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Last month, a bipartisan package of Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26) appropriations bills was signed into law, funding several federal agencies central to Audubon’s priorities, including the Departments of...

Revival Gold (TSXV: RVG; US-OTC: RVLGF) is lining up two brownfield United States gold projects for the next leg of studies and drilling as bullion prices resume climbing.

The developer holds about 6 million oz. of gold resources across Mercur in Utah and Beartrack-Arnett in Idaho and is targeting more than 160,000 oz. of annual production from the first heap-leach stages of both projects. With large, permit-friendly mining states back in focus for U.S. supply and investment, the company is trying to order the builds so its team can move from Utah into Idaho.

“First up, Mercur on private ground, and then we will follow with the Beartrack-Arnett project,” CEO Hugh Agro told The Northern Miner’s Western Editor, Henry Lazenby. “And the sequencing actually works well for our development team.”

At Mercur, in a Carlin-type district about 57 km from Salt Lake City, Revival is advancing a heap-leach project towards a prefeasibility study by year-end. At Beartrack-Arnett, the timeline is roughly three-and-a-half to four years because parts of the land package require a federal review.

Watch the full interview below:

Victoria’s push to speed exploration permits, paired with a landmark approval for Skeena Resources’ (TSX, NYSE: SKE) Eskay Creek restart, is starting to rebuild confidence in British Columbia’s permitting system, Mining Association of B.C. CEO Michael Goehring said.

The province is backing the change with C$3 million in new funding, including C$1 million to add permitting capacity and C$2 million to boost the Mineral Claims Consultation Framework, which the industry has criticized as a bottleneck. Files that miss the new service standard will be escalated to the chief permitting officer for a decision within 14 days, the government said.

“Today’s exploration and development projects are tomorrow’s mines,” Goehring said in an interview at the Association for Mineral Exploration’s Roundup conference. “We need certainty and we need to make these changes systemic so fast reviews become just how things are done here.”

The year ahead holds several “proof points” after Premier David Eby put Eskay Creek, Newmont’s (NYSE, ASX: NEM) Red Chris, Teck Resources’ (TSX: TECK.B; NYSE: TECK) Highland Valley Copper mine-life plan and Centerra Gold’s (TSX: CG; NYSE: CGAU) Mount Milligan extension on a priority list for quicker reviews. The next tests for investors will be how the government clarifies the Declaration Act, advances the North Coast Transmission Line into the Golden Triangle and tackles a labour crunch that he said could require hiring 5,000 to 10,000 workers by 2035.

Watch below the full interview with The Northern Miner’s Western Editor, Henry Lazenby:

The Trump administration just employed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Clean Air Act to discourage coal plant closures in Colorado — repurposing measures initially intended to safeguard public health and prevent pollution to reboot the dirtiest, deadliest fossil fuel. 

Michael Hiatt, deputy managing attorney at the environmental legal nonprofit Earthjustice, told DeSmog that the EPA’s action was not what the Clean Air Act intended. “In our view, it’s plainly illegal,” he said. 

Furthermore, Hiatt said the EPA’s move may have implications beyond Colorado, indicating that the agency could take similar actions that affect coal and gas plants elsewhere.

“It’s clearly EPA indicating a policy preference,” he said. “They are communicating that they’re not going to look favorably on future state plans that include coal or gas plant closures.”

As aging, inefficient coal plants barrel toward obsolescence across the U.S., the Trump administration seems dead-set on coming to their rescue. In 2025, the U.S. Department of Energy issued orders to keep five coal plants online past their planned retirement dates. The orders often came against their operators’ wishes and cost customers millions in the process. Federal officials, including Energy Secretary Chris Wright, frequently cited increasing energy demands, including for artificial intelligence. Now, the EPA has stepped in.

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In late January, the EPA issued its final published rule rejecting Colorado’s Regional Haze State Implementation Plan, filed as part of longstanding Clean Air Act rules intended to increase visibility in national parks and wilderness areas. As part of the plan, Colorado had outlined its goal of closing its six remaining coal plants by 2031. Coal plants release multiple smog-forming pollutants that threaten the state’s outdoor recreation industry and harm human health. The utilities involved had voluntarily agreed to this target over the past decade. 

It could have been a routine approval. But at some point in 2025,  Colorado Springs’ city-owned utility told the EPA it no longer wanted to shut down the lone coal-fired generator at the Ray D. Nixon Power Plant, as initially proposed.

The EPA used that development to justify throwing out the entire plan, jeopardizing pollution controls and retirement timelines for industrial sites across the state — from fossil fuel plants and the state’s only oil refinery to the Denver International Airport. In its final rule, the EPA argued the single “forced closure” of a coal-fired unit showed Colorado hadn’t been careful to make sure its plan respected the constitutionally enshrined private property rights of energy providers.

“The state did not properly consider and explain whether the nonconsensual closure of Colorado Springs Utilities’ Nixon Unit 1 power plant would be an act of taking private property without compensation,” the agency wrote in a press release explaining its decision. “EPA legally cannot approve Colorado’s [plan].

Critics took issue with that assessment.

“Colorado had done such a very thorough job working with utilities, and those retirements were voluntarily proposed,” said Ulla Britt-Reeves, clean air program director at the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association. “So for EPA to come in and essentially say that Colorado was forcing those retirements is simply not true.”

Earthjustice’s Hiatt told DeSmog that the EPA’s decision was “unreasonable, irrational, and illegal under the Clean Air Act.”

He added that, “What this EPA action shows is this Trump administration taking an ideologically motivated stance that it is not going to do anything that might prove or even allow a coal plant to retire under its watch.”

RELATED: These 15 Coal Plants Would Have Retired. Then Came AI and Trump.

Hiatt hopes the EPA’s broad disapproval in Colorado won’t impact the many other agreed-upon plant closures and pollution controls covered by the plan. But he expressed worry that the EPA’s action gives the state’s utilities and industrial operators an opportunity to “backtrack” on environmental commitments in the coming years.  

In a proposed rule issued in July, the EPA initially emphasized a different rationale for its pending decision: that closing the coal-fired unit at Nixon would threaten grid reliability — in large part due to a supposed surge in electricity demand, including from artificial intelligence. The agency accused Colorado of not taking grid reliability seriously. Under President Trump, the EPA has listed artificial intelligence (AI) development as one of the top priorities guiding its strategy, as well as restoring “American Energy Dominance,” which Trump has tied specifically to oil, coal, and natural gas.

“This Administration has found as a matter of national interest, national security, and energy policy that power generated from coal resources is critical to addressing this surging demand,” it wrote.

Throughout 2025, Trump administration officials, including DOE Secretary Wright, used a purported rise in energy demand driven by AI to justify fossil fuel expansion, and prevent scheduled coal plant retirements. A December 2025 analysis by DeSmog found that at least 15 coal plants pushed back their retirement dates since Trump took office — with plants often remaining open voluntarily due to projected data center demands, but sometimes due to DOE executive orders. After DeSmog’s story published, the DOE issued a flurry of new executive orders forcing additional coal generators to remain online, including plants in Indiana and Washington that were targeted for the first time.

RELATED: Q&A: Tech Billionaires’ AI Space Empire Fantasies Are ‘An Insidious Form of Climate Denial’

In its public comments, the State of Colorado argued it had in fact assessed reliability, in conjunction with utilities statewide, and that planned closures weren’t projected to contribute to an energy shortfall. 

“EPA cites nothing in the record regarding this alleged ‘rise in electricity demand’ or ‘resurgence of domestic manufacturing’ or even the ‘construction of artificial intelligence data processing centers,” the state’s Air Pollution Control Division wrote.“ The record before EPA … provides no basis to conclude that these issues materially affect Colorado or are impacted by the specific units with Closure Dates.” 

The EPA backtracked slightly in its final rule in January, insisting that grid reliability was not part of its legal determination — only private property considerations. And yet it seemed to warn Colorado against including power plant closures in any future plan, citing the rise in domestic manufacturing and “the construction of artificial intelligence data processing centers.”

“Power generated from coal resources is critical to addressing this surging demand and a matter of national interest, national security, and energy policy,” it wrote. “The EPA does not encourage electric generating facilities to close in the face of this energy demand.”

It added that “the EPA does not expect any state to encourage or force an electric generating facility to close in order to comply with the [Clean Air Act’s] regional haze second planning period requirements.” 

Earthjustice’s Hiatt said that statement shows EPA going beyond its disapproval of Colorado’s regional haze plan. “It’s difficult to say how this will play out,” he said, “but it does clearly indicate EPA’s policy preference —  they do not want to see coal or gas closures in regional haze plans.”

“There are a lot of still outstanding haze plans that this EPA needs to act on,” Britt-Reeves, of the National Parks Conservation Association, said. “Are they going to let good plans that actually reduce pollution be approved? That would a great place to go from here — but I don’t expect that that’s where this administration is heading.” She said the language in the final rule indicates that EPA may have “its sights on deregulating the rule itself, which is extremely concerning.”

An EPA spokesperson declined to provide comment or arrange an interview for this story. In a press release announcing its decision on Colorado’s haze plan, EPA cited “turning the United States into the Artificial Intelligence capital of the world” as part of its rationale.

But though EPA spoke of a “forced closure” of the Nixon plant, Colorado Springs Utilities had in fact voted to retire the plant voluntarily by December 31, 2029 — which Colorado had simply noted in its plan. In comments to DeSmog, Danielle Nieves, a spokesperson for Colorado Springs Utilities, confirmed that the utility had reversed course and asked EPA for “non-enforcement” at some point in 2025, years after the plan had been filed.

Matt Gerhart, a Sierra Club attorney, questioned whether it was appropriate for the EPA to disapprove an entire state plan based solely on an 11th-hour change of heart — a precedent that he said could give EPA an excuse to sit on plans it doesn’t like until it found some grounds for dismissal.  

“There’s nothing in EPA guidance that says what the state was supposed to do to guard against the hypothetical possibility that, five years later, a source might change its mind about a retirement,” he said. “I think EPA is really faulting the state for following the agency’s own guidelines here.” 

Jeremy Nichols, a senior advocate for the environmental nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, expressed concern that the EPA’s actions would set a troubling precedent, undercutting the legality of environmental regulation itself. 

“What’s next? Is any kind of clean air regulation going to be deemed to infringe upon a private property right by virtue of making it more costly and potentially forcing a company to have to shut down?” he said. “I mean, it’s a very dangerous and scary slippery slope.”

In a statement to DeSmog, Colorado’s Senior Director of Air Quality Programs Michael Ogletree said the EPA’s ruling would damage environmental protections in Colorado, which already has some of the worst air quality problems in the nation, and that the state was exploring next steps. 

“Coal plant retirement dates remain in state regulation, and many facilities have already closed or are on track to retire voluntarily because cleaner energy is more affordable and makes economic sense for consumers,” he wrote. “Colorado has demonstrated that it is possible to protect public health, reduce pollution, and maintain a reliable energy system at the same time.” 

The post Trump’s EPA Just Used the Clean Air Act to Prop up Coal Power appeared first on DeSmog.

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Daisy Simmons

When Jessica Fujii was in kindergarten, she drew a picture of her future. In a “What do you want to be when you grow up?” booklet, she skipped ballerina and veterinarian and wrote down something else entirely: sea otter biologist, complete with cartoon-like otters in the great tide pool at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Fujii grew up in California’s Bay Area, and trips to Monterey and its aquarium became a regular part of her childhood. She remembers paddling alongside her dad in a kayak on Monterey Bay, watching wild otters float on their backs as they cracked open crabs and let the shells sink. Back then, she mostly took their presence for granted.

Today, as a sea otter researcher and program manager at the aquarium, she knows how close California came to losing them – and how much now depends on the fragile population that remains. Along Northern California’s coasts, sea otters help habitats endure climate impacts like warming oceans, shifting predator ranges, and harmful algal blooms by keeping underwater plant life healthy and supporting resilient ecosystems.

Fujii is still focused on individual sea otters, but she’s also tracking a bigger picture of these important creatures over time. 

A comeback story with a twist

From Fujii’s vantage point on Monterey Bay, southern sea otters – the subspecies that lives along the central California coast – are both a conservation success story and a reminder of what’s been lost.

Once hunted to near extinction for their fur, they survived off the coast of California thanks to a tiny remnant population and, later, federal protections and hands?on conservation work. These days, there are only about 3,000 southern sea otters in California, and their geographical range has shrunk to roughly 13% of the coastline they historically occupied. Their numbers have been relatively steady for years, but their range hasn’t meaningfully expanded in about two decades.

Globally, sea otters live in coastal waters from Alaska across the North Pacific to Russia, but the southern sea otter is the only population found in California – and it’s the one scientists have studied most closely for its role in kelp forests, sea grass meadows, and coastal wetlands. And over the past several decades, scientists have learned that these animals punch far above their weight, especially along the nearshore strip where land and ocean meet.

From cuddly to keystone predator

It’s easy to see why sea otters are often treated like stuffed animals brought to life. Fujii describes a tiny, five?pound pup as “basically a furball … it’s kind of like holding a kitten” before their teeth and jaws develop.

(Image credit: Courtesy Monterey Bay Aquarium)

But the illusion only lasts so long. One longtime aquarium volunteer said he “wouldn’t want to be stuck in a pool with an adult otter.” It’s a good reminder that beneath the fluff is a muscular predator built to crush crabs and urchins.

Ecologists describe sea otters as a classic keystone species, an animal whose presence has much bigger impacts on its surroundings than its numbers alone would suggest. Unlike many other marine mammals, sea otters don’t have a thick layer of blubber to keep them warm. Instead, they rely on extremely dense fur and a very high metabolic rate. 

“It’s about two times higher than similarly sized terrestrial mammals,” Fujii said, and because they can’t store energy as blubber, they need to be consuming those calories every single day.

That constant need to eat – up to a quarter of their body weight daily – helps explain why their foraging makes them major players in nearshore ecosystems. What, and how much, they eat ripples outward through food webs, shaping whether the coast is dominated by thick underwater forests and meadows, or by stripped-down, degraded seafloors that are more vulnerable to climate pressures.

Keeping kelp forests alive in a warming ocean

In recent years, a prolonged bout of unusually warm ocean conditions – made more likely and more intense by climate change – has caused kelp forests to crash along much of California, leaving behind vast “urchin barrens” where little grows besides hungry purple urchins. Around Monterey Bay, though, researchers found that sea otters ramped up their urchin eating in the remaining kelp beds, allowing those last patches of forest to hang on.

Left unchecked, urchins can mow down kelp beds and turn lush underwater forests into places where urchins have grazed away almost all the kelp. When otters are present and hunting, they thin out those urchins, giving kelp a chance to grow taller and thicker and to shelter a wide range of fish, invertebrates, and other marine life.

“Across much of their range, when sea otters consume urchins, they keep that population under control and limit how much grazing the urchins are doing on the kelp,” Fujii said. “That allows the kelp to flourish and be more abundant and provide homes for many other species.”

A recent study stitched together more than a century of kelp data along the California coast using old maps and satellite images. The analysis found steep losses in the floating kelp canopy in southern and northern regions where otters remain absent, but notable long?term growth in kelp along the Central Coast – exactly where sea otter populations have rebounded.

Healthy kelp forests, in turn, absorb wave energy and soften the punch of storms that are projected to grow more intense with climate change, reducing erosion along vulnerable shorelines. Scientists are still debating how much long?term carbon storage kelp forests actually provide, said Fujii, since much of that kelp washes ashore and decomposes.

But when otters keep kelp alive, they also maintain rich, complex coastal ecosystems that are better able to absorb climate shocks than bare seafloors.

In Elkhorn Slough, cleaning up blue carbon habitats

The otter’s climate story doesn’t end in the open?coast kelp forests. As the ocean absorbs more than 90% of the excess heat from climate warming pollution and loses oxygen, many marine animals are struggling to cope with warmer, more acidic, less hospitable water. Coastal plants and algae – kelp, eelgrass, and other seaweeds – are emerging as unlikely allies, drawing down carbon, buffering waves, and giving stressed species places to hide and feed.

In sheltered estuaries like Elkhorn Slough, a coastal inlet where freshwater meets seawater just inland from Monterey Bay, researchers have found that sea otters can help keep underwater sea grass meadows and nearby marshes intact. Around a hundred otters now make their home in the slough, one of California’s last great coastal wetlands and a hot spot for birds, fish, and other marine life.

The connection runs through the food web: Otters eat crabs. When crab numbers drop, tiny grazers like sea slugs survive and multiply. These grazers don’t eat the sea grass; instead, they scrape away algae that builds up on the grass blades. That keeps the meadows healthy even in estuaries loaded with pollution from fertilizers and other runoff.

The marsh connection works differently. When shore crab numbers explode, the crabs burrow into marsh banks and chew on plant roots. That destabilizes shorelines and speeds up erosion. By eating those crabs, otters slow the loss of marsh edges that protect nearby communities from flooding and storm surge.

All of this matters for climate because sea grass beds and adjacent marshes are “blue carbon” habitats – coastal ecosystems that soak up and lock away carbon in plants and underlying sediments while also stabilizing shorelines and supporting fish and birds. California’s latest climate adaptation strategy explicitly calls out eelgrass as a blue?carbon tool, part of a broader push to protect and restore coastal ecosystems that both store carbon and buffer people from rising seas.

(Image credit: Courtesy Monterey Bay Aquarium)

Climate’s double edge: Ally and victim

Despite all the ways otters support coastal ecosystems, they’re not immune to the forces reshaping those places. Fujii and her colleagues have documented a sharp rise in sea otters injured or killed by white sharks – often juveniles that deliver a single, exploratory bite and don’t even eat the animal. Research she worked on has linked those juvenile sharks’ northward shift to warmer waters, a trend expected to continue as the ocean heats up. Aquarium researchers have also found that otters are more likely to be bitten in areas where the kelp canopy has thinned, potentially leaving them more exposed as they rest and forage near the surface.

At the same time, says Fujii, sea otters are increasingly exposed to harmful algal blooms that produce domoic acid, a harmful toxin. In otters, heavy exposure can cause sudden, fatal strandings, while lower?level, chronic doses can quietly damage their hearts over time, leading to lethal heart disease years after an initial bloom has passed. Fujii also worries about more frequent and intense storms, which can separate moms and pups and leave tiny, still?dependent otters stranded on beaches.

The species is bolstering coastal ecosystems against climate pressures, while facing mounting climate threats of its own.

Why protecting sea otters matters for everyone

In 2023, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided southern sea otters would retain protection under the Endangered Species Act, reflecting how vulnerable the population still is. Unlike many other listed species, though, they still don’t have an officially designated “critical habitat,” even though their nearshore environment is clearly central to their survival.

Without more room to grow or formal habitat protections, even a seemingly stable population can be vulnerable. 

“As we continue to see the impacts of climate change, the stress on this population will continue to pile on,” Fujii said.

Even if they were immune to the impacts of climate change, sea otters clearly won’t solve the climate crisis on their own. They won’t erase emissions or single-handedly save the coast. But research over the past several decades has shown that they can shift the balance in the places they still inhabit, keeping kelp forests from collapsing into urchin barrens, maintaining sea grass meadows and salt marshes, and shoring up natural defenses that coastal communities will increasingly rely on as seas rise and storms intensify.

All this makes them more than just a charismatic species in need of saving. 

“The hope is that by focusing on the recovery of this species, we can inspire protection of other animals and their habitats, and recognize the benefits people get when we protect those places,” Fujji said. “Basically, everyone wins when we protect otters.”

In a century defined by hard climate trade-offs, sea otters offer a reminder that some choices still deliver genuine win – wins: safeguard a beloved predator, and you safeguard the coastal habitats – and human communities – that depend on the same resilient, living shorelines.

On Friday, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) filed an attorney disciplinary complaint against Gordon Kromberg, the federal prosecutor who reviewed and signed the search warrant application targeting Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson.

The complaint notes that Kromberg appears to have violated an ethical rule that requires lawyers to reveal relevant legal authority to the court, even if it undermines their arguments. Recently unsealed court records disclose what many suspected: The government failed to alert the court that authorized the warrant to the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, a federal law that, in most cases, forbids the use of search warrants for journalistic work product and documentary materials.

The following statement can be attributed to Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for FPF:

“Kromberg and the government omitted a federal law that should have prohibited the raid of Hannah Natanson’s home when applying for a search warrant. That choice now threatens to expose Natanson’s sources and cripple her ability to report, while also sending a warning shot to journalists and whistleblowers nationwide.
“Disciplinary bodies cannot look the other way and ignore misconduct that threatens the First Amendment, particularly from an administration with a long history of misleading judges and everyone else. When prosecutors abuse their power to facilitate efforts to silence reporting and intimidate news sources, disciplinary authorities must hold them accountable and impose real consequences.”

Read the complaint here.

The Revive Gaza’s Farmland Project launched by the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature (APN), is a coalition of farmers working to restore and cultivate farmland across Gaza. They hope to bolster food security and food sovereignty for Palestinian people.

Less than five percent of the Gaza Strip’s total land remains available for cultivation, after cropland areas have been damaged or made inaccessible to farmers, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). But rather than focus on the destruction, Razan Zuayter, Founder and Chairperson of the APN, tells Food Tank that the Project aims to “highlight what endures.”

Since March 2024, the Project has supported the cultivation of 1,341 dunums (~331 acres) of land, producing over 7 million kilograms of vegetables including eggplants, zucchini, cucumber, tomato, melon, and molokhia. The grassroots connection between farmers and families allows vegetables to directly reach over 12,000 people under siege, the Project reports.

This comes at a time when the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations report that Gaza has faced systematic starvation. According to the latest U.N. analysis, the recent ceasefire helped to offset famine conditions, but food security in Gaza is still under threat. More than three-quarters of the population face acute hunger and malnutrition.

“Gaza’s children are no longer facing deadly famine, but they remain in grave danger,” says Lucia Elmi, UNICEF Director of Emergency Operations.

Zuayter says the Revive Gaza’s Farmland Project is working to address the dire situation. But under the Defense Export Control Law, Israel regulates the entrance of all goods into the Gaza Strip and restricts items it dubs as having potential for both civilian and military use. Since 2023, these restrictions prohibit the entry of food sources like tomato seeds, date pits, or coriander seeds.

“By reviving Gaza’s agricultural capacities through internal procurement and local production, we strengthen a food system resistant to blockade and man-made famine,” Zuayter tells Food Tank. “We are breaking the siege from within.”

The Project has distributed over 2.29 million seedlings and approximately 2,939 kg of seeds, in addition to produce baskets, fishing nets, and poultry units. Zuayter adds that they are also working to cultivate an additional 90 dunnums (~22 acres) of land with potatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, and other crops, as well as 30,000 fruit-bearing trees. They are also in the process of restoring three water wells, 17 greenhouses, and 52 beehives.

Cultivating a diversity of crops is essential to upkeeping the legacy of Palestine’s diverse agricultural ecosystem, which Zuayter explains has been targeted by a “colonial ecocide.” Key historic resources like olive groves and below-ground water sources have been destroyed or occupied, and Palestinians have been legally prohibited from harvesting certain traditional plants and crops called “state property” by the Israeli Government. The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture reports that more than 2.5 million trees have been uprooted by Israeli forces since 1967. This includes 1 million olive trees, which the U.N. notes are a primary source of food and income for many Palestinians.

The restrictions on procuring and harvesting traditional crops “deliberately casts Palestinian traditions of knowledge and stewardship of the land as ecologically harmful,” Zuayter tells Food Tank. The U.N. Trade and Development Conference reports that domestic producers are undermined by Israeli and Western imports that flood Palestinian markets, eliminating the diversity of Palestine’s agricultural system. “Crop diversity is foundational to Palestine’s agricultural and political sovereignty,” Zuayter says.

Zuayter sees agriculture as an act not of resilience, but resistance. “We reject a colonial ‘resilience’ that is framed in terms of passive shock absorption,” she tells Food Tank. Instead, they channel sumud muqawama, a term that refers to “a steadfast resistance that acts to dismantle the structures that produce vulnerability.” She explains this ideology through the motto of the APN’s Million Tree Campaign, which aims to replant olive trees and other fruit-bearing trees on Palestinian land: “They uproot one…we plant ten.”

To date, the APN has planted over 3 million trees and restored critical infrastructure to help farmers to remain rooted on their land.

Based on the FAO’s identification of remaining land available for cultivation and the Project’s yield so far, the APN estimates that they can produce over 12 million kilograms of food grown “for and by the Palestinians of Gaza.” It is, she says, a “a living testament of Palestinian rootedness and agricultural wisdom that long predates empire.”

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

Photo courtesy of Arab Group for the Protection of Nature

The post Reviving Gaza’s Farmland to Reclaim Food Sovereignty appeared first on Food Tank.

The version of record of this article appears in The Globe and Mail. 

By Megan Shipman and David Mitchell

Megan Shipman is a behavioural neuroscientist and a research fellow with the Cascade Institute’s polycrisis program at Royal Roads University. David Mitchell is the Cascade Institute’s impact lead.

The U.S. President has said his attack on Venezuela and threats against other neighbours are motivated by a policy of hemispheric domination he calls the “Donroe Doctrine.”

Neuroscience, however, suggests a further motivation: the Dopamine Doctrine.

American foreign policy, by this view, is no longer driven by national interest, or even naked self-interest, but instead by Donald Trump’s hunt for dopamine rewards, conditioned by recent high-stakes military strikes on Iran and Venezuela.

Political scientist Francis Fukuyama recently observed that with Mr. Trump today, “the usual tools international observers bring to foreign policy analysis – political science, economics, sociology, and the like – are not nearly as important as psychology, both individual and social. The evolution of Trump’s policies can only be understood in relation to his own mind and motivations.”

Canada must now grapple with the reality that our nuclear-armed neighbour is menacing the world to neurochemically reward a solipsist who recently declared that “my own mind” is “the only thing that can stop me.”

To confront the threat, we first need to get inside that mind – with some help from neuroscience and learning theory.

Learning theory tells us that rewards shape behaviours. We’ll repeat rewarded behaviours, and refrain from punished behaviours. At a neurochemical level, those rewards release the feel-good neurochemical dopamine.

Dopamine neurons in the brain respond to rewards in the environment. Generally, the larger the reward, the more dopamine released. But the element of surprise matters even more than the size of the reward: dopamine neurons will stop responding to a reward once we’ve learned to expect it, and respond more forcefully when a reward exceeds our expectations.

Dopamine prediction error, as this phenomenon is called, helps explain why behaviours tend to escalate, sometimes in harmful ways: a reward we’ve come to expect doesn’t cut it anymore.

Mr. Trump, who feeds on reactions, has been conditioned to provoke even more extreme reactions to get the payoff he’s looking for. Each successful escalation raises the reward expectation threshold. And each greater reaction reinforces his increasingly dangerous behaviour.

While commentators commonly reach for the language of addiction and tolerance to explain Mr. Trump’s destructive tendencies, learning theory is more useful for understanding what motivates behaviour.

Tolerance describes physical adaptations that make a drug dose less effective over many uses, requiring a higher dose to cause the same initial effects. This pattern is well-established with commonly abused drugs, but controversial for behavioural addictions such as gambling.

Reward prediction error, however, describes the way dopamine reward neurons respond to reinforcers. It’s a critical process during learning: a surprising reward leads us to repeat the preceding behaviour.

Last June, Mr. Trump struck dopamine gold with Operation Midnight Hammer, a hit-and-run bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities followed by a quick declaration of truce and a stubborn claim of victory.

Mr. Trump’s attack on Venezuela follows the same pattern: months of escalation, a lightning attack, a hasty retreat, and a declaration of victory.

Riding the high, Mr. Trump has since threatened Greenland, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Iran, and Canada, revelling in the resulting outrage.

Dopamine-seeking behaviour loops often self-correct because rewards for excessive indulgence are accompanied by punishment. Drink too much and you’ll suffer a killer hangover, and maybe a blooming sense of shame over some barely remembered transgression. This mix of rewards and punishments bounds our behaviours.

But Mr. Trump, uniquely shameless, powerful, prosecution-proof, and adored by his base, insulates himself from such punishment. And he seems to enjoy both positive and negative attention, so praise and censure alike scratch the itch.

Most worryingly, Mr. Trump’s aggression has gone largely unpunished, reinforcing his self-perception as a decisive winner.

So how do you short-circuit the Dopamine Doctrine? Condemnation from United Nations members doesn’t cut it. Condemnation from other nations, even NATO allies, doesn’t cut it – he’s long expressed his disdain for multilateralism.

The only way to break the cycle is to create a genuine cost that matters to Mr. Trump. The loss of his base, say, or the loss of his donors. Public humiliation, bond market panic, or military defeat.

At the neurochemical level, when Mr. Trump’s actions are less rewarding than he expects, a negative prediction error leads him to reverse course. Hence the acronym “TACO”: Trump Always Chickens Out.

The Dopamine Doctrine suggests that Mr. Trump will pursue larger and larger hits – not just to get the reaction he craves, but to exceed the reaction he expects. When recent hits include bombing capital cities, seizing oil tankers, and perp-walking a head of state, no one is safe.

Read article in the Globe and Mail The post Can neuroscience shed light on Trump’s new world disorder? appeared first on Cascade Institute.

The world’s largest mining convention is coming to Toronto again this year, to sell their vision of a future of war, environmental destruction and greed. Join us outside of their convention to show your support for the future we actually want and need. Bring your friends, family, neighbours and comrades for a family friendly rally! […]

Dictionary of Radcial Alternatives Platform Launch Date and time * Date: March 24th * Time: 1pm GMT * Format: Online event * Access and registration * This event will have interpretation in English and Spanish Illustration by Deepika Nandan, instagram.com/deepikanandanalternativesGTAGTAGTAWeaversGTA

In our latest, we talk with legendary filmmaker, screenwriter, actor and novelist John Sayles. We start with a discussion about his new novel “Crucible.” But, also talk about labor, class…

Chevron and WSPA remain top spenders for influence and lobbying at the close of 2025

 Sacramento, CA — New lobbying disclosures reveal California fossil fuel companies spent an egregious $34 million influencing lawmakers in Sacramento, not too far below 2024’s $38 million total, which was their highest spending year ever. Influence spending in Q4 was $7.7 million, with 73% of that coming from Chevron and WSPA.

Californians for Energy Independence, an oil industry front group that is heavily funded by companies like Chevron and that advocates for local oil and gas production, also poured $6.7 million into “general issues relating to energy independence in California.” This amount is not included in the total lobbying number, however, as it falls under Chevron’s expenses instead. Almost all of this lobbying spending is found in a payment for Winner And Mandabach Campaigns LLC, a national consulting firm specializing in ballot measure campaigns.

Top 5 lobbying and influence spenders of 2025:

Company/Trade Association Amount

  Chevron U.S.A., Inc. $12,935,583.66 Western States Petroleum Association $12,405,328.58 Californians For Energy Independence $6,737,655.88 Phillips 66 $1,058,331.41 Marathon Petroleum Corporation $877,022.75

Top 5 lobbying and influence spenders of Q4:

Company/Trade Association Amount

  Western States Petroleum Association $3,525,971.27 Chevron U.S.A., Inc. $2,113,122.50 Californians For Energy Independence $1,035,800.00 Phillips 66 $340,529.20 Marathon Petroleum Corporation $210,019.12

Chevron was a leader among Big Oil groups pushing back against key climate bills like the Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act, which would hold major corporate climate polluters accountable for their fair share of the climate damages facing the state. Shell and WSPA also lobbied against this bill, which ultimately did not advance last session after industry attacks. The bill’s sponsors remain committed to the campaign for a Polluter Pays Climate Superfund Act, and Tracy, CA recently became the 25th locality to endorse the Act.

SB 237, a gut-and-amend bill rushed through at the end of this legislative session to roll back environmental regulations and allow thousands of new oil and gas wells to be drilled per year, saw lobbying from Valero, Phillips 66, and Exxon Mobil. The bill, opposed by climate and environmental justice organizations, sought to open up Kern County to increased dangerous, toxic drilling, ostensibly in response to the closure of the Phillips 66 refinery in Southern California and upcoming closure of the Valero refinery in Benicia. While frontline communities in Kern County and across California suffer from chronic exposure to pollution due to oil drilling, Big Oil is weaponizing its wealth to secure industry friendly policy that pads their bottom line with disregard to impacted Californians.

“Last year, Big Oil spent big on lobbying in California – and it worked. Oil lobbyists used refinery closures and a campaign of misinformation to pressure the Governor and legislature into big giveaways to the oil industry which do absolutely nothing to benefit the communities living near California’s refineries or the workers who operate them,” said Faraz Rizvi, Policy and Campaigns Manager at the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN). “In 2026, California has an opportunity to set a new course: responsibly stewarding the energy transition, safeguarding our health and climate progress, and centering the needs of frontline communities and workers along the way.”

“In this vital decade of transitioning away from fossil fuels and creating a cleaner and more affordable economy in California, we are seeing an escalating campaign of disinformation by oil corporations that blames their exit from California on health protective common sense measures in our communities,” said Bahram Fazeli, Director of Research and Policy at Communities for a Better Environment. “However, we all know the real reason is that fossil fuel demand in California is on the decline, and in response California elected officials should prepare visionary transition plans that protects communities and workers during this historic transformation.”

As we approach the start of a new legislative session, California’s ongoing transition off of a waning fossil fuel industry remains a pertinent issue. In his final year of office, Governor Gavin Newsom’s climate legacy faces a critical moment. Climate and environmental justice organizations who saw extreme opposition from fossil fuel companies last year are counting on leadership from lawmakers that prioritizes frontline communities, consumers, and workers over Big Oil profits.

“Big Oil sees the writing on the wall: California and the world are moving on to cleaner, cheaper, safer energy. This multimillion-dollar spending spree is an attempt to prop up a declining industry and squeeze out as much profit for fossil fuel shareholders as possible, no matter the costs to public health and the climate. In his last year in office, we hope to work with Governor Newsom to hold Big Oil accountable, redirect state investment to real climate solutions, and establish his legacy as a climate leader.” Woody Hastings, Phase Out Polluting Fuels Program Director for The Climate Center

“Oil and gas lobbyists spend millions to keep drilling next to our schools and homes. They use money to try to drown out the voices of farmworkers who can’t breathe, of children using inhalers, of families watching their loved ones get sick. Corporate lobbying should not overpower community testimony. We know what we need to be healthy: clean air, safe water, and leaders who listen to us, not to the highest bidder. Every dollar spent silencing us is a dollar that could have gone to cleaning up their pollution. Our lungs shouldn’t be worth less than their profits, and our voices shouldn’t cost millions to be heard.” Cesar Aguirre CCEJN, Director, Air and Climate Justice

“While people across California spent 2025 calling on our state leaders to hold polluters accountable for fueling the climate crisis that is costing us billions, Big Oil tried to drown out our voices by spending massive amounts of money to get out of any responsibility for the mess they made. Californians need a future full of clean, sustainable energy, clean air and water, and we need it now – not more Big Oil money in Sacramento.” Nicole Ghio, California Director at Food & Water Watch

Additional information on Q4 and 2025 lobbying activity is available upon request.

###

LCA LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We acknowledge that Sacramento is the traditional home of the Maidu, Miwok and Nisenan people. Part of our commitment to decolonizing ourselves, our language, and our organizations is a commitment to learning and better understanding the history of Indigenous Peoples of so-called California, including the history of contact, colonization and the extraction of resources from Indigenous lands which has been part of the continuation of modern colonization.

The post Big Oil spends $34 million to stonewall and roll back critical health and climate policy in 2025 appeared first on Last Chance Alliance.

02-10 * 13:00 - GTA Assembly programme planning (franco) * 13:00 - Toolkit for weaving - Tools for Action

A well test at the controversial Balcombe oil site – scene of daily anti-fracking protests in summer 2013 – is looking unlikely.

The Balcombe site in West Sussex during drilling, 21 August 2013.
Photo: David Burr

The site, in West Sussex, has failed to give notice of the start of work.

Planning conditions require the well test to begin by 13 February 2026 and the site operator, Angus Energy, to give notice at least seven days earlier.

But West Sussex County Council confirmed today that it had received no notice from the company.

A council spokesperson said:

“The appeal decision (APP/P3800/W/21/3282246) requires commencement of the development within three years of the decision, which is 13 February 2026.  The County Council has not received any notification from Angus Energy with regards to commencement.”

Extract from planning conditions for Balcombe well site, issued 13 February 2023

A failure to start work by the deadline would see the planning permission lapse.

At the time of writing, Angus Energy had not made a statement to shareholders about the well test or the Balcombe site. DrillOrDrop has invited the company to comment on why it has not given notice of the work.

The village campaign organisation, Frack Free Balcombe Residents’ Association (FFBRA), said today:

“We won’t quite believe it until the deadline has passed but we are counting the days now with growing excitement. We’ve been watching the site closely in the last few weeks and to our great relief it has remained quiet.”

FFBRA member Helen Savage said:

“The fact that the oil company has not returned is testimony to many many years of hard work by so many concerned residents.

“Back in 2012 Keith Taylor (Green MEP) told residents that recent history showed the  ability to keep away an oil or gas company depended on the determination of the residents to come together and oppose it.

“We have refused to give up fighting every step of the way, because we have always known this development is wrong for the community, wrong for our local environment and above all wrong for our climate.

“We hope now that Angus Energy/Cuadrilla realise we have so many studies and so much new information that would stop a further application, that they realise it is pointless to continue.”

FFBRA chair, John Clarkson, said:

“Enforcing restoration is the next fight.  This is great news.” 

Malcolm Kenward, another FFBRA member, said:

“Balcombe residents and visitors can breathe easy again with fresh air, unpolluted by Angus Energy.

“The pupils and teachers at our village Primary School, will no longer be subjected to massive HGVs belching out diesel fumes as they pass by a metre away. The threat to Ardingly reservoir and the aquifer below the site (the local hosepipe ban was finally lifted just last week) has gone, although the results of the a survey identifying the poor integrity of the well bore suggest the aquifer may already have been polluted. (Perhaps why they decided not to return.)

“We are all so glad and relieved to have our village back again. There will be a party.”

Sue Taylor, a former FFBRA chair, said:

“We are absolutely delighted and we look forward to WSCC enforcing the restoration of the site.” 

West Sussex’s planning committee unanimously refused permission for the well test in March 2021. This was despite a recommendation to approve by planners.

Angus Energy successfully appealed against the refusal when a planning inspector overturned the council’s decision in February 2023.

Limited work has been carried out since the Balcombe oil well was drilled more than a decade ago, in woodland on the edge of the village.

The site has been consistently unpopular with many residents.

A local poll in 2013 found 85% were against drilling the well, 9% undecided and just 6% in favour.

FFBRA took three legal challenges against planning permission at the site to the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

The global annual production of plastics rose to 400 million metric tons in 2022 and is projected to double by 2050 (a metric ton, or Mt, is 1,000 kilograms or about 2,200 pounds). As of 2015 some 6,300 metric tons (roughly 13.8 million pounds) of plastic had become waste. About 9% of it was recycled, 12% incinerated, and 79% ended up in landfills or the natural environment — rates that haven’t gotten much better in the ensuing decade. Current trends suggest that by 2050, we will put roughly 12,000 Mt of plastic waste in landfills or the environment.

Clearly the problem of plastic pollution in land and marine environments isn’t going away. This series looks at some approaches to dealing with it, such as efforts to replace disposable plastic items with reusables.

Order take-out and most likely your meal comes in plastic containers inside plastic bags with a set of plastic utensils — each item designed to be used just once. That beer you grab at a concert or basketball game is served in a plastic cup meant to be thrown away when empty. And at most stores, your purchases are tossed into a single-use plastic bag.

Replacing these disposable items with reusable ones could help address plastic pollution by reducing the amount of waste generated.

But what are the best ways to accomplish that? Should the responsibility — or the opportunity — to use less plastic come from individuals, large suppliers, or the government?

To help settle these questions, we looked at some organizations and businesses working to cut back on our addiction to disposable plastic.

Retooling Large and Small Systems

Events like concerts, festivals, football games, and conventions use tens of millions of disposable cups. An average-sized stadium will go through 5.4 million of them every year, according to Upstream, a nongovernmental organization supporting reuse efforts.

To break this endless chain of disposability, venues and events could turn to companies that deliver, pick up, wash, and return reusables. Most of these are made from polypropylene, a nontoxic plastic polymer that is tough, lightweight, heat-resistant, and does not absorb water.

Trial runs of reusable cups at major venues have been promising. A four-day After two 2024 concerts at the Los Angeles Crypto.com Arena kept 23,000 single-use cups out of the trash, the venue made the switch for good, r.World reports. As of Dec. 31, 2025, the company’s reusable service had diverted more than 23 million single-use items from landfills.

Photo courtesy r.World

Other sports venues, events, and teams currently working to switch to reuseable cups include the Los Angeles Coliseum, Red Rocks Amphitheater, Kansas City Chiefs and Arrowhead Stadium, Portland Trail Blazers, and Charlotte Hornets.

Another recent initiative — Protect Where We Play, launched by the Ocean Conservancy and Green Operations & Advanced Leadership — has provided reusables for several events, including two June 2025 Coldplay concerts in Las Vegas; a September Lumineers performance in Savannah, Georgia; and two October Billie Eilish concerts in Belmont Park, New York. The program plans new 2026 tour stops and hopes to replace a total of 1 million single-use cups with reusables managed by Bold Reuse.

Jenna DiPaolo, chief brand and communications officer for Ocean Conservancy, says the effort was inspired by data showing that the easiest initial action people can take is one related to the ocean (where much plastic waste ends up), plus evidence that many people don’t take action because no one they trust has asked them to do something specific.

A volunteer with Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup removes a plastic bag from Venice Beach in Los Angeles, California. Photo: Val Vega for Ocean Conservancy

“Protect Where We Play leverages the people that Americans trust most — athletes and entertainers — and shows them how easy it can be to take an action,” she says. A key to the effort is showing venues the value of switching to reusables.

“We’re banking on folks to make the right decision when we provide the data,” DiPaolo says.

Bold Reuse is analyzing how many times the products can be reused, says marketing manager Mya Manibusan (existing assessments suggest 300). She said the company had kept 6 million single-use items out of landfills before the end of 2025.

Cups are just part of the issue, though. Every year people in the United States use 1 trillion disposable food service products, Upstream reports, including cups, containers, bags, and utensils. The organization estimates that 840 billion of these items could be replaced by reuse services.

A reusable dishware program called Re:Dish — which serves public school and company cafeterias and events across communities in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia — has kept about 7 million products out of landfills to date.

“Fundamentally, we are an industrial washing operation that also has a line of reusable dishware,” says CEO and founder Caroline Vanderlip. “At the institutional level, most companies, schools, and other operations don’t have the labor, resources, or space to make reusable work. We’re an outsourced solution that provides the full gamut or just whatever pieces you need.”

At end of life, items are taken to a materials recovery facility to be packaged and resold.

“Our mantra is ‘never landfill’, which is really important to us,” Vanderlip says. “We don’t have enough landfill space in this country — and more importantly, plastic takes centuries to deteriorate.”

Switching to reusables at a more local level can make a difference, too. Brothers Kevin and Harrison Kay founded containers for food delivery services in the Washington, DC area.

During the COVID pandemic, they ordered take out a lot (as a lot of us did) and became frustrated with the volume of single-use containers.

“We started brainstorming a solution that would not only work in our lives but be scalable and help solve the problem for other people,” Kevin says. The idea of a shared network of reusable containers was born.

Restaurants that buy the reusable containers are listed on To Go Green’s online ordering platform. When individuals order through the platform, the restaurant places the order in those reusable containers, which customers return for washing along with the restaurant’s in-house dishes.

“We’ve been in business about a year and have 17 restaurant partners and around 700 reusable container uses so far,” Kevin says. “The biggest challenge now is visibility and customer awareness, since we are relatively new. We’ve had tremendous positive feedback from customers, but a lot of people don’t know about us yet.”

Increasing awareness is their biggest challenge.

“Ordering takeout and delivery has become very popular but spreading the word that reusable containers are an option is a hurdle,” Kevin says. The brothers are working on integrating with a third-party delivery app and other ordering channels to increase their reach.

Returning the containers can be cumbersome, Harrison says, so they offer an at-home return service integrated with Uber Direct.

“On a broader note, there are a lot of challenges to scaling up, but if big players in the food delivery field buy into these kinds of services, they can become much more mainstream. We think reuse has to be the future. The current culture of throwing things away is not sustainable.”

Making Reuse the Law

Globally people use 5 trillion plastic bags a year, or 160,000 per second. Americans use on average 365 per person per year. Most marine litter is plastic bags (an estimated 300 million end up in the Atlantic Ocean alone annually) and they cause a lot of damage, killing marine life through ingestion or entanglement, releasing toxic chemicals into the water, and negatively affecting tourism.

Cities, states, and countries have started to regulate their way out of the single-use plastic bag problem. Complete bans prohibit any sort of single-use plastic bag at store checkouts, while partial bans limit bags under a certain millimeter in thickness but allow thicker bags that hold up for multiple uses. Fee policies require customers to pay some amount for a bag, typically 5 to 25 cents.

Research shows that bans work. One study analyzed crowdsourced data from more than 45,067 U.S. shoreline cleanups and 611 local and state-level plastic bag regulations enacted between 2017 and 2023, finding that regulations reduced the proportion of plastic bags by 25 to 47%.

“What we see in places with policies is a decrease in plastic bags as a share of total items collected,” says Anna Papp, co-author and post-doctoral associate at MIT.  “It’s important to emphasize that it is a relative decrease. Overall, bags are increasing in all areas. The policies are just slowing down the problem, not eliminating it. And we don’t find that these policies lead to reduction in other plastic items.”

Future laws and regulations could help address other single-use items.

Taking Individual Action

Each of us individually can help reduce single-use plastic waste. For example, we can advocate for adoption of reusable services in the places we work and play and take advantage of services like To Go Green where available.

“If you live in a city with a reuse provider, you can encourage more stadiums, venues, festivals to make the switch,” Manibusan says.

Individuals can join Protect Where We Play’s Team Ocean and receive information about scientifically vetted actions to take.

In addition, with research showing that people underestimate how much plastic they throw away, everyone can simply pay more attention to how much single-use plastic waste we generate.

One study found that households in the UK on average tossed 23 plastic items per person per week, considerably more than 45% of participants expected. The researchers found a direct link between how often people shopped online and how surprised they were at their waste levels. They suggest that online retailers clearly show packaging impacts at the point of purchase and provide reuse or refill alternatives.

Taking an action is not as hard as people think, says Manibusan, and every reuse prevents waste.

“Single use was built for convenience,” she says. “Reuse is built for the future.”

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

Biodegradable Plastics: Help or Hype?

The post Reducing Plastic Waste: Three Ways to Replace Disposable with Reusable appeared first on The Revelator.

The U.S. installed around 4.2 GW of natural gas capacity last year from January through November, more than double the 1.9 GW installed in the same period in 2024.

For the first time in at least a century, a gray wolf has been found in Los Angeles County. Its arrival is a milestone in the return of the long-embattled predator.

Read more on E360 →

Kicked off by a global pandemic, the 2020s are described as an era of “polycrisis” — with people facing numerous, often interconnected global crises.In Canada, we’re living through the everyday impacts of a changing climate — wildfires, floods, heat...