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Senate Should End Blanche's Nomination, Not Just Delay It
In response to the Senate Judiciary Committee postponing its vote on Trump's unqualified personal lawyer Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general, MoveOn Political Action Chief Communications Officer Joel Payne released the following statement:
“Todd Blanche’s nomination is stalled because his record is corrupt and indefensible. He has spent his career proving that there is no legal principle he will not bend and no institution he will not compromise in service of Donald Trump. His blind loyalty, willingness to use the justice system to protect the president, and role in a sweetheart settlement benefiting Trump make him completely unfit to serve as attorney general.
“Senate Republicans may be trying to put some distance between themselves and this toxic nomination, but moving the vote does not change the facts. Blanche is still Trump’s fixer, still disqualified, and still a threat to the rule of law. The Senate should stop dragging this out and kill the nomination.”
MoveOn continues to mobilize its millions of members and run digital ads to put pressure on Congress to reject Blanche’s nomination.
Nonprofits Sue to Block New USDA Rules That Force Them to Change or Abandon Food-Access Work
Five nonprofit organizations working to build a more just food system filed suit today in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to challenge unlawful terms and conditions that USDA is imposing on new grants. These terms and conditions substantially restrict grantees’ speech and programming in support of diversity and equity, bar using grant funding on whatever the administration says is “promoting gender ideology,” and limit grantees’ work in support of immigrants.
The plaintiffs - Agroecology Commons, Oregon Farm Corps, Syracuse-Onondaga Food Systems Alliance (SOFSA), Third Sector New England, and the Washington Farmland Trust - are represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group, Earthjustice, and FarmSTAND.
The new terms and conditions require USDA grantees to agree that they will not promote “unlawful DEI” or “gender ideology,” or use grant funding to create “incentives for illegal immigration by demonstrating the availability of public benefits.” The terms even attempt to control the grantees’ work and speech unrelated to the grant, demanding they not “operate any programs that advance or promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.”
These terms put the plaintiffs in this case in a high-stakes bind: They either must agree to substantial restrictions on their speech and programing, or they must give up on the critical federal funding that has allowed them to effectively serve their communities. If the Trump Administration deems them to have violated the terms and conditions – despite the vagueness and otherwise unlawfulness of the terms – they will lose future payments of the grant. The new terms threaten civil and criminal liability for making supposed false claims.
These terms have already forced the plaintiff organizations to substantially reorient their work. Two of the plaintiffs have decided that they cannot accept any funds from USDA unless the court blocks these terms and conditions from being applied to them, as they fear serious consequences if the Trump Administration decides that they are not complying with grant terms. The effects of that decision are substantial: Plaintiff Washington Farmland Trust, for instance, will have to decline $676,000 in funding that could be going to critical support for farmers unless the court blocks these terms and conditions from being applied to them.
“Farmers need land in order to grow and raise our food. Washington Farmland Trust's Farm to Farmer program helps farmers access the land, resources, and capital they need to be successful,” said Melissa Campbell, Executive Director of Washington Farmland Trust. “This grant would have allowed us to grow the infrastructure of this critical program to serve more farmers. Instead, we’re faced with the impossible choice of pulling back from our mission-critical work or losing out on catalytic funding that would help us better serve our communities. If the court blocks the USDA's problematic terms, farmers will be able to receive the essential support they need to continue to grow food for us all.”
“Organizations like the plaintiffs do essential work to fight hunger, protect the environment, and ensure that communities across the country have access to healthy, local food,” said Stephanie Garlock, attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group and lead counsel for the plaintiffs. “They should not have to choose between continuing that work and submitting to the Trump Administration's ideological speech code on issues of public policy."
“The First Amendment rights of these plaintiffs are at stake in this case, and so is the future of critical work to build a fair food system that works for everyone,” said David Muraskin, Managing Director of Litigation at FarmSTAND. “The court must block these unlawful, unprecedented terms and conditions. If it doesn’t, the Trump Administration’s enforcement of them will force USDA grantees to abandon important work in support of the next generation of farmers, for fear of serious consequences for violating the new terms.”
“USDA’s new terms and conditions for grants are yet another example of this administration’s unlawful politicization of programs designed by Congress to support farmers and rural communities,” said Carrie Apfel, Deputy Managing Attorney of the Sustainable Food and Farming Program at Earthjustice. “USDA should stop claiming to help farmers when instead it is undermining the very food and farming communities these programs were created to serve. This sort of illegal gamesmanship should not be tolerated.”
Becoming "BFFs" with Purple Martins at the Montezuma Audubon Center
California could soon force diaper makers to reveal what’s in their products
Lawmakers in California are on the verge of forcing diaper manufacturers to strip away the secrecy over what goes into one of the products babies use most.
Assembly Bill 1901, by Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), would require manufacturers of children’s diapers sold, distributed or manufactured in California to fully disclose all intentionally added ingredients, both on product packaging and online. It would empower parents and caregivers in making safer diaper shopping decisions.
EWG is co-sponsoring the bill, along with Consumer Reports, the Center for Environmental Health and Children Now.
AB 1901 already passed the California Assembly and Senate Environmental Quality Committee with bipartisan votes. It’s now in the Senate Appropriations Committee awaiting a vote that could send it to the Senate floor.
Today, manufacturers can hide dozens of chemicals behind umbrella terms like “fragrance” or “colors. These are potentially toxic mystery cocktails that prevent parents from knowing what’s in the products they use on their children every day.
The bill would, if enacted, give parents meaningful and easily accessible ingredient transparency. It would also replace catch-all labels with specific ingredient names.
AB 1901 would not require diaper makers to disclose other information about how they create their products, so they can still protect other details that make their products unique.
Why transparency mattersBabies spend much of the first two to three years of their lives in diapers. Yet unlike many other consumer products, disposable diapers are exempt by the federal government from carrying ingredient labels of any kind. And diaper manufacturers do not have to inform regulators about the chemicals they use to create the products.
That means parents often have no way of knowing what chemicals their baby’s skin is swaddled in day after day.
Babies’ skin is thinner, more permeable and still developing, making them more vulnerable to chemical exposures than adults. Without full ingredient disclosure, families are left to trust manufacturers without having the information they need to make informed choices.
EWG created the Guide to Safer Diapers to help fill that information gap. It explains common diaper materials, identifying chemicals of concern and highlighting products that meet higher standards for health and transparency.
Diaper chemicals parents should know aboutPhthalates
Studies have detected phthalates in some disposable diapers, and research has linked certain phthalates to hormone disruption, as well as reproductive and developmental harms. Because phthalates are only loosely bound to plastics, they can migrate out of products over time.
Fragrances
Many diapers contain added fragrance, but the only way to confirm it is if manufacturers disclose ingredients on the packaging or online. The term ”fragrance” can represent hundreds – or even thousands – of different chemicals.
Undisclosed fragrances can also contain phthalates as a solvent or stabilizer in the mixture, but lack of regulation doesn't require them to be disclosed.
Some fragrance ingredients have been linked to allergies and skin irritation, but parents have no way of knowing which chemicals are present in the products they buy.
AB 1901 would give families the ingredient information they need to make informed decisions based on their child's individual needs and sensitivities.
Quaternary ammonium compounds, or quats
Quats are antimicrobial chemicals commonly used in disinfectants and other consumer products. Some quats are used in diapers to indicate wetness.
Research has linked certain quats to reproductive and developmental effects, skin irritation and respiratory problems, including asthma.
Dyes and bleaching chemicals
Colorful prints and decorative designs on diapers mean added dyes and inks, which may cause allergic reactions or be contaminated with heavy metals. Some diapers also use chlorine-based bleaching processes with unwanted byproducts.
Choosing plain, undyed diapers made with unbleached or totally chlorine-free pulp can help reduce unnecessary exposure to harmful chemicals.
How to choose a safer diaperWhile California lawmakers work to improve transparency, parents can take steps today to reduce their family's exposure to potentially harmful chemicals.
Consider diapers that have earned the EWG Verified® mark, which certifies products meeting EWG's strict standards for ingredient transparency and health.
Parents have a right to knowAB 1901 would give families accessible information they deserve, whether in buying diapers at a store or letting them compare ingredient details online.
California has an opportunity to set a new standard for transparency and empower parents to make informed decisions for their families.
If you live in California, contact your state senator, assemblymember and Gov. Gavin Newsom and urge them to support Assembly Bill 1901.
Areas of Focus Household & Consumer Products Family Health Children’s Health Phthalates California Guest Authors Luz Fontana-Mansilla, Communications intern July 30, 2026newsletters:20:weavers_526x170.jpg - created
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Skeptical Science New Research for Week #31 2026
Observed Multi-Decadal Acceleration of Globally Averaged Abyssal Ocean Warming, Johnson, Geophysical Research Letters
Given sparse historical data in the deep and abyssal ocean, previously only multi-decadal temperature trends have been estimated from observations there on a global scale. Full-depth CTD sampling started circa 1970, with the first decadal global ship-based survey occupied in the 1990s, and the first regional pilot array of Deep Argo floats started circa 2016. Here we fit second-order polynomial functions versus time to all available full-depth CTD profile temperature data in local spatial bins to estimate changes in the rates of these multi-decadal temperature trends. We find a statistically significant increase of the heating rate of the abyssal (4,000–6,000 dbar) ocean, from 5.4 (±4.9) TW in 1988 to 20.2 (±3.9) TW in 2018. In contrast, we find no statistically significant change in the heating rate of the deep ocean, estimated at 29.4 (±22.1) TW in 1988 and 25.0 (±17.5) TW in 2018.
High-resolution simulations reveal positive global warming feedback from Pacific low clouds, Chammas et al., Science Advances
Uncertainty in marine low-level cloud feedbacks limits accurate climate projections. Using 7083 high-resolution simulations of tropical Pacific low clouds, we separated the impacts of sea surface warming from direct carbon dioxide (CO2) effects. Surface warming alone drives a positive low-cloud feedback of 0.14Wm-2K-1. While this changes little with doubled CO2, the total cloud radiative response strengthens markedly to 0.43Wm-2K-1 under quadrupled CO2, revealing a strong nonlinear interaction. Surface warming alone modifies the boundary layer through increased inversion strength and weakened subsidence, which buffers clouds by promoting higher liquid water content while cloud fraction decreases. Rapid adjustments to high CO2 concentrations counteract this protective cloud thickening. Consequently, a pronounced reduction in cloud fraction is no longer offset by an increase in cloud brightness, markedly strengthening the total radiative response under quadrupled CO2. Ultimately, our results suggest that climate sensitivity is more state-dependent than often assumed.
Canopy-mediated climate feedbacks in the boreal continuous permafrost zone, Stuenzi et al., Nature Climate Change
Boreal forests, covering approximately a quarter of the continuous permafrost zone, store relatively modest aboveground carbon, but thermally protect vast soil organic carbon (SOC) pools. Here, using a process-based model to compare seasonal thaw depths under forested and bare-ground scenarios, we quantify distinct canopy thermal insulation capacities of deciduous needleleaf, evergreen needleleaf and deciduous broadleaf canopies on permafrost thermal dynamics. Canopy buffering maintains approximately 59 Pg of carbon in a frozen state, which equals 32% of the total forested permafrost carbon pool and far exceeds boreal biomass stocks (7–19 Pg). Canopy changes could mobilize this frozen SOC through gradual thaw (40 Pg) and rapid thermokarst collapse (19 Pg). While forest loss sacrifices biomass carbon stocks, resulting thaw would expose orders of magnitude more SOC from previously frozen reservoirs, revealing a critical asymmetry. Forest conservation strategies in continuous permafrost zones must account for canopy-mediated thermal protection of frozen SOC, which far exceeds its biomass carbon sequestration capacity.
The 2026 western US snow drought was about four times more likely due to climate change, Marshall et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
In the spring of 2026, anomalously low snow conditions in the western United States threatened winter recreation and water supplies. Here, we investigate: to what extent was this snow drought attributable to the climate change that has occurred since the pre-industrial period? We find that a snow drought this severe across the western United States was approximately 4.4 [95% CI: 2.6, 9.4] times more likely in the current climate than in the preindustrial period. In the Upper Colorado River Basin, the snow drought was approximately 14 times more likely [0.09, 4,300]. Given a projected increase in the frequency of snow droughts at least this severe in a moderately high emissions warming scenario, the lived experience of this event may help scientists, resource managers, and the public consider what western US snow might look like if greenhouse gas emissions are not aggressively reduced.
Feasibility of CO2 pipeline construction to enable gigaton-scale carbon dioxide removals: evidence from historical precedent, Roberts et al., Frontiers in Climate
In this analysis, we use the history of fossil fuel pipeline networks to assess the feasibility of rapidly building enough CO2 pipelines to enable gigaton-scale removals of CO2 from the Earth's atmosphere. We collect data on scenarios of CO2 pipeline construction, historical fossil fuel pipeline construction, and the historical context of this construction to answer four questions: (1) What length of pipeline network will be required to achieve the benchmarks of 1 Gt or 100 Mt of CO2 in 2050? (2) What have been the largest national and international fossil fuel pipeline buildouts achieved in a 25-year period? (3) Is it feasible to build enough CO2 pipelines to enable gigaton-scale carbon dioxide removals given these historical precedents? (4) Under what political, economic, and social circumstances have rapid pipeline build-outs occurred? We find that a pipeline network of roughly 8,000 km will be necessary to enable 100 Mt of carbon dioxide removal, and that roughly 100,000 km will be necessary for 1 Gt. There are 15 cases in the historical record of a country building 8,000 km of fossil fuel pipelines in 25 years, and only three cases of a country building 100,000km or more of pipelines in the same timescale. Rapid construction of fossil fuel pipelines has benefited from strong economic and institutional drivers, which may not apply to CO2 pipelines in the same way. Our findings are reason for caution about the likelihood of CO2 pipeline build outs keeping pace with CO2 removal targets.
From this week's government/NGO section:Pay, Baby, Pay. Why Trump's Energy & AI Dominance Agenda Means Higher Bills For Everyone, Lorne Stockman, Oil Change International
U.S. wholesale fossil gas prices will likely double by the late 2030s relative to the 2020 to 2025 average if the Trump administration’s energy and AI policies succeed in pushing gas demand to levels that can only be met by more expensive gas production. Significant energy price volatility from 2020 to 2025 caused hardship in the U.S. and in LNG-importing countries, particularly in Asia and Europe. Costlier U.S. gas risks exacerbating the energy affordability crisis for U.S. and international consumers alike. The surge in gas demand – and gas prices – is being driven primarily by the Trump administration’s support for massive increases in liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. Trump’s hostility toward renewables and support for the poorly regulated AI data center boom aggravate the impending crunch. Lower-cost gas from the two biggest U.S. gas-producing regions, the Permian and Appalachian basins, will not be able to meet rising demand alone. To fill the gap between demand and production, gas producers will have to increase drilling in the significantly more expensive Haynesville shale play in Louisiana and Texas.Interfacing science and policy: Exploring the role of scientific knowledge in the design of Voluntary Sustainability Standards, Loconto et al., Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Through the concept of scientific cherry-picking, the authors analyze how Voluntary Sustainability Standards selectively incorporate particular strands of scientific knowledge that align with operational models and governance structures. This selective integration often leads to the promotion of interpretations of sustainability that are compatible with weak sustainability paradigms –emphasizing incremental improvements within existing systems – rather than fostering more systemic and transformative approaches. 181 articles in 66 journals by 1509 contributing authorsPhysical science of climate change, effects
Climate Coupling in the Western Hemisphere and 2023 El Niño Onset, Jury, ATMOSPHERE-OCEAN 10.1080/07055900.2026.2698635
Fast expansion and slow contraction of the ITCZ in response to CO2 forcing, Zhang, Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) Open Access 10.5281/zenodo.18164506
High-resolution simulations reveal positive global warming feedback from Pacific low clouds, Chammas et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aec8488
Key role of continental inorganic halogens in the evolution of global air quality, Li et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-75932-7
Multi-century cooling after net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, Tarshish et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02700-2
Subtropical gyre expansion causes Southern Ocean salinification contrary to freshening predictions, Yu & Toole, Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-75775-2
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
A more quiescent deep ocean under global warming, Nature Climate Change, 10.1038/s41558-024-02075-2 20 cites.
Observations of climate change, effects
Accelerating and Intensifying Dry-to-Wet Hydroclimate Whiplash Across the Contiguous United States, Yang & Li, Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2026ef008646
Anthropogenic Warming Increases Extreme Precipitation in Huaihe River Basin, China in 1961–2020, Guo et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70525
Asymmetric Warming and Climate Regime Shift in Bhubaneswar: Evidence from a Rapidly Growing Tropical City (1950-2025), Beuria et al., Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 10.1016/j.jastp.2026.106922
Attribution of the Record-Breaking June 2024 Eastern Mediterranean Heatwave: Contrasting Roles of Soil Moisture in Anthropogenic Forcing and Natural Variability, Ma et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl121002
Escalating heat waves and human thermal stress over semi-arid Bundelkhand region, India, Singh et al., Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103035
Lengthening Summer in the Northern Hemisphere with the Declining Arctic Sea Ice, Cui et al., ATMOSPHERE-OCEAN 10.1080/07055900.2026.2695602
Observed Multi-Decadal Acceleration of Globally Averaged Abyssal Ocean Warming, Johnson, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl124104
Opposite changes in comfortable days over tropical and mid-latitude lands due to anthropogenic warming, 1980-2020 and 2060-2100, Wang et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.07.010
The 2026 western US snow drought was about four times more likely due to climate change, Marshall et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2612961123
Warming-Induced Increase in Flooding in the Taklimakan Desert, Su et al., Journal of Earth Science Open Access pdf 10.1007/s12583-025-2033-0
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Anthropogenic amplification of precipitation variability over the past century, Science, 10.1126/science.adp0212 218 cites.
Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects
A multi-method Antarctic atmospheric blocking dataset (1979–2024), Bozkurt et al., Earth system science data Open Access 10.5194/essd-18-5399-2026
A simplified method to calculate atmospheric CO2 equivalency for changing surface albedo, Akbari, Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.102795
Climate scientists sharpen tools for linking global warming to extreme weather, Vaz, Science 10.1126/science.aek8030
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Causes of extreme events revealed by Rényi information transfer, Science Advances, 10.1126/sciadv.adn1721 9 cites.
Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects
European summer drying largely driven by atmospheric circulation changes since the 1980s, Dunkl et al., Nature Geoscience Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41561-026-02050-w
Future tropical cyclone rainfall constrained by increased atmospheric dryness, Chen et al., Nature Geoscience Open Access 10.1038/s41561-026-02047-5
Identifying the Timing of Regional Summertime Minimum Temperature Threshold Crossings and the Potential Subsequent Climate Evolutions, Arcodia & Barnes, Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2026ef008520
Imbalances in climate outcomes in net-zero pathways with fossil fuel CO2 emissions and reforestation-based CO2 removals, MacIsaac et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03329-x
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
The Indian Ocean Dipole in a warming world, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 10.1038/s43017-024-00573-7 52 cites.
Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection
Added value of a priori bias correction for dynamical downscaling - A case study of Coastal British Columbia, Hingmire et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000717
Added value of a priori bias correction for dynamical downscaling - A case study of Coastal British Columbia, Hingmire et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000717
The Big Data paradox: how climate model authority becomes institutional mandates for climate extremes in the Anthropocene, Vijayakumar, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 10.1016/j.cosust.2026.101698
The TIPMIP Earth system model experiment protocol: phase 1, C. et al., Publication Database PIK (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)) Open Access pmh:oai:publications.pik-potsdam.de:item_32889
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
On the suitability of a convolutional neural network based RCM-emulator for fine spatio-temporal precipitation, Climate Dynamics, 10.1007/s00382-024-07350-8 16 cites.
Cryosphere & climate change
Century-long data reveals complex trends in ice cover in the Laurentian Great Lakes, Cannon et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-026-03866-5
Climate-driven tree failures: how extreme rainfall threatens the survival of monumental Araucaria angustifolia trees, Scipioni et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111168
Glacier loss in Central Caucasus from ICESat-2, using the SRTM baseline and crossover analysis, Mehrishi et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.07.012
Mass Loss From Thwaites Glacier Continues Even Without Ocean Melting, Williams et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122843
Observed responses of sea ice formation and decay in a mid-latitude marginal sea under dual-mode global warming, Qiu et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105631
Rapid acceleration of ice-cover loss from Northern Hemisphere lakes above critical air temperature thresholds, Zhou et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2610752123
The 2026 western US snow drought was about four times more likely due to climate change, Marshall et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2612961123
The dynamic response of Pine Island Glacier to two decades of intermittent ice shelf regrounding, Stepney et al., White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) pmh:oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:243583
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Ships are projected to navigate whole year-round along the North Sea route by 2100, Communications Earth & Environment, 10.1038/s43247-024-01557-7 24 cites.
Sea level & climate change
Observed thresholds in sea-level rise driving global tidal wetland loss, Luo et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-76031-3
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Probabilistic reconstruction of sea-level changes and their causes since 1900, Earth system science data, 10.5194/essd-16-3471-2024 31 cites.
Paleoclimate & paleogeochemistry
Broadly stable atmospheric CO2 and CH4 levels over the past 3 million years, Marks-Peterson et al., Nature 10.1038/s41586-025-10032-y
Interplay of North Atlantic freshening and deep convection during the last deglaciation constrained by Iberian speleothems, Endres et al., Climate of the past Open Access pdf 10.5194/cp-22-797-2026
Wildfires rampaged across Europe in the dying days of the Triassic, [authors did not process], Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-02333-7
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Response of coastal California hydroclimate to the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, Climate of the past, 10.5194/cp-20-1615-2024 2 cites.
Biology & climate change, related geochemistry
Larix gmelinii growth limitation shifts from nitrogen availability to drought under warming and permafrost degradation, Chen et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105395
Aftermath of marine heatwaves on the growth and physiological performance of Sargassum fusiforme and Sargassum thunbergii, Chu et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.107945
An integrated assessment of climate change on landscape adaptive capacity, vulnerability, and divergence in Avicennia species, Sheidai et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-42720-8
Analysis of the mechanism of MKK4 participating in heat stress response in Mytilus coruscus, Wei et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.107956
Aragonite Saturation Horizon Variability Along North Pacific Seamounts and Implications for Deep-Sea Coral Reefs, Kassem et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2025jc023926
Assessing impacts of extreme climate and weather events on endangered pearl oysters Pinctada maxima, He et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2025.107821
Biogeochemical signal from marine heatwaves, cold spells, and transient warming events in a coastal upwelling system, Valdés et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-62941-1
Climate change alters biogeochemical cycles in oxygen-depleted and dead zones, Bourbonnais et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03756-w
Climate Change Enhances the Success of Marine Invasive Species, Smith & Cheung, Global Change Biology Open Access 10.1111/gcb.71020
Climate-Driven Population Dynamics, Growth, and Phenology of the Moon Jellyfish Aurelia coerulea in the Mediterranean Thau Lagoon, Pigeon et al., Marine Environmental Research Open Access 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.107977
Climate-Driven Restructuring of Phytoplankton Productivity and Community Composition in the South-eastern Black Sea: Insights from Seasonal CO2-Temperature Manipulation Experiments, A??rba? et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108029
Disentangling the effects of FPAR, CO2, and climate on terrestrial vegetation productivity trends over two decades (2001–2023), Pu et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111122
Ecological novelty induced by climate change, Wright et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02697-8
Ecosystem services can persist in drowning macrotidal salt marshes, Mason et al., Marine Environmental Research Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108260
Establishing ring width and cell chronologies for predicting future growth of Thuja koraiensis under climate change, Park et al., Dendrochronologia 10.1016/j.dendro.2025.126423
First evidence of climate-driven modulation of octinoxate toxicity in the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus, Costa et al., Marine Environmental Research Open Access 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.107847
Global Change Reshapes Northern Lakes Towards Browner, More Nutrient-Depleted and Nitrogen-Limited Conditions With Contrasting Impacts on Phytoplankton Biomass, Bergström et al., Global Change Biology Open Access 10.1111/gcb.71008
Iceberg-driven constraints on colony–foraging connectivity result in severe decline in chick counts for the Coulman Island emperor penguin colony, Park et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03764-w
In-situ experimental evidence revealing how ocean warming promotes Aurelia coerulea polyps mediated by benthic ecosystem change, Zang et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.107853
Landscapes heavily impacted by human activities amplify climate sensitivity of Aleppo pine growth, Cappelluti et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111364
Marine heatwaves disrupt germination and seedling physiology in Zostera marina, Pieraccini et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2025.107789
Microbial drought resistance is achieved at the expense of soil carbon loss, Pang et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-76033-1
Modelling and geospatial mapping of whitefly Bemisia tabaci population dynamics in cassava-growing areas of Sub-Saharan Africa in response to climate change, Ndjomatchoua & Gilligan, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111059
Moisture limitation superseding thermal forcing: Elevational divergence in growth and physiological responses of Picea crassifolia to accelerated warming and drying on the Northeastern Tibetan Plateau, Wang et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111377
Ocean acidification effects on growth, survival and physiological immunity of farmed Larimichthys crocea, Zhang et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.107869
Penguins on the Move: Mapping Priority Penguin Habitat Areas Under Climate Change, Ramirez et al., Diversity and Distributions Open Access 10.1111/ddi.70233
Physiology and behaviour of eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) and soft-shell clams (Mya arenaria) under hypoxic and heatwave conditions, Talevi et al., Marine Environmental Research Open Access 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.107902
Predicting the water temperature effects and climate change impacts on gametogenesis of the sea urchin Mesocentrotus nudus using a DVI model, Takagi et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.107941
Projected declines in zooplankton energy supporting Northwest European Shelf ecosystems, Tyldesley et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03840-1
Relationships Between Climatic Variation and Population Dynamics of the Threatened Mohave Ground Squirrel, Poessel et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.73952
Resilience of the macroalgae Gongolaria barbata under ocean acidification: physiological responses and restoration perspective, Ilaria et al., Marine Environmental Research Open Access 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.107887
Responses of plant biomass to rising atmospheric CO2 concentration in the Yellow River Basin, Luan & Ma, Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105480
Strengthened resource limitation driven by accelerated microbial growth dampens response to elevated CO2 in a mature forest, Yuan et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03365-7
The Impact of Subglacial Drainage System Evolution and Glacier Lake Outburst on Arctic Fjord Macronutrient Dynamics, Alexander et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences Open Access 10.1029/2023jg007969
Thermal responses and climate change implications of spring and autumn spawning Patagonian squid (Doryteuthis gahi) embryos, Grient et al., Marine Environmental Research Open Access 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.107856
Tracing the imprints of dual stressors: eco-physiological and genotoxic insights from Mystus gulio under acidification and warming scenario, Mahapatra & Mandal, Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108290
Tree-Ring Based Precipitation Reconstructions Reveal Hydroclimatic Variability and a Recent Drying Trend in Northeastern Iran, Mazaherifar et al., Dendrochronologia 10.1016/j.dendro.2026.126587
Understanding the resilience of Halophila ovalis to warming and nutrient enrichment for improved seagrass conservation policy, Yuxin et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2025.107824
Warming overwhelms CO2-driven drought mitigation in alpine vegetation on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, Lyu et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03308-2
Widespread Increase in Global Plant Water Stress Obscured by Greening, Chang et al., AGU Advances Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025av002243
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Large potential impacts of marine heatwaves on ecosystem functioning, Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.17437 29 cites.
GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry
Applying satellite observations to improve bottom-up national emission inventories for methane: application to Colombia, Hancock et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-26-10455-2026
Canopy-mediated climate feedbacks in the boreal continuous permafrost zone, Stuenzi et al., Nature Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41558-026-02692-z
Carbohydrate-active enzymes of soil prophages enhance global carbon cycling potential, Liao et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-75907-8
Carbon sink-source dynamics across ecuadorian coastal tropical dry forests: unraveling the seasonal balance of soil carbon inputs and CO2 efflux, Jarre-Castro et al., Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.3389/fevo.2026.1824696
COVID-19 induced reduction of fossil-fuel emissions in 2020 altered the seasonal cycle of atmospheric CO2 at high latitudes, Gui et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111071
Extreme precipitation during the warm growing season amplifies methane emissions and reduces non-growing season contributions in a Tibetan alpine peatland, Lin et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111378
Floods Enhanced the Terrestrial and Marine Organic Carbon Burial in the East China Sea, Xu et al., Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) Open Access 10.5281/zenodo.20278779
Global vessel carbon dioxide emission from navigable rivers, Lü et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02718-6
High-resolution land surface modeling of climate and CO2 effects on ecosystem carbon-water coupling across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Xi et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111195
Higher, but more variable, annual CO2 emissions from lakes in drier Arctic landscapes, Hazuková et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03275-8
Hydrological Threshold for Optimizing Wetland Climate Mitigation, Li et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl123743
Leveraging wide snapshot XCO2 pre-training to estimate urban fossil fuel CO2 emissions from space, Wang et al., Remote Sensing of Environment 10.1016/j.rse.2026.115260
Long-Term Urban Emission Trends in Salt Lake City: Examining CO, CO2, and NOX Enhancements, Humble et al., Atmospheric Environment 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2026.121883
Microbial Functional Gene Abundance-Integrated Modeling of Global Methane Sinks in Upland Soils Under Future Climate Change, Xiao et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.71026
Migratory bird aggregation drives seasonal greenhouse gas hotspots in restored wetlands, Zhang et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03853-w
Modeling the impact of drainage on peatland CO2 and CH4 fluxes and its underlying drivers, Liu, HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) pmh:oai:HAL:hal-05574304v1
Multi-Year Continuous Lateral Fluxes of Dissolved Carbon From a Microtidal Saltmarsh, He et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences 10.1029/2026jg009760
Rapid microbial production of long-lived dissolved organic carbon in the global ocean, Cai et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2601044123
Soil moisture-induced changes in land carbon sink projections in CMIP6, Gabele et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-2729-2026
Spatio-temporal patterns and environmental controls of soil organic carbon stocks in global tidal wetlands since 2009, Yang et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-76092-4
Tall-tower isotope measurements to infer urban CO2 sources: a case study of Vienna, Austria, Meeran et al., Atmospheric Environment Open Access 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2026.122245
The added value of new ground-based observations in improving China's methane emission quantification, Zhong et al., Atmospheric measurement techniques Open Access pdf 10.5194/amt-19-4759-2026
The Evidence for Linearly Scaling Ocean Gas Exchange With Sea Ice Needs Strengthening, Watts et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025jg009346
The timing of warming matters as much as its intensity for the annual carbon balance of a degraded raised bog, Behrens et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-5071-2026
Thermogenic methane beneath the North Greenland Ice Sheet revealed by isotopic and geological evidence, Ketzer et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-75951-4
Three-Fourths of Carbon Emissions From 2023 Record-Breaking Wildfires in Canada Traced to Soil and Peat Combustion, Zhong et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl123393
Transition of coastal marsh to mangrove forest: implications for Everglades CO2 and CH4 fluxes, Yannick et al., Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.3389/fevo.2026.1890986
VOCs Impact Soil Carbon Transformations and Sequestration, Zhang et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences 10.1029/2026jg010104
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Dual roles of microbes in mediating soil carbon dynamics in response to warming, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-50800-4 92 cites.
CO2 capture, sequestration science & engineering
Bioinspired charge reservoir enables efficient CO2 photoreduction with H2O via tungsten valence oscillation, Huang et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-68991-3
CO2 subsurface mineral storage by its co-injection with recirculating water, Oelkers et al., Nature Open Access 10.1038/s41586-026-10130-5
Electrified reversible surface mineralization of CO2 for direct air capture, Liu et al., Nature Energy 10.1038/s41560-026-01989-9
Feasibility of CO2 pipeline construction to enable gigaton-scale carbon dioxide removals: evidence from historical precedent, Roberts et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access 10.3389/fclim.2026.1807933
Nanoscale greenhouse effect for promoting solar-driven CO2 reduction with water to CH4, Kang et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-70960-9
Observationally constrained global warming hysteresis under CO2 removal, Song et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03484-1
Potential evaluation and favorable zone optimization of CO2 geological sequestration in deep coal reservoirs, Xue et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-42680-z
Reducing Uncertainties in Net Carbon Capture to Advance Wetlands as Natural Climate Solutions, Mistry et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences Open Access 10.1029/2025jg009136
Reflecting on the politics and power dynamics of contested climate technologies, Fritz et al., Environmental Science & Policy 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104448
Rethinking expertise on climate cooling technologies, Carabajal et al., Environmental Science & Policy 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104446
The renaissance of carbon capture and storage in Germany and the politics of conditionality, Haas et al., Environmental Politics Open Access pdf 10.1080/09644016.2026.2700726
Translating insights from progress in photovoltaics to accelerate industrial-scale CO2 electroreduction, Choi et al., Nature Energy 10.1038/s41560-025-01953-z
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Deployment expectations of multi-gigatonne scale carbon removal could have adverse impacts on Asia’s energy-water-land nexus, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-50594-5 27 cites.
Decarbonization
An Analysis of Future Wind Energy Resources and Cost Uncertainties Across the United States, Buster et al., Wind Energy Open Access 10.1002/we.70144
Assessing potential impacts of offshore wind development on U.S. marine ecosystems using food web modeling, Lato et al., Scientific Reports Open Access 10.1038/s41598-026-63407-0
Carbon-aware resource allocation and task offloading in EH-assisted edge-cloud systems, Fu et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-62950-0
Solar-driven co-production of C2H4 and H2O2 from CO2 and H2O, Xie et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-69277-4
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Geothermal energy in Kenya: Evaluating health impacts and environmental challenges, Energy Sustainable Development/Energy for sustainable development, 10.1016/j.esd.2024.101522 23 cites.
Geoengineering climate
Robust Solar Radiation Modification Strategy for Achieving Temperature Targets, Zheng et al., Risk Analysis 10.1111/risa.70312
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Effects of grain size and seawater salinity on magnesium hydroxide dissolution and secondary calcium carbonate precipitation kinetics: implications for ocean alkalinity enhancement, Biogeosciences, 10.5194/bg-21-3463-2024 13 cites.
Aerosols
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
A model study investigating the sensitivity of aerosol forcing to the volatilities of semi-volatile organic compounds, Atmospheric chemistry and physics, 10.5194/acp-24-8489-2024 6 cites.
Climate change communications & cognition
Misperception of Extreme Weather Event Mortality Risk in the United States, Manware et al., GeoHealth Open Access 10.1029/2025gh001782
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Communicating the Links between Climate Change and Heat Waves with the Climate Shift Index, Weather Climate and Society, 10.1175/wcas-d-23-0147.1 13 cites.
Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change
A data-driven method for identifying climate drivers of agricultural yield failure from daily weather data, Sweet et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-6687-2026
Agroforestry protects arable crops from climate shock during critical early-season phenological stages, Tosh et al., Agronomy for Sustainable Development Open Access pdf 10.1007/s13593-026-01129-3
Attribution analysis of historical and future global staple crop yield shocks to climate stressors, Xiao et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111340
Balancing growth, resource efficiency and soil greenhouse gas emissions: optimal water-fertilizer coupling for Chukrasia tabularis seedlings, Quan et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Open Access pdf 10.3389/ffgc.2026.1914270
Carbon fluxes and partitioning in Eucalyptus and Pinus plantations across a climatic gradient in Brazil, Cunha et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2025.110977
Designing agrivoltaic systems for plant protection, Vernier et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111361
Exposure risk of maize cropland under compound high-temperature and drought events over Northeast China in response to future warming, Yan et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.accre.2026.07.015
Ocean acidification effects on growth, survival and physiological immunity of farmed Larimichthys crocea, Zhang et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.107869
Quantifying the impact of extreme heat events on net ecosystem exchange in a wheat-maize cropping system in North China, Pei et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111379
Reduced phosphorus bioavailability in rice paddies intensified by elevated CO2-driven warming, Wang et al., Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-026-01917-2
The economic dimension of climate-smart agriculture: bibliometric review of trends, challenges, and opportunities from an economic perspective, Jing et al., Environment Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-026-07995-x
The occurrence of extreme heat events offset CO2 fertilization and deteriorate grain quality in double cropping rice systems under projected climate change, Liu et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111184
Warmer growing seasons improve cereal yields in Northern Europe only with increasing precipitation, Tootoonchi et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-2583-2026
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Global assessment of production benefits and risk reduction in agroforestry during extreme weather events under climate change scenarios, Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, 10.3389/ffgc.2024.1379741 31 cites.
Hydrology, hydrometeorology & climate change
Accelerating and Intensifying Dry-to-Wet Hydroclimate Whiplash Across the Contiguous United States, Yang & Li, Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2026ef008646
Amazon Dry Season Will Lengthen Under Future Climate, Ferreira et al., Global Change Biology Open Access 10.1111/gcb.71018
Anthropogenic Warming Increases Extreme Precipitation in Huaihe River Basin, China in 1961–2020, Guo et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70525
Asynchronous Emergence of Water Scarcity Risks Amid Shifting Hydrological Regimes in High Mountain Asia, Zhao & Yang, Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2026ef008373
Dominant Controls on Preferential Flow and Their Implications for Future Soil Water Fluxes, Li et al., Earth s Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026ef008296
Future tropical cyclone rainfall constrained by increased atmospheric dryness, Chen et al., Nature Geoscience Open Access 10.1038/s41561-026-02047-5
Global Terrestrial Water Storage Projections and Uncertainty Decomposition Under Multiple Warming Levels, Kim et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007835
Integrating climate projections and hydrological modeling for sustainable water management in a major indian peninsular basin, Thakur et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1835963
Intensifying Sub-Daily Rainfall Extremes in Tropical Cities: Projections From Downscaled Baselines in a Warming Climate, Blagojevi? et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007703
Marine heatwaves in the Northeast Pacific intensify landfalling atmospheric rivers on the west coast of North America, Renkl et al., Scientific Reports Open Access 10.1038/s41598-026-62522-2
Nature-based solutions in arid and semi-arid countries: A review of best practices and lessons learned, Chiarelli et al., Urban Climate Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103060
Seasonal Asymmetry in Extreme Precipitation Intensification Across China's Drylands, Wang et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres 10.1029/2026jd046518
U.S. rivers are transporting more suspended sediment, often in less time, Sigdel & Husic, Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03847-8
Warming-Induced Increase in Flooding in the Taklimakan Desert, Su et al., Journal of Earth Science Open Access pdf 10.1007/s12583-025-2033-0
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Critical Effects of Precipitation on Future Colorado River Flow, Journal of Climate, 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0617.1 25 cites.
Climate change economics
Climate change and high-quality economic development: Insights from the perspective of extreme temperatures, Li & Feng, Environment Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-026-07996-w
Climate change mitigation public policy research
2040 greenhouse gas reduction targets and energy transitions in line with the EU Green Deal, Rodrigues et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-71159-8
A simplified method to calculate atmospheric CO2 equivalency for changing surface albedo, Akbari, Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.102795
Bricolage as an early-niche mechanism: Expectations and carbon lock-in in two Polish energy clusters, Stasik & Da?kowska, Energy Research & Social Science Open Access 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104861
California's plan to decarbonize electricity omits key greenhouse gas emissions, Fortier et al., Energy Policy Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115509
Cost-effective abatement of industrial sources of nitrous oxide with methane for urgent climate mitigation, Wu et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-75982-x
Eligibility interpreted as assurance and trust inflation in carbon credit markets, Kuwae, PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0001001
Optimizing residential energy management through an integrated techno-economic evaluation of PV-battery systems, Kumar et al., Electrical Engineering 10.1007/s00202-026-03614-0
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Public acceptability of carbon pricing: unravelling the impact of revenue recycling, Climate Policy, 10.1080/14693062.2024.2376747 29 cites.
Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research
A systematic global stocktake of evidence on human adaptation to climate change, Berrang?Ford et al., Nature Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41558-021-01170-y
Beyond adaptive capacity: Assessing how power relations shape household responses to climate impacts on water and sanitation, Dickin et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000906
Building climate-resilient development pathways in China: Evaluating environmental policy impacts, Zhou et al., Environmental Science & Policy 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104456
Deep uncertainty analysis to characterise regional climate for building stock transition: A Nordic empirical study, Feng et al., Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103057
Europe's transport infrastructure is not ready to face climate change, Deidda et al., Natural hazards and earth system sciences Open Access 10.5194/nhess-26-3345-2026
From devolution to distortion: political and fiscal constraints on locally led adaptation in Kenya, Mulwa & Gravesen, Climate Policy 10.1080/14693062.2026.2703375
How urban system structure and land use dynamics jointly shape climate vulnerability in Northwestern China over the 21st century, Zhou et al., Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103066
In search of climate migrants: a journey from crisis to opportunity, Ahmed et al., Climate and Development Open Access 10.1080/17565529.2026.2694724
Scenario Planning for Transformative Climate Adaptation, Mach et al., Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change 10.1002/wcc.70084
Strategic streams of evolving climate policy and governance in Vietnam: Challenges and potentials for resilience, Doi et al., Environmental Science & Policy 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104451
Unequal protection and sacrificial territories: climate governance and infrastructural exposure in Southern Italy, Terenzi & Paone, Environmental Sociology 10.1080/23251042.2026.2704993
Unraveling the nuances of climate change maladaptation: A call for more verstehen perspectives, Ofosu, PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000784
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Nature-based solutions in spatial planning and policies for climate change adaptation: A literature review, AMBIO, 10.1007/s13280-024-02052-1 28 cites.
Climate change impacts on human health
Climate change and health in the rural context: Vulnerability, capacity and outlook, Rose & Birchall, PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000974
Climate regulation as cardiovascular prevention: Heart failure risks after the Endangerment Finding rollback, Nguyen et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0001006
Divergent Heat Assessments Across Thermal Stress and Sensation Metrics, Huang et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2026ef008395
Drought amplifies the psychological burden of war, Döring et al., Nature Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41893-026-01882-z
On the compound effect of humidity and temperature on mortality in the Eastern Mediterranean, Tzyrkalli et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000821
Survival First: How Citizens Prioritize Competing Climate-Health Risk Countermeasures Under Fiscal Constraints, Tanaka & ??, Risk Analysis Open Access 10.1111/risa.70315
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Framework of street grid-based urban heat vulnerability assessment: Integrating entropy weight method and BPNN model, Urban Climate, 10.1016/j.uclim.2024.102067 40 cites.
Other
Fire weather waves drive extreme fires globally, Yin et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-026-03858-5
Implementing a National Framework for Climate Services: Understanding Progress, Challenges, and Future Opportunities, Golding et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 10.1175/bams-d-25-0281.1
Navigating optimal solar-wind trade-offs under climate change, Li et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-75879-9
Projecting climate change impacts on Scottish River pollution, Corrochano-Fraile et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2026.100856
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Evolution of the Climate Forcing During the Two Years After the Hunga Tonga=Hunga Ha'apai Eruption, Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres, 10.1029/2024jd041296 32 cites.
Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives
Four years of PLOS Climate: Past, present and future, Boers et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000866
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
State of the UK Climate 2023, International Journal of Climatology, 10.1002/joc.8553 39 cites.
The Environmental Footprint of Emerging Technology and Artificial Intelligence. Data Centers, Community Health and Policy Responses, Emma Uridge and Jasmin Kamruddi, Kansas Health Institute
The rapid growth and use of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming many sectors, but it also has environmental implications that are complex and multifaceted. AI infrastructure drives increased demand for significant water use, greater energy consumption and expanded grid infrastructure, all of which require careful management to avoid environmental and community harm.How Local Governments Can Use Communication to Drive Climate Action, Dwight et al., Yale University
The majority of constituents want local government climate action - 56% of registered voters want local government officials to do more to address climate change. With a duty to serve the public, local governments are well positioned to listen and respond — and the Yale Climate Opinion Maps include city- and county-level public opinion data to support your efforts. Know your audience and foster trust - To motivate climate action, governments must understand their communities and become trusted partners. Short surveys, message testing, and in-person engagement can help local governments understand what messages resonate and what issues are a priority for their audience. To build and retain trust, partnerships with community-based organizations, transparency, and frequent engagement are essential. Make climate action local - Many perceive climate change as a problem that is distant in time and space. Local governments can communicate local stories and social norms to help community members understand how climate change is impacting their community now — and that their neighbors are worried about it and taking action, even if they aren’t talking about it.Protecting the nature of Texas, powering our clean energy future, Quentin Good and Luke Metzger, Frontier Group
Renewable energy developers in Texas have demonstrated many ways their siting practices and operations can minimize harm and even create new benefits from renewable energy projects. Texas should take steps to encourage the adoption of “best practices” by renewable energy developers that protect wildlife and landscapes while continuing the beneficial transition to clean energy. Operational changes and smart siting decisions can reduce the environmental impact of wind energy. The most serious environmental challenge posed by wind energy is its impact on birds and bats, but smart strategies – including those currently in use by Texas wind farm operators – have been proven to reduce collisions.U.S. Can Cost-Effectively Supply One Third of Industrial Heat Demand Using Off-Grid Electric Thermal Storage and Heat Pumps, Dominguez et al., India Energy and Climate Center, Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley
Industrial heat is a major source of U.S. emissions and is challenging to decarbonize due to the availability of low-cost natural gas keeping fossil fuel heating highly competitive. Emerging low cost and efficient options such as thermal electric storage and industrial heat pumps offer a promising alternative when combined with local low-cost solar and wind power. Using facility-level emissions data and a geospatial assessment of nearby buildable land, the authors evaluate 3,559 industrial sites and three temperature ranges: low (0–200°C), medium (200–850°C), and high (above 850°C). For each site, the authors estimate how much heat could be supplied using off=grid renewable systems, its' cost, and how their potential grows as clean energy costs fall. By 2035, the authors found that renewable-powered heat systems could economically supply up to one third of U.S. industrial heat demand—3,255 trillion BTU out of 9,530 trillion BTU in total. This includes more than half of temperature heat needs above 200°C, particularly in states with higher natural gas prices and strong renewable resources, such as California and parts of the northern and eastern U.S. Local off-grid systems also avoid multiyear grid interconnection delays while reducing integration costs for many facilities.Coal Beneath Federal Lands in the United States— Mines, Reserves, and Resources, Shaffer et al., US. Geological Survey
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) compiled a list of coal mines and tabulated the coal reserves and available coal resources beneath Federal lands in the conterminous United States. Coal resources beneath Federal lands in Alaska are also discussed in this report. In 2024, the 34 coal mines on Federal lands produced more than 261 million short tons of coal. Surface mining is used at 23 of the coal mines, and underground mining is used at 11. These 34 coal mines control more than 4.2 billion short tons of reported coal reserves. Most of the coal mines (31) and more than 98 percent of the reported coal reserves are on Federal lands west of the Mississippi River. Of all the States, Wyoming has the most coal mines on Federal lands (14) and produces the most coal from Federal lands. The Powder River Basin has the most coal mines per basin or coal field operating on Federal lands (12 in Wyoming, 2 in Montana). Most of the available coal resources in the conterminous United States are also west of the Mississippi River. There are five basins or coal fields in the West that each contain available coal resources of more than 25 billion short tons. The USGS estimates that more than 355 billion short tons of available coal resources remain beneath Federal lands in the conterminous United States. Alaska contains substantial quantities of coal resources. The USGS estimates that Alaska has at least 140 billion short tons of identified available coal resources but may ultimately have as much as 5.5 trillion short tons of coal resources.Americans with disabilities are more likely than those without disabilities to say global warming is harming their health, Ettinger et al., Yale Program on Climate Change Communication
Americans with disabilities are more likely to think global warming is harming their own health than Americans without disabilities. Americans with and without disabilities have similar views on whether some groups of people are more likely to experience the health harms of global warming. Americans with disabilities have lower trust in several information sources about the health harms of global warming.Paying for Resilience in New York State, Rebuild by Design and The New York State Adaptation Practitioners Network
Climate change has catalyzed new and opportunities and risks within nearly every dimension of New York State’s economy – with the costs being passed onto New Yorkers in the form of tax increases, medical bills, insurance hikes, damages, home repairs, and business losses. The authors present a first-of-its-kind inventory of the cost to adapt to climate effects. New York State will need to spend over $519 billion to build, upgrade, or adapt infrastructure to prepare for climate impacts. This accounts for costs of proposed, in-progress, and completed adaptation investments. The per capita cost of adapting New York State’s infrastructure is approximately $26,000. The highest regional adaptation cost, $387 billion, is in New York City, where the approximate per capita need is $50,000. The most substantial costs include culvert replacements, sewer and stormwater upgrades, and coastal defense on Long Island and in New York City.Transmission Planning with Large Loads: Current Practices and Recommendations, Large Loads Task Force, Energy Systems Integration Group
The authors trace the structural reasons why the growth in data centers, AI facilities, and other large loads is outpacing existing transmission planning processes, which were designed for slower and more dispersed demand growth. They lay out what planners, utilities, and regulators can start doing now and over the longer term, as large load and associated generator interconnection requests continue to arrive faster than current planning processes can accommodate. The authors identify three structural reasons current planning processes struggle to keep pace including planning functions are siloed by jurisdiction, time horizon, and study method; there is a fundamental timing mismatch between how fast large loads want to connect and how long transmission takes to plan and build; and planners face a radically different level of demand uncertainty that current planning methods were not designed to handle. The authors distinguish between actions planners can take now with immediate payoff, such as studies that make visible where the grid can serve new load, tools that quickly expand available grid capacity, and coordinating assumptions across planning functions and structural shifts in the planning process, including moving from project-by-project upgrades toward proactive, scenario-based, multi-value planning with longer-term benefits.Electricity Mid-Year Update 2026, Çam et al., The International Energy Agency
Amid the energy shock triggered by the war in the Middle East, the world’s electricity consumption is set to increase strongly in 2026, driven by rising demand from industry, appliances, cooling needs, data centers and electrification. This mid-year update builds on the comprehensive Electricity 2026 report published in February, providing an assessment of recent market developments and updated outlooks through 2027. It incorporates updated data for 2025 and new forecasts for 2026 and 2027, covering global electricity demand, generation by fuel, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from electricity generation, among other trends. The report also reviews the latest developments in major economies such as China, the European Union, India and the United States and provides updated tracking of wholesale electricity prices across markets worldwide.Interfacing science and policy: Exploring the role of scientific knowledge in the design of Voluntary Sustainability Standards, Loconto et al., Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Through the concept of scientific cherry-picking, the authors analyze how Voluntary Sustainability Standards selectively incorporate particular strands of scientific knowledge that align with operational models and governance structures. This selective integration often leads to the promotion of interpretations of sustainability that are compatible with weak sustainability paradigms –emphasizing incremental improvements within existing systems – rather than fostering more systemic and transformative approaches.Food Security Green Bonds. Scaling finance for sustainable and climate-resilient agrifood systems, Mikell O’Mealy, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
The authors examine the growing pressures on global agrifood systems, where hunger and food insecurity remain widespread and are expected to intensify under climate change and population growth. They highlight the dual challenge of expanding production to meet rising demand while addressing the sector’s significant contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and increasing climate risks that threaten agricultural land and livelihoods. Despite strong recognition by countries of the need for climate-smart agriculture and agrifood systems transformation, progress is constrained by a large financing gap. Current investment levels fall far short of the estimated USD 1.1 trillion required annually by 2030, with particularly acute shortfalls affecting smallholder farmers and agri-Subject Matter Experts. Public finance continues to dominate, reflecting both its catalytic role and the barriers limiting private sector engagement. The authors identify public-led green bonds as a practical avenue to mobilize private and institutional capital at scale.Pay, Baby, Pay. Why Trump's Energy & AI Dominance Agenda Means Higher Bills For Everyone, Lorne Stockman, Oil Change International
U.S. wholesale fossil gas prices will likely double by the late 2030s relative to the 2020 to 2025 average if the Trump administration’s energy and AI policies succeed in pushing gas demand to levels that can only be met by more expensive gas production. Significant energy price volatility from 2020 to 2025 caused hardship in the U.S. and in LNG-importing countries, particularly in Asia and Europe. Costlier U.S. gas risks exacerbating the energy affordability crisis for U.S. and international consumers alike. The surge in gas demand – and gas prices – is being driven primarily by the Trump administration’s support for massive increases in liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. Trump’s hostility toward renewables and support for the poorly regulated AI data center boom aggravate the impending crunch. Lower-cost gas from the two biggest U.S. gas-producing regions, the Permian and Appalachian basins, will not be able to meet rising demand alone. To fill the gap between demand and production, gas producers will have to increase drilling in the significantly more expensive Haynesville shale play in Louisiana and Texas. About New ResearchClick here for the why and how of Skeptical Science New Research.
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Nurses plan informational picket at Jackson Park Hospital to highlight patient safety concerns
We’re fighting for a future beyond oil here in Carson.
The history
Phillips 66 has profited and polluted for over a century here in Carson. Now that the last barrel of oil has left the refinery, we finally have the chance to clean up the land, invest in good union jobs that protect our health and environment, and give residents a say in what happens next.
The stakes are high: Just because the refinery stopped refining oil doesn’t mean a century of pollution in the soil and groundwater will vanish overnight. There’s a “lake of oil” beneath the 233-acre Carson refinery site, made up of decades of petroleum sludge, toxins, and other pollution.
Our communities know that back-room deals, shoddy cleanup, and greedy zoning decisions can lead to cancer, death, and huge cleanup bills down the line.
Lawmakers and regulators have a choice: let Phillips 66 and developers continue to take the lead – or can bring residents into the driver’s seat. They can allow Amazon warehouses, data centers, or ICE detention centers fill the gap left by the refinery – or create good union jobs for the city, with work that protects our health and environment.
Join us in fighting for a just transition in Carson, California. Tell the L.A Water Board: Capped toxins are still toxic.
Refinery communities deserve to see real cleanup today, not more promises from an unreliable corporate polluter.
Los Angeles: take action. Who we are We want to live, work, and raise our families in Carson, California, but with each passing year we’ve seen fossil fuel companies pollute the air and sicken our families.Now, we’re organizing to demand that Phillips 66 pays to clean up their toxic mess – so that we don’t get left with the bill for cleanup. What we need from the City of Carson:
- Launch a Just Transition Taskforce – We need a real, staffed taskforce to guide refinery site cleanup, bringing together City planners, City building department, Los Angeles Waterboard, environmental and toxins experts, and frontline residents.
- Conduct a Site Revisioning Process – Bring our neighbors and surrounding community into the site redevelopment with a visioning process for the refinery. Create an “open front door” with freely shared studies of the site. If Phillips 66 doesn’t pay, taxpayers will: we deserve to guide the process.
- Champion Strong Community Benefit and Project Labor Agreements. Encourage strong Community Benefit Agreements and project labor agreements to ensure that unionized workers perform the decommissioning (tear-down) and remediation (cleanup).
- Create a Strong Plan for Refinery Cleanup with Real Teeth – Working together as the City and LA Water Board, we need a strong work-plan for cleanup that holds Phillips 66 to real standards.
- Transparency & Real Input – Our neighbors deserve more information, updates, and a means of giving input on the site cleanup. The Water Board can and must hold public workshops to update residents; provide resources in the languages spoken and read by Carson residents; provide frequent opportunities for public comment and public forums; and establish an open door policy for site remediation data.
For Immediate Release June 5, 2026 Contact: Blake@sunstonestrategies.com, 310-894-6690 Phillips 66 Carson Refinery Site Remediation Estimated at Nearly $1 Billion New report reveals Carson community at risk of shouldering millions in cleanup costs...
read more Holding Phillips 66 AccountableFrom engaging in door knocking campaigns to speaking at city council meetings, APEN's youth leadership in Carson plays an important role in our strategy to hold Phillip's 66 accountable for remediation of their Carson refinery. Through our advocacy, we were able...
read more Before the Last Drop: Lessons From the Phillips 66 Los Angeles Refinery ClosureAfter years of asthma, sickness, and death for nearby residents, Los Angeles’ Phillips 66 refinery is on its way out. Now, frontline communities are counting on elected officials and responsible agencies to clean up refinery sites and ensure the safety, health, and...
read moreThe post We’re fighting for a future beyond oil here in Carson. appeared first on Asian Pacific Environmental Network.
What India’s Cockroach Party won — and what’s next
This article What India’s Cockroach Party won — and what’s next was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
Thirty-six days after a joke about “cockroaches” became a youth movement, India’s education minister was gone. On July 25, Dharmendra Pradhan resigned after weeks of protests over failures in the public examination system and demands for political accountability. The Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, declared victory — “Cockroaches won. Democracy won.”
For a movement that began online in May and grown into a nationwide agitation, forcing a cabinet minister from office was an unmistakable political concession. But almost as soon as the protesters packed up, the meaning of that victory became less certain.
Three days later, the movement was already threatening to return to the streets. The CJP said over 100 protesters been arrested nationwide, with cases filed in the states of Delhi, Assam, West Bengal and Bihar, despite assurances that demonstrators would not face punitive action. CJP spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka warned that the agitation could resume if those arrested were not released.
Bihar police announced that the protesters had been released and would face no adverse legal action. But the assurance did not hold in other states, like West Bengal and Assam, where more than a dozen are still being detained.
Removing a minister was a visible symbol of accountability; ensuring that other promises made to end the protests were actually honored would require something harder — sustained organization after the crowds had gone home.
A movement that couldn’t be decapitatedWhen Delhi last saw a mass youth mobilization, over the citizenship law in 2020, the state answered by naming the organizers in a conspiracy chargesheet: Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam have now been held for more than five years under India’s 1967 anti-terror law and were refused bail again on July 4, 16 days before the cockroaches marched on Parliament.
It began as a joke. Amidst a youth uproar over invalidated examination results, during which India’s highest judge referred to the nation’s youth as “cockroaches,” a Boston-based student from India, Abhijeet Dipke, posted on X, “What if the cockroaches marched?”
Previous CoverageThe joke carried a serious message: The protesters who turned out in response, under the banner of the Cockroach Janta Party, saw themselves as people the political system had stopped listening to.
But the Cockroach Janta Party — a parody of the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, the Hindu right-wing party that has governed India since 2014 — had few of the trappings of a serious political party. There was a website where people could sign up; there was an Instagram account that had grown rapidly; and there was Dipke. By July, he was leading the sit-ins and the marches from a stage in Central Delhi — a founder the movement had acquired without ever electing one, and who insisted, along with everybody else there, that the CJP had no leader.
For five weeks, Delhi Police dealt with a protest that offered nothing conventional to target. There was no office to raid and no membership list to seize — the two things that allowed police to quell earlier movements.
So on the morning of July 18, police went for the one man everyone knew.
Sonam Wangchuk, an engineer and education reformer from the Indian Himalayas, is 59 years old and was 20 days into a hunger strike. He had lost more than 18 pounds. Police carried him from the protest site and took him to hospital.
Wangchuk had become the most recognizable face in a movement that insisted it had no leader. He runs a school in the region of Ladakh for children who struggle in India’s examination system and is a recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, often described as Asia’s Nobel.
Delhi Police said they acted on a High Court order and medical advice. Protesters tried to stop officers from taking Wangchuk away, leading to what police described as a “slight commotion.”
But the police statement did not end with Wangchuk’s health. It also asked the remaining protesters to leave. They did not.
Taking a man 20 days into a hunger strike to a hospital could be explained as a medical decision. Asking everyone else to clear the square was something different.
By that afternoon the square was fuller than it had been all month, with people packed under sheets of black plastic strung between trees, facing a stage with nobody on it. The banner behind the empty platform still read “Hunger Strike.” Removing the hunger striker had doubled his audience.
#newsletter-block_29cf67ed9d6557e4be0fbe7f59111a05 { background: #ececec; color: #000000; } #newsletter-block_29cf67ed9d6557e4be0fbe7f59111a05 #mc_embed_signup_front input#mce-EMAIL { border-color:#000000 !important; color: #000000 !important; } Sign Up for our NewsletterAnd that was the problem the Cockroach Janta Party exposed: How do you shut down a protest when there is no leader to remove, no organization to dismantle and no one person whose arrest can make the crowd disappear?
Two million children, one exam, 89 leaksThe packed square is Jantar Mantar, an 18th-century observatory of huge stone sundials about half a mile from India’s Parliament, and the only place in central Delhi where a demonstration is permitted at all. For five weeks it was a tent city of students, parents who had spent their savings on high-stakes test coaching, teachers, lawyers, a few farmers’ unions and a great many people in their 20s who had never protested before.
What brought them there was an examination. Every year more than two million Indian teenagers sit the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, or NEET, for fewer than 130,000 undergraduate medical seats. Whole towns exist to coach children for it — Kota, in Rajasthan, held around 250,000 aspirants at its peak and still houses roughly 85,000 to 100,000 in hostels and cram schools built for nothing else. In May, nine days after the exam, the government cancelled the results over an alleged paper leak and told two million candidates to take it a second time. Several students died by suicide in the weeks that followed.
On May 15, the Chief Justice of India, Surya Kant, while hearing a case about fraudulent degrees, turned to unemployed young Indians and called them cockroaches who attack everyone because they have nowhere to go. He said afterward he had been misunderstood.
But Dipke, a 30-year-old political strategist watching from Boston, had already asked on X what would happen if all the cockroaches came together. Rinku Kumar was one of the millions who answered. He is a 23-year-old English teacher at a coaching center in Nawada, in the poor eastern state of Bihar, India — nobody’s stereotype of an activist. He traveled to Delhi because a protest he had been watching on his phone had begun describing his own life back to him.
For decades a protest in Delhi became a national event only if television decided it was one. At Jantar Mantar that assumption had visibly broken: Some protesters did not want mainstream TV crews at the site at all. Instead of waiting for prime time, they filmed everything themselves, livestreamed speeches, circulated their own footage of the police lines and followed independent reporters directly. The grievance had become a meme, the meme a crowd, and the crowd had built its own distribution network. Part of what the CJP was winning was the account of itself.
That is how a coach from Nawada ended up in the same square as Ashutosh Ranka — an Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur graduate with a degree from the London School of Economics and a stint at McKinsey behind him. In June, Ranka was named one of the movement’s three spokespeople, alongside the investigative journalist Saurav Das and the researcher and filmmaker Vijeta Dahiya. Their life paths had nothing in common, but the protest had handed them the same vocabulary of jobs, exams and accountability.
A leaflet circulating that week wondered whether India was still a democracy or had become a “deMOCKracy,” then graded the government in its own vocabulary, saying it flunked this lesson.
The day the internet went off and 10,000 people walked anywayThe CJP called a mile-long march to Parliament House for July 20, the opening day of the monsoon session and of Parliament, but permission was refused. Instead, the state prepared by switching off mobile internet around the site, closing metro stations and putting up barricades.
More than 10,000 marched anyway, the turnout swollen by anger at Wangchuk’s removal.
The placards had stopped asking politely. One carried Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s photograph with “Resign” across his face and a performance review printed beside it: “You are a government servant, you work for us, we pay your salary, we the people of India fire you.” Two balloons tied to the same hand read “Grow a pair.”
A satirical placard on the march to Parliament, demanding accountability from the education minister. (WNV/Shruthi Manjula Mohan)Delhi Police denied using violence, though NPR watched officers fire tear gas and hit demonstrators with sticks. I witnessed it, too. The tear gas came in from the Parliament Street side and the crowd did not run so much as fold and re-form 100 feet back.
Nearly 180 protesters injured and 70 detained. Several videos show police attacking marchers; none has surfaced showing the reverse.
Pradhan, who had spent June dismissing the protesters as disruptive elements, upgraded them that week to a “B-team of terrorists” trying to “divide the country.”
That kind of rhetoric has been effective in the past, according to Tanuj Gaurav, a doctoral researcher at Jawaharlal Nehru University, the campus that has been the center of Indian left student politics for decades and a standing target of this government. “The moment you raise a question, you’re linked to the enemy,” he told me. “After that, nobody wants to ask questions anymore.”
Then, on the same day it called them terrorists, the government invited Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka two of them to meet Health Minister J.P. Nadda. Dipke announced the invitation from the stage. Shortly afterward he was reportedly detained.
They stopped waiting for television to notice themHere is the test the movement passed twice in three days. On July 18 the state removed the famous man; on July 20 it removed the founder. Neither removal stuck. Wangchuk went on issuing statements from his hospital bed and was part of the talks that followed. Dipke was released within hours and was back on the stage by then. The protest did not pause or splinter, but it also never had to find out what would happen if either man stayed gone.
The next day it stopped marching altogether, while keeping the sit-in going. “We will not march again because the police will hurt the youth again,” Dipke said.
A volunteer used art as a medium of dissent at Jantar Mantar. His stall became one of the site’s biggest draws, with visitors joining him to paint, sketch and draw in support of the CJP’s demands for accountability and reform of the examination system. (WNV/Shruthi Manjula Mohan)The discipline was visible on the tarmac on July 20. One volunteer had turned a stretch of road into a gallery row of watercolors weighted against the wind. They depicted cockroaches marching on Parliament, a government drawn blind, mute and deaf. A handwritten sign invited strangers to sit and add their own; another asked people not to touch the pictures, only to photograph them. It read as a rule about wet paint, and it was, but it also described how the whole movement worked: Make the thing, let everyone copy it, keep no object anybody could be arrested for holding.
Thirty-six days after a joke, a cabinet minister was goneOn July 24 Wangchuk broke his 26-day fast after written assurances on exam accountability.
His decision, however, did not settle the central political demand driving the wider movement: Pradhan’s resignation. Wangchuk said his immediate priority was protecting students from further violence and legal action, and suggested that Pradhan’s departure could still follow. The youth-led CJP, meanwhile, continued protesting, refusing to accept the government’s attempts at compromise.
The next day Pradhan resigned, saying he deeply respected the aspirations of the country’s youth — a respect that had taken 36 days and a hospitalization to locate.
With demonstrations persisting despite the government’s attempts at compromise, Pradhan’s resignation became the concession capable of bringing the confrontation to an end.
Hours later, CJP spokespeople sat beside two ministers at a joint news conference. “All our demands have been accepted,” said Ranka, asking everyone to go home. The party posted four words: “Cockroaches won. Democracy won.”
Pratap Bhanu Mehta, a political theorist and one of India’s most widely read columnists, wrote in the Indian Express that the resignation alone changes little, but that a generation failed by its elders had made a government drunk on its own power look small and had shown it can be moved.
The state had gone looking for the movement’s head and failed. The movement, which had none, had taken down a minister.
Now watch the demands get smallerIn June, they wanted a minister gone. On July 13 they wanted a law. The CJP’s voluntary tech team published a five-point charter for rebuilding how India runs public examinations — closer to draft legislation than to grievance. It asked for a new Public Examinations Act and for the National Testing Agency that runs the exams to be dissolved and rebuilt as a statutory body with permanent staff and compulsory audits. It called for an independent ombudsman, a judicial inquiry opening automatically under a retired judge after every leak, refunds and compensation turned from favors into legal entitlements, and a permanent parliamentary committee to keep watching after the cameras left.
After July 20 they added two more demands: Don’t prosecute us, and apologize for hitting us.
They began by asking the government to fix an examination that two million children sit. They ended by asking it not to arrest them for asking.
What they were given was the minister and very little else. On compensation, the government agreed it would pay “whatever maximum possible” under existing rules for each of the more than 20 families of students who died by suicide, not the $105,000 each that the CJP demanded.
On criminal cases, protesters won a promise that nobody would be pursued in states the BJP governs — and because India’s police answer to state governments, that covered only part of the country. Since then 11 people have been arrested in West Bengal, 10 of them Muslim, six in Assam, and three protesters were injured when police opened fire in Bihar.
On the apology, the movement received nothing at all.
The CJP says it will now identify officers from protest footage and take them to court; the cameras pointed at that crowd for five weeks will become an evidence file.
But footage works both ways: A 36-second clip on a protester’s phone identified a senior officer by his own badge as he struck a woman standing at the roadside. Police accepted he had lost his composure and took him off protest duty, but he has not been suspended and no case has been registered. In other words, a protester’s phone named an officer within 48 hours, and the state answered with a change of desk.
A committee to look into what the last committee saidAnd the charter? On July 26 Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a task force to make the examination system reliable and transparent. It will be headed by Nandan Nilekani, who cofounded the software giant Infosys and built Aadhaar, the biometric identity system now held by more than a billion Indians.
New anti-leak legislation went to Parliament the next day. Pralhad Joshi, the head of two cabinet ministries, was handed the education ministry on top of his other responsibilities.
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DonateA task force is not nothing, but it is not new either. After the 2024 NEET leak, the government appointed a committee under K. Radhakrishnan, the former head of India’s space agency, to make the exams fair. Jairam Ramesh of the opposition Congress Party answered the announcement on July 26 by asking what became of it, noting that the government has still not finished implementing that committee’s 101 recommendations.
So the cockroaches asked for a statute and were handed a committee — a second committee, set up to consider what the first committee’s 101 recommendations were supposed to have fixed. A minister is only a head, a statute would have been a structure, and a task force is mostly a way of agreeing that something ought to happen later.
When the street is the only place left to complainIndia’s cockroaches are the newest arrivals in a global wave more than two years old — youth movements organized online, often under the skull-and-straw-hat flag borrowed from the manga “One Piece,” that have shaken governments from Nepal and Peru to Morocco, Madagascar and Kenya since Bangladesh’s students brought down Sheikh Hasina in 2024.
Their records should be read as a warning rather than a template. Nepal’s movement carried the rapper and Kathmandu mayor Balendra Shah to the prime ministership in March, and three and a half months later he had shown no visible progress on the inequality and unemployment that carried him there. On July 9, a 25-year-old Dalit man running a motorcycle taxi set himself on fire over a six-dollar parking fine, triggering new protests. In Madagascar, the president fled and the army installed a colonel.
What researchers keep finding is the trap the CJP now sits inside: movements built online can be remarkably effective at forcing political change, but often struggle to turn that momentum into democratic governments that remain accountable and responsive to the people who brought them to power. But the deeper problem is not how the movement was built; it is what it was built around. Mehta, the political theorist, believes that India has run out of institutional ways to lodge a complaint or make anyone answer it. “The street is our only channel,” he wrote.
That is why the cockroaches were organized the way they were. Leaderlessness was a choice, not a default — one many movements have made since the committees, the regulators and the courts stopped functioning as places where a complaint could be filed. It buys speed and makes a movement hard to decapitate. It also leaves no one authorised to sign anything.
It is also exactly why the charter has nowhere to go. There is nobody obliged to read it, and nobody left at Jantar Mantar to ask why nobody has. Every quality that made this movement impossible to stop — no leader to arrest, no office, no list — is the same quality that makes it impossible for anyone to hold the government to a promise, which is to say: The armor has led to paralysis.
The walls at Jantar Mantar have been painted over. Rinku Kumar has gone back to Nawada to teach English. The charter sits in a drawer in a ministry whose minister has resigned, and a new task force will report in due course on what the last task force recommended.
Somebody has to still be standing there in six months to ask what became of any of it. That is the one job a movement without standing structure cannot do.
The cockroaches were never short of leaders — Dipke had a stage, and the government found two names to summon within the hour. What they never built was anything that would outlive the people holding the microphone. A leader can be detained on a Monday afternoon, and Dipke was. The concessions came fast because the crowd was large. But the crowd will not likely be large in December.
Shruthi Manjula Mohan, a young professional based in New Delhi, contributed reporting and visual support to this story.
This article What India’s Cockroach Party won — and what’s next was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
How Habitat Restoration in the Montezuma Wetlands Complex is Saving Endangered Black Terns
Lack of information on Sussex County website appears to violate Virginia law
Virginia law requires counties to post the minutes, agendas and agenda packets on their websites within seven days, but Sussex County’s site includes no information on meetings before 2025 and is missing minutes from some meetings after that date.
State law § 2.2-3707.2. says, “Posting of minutes for local public bodies. Except as provided in subsection I of § 2.2-3707, any local public body subject to the provisions of this chapter shall post minutes of its meetings on its official public government website, if any, within seven working days of final approval of the minutes.”
However, attempts to access the links on the site for meetings before 2025 yield this message: “Sorry! That page doesn’t seem to exist.”
Checks & Balances Project (C&BP) has asked county supervisors, the county attorney and the commonwealth attorney for comment about the failure to provide transparent information about county government. So far, only Supervisor Thomas Baicy has responded.
“I apologize for any inconvenience incurred,” Baicy told C&BP. “When I joined the board a few years ago I brought the website issues to then county administrator Richard Douglas (recently fired ) that the website is woefully in need of an update /upgrade .
“Any inquiries should be shared with our ACTING CO ADMINISTRATOR.
“Again apologies and I hope the problem gets fixed.”
Steve White, the chair of the Sussex County Board of Supervisors, is the current acting county administrator, a position he holds in apparent violation of state law.
C&BP had to file a Freedom of Information Act request to get the minutes from the Sept. 18, 2025, meeting, which is not even listed on the county website.
Shilton Ricks-Butts, the clerk for the board of supervisors, supplied the minutes.
Minutes that are available from 2025 meetings show concerns about the county’s problems funding emergency medical services and the lack of financial information from some EMS providers, such as the Stony Creek Volunteer Rescue Service, which is run by White.
Ray Locker is the executive director for Checks & Balances Project, an investigative watchdog blog holding government officials, lobbyists, and corporate management accountable to the public. Funding for C&BP is provided by Renew American Prosperity and individual donors.
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RAFI Statement on P&S Rules Rescission
USDA is proposing to withdraw three finalized Packers and Stockyards rules intended to protect contract growers from unfair treatment. This statement explains what is at stake for growers and why RAFI believes these protections should remain in place.
The post RAFI Statement on P&S Rules Rescission appeared first on RAFI.
Correcting climate ‘misperceptions’ may not boost climate action
The general public often underestimate support for climate action, while overestimating the real-world actions taken by other people to address the problem, according to new research.
The study, published in Nature Climate Change, explores the differences between people’s support for climate change, their behaviour and their assumptions about other people’s behaviour.
It is based on multiple surveys of more than 5,000 people across Germany and the US.
The study expands on previous research on how the general public systematically underestimate the climate commitment of their peers.
The difference between actual and perceived support for climate action among the public is sometimes known as a “perception gap”.
The surveys tested how people’s perceptions of climate attitudes and behaviours relate to their own willingness to contribute and undertake “climate-friendly” actions.
One of the authors tells Carbon Brief that this perception gap is not due to “ignorance or bias”, but because “people are just not good at making good estimations”.
The research also reveals that people’s opinions and behaviours are more “nuanced than previously assumed” and suggests that simply “correcting misperceptions” does not automatically lead to greater climate action.
Measuring climate actionsThe study notes that correcting the perception gap is often seen as a “cost-effective” way to promote public engagement and drive action to reduce the intensification and impacts of climate change.
Most studies that explore the perception gap have primarily focused on surveys that have asked people to report their willingness to support climate change.
In other words, researchers have relied upon people saying they would support efforts to tackle climate change, rather than measuring people’s real-world actions, such as financial donations, attending protests or changing their behaviour.
To fill this gap, the researchers behind the new study surveyed a total of more than 5,000 people in Germany and the US over 2024-25. Surveys were split across five different experiments, each focused on public perceptions of climate attitudes and how they relate to individuals’ actual behaviour:
.cb-table tr td{ word-wrap: break-word; word-break: normal; font-size: 0.9em; } ExperimentWhat they didSurvey oneParticipants were asked if they were willing to donate 1% of their household income to WWF – and then were given the chance to do so. Follow-up questions asked participants to predict how many of their peers said “yes” and how many actually donated to the charity.Survey twoParticipants read a constitutional complaint against the German government, led by Greenpeace, which demands for stricter climate policies. They were asked if they were willing to participate as a claimant and/or donate to the cause – and then were given the chance to do so. Follow-up questions asked participants to predict how many of their peers said “yes” and how many went on to support the complaint.Survey threeParticipants were requested to complete an online “work for environmental protection task” where the more “pages” they completed resulted in more donations to WWF. They then predicted how many pages their peers completed. Participants also rated their individual behaviours and support for eight climate policies and then estimated the same for other people.Surveys four and fiveParticipants were split into three groups that were either informed that 4% of participants had donated 1% of their household income to WWF, that “68% were willing to contribute” or given no information. They then had to state whether they were willing to support WWF and then were given the opportunity to do so.The authors note that Germany and the US are two of the “top 10 CO2 emitters” and are places where climate action is “especially necessary”. However, they add that the two countries are not reflective of “diverse cultural contexts” and further research is needed across the world.
The perception gapThe researchers find that most of their participants supported climate action, but much fewer actually performed verifiable behaviours.
For example, survey one finds that 37% of participants said they were willing to donate to WWF, yet just 4% did when given the opportunity.
Participants generally overestimated the climate actions of their peers, predicting that 23% of other people donated. Willingness, on the other hand, was slightly underestimated with respondents averaging around 34%.
The results from survey three suggest that this perception gap is likely due to general cognitive processes within the human brain that make accurate estimations about large groups difficult, say the authors.
The chart below shows the actual percentage of people who supported different environmental policies and performed climate-friendly behaviours (blue dots) compared to average predictions from the surveys (red dots).
They reveal a “consistent pattern” where “small proportions were overestimated and large ones were underestimated”, the authors say, driving predictions towards the middle. This phenomenon is known as “regression to the mean”.
In other words, where public support for a policy was high, participants in the survey estimated it was lower than it was. When the support was lower, estimates would be higher.
Comparison of actual percentage (blue dots) with the mean estimated percentage (red dots) across two main categories: policy support and individual behaviours. Source: Tiede, et al (2026).The study finds that individual and environmental factors played a role in shaping people’s perceptions of their peers’ climate actions, which were distinct from general misestimations.
For example, people who were already involved in climate action, had more frequent climate discussions and consumed more climate-focused news and media predicted a higher proportion of climate support “across the board”.
The results from the fourth and fifth surveys show that knowing the context of other people’s beliefs and behaviour in surveys can impact the attitudes of participants.
Participants that were told that 68% of people were willing to donate 1% of their household income to the WWF were more willing to donate.
In contrast, participants that were told that 4% of people actually donated did not report more willingness to “discuss climate change, sign petitions or donate” than the control group.
However, there was no obvious impact on actual donations for any of the three groups, the study notes.
Lead study author Dr Kevin Tiede, scientific managing director of the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour at the University of Erfurt, tells Carbon Brief that the findings suggest that “just telling people how many people support climate action is likely not enough to really change something”.
However, Tiede adds that “direct comparability” between people saying they would donate and actually donating is “limited” and that giving people more time to answer and autonomy over where to donate might result in more people taking action.
‘Pluralistic ignorance’Tiede explains that the study findings demonstrate the existence of “pluralistic ignorance”, where a person believes their own views differ from the majority.
For climate change, this means that the “vast majority of people around the world support climate action, but people considerably underestimate the extent of this support”, the study says.
However, the surveys reveal that pluralistic ignorance “in the climate domain” is more nuanced than previously thought, say the authors.
Prof Madalina Vascleanu, an assistant professor at Stanford University’s Doerr School of Sustainability, who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that encouraging climate action is complex.
It may take multiple and repeated “attempts” at effective communication, or for people to directly “experience” the “norm” that climate change is widely supported, she says, rather than simply being told.
“Observable” behaviours, such as “identity signalling” – which could involve anything from protesting to vegetarianism – might have more of an impact on encouraging climate action among peers than “private behaviours like donations”, she adds.
The study is a “great addition to the literature”, Vascleanu says, because “correcting” the perception gap did not have an effect on climate-friendly behaviour, as “scholars had previously assumed”. She adds that it has “sparked several new hypotheses” that her “lab is now working on”.
Prof Mauro Bertolotti, associate professor of social psychology at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, explains that the “attitude-behaviour gap” revealed by the research is a “rather common finding”.
However, he is “sceptical” of the “simplified and abstract” measures, warning that experiment environments often come with “assumptions and expectations” that are different from real life.
As a result, they might not “replicate” the process people go through when choosing to “make a donation to an environmental cause”, he says.
‘Targeted’ communication strategiesThe researchers argue that it is more effective to focus on “targeted” communication strategies – encouraging climate-friendly behaviours that aim to reach the majority who already support climate action, rather than trying to convert climate sceptics.
They call for attention to be paid to the attitude-behaviour gap between people saying they support efforts to tackle climate change and following up with real-world climate actions.
The study suggests strategies for decision-makers to reduce the attitude-behaviour gap, such as “facilitating climate-friendly behaviour” with “convenience and subsidies”. They also recommend ensuring environmental policy prioritises fairness to gain visible and widespread public support.
They add that the public would benefit from understanding the “effectiveness and co-benefits” of climate action.
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Related Scientists are ‘most trusted’ source of climate information in global-south survey 22.08.2025 Public opinion Survey: ‘Very few’ Africans place responsibility for climate action on ‘rich nations’ 10.04.2025 Public opinion Guest post: How public attitudes towards ‘CO2 removal’ differ in the UK and US 07.07.2020 Geoengineering Guest post: How ‘discourses of delay’ are used to slow climate action 06.07.2020 Public opinionThe post Correcting climate ‘misperceptions’ may not boost climate action appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Trump administration works to erase Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments – 7.30.26
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 30, 2026
Trump administration works to erase Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments Removal of signage for both National Monuments conducted in recent daysContacts:
Grant Stevens, Communications Director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA); (319) 427-0260; grant@suwa.org
Amy Dominguez, Deputy Press Secretary, Sierra Club, (385) 355-4631; amy.dominguez@sierraclub.org
Caitlyn Burford, Senior Communications Manager, National Parks Conservation Association, cburford@npca.org, (541) 371-6452
Perry Wheeler, Earthjustice, pwheeler@earthjustice.org, (202) 792-6211
SOUTHERN UTAH – Just over two weeks since President Trump decimated Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments, the administration is racing ahead with its work to try and erase the National Monuments from both the landscape and public awareness. Last week, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) removed signage from Bears Ears National Monument, starting with the Tribal seals representing the 5 Tribes of the Bears Ears Commission and quickly escalating to the complete removal of the monument signs themselves. By Tuesday, July 28, signs signifying the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument had also been removed from at least 5 gateway locations.
These signs play a practical role. They mark the entrances to the national monuments for visitors, indicating that these areas are some of the nation’s most important protected public landscapes that together protect over a hundred thousand ancestral cultural sites. By clearly communicating to visitors that this is an irreplaceable area created to protect significant cultural and archeological resources, proper signage can help prevent damage. Removing monument gateway signs, coupled with the administration’s illegal reduction of more than 3 million acres from the monuments, will lead to confusion, uncertainty, and chaos on the ground and in surrounding communities.
The removal of signage carries particular significance at Bears Ears. The signs made visible the role of Tribal Nations in co-managing and stewarding their ancestral lands. Removing Tribal recognition from these public lands erases an indelible part of the landscape. The five Tribal seals were removed from the Bears Ears monument signs following the proclamation that terminated the Bears Ears Commission. The seals represented the formal role of the five Commission Tribes in the collaborative management of their ancestral homelands. Their removal is a visible sign of the dismantling of that framework, but it does not change the Tribes’ connection to the living cultural landscape or their responsibility to care for it.
The Trump Administration’s efforts to erase history are not new. Over the last year, efforts by the administration to erase or alter historical interpretation on public lands, including removing signs and displays across national parks, have been met with strong public opposition. People have made it clear that parks and monuments should reflect the full history of these places, including the histories, cultures, and living traditions of Tribal Nations. The Salt Lake Tribune, Outside, and other news outlets covered the removal of the Bear Ears signage. Additional information and quotes can be found below.
“Make no mistake, overseeing the removal of gateway signs welcoming visitors to Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments is a part of the plan by the Trump administration and Senators Lee and Curtis and Governor Cox to try and eliminate the monuments from the nation’s collective memory,” said Steve Bloch, Legal Director at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “They’re going to find that it won’t be that easy; attacking public lands has consequences. Americans love their national parks and monuments and ‘won’t let them ‘go gently into that good night.’”
“Removing the signage at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is another example of taking action without prior consent or adequate preparation. It is exactly what we expect from this administration,” said Dr. Jackie Grant, Executive Director at Grand Staircase Escalante Partners. “The signs at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument do not just mark the boundary, they keep visitors safe by providing them with navigational markers and on the ground information. The signs should have stayed in place until a replacement solution was ready to go.”
“Removing the signs that announce protected public lands is deeply alarming, and symbolizes the attempted erasure this Administration is undertaking of landscapes that are profoundly meaningful,” said Chapter Director of the Sierra Club in Utah, Franque Bains. “But wiping their existence won’t go without resistance. Utahns have shown up time and time again to defend Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Bears Ears, and this time won’t be any different. We won’t let it.”
“Removing the Tribal seals from Bears Ears first, then tearing down the gateway signs at Grand Staircase-Escalante, tells you everything you need to know about this administration’s priorities,” said Axie Navas, director of designation campaigns at The Wilderness Society. “These monuments exist because Tribal Nations and communities across Utah fought to protect places that belong to all of us. Erasing that history from a roadside sign doesn’t erase our responsibility to pass these lands down intact, so future generations have the same freedom to experience them as we do today.”
“While the Trump administration is removing signage in its attempt to dismantle Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, this destructive gesture does not decide the monuments’ fate,” said Thomas Delehanty, senior attorney with Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain Office. “Just as we did with Trump’s 2017 revocations, we will challenge these illegal rollbacks in court. The intent of the Antiquities Act was clear: to protect our nation’s archaeological, cultural, and scientific wonders; not to destroy them.”
“You can tear down signs, but you cannot erase the history, cultural significance, or overwhelming public support behind Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments,” said Chris Hill, CEO of the Conservation Lands Foundation. “Removing monument signs and the Tribal seals diminishes the lived history and our shared understanding of the cultural continuity that these treasured landscapes hold for the Tribes and all of us. These lands remain sacred, beloved, and worth fighting for. Communities across the country will not allow this administration to erase them from the map or our collective memory.”
“President Trump’s proclamations to gut Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments were already an unlawful betrayal of Tribal Nations and the American people. Now, the rush to remove the names and Tribal seals from the landscape feels deliberately dismissive of the Tribes whose histories, cultures, and enduring relationships are inseparable from these ancestral homelands,” said Cory MacNulty, Southwest Campaign Director at the National Parks Conservation Association. “The proclamations did more than reduce monument boundaries. They dismantled historic Tribal co-stewardship structures that recognized Tribal Nations as leaders in the care and management of their ancestral lands. Visitors deserve opportunities to understand their profound significance to Indigenous peoples, not federal efforts that conceal, diminish, or erase those connections.”
Background information about the national monument reductions:
- Statements from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal coalitions
- SUWA Statement on Trump’s Illegal Reductions of Grand Staircase-Escalante & Bears Ears National Monuments
- Full statement and quotes tracking
- Maps of the reductions
- Reporter Background Memo on National Monuments
- Royalty-free assets for media use, please credit creators
- Photos of places cut from Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument available here (Google album) and here (Google drive).
- Photos of places cut from Bears Ears National Monument available here (Google album) and here (Google drive).
- Video b-roll of Bears Ears for media use is available here
###
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is a nonprofit organization with members and supporters from around the country dedicated to protecting America’s redrock wilderness. From offices in Moab, Salt Lake City, and Washington, DC, our team of professionals defends the redrock, organizes support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, and stewards a world-renowned landscape. Learn more at www.suwa.org.
The post Trump administration works to erase Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments – 7.30.26 appeared first on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.
Clearing the Air: Reducing Health Risks from Diesel Pollution
The post Clearing the Air: Reducing Health Risks from Diesel Pollution appeared first on ANHE.
Factcheck: No, Europe is not having its ‘quietest’ year for wildfires
In recent days, prominent climate sceptics and rightwing commentators have shared charts on social media incorrectly implying that Europe is having its “quietest” year for wildfires in 2026.
These include Dr Matthew Wielicki, a former University of Alabama geochemist and self-described “professor in exile”, who was recently appointed by the Trump administration to lead the US Global Change Research Program.
However, these charts paint a misleading picture as they are skewed by encompassing the entirety of Russia in the data – including the vast plains of Siberia.
These charts also use data that include fires that are deliberately lit to manage cropland, which is a declining practice across much of Europe.
In this factcheck, Carbon Brief shows that the area burned by wildfires across the European Union in 2026 is second only to 2022 for this time of year.
The latest data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) also shows that France has set a new modern record for area burned and Spain’s wildfire season is among the worst on record.
The fires have displaced more than a third of a million people across south-western Europe, while an impending heatwave has also raised fears of the fires worsening in the coming days.
‘Quietest year’On 27 July, as wildfires raged across multiple European countries, former Conservative peer and climate-sceptic commentator Matt Ridley posted on Twitter that “2026 is the quietest year for wildfires in Europe by some distance”.
.cb-tweet img{ border: solid 1.25px #333333; border-radius: 5px; } @media (max-width:650px){ .cb-tweet{ width:100%; } }Ridley, who sits on the academic advisory council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a UK-based climate-sceptic lobby group that refuses to reveal the sources of its funding, was responding to an article by Daily Telegraph columnist Tim Stanley.
Stanley’s column, headlined: “Climate change is real – and the right needs to get serious about it”, warned:
“This is no longer a matter of speculation: the wildfires of Europe, pitiless and persistent, are the way we live now.”
Ridley included a chart from Our World In Data, showing the cumulative area burned by wildfires by week for Europe. The chart puts 2026 as having the smallest area for this time of year in a dataset going back to 2012.
Ridley’s post was widely shared by prominent rightwing figures – including Richard Tice, deputy leader of the hard-right, climate-sceptic Reform UK party, former Conservative cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg and multiple commentators.
Ridley repeated the claim of Europe having a “quiet” year for wildfires in an article for the Spectator, which was reprinted in the Daily Mail.
Separately, Wielicki also shared a chart on Twitter to imply that wildfires in Europe are declining. Wielicki has previously claimed that the “science is not settled on climate change”.
Author and self-styled “sceptical environmentalist” Bjorn Lomborg has also shared similar charts on Twitter.
These charts all use data from the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS). The GWIS category for “Europe” encompasses all the countries on the continent and includes the whole of Russia.
As a result, Russia accounts for about 74% of the area included in the GWIS definition of “Europe”.
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Dr Calum Cunningham, a research fellow at the University of Tasmania’s Fire Centre, says that such claims are “highly misleading”, noting that “they rely on aggregating fire activity across an enormous and climatically diverse region”. He tells Carbon Brief:
“A relatively quiet season in Russia can easily mask an exceptionally active season in France or Spain. If the analysis is focused on the regions actually experiencing the current fires, the picture is very different.
“The reality is that western Europe has experienced an extraordinary sequence of climate conditions this year.”
In contrast, the EFFIS provides a subset of wildfire data specifically for the area covered by the 27 nations of the EU, which, therefore, excludes Russia.
Another difference between the two datasets is that GWIS monitors all fires – including those on agricultural land that are intentionally set alight. The burned area as measured by GWIS contains significant cropland area.
By contrast, EFFIS uses land-cover data and other information to filter specifically for forest fires.
Looking at the EU-only data from EFFIS reveals that Europe is far from having its “quietest” year. The bloc’s burned area, as of 29 July, is almost 435,000 hectares (ha) – second only to 2022 for this time of year.
Notably, Wielicki has actually continued to post charts based on GWIS data, even after acknowledging that “includ[ing] all of Russia, including vast areas of Siberia…isn’t a good proxy for Europe”.
French firesEven looking at EU-wide data misses the scale of this year’s wildfires for some individual countries.
The chart below shows the surge in burned area in France since mid-July.
For much of the first half of the year, the country was having a wildfire season that was only slightly above average in terms of total burned area. However, a notable uptick began in the first week of July.
The third week of the month saw France break its previous cumulative annual record by more than 19,000ha. That gap has widened as the fires continue to burn; as of 29 July, the cumulative burned area in France during 2026 was nearly 24,700ha above the previous record.
The fires in France follow a record-breaking June heatwave that “dried out vegetation across the region, allowing fires to spread quickly”, wrote the New York Times.
On 27 July, French president Emmanuel Macron called a “crisis cabinet meeting” in order to address the fires “ravaging several areas of south-west France”, said France 24.
More than 220,000 people have been evacuated due to the Gironde fire, west of Bordeaux, in “what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation”, reported the Associated Press.
In the Conversation, Cunningham and two other University of Tasmania researchers write that evacuation orders “protec[t] human lives, but makes it more likely houses and other structures will burn if there’s no one to defend them”. They add:
“There is little doubt climate change has made France and Spain’s wildfires worse. They represent yet another reason to redouble our efforts to tackle climate change and stabilise our climate.”
Central Spain scorchedWhile Spain’s fire season has not broken records in the same way that France’s has, it is on track to be among the worst since EFFIS began reporting data in 2006.
The chart below shows the rapid increase in burned area in Spain since 8 July. The latest data from EFFIS reveal that, as of 29 July, Spain has almost matched its previous record at this point in the year. It is also nearly five times the average area burned for this time of year.
In Spain, the wildfires have been concentrated in the central part of the country, near Madrid.
BBC News reported that the fires outside the capital have burned “an area more than twice as large as the city itself”.
Nearly 90,000 people were forced from their homes in central Spain by the fires, said the Associated Press.
Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, called the fires a “painful expression” of climate change.
Meanwhile, the UK, French and Spanish governments have issued joint statements this week in response to the fires. The UK/Spain statement begins:
“This summer’s wildfires demonstrated that climate change was now a national security emergency facing Europe and threatening our way of life.”
updated
This article was updated on 31/07/2026 to include Matt Ridley’s Spectator and Daily Mail articles.
Related Mapped: How climate change affects extreme weather around the world 19.03.2026 Attribution Climate change made ‘fire weather’ in Chile and Argentina three times more likely 11.02.2026 Attribution Global wildfires burned an area of land larger than India in 2024 16.10.2025 Land and soils Analysis: Record UK wildfires have burned an area twice the size of Glasgow in 2025 08.08.2025 Extreme weatherThe post Factcheck: No, Europe is not having its ‘quietest’ year for wildfires appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Dr. Green: Can Embracing Green Spaces Help Reunite Communities?
Our previous column addressed a reader’s questions about the psychological benefits of green spaces. This time we examine their follow-up question:
I guess my secondary question is, can sharing this science help persuade these anti-tax activists?
Yes, but it depends on how you present the pro-green space science.
You want to win hearts and minds, so tell a story about how beautiful your town will be when it has green spaces in which folks can meet their neighbors, exercise, observe holidays and celebrations, give kids a place to play that isn’t concrete or asphalt, and relax in the shade of hot summer days. Try not to present overly academic or dry facts in boring charts and graphs; just talk about how research has shown the benefits of green spaces for human use.
Stay positive and pleasant while you make a strong case for more green spaces in your town. If you know someone who’s an illustrator or artist, maybe they can draw some of the town’s landmarks and green them up so people can visualize how nice places can be when they’re enhanced with greenery.
Stay away from “I, me, my” statements. Actively listen to the opposition without interrupting. Watch and listen to great speakers from the past and present — they’re succinct and confident in debates. Journalist Medhi Hassan has written an excellent book on debating, persuading, and public speaking that you can study to help make your case in town council meetings and other community venues.
Above all remain calm, matter of fact, and cool-headed — especially if the opponents to your ideas take a more aggressive approach. Don’t allow the opposition to goad you into reducing your presentation or discussion to yelling or name-calling.
The Social Contract: A Lost Art in the Modern Age
We’ve probably all seen the divisiveness between community members on display at town council meetings, where fights over town resources and policies take an ugly turn. Sociologically and psychologically each community has been influenced long before we got to those town meetings. Powerful forces aim to break our sense of cohesion, making us hostile and rude to anyone who doesn’t agree with our suggestions to improve our common public spaces.
In part the current epidemic of loneliness has been caused by those forces; ruling elites have long understood that they could secure their wealth and power by using a divide-and-conquer strategy against the less powerful, particularly by “othering” them.
Divisive rhetorical tactics have been planned, curated, and disseminated by ruling-class proxies and media since ancient times, and new social platforms have helped to keep people in their silos and sow seeds of discontent — including about things that should be uncontroversial, like spending a few tax dollars to make our communities better places to live.
Green spaces are actually a great way to break that cycle of alienation and reestablish the social contract. Historically the concept of the “town green” emerged from a central area that served as a communal hub for civic, social, and recreational life. The answer to reuniting the common people today is to listen and learn from each other to find the common ground or town green beliefs we share.
So how do we start listening and talking without friction?
One way is by re-embracing a simple and classic idea: the Social Contract sociopolitical model developed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the mid-1700s. It makes the case for a community government based on the good of the people, creating a society where laws are created for the common good, holding above all personal liberty and equality. It was the defining belief system behind the French Revolution and contemporary democratic philosophy.
The concepts in the Social Contract can help guide your presentation by framing mutual respect for maximum efficacy. Psychological skills to develop include:
- Active listening — Listen without interrupting, maintain eye contact, and turn your cell phone off; give each other undivided attention, ask follow-up questions, and try to respect what the other person is saying without dominating the conversation.
- Emotional intelligence — Keeping everyone’s ego intact. If you must offer corrections or difficult truths, do so gently and privately to protect the other person’s dignity.
- Reading the Room — Assess the mood and temperament of the people around you before diving into a heavy or highly energetic topic.
- Boundaries — Social harmony comes from respecting the social scripts and boundaries others set.
- Manners — Traditional, universal practices that keep a civil society together and are effective in not “othering.” These are often reflected in the golden rules, which include treating others as you wish to be treated; showing respect for boundaries; saying “please,” “thank you,” “you’re welcome,” and “excuse me”; and avoiding talking politics or religion until you’re sure of the social landscape around you.
Approaching oppositional individuals using manners, active listening, emotional intelligence, and boundaries can help us easily find common ground and agreement — about green spaces or other equally important topics.
Get back to us on how it goes and if meeting oppositional neighbors halfway with kind and positive persuasion has helped green up your community.
Cheers,
Dr. Green
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Disclaimer: This column is not a replacement for therapy, and the advice given is educational in nature, not a replacement for professional psychological or psychiatric therapy. This is a peer-driven support effort by The Revelator to inform and build community with environmental and wildlife defenders.
If you are feeling critically depressed and suicidal, it’s time to immediately find professional help. Go to your closest emergency room or call the following numbers to get immediate help in your area:
SUICIDE HOTLINES
Worldwide: http://www.befrienders.org/support/
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Resources
Dr. Green: Why Some People and Groups Become Resistant to Science
The Social Contract and Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau is FREE online
7 Active Listening Techniques for Better Communication by Arlin Cuncic, MA (2026)
Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking by Mehdi Hasan
How Othering Contributes to Discrimination and Prejudice: The psychology behind us vs. them by Kendra Cherry, MSEd
Lisa’s Top 25 Etiquette Tips | Golden Rules Gal
Active Listening Techniques: Best Practices for Leaders, based on research by Diane Bergeron, PhD and Andy Loignon, PhD
Revising the Golden Rule for Lasting Social Harmony: Successful social living requires treating people as they want to be treated by Dr. Timothy A Carey Ph.D.
The post Dr. Green: Can Embracing Green Spaces Help Reunite Communities? appeared first on The Revelator.
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