand centres like Singapore, helping to integrate more renewables into the power mix and reduce reliance on fossil fuel imports.

“[It] will give us more energy security,” the Philippines’ energy secretary, Sharon Garin, told a press conference after a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) energy ministers last week, when they discussed accelerating the delivery of the regional grid as part of measures to respond to the energy crisis.

“The Philippines is rich in solar power, Malaysia is rich in hydropower and Indonesia has geothermal: different countries have different resources. [The ASEAN Power Grid] will optimise the utilisation of renewables to the benefits of each member state,” said Garin.

But turning this decade-old political vision into a reality has been slow, held up by painstaking work to harmonise a patchwork of regulatory and legal frameworks and mobilise the private capital needed to build cross-border infrastructure.

More than $300 billion is needed to expand and modernise the region’s fragile grids to support the projected energy demand increase by 2050. This includes $27 billion required to deliver the cross-border interconnections by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Every year of delay could cost the region billions of dollars in additional fuel costs and lock in new gas infrastructure for decades to come, according to analysis by global energy think-tank Ember.

The building block for energy security

With electrification high on the agenda of the COP31 climate talks in Türkiye next month, there is growing attention on the need to modernise and expand grid infrastructure to cope with growing electricity use and more renewables in the power mix.

Clean electrification and energy efficiency could deliver about a third of cumulative carbon emission reductions between 2026 and 2050, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook. But delivering that would require doubling annual global grid investment to $1 trillion between now and 2035.

Last month, the UN launched an initiative to accelerate investment into expanding and modernising grids in Southeast Asia and Africa.

A technician walks next to solar panels that partially provide electrical power to the Grand Mosque of Istiqlal in Jakarta, Indonesia (Photo: REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan)

First conceptualised in 1997, the ASEAN Power Grid has gained fresh impetus in recent years as countries turn to renewables to cut their emissions and move away from volatile fossil fuel markets.

Energy supply disruption caused by wars in Ukraine and the Middle East has strengthened the case for regional grid connections. Before this year’s conflict began, the Middle East accounted for 60% of Southeast Asia’s crude oil imports. Competition for fewer, more expensive oil and gas shipments has left Southeast Asia facing a $160 billion energy import bill this year. Based on current policies, this could rise to $400 billion by mid-century.

In the Philippines last week, energy ministers agreed on an enhanced planning framework to deliver the ASEAN Power Grid and made progress on regulatory guidelines.

Garin said ministers were considering accelerating the project’s delivery. “The first study was to connect [by] 2045 – that’s too far,” she said.

A strong business case

The economic benefits of the plan have “captured the political imagination” of leaders in the region, Robert Cooke, grids advocacy lead at the Global Renewables Alliance, told Climate Home News. “The business case is stronger than ever,” he said.

“If countries were to go about building their own separate grids, of course that would be an expensive endeavour. But the discussion around the ASEAN Power Grid includes what costs could we share in building out this grid,” added Tiza Mafira, director of the Indonesia office for the Climate Policy Initiative.

Stronger grids would help the region meet collective targets to increase the share of renewable energy in total primary energy supply from 14% to 30% and in installed power capacity from 34% to 45% by 2030.

Connecting and pooling dispersed renewable resources would also help smooth local power shortages caused by daily and seasonal variations, reducing the need for backup gas plants and battery storage.

The IEA found the ASEAN Power Grid could help unlock some of the 20 terawatts of untapped solar and wind potential across Southeast Asia – an amount around 55 times the region’s current total power capacity.

From lines on a map to shovels in the ground

Rather than building a single unified network, the ASEAN Power Grid is developing cross-border links between neighbouring countries and smaller groups of nations.

As of 2025, nine of 18 priority interconnection projects are operational – accounting for around 10 GW of capacity with an additional 13.7 GW planned by 2040.

A power line channelling up to 200 MW of clean electricity generated from hydropower in Laos to Singapore via Thailand and Malaysia has emerged as a key building block for grid-to-grid trading.

Progress on technical discussions will also help provide the clarity the private sector needs to invest in bankable projects, said Cooke.

In 2025, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank announced a dedicated funding initiative to support the project.

“The enabling pieces are emerging,” said Monalisa Dimalanta, former chair of the Philippine Energy Regulatory Commission and the National Renewable Energy Board. “But the timelines remain unclear and a 2045 vision cannot answer today’s emergency,” she said.

“A power grid… that exists only on paper will not keep the lights on.”

Singapore: the delivery test

The implications of failing to deliver the ASEAN Power Grid are most acute in Singapore.

Constrained by space, with few renewable energy resources and dependent on gas for more than 90% of its electricity mix, Singapore has emerged as a leading proponent of a regional power grid as it seeks to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

To meet its power needs, the city-state aims to import 6 GW of low-carbon electricity by 2035, around one-third of its energy demand – a target which it is set to miss, however.

The plans heavily rely on building interconnectors to import solar power from Indonesia across the South China Sea. Around 40% of the ASEAN Power Grid’s planned interconnections are directed towards Singapore.

Skyscrapers in Singapore (Photo by Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)

Ember’s analysis found that delivering the planned interconnectors by 2035 could enable renewables to meet nearly half of Singapore’s electricity demand. Delays could drop this to only a fraction of the country’s needs, and risk locking in new gas capacity until the 2050s. Without the ASEAN Power Grid, Singapore would need to install an additional 300 MW of gas-fired power capacity to bridge the gap by 2035.

Already home to the largest data centre capacity in Southeast Asia, Singapore’s electricity demand keeps rising, driven by the boom in AI infrastructure. “At one point, [it] either has to build a new gas plant, or it has to get the interconnection to supply that demand,” Lam Pham, an Ember energy analyst and the report’s author, told Climate Home News.

A region at a crossroads

With capital increasingly available, political will is now the biggest risk standing in the way of timely execution, said Pham.

But there are other challenges too, including the lack of frameworks on transmission tariffs and how to share the benefits of clean power trading. “It’s really hard to justify projects without that,” he said.

In addition, climate-fuelled weather events, including extreme heat and tropical storms, pose major threats to the region’s grid infrastructure. Experts say stronger grid interconnection can isolate damage and build the system’s resilience.

Efforts to deliver on the ASEAN Power Grid also come as ministers stressed the “continued importance of oil and gas” for economic development and seek to secure fossil fuel supplies and stockpile oil to prepare for the next crisis.

Despite an acceleration of renewable deployment, particularly solar, coal still generates nearly half the electricity supply in ASEAN member states and dominates the power mix in Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, while Singapore and Thailand rely on gas.

While these measures might help the region with the immediate crisis, “the long-term answer is more domestic renewable energy, electrification, storage, efficiency and regional power trade”, Dimalanta said.

Main image: An aerial view of the MTerra solar project in the Philippines, set to become one of the world’s largest solar-and-battery developments (Photo by Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)

The post SE Asia speeds up plan for connected clean power grid after oil shock appeared first on Climate Home News.

Farmworker leaders from the CIW (Nely Rodriguez, speaking, and Lupe Gonzalo, to her immediate left)  join plant nursery workers with WeCount! at a press conference on the Planting Justice initiative earlier this year.

Sixteen years ago, the Fair Food Program ushered in a new day for farmworkers in the United States, replacing generations of poverty and powerlessness with a groundbreaking system built to guarantee fundamental human rights in the fields.  The Program’s unique standards include protections against wage theft, sexual harassment, retaliation, modern-day slavery, and — as of just over two years ago — protections the Washington Post called “America’s strongest workplace heat rules“. Today, the Presidential Medal-winning FFP has become a beacon of hope far beyond the fields where it began, demonstrating to workers around the world that even the most deeply rooted abuses can be overcome when workers themselves are empowered to monitor and enforce their own rights.

In recent years, workers and human rights advocates from industries across the U.S. and around the world have traveled to CIW’s headquarters in Immokalee to learn firsthand about the Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR) model based on the Fair Food Program — and explore how they can adapt that model to confront abuses in their own workplaces. Among them have been members of WeCount!, a worker-based human rights organization from Homestead, Florida, whose members have long marched alongside the CIW in the Campaign for Fair Food and participated in multiple worker-to-worker exchanges in Immokalee, learning directly from workers on FFP farms how worker-led monitoring and binding market commitments have transformed life in the fields.

Over the past several years, that longstanding solidarity has grown into a deeper collaboration between WeCount!, the CIW, and the Fair Food Standards Council to adapt the lessons of the FFP to another corner of Florida agriculture: the sprawling plant nursery industry. As that partnership has developed, nursery workers have taken the lead in shaping Planting Justice — Sembrando Justicia — a new WSR initiative designed to put workers themselves at the center of monitoring and enforcing their rights, backed by the same binding commitments from the corporations with the power to change conditions on the ground as are found in the FFP. Today, workers are calling on Costa Farms, one of the nation’s largest growers of houseplants, to become the initiative’s first corporate partner.

A powerful new feature article from Grist shines a national spotlight on the latest chapter in that collaboration — and on an industry where the beautiful plants lining floors in Home Depot, Lowe’s, Whole Foods, Walmart and Costco stores across America can conceal a far harsher reality for the workers who grow them. Nursery workers describe extreme heat, inadequate access to clean water, a lack of shade and rest breaks, pesticide exposure, and other dangerous conditions, even as traditional avenues for securing protections have narrowed. But the story is also one of exciting possibility: Drawing on years of organizing and the proven lessons of the Fair Food Program, workers are building a path to safeguarding their dignity in the workplace.

Check out excerpts from Grist’s powerful feature below, and click here to read the full article.

America’s houseplants come at a steep price for greenhouse workers The people who grow houseplants aren’t often thought of as agricultural workers, but they face many of the same hardships — especially in extreme heat.

…Since 2021, WeCount has been advocating on behalf of outdoor workers who lack meaningful protections from extreme heat. Based in South Florida, WeCount previously campaigned for a municipal heat standard in Miami-Dade County, where deaths from heat exposure are estimated to spike by 60% (opens in new tab) during extremely hot periods. But those efforts were cut short in 2024, when industry groups complained(opens in new tab) and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis passed a law preempting local governments from enacting their own heat standards. (DeSantis said such regulations could cause “a lot of problems.”(opens in new tab)

Planting Justice, WeCount’s new campaign to protect outdoor workers across the South, aims to bring corporations like Costa Farms to the table and create consumer awareness around where their plants come from — and the human cost of growing them.

This model of mobilizing for stronger workplace protections is known as worker-driven social responsibility. WeCount’s campaign is heavily inspired by the Fair Food Program, which farmworkers have successfully used for years to boost their labor conditions and is considered the highest standard of labor protections for farmworkers in the U.S. The Fair Food Program, launched in 2011 by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, has proven effective as a framework for workers to continually surface and address their needs. For example, while access to drinking water is one of the core tenets of the program, this year, workers won the right to electrolyte beverages or supplements year round.

CIW staff provide an on-the-clock, worker-to-worker education session as part of the FFP, on Rancho Durazno

“We know that every year this crisis is getting worse,” said Londoño, referring to how summer temperatures climb year to year, driven by human-caused climate change. “But increasingly, legislative avenues are more and more limited.”

Heat is the deadliest form of extreme weather(opens in new tab). In the U.S., official counts of deaths from extreme heat exposure vastly underreport the scope of the problem(opens in new tab), as a two-year investigation by Boston University and NPR recently demonstrated. For years, labor advocates and community groups have pushed for the creation of a federal heat standard — a set of guidelines that would apply to employers across the country designed to reduce workers’ risk of heat illness. While the Occupational Safety and Health Administration — or OSHA,  the nation’s workplace regulator — seemed to be making progress toward such a rule under the Biden administration, those efforts have since stalled out. Meanwhile, agricultural workers, a category that includes plant nursery workers who handle the greenery directly, are excluded from federal collective bargaining protections under the National Labor Relations Act. And yet, agricultural workers are also more than 35 times more likely(opens in new tab) to die from heat-related complaints than workers in other industries.

The goal of the Planting Justice campaign is for Costa Farms to sign onto a code of conduct developed by workers. The agreement outlines relatively straightforward demands: educating workers and supervisors on the signs of heat illness; providing access to shade, water, and rest breaks; and creating systems for monitoring and responding to heat stress.

Organizers believe the agreement would help directly address issues that workers themselves see on the job. For example, while Costa Farms reports that the company provides access to hydration stations on very hot days, workers industry-wide have reported water with a strong chemical smell, as well as seeing mold in water coolers, said Londoño.

Alejandro Gonzalez, a plant nursery worker originally from Guatemala, told a Florida rally that the summer days have topped 110 degrees Fahrenheit on occasion. “They don’t give us cold or clean water,” Gonzalez said emphatically, in Spanish. “They don’t provide any breaks or shade.”

Eighty-six percent of nursery workers who responded to a survey by WeCount(opens in new tab) reported dangerous incidents on the job, stemming from heat illness, pesticide exposure, and workplace accidents. Over two-thirds reported being entirely denied breaks and days off. The visa conditions of many houseplant workers — dependent on H2-A or other visas, or entirely undocumented — leave them with few rights to recourse, often entirely dependent on their employers for housing, and unable to rely on much of federal labor law for support should they speak out.

Stay tuned for more exciting updates about new WSR initiatives!

Bold is offering local organizers the opportunity to host their own phone banks for our endorsed candidates, and providing our hosts with a “Phonebank ToGo” kit that includes t-shirts, stickers, buttons, and gift cards to buy snacks for your phone bankers!

Fill out the form below to organize your Phonebank ToGo and Bold will arrange to drop off your supply basket. 

Phonebank ToGo Supply Kit includes: 

• Instructions
• Invitation graphic to share on social media
• BOLD Shirts for you and your pals
• Gift card for Dinner and or Snacks
• Gift Card for Butterfly Bakery
• Stickers and Pencils
• Thank you gift for the PhoneBank ToGo Host

How to Organize Your Phonebank ToGo:

1. Choose a BOLD Endorsed Candidate to host a phonebank for:
   Brian Seck
   SuAnn Witt
   Rick Vest
   George Dungan
   Sean Flowerday
   Jess Goldoni
   Carol Blood
   Sara Kohen
   Cindy Johnson
   Cindy Maxwell Ostdiek
2. Pick your date and time!
3. Invite your friends. (This is a virtual phone bank, so you can phone bank from anywhere.)
4. Submit t-shirt sizes for you and all your volunteers on the form
5. We will deliver your PhoneBank ToGo supply basket

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The post Be a BOLD Volunteer: Host a Phonebank appeared first on Bold Nebraska.

The shutoffs — potentially affecting more than two dozen counties, mostly in northern and central California — could continue through Saturday.

Child care workers at Ideal Child Service Group (ICSG), which operates five child care locations across Toronto, were locked out by their employer on October...

The post Child care workers locked out by employer and forgotten by government first appeared on Spring.

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.

Does onshore wind power need subsidies to compete with fossil fuels?

Unsubsidized onshore wind is now generally cheaper than building fossil fuel plants.

Cost of energy sources are compared using “levelized cost of energy,” or the average lifetime cost to build and run a power plant divided by electricity produced. A 2026 report estimated the mean LCOE of unsubsidized onshore wind at $68 per megawatt-hour, compared to $90 for new natural gas plants and $124.50 for coal.

Developments like supply chain maturation, improved monitoring, and larger, more productive turbines have allowed the LCOE of onshore wind to decrease by 70% since 2010. 

While recent inflation, rising interest rates, and trade barriers have increased costs across all energy generation technologies, onshore wind is still cheaper than fossil fuel plants and projected to decrease further in the long-term.

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

Lazard Lazard Releases 2026 Levelized Cost of Energy+ Report

IRENA Renewable power generation costs in 2025

U.S. Department of Energy The Future of Offshore Wind Is Big—Literally

IRENA Wind energy

U.S. Department of Energy Experts Predict 50% Lower Wind Costs Than They Did in 2015

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.

CELDF is launching a new series called Capitalism and Democracy, and we are inviting you to join us!

The post “Common Sense” Newsletter – October 2026: New Series: Are Capitalism & Democracy Compatible? appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

The state's electricity prices are double the national average, and wildfires are a big reason — but far from the only one. Fresh leadership can show the way on regulatory, financial and operational reform, write experts at GridLab and Energy Innovation.

Commissioner David Rosner said that Duke Energy Carolinas’ proposal offers “meaningful, if imperfect, new protections,” adding that consumer protections are “inadequate across the country” and FERC may need to take further action.

Public lands like Cumberland Island should stay wild, not be handed away to private developers.

This story is part of a larger investigation conducted by an international team of journalists based at The Outlaw Ocean Project, a news organization in Washington, D.C.

Global trade is remarkably efficient at moving things. It carries copper, cars, cameras, and crude oil across oceans and borders with astonishing speed. It takes the product of one country’s labor and ecology and delivers it to warehouses and supermarkets in another with so little friction that consumers barely register the distance.

But some things, intentionally, do not travel down the supply chain. One of them is stench.

Consider the case of fishmeal, the protein-rich powder made from turning wild-caught fish into feed for farmed animals, especially for aquaculture. The foul air produced by fishmeal factories stays in the poorer coastal communities where the fish is unloaded, cooked, pressed, dried, and ground — far from the dinner plates where the seafood gets eaten. Wealthy markets import the benefits of this globally essential commodity, but only after it has been cleaned of certain dirty truths.

In August 2022 at least 50 protesters spilled into the streets of Kayar, a fishing town on Senegal’s Atlantic coast, demanding the closure of a nearby fishmeal plant, Touba Protein Marine. Marching from the fishing wharf to the factory, they carried signs reading “Kayar is sick.” In a video that spread on Facebook, demonstrators chanted, “Time to respect our Kayar.”

The factory, they said, had been built less than a third of a mile from residential neighborhoods, triggering health problems and violating local zoning laws.

Smoke rises from a fishmeal factory in 2025 near a residential community in Callao, Peru. Emissions from fishmeal factories include ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, cyanide, and methane, impacting more than 9.5 million people who live within a mile of the nearly 1,800 fishmeal plants operating in more than 50 countries. Credit: Ministry of Production of Peru

That same year in Vietnam, hundreds of residents on the country’s northeastern coast surrounded another plant and, for days, blasted loudspeakers at it in protest. In India, in 2024, the odor from fishmeal factories spurred protests that lasted more than 100 days, ending in a boycott of local elections and in villagers convening parallel meetings to pass resolutions against the plants.

These uprisings were not set off by the kind of industrial disaster that usually commands global attention. What brought people onto the streets was fishmeal’s foul smell.

My organization, The Ocean Outlaw Project, recently completed a global investigation of this product’s hidden costs. It reveals that the industry’s rancid odor was among the least tracked, most personally intimate, and widely suffered impacts of this growing market. Half of the seafood eaten globally comes from fish farms, most of them powered by fishmeal and fish oil. More than 9.5 million people worldwide, including nearly 1.7 million under the age of 15, live within a mile of fishmeal plants, according to Bait to Plate, an online tool that tracks the fishing and seafood industries.

This satellite image shows a fishmeal factory under construction near densely populated neighborhoods in Senegal in 2020, with thousands of residents living within a half mile of the plant. The country’s zoning rules forbid fishmeal companies from building plants within 500 meters, or about 550 yards, of a residential area.
The Outlaw Ocean Project/Google Maps

The industry plays a major role in global inequity. Despite claims that fish farming offers an ecological and ethical way to sustain a growing global population, accounting for feed reveals a different dynamic — one that resembles a form of food colonialism. Much of global aquaculture produces high-value seafood for wealthier markets by diverting food-grade fish from poorer regions that depend on those species as affordable sources of protein. Roughly 90% of the catch used to produce fishmeal is edible for humans. Most fishmeal plants rely on whole fish rather than processing waste or inedible byproducts, further intensifying local food insecurity in the communities where these fish are taken.

The industry is also unsustainable. At least half of the species landed by the 2,400 fishmeal ships assessed by the investigation were classified by scientific studies as “overexploited” or worse. Most of the vessels in this fleet are purse seiners or trawlers, which deploy vast nets to capture dense schools of fish. Both gear types are associated with high levels of waste, routinely hauling in large volumes of bycatch and nontarget species. At least 165 of the ships in the global fishmeal fleet were bottom trawlers, a particularly destructive form of fishing that uses weighted nets that scrape the ocean floor, destroying virtually everything in their paths.

The investigation involved more than two dozen journalists in as many countries. In our global discussions, neighbors living near fishmeal plants described to reporters experiencing nausea, headaches, eye irritation, dizziness, coughing fits, and loss of appetite. They recounted laundry brought in early to keep the smell from settling into fabric, doors kept shut in coastal heat, sleep broken at night, and a low-grade sense of agitation that comes from never being able to trust the next gust of wind.

“We don’t invite family or friends here because we are embarrassed that we live in a place that smells like it’s rotting,” a man in Songkla, Thailand explained.

The investigation documented more than 70 cases of neighbors complaining about stench from at least 60 plants in 15 countries. In Mar del Plata, Argentina, the smell from fishmeal plants was so bad that tourists visiting a local hotel sometimes had to step into the courtyard to vomit. In Ecuador the odor emitted by fishmeal plants overwhelmed nearby residents and paralyzed the tourism sector. In the southern town of Huaquillas, which shares a border with Peru, residents told a daily newspaper in 2021 that the smell from fishmeal processing was “unbearable” and “impossible to be around.” In Salango, a rural parish on Ecuador’s coast more than 270 miles north of Huaquillas, researchers who sought to attract beach visitors in 2022 acknowledged that it would be an uphill battle because the smell from an industrial fishmeal factory there “generates unpleasant odors that deter tourists and cause them to choose other destinations.”

The foul smell from these plants was more than just a nuisance. The stink corrodes the local economy by undercutting tourism and scaring away restaurant patrons and beach visitors.

The stench is also an indicator of the release of noxious chemicals like ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, cyanide, and methane, which have been known to cause serious health problems, including pulmonary edema. The worst part of the odor is from trimethylamine, or TMA, a colorless gas characterized by a “fishy” smell. In 2021 the Society of Chemical Industry identified TMA as “strongly toxic and carcinogenic.”

Humans’ sensitivity to foul odors is a defense mechanism borne of evolution. As part of a basic survival instinct developed over millions of years, people are repulsed by smells like that of feces, rotting food, decaying flesh, or acrid chemicals. This visceral reaction also brings intense feelings of disgust and anxiety that lead to negative health consequences when these exposures last longer than several minutes, according to a 2016 study from the journal Brain Sciences.

In many countries chemical waste is closely regulated, particularly if it makes people sick or harms the environment. But emitting bad smells is typically seen as more of an inconvenience than an actual environmental or health hazard.

Bad smells are also difficult to measure or regulate. “The technology for detecting and characterizing complex odors has not developed to the level of a reliable surveillance method, which has hindered regulatory frameworks,” stated a 2021 piece in a waste-management magazine written by a group of environmental engineers at Florida Atlantic University.

Though there are many studies focused on the health and environmental impact of specific chemicals emitted by sewage plants, livestock operations, composting facilities, landfills, paper mills, or petrochemical industries, little research has concentrated on the “impact of olfactory nuisance,” according to a 2021 study published in the journal Environmental Health.

Stinky industries like chemical refineries, fertilizer factories, incinerators, and landfills are typically limited by zoning laws to prevent them from being too close to residential homes. In the United States, neighbors near businesses that emit foul odors have sometimes successfully filed complaints under federal nuisance laws, which are designed to protect residents from unreasonable interference with the enjoyment of their property. Between 2018 and 2019, juries in five trials awarded 36 plaintiffs a total of $550 million in lawsuits filed against Murphy-Brown/Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producers in the world. The amount was later reduced due to a state cap on punitive damages. For decades neighbors of the farms in North Carolina, the majority of whom were Black, endured “the piercing, acrid odor of hog manure, reminiscent of rotten eggs and ammonia,” according to one report referenced in the lawsuits.

In 2020 the company asked for a retrial, but the 4th District Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s verdict. The conditions at the farms, which included “spraying untreated hog waste high into the air — where it then drifts toward nearby homes,” wrote Justice J. Harvie Wilkinson in a concurring opinion, “violated homeowners’ rights to the healthful enjoyment of their property.”

These types of regulations tend to be applied more in wealthier countries, and the vast majority of fishmeal plants are in poorer nations. In Senegal, where there are at least nine fishmeal plants, the investigation found that zoning rules forbid fishmeal companies from building plants within 500 meters, or about 550 yards, of a residential area. But a review of satellite imagery of the country’s plants vis-a-vis homes indicated that companies routinely violated this rule, the investigation found.

Methods for measuring airborne TMA have been around since at least the 1970s. Over the past few decades, however, the more standard approach has involved collecting air samples with what are known as “solid-phase extraction” tubes and then analyzing those samples at a lab using techniques called “liquid chromatography” and “mass spectrometry.” These techniques are precise but pricey, sometimes costing tens of thousands of dollars.

In 2009 a Peruvian scientist named Josué Padilla Lauriano set out to find a cheaper option for testing TMA levels. He focused his research on Chimbote, a city along Peru’s western coast that was not only the world’s largest producer of fishmeal but also ranked as one of the most polluted places on Earth. Using simple air bubblers and a spectrophotometer — standard tools found in nearly every chemistry lab — and adapting a technique originally developed to detect TMA in dead fish, not air, Lauriano and his team spent 20 months collecting samples. Lauriano’s device only cost a few hundred dollars to take measurements. Under local regulations plants were supposed to stay under 12 parts per million (ppm), but Lauriano found nighttime emissions averaging above 17 ppm when the plants cook the most and a maximum reading from a plant that topped 32 ppm.

Even when testing was feasible, many countries did not have emissions standards that included thresholds for foul odors, according to a 2025 paper published in Applied Sciences. “The mechanism of human odor detection is still not fully understood,” which, the paper said, is one reason stench is so difficult to measure and regulate objectively.

The countries that set standards for how much TMA could be released were usually not based on stench or quality-of-life concerns, but instead on the level at which this chemical began to negatively affect human health. In the United States health regulators typically use guidelines between 5-10 ppm as long-term exposure limits. These limits are substantially higher than what a typical person’s nose can detect. TMA can be detected at concentrations as low as 0.0002 ppm, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Fishmeal stench is not an unsolvable problem. When factory owners have tried to reduce it, they have usually succeeded. In 2008 in the United States, in 2021 in South Africa, and in 2022 in Yemen, plant owners installed various types of devices, some of them called scrubbers, that researchers later concluded had drastically reduced the foulest-smelling chemicals. Scrubbers are not more common partly because they can cost upwards of US$1 million.

Costs notwithstanding, there are deeper reasons stench stays far away from consumers. In wealthier nations, plant neighbors more often successfully pressure their governments to require odor controls. In poorer nations, people living in the industrial areas where these plants are built usually lack political clout. Their governments are also more desperate for revenue and more reluctant to put up regulatory burdens that may scare away foreign investment. As a result there’s little incentive or pressure for foreign fishmeal producers to fix a problem that does not directly affect their bottom line.

The price being paid by the oceans writ large, and the coastal countries whose resources are being sapped, rarely appear in the balance sheets of the feed and aquaculture companies that profit from this type of extraction. Nor will they appear on the seafood menu. Over a fifth of all marine life pulled from the sea is converted into fishmeal, which is a major factor in why over a third of the world’s stocks are overfished and worsening every year. Despite decades of warnings, this remains a problem that is out of sight and out of mind for the average consumer.

Modern life tends to rank injuries by how neatly they can be photographed, measured, litigated, or charted. Faraway, slow-moving, and intangible harms like stench are the very ones that globalized economies have become especially efficient at disappearing for the customers at the wealthier and tail end of long supply chains.

Or, as the novelist John Berger once asked in another context: “What is the social value of a pain eased?”

(The reporting for this story was part of a larger investigation conducted by an international team of journalists based at The Outlaw Ocean Project.)

The post Foul Fishmeal Factories: The Stench That Rich Nations Leave Behind appeared first on The Revelator.

Indonesia appears to be reversing course on a plan to turn vast swaths of tropical rainforest into rice and sugarcane plantations.

Read more on E360 →

Where should I live? What car should I drive? What should I have for dinner? People are increasingly turning to AI tools such as large language models (LLMs) for advice on questions like these. And the way AI answers such questions has massive implications for climate change, according to a new study.

“Humans have this psychological feature called status quo bias: we like things the way they are and we’re often risk averse. We found chatbots have the same tendency in their advice,” says study team member Seth Wynes, who studies strategies for climate action at the University of Waterloo in Canada. “This status quo bias might be harmless in many areas, but a low-carbon transition requires a rapid change away from existing systems.”

Wynes and his collaborators fed 7,548 queries into at least six different LLMs, a total of 54,888 prompts altogether. Some of the prompts concerned everyday consumer decisions, asking the chatbot to recommend a recipe to cook, a home heating system to install, and a new car to purchase.

Since decision-makers at all levels of government are also increasingly using LLMs for advice, the researchers also engineered prompts about policy tradeoffs in which emissions reductions were pitted against animal welfare, biodiversity conservation, consumer freedom, or equality concerns.

In this part of the study, the researchers constructed multiple versions of the queries so that each of the policy options got a turn to be presented as the status quo—for example, “should we implement a new policy that will reduce emissions although it would harm a threatened species?” versus “should we repeal a policy that reduces emissions but also harms a threatened species?”

When presented with a policy tradeoff, the LLMs were on average 7.5 times more likely to recommend staying the course than doing something new, the researchers found. This status-quo bias was seen regardless of whether the current course of action was pro- or anti-climate, and continues to be present in the most recent AI models.

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:How AI narrows our vision of climate solutions. . .and reinforces the status quo

 

In the realm of consumer decisions, the results suggest that chatbots provide recommendations more or less in line with current cultural norms. Of the recipes suggested by the LLMs, 36% were vegetarian and 4% were vegan. (Meatless recipes generally have a lower carbon footprint.) Of the home heating system recommendations, 21% were climate-friendly heat pumps.

“I was a little surprised by the way models make recommendations about car purchases,” Wynes says. “Models are four times more likely to recommend buying an electric vehicle if you say you’ve owned one in the past. They also tend to recommend EVs at higher rates for users claiming to be from regions with high EV adoption.”

Exactly why these patterns occur is not clear. Maybe for example the chatbot is being sycophantic and recommending EVs to users who seem to already like and prefer them. What the chatbot is definitely not doing is nudging people towards more climate-friendly choices than they might already be inclined to make.

“For almost every region the rate of EV recommendation is still below the rate of actual adoption in the real world,” Wynes adds. It may be that AI training data are a bit behind the times, so the chatbots’ model of cultural norms is outdated, the researchers suggest. As online purchasing becomes more and more integrated with LLMs, this creates a risk that today’s norms will remain fixed in place, rather than being able to continue to evolve in a greener direction.

Since status-quo bias can be beneficial in some contexts, the researchers do not advocate purging it from LLMs. Instead, developers of climate-relevant AI applications and individuals who use LLMs for advice should be aware of this bias, and engineer their prompts accordingly.

Source: Wynes S. et al. “Large language models exhibit status quo bias in climate-relevant advice.” Environmental Research Communications 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine.

This Fall, Food Tank is highlighting 24 books that help us understand how food connects us to our communities, cultural heritage, and the natural world. Food is Medicine by Dariush Mozaffarian and Food Sense by Christopher Gardner both tackle pressing questions that will help us create systems that support mental and physical wellbeing. In Sugar Coated, Marion Nestle and Lisa Sutherland examine American breakfast cereals to expose the strategies big food companies have used to influence food policy and public health. And in Cooking Thai, award-winning chef Pim Techamuanvivit broadens readers’ understanding of Thai cuisine with 100 of her best recipes. Together, these titles offer inspiration and insights for creating a sustainable, more equitable food future.

1. A Practical Farmer’s Journey: A History of Community, Stewardship, and Resilience by Ronald L. Rosmann

More than 60 percent of Iowa farmland is dedicated to corn and soybean, according to research from Iowa State University. But the state is also home to another story—one of transformation. Ronald L. Rosmann traces the history of agriculture in Iowa, from when farming offered families promise and hope to the struggles driven by vertical integration. The book closes with a message of optimism, highlighting how Iowa’s farmers are rebuilding rural communities, tackling climate change, and restoring the unfulfilled potential of rural America.

2. All Hours: Crazy Good Food for Whatever, Whenever by Kwame Onwuachi with Joshua David Stein

The San Francisco Chronicle calls James Beard Award-winning Kwame Onwuachi “the most important chef in America.” In his new cookbook, he shares recipes that bring together unexpected flavors in dishes that can be enjoyed for any occasion and any time of day. It covers everything from breakfast to late night snacks, with dishes such as Corn Milk French Toast, Curried Chicken Patties, Brussels Sprout Suya, and Sticky Toffee Pudding.

3. Black Farm Boys: The Untold Story of the New Farmers of America by Bobby J. Smith II

Black Farm Boys unearths the history of New Farmers of America, the first—and overlooked—national organization for Black boys studying agriculture in segregated high schools. Sociologist Bobby J. Smith II details the growth of the NFA, its influence, and its swift decline as it was overtaken by the predominantly white Future Farmers of America. The book confronts the question of how an organization with 55,000 members at its peak was nearly forgotten from history in the United States.

4. Black Farmers in America: Fighting for an Equitable Food System by Mya O. Price

Mya O. Price’s research highlights how systems of oppression have shaped the experiences of Black farmers in the United States from slavery to the present day. It also uncovers the ways they are overcoming these barriers. Black Farmers in America brings these pieces together, grounding readers in history. And it offers case studies that show how models of restorative justice, cooperative farming, and urban agriculture are creating opportunities for Black food producers to build power and resilience.

5. Captive Consumers: Hunger, Violence, and Inequality in American Prison Food by Chin Jou

Captive Consumers questions assumptions about what a food system inside prisons can—and should—look like. Drawing from historical records and prison newspapers, author Chin Jou documents the challenges incarcerated people face, from chronic hunger to unmet dietary needs. She argues that these conditions perpetuate violence and endanger those inside these institutions, ultimately making the case for reform that centers dignity and humanity.

6. Cooking Thai: Heritage and Modern Recipes from My Kitchen Notebooks by Pim Techamuanvivit with Andrea Nguyen

When Pim Techamuanvivit moved to the United States from Bangkok, she encountered assumptions around Thai food she was eager to change. In response, the award-winning chef opened multiple restaurants to celebrate the richness and diversity of her culinary heritage. In Cooking Thai, Techamuanvivit brings together 100 of her best recipes like Massaman Curry with Beef Cheeks and a Grilled Shrimp and Lychee Salad, while providing tips to help cooks source ingredients at home.

7. Depression Cooking: Feeding Yourself When It All Feels Too Hard by Sonali Menezes

It can be challenging to feed yourself during difficult times. That’s what artist Sonali Menezes realized when she was struggling with mental illness and disordered eating. It drove her to look for easy, delicious ways to stay nourished, leaning into approaches that were non-judgmental, anti-diet, and approachable. In Depression Cooking, Menezes combines recipes, memoir, and illustrations to share lessons from these hard times. It serves as a guide to caring for yourself when you’re navigating grief, unemployment, or the stress of becoming a new parent.

8. Famine in World History by R. Douglas Hurt

Douglas Hurt offers an overview of famines throughout history, from antiquity to the present day. While acknowledging that not all cases are alike, he points to patterns that emerge in examples from western Europe, China, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Hurt also delves into the roles that policy and war play, how environmental issues intersect with hunger crises, and what happens to communities after famines end.

9. Food Heritage: Critical Perspectives edited by Loïc Bienassis and Fabio Parasecoli

“Does food heritage exist?” That’s the question historian Loïc Bienassis opens with in his introduction to this new anthology. The chapters that follow aim to understand what food heritage means and the ways that foods and food practices are defined, recognized, and mobilized as heritage. To unpack these questions, chapters span the globe, drawing on case studies from countries including Brazil, Catalonia, Japan, and Morocco.

10. Food Is Medicine: Healing Our Bodies, Nourishing Our Minds, and Transforming Our Food System by Dariush Mozaffarian (forthcoming October 20)

“Being a healthy American adult is an anomaly,” cardiologist Dariush Mozaffarian tells Food Tank. He believes food systems represent the biggest challenges facing humanity today. As Director of the Food is Medicine Institute, Mozaffarian says, “we really can actually fix our food system in a really short amount of time.” In Food Is Medicine, he explains the decisions that have shaped food systems today and offers a blueprint to help policymakers, physicians, communities, and individual eaters drive a nutrition revolution.

11. Food Sense: What to Eat and Why by Christopher Gardner

In Food Sense, nutrition scientist Christopher Gardner tackles myths about diet and health on to eaters make more informed choices about the food they put on their plates. He acknowledges that health claims can be confusing and contradictory, and he hopes to use his book to cut through the noise. His book addresses questions on everything from seed oils to plant-based proteins while pointing readers to some of his favorite recipes that support long-term health.

12. Fundamentals of Flavor: 100 Recipes for the Science of Better Cooking by Nik Sharma

Former molecular biologist Nik Sharma wanted to help eaters make delicious meals at home while understanding the science behind their food. The result is Fundamentals of Flavor, a cookbook containing 100 recipes, from Caramelized Shallot and Feta-Labneh Dip to Icelandic Rye Bread, that are accessible yet rich in flavor. It’s also filled with information on how different cooking techniques bring out the most in every dish.

13. Foods of La Frontera: Recipes and New Taste Frontiers from Both Sides of the Border by Pati Jinich

In Foods of La Frontera, Pati Jinich offers 125 recipes to celebrate the region where the United States and Mexico meet. Rather than calling it the border, Jinich thinks about it as a frontier—a place of beginnings, opportunity, and rich, varied cultures. Dishes such as Tamales de Frijol con Chile Verde y Queso (Mashed Bean, Green Chile, and Cheese Tamales) and Enchiladas Navideñas de Pollo (Christmas Chicken and Cheese Enchiladas) demonstrate that the cuisine is more than traditional Tex-Mex, encompassing cooking styles and ingredients from across Mexico.

14. Happy Snacking, Don’t Die! Foraging and Vegan Recipes with Black Forager by Alexis Nikole Nelson

Alexis Nikole Nelson, also known as BlackForager on social media, uses her platform to educate others on foraging and cooking wild foods. In Happy Snacking, Don’t Die!—part foraging guide and part plant-based cookbook—Nelson shares her love for the outdoors and encourages people to safely embrace the abundance that surrounds them. Recipes include Magnolia Bud Tea, Stuffed Morels, and Potato Mugwort Pancakes.

15. How to Cook Everything Vegan: Build on the Basics for Exciting Plant-Based Meals by Mark Bittman

In the latest installment of the How to Cook Everything series, Mark Bittman makes plant-based cooking accessible and craveable. This collection of straightforward recipes covers everything from paellas and dumplings to ice cream and cookies. Bittman also includes technique and ingredient guides to help home cooks feel more comfortable and empowered in the kitchen.

16. Medicine for All People: Science and Ancient Wisdom for Revolutionary Healing by Geeta Maker-Clark

Integrative medicine physician Geeta Maker-Clark learned at an early age that food is medicine. But many people, she knows, didn’t have the experience. Even many doctors go without adequate nutrition training. “Food got pushed out of medical education,” Maker-Clark tells Food Tank. Medicine for All People encourages readers to embrace the healing properties of food, along with other medicines of the Earth, community, and the spirit that are ancient and urgently relevant. It also helps readers build their own kitchen apothecary, use breathwork to calm the mind, and integrate dance meditation into daily life.

17. Plant Teachings from My Auntie: Gathering Coast Salish Plants for Medicine, Textiles, Nourishment, and Ceremony by C’tasi:a, Geraldine Manson and Nancy Turner

Plant Teachings from My Auntie introduces readers to herbal remedies found in the traditional territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation. Geraldine Manson (C’tasi:a), a Snuneymuxw Elder and Traditional Knowledge Keeper, shares lessons from her aunt, Dr. Ellen White, to foster cultural understanding and ecological responsibility. Throughout the book are detailed descriptions of 65 different species and more than 130 beautiful color photographs to support accurate plant identification.

18. Reining in the Bulls: How to Stop Corporate Abuse in an Age of Unbridled Greed by Michael Marx

Corporations hold immense power that too often goes unchecked by government, leading to pollution, dangerous work environments, and defective or harmful products. In Reining in the Bulls, Michael Marx offers advocates practical guidance to challenge corporate abuses. Drawing from his experience pressuring companies to change their ways, he helps advocates understand, plan, and execute effective campaigns that can build more equitable and just systems.

19. Saved by Seeds: Embracing Diversity, Adaptation and Resilience by Chris Smith

In Saved by Seeds, Utopian Seed Project Founder Chris Smith makes the case for seed diversity. He explains how seed saving can build resilience, unpacks the beliefs holding us back, and offers guidance for farmers and gardeners of all backgrounds to play an active role in building adaptive, dynamic food systems. The book shows that seed saving isn’t just a practice of the past, but one that is still highly relevant and necessary to carry us into the future.

20. Seeding Hope: What Plants Teach Us About Being Human by Jack Algiere

As Director of Agroecology at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, Jack Algiere has dedicated his career to scaling farming practices rooted in land stewardship, innovation, and community. In Seeding Hope, Algiere shares the lessons that he has learned along the way, highlighting how deeply connected humans are to the world around them. As Chef Dan Barber of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns says, the book is ultimately “a portrait of the natural world as teacher, and an ethic for how to live, drawn from the ground up.”

21. Sugar Coated: Unboxing the Hidden Forces Shaping America’s Favorite Breakfast Food by Marion Nestle and Lisa Sutherland

Sugar Coated by nutritionist Marion Nestle and former Kellogg executive Lisa Sutherland, reveals the influence American cereal companies have on food policy and public health. The book digs into marketing tactics, from ads targeting children to health claims, that companies have employed to make these sugary foods the breakfast staple they are today. When did it become okay to feed kids vitamin-supplemented cookies for breakfast, “which is basically what kids’ cereals are?” Nestle asks.

22. Sustainable Agriculture in Ukraine: From Resource-Intensive Farming to Agroecological Systems by Sergiusz Pimenow, Olena Pimenowa, and Lubov Moldavan

Sustainable Agriculture in Ukraine helps readers understand how the country can transition to farming systems that are more environmentally sound and resilient—and why this matters for global food security. Economists Sergiusz Pimenow, Olena Pimenowa, and Lubov Moldavan break down the evolution of Ukrainian agriculture and how it fits into global food systems, while considering the trajectory of post-war recovery and offering a roadmap for a more sustainable future.

23. The Ecology of Food: Sustainable Food Systems and Diets edited by Nicolas Bricas, Damien Conaré, and Marie Walser

The Ecology of Food marks the 10th anniversary of the UNESCO Chair in World Food Systems, a platform created to increase and disseminate academic knowledge on world food systems. Broken into five parts, the anthology considers food as relationships, the dynamics of contemporary food systems, food and ecology, guiding principles of sustainable food systems, and the transformation of food systems. Together, these essays offer a well-rounded introduction to contemporary issues in food, farming, and nutrition.

24. Wine Liberated: The Ecological Revolution and the Vintners Inspiring Change by Adam Huss

Just a few grape varieties dominate the wine market today, a fact that prompted winemaker Adam Huss to ask if it’s possible to build something different. Several years ago, he launched the podcast “Beyond Organic Wine” to learn from producers who are rethinking wine. Now, in Wine Liberated, he takes a deeper dive into these questions to understand what it will take to transform the wine industry into one that is environmentally sustainable, diverse, and more delicious.

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.

The post Food Tank’s Fall 2026 Reading List appeared first on Food Tank.

Framed as sustainable development, these projects restrict local access to traditional territories and resources, endangering livelihoods, cultural identity, and community rights.

The post Thailand : Luxury Tourism, Blue Carbon, and the Displacement of Small-Scale Fishers – Voices from Ao Kung Bay as Capital Advances appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

The 12th session of negotiations on a Binding Treaty opens in Geneva, aiming to hold transnational corporations accountable for human rights violations and environmental destruction across their operations and value chains.

The post UN Binding Treaty process resumes in Geneva – Checkmate on Corporate Impunity appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.