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The Trump administration is trying to allow more electric bikes onto national park trails, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). New rules being finalized by the National Park Service (NPS) weaken the environmental reviews required under a successful PEER lawsuit brought during the first Trump term challenging an attempt to allow e-bikes wherever pedal bikes are allowed to travel.

Today marks the end of the public comment period for these proposed new rules. In its public comments, PEER raises concerns that the rules expanding e-bike access to park trails:

• lack any provisions to monitor or prevent injuries and conflicts with other trail users, such as hikers and horseback riders;
• do not address disturbing wildlife or the danger of wildfires caused by overheated e-bike batteries; and
• dramatically reduce public involvement in decisions to expand e-bike access.

“This is yet another example of the Trump administration’s deep aversion to considering consequences before acting,” stated PEER Executive Director Tim Whitehouse, noting that the primary rationale for the rules are executive orders promoting deregulation and reducing environmental reviews. “Safeguards against abuse from e-bikes will depend upon shrinking cadres of park law enforcement rangers trying to cope with ever-growing demands on their time.”

One major issue PEER raises is e-bike access to park wildlands. While e-bikes and other mechanized transportation are not allowed inside congressionally designated wilderness, there are 26 million acres of park backcountry lacking such protection. Several “flagship” parks such as Yellowstone, Glacier, Big Bend, and Grand Canyon, for example, do not have any designated wilderness and are “protected” only by NPS policies that can be waived or changed. The proposed NPS rules open doors for park managers to allow e-bike access to backcountry trails.

“Our concern is that e-bikes could be allowed in the most remote, wild places within the national park system,” added Whitehouse, pointing out that PEER has no objection to e-bike access on paved roads or trails in parks’ developed front-country. “It will become harder to appreciate the wonder of nature above the constant whir of e-bike motors.”

Another complication is that the new NPS rules would not preempt the growing number of state laws governing e-bike equipment and use. As a result, future e-bike restrictions may vary widely from park to park.

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Read the PEER comments

See NPS’ proposed rule

Look at vast park backcountry lacking wilderness protection

Revisit PEER e-bike lawsuit

Following two days of public comments opposing the proposal, the State Water Board approved Governor Newsom’s updated Bay-Delta Plan centering voluntary agreements. 

As the Los Angeles Times reports, environmental and Tribal representatives condemned the exclusionary framework and lack of transparency surrounding the decision-making process. They criticized “what they described as backroom deals intended to help powerful water suppliers and farming companies” at the expense of the already fragile Delta Estuary and California taxpayers.

The State Water Board’s decision came despite widespread public opposition and limited public access to information. State agencies used confidentiality agreements to restrict access to scientific data and discussions central to the plan’s development. As Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians Vice Chair Malissa Tayaba told the board members: “You are on the wrong side of history, and we will prevail.”

The likely next governor of California, Xavier Becerra, will be left to clean up the mess. Implementation of the widely criticized plan faces further uncertainty as the federal government threatens to withdraw from the plan, taking several hundred million dollars in funding with it. As Becerra prepares for the upcoming election and a possible transition into office, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that “environmentalists, tribes and fishing groups have said they will urge him to prevent the Bay Delta Plan from moving forward.”

Read more coverage of the decision below:

• COMMENTARY: Reject the discriminatory, illegitimate, and harmful Voluntary Agreements. Maven’s Notebook.  
• RESTORE THE DELTA: Tribes and environmental groups slam State Water Board’s anticipated adoption of updated Bay-Delta Plan, vow further action. Maven’s Notebook.
• Fierce debate as California changes course in central water hub. The Los Angeles Times. 
• Has the Trump administration doomed Newsom’s water plan?. CalMatters. 
• California regulators adopt major overhaul to state water policy, drawing critics. The San Francisco Chronicle. 
• California approves sweeping Bay-Delta water plan as environmentalists push back. Courthouse News Service.  
• Newsom races to lock in his water legacy. POLITICO.

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State food chemical laws don’t create chaos. They make food safer for everyone. Anthony Lacey November 2, 2026

More than a dozen states have now passed laws restricting certain chemicals from food. Most apply to food served in schools, and a few may apply to food sold in stores.

Companies have argued that differing state laws make food manufacturing and distribution systems less efficient – and that this “patchwork” of requirements could make food more expensive. Major industry groups have even backed a draft bill in Congress to block them.

But the industry argument doesn’t hold up. 

What usually happens instead: When one state raises the bar for consumer safety by passing a new law saying what can and can’t be in products, companies often change their products nationwide, extending the new law’s benefits to everyone.

These are just a few examples of “patchwork” state laws that made consumer products safer for all of us: removing toxic flame retardants from furniture, bisphenol A, or BPA, from baby bottles and higher-risk ingredients from food.

How did California get toxic flame retardants out of furniture?

Before 2013, most furniture sold in the U.S. contained toxic flame retardant chemicals in its upholstery foam. The foam helped furniture pass product safety tests. 

But research linked these chemicals – also commonly used in baby products like strollers, car seats and nursing pillows – to multiple health risks, including cancer, hormone disruption and deficits in attention and learning in children, without providing meaningful fire safety.

As a result, California began updating its testing standards and phasing flame retardants out of products sold in the state. 

The effort faced fierce industry opposition. Chemical corporations spent millions lobbying to keep the old standard in place. One such company, Chemtura, sued California to overturn the new rules. The company lost, and the new standards took full effect in 2015.

In 2020, Congress adopted these same standards as a federal requirement through the Safer Occupancy Furniture Flammability Act – helping all states switch to product safety tests that kept chemical flame retardants out of furniture.

How does state policy protect infants from BPA in baby bottles?

In 2009, Minnesota became the first state to make baby bottles free of BPA, a synthetic estrogen linked to early puberty, impaired immune function and other developmental harms. 

Ten more states followed with their own policies restricting BPA in children’s products. Most laws targeted baby bottles, sippy cups and infant formula containers.

Under pressure from state lawmakers and attorneys general, major manufacturers took BPA out of products nationwide, regardless of which states those items were sold in.

By 2012, so many manufacturers had already dropped BPA from baby bottles and sippy cups that the FDA formally ended its use in those products. 

The Food and Drug Administration in 2013 also ended the use of BPA in formula packaging. 

What has been the California Food Safety Act impact?

The California Food Safety Act banned four food additives – Red Dye No. 3, brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate and propylparaben – from food sold in the state starting in 2027.

Food companies pushed back. The Consumer Brands Association and other industry groups together opposed the bill. The National Confectioners Association called the legislation part of a “patchwork of inconsistent state requirements created by legislative fiat that will increase food costs.”

But by 2024, multiple states had introduced similar bans. 

In early 2025, the FDA revoked authorization of Red 3 in food. That same year, major manufacturers, such as Kraft Heinz and General Mills, began announcing plans to reformulate products without artificial colors. 

No company has announced planned price increases associated with the changes.

What would the FRESH Act do to state food chemical laws?

The food industry’s “patchwork” argument isn’t just a talking point – it’s the basis of a draft bill. 

The FRESH Act would block state bans or restrictions of food additives, or even mandatory warnings. The bill was proposed by Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.).

If enacted, it would push groundbreaking state laws like California’s off the table – laws that have helped rid consumer products nationwide of chemicals like Red 3.  

History is clear: When states act, companies change their products for everyone, for the better. The chaos predicted by food companies never actually occurs. 

States aren’t the problem in our food safety system. Until the FDA adopts stricter regulations to help protect people from toxic chemicals, states are filling the gap.

What can you do?

Tell your members of Congress to oppose any federal bill that strips states of the power to protect their residents from harmful food chemicals. 

In the meantime, you can check what’s in your groceries using EWG’s Food Scores database, which provides ratings of more than 150,000 food products based on ingredients of concern, nutrition and processing. 

Areas of Focus Food Food Chemicals Authors Sarah Reinhardt, MPH, RDN Scott Faber November 2, 2026

At first glance, it looks almost like an embrace.

One coral fragment is pale, its branching form pressed against a smaller, richly colored counterpart. Nine weeks later, the pale fragment has regained its color. Seen against the black background, the transformation is unmistakable. Something living has made contact with something struggling, and the struggle has changed course.

I keep returning to the place where they meet.

There is a scientific explanation for what happens there. There is also an emotional response that arrives before the explanation, before the species’ name, before any understanding of the experiment. We recognize vulnerability. We recognize proximity. We see what looks like help.

Giving Recovery a Shape

The research behind this remarkable coral moment, led by Stanford doctoral student Danny Collins and captured in a series of photographs, concerns a particular kind of recovery. Bleached coral fragments placed in contact with healthy, genetically identical fragments fused tissues, allowing beneficial algae to move into the depleted coral. Recovery followed within weeks.

Photos © Danny Collins. Used with permission.

“We thought that some transfer could take place, but we never would have expected it to be so fast, clear, and beautiful,” Collins wrote in an email.

The paired photographs released with the study give that discovery a shape, a before and after. We can locate it, follow it, see where it begins. The point of contact becomes the center of the story.

For someone unfamiliar with coral biology, it also offers a way into science. Collins, whose background includes visual and media studies alongside marine science, was thinking about that invitation from the start.

Collins holding coral fragments. © Dan Griffin GG Films, used with permission

“I had a broad audience of all ages and backgrounds in my mind throughout this entire study,” he said. “I wanted everyone to be able to understand our study in just one image and have them say, ‘Wow, I get it.’”

The close view brings the coral into an intimate scale. Its textured surface becomes visible. The contrast between the fragments gives the eye somewhere to begin. The second photograph rewards the attention paid to the first.

When the Sequence Changes

For those accustomed to environmental before-and-after photographs, this sequence can feel almost disorienting. We know the usual direction. The forest becomes a clearing. The glacier retreats. The reef loses its color. “Before” holds abundance; “after” records what has been taken away.

Here, “after” means recovery.

The reversal does not diminish the importance of documenting destruction. Such photographs provide evidence, preserve memory, and make damage harder to deny. I would never want conservation to surrender that work. But I worry about what happens when loss becomes the only future our images teach us to anticipate.

If every sequence ends with less life, where do we learn to picture the work of repair?

An image of recovery makes room for a different question. Instead of stopping at what happened to the coral, we begin to wonder what helped it. Attention moves toward a process, toward the conditions that made a different outcome possible. There is still damage in the frame, but there is also something to investigate.

The Beauty Survives Explanation

And then there is the metaphor, which is difficult to resist.

Healthy coral comes to the rescue. It melds with its bleached counterpart. Life appears to pass across a boundary. Anyone who has ever needed another person during illness, grief, or exhaustion may find something familiar in that arrangement. The photographs seem to offer a small, wordless account of being helped.

The fragments are genetically identical, and their fusion is no evidence of compassion. The embrace is something I see.

The healthy coral extends its polyps underwater. © Danny Collins, used with permission

But Collins also finds meaning beyond the mechanism. “I find this represents the power and importance of contact, an idea that can be extended well beyond corals,” he said.

The apparent gesture has physical substance: Tissue connects, and beneficial algae move through it. The beauty survives explanation.

What One Coral Can Promise

A powerful photograph travels easily — and these generated headlines around the world. The qualifications attached to a scientific paper travel less reliably. These two panels offer a satisfying ending that the research itself cannot yet promise.

“I want people to recognize that these experiments were just done in the lab and we have not solved coral bleaching, the ocean is still getting warmer, but that this research opens a door to new possibilities for recovering corals that have already bleached,” Collins said.

Supplying a healthy genetic match for every bleached coral is not feasible at the scale that reefs require. The finding opens a research direction; making it useful in the ocean remains work ahead.

This coral does not owe us reassurance about the whole ocean. Its recovery is worth understanding without asking it to settle the fate of reefs.

Between Damaged and Lost

The photographs also ask us to reconsider the boundary between damaged and lost. To an unfamiliar eye, the pale fragment may already look finished. Its recovery exposes the risk in that assumption. A living thing can be in profound trouble while still retaining capacities we have not learned how to support.

What can still be done, by whom, under what conditions, and with what prospect of success? Those questions remain worth asking after the dramatic injury, when the headlines have moved on.

There is human labor beyond the edges of the photographs, too. Someone maintained the experiment, observed the changes, made the images, examined the evidence, and worked with colleagues to understand it. The apparent simplicity of the two panels compresses a process that requires time, skill, and resources.

Tissues bridge between the two coral fragments. © Danny Collins, used with permission

A useful public response would follow that work outward. Who supports it? What would the next experiment need? How can people help sustain the institutions, environmental protections, and communities on which conservation depends? The photograph opens those questions; communication needs to carry them further.

Otherwise, even the most moving image risks becoming another brief encounter in an endless scroll.

An “After” Worth Working Toward

There is something else missing from these photographs: a picture of the coral before it bleached.

The sequence begins with injury already present. We never see an original, undamaged condition against which to measure everything that follows. We enter the story at a moment when something has gone wrong, and the question is what happens next.

That feels familiar. Much of conservation begins in places already altered, with populations already diminished and relationships already disrupted. People arrive with concern, skills, and resources long after the opportunity to prevent all harm has passed. They must decide what remains possible from here.

Collins’ own description of the research begins in that uncertain territory. “This all started from a simple experiment that has blossomed into a fascinating deep dive with surprises at every corner,” he told me.

The finished photograph can conceal that uncertainty. Placing two moments beside each other makes the passage between them look almost inevitable. But the researchers did not begin with the second image in hand. They had to ask a question whose answer they could not yet see.

Anyone considering whether to support conservation faces some version of that problem. The outcome is unavailable when commitment is needed. A restored habitat cannot be photographed in advance. The work asks people to invest attention, money, and effort in a future that remains contingent.

Here, at least, we can see that an intervention was followed by recovery. That does not tell us how the next experiment will end. It gives the next question a basis.

It also makes me think about what we demand of restoration. An imagined return to an untouched world can be a powerful aspiration, but it can leave every achievable improvement looking inadequate. Historical conditions matter: they help us understand what has been lost and resist accepting impoverishment as normal. Yet the distance from those conditions cannot be the only measure of whether work is worth doing.

A damaged place may have a future worth protecting even when its past cannot be fully recovered. Deciding what that future could support requires evidence, local knowledge, and difficult choices about priorities. There is no photograph that can make those choices for us.

But this one offers a useful starting position. The injury has already happened. Something remains alive. Someone decides it is worth finding out what might help.

The second panel exists because that question was pursued.

A Reason to Stay

As an ocean conservationist, I want images like this to do more than provide a moment of relief. I want them to make people curious enough to stay, to learn the limits, to discover where their own abilities might be useful. Feeling something can be the beginning of participation if we make the next step visible and possible.

I return to the two panels and find the injury still there in the first. Nothing has been erased from the record. The second panel simply prevents the first from having the final word.

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

Ghost Reefs of 2083: The Paleontology of Color (A Speculative ‘Fiction’)

The post When ‘After’ Means Alive appeared first on The Revelator.

Budgeting for a slow march to war when a “mad dash to net zero” is what we need to be safe

Photo by flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/

John Healey’s first budget nudged and nurdled but  certainly didn’t challenge 45 years of neoliberalism and chart the “new course” that Andy Burnham hinted at in September.

And, while there was a resounding statement about being “unshakably committed to net zero” the measures taken indicate a hollowing out of that commitment under the pressure to prepare for war. 

In particular, it showed a willingness to bend the knee to Trump’s demands on the North Sea, with headlines announcing that Healey will veto new offshore wind projects “if they will not lower bills” at the same time as Treasury tax calculations factored in income from the development of Rosebank. As there are about half a dozen other fields waiting in the wings for this decision, this looks like an attempt to defy geology, economics and safety to appease the White House and its local attack dogs.

In the rest of the budget that was clear from what was not said as much as what was. 

To end the upward pressure on energy pieces we need to end the war on Iran

The fact that the increases in energy bills that have already had a big impact on the cost of living – and are hovering over the future like a pyro-cumulonimbus cloud – has been caused by the US/Israeli attack on Iran was acknowledged. But this was taken as a given. Just one of those things that happens. Least of all was there any commitment by the UK government to oppose it, or step back from complicity in it; and “defensive” attacks on Iran will still be launched from Diego Garcia. 

As a result of the war, Fossil Fuel companies are making colossal windfall profits. Shell’s have nearly doubled and BPs have quadrupled. This enables them to invest in more marginal oil and gas extraction; because the increased prices everyone is paying for them makes that potentially profitable, though a sign that the industry doubts its own future is that it is not rushing to do that. Increased emissions if they do. Increased damage. The banks that finance them -and arms companies – are also quids in from this war. A 100% tax on war profiteering would act as a disincentive to all this while raising billions to invest in the transition. Silence on that. Free pass.

Breaking with neoliberalism requires putting social needs above profitability. The chancellor appears to be as relaxed about these companies getting ”filthy rich” from war profiteering as Peter Mandelson was; and he’s not proposing to increase their taxation even though there is majority support for it.

The proposed Energy Wealth Fund from current rates of taxation on Fossil Fuels is a gesture in this direction so minimal as to constitute deflection more than commitment.

Clean energy is the solution

The recognition by the chancellor that the renewable energy already installed in the UK has massively cut the impact of fossil fuel prices rises is vital – especially in the face of the Fossil Opposition in Reform and the Conservative Party – who argue (with a straight face) that an 83% increase in wholesale gas prices since this time last year means that we need to use more of it to bring bills down – and that investing much, much more in the most expensive possible source of electricity generation – nuclear power – will do the same. 

In 2020 gas set the price for electricity 90% of the time. It is now much more expensive, but sets it for just 60% of the time, and it’s coming down. That cuts bills. The chancellor’s stated ambition to “break the grip of gas on bills” is vital. But, how far do the measures in his budget rise to that challenge?

The decision to hold back on new renewable capacity that cannot easily be connected to the grid requires prioritising investment into grid upgrades to open up bottlenecks like the one between Scotland and England, which causes frustrating curtailment costs and unnecessary gas back up use. Without that investment, all this will do is slow up the growth of renewable capacity. 

Approving Jackdaw, Rosebank and, by implication, the other fields that are queuing up for approval, the government will lock us into expensive fossil fuel dependence, and the planet wrecking emissions that go with them, and the costs of that, for longer than we need to. The phrase that we will “rely on oil and gas for decades to come” is designed to fudge the key question of how much; and avert the obvious point that the less we have to use the better it will be. 

Bombs not Jobs

While the forced march of military expenditure increases is now being set at a slower pace than he was arguing for when he resigned as Defence Minister in the Summer – a 3.5% increase projected for 2035, not the 5% he saw as an imperative then – nevertheless, he’s still undermining security through climate action by diverting funds to war. And there remains the risk that the 10 year plan spending review will seek to step up the pace again. Meanwhile:

• £1 billion will be cut from the Warm Homes Fund “to help cover a shortfall in defence expenditure”. The WHF is set to provide loans of between £7500 and £35,000 for households to install solar panels, heat pumps and batteries; initially with £15 billion in funding and aiming to support 5 million households. Leaving aside GJA’s longstanding critique of this market led subsidy approach – which benefits those who can afford it, leads to work being done in penny packets by small firms which are not always competent or even honest, misses out on economies of scale and thereby gets a smaller bang for a buck – this cut will lead to over 330,000 households missing out. There’s also a threat that a further £4.7 billion will be “reallocated” from this scheme to pay for “Your First Home” scheme. That would cut a further 1.5 million households from benefitting from this. Higher bills, Higher emissions. A lower level of economic activity doing this work, so fewer jobs.
• The heat pump grant via the Boiler Upgrade Scheme will be cut by £800, leading to 100,000 fewer installations in the next 3 years. Again. Higher bills. Higher emissions, A lower level of economic activity. Fewer jobs.

Wider aspects of the transition are also being undermined.

• The continuing freeze on the fuel duty escalator will cost £4.3 billion by 2030. This continuing Fossil subsidy is presented as providing a relief for drivers but as Social Market Foundation Chief economist Gideon Salutin points out: “it does not work. Many savings are gobbled up by fuel retailers, who keep the price level and pocket the difference. Most of what’s left is taken by rich motorists who tend to drive more and own less fuel-efficient cars. Previous freezes have seen the richest tenth of earners save three times as much as the poorest tenth….  If government really wants to help hard-up drivers, it would support them into an EV, which are cheaper to operate than petrol cars, and support affordable transport services like buses and rail.”

• The welcome but minimal £100 million to cut the cost of public EV charging is 1/43rd of the fuel duty freeze cost. Charging 20% VAT on workplace charging will also slow the shift to EVs.
• There is to be no extension of the 0% VAT rating on “energy saving materials” including solar panels from next April – increasing costs, slowing the transition, increasing emissions, depressing jobs.
• At the same time, 10,000 “energy hungry” companies will get a 20-25% discount from next April, with back payments to cover this year comes with no conditional requirement to reduce energy or provide renewable on site supply.
• Data Centres difficult to connect to the grid that are considered “exceptionally strategic projects” will be allowed to generate their own power with gas or diesel generators even though the experience of the United States is that the surge in construction of gas-fired power plants to run AI data centres is “set to undo 15 years’ worth of greenhouse gas reductions from US electricity generation”.
• New planning powers will also be used to accelerate Data Centre grid connections; which begs the question, over what?
• Exempting brownfield development sites of <1.5 hectares from biodiversity net gain regulations is a bit like Donald Trump paving over the White House Rose Garden; but doing it again and again and again, all over the country.

Social Justice Measures?

• The £100 Council Tax rebate for households in bands A-D will do little to dent the impact of the sharp rise in the energy price cap; which is projected to be £470 above current levels by the middle of next year. This is in a context of household energy debt projected to total £7 billion by the end of the year. 
• The VAT relief on electricity bills worth £45 a year is already in place, so won’t dent this any further.
• The cut in the gas standard charge is a small but progressive measure that will benefit lower income households, also by about £45 a year, and marginally reduce the price differential between gas and electricity per unit from 3.3 to 3; because the loss of the standing charge will be covered by an increase in charges per unit. So, those who use the least will benefit the most, so this is a small nudge towards electrification away from gas for heating and cooking. The electricity standing charge remains in place until next year, but if the same method is employed to get rid of it, it would make the price imbalance between gas and electricity worse.
• This is a marginal, and typically market led, gesture when it has been established that installing solar panels with batteries could cut energy costs for the poorest households by two thirds.  But that would require a state led investment plan carried out as a social service, not a vehicle to generate business for micro firms, as it would not be affordable for the people who need it most, nor profitable for private companies to deliver. That is what a break with neoliberalism would actually look like.

The chancellor sticks with the mantra that “growth” will solve all problems, without reflecting on the problem that expenditure on war preparation – leaving aside more profound objections to it – is one of the least effective ways of generating any; because the kit you buy with it won’t do anyone any good – just harm if it is used. Investing in any other sector of the economy – health, education, transport, social housing and infrastructure construction – generates actual benefits as well as the economic activity that goes with it. 

If you want a “growth sector” that will pull the rest of the economy into a healthier place, it’s the green sector; currently growing at 9% a year as the rest of the economy flatlines. So, if you want a healthier, livelier economy, green it! 

The “breathing space” the Chancellor has given the government, before its course is set by the pending 10 year plan, should be used to push them in the right direction, because there is no breathing space in the rate at which climate breakdown is accelerating.

The GJA’s model motion is a useful way to take up the debate about the policies we need in union and party branches, and student unions too. Feel free to adapt it to your circumstances.

By Paul Atkin

 

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The post Budgeting for a slow march to war when a “mad dash to net zero” is what we need to be safe first appeared on Greener Jobs Alliance.

AFSA Delegation’s Closing Reflection | Yerevan, Armenia | 31 October 2026

The world cannot continue negotiating the future of biodiversity while the communities who sustain it struggle to protect their seeds, lands, knowledge and livelihoods. This was the conviction that guided the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) throughout the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP17) in Yerevan, Armenia. Over two intensive weeks, our six-member delegation stood alongside African farmers, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, youth movements and civil society allies to defend a simple but fundamental principle. Biodiversity justice must put people, rights and nature before corporate interests.

COP17 delivered the Yerevan Pathway and completed the first global review of progress under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The findings were sobering. The world remains off track to meet its 2030 biodiversity targets, while inadequate financing, harmful subsidies and gaps in implementation continue to undermine progress. For AFSA, this reinforces a central concern. Global commitments mean little unless they bring meaningful change to the communities conserving biodiversity every day. We cannot continue financing the destruction of nature while promising to restore it.

Throughout the conference, AFSA carried Africa’s priorities into negotiation rooms, high-level panels, side events and public mobilisation spaces. We defended farmer-managed seed systems and the right of farmers to save, use, exchange and share their seeds. We championed agroecology as a practical pathway to biodiversity conservation and food systems transformation, consistent with Target 10 of the Global Biodiversity Framework. We challenged the promotion of false solutions, including approaches to synthetic biology that fail to adequately address equity, precaution, sovereignty and community rights. We called for fair and transparent benefit-sharing and a Cali Fund that genuinely serves the farmers and communities whose stewardship of genetic resources makes scientific and commercial innovation possible.

A major highlight of our engagement was AFSA’s side event on 24 October, titled “Digital Sequence Information (DSI): Understanding the Debate and Defining an African Civil Society Position.” Organised in collaboration with African civil society partners, the event brought the critical questions of equity, biodiversity sovereignty and community rights to the centre of the DSI debate. It provided a platform to examine how the growing use of digital genetic information affects Africa’s biological resources and the communities that have conserved them for generations. At the heart of the dialogue was a fundamental question. Who benefits when biodiversity becomes digital, and who has a voice in deciding how those benefits are shared? The event reinforced AFSA’s call for fair, transparent and accountable benefit-sharing arrangements, stronger protection of traditional knowledge and farmers’ rights, and coordinated African civil society advocacy to ensure that scientific innovation advances biodiversity justice rather than deepening existing inequalities.

Our delegation amplified these demands through strong interventions, strategic alliances and collective action. From the call to “Stop financing destruction!” to the pan-African campaign “Seed Is Life”, AFSA reaffirmed that Africa’s agricultural biodiversity is a living heritage, not simply a resource for commercial exploitation. Our engagement with the Just Transformations Network and other civil society allies strengthened solidarity across movements. As negotiations reached their final stages, we stood with young people inside the Blue Zone, raising our voices against false solutions and reminding world leaders of a truth too often forgotten. “You cannot eat money!”

We leave Yerevan with renewed solidarity, stronger alliances and a clear sense of the work ahead. Progress in global biodiversity governance must be judged not only by negotiated decisions, but by whose rights are protected, who controls resources, who benefits from their use and whether communities have the power to shape their own futures. AFSA will continue working with its members and partners to translate these demands into national policies, community action and sustained advocacy.

COP17 may have concluded, but our message remains uncompromising. No future in false solutions. Yes to real, rights-based solutions. Protect farmers’ seeds. Invest in agroecology. Uphold community sovereignty. Make biodiversity justice a reality.

 

What can community bring to seabird conservation? Reflecting on my time as the Navarre Beach seabird monitor this past summer, working to protect imperiled beach-nesting birds along the Emerald...

Por Jan Morrill, Earthworks y Diana Martin, MiningWatch Canada 

Este mes, representantes de las comunidades que viven al lado de la mina de oro de Pueblo Viejo y sus aliados recorrieron cerca de 30.000 kilómetros alrededor del mundo para visibilizar los impactos de la explotación minera en sus hogares y familias. Exigen que se tomen medidas para proteger su salud y seguridad, y para defender los derechos de sus comunidades. No debería ser necesario llegar a esto.

Estos activistas dominicanos visitaron Bélgica, Panamá y Canadá para exigir mayor transparencia y responsabilidad corporativa por parte de Barrick Mining, la empresa canadiense que opera la mina; una mejor supervisión por parte del gobierno canadiense; y la reubicación segura de 450 familias que afirman ya estar sufriendo ya los impactos ambientales y de salud.

Denuncian en Londres los daños causados por la minería

Estos viajes se dan inmediatamente después de una denuncia presentada ante la Asociación del Mercado de Metales Preciosos de Londres (LBMA, por sus siglas en inglés), un organismo de acreditación para el oro, la plata y otros metales preciosos. La denuncia sostiene que los antecedentes públicos de la empresa en materia de violaciones de derechos humanos y daños ambientales son incompatibles con los lineamientos internos de la LBMA y que, por lo tanto, el oro de la mina no debería comercializarse en el Mercado de Metales Preciosos de Londres. 

La denuncia destaca la contaminación, los problemas de salud y las afectaciones en los cultivos de las comunidades alrededor de la mina. Según lo señaló el abogado principal que presentó la denuncia: «Si establece normas desde Londres, pero no las hace cumplir — y permite que continúe el comercio altamente rentable de metales—, entonces debe estar preparado para rendir cuentas».

Las comunidades buscan respuestas

Desde hace mucho tiempo, las comunidades han expresado su preocupación por la contaminación del agua y del aire, así como otros impactos en la salud. Pueblo Viejo, una de las minas de oro a cielo abierto más grandes de América Latina, ha generado enormes cantidades de desechos mineros desde que comenzaron sus operaciones comerciales. Actualmente, Barrick adelanta una gran expansión que incluye una nueva instalación diseñada para almacenar cientos de millones de toneladas adicionales de residuos mineros y extender las operaciones de la mina por varias décadas.

El Comité Nuevo Renacer (CNR), una organización que representa a cinco comunidades afectadas por la mina de Pueblo Viejo en República Dominicana —La Cerca, La Piñita, Las Lagunas, Jobo Claro y Jurungo— lleva años exigiendo la reubicación de estas comunidades debido a los problemas ambientales y de salud asociados con vivir cerca de la mina.

Esta labor de defensa incluye esfuerzos, hasta ahora sin éxito, para obtener información esencial de Barrick Mining Corporation relacionada con los impactos ambientales de la mina y las presas de colas. Desde 2021, el CNR y organizaciones aliadas han enviado comunicaciones a Barrick, a sus directores ejecutivos y a sus inversionistas, solicitando acceso a la información y transparencia sobre los impactos de la mina en las comunidades y las familias. Estas solicitudes de información han sido ignoradas o atendidas con información incompleta o que no corresponde a lo solicitado.

Exigen más transparencia en Bélgica

Durante la primera semana de octubre, Fernando Peña, del Espacio Nacional para la Transparencia en las Industrias Extractivas (ENTRE) y del Observatorio de Políticas Públicas de la Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, asistió a la reunión anual de la Iniciativa para la Transparencia de las Industrias Extractivas (EITI en inglés). Peña, representante oficial de la sociedad civil de la República Dominicana, destacó el caso de la LBMA y las preocupaciones de las comunidades locales, tanto durante el evento oficial como en los otros foros.

La rendición de cuentas del Gobierno canadiense en Panamá

El 27 de octubre, Casilda Lima, residente de Las Lagunas, miembro del CNR y demandante en la denuncia ante la LBMA, presentó su testimonio ante la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos. 

Durante una audiencia sobre las obligaciones internacionales de las empresas extractivas canadienses y sus impactos en los derechos humanos, la Sra. Lima compartió su experiencia de vivir a menos de un kilómetro de la presa de relaves que almacena los residuos de la mina Pueblo Viejo. 

En su testimonio habló de los numerosos problemas de salud que padece, entre ellos dolores de cabeza, náuseas y dificultades para respirar. También describió cómo el polvo que se levanta de las colas cubre su casa a diario y cómo el ruido de las operaciones mineras no la deja dormir por las noches. Reiteró las exigencias de las comunidades para que sean reubicadas y expresó: «…deberían trasladarnos… a un lugar donde tengamos agua, donde tengamos ríos, como lo que teníamos antes [de la minería]; ahora no tenemos nada».

El CNR también presentó un testimonio escrito como parte del proceso, en el que instó al gobierno canadiense a investigar las acciones y los impactos de Barrick, y a tomar todas las medidas necesarias para reparar los daños. También le solicitaron al gobierno canadiense que trabaje en conjunto con el gobierno dominicano para implementar el proyecto de reubicación, que lleva siete años suspendido, e instaron al gobierno de Canadá a tomar medidas para garantizar que las empresas canadienses, incluida Barrick, cumplan con las normas y regulaciones internacionales sobre acceso a la información y transparencia, tales como la Iniciativa para la Transparencia de las Industrias Extractivas (EITI), el Estándar Global de Gestión de Relaves para la Industria Minera, entre otros. 

Llevan sus exigencias hasta Canadá

Del 28 de octubre al 3 de noviembre, Leoncia Ramos, representante de la CNR y residente de la comunidad de La Piñita, y también una de las demandantes en la denuncia presentada ante la LBMA, viajó a Canadá para compartir de primera mano sobre los impactos de las actividades extractivas en las comunidades agrícolas y rurales de la República Dominicana. 

Su testimonio fue incluido en una conferencia de prensa parlamentaria y ella presentó sus preocupaciones ante representantes del gobierno canadiense, quienes se comprometieron a examinar el caso con mayor detenimiento. La Red Canadiense para la Rendición de Cuentas Corporativa, que representa a más de 40 organizaciones de la sociedad civil, invitó a la Sra. Ramos como panelista en su reunión semestral de miembros.

Mientras Canadá expande su relaciones comerciales a nivel mundial, su propio gobierno está restringiendo las ya limitadas vías disponibles para exigir que las empresas mineras rindan cuentas por los abusos cometidos en el extranjero. 

La Sra. Ramos aprovechó su visita para instar a las autoridades canadienses a que atiendan las preocupaciones de las comunidades y aborden los riesgos asociados con la expansión minera. También hizo un llamado al gobierno para que  implemente una legislación de diligencia debida que garantice a las personas afectadas un acceso efectivo a mecanismos de rendición de cuentas y reparación. 

Para conseguir justicia en casa

Deben existir medidas para proteger a las comunidades de los daños asociados con la minería y garantizar que cuenten con la información necesaria para tomar decisiones sobre lo que es más conveniente para ellas y sus familias. Cuando las comunidades sufren daños, las empresas y los gobiernos nacionales deben adoptar medidas de reparación oportunas y adecuadas. Si las comunidades expresan sus preocupaciones, tanto los organismos que establecen estándares, como la LBMA, así como los gobiernos de los países donde las empresas tienen su sede deben asumir su responsabilidad y tomar medidas.

The post El largo camino para exigir que la industria minera canadiense rinda cuentas appeared first on Earthworks.

To Sierra Isley, the American Dream brings to mind a home ringed by a white picket fence. “The house in the suburbs is just what you’re taught growing up,” the 26-year-old said. “You know, that’s what you see on TV.” What she wanted for her life was a bit different from that picket-fence ideal, but she still saw the prospect of buying her first house two years ago as a chance to live out what she called “that big dream that everybody has as a kid.” 

Isley and her girlfriend, Jamie, were moving from Philadelphia to Asheville, North Carolina, and found a home they liked, a three-bedroom brick house with lots of natural light and a big tree out front. With some help from their parents, they put down a deposit and got their offer accepted. But when they went to sign the closing papers, a complication got in the way: The house had a huge lien on it. After consulting with lawyers, they decided to break the contract and hunt for an apartment to rent in Asheville.

It was a blessing in disguise. One month later, while Sierra and Jamie were still unpacking boxes and building furniture, the remnants of Hurricane Helene turned Asheville into a disaster zone. The basement of their apartment flooded, but they were luckier than some of their neighbors, whose homes had been destroyed. 

Owning a home has long been seen as a cornerstone of the American Dream — a way to build wealth that you could use one day to pay for your children’s education and fund your retirement. That arrangement was always more precarious than it was made out to be. But as fires and floods damage homes and drive up insurance rates, pouring your life savings into a house has become riskier than ever. In a report called “Property Prices in Peril,” the firm First Street projected last year that climate risks could knock nearly $1.5 trillion off the value of American homes by 2055. For some people, the sociologist Rebecca Elliott wrote, “the American dream of homeownership may become a nightmare.”

A fallen tree on a home in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Asheville, North Carolina, in September 2024. Sean Rayford / Getty Images

Americans are beginning to grasp the threat that climate change poses to their aspirations. According to exclusive polling for Grist from the think tank Data for Progress, 58 percent of likely U.S. voters believe that climate change will hinder their ability to achieve the American Dream over the next 20 years, including 42 percent of Republicans. The survey suggests that people are worried that climate change will increase the cost of living, a concern so widespread that it’s expected to sway the midterm elections on Tuesday.

The irony is that fossil fuels have long been promoted as necessary ingredients for the American “way of life.” Starting a century ago, oil and gas companies led extensive campaigns to tie their products to comfort and prosperity, a narrative that has been repeatedly deployed by politicians and oil industry executives to thwart climate action. President Donald Trump’s administration has often said that efforts to rein in fossil fuels threaten the American Dream. Earlier this year, when the administration scrapped Biden-era rules to cut emissions from cars, along with the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate climate change, it touted the effort as “restoring the American Dream.”

More in this series

• The hidden history of how Big Oil invented the American Dream
• Fossil fuels are hiding all over your house. We built a model home to show how.
• Exclusive: Most voters believe climate change threatens the American Dream

But the fossil-fueled American Dream is in the process of destroying itself. Greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal, oil, and gas have ushered in a new period of precarity, undermining the promise that each generation can expect a better life than the last. Scientific reports warn that climate change “imperil[s] the quality of life” for communities in the United States, disrupting livelihoods and cultural traditions. 

Either Americans decide to reimagine what makes up the American Dream and abandon that oil-soaked version of prosperity, or climate change will dismantle it for them.

The memories of living through Hurricane Helene are still fresh in Isley’s mind. Hauling water from their flooded basement up to the toilet to flush it when the water ran out. Driving to Jamie’s parents’ house in Atlanta, holed up in a room with both of their cats until they couldn’t take it anymore. Coming back to Asheville and cooking meals in the Crock-Pot with disposable liners because even when the water was running again, it wasn’t safe to wash dishes with.

Two years later, Isley browses Zillow for fun, but she looks at homes through a post-disaster lens. “Now I have that fear in the back of my mind — anywhere near a river, or even a stream, if there’s a little bit of water on the map, I’m like, ‘Oh, no,’” she said. Jamie is trans, and after Trump was elected in 2024, the two of them briefly entertained the idea of moving somewhere with more protective policies, like California. But Isley’s mind immediately went to wildfires. Out of the question. 

Sierra Isley on a hiking trail in Asheville.
Courtesy of Sierra Isley

Isley had fled from hurricanes before, when she lived in Florida during college. She thought she’d be safe from them tucked away in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Asheville was supposed to be a “climate haven,” somewhere that would fare better than the rest of the country as the world warmed. Those promises were shattered when almost 14 inches of rain fell on Asheville over three days in September 2024. The French Broad River overflowed its banks, flooding homes and destroying parts of the town’s River Arts District. In western North Carolina, more than 74,000 homes were damaged, and only about 4 percent had flood insurance, resulting in $9.5 billion in uninsured residential property losses. 

Home values in western North Carolina have declined since the storm, especially in the hardest-hit counties. Asheville’s average home price shrunk 5 percent over the past year, while the national average increased 1.2 percent.

To some degree, housing markets are already pricing in the risk of increased environmental hazards. Homes within FEMA’s high-risk flood zones sell for 2.8 percent less, on average, than what they would otherwise sell for, according to a 2023 study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The researchers found that homes exposed to flood risk were still overvalued by between $121 billion and $237 billion, though — and they identified Appalachia as a hot spot of overvaluation, one year before Helene hit. The devaluation of homes in high-risk zones is unfolding unevenly and causing “tremendous social harm,” said Elliott, a sociology professor at The London School of Economics and Political Science.

Homes are billed as a way for people to build wealth, but they can turn into a trap. After Superstorm Sandy devastated New York City and the New Jersey coast in 2012, many homeowners couldn’t sell their houses for enough money to buy a new place, leaving them stranded. Even homes that haven’t seen any kind of devastation are at risk of losing value as more people become wary of living in floodplains, coastal places exposed to storms, and wildfire-prone areas. “Those homes could become, in effect, economically worthless even before they are physically uninhabitable,” Elliott wrote in a study about property values and climate change.

After Superstorm Sandy in 2012, a New Jersey home was spray-painted with the phrases “for sale” and “Sandy special.”
Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Insurance is meant to offer a measure of safety when taking on a huge debt for a mortgage on a house. Douglas Heller, the director of insurance at the Consumer Federation of America, called it “the safety net for the American Dream.” But insurance rates are part of what’s making homeownership unaffordable for so many. Since 2020, property insurance costs have ballooned almost 80 percent, with the average single-family mortgage holder now paying $209 per month. Homeowners in the riskiest areas are paying substantially more, and many in California have been dropped by their insurers. Home insurance rates are rising faster in the Midwest than any other region, driven by the costs of severe storms. 

“We are, for a lot of people, on the edge of a dysfunctional insurance marketplace,” Heller said. The more extreme weather we’re seeing is only part of the story: He argues that the insurance industry has become a “climate opportunist,” using climate change as an excuse to justify excessive rate increases.

People relying on Social Security benefits who own condos around Lake Tahoe are particularly vulnerable to rising rates, said Andrew Engler, the founder and CEO of Rock Rose Risk, who helps people in California protect their homes against wildfire and get their insurance premiums down. They’re facing ballooning homeowners association payments, to share the cost of insurance in a risky wildfire area, on a limited paycheck. If they try to move, their properties are worth significantly less because of the huge HOA bills, Engler said. Economists estimate that rising insurance costs linked to disaster risk have reduced the growth of home prices by more than $40,000 in the most hurricane- and wildfire-prone ZIP codes.

Renting might make you more nimble, but it doesn’t insulate you from these costs. One reason rents are going up is because landlords’ property insurance rates are increasing. “Whether you are a homeowner or a renter, we’re all paying for living under the increased risks of climate change,” said Caroline Nagy, the associate director of housing policy at Americans for Financial Reform. That makes it harder for people to save for a home — if that’s even a good idea anymore.

When Sierra Isley walks around her neighborhood these days, she sees the evidence of Helene all around her — in the form of banners with the slogan “Asheville Strong” and shirts that say “WNC Strong.” 

One of the most surprising things about disasters might be the way that people who live through them rise to the occasion and come together. In the aftermath of the Helene, with the power and cell service knocked out, Sierra and Jamie walked all around town, talking to their neighbors to try to learn what had happened. People started congregating at the fire station where there was fresh water.

“It’s hard to put into words what that experience was like, but I’ve never felt more of a community, and really having to lean on my neighbors and feeling like my neighbors were leaning on me,” Isley said.

While the American Dream is usually all about independence and personal freedom, living through a disaster has a way of revealing how people depend on each other. The experience can prompt people to hold tightly to what they have, doubling down on protecting their communities, said Nick Tinoco, a sociology researcher in a doctoral program at the University of California, Los Angeles, who interviewed survivors of the 2018 Woolsey Fire in Los Angeles County. Some of the residents he talked to have taken things into their own hands and organized volunteer fire brigades, and plan to stay behind to defend their neighborhoods during future fires. 

A white picket fence is all that remained of a home in Malibu, California, after the Woolsey Fire tore through in 2018.
David Crane / Digital First Media / Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images

As supposedly safe “climate havens” like Asheville experience more disasters, the idea that people can simply move out of harm’s way is losing its grip. “I think we have to just reckon with the fact that we’re going to have to make people secure in the places that they live,” Elliott said. 

She thinks it’s time to rethink the bargain of the American Dream — the expectation that so much of a person’s economic future depends on the fate of a single structure. Many young people have begun to define success differently. A poll from Ipsos last year showed that 46 percent of baby boomers associate homeownership with the American Dream, but only 13 percent of Gen Zers do, suggesting that there’s room for its defining features to change.

Sierra and Jamie couldn’t help but wonder what happened to the house they’d almost bought, and they drove over to check it out soon after Hurricane Helene hit. It was still standing, but they couldn’t see if there was any damage hidden inside. “Who knows if it flooded or anything like that, what kind of storm damage it took, and that would have immediately been our problem,” Isley said.

Living through Hurricane Helene didn’t just make Isley relieved she hadn’t bought a house in Asheville. It has shaped what she wants for her life, helping her discover a passion for public health and pushing her to want to work in emergency preparedness. Now she’s applying to schools to pursue a master’s degree in public health.

“I think I owe it to people like me, people in other rural communities who are going to face the same kind of climate change emergencies, to use my skills to help combat climate change and natural disasters,” Isley said. “I just feel such a calling.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The American Dream wasn’t built for climate change on Nov 2, 2026.

In his inaugural address in January 2025, President Donald Trump promised that “the American Dream will soon be back and thriving like never before.” Apparently, that required undoing policies to tackle climate change: The Trump administration has invoked “the American Dream” as a justification to propose ending mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions, reverse rules to cut emissions from cars, and deregulate coal. 

Voters, on the other hand, view climate change itself as a problem for their aspirations. Exclusive polling for Grist from the think tank Data for Progress shows that 58 percent of likely U.S. voters believe that the warming climate will hinder their ability to achieve or maintain the American Dream over the next 20 years — including 42 percent of Republicans. 

“We identify a strong concern about climate change as a threat to achieving the American Dream,” said Grace Adcox, a senior climate strategist at the progressive think tank.

.amdream-q5#amdream-q5-a{margin-top:1.5rem!important;margin-bottom:1.5rem!important;text-align:left} #amdream-q5-a div,#amdream-q5-a span,#amdream-q5-a p,#amdream-q5-a h2,#amdream-q5-a h4,#amdream-q5-a b{margin:0;padding:0;line-height:inherit;text-transform:none} #amdream-q5-a svg{max-width:none} .amdream-q5#amdream-q5-a{box-sizing:border-box;position:relative;width:100%;font-family:"Basis Grotesque",Arial,sans-serif;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;line-height:1.3;color:#3C3830}.amdream-q5#amdream-q5-a *{box-sizing:border-box}#amdream-q5-a .amdream-q5__title{font-family:"PolySans",Arial,sans-serif;font-weight:500;font-size:25px;line-height:1.15;letter-spacing:-0.018em;margin:0 0 8px}#amdream-q5-a .amdream-q5__subtitle{font-size:16px;line-height:1.4;margin:0 0 12px;color:#6B665E;text-wrap:pretty}#amdream-q5-a .amdream-q5__legend{display:flex;flex-wrap:wrap;gap:4px 16px;margin:0 0 10px;font-size:14px}#amdream-q5-a .amdream-q5__legend span{display:inline-flex;align-items:center;gap:6px;white-space:nowrap}#amdream-q5-a .amdream-q5__footer>div{flex:1;min-width:0}#amdream-q5-a .amdream-q5__plot svg{display:block;width:100%;overflow:visible}.amdream-q5#amdream-q5-a svg text{font-family:"Basis Grotesque",Arial,sans-serif;font-weight:500;font-size:13px;fill:#3C3830}.amdream-q5#amdream-q5-a .tick{font-size:12px;fill:#6B665E;font-variant-numeric:tabular-nums}.amdream-q5#amdream-q5-a .group{font-size:13px;font-weight:700;fill:#6B665E}.amdream-q5#amdream-q5-a .seg-label{font-size:12px;font-variant-numeric:tabular-nums;pointer-events:none}.amdream-q5#amdream-q5-a .halo{paint-order:stroke fill;stroke:#FFFFFF;stroke-width:3px;stroke-linejoin:round}#amdream-q5-a .amdream-q5__footer{display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:flex-end;margin-top:10px;gap:12px}#amdream-q5-a .amdream-q5__source,#amdream-q5-a .amdream-q5__credit{font-size:12px;line-height:1.35;color:#6B665E;display:block}#amdream-q5-a .amdream-q5__credit{margin-top:3px;font-weight:700;font-style:italic}#amdream-q5-a .amdream-q5__logo{display:block;height:18px;width:54px;flex:none}#amdream-q5-a .amdream-q5__tooltip{position:absolute;display:none;pointer-events:none;z-index:5;min-width:170px;padding:9px 12px 10px;background:#FFFFFF;border:1.5px solid #3C3830;border-radius:6px;box-shadow:3px 3px 0 #3C3830;font-size:13px;line-height:1.35}#amdream-q5-a .amdream-q5__tooltip h4{font-family:"PolySans",Arial,sans-serif;font-weight:500;font-size:14px;margin:0 0 5px}#amdream-q5-a .amdream-q5__tooltip div{display:flex;align-items:center;gap:6px}#amdream-q5-a .amdream-q5__tooltip b{margin-left:auto;font-variant-numeric:tabular-nums} @media (max-width:600px){#amdream-q5-a .amdream-q5__title{font-size:21px}#amdream-q5-a .amdream-q5__subtitle{font-size:15px}#amdream-q5-a .amdream-q5__legend{font-size:13px}} A majority of likely voters think climate change will get in the way of the American Dream

Percentage of respondents who say climate change will affect their ability to achieve or maintain the American Dream over the next 20 years, by how much

Source: Data for Progress / Grist survey of 1,167 U.S. likely voters, April 24–27, 2026. Rows may not sum to 100 because of rounding.Clayton Aldern / Grist function __gvOr(a,b){return a?a:b()};(function(){ function run(d3){ (function () { const INIT_KEY = '__grist_amdream-q5_options_initialized__'; if (window[INIT_KEY]) return; window[INIT_KEY] = true; // Values: a great deal, somewhat, not very much, not at all, don't know (percent). const ROWS = [ { group: 'All', key: 'All likely voters', v: [25, 33, 20, 17, 6], n: 1167 }, { group: 'Party', key: 'Democrat', v: [31, 43, 12, 6, 8], n: 461 }, { group: 'Party', key: 'Independent / third party', short: 'Independent', v: [27, 28, 21, 17, 8], n: 241 }, { group: 'Party', key: 'Republican', v: [18, 24, 27, 28, 3], n: 465 }, { group: 'Gender', key: 'Female', v: [25, 31, 22, 15, 7], n: 625 }, { group: 'Gender', key: 'Male', v: [24, 34, 17, 19, 5], n: 542 }, { group: 'Age', key: 'Under 45', v: [25, 41, 18, 9, 7], n: 375 }, { group: 'Age', key: '45 and older', short: '45+', v: [24, 29, 21, 21, 6], n: 792 }, { group: 'Education', key: 'No college', v: [22, 32, 22, 17, 7], n: 735 }, { group: 'Education', key: 'College', v: [29, 34, 16, 16, 5], n: 432 }, { group: 'Race', key: 'Black', v: [44, 35, 11, 5, 5], n: 135 }, { group: 'Race', key: 'White', v: [23, 28, 21, 21, 6], n: 812 }, { group: 'Race', key: 'Latino', v: [21, 47, 21, 8, 3], n: 168 }, ]; const ANSWERS = ['A great deal', 'Somewhat', 'Not very much', 'Not at all', "Don't know"]; // Project palette (#FF5134, #FFAEC6, #8AB6E6) plus a deeper blue for the far end of the scale. const COLOR = ['#FF5134', '#FFAEC6', '#8AB6E6', '#2E64B0', '#D9D7D2']; const INK = ['#3C3830', '#3C3830', '#3C3830', '#FFFFFF', '#3C3830']; const EARTH = '#3C3830', GRID = '#E6E3DD', MUTED = '#6B665E'; const PEBBLE = 'M11.3,4.9Q12.4,6.0 12.5,7.7Q12.5,9.5 10.5,10.1Q8.4,10.7 6.7,10.3Q4.9,9.8 3.5,9.2Q2.1,8.6 1.3,7.3Q0.6,6.0 0.9,4.5Q1.3,3.0 2.9,1.9Q4.4,0.8 6.3,1.2Q8.2,1.7 9.2,2.8Q10.1,3.9 11.3,4.9Z'; const LOGO = '\x3csvg class="amdream-q5__logo" viewBox="0 0 305 103" fill="none" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-label="Grist">\x3cpath d="M137 98.5C133 98.5 132 97.5 132 92.5V50.2C133.579 49.0591 135.454 48.3993 137.4 48.3C140.5 48.3 143.2 49.6 147.5 54.7C148.8 56.3 150 57 151.3 57C153.3 57 154.5 55.7 154.5 53.4V38H151.5C147.812 37.9397 144.155 38.6872 140.786 40.1901C137.418 41.6931 134.419 43.915 132 46.7V38H108V41.5H112C116 41.5 117 42.5 117 47.5V92.5C117 97.5 116 98.5 112 98.5H108V102H145V98.5H137ZM158.5 41.5H161.2C165.2 41.5 166.2 42.5 166.2 47.5V92.5C166.2 97.5 165.2 98.5 161.2 98.5H156.8V102H189.9V98.5H186.2C182.2 98.5 181.2 97.5 181.2 92.5V38H158.5V41.5ZM195.4 102H199.1V101C199.1 98.7 200.8 98.8 202.8 99.5C210.5 102.2 214.4 103 220.5 103C236.8 103 244.5 95.4 244.5 82.7C244.5 74.2 239.6 66.7 227.3 63.1L211.2 58.4C203.5 56.1 201.2 53 201.2 49.7C201.2 46.4 204.2 43.4 209.1 43.4C216.6 43.4 223.8 48 234.3 56.3C235.151 57.0952 236.241 57.5873 237.4 57.7C239.4 57.7 240.6 56.4 240.6 54.1V38H236.9V39C236.9 40.7 235.8 41.5 233.7 40.7C226.3 37.9 221.8 37 217.6 37C203.1 37 196 45.2 196 56.9C196 65.3 201.8 72.4 215.2 76.5L229.6 80.9C236.8 83.1 239.3 86 239.3 89.9C239.3 93.8 236 96.6 231.1 96.6C224.3 96.6 215.3 93.2 202.1 83C201.131 82.094 199.911 81.5015 198.6 81.3C196.6 81.3 195.4 82.6 195.4 84.9V102ZM257.8 83.9C257.8 96.3 265.1 103 278.7 103C285.1 103 294.8 101.2 302.3 98.7V87C302.3 84.7 301.1 83.4 299.1 83.4C297.9 83.4 296.8 84.1 295.6 85.9C288.4 96.7 282.8 99.6 278.2 99.6C274.2 99.6 272.8 97.8 272.8 92.7V49.5H304.7V38H272.8V14H269.1V14.7C269.1 29 260.3 40.4 247.8 42.8V49.5H257.8V83.9ZM166.2 30H181.2V12.5H166.2V30ZM84.9 64V88.3C79.1 91.9 72.6 94 67.1 94C39.7 94 15.1 64.1 15.1 33C15.1 18.4 24.7 6.9 41.4 6.9C51.9 6.9 72.3 13.6 87.4 29.8C87.8588 30.38 88.4339 30.8576 89.0884 31.2021C89.7428 31.5465 90.4621 31.7502 91.2 31.8C93.2 31.8 94.4 30.5 94.4 28.2V2H90.7V3C90.7 6.6 88.6 7.6 83.4 6C72.9626 2.50408 62.0057 0.813193 51 1C18.1 1 0 26.8 0 52C0 80.8 21.9 103 51 103C63.148 102.914 74.9783 99.11 84.9 92.1V102H99.4V50H46.4V64H84.9Z" fill="#3C3830"/>\x3c/svg>'; const affected = (r) => r.v[0] + r.v[1]; const pebble = (c) => `\x3csvg width="13" height="12" viewBox="0 0 13 12" aria-hidden="true">\x3cpath d="${PEBBLE}" fill="${c}"/>\x3c/svg>`; // Option A keys its legend and tooltip with round dots; B and C keep the pebbles. const dot = (c) => `\x3csvg width="12" height="12" viewBox="0 0 12 12" aria-hidden="true">\x3ccircle cx="6" cy="6" r="6" fill="${c}"/>\x3c/svg>`; const narrow = () => (600)>(window.innerWidth); function legend(root, idx, key = pebble) { root.select('.amdream-q5__legend').html(idx.map((i) => `\x3cspan>${key(COLOR[i])}${ANSWERS[i]}\x3c/span>`).join('')); } function tooltip(root, html, event) { const tip = root.select('.amdream-q5__tooltip'); if (!html) { tip.style('display', 'none'); return; } const box = root.node().getBoundingClientRect(); tip.html(html).style('display', 'block'); const w = tip.node().offsetWidth; let x = event.clientX - box.left + 14; if (x + w > box.width) x = event.clientX - box.left - w - 14; tip.style('left', Math.max(0, x) + 'px').style('top', (event.clientY - box.top + 14) + 'px'); } function rowTip(r, key = pebble) { return `\x3ch4>${r.key}\x3c/h4>` + r.v.map((x, i) => `\x3cdiv>${key(COLOR[i])}${ANSWERS[i]}\x3cb>${x}%\x3c/b>\x3c/div>`).join('') + `\x3cdiv style="color:${MUTED};margin-top:4px">Weighted N = ${d3.format(',')(r.n)}\x3c/div>`; } // Option A: diverging stacked bars grouped by demographic split. function drawA() { const root = d3.select('#amdream-q5-a'); legend(root, [3, 2, 1, 0], dot); const plot = root.select('.amdream-q5__plot').html(''); const W = plot.node().clientWidth; const labelW = narrow() ? 92 : 168, dkW = narrow() ? 34 : 54, rowH = 26, groupH = 24, top = 26; const x = d3.scaleLinear().domain([-60, 85]).range([labelW, W - dkW - 8]); let y = top; const layout = []; let last = null; ROWS.forEach((r) => { if ((r.group !== last ? r.group !== 'All':!1)) { layout.push({ header: r.group, y: y + groupH - 7 }); y += groupH; } layout.push({ row: r, y }); y += rowH; last = r.group; if (r.group === 'All') y += 4; }); const H = y + 4; const svg = plot.append('svg').attr('height', H + 18).attr('viewBox', `0 0 ${W} ${H + 18}`); [-50, -25, 25, 50, 75].forEach((t) => { svg.append('line').attr('x1', x(t)).attr('x2', x(t)).attr('y1', top - 4).attr('y2', H).attr('stroke', GRID); svg.append('text').attr('class', 'tick').attr('x', x(t)).attr('y', H + 14).attr('text-anchor', 'middle').text(Math.abs(t) + '%'); }); svg.append('text').attr('class', 'tick').attr('x', x(0) - 6).attr('y', 12).attr('text-anchor', 'end').text(narrow() ? '← Not' : '← Not much or not at all'); svg.append('text').attr('class', 'tick').attr('x', x(0) + 6).attr('y', 12).text(narrow() ? 'Affected →' : 'A great deal or somewhat →'); svg.append('text').attr('class', 'tick').attr('x', W - dkW / 2).attr('y', 12).attr('text-anchor', 'middle').text(narrow() ? 'DK' : "Don't know"); layout.forEach((d) => { if (d.header) { svg.append('text').attr('class', 'group').attr('x', 0).attr('y', d.y).text(d.header); return; } const r = d.row, g = svg.append('g').attr('transform', `translate(0,${d.y})`); const bh = rowH - 6; g.append('text').attr('x', 0).attr('y', bh / 2 + 4).style('font-weight', r.group === 'All' ? 700 : 500) .text(narrow() ? (__gvOr(r.short ,()=>( r.key))) : r.key); // Right of center: somewhat, then a great deal. Left of center: not very much, then not at all. const segs = [ { i: 1, x0: 0, x1: r.v[1] }, { i: 0, x0: r.v[1], x1: r.v[1] + r.v[0] }, { i: 2, x0: -r.v[2], x1: 0 }, { i: 3, x0: -r.v[2] - r.v[3], x1: -r.v[2] }, ]; segs.forEach((s) => { g.append('rect').attr('x', x(s.x0)).attr('width', x(s.x1) - x(s.x0)).attr('y', 0).attr('height', bh).attr('fill', COLOR[s.i]); if (r.v[s.i] >= (narrow() ? 12 : 8)) { g.append('text').attr('class', 'seg-label').attr('x', (x(s.x0) + x(s.x1)) / 2).attr('y', bh / 2 + 4) .attr('text-anchor', 'middle').style('fill', INK[s.i]).text(r.v[s.i]); } }); g.append('text').attr('class', 'seg-label').attr('x', W - dkW / 2).attr('y', bh / 2 + 4).attr('text-anchor', 'middle').style('fill', MUTED).text(r.v[4]); g.append('rect').attr('x', 0).attr('width', W).attr('y', -3).attr('height', rowH).attr('fill', 'transparent') .on('mousemove', (e) => tooltip(root, rowTip(r, dot), e)).on('mouseleave', () => tooltip(root, null)); }); svg.append('line').attr('x1', x(0)).attr('x2', x(0)).attr('y1', top - 4).attr('y2', H).attr('stroke', EARTH).attr('stroke-width', 1.5); } // Option B: ranked two-tone bars of the "affected" share. function drawB() { const root = d3.select('#amdream-q5-b'); legend(root, [0, 1]); const plot = root.select('.amdream-q5__plot').html(''); const W = plot.node().clientWidth; const rows = ROWS.slice().sort((a, b) => affected(b) - affected(a)); const labelW = narrow() ? 92 : 168, rowH = 28, top = 20, H = top + rows.length * rowH; const x = d3.scaleLinear().domain([0, 100]).range([labelW, W - 34]); const svg = plot.append('svg').attr('height', H).attr('viewBox', `0 0 ${W} ${H}`); [0, 25, 50, 75, 100].forEach((t) => { svg.append('line').attr('x1', x(t)).attr('x2', x(t)).attr('y1', top - 4).attr('y2', H).attr('stroke', t === 0 ? EARTH : GRID); svg.append('text').attr('class', 'tick').attr('x', x(t)).attr('y', 10).attr('text-anchor', 'middle').text(t + '%'); }); rows.forEach((r, k) => { const all = r.group === 'All', bh = rowH - 9; const g = svg.append('g').attr('transform', `translate(0,${top + k * rowH})`); g.append('text').attr('x', 0).attr('y', bh / 2 + 5).style('font-weight', all ? 700 : 500).text(narrow() ? (__gvOr(r.short ,()=>( r.key))) : r.key); g.append('rect').attr('x', x(0)).attr('width', x(affected(r)) - x(0)).attr('y', 0).attr('height', bh).attr('rx', 4).attr('fill', all ? '#B9B5AC' : COLOR[1]); g.append('rect').attr('x', x(0)).attr('width', x(r.v[0]) - x(0)).attr('y', 0).attr('height', bh).attr('rx', 4).attr('fill', all ? EARTH : COLOR[0]); g.append('text').attr('x', x(affected(r)) + 6).attr('y', bh / 2 + 5).style('font-weight', 700).style('font-variant-numeric', 'tabular-nums').text(affected(r) + '%'); g.append('rect').attr('x', 0).attr('width', W).attr('y', -4).attr('height', rowH).attr('fill', 'transparent') .on('mousemove', (e) => tooltip(root, rowTip(r), e)).on('mouseleave', () => tooltip(root, null)); }); } // Option C: one dumbbell per demographic split, on the "affected" share. function drawC() { const root = d3.select('#amdream-q5-c'); const plot = root.select('.amdream-q5__plot').html(''); const W = plot.node().clientWidth; const splits = ['Race', 'Party', 'Age', 'Education', 'Gender'].map((g) => { const rs = ROWS.filter((r) => r.group === g).sort((a, b) => affected(a) - affected(b)); return { group: g, rows: rs, gap: affected(rs[rs.length - 1]) - affected(rs[0]) }; }).sort((a, b) => b.gap - a.gap); const labelW = narrow() ? 78 : 104, gapW = 54, rowH = 64, top = 30, H = top + splits.length * rowH; const x = d3.scaleLinear().domain([35, 85]).range([labelW + 10, W - gapW - 10]); const svg = plot.append('svg').attr('height', H).attr('viewBox', `0 0 ${W} ${H}`); [40, 50, 60, 70, 80].forEach((t) => { svg.append('line').attr('x1', x(t)).attr('x2', x(t)).attr('y1', top - 6).attr('y2', H).attr('stroke', GRID); svg.append('text').attr('class', 'tick').attr('x', x(t)).attr('y', H + 16).attr('text-anchor', 'middle').text(t + '%'); }); svg.attr('height', H + 20).attr('viewBox', `0 0 ${W} ${H + 20}`); const all = affected(ROWS[0]); svg.append('line').attr('x1', x(all)).attr('x2', x(all)).attr('y1', top - 10).attr('y2', H).attr('stroke', EARTH).attr('stroke-dasharray', '5,5'); svg.append('text').attr('class', 'tick halo').attr('x', x(all)).attr('y', top - 14).attr('text-anchor', 'middle').text(`All likely voters, ${all}%`); svg.append('text').attr('class', 'tick').attr('x', W).attr('y', top - 14).attr('text-anchor', 'end').text('Gap'); splits.forEach((s, k) => { const cy = top + k * rowH + rowH / 2; const g = svg.append('g'); g.append('text').attr('class', 'group').attr('x', 0).attr('y', cy + 4).style('fill', EARTH).text(s.group); const lo = affected(s.rows[0]), hi = affected(s.rows[s.rows.length - 1]); g.append('line').attr('x1', x(lo)).attr('x2', x(hi)).attr('y1', cy).attr('y2', cy).attr('stroke', COLOR[0]).attr('stroke-width', 3.5).attr('stroke-linecap', 'round'); s.rows.forEach((r, i) => { const above = i % 2 === (s.rows.length === 2 ? 1 : 0); g.append('circle').attr('cx', x(affected(r))).attr('cy', cy).attr('r', 6.5).attr('fill', EARTH).attr('stroke', '#FFFFFF').attr('stroke-width', 2) .on('mousemove', (e) => tooltip(root, rowTip(r), e)).on('mouseleave', () => tooltip(root, null)); g.append('text').attr('class', 'halo').attr('x', x(affected(r))).attr('y', above ? cy - 13 : cy + 24).attr('text-anchor', 'middle') .style('font-size', '12px').text(`${__gvOr(r.short ,()=>( r.key))} ${affected(r)}%`); }); g.append('text').attr('x', W).attr('y', cy + 5).attr('text-anchor', 'end').style('font-weight', 700).style('fill', s.gap >= 10 ? '#D63A20' : MUTED).text(`${s.gap} pts`); }); } function render() { d3.selectAll('.amdream-q5__footer').each(function () { if (!this.querySelector('.amdream-q5__logo')) this.insertAdjacentHTML('beforeend', LOGO); }); // Each chart draws only where its markup is on the page (the WordPress embeds carry one chart each). if (document.getElementById('amdream-q5-a')) drawA(); if (document.getElementById('amdream-q5-b')) drawB(); if (document.getElementById('amdream-q5-c')) drawC(); } if (document.readyState === 'loading') document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', render, { once: true }); else render(); window.addEventListener('resize', render); })(); } function fail(){var el=document.getElementById("amdream-q5-a");if(el)el.insertAdjacentHTML("beforeend","\x3cp>This chart could not load. 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The survey, conducted this spring with 1,167 likely voters, shows that more than half see the cost of living as the biggest threat to reaching the American Dream today. That tracks with other political polls this year as well as reports on rising inflation. A recent analysis from Investopedia found that the typical elements of the American Dream — owning a home and a new car, raising kids, and other milestones — now add up to a price tag of $5.3 million per household. Only 2 percent of voters surveyed named climate change and extreme weather events as the central threat.

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.amdream-q3__dot-track{position:relative;height:48px;margin:0 10px}#amdream-q3-threat .amdream-q3__grid{position:absolute;top:0;bottom:0;width:1px;background:#D9D6D0}#amdream-q3-threat .amdream-q3__span{position:absolute;top:31.5px;height:3.5px;border-radius:2px;background:#C9C5BD}#amdream-q3-threat .amdream-q3__dot{position:absolute;top:26px;width:14px;height:14px;margin-left:-7px;border-radius:50%;box-shadow:0 0 0 2px var(--amdream-q3-bg,#FFFFFF)}#amdream-q3-threat .amdream-q3__dot-value{position:absolute;transform:translateX(-50%);font-size:12px;font-variant-numeric:tabular-nums;white-space:nowrap;line-height:1}#amdream-q3-threat .amdream-q3__dot-value--above{top:8px}#amdream-q3-threat .amdream-q3__gap{text-align:right;font-weight:700;font-size:14px;font-variant-numeric:tabular-nums}#amdream-q3-threat .amdream-q3__dot-axis{position:relative;height:18px;margin:2px 66px 0 10px}#amdream-q3-threat .amdream-q3__dot-axis span{position:absolute;transform:translateX(-50%);font-size:12px;color:#6B665E;font-variant-numeric:tabular-nums}#amdream-q3-threat .amdream-q3__note{font-size:12px;line-height:1.35;color:#6B665E;margin:12px 0 0} Cost of living tops voters’ worries about the American Dream; climate change ranks last

Share of likely voters who named each as the greatest threat today to their ability to achieve or maintain the American Dream

5 percent said they didn’t know.

Source: Data for Progress / Grist survey of 1,167 U.S. likely voters, April 24–27, 2026.Clayton Aldern / Grist (function () { const INIT_KEY = '__grist_amdream-q3_companions_initialized__'; if (window[INIT_KEY]) return; window[INIT_KEY] = true; // Topline percentages from the Data for Progress crosstabs (QT7YZW). const THREAT = [ ['Cost of living', 55], ['Domestic political instability and polarization', 12], ['Immigration, crime, and public safety', 10], ['Health care affordability and access', 9], ['Global conflicts and national security', 5], ['Education quality and costs', 3], ['Climate change and extreme weather events', 2], ]; // Very worried, percent: all likely voters, then Democrat, Independent / third party, Republican. const WORRY = [ ['Increasing cost of living', 52, [62, 53, 42]], ['More severe extreme weather', 39, [57, 39, 21]], ['Crop failures', 37, [48, 40, 24]], ['Warmer temperatures', 33, [49, 30, 18]], ['Degraded natural areas', 31, [45, 32, 17]], ]; const PARTIES = ['Democrat', 'Independent', 'Republican']; // Project palette: deeper blue, warm gray, #FF5134. const PARTY_COLOR = ['#2E64B0', '#9C968C', '#FF5134']; const PARTY_KEY = ['Democrat', 'Independent / third party', 'Republican']; const HIGHLIGHT = '#FF5134', MUTED = '#C9C5BD', MAX = 60, DOT_MIN = 10, DOT_MAX = 70; const LOGO = '\x3csvg class="amdream-q3__logo" viewBox="0 0 305 103" fill="none" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-label="Grist">\x3cpath d="M137 98.5C133 98.5 132 97.5 132 92.5V50.2C133.579 49.0591 135.454 48.3993 137.4 48.3C140.5 48.3 143.2 49.6 147.5 54.7C148.8 56.3 150 57 151.3 57C153.3 57 154.5 55.7 154.5 53.4V38H151.5C147.812 37.9397 144.155 38.6872 140.786 40.1901C137.418 41.6931 134.419 43.915 132 46.7V38H108V41.5H112C116 41.5 117 42.5 117 47.5V92.5C117 97.5 116 98.5 112 98.5H108V102H145V98.5H137ZM158.5 41.5H161.2C165.2 41.5 166.2 42.5 166.2 47.5V92.5C166.2 97.5 165.2 98.5 161.2 98.5H156.8V102H189.9V98.5H186.2C182.2 98.5 181.2 97.5 181.2 92.5V38H158.5V41.5ZM195.4 102H199.1V101C199.1 98.7 200.8 98.8 202.8 99.5C210.5 102.2 214.4 103 220.5 103C236.8 103 244.5 95.4 244.5 82.7C244.5 74.2 239.6 66.7 227.3 63.1L211.2 58.4C203.5 56.1 201.2 53 201.2 49.7C201.2 46.4 204.2 43.4 209.1 43.4C216.6 43.4 223.8 48 234.3 56.3C235.151 57.0952 236.241 57.5873 237.4 57.7C239.4 57.7 240.6 56.4 240.6 54.1V38H236.9V39C236.9 40.7 235.8 41.5 233.7 40.7C226.3 37.9 221.8 37 217.6 37C203.1 37 196 45.2 196 56.9C196 65.3 201.8 72.4 215.2 76.5L229.6 80.9C236.8 83.1 239.3 86 239.3 89.9C239.3 93.8 236 96.6 231.1 96.6C224.3 96.6 215.3 93.2 202.1 83C201.131 82.094 199.911 81.5015 198.6 81.3C196.6 81.3 195.4 82.6 195.4 84.9V102ZM257.8 83.9C257.8 96.3 265.1 103 278.7 103C285.1 103 294.8 101.2 302.3 98.7V87C302.3 84.7 301.1 83.4 299.1 83.4C297.9 83.4 296.8 84.1 295.6 85.9C288.4 96.7 282.8 99.6 278.2 99.6C274.2 99.6 272.8 97.8 272.8 92.7V49.5H304.7V38H272.8V14H269.1V14.7C269.1 29 260.3 40.4 247.8 42.8V49.5H257.8V83.9ZM166.2 30H181.2V12.5H166.2V30ZM84.9 64V88.3C79.1 91.9 72.6 94 67.1 94C39.7 94 15.1 64.1 15.1 33C15.1 18.4 24.7 6.9 41.4 6.9C51.9 6.9 72.3 13.6 87.4 29.8C87.8588 30.38 88.4339 30.8576 89.0884 31.2021C89.7428 31.5465 90.4621 31.7502 91.2 31.8C93.2 31.8 94.4 30.5 94.4 28.2V2H90.7V3C90.7 6.6 88.6 7.6 83.4 6C72.9626 2.50408 62.0057 0.813193 51 1C18.1 1 0 26.8 0 52C0 80.8 21.9 103 51 103C63.148 102.914 74.9783 99.11 84.9 92.1V102H99.4V50H46.4V64H84.9Z" fill="#3C3830"/>\x3c/svg>'; function bars(id, rows) { const root = document.getElementById(id); root.querySelector('.amdream-q3__bars').innerHTML = rows.map(([label, v], i) => { const hl = i === 0; return `\x3cdiv class="amdream-q3__row${hl ? ' amdream-q3__row--hl' : ''}">\x3cdiv class="amdream-q3__row-label">${label}\x3c/div>` + `\x3cdiv class="amdream-q3__track">\x3cdiv class="amdream-q3__bar" style="width:calc((100% - 44px) * ${v / MAX});background:${hl ? HIGHLIGHT : MUTED}">\x3c/div>` + `\x3cspan class="amdream-q3__value">${v}%\x3c/span>\x3c/div>\x3c/div>`; }).join(''); const foot = root.querySelector('.amdream-q3__footer'); if (!foot.querySelector('.amdream-q3__logo')) foot.insertAdjacentHTML('beforeend', LOGO); } function dots(id, rows) { const root = document.getElementById(id); const pct = (v) => `${((v - DOT_MIN) / (DOT_MAX - DOT_MIN)) * 100}%`; // Legend runs left to right in the order the dots do, with round keys to match the dots (pebbles elsewhere). root.querySelector('.amdream-q3__legend').innerHTML = [2, 1, 0].map((i) => `\x3cspan>\x3csvg width="12" height="12" viewBox="0 0 12 12" aria-hidden="true">\x3ccircle cx="6" cy="6" r="6" fill="${PARTY_COLOR[i]}"/>\x3c/svg>${PARTY_KEY[i]}\x3c/span>`).join(''); const grid = [20, 40, 60].map((t) => `\x3cdiv class="amdream-q3__grid" style="left:${pct(t)}">\x3c/div>`).join(''); root.querySelector('.amdream-q3__dots').innerHTML = '\x3cdiv class="amdream-q3__gap-head">Party gap\x3c/div>' + rows.map(([label, all, vals], i) => { const lo = Math.min(...vals), hi = Math.max(...vals); // Party values sit at least 8 points apart, so every value label fits above its dot. const marks = vals.map((v, k) => `\x3cdiv class="amdream-q3__dot" style="left:${pct(v)};background:${PARTY_COLOR[k]}" title="${PARTIES[k]}: ${v}%">\x3c/div>` + `\x3cspan class="amdream-q3__dot-value amdream-q3__dot-value--above" style="left:${pct(v)}">${v}%\x3c/span>`).join(''); return `\x3cdiv class="amdream-q3__row${i === 0 ? ' amdream-q3__row--hl' : ''}">` + `\x3cdiv class="amdream-q3__row-label">${label}\x3c/div>` + `\x3cdiv class="amdream-q3__dot-row">\x3cdiv class="amdream-q3__dot-track">${grid}` + `\x3cdiv class="amdream-q3__span" style="left:${pct(lo)};width:calc(${pct(hi)} - ${pct(lo)})">\x3c/div>${marks}\x3c/div>` + `\x3cdiv class="amdream-q3__gap">${hi - lo} pts\x3c/div>\x3c/div>\x3c/div>`; }).join('') + `\x3cdiv class="amdream-q3__dot-axis">${[20, 40, 60].map((t) => `\x3cspan style="left:${pct(t)}">${t}%\x3c/span>`).join('')}\x3c/div>`; const foot = root.querySelector('.amdream-q3__footer'); if (!foot.querySelector('.amdream-q3__logo')) foot.insertAdjacentHTML('beforeend', LOGO); } // Each chart draws only where its markup is on the page (the WordPress embeds carry one chart each). function render() { if (document.getElementById('amdream-q3-threat')) bars('amdream-q3-threat', THREAT); if (document.getElementById('amdream-q3-worry')) dots('amdream-q3-worry', WORRY); } if (document.readyState === 'loading') document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', render, { once: true }); else render(); })();

Why do so many people think climate change will hurt the American Dream, if it’s so close to the bottom of the list of their concerns today? One likely reason is that people are making the connection between climate change and the rising cost of living. More than half of voters are very worried about climate change making life more expensive over the next 20 years, according to the Data for Progress poll. That’s higher than the share of voters who are worried about warmer temperatures, extreme weather, crop failures, and degraded natural areas.

Climate change is already showing up in household bills. A study from MIT earlier this year found that families in the United States were paying between $400 and $900 more each year because of the effects of global warming, from higher utility bills to climbing insurance premiums, with costs above $1,000 in the hardest-hit counties.

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span{position:absolute;transform:translateX(-50%);font-size:12px;color:#6B665E;font-variant-numeric:tabular-nums}#amdream-q6-worry .amdream-q6__note{font-size:12px;line-height:1.35;color:#6B665E;margin:12px 0 0} Voters in every party worry most about climate change raising the cost of living

Share of likely voters who are very worried about each effect of climate change in the next 20 years, by party

Source: Data for Progress / Grist survey of 1,167 U.S. likely voters, April 24–27, 2026.Clayton Aldern / Grist (function () { const INIT_KEY = '__grist_amdream-q6_companions_initialized__'; if (window[INIT_KEY]) return; window[INIT_KEY] = true; // Topline percentages from the Data for Progress crosstabs (QT7YZW). const THREAT = [ ['Cost of living', 55], ['Domestic political instability and polarization', 12], ['Immigration, crime, and public safety', 10], ['Health care affordability and access', 9], ['Global conflicts and national security', 5], ['Education quality and costs', 3], ['Climate change and extreme weather events', 2], ]; // Very worried, percent: all likely voters, then Democrat, Independent / third party, Republican. const WORRY = [ ['Increasing cost of living', 52, [62, 53, 42]], ['More severe extreme weather', 39, [57, 39, 21]], ['Crop failures', 37, [48, 40, 24]], ['Warmer temperatures', 33, [49, 30, 18]], ['Degraded natural areas', 31, [45, 32, 17]], ]; const PARTIES = ['Democrat', 'Independent', 'Republican']; // Project palette: deeper blue, warm gray, #FF5134. const PARTY_COLOR = ['#2E64B0', '#9C968C', '#FF5134']; const PARTY_KEY = ['Democrat', 'Independent / third party', 'Republican']; const HIGHLIGHT = '#FF5134', MUTED = '#C9C5BD', MAX = 60, DOT_MIN = 10, DOT_MAX = 70; const LOGO = '\x3csvg class="amdream-q6__logo" viewBox="0 0 305 103" fill="none" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-label="Grist">\x3cpath d="M137 98.5C133 98.5 132 97.5 132 92.5V50.2C133.579 49.0591 135.454 48.3993 137.4 48.3C140.5 48.3 143.2 49.6 147.5 54.7C148.8 56.3 150 57 151.3 57C153.3 57 154.5 55.7 154.5 53.4V38H151.5C147.812 37.9397 144.155 38.6872 140.786 40.1901C137.418 41.6931 134.419 43.915 132 46.7V38H108V41.5H112C116 41.5 117 42.5 117 47.5V92.5C117 97.5 116 98.5 112 98.5H108V102H145V98.5H137ZM158.5 41.5H161.2C165.2 41.5 166.2 42.5 166.2 47.5V92.5C166.2 97.5 165.2 98.5 161.2 98.5H156.8V102H189.9V98.5H186.2C182.2 98.5 181.2 97.5 181.2 92.5V38H158.5V41.5ZM195.4 102H199.1V101C199.1 98.7 200.8 98.8 202.8 99.5C210.5 102.2 214.4 103 220.5 103C236.8 103 244.5 95.4 244.5 82.7C244.5 74.2 239.6 66.7 227.3 63.1L211.2 58.4C203.5 56.1 201.2 53 201.2 49.7C201.2 46.4 204.2 43.4 209.1 43.4C216.6 43.4 223.8 48 234.3 56.3C235.151 57.0952 236.241 57.5873 237.4 57.7C239.4 57.7 240.6 56.4 240.6 54.1V38H236.9V39C236.9 40.7 235.8 41.5 233.7 40.7C226.3 37.9 221.8 37 217.6 37C203.1 37 196 45.2 196 56.9C196 65.3 201.8 72.4 215.2 76.5L229.6 80.9C236.8 83.1 239.3 86 239.3 89.9C239.3 93.8 236 96.6 231.1 96.6C224.3 96.6 215.3 93.2 202.1 83C201.131 82.094 199.911 81.5015 198.6 81.3C196.6 81.3 195.4 82.6 195.4 84.9V102ZM257.8 83.9C257.8 96.3 265.1 103 278.7 103C285.1 103 294.8 101.2 302.3 98.7V87C302.3 84.7 301.1 83.4 299.1 83.4C297.9 83.4 296.8 84.1 295.6 85.9C288.4 96.7 282.8 99.6 278.2 99.6C274.2 99.6 272.8 97.8 272.8 92.7V49.5H304.7V38H272.8V14H269.1V14.7C269.1 29 260.3 40.4 247.8 42.8V49.5H257.8V83.9ZM166.2 30H181.2V12.5H166.2V30ZM84.9 64V88.3C79.1 91.9 72.6 94 67.1 94C39.7 94 15.1 64.1 15.1 33C15.1 18.4 24.7 6.9 41.4 6.9C51.9 6.9 72.3 13.6 87.4 29.8C87.8588 30.38 88.4339 30.8576 89.0884 31.2021C89.7428 31.5465 90.4621 31.7502 91.2 31.8C93.2 31.8 94.4 30.5 94.4 28.2V2H90.7V3C90.7 6.6 88.6 7.6 83.4 6C72.9626 2.50408 62.0057 0.813193 51 1C18.1 1 0 26.8 0 52C0 80.8 21.9 103 51 103C63.148 102.914 74.9783 99.11 84.9 92.1V102H99.4V50H46.4V64H84.9Z" fill="#3C3830"/>\x3c/svg>'; function bars(id, rows) { const root = document.getElementById(id); root.querySelector('.amdream-q6__bars').innerHTML = rows.map(([label, v], i) => { const hl = i === 0; return `\x3cdiv class="amdream-q6__row${hl ? 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Ahead of the midterm elections this week, climate advocacy groups have been talking about high energy costs, a top issue for voters in battleground districts. They have championed wind and solar as cheaper sources of energy and have argued that Trump’s efforts to block offshore wind farms and slow down other renewable energy projects will drive up costs. 

While Trump has been talking about the “Green New Scam” and emphasizing the costs of taking climate action, that message doesn’t appear to be gaining much traction with voters. When participants in the Data for Progress poll were asked to choose between phrases that captured their views on climate policies, very few of them — only 6 percent — opted for “an expensive burden on working people.” Even Republicans didn’t pick that characterization, identifying climate action instead as a distraction from more important issues or a misguided approach based on faulty information. The most common phrase respondents chose to describe their views on climate policies was “a critical step to protect our environment.”

“That really is interesting, and suggests that potentially voters are not going to be as susceptible to the sacrifice or expense framing, despite this top-down use of the rhetoric,” Adcox said.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Exclusive: Most voters believe climate change threatens the American Dream on Nov 2, 2026.

Every year, Kotzebue, a small city in northwest Alaska, has a three-month window to receive all the diesel fuel it will use throughout the following year. It sits on a gravel spit that juts into Kotzebue Sound just north of the Arctic Circle, and is accessible only by air and sea. Ice keeps freight barges from reaching it for most of the year.

The community relies on diesel for 75 percent of its power, and residents put about 20 percent of their income toward buying it. That’s more than three times the average energy burden for low-income households nationwide. 

“We’re pretty much at the mercy of world markets,” Chad Nordlum, who is the energy project manager for the Native Village of Kotzebue, told Grist. “Right now, with the Iran war going on, the diesel prices are very high and we’re locked in to much higher prices than we’ve had in the past. There’s really nothing the community can do about diesel prices, but what we can do is produce our own energy.”

That’s why Nordlum was so excited about a $20 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to support a wind energy project. The funding, announced in 2024, was part of a larger $150 million allocation for tribal infrastructure in Alaska. Nordlum says it would have lowered the community’s reliance on diesel to about 40 percent to 50 percent and given the tribe more control over energy and economic decisions. 

But the Trump administration canceled the grant in May 2025. More than a year later, the project remains paused. 

That cut was among hundreds of millions of dollars the Department of Government Efficiency pulled from Indian Country, and part of a broader pattern of funding rollbacks and underinvestment in Indigenous communities. Two new reports from the Brookings Institution show that the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act killed many of the funding streams established by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, while DOGE eliminated another $468 million, about half of which was allocated for environmental and natural resources. Another 11 percent targeted agriculture. Those projects include climate resiliency plans, renewable energy projects, and jobs programs. 

According to Brookings, despite historic investments flowing into Indian Country after the pandemic, a massive underinvestment in Indigenous communities continues. Not only is that a violation of the federal government’s trust and treaty obligations to tribes, it is hindering Indigenous efforts to protect the environment and address climate change. The report authors are calling for policy changes that would ensure tribes receive funding, regardless of political winds.

Rob Maxim, who is Mashpee Wampanoag and a fellow at Brookings Metro, said climate and environmental funding is especially crucial for Indigenous communities because they are often the most severely impacted by climate change, especially after years of underinvestment. 

“The actions that the Trump administration is taking are particularly significant, but it’s not totally out of trend with previous administrations,” he said. “And what we wanted to show was that actually this underinvestment is kind of the default for the U.S. rather than a blip.”

The true aberration was the unprecedented levels of funding after the pandemic. That funding, which came under the Biden administration, included over $700 million in climate, energy, and infrastructure funding for tribes. It covered projects like development of climate action plans, food systems analysis, and more. For example, the Hopi Tribe was to receive a $25 million grant to install solar panels for 600 homes. That grant, and the entire $7 billion Solar for All program, were cut. 

Kotzebue, Alaska, is accessible only by air and sea, and most of its fuel arrives in a three-month window before sea ice makes it difficult for ships to arrive. Prisma Bildagentur / Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Maxim says that funding for Indigenous communities is a federal obligation based on treaties and other agreements with tribes and should be standard and irrevocable. “The funding that was flowing to Indian Country was not being done on the basis of race or DEI, and it was absolutely not illegal,” he said. “It was aimed at the promotion of tribal sovereignty and the well-being of tribal citizens and tribal communities, and so that is, you know, an obligation that the U.S. government maintains.”

The White House and the EPA did respond to requests for comment. 

Glencora Haskins, a senior research associate and applied research manager at Brookings Metro, said that the administration had targeted funding to tribes, with “tribal” being the most frequently flagged term. “I think that there was a very surface-level view of what a lot of these programs were doing, rather than any deep interrogation of the types of systemic infrastructure deficits that programs were trying to fix,” Haskins said. 

In Native communities throughout Alaska, and around the country, energy and infrastructure needs are especially acute because of increasingly frequent and destructive storms, wildfires, and other climate-driven disasters. 

Haskins and Maxim recommend that Congress pass legislation that bars the cancellation of grants and contracts for tribes, and stipulates that all funding for Indigenous nations and communities is in service of trust and treaty obligations even if it is from a program with a different stated purpose. They also call for a statutory requirement that money should flow directly to tribes rather than having them seek reimbursement from the U.S. Treasury.

In Kotzebue, Chad Nordlum hopes the political tide will turn enough to get the funding for the wind project moving. In the meantime, he is working on a smaller solar project that he hopes will help alleviate the community’s energy challenges.

“Our main goals are energy security and economic development for the tribe, which is ultimately being able to invest in our own community, help make the lives of people here a little more sustainable,” Nordlum said. “We want our community to continue on into the future. We have to get a handle on our energy prices and availability.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline DOGE cuts cost tribes $470M, gutting funding for climate projects on Nov 2, 2026.

This story was originally published by Osage News, and is published through the Indigenous News Alliance.​

At the entrance to Harvest Land Farms, Fred Beartrack prepares to plug another orphaned well. Records indicated a cement plug covered it, but excavation and a casing cutout revealed no cement.

“There was no cement, so the data was wrong,” Beartrack of the Nation’s Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, said in a video posted to the Osage Nation’s Facebook page. The well was open down to 2,400 feet. Instead of a quick cap, the crew now has to clean the well out to the bottom and properly fill it with cement. Beartrack and his crew said this work could take anywhere from two days to two months.

“We don’t really know what’s down there,” he said. “People could have thrown anything in the well before we got here.”

Beartrack said crews found only about a foot of cement at the top of the well, with nothing beneath it. They drilled past the freshwater zone and cemented the well from there up.

“That well is an example of everything that’s wrong,” he said, referring to how the DNR has battled inaccurate well data as it has plugged wells throughout the Nation’s reservation, which covers about 1,470,559 acres in northeastern Oklahoma.

When Osage News spoke with Beartrack, the Department of Natural Resources was at the end of Phase 1 of the Nation’s federally funded orphan well program. Beartrack said the agency has plugged about 160 wells since the program began, 70 to 80 of them this year. Crews have inspected at least 2,500 to 2,700 wells.

“We keep finding new wells every quarter section we get into,” he said. Many go back decades, to operators that disappeared or wells that were plugged to standards now considered inadequate. The pace of well plugging picked up after a significant change this spring.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Osage Agency used to approve every plugging permit the Nation filed. But on March 13, the Orphan Wells Plugging Office, or OWPO, revised its tribal grant guidelines for all Phase 1 and Phase 2 projects like the one Beartrack is working on.

Read Next How abandoned oil wells plague the Osage Nation Naveena Sadasivam, Lylla Younes, & Allison Herrera

The Bureau of Indian Affairs, or BIA, told the DNR that wells without a responsible party are not a federal function. That is a significant shift within the Osage Nation Reservation, where the BIA has long overseen oil and gas development as trustee of the Nation’s mineral estate, including drilling and plugging wells.

Adam Trumbly, superintendent for the Osage Agency in Pawhuska, said his office continues to review permits and issue well-plugging permits as appropriate. 

“The BIA–Osage Agency is not issuing plugging permits for orphan wells plugged pursuant to the Department of the Interior’s Orphaned Wells Program Office Tribal Orphaned Wells Program,” Trumbly told Osage News in an email. “The Revised Tribal Grant Guidance removed the compliance requirements based on Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act and Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.” 

Trumbly said this revision reflects OWPO’s determination that tribal development and tribal implementation grants are “nondiscretionary” and that activities conducted under them are not “federal undertakings.” 

He said this guidance means the Osage Nation no longer needs the BIA Osage Agency (or the Orphan Wells Plugging Office) to review orphan well plugging activities for Endangered Species Ace or National Historic Preservation Act compliance, and the BIA Osage Agency no longer has the authority to conduct those reviews.

The change follows a report that faulted the program’s slow start. Much of the blame stemmed from the Bureau’s lengthy permitting process. The criticism fits a longer pattern: Federal watchdogs have repeatedly faulted the BIA’s oversight of operators who work within the Osage Reservation.

Reporting by Grist and Osage News found roughly 2,300 documented orphaned wells in Osage, though the true number may be higher because many old wells were never recorded. Shane Brown / Grist / Osage News

Previously, the bureau reviewed each plugging application, verified the Department of Natural Resources’ photos and field data, then published a record of decision for a 30-day public comment period that often stretched to 45 days. Beartrack said the full process could take 120 to 130 days. Now, he said, it takes one to two weeks. The DNR still checks with the Osage Agency to confirm whether a well truly has no responsible party, whether leases were canceled or terminated, and how old they were.

“We ask the BIA almost daily questions,” Beartrack said.

The slowdown was a central theme of a February report from the Office of the Inspector General for the Interior Department. It found that as of December 31, 2024, the Osage Nation had plugged 14 of the 290 wells it planned for Phase 1, about 5 percent. The report cited delays in hiring a petroleum engineer, staffing shortages at the Osage Agency, and disagreements between the agency and the Nation over which permit applications qualified as emergencies.

As of January 30, the DNR had submitted 217 plugging permits since August of 2024. The Bureau of Indian Affairs had approved 90 of them. At a Natural Resources Committee meeting in March, Trumbly said the agency processed the permits as a courtesy and was working with a “skeleton crew” under a federal hiring freeze. Beartrack told Osage News that the agency had four or five people in the field to verify applications.

Adam Peltz, who works on orphan wells for the Environmental Defense Fund, or EDF, said tribal nations face hurdles that states don’t. Even if the Nation does the work well, it still needs the Bureau of Indian Affairs to review and approve its permits on time. “That part is out of Osage’s hands,” he said.

Peltz said the federal money itself is new. Until around 2020, he said, orphan wells were barely on the national radar. The bipartisan Regrow Act, passed as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, set aside $4.7 billion for well plugging by states, federal agencies, and tribes. It was the first federal funding of its kind. About $150 million went to tribes, with the Osage Nation receiving the largest share.

When the EDF built a national orphan well map a few years ago, Peltz said there wasn’t any data available for Osage County. He said many tribal nations and the federal Bureau of Land Management never prioritized oversight of oil and gas, while some states have their own agencies and databases. State records on old wells aren’t much better, he added: Oklahoma has about 18,000 documented orphan wells and is believed to have more than 300,000 undocumented ones, said Peltz.

Beartrack said the Osage Agency didn’t hand the program over to the Nation so much as step away. “They just said wells without a responsible party are not a federal function,” he said. “It’s not like they gave us carte blanche. They just said it’s not their problem. They kind of wash their hands of it more than anything else.”

Read Next A new frontier in the voluntary carbon market: Old, leaky oil wells Naveena Sadasivam

That’s good for the program, he said, but it raises a bigger question for the Nation.

“What does that mean for the Osage Nation overall?” Beartrack said. “Are all of these orphan wells our responsibility? When they say that orphan wells are not a federal function, what does that mean?”

Beartrack said he believes Bureau of Indian Affairs leadership in Washington, D.C., made the decision, not the local agency. He said the bureau sent a formal letter announcing the change.

Former Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear, now on the Osage Minerals Council, said he would like to see a scientific and environmental review for any federal action related to the change. The council has long argued that the BIA is the trustee of the Osage mineral estate.

The council focuses on attracting producers and leasing the mineral estate, while the Nation has kept the well plugging grant under the DNR. Peltz said the two goals shouldn’t conflict. Modern horizontal drilling in old fields only works if the old wells are plugged first, he said.

“Plugging old wells and developing new wells should not be in tension,” he said.

Before the change, much of the friction centered on what counted as an emergency. The Department of Natural Resources repeatedly flagged wells as emergencies; in March, Trumbly told committee members, “If everything’s an emergency, then nothing’s an emergency.”

Peltz said some states and tribes were filing almost nothing but emergency permits because it was the only way to break through the backlog. That isn’t how the system is supposed to work, he said. An emergency should be reserved for something like discovering a leaking well in someone’s backyard.

At the request of the Department of Natural Resources, the agency produced a weighted checklist. A score of 75 or higher for an actively leaking well or storage tank, high methane readings, or hydrogen sulfide near the wellhead marked a well as an emergency.

Beartrack said that the checklist never actually sped up permits. “It hasn’t changed any of the timing on how fast we get permits back,” he said.

A pumpjack in Osage County, where decades of oil and gas development have left the Osage Nation with a sprawling orphan-well cleanup.
Jim West / UCG / Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Peltz, who reviewed the checklist, said it closely resembles the scoring systems Texas and Louisiana use. An actively leaking well or storage tank threatens water and safety; high methane levels raise explosion risk; and hydrogen sulfide is among the most dangerous chemicals in the oil field. A measured fluid level above the deepest underground source of drinking water carries a weight of 50, below the threshold for an emergency. Peltz said that doesn’t prove groundwater is contaminated, but it is a risk factor worth checking.

“Could they have put that as a weight 75? Sure,” he said. “Is it a crime that they put it at 50? Not necessarily.”

The bigger problem, he said, is the scale. “The crime is that this was allowed to happen at this scale,” Peltz said, “and that it’s been so hard to work through it, even with the money flowing.”

The Department of Natural Resources still scores every well with it. Beartrack said some questions overlap or contradict each other. He has suggestions to fix them, but revising it isn’t a priority. “If it’s an emergency and the well has downhole conditions that would make it an emergency, then … we’re gonna plug it,” he said.

Beartrack said he is finishing contracts and purchase orders with rigs expected to roll in the next few weeks. Phase 2 has roughly 70 to 80 wells on deck to plug. He does not expect a dramatic jump in pace. “Maybe it should,” he said, “but … we’ll still be doing probably the same amount, 70 wells in this fiscal year.” The DNR’s field team is small, he said, and still has to gather and verify information for each well.

The Nation’s award comes to about $91 million over five years. Peltz said that won’t come close to covering Osage County, where no one knows how many orphan wells exist. Asked whether $91 million is enough, Peltz said, “No, not even close.” 

Previous reporting by Grist and Osage News found roughly 2,300 documented orphaned wells in Osage, though the true number may be higher because many old wells were never recorded. Plugging a single well costs anywhere from $40,000 to $500,000, depending on its condition.

Peltz said the program needs the Nation to hire more engineers and procurement staff to get bids out, “hopefully to Osage Nation contractors.” 

Asked whether oil drilling causes many of Osage County’s drinking water problems, Beartrack said, “Not if the wells are designed up to today’s standards.” That said, most of the wells his crews encounter are not. Many were drilled before operators routinely set surface casing deep enough to protect fresh water — something Beartrack said didn’t take hold until around the 1970s. Older wells, he said, “were OK for the standard of the day.”

At Harvest Land, the crew planned to finish the job the same way at every site: Clear the land, remediate it, and return it to its original surface, with the well capped and buried. “The final result is you won’t see anything,” Beartrack said. “And we’ll have a record of where it was.”

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

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Osage Nation speeds up orphan well cleanup as federal oversight recedes on Nov 2, 2026.

From Gaza to Indigenous dispossession, cultural erasure, and the failures of mainstream climate politics, de Ploeg exposes how power disguises destruction as progress, security, or sustainability.

Years of extraction-industry propaganda are weeks from paying off, thanks to two powerful Senate Democrats.

New research shows that seagrass depends on the bacteria around it—and that the antibiotics entering our oceans could disrupt that relationship.

The movement to end seasonal time changes may be gaining momentum — but what would it mean for the safety of vulnerable road users?

The perennial debate over whether or not to roll back the clocks on the first Sunday in November hit a milestone this summer when the House of Representatives passed the Sunshine Protection Act, which would get rid of the fall and winter’s “standard time” hours and adopt spring and summer’s “daylight savings time” hours year-round.

That would effectively mean that Americans with nine-to-five work schedules would leave for their jobs in darker conditions on the shortest days of the year, in exchange for up to an extra hour of sunshine after work — with accompanying tradeoffs for U.S. travel patterns.

The bill has since stalled in the Senate transportation committee, but its proponents — which include nothing less than President Trump himself — claim that it still deserves serious consideration for its potential to encourage outdoor recreation in the evenings, and to narrow the likely window for nighttime crime.

Its potential to reduce traffic crashes, though, has been hotly debated for years, particularly among people who advocate for the safety of people outside cars.

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Since the concept of “standard time” arrived in 1883, North America’s transportation landscape has profoundly shaped our country’s approach to setting our clocks.

That’s because prior to the proliferation of railroads, U.S. residents observed a staggering 144 different local times that needed to be at least somewhat standardized into four standard mainland “zones” once communities were linked together by trains — at least until Daylight Savings Time came along and confused matters more.

Originally intended as an effort to conserve some of the energy used for indoor lighting at night during the first and second world wars, DST stubbornly hung on in some (but not all) U.S. states after the conflicts ended. That created an inconsistent map of varying temporal rules that still persists in part today, despite efforts to bring order to the chaos with the Uniform Time Act of 1966. Hawaii, Arizona, and US territories around the world still refuse to change their clocks, despite the fact that the other 48 states all do it.

Recommended Research: Permanent Daylight Savings Time Could Save Human and Animal Lives on Our Roads Kea Wilson November 9, 2022

Now, most U.S. residents say they’d prefer to skip the hassle of resetting their microwaves twice a year — though they split on which of the two seasonal adjustments they’d prefer to give up.

And the research isn’t clear on which one would be better for safety, either.

A 2022 study on which this website reported, for instance, found that not rolling clocks back in the winter could save at least 33 human lives and 36,550 deer in car-on-cervidae collisions every year, since drivers would get back a little more daylight for their evening commutes before nocturnal ungulates began crossing highways as part of their evening migration patterns.

Meanwhile, a 2025 study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety suggested that change could have an even more dramatic safety benefit for drivers, since “fatal crashes among motor-vehicle occupants decreased in the 5 weeks after the fall time change (-7.1%) and increased in the 5 weeks after the springtime change (+12%).”  

Disturbingly, though, the opposite was true for fatal crashes among pedestrians and bicyclists. Their death tolls surged 13 percent after clocks fell back in the fall — and dipped 24 percent after they sprang forward in the spring.

Recommended Dusk and Dawn Are Deadly for Walkers — But Traffic Pros Don’t Know the Full Extent of It Kea Wilson May 11, 2022

IIHS researcher Amber Woods said no single variable fully explained that contradiction, though “for bicyclists and pedestrians, the biggest factor appears to be the changing light conditions during key driving periods.”

Drivers, by contrast, may get more drowsy in the springtime when they lose an hour of sleep to the time change, and may drive better in the fall when they abruptly gain one; they also might be less inclined to speed on sometimes-icy late fall roads than they are to hit the gas on dry spring streets when they slept through an alarm.

Data isn’t yet available on how this past weekend’s change impacted roadway death totals,  — though considering that it gave Halloween revelers an extra hour to party on a Saturday night, the news isn’t expected to be good, particularly given the holiday’s association with increased drunk driving and phone distraction. And there’s no telling how many other confounding factors may complicate the picture of what time changes more broadly might mean for road safety.

“These findings won’t end the debate about daylight saving time,” IIHS President David Harkey said in a release. “The benefits for bicyclists and pedestrians are important because that’s where the fatality numbers have increased the most over the past decade. However, they’re largely offset by an increase in crashes in which vehicle occupants were killed.”

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Of course, Vision Zero advocates argue that since all road deaths are preventable, it’s not enough to just pick the time change that nets out to the fewest casualties overall — and certainly not to offer people outside cars as sacrificial lambs. Rather, we must reckon with the fact that three quarters of pedestrian deaths happen in the dark no matter what number appears on the clock — and take an aggressive, systemic approach to saving those lives.

That means we have to do the obvious things, like installing streetlights, HAWK signals, and other infrastructure to make pedestrians and bicyclists more visible after sunset. Redesigning roads and cars to slow motorists to less-deadly speeds when they do crash is essential, too, as is doing more to limit the functionality of distracting cell phone features when drivers are behind the wheel — particularly when time changes coincide with major holidays that tempt motorists to text about their party plans.

But it also means thinking more expansively about how our national street safety epidemic and our national epidemic of car dependency reinforce one another — particularly after nightfall.

And that means addressing the suburbanization of poverty that has late-shift workers schelpping home along busy arterials after the bus stops running. It means dismantling an unsustainable work culture where drivers have to rush to punch a clock even when they’re too exhausted from a time change to drive, and where few have the freedom to leave their jobs to travel home at a safer daylight hour. It means taking dedicated action to stop hit-and-runs, which spike after dark and disproportionately injure people outside of automobiles.

And it certainly means providing more mobility alternatives, like increased nighttime transit service, if only to halt the cycle of unwalkability that leaves so many vulnerable road users traveling alone at night.

However we do it, it’s time to shine a light on the unique dangers of walking and biking after dark — and stop pretending that ditching seasonal time changes will make a significant difference if we don’t.

Streetsblog reported this summer  that Waymo robotaxis were involved in 68 percent fewer police-reportable crashes than human drivers, according to an independent Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study. That is meaningful progress. The same article also made the limitation of crash statistics clear: they do not capture problems such as vehicles blocking bike lanes or emergency responders, passing school buses, or creating other street-level hazards.

That gap matters now. In July, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration warned that it had identified a pattern of driverless vehicles interfering with law enforcement and other first responders. Later that month, NHTSA said it was accelerating development of the first federal performance standards for automated vehicles.

But those standards should cover more than whether a robotaxi can drive well in ordinary conditions. They should also make automakers spell out what the vehicle is allowed to do when the street stops behaving like the test course.

‘Safer on average’ — but not at every moment

A robotaxi can be safer than a human driver overall and still create a serious problem in an unusual situation.

An ambulance may need it to clear an intersection. A police officer may wave traffic through in a way that conflicts with the usual signal. A construction worker may direct cars around an obstruction. A cyclist may have to move around a vehicle stopped where it should not be.

These situations involve driving skill, but they also involve limits. The vehicle needs rules for when it can act on its own, when it must slow or stop, and when a person with legitimate authority can override its normal behavior.

Those rules should be part of the safety test.

Regulators do not need access to every line of software. They need evidence that the vehicle recognizes situations outside its normal playbook, takes a safe default action, and gives authorized people a reliable way to intervene.

Make the limits a part of the test

Believe it or not, NHTSA can build exceptional situations into the performance standards already under development.

First, manufacturers must identify high-risk road conditions in which ordinary driving rules may conflict with emergency directions, temporary street conditions, or the safety of people outside the vehicle. Next, they should demonstrate what the vehicle will do in each case — and what happens when its confidence drops.

Remote assistance also needs clear limits. A remote operator who helps a stuck vehicle should have defined powers rather than an open-ended ability to make anything happen. Regulators should know what actions a remote helper can authorize, how those actions are logged, and how quickly the authority can be withdrawn if something goes wrong.

This idea has a broader foundation in AI research. A peer reviweed analysis of explainable artificial intelligence by Plamen Angelov and colleagues highlights “knowledge limits” as a core principle: a system should identify situations it was not designed to handle reliably.

The transportation version is one of the more concrete samples. A robotaxi should know when the situation has moved beyond ordinary driving — and follow a tested procedure for what comes next.

Give road users a visible safety contract

The public does not need a technical manual. Cities, regulators, and road users need a plain-language safety contract that explains how robotaxis behave around first responders, temporary traffic control, blocked lanes, school buses, cyclists, pedestrians, and other predictable exceptions.

That would strengthen the case for automated driving rather than weaken it. Better crash performance deserves recognition. Clear limits make that performance more trustworthy because people can see what happens when averages stop being useful and the street presents the system with an exception.

The next generation of AV safety standards should therefore test two things together: how well the vehicle drives, and how safely it behaves when ordinary rules no longer tell the whole story.