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The intriguing subtitle of Clara E. Mattei’s Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention suggests that the author has some fresh observation or insight to add to existing analyses of movements that have threatened capitalism’s existence. A Marxist reader of the book might expect, perhaps, that Mattei intends to complement (or correct?) the summary and analysis offered by Colin Barker in the last chapter of Revolutionary Rehearsals, in which he discusses the conditions, commonalities, and potential of the five monumental workers’ struggles covered in that volume.

Mattei, an economist currently working at the University of Tulsa, does, in fact, describe what she sees as the path towards ending capitalism, although it comes in the last ten pages of the book (more on this below). The rest of the book consists primarily of a critique of capitalism, along with a particular thesis about the role of economists and economic theory in maintaining what she calls the “capital order.” That thesis, in turn, motivates the prescription she eventually offers.

Most of the critique of capitalism Mattei presents – and even much of her discussion of mainstream economic theory – is basic to Marxism. One is tempted, therefore, to view it as a sort of primer, written for those just beginning to consider that a different economic order is necessary and possible. Here is how she herself describes her audience (p. 14):

This book is for all those who wake up in the morning with a sense of profound dissatisfaction. I intend to challenge the fatalist notion that nothing can change and the individualist notion that it is all our fault, or the fault of those weaker than us. Instead, I want to clarify that classist economic decisions are the basis of the major problems afflicting our time. I want to clarify the mechanisms that oppress us and identify the freedoms for which we must fight.

Portions of this book might work well as an introduction to anti-capitalist discourse. But her ideas (non-Marxist, as I read them) regarding economics and the primacy of economic ideas in maintaining capitalism—and certainly her concluding prescription—require separate analysis.

Mattei walks us through several basic tenets of socialist thinking: Capitalism is a historically specific system, quite new in human history; it came into being via violent processes, often supported by states, that led to complete dependency on market exchange for human survival; it is a class-based system in which political power is relatively autonomous from economic power; its “freedom”—the freedom of the marketplace—contrasts with the unfreedom of the workplace; its dynamics lead to outrageous, continually reproduced inequalities (both within nations and between “developed” and “underdeveloped” ones); and its tendency to increase productivity comes at the cost of bouts of unemployment for workers.

Her characterization of neoclassical economic theory is also quite standard: Beginning in the late nineteenth century, economists presented their science as a “natural” one based on allegedly eternal characteristics of human behavior and capable of being applied with the mathematical precision of the physical sciences. Those economists quite consciously saw their project as countering Marxist and other class-based theories of the capitalist economy, as well as providing a basis for what eventually became macroeconomic management of it. What is non-standard in Mattei’s discussion, though, is how she uses the term “political”: She applies it to the power that capitalists have to make economic decisions regarding investment and production, as well as to the more formal political power that governments and central banks have to influence the economy. It is in this sense that she presents mainstream economic theory as “depoliticized”: The theory ignores the power of capitalists to manage production and influence market prices.

Economics itself, on the other hand, is (as Mattei announces in the title of her introduction) “a political act.” She begins by discussing the world’s first international economic conference, organized by the League of Nations in the aftermath of World War I. Concerned about the militant and often revolutionary workers’ movements of that period and fearing the destabilizing consequences of mounting worldwide inflation, the assembled industrialists, financiers, politicians, and economists resolved to implement austerity measures. In order to force the entitled and morally deficient workers to “work hard, live hard, save hard” (in the words of one of the English delegates), they argued, social welfare spending should be slashed.

Mattei traces the origins of the use of economic theory to support austerity policies to this historical episode. The starkest applications of these policies are in cases where authoritarian governments assumed power in the wake of militant workers’ movements or other systemic threats to capitalism.

Benito Mussolini’s fascism is the classic—and primordial—case. Italy’s postwar “Red Biennium,” characterized by factory occupations and increasingly political workers’ councils, had to be ended. Weakening the workers’ movement by both physical violence and austerity measures—cutting social welfare spending, raising interest rates, and shifting tax burdens from capitalists to workers—was exactly what the fascist regime implemented. In Mattei’s telling, economists played a central role. Maffeo Pantaleoni, a founder of neoclassical economic theory, had become a fascist, as had his protege Alberto De Stefani, and they along with two liberal economists became a sort of brain trust to Mussolini.

The case Mattei makes linking the new “pure economics” of mathematical equations to austerity and even violently authoritarian policies is a strong one. Her first book, The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way for Fascism is primarily an exploration of this point. (See David McNally’s interview with Mattei in Spectre). In Escape from Capitalism, she quotes Luigi Einaudi, one of the liberal economists who eventually advised Mussolini and who later became the first president of the post-Mussolini republic (p. 58):

When the worst happened … and the occupation of factories by armed workers and the institution of Soviets in factories seemed to point to an imminent communist revolution in Italy … [y]ouths of the middle class indignantly grouped themselves into “fasci”. … The communists are everywhere defeated … This renewed feeling of hope in the future of our country is not the least important cause of the better tone in foreign exchanges.

The glowing praise these economists afford to the National Fascist Party is matched by their reverence for the new, “objective” economic theory: “a nucleus of doctrines that are independent of opinions, as well as of ethical, political and religious predilections. Something akin to physics and mathematics.” And Mattei herself, referring to the austerity prescribed by the international conferences shortly preceding the advent of fascism, characterizes what she considers a pivotal moment in the relation between this young theory and state policy:

The experts … knew for sure … that the logic of capitalism would not recover without forceful intervention by the state, which would weaken the workers by transferring resources from the many to the few. Here lies the quintessential achievement of macroeconomics as it has long been practiced, modifying and disciplining citizens’ behavior by fiscal and monetary policy. (p. 56)

Elsewhere Mattei discusses other instances when economists have advised authoritarian regimes, for example,the “Chicago boys” sent by the U.S. State Department to work with Augusto Pinochet in Chile and the international economists who prescribed “shock therapy” for Boris Yeltsin’s post-Soviet Russian government. She also reminds us that economically prescribed austerity is not limited to such regimes. The U.S. Federal Reserve uses interest rates—sometimes in an extreme way as in the “Volcker Shock” of 1979—to tame inflation by causing unemployment and reducing workers’ purchasing power. Fed and Treasury officials (she mentions Janet Yellen and Jerome Powell) sometimes say the “quiet part” out loud by announcing that “pain” is necessary to reduce inflation.

A case can be made that austerity in some form is an essential and permanent feature of capitalism, depending on one’s definition of austerity. But I think Mattei overstates her contention that capitalism’s need for austerity is the primary driver of mainstream economic thinking. Is it right to view “transferring resources from the many to the few” as the “quintessential achievement of macroeconomics” that enables the “logic of capitalism” to recover? Redistributive policies in particular – transfers from rich to poor – (always limited in scope and time, as Mattei correctly argues) are sometimes prescribed (in order to increase demand) by the same macroeconomics profession that in other circumstances recommends austerity. And certainly the vast infusions of capital by the state that we witnessed after the 2008 crash (in this case “bailing out” financial institutions to avert catastrophic collapse) must be considered as a significant macroeconomic achievement.

Part of Mattei’s central thesis seems to be that mainstream economic theory was developed for the purpose of weakening the working class, and that economists have played a leading role in attacks by the state on labor. I think this both overstates the role of theory and presents its application in too crude a form. But she even goes further, and attributes to economists the creation of an ideological misapprehension of the world that grips everyone living under capitalism.

She is surely correct in saying that mainstream theory obscures class distinctions and mystifies the functioning of a capitalist economy. It also, as she argues, puts a veneer of objectivity and inevitability behind policy prescriptions. But her “intervention” regarding the elimination of capitalism appears to consist of the claim that academic economic theory creates an ideological barrier that impedes anticapitalist initiatives, along with suggestions for how to breach that barrier.

As with other aspects of her argument, she indicates right away in the introduction where she will be going:

I wrote this book to expose how that dominant message [of academic economics] blinds us to alternative economies. … By hiding the true nature of the economic system, they atrophy our minds, blocking any possibility of transformative action. But it is possible to escape from capitalism. (p. 11)

And a bit further on:

We must re-democratize the economy… That is a better way forward than anything capitalism has or can offer. What is the first step in this direction? It is a radical change of perspective. Only if we learn to look at the world differently can we act differently… The time is ripe to turn towards a truly modern study of economics built from the works of classical political economy. (p. 13)

In these passages Mattei appears to suggest that those looking for alternatives to capitalism need first to go through a process of rejecting mainstream economic theory. For the moment, we can put aside the question of whom she considers to be the subject, or agent, of economic change. (Who are the “we” who need to think differently: intellectuals? workers? everybody?) We can also ignore the fact that socialists have studied “the works of classical political economy” and attempted to apply them in new conditions for over 150 years, and overlook what it means to “re-democratize” an economy which has at no time since hunter-gather societies been democratic. Let us simply examine Mattei’s prescription for “escaping” capitalism in its own terms.

The route by which we can end capitalism, according to Mattei, becomes fully clear in the book’s last chapter, entitled “Democracy is Anti-Capitalism.” Most of what she has to say in that chapter regarding the limits of democracy under capitalism is, again, quite standard. One could quibble with the fact that she claims capitalism limits democracy to electoralism: She ignores liberal (or “bourgeois”) democratic rights (like freedom of speech) and legally granted rights like the right to form unions, etc., though of course those rights have definite limits.

Perhaps the last ten pages of the book, though, which contain her prescription for the escape route, should have been put into a separate chapter. Here she first reprises what she has said in the introduction:

The first step toward change is to lay bare that what counts as a social failure is not at all a failure for the logic of capital. To fight this inhumane logic that organizes our society, we must abandon the mystifying language of neoclassical economics in favor of a simple but profound explanation of our economic system, which can shake our beliefs and spur us into action…. What would happen if the majority of the people realized that in the last three years, about two-thirds of the wealth created has gone into the hands of 1 percent of the global population? (p. 107)

Is she really arguing here that it is primarily “the mystifying language of neoclassical economics” that holds back workers and others in struggling to meet their needs? Do “the majority of the people” view the world as presented in an Econ 101 textbook? The majority already believe that wealth increases most among the already wealthy! If realizing the errors of capitalist macroeconomics could itself “spur us into action,” revolutionary movements would long since have become common.

Let her continue:

I am often pressed with the question “So what do you suggest? Revolution?”. In our imagination, the term “revolution” is associated with something bloody, barbaric, and wrong. But it shouldn’t have to be…Each of us can take steps to politicize our lives. And by “politicize” I mean participate in the transformation of the material and social reality around us. The steps can be as small as connecting with your neighbors to build community. (pp. 108-109)

The Marxist notion of revolution and its centering of working-class agency don’t seem to play a role here. But Mattei does offer examples of what she means by the transformation of reality: Students can organize against their institution’s investment in corporations that profit from human rights violations; citizens can vote against and protest cuts to public welfare spending; they can also pressure politicians to raise taxes on the rich. None of these, though, create a society “that is based on different principles.” For that, people have to begin to organize production collectively.

Mattei tells us that the world is “brimming” with such organizations, and proceeds to discuss some of them. She mentions an agroecological commune outside of Sao Paolo, Brazil and its connection to Brazil’s landless workers movement (MST), whose democratic structure she emphasizes. This collective management of rural production by the direct producers is complemented by urban factory production; she cites fifty self-managed factories in Brazil and another four hundred in Argentina. “The idea that private capital is essential for production and investment is a myth. …Alternatives to private investment are real, from collective ownership by workers to public investment.”

It appears, then, that the society Mattei hopes we can escape to is one consisting of worker co-ops and state-funded infrastructure. This of course is no new model; various versions of “market socialism” have advanced similar prescriptions. All of these, though, and particularly ones that envision the achievement of full social change by means of incremental steps, fail to consider that market dependence makes the same demands (to increase productivity, undercut the competition, and attract new financial resources) that capitalism does. If it were possible to put such models into practice, they would, in short order, reproduce capitalism.

A real assault on capitalist power requires certain conditions that cannot simply be brought about by growing numbers of individuals freeing their minds from the straitjacket of neoclassical economics and taking steps towards collective action. Among the indicators that such conditions exist, to be sure, is the organization of production and distribution by workers themselves. But the existence of worker co-ops in the context of a capitalist economy is not itself an indicator of potentially revolutionary conditions.

Such conditions have in fact existed in the last century, sometimes in individual countries (France 1968, Portugal 1974, etc.) and once in an entire continent: Europe after the first world war. Earlier in the book, Mattei discusses this period, mentioning events in Germany, Hungary and Britain before going into more detail regarding Italy’s “Red Biennium.” While she points out the massive extent of the movement for “popular self-government,” and does mention Turin’s workers’ councils and their democratic structure, she spends more time on the role of politicians and socialist intellectuals. Here she highlights the role of Antonio Gramsci and his comrades writing in L’Ordine Nuovo. That publication chronicled, and reflected on, the factory councils that had begun to control and organize production democratically.

Mattei comments on the interplay between workers’ self-activity and the intellectual reflections which led to new theoretical conclusions and suggestions about what would be necessary to reconstitute society: “L’Ordine Nuovo contributed to the deep conviction that no true social revolution is possible without a revolution in the way we understand society. Gramsci named this mutually reinforcing connection between theory and collective action ‘praxis’” (p. 54).

This formulation implies, as Mattei does elsewhere, that liberatory ideas have to precede liberatory activity. But further down the same page she writes:

Gramsci and his comrades now understood that emancipatory knowledge had to emerge from collective organizing in the workplace and could thus support action from the bottom up. As “absolutely original institutions” of the proletariat, the councils functioned as nuclei of a new state.

The first sentence of this passage can be read as generally consistent with her discussion at the end of the book, apparently identifying the transition away from capitalism with the proliferation of worker cooperatives and increased state participation in the economy.

But the second sentence provides a stark contrast, especially in its reference to a new state form. In her closing discussion, Mattei refers to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s public housing initiatives and Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada’s construction of community centers as examples proving that private capital is dispensible. Clearly, she is referring here to the existing state apparatus, and indicates no need for that capitalist state to be replaced by something else.

This seems in contradiction with a discussion earlier in this final chapter, quoting Ralph Miliband’s The State in Capitalist Society, and pointing out that political parties participating in government act to uphold capitalism, even when they oppose the interests of particular capitalists. She does not seem to recognize, let alone attempt to resolve, this contradiction. One wonders whether she has considered the difference between the European workers’ councils of 1917-1922 and the contemporary South American cooperatives she has mentioned.

In the end we are left wondering whether Mattei believes that the kind of movement exemplified by the early 20th century workers’ councils is necessary to bring capitalism to an end, or whether, perhaps, they only represented the requirements of an earlier era. Indeed, from what she says in this volume, it would appear that we do not now need much investigation or analysis of social movements and their history in order to develop the ideas we need.

I do think, though, that a book covering some of the same material, perhaps equally as short and written for a newly radicalizing audience, would be useful. I’m not sure if a book of this nature about the Europe-wide workers’ movement after World War I exists – something along the lines of China Mieville’s October (about the Russian Revolution) and much shorter than Pierre Broue’s brilliant, 900-page The German Revolution, 1917-1923. Given Mattei’s argument about the usefulness of unemployment for capitalism in weakening labor, perhaps a historical survey and statistical analysis – again, for a popular audience – correlating high unemployment with a weak labor movement and low unemployment with a strong one would be another useful contribution.

Mattei’s own earlier work The Capital Order, linking economic theory with fascism, is itself such a book. Perhaps we can expect another from her.

The author would like to thank Charles Post and Sam Salour for very helpful conversations and comments on a draft of this review.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”

The post Can shattering capitalist economic theory lead to revolution?  appeared first on Tempest.

“The Hub” is a weekly round-up of transportation related news in the Philadelphia area and beyond. Check back weekly to keep up-to-date on the issues Clean Air Council’s transportation staff finds important.

As exciting events continue in Philadelphia, learn how you can get around to major summer 2026 events without a car, or being stuck in traffic with GoPhillyGo: Car-Free Routes Map!

Image Source: WHYY

WHYY: After SEPTA’s summer success, riders fear momentum could stall – This year’s state budget once again failed to provide dedicated transit funding, and advocates worry support and momentum could decline. Over 155,000 riders were moved by SEPTA to and from FIFA World Cup matches, and the agency rose to the occasion. Previous emergency funding diverted by SEPTA will expire in July 2027, which will result in a fiscal cliff without state intervention.

Image Source: WHYY

Billy Penn: Philly’s smart loading zones are a boon or a plague, depending on who you ask – Automatic camera systems on 23 blocks of Chestnut, Walnut, and Sansom streets in Center City have issues an average of 8,000 tickets per month, for unregistered drivers parking in smart loading zones. The zones are meant for commercials vehicles, and by registering and enforcing these vehicles, surrounding areas have seen a decrease in illegal parking and idling. Bike and fire lanes are more open, and pedestrians have clearer walkways. This represents an ongoing shift for the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA) towards automated enforcement, with officers going through the images, verifying license plate scans, and if necessary, issuing tickets.

Image Source: PhillyVoice

PhillyVoice: SEPTA to close 2 trolley lines this weekend to replace rails – Two trolley lines in Delaware County will temporarily close this weekend, and service will be replaced with shuttle buses through Sunday. Starting on Friday, sections of Landsdowne Avenue will be closed through Monday evening to vehicles. The D1 and D2 trolleys will be paused through Sunday, and bus Route 115 will also be detoured around the construction. 

Other Stories

Mainline Times: Ardmore Rock N’ Ride celebrates 10 years, will also host state criterium finals 

Metro Philadelphia: Pine Road bridge in Fox Chase to close through summer 2027 

CBS Pittsburgh: New legislation in Pittsburgh removes loophole to prevent vehicles from parking on sidewalks 

Mass Transit Mag: NJ Transit offers discounts, but not to these riders. That needs to change, groups say 

Philadelphia Today: Century-Old Philadelphia Bridge Left to Decay as Preservationists Demand Action 

PhillyVoice: Camden County bridge closes for 3 months to undergo repairs 

Inside Climate News: In Philadelphia’s Chinatown, a Fight to Restore Funding for a Critical Highway Cap

Utilities are spending billions to modernize the grid but the system responsible for billing customers is not keeping up, writes GridX CCO Scott Engstrom.

Constellation Energy expects Texas’ Batch Zero large load interconnection process will resume without “meaningful delay.”

Revelator readers enjoy a love of wildlife and wild places around the world.  Our new Revelator Gallery showcases readers’ wildlife and landscape photos, artwork, and other projects and creative efforts.

Here is an American bumblebee foraging in my yard! I was walking around early one morning taking pictures of insects and snapped this one with my phone not knowing who it was!” — Tierra Curry, senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity (Kentucky)

“A little coyote friend on a nearby island. Coyotes started swimming to the island from the mainland a decade ago and now they’re helping keep the deer and rodent populations in balance.” — Jennifer Molidor, senior food campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity (California)

“My recent bobcat visitation at my home in Danville, California. She held safe in my fenced backyard with her two kittens for about 10 days in May, 2026!” — Brian Uitti

“This black racer was enjoying the sunshine in our grass. Being very quiet, I approached it and watched it decide which way to go. Glad to have him around!” — Elizabeth Massie (Virginia)

Artist are welcome, too. Here are some samples for inspiration: 

Sample of Wildlife Art Sample of Wildlife Textile Art Example of Wildlife Art, Painting Guidelines to get your masterpiece into the Revelator Gallery:

• • Original photos and art from you
  • No AI-generated or enhanced images
  • Images can be horizontal, square, or vertical
  • We accept only .jpgs and .png files
  • No limit on submissions
  • No people in the images, just wildlife and landscapes (animals, plants and trees, insects, sea life…look below for examples)

Send your submissions to ccrary@biologicaldiversity.org with the following information:

• • Your name
  • Title of image (if applicable)
  • Species of wildlife
  • The location (where it was created)
  • A brief description of what inspired you to capture or create this image
  • Medium: Photography (many types, be specific), painting, drawing, pottery, sculpture, textiles/fabric art, mixed media, glass, etc.
  • Let us know if you want us to include a specific copyright notice “©”

All submissions are considered intended for publication; submission does not guarantee publication. Monthly galleries will be distributed to our partner publications under a Creative Commons license, but you retain the copyright for your individual images. There’s no prize or payment, just  bragging rights.

The post Submit Your Environmental Photos and Art to the Revelator Gallery appeared first on The Revelator.

In this interview, we discuss Djuli Lomboy's motivation for embarking on this prayer walk, the difficulties she faced along the way, the nuclear contamination of the Hanford nuclear site, other threats facing the Columbia River and the riparian communities, the spiritual basis of cultural transformation, and the disconnection of modern society from the natural world.

The post Water is Life: Walking the Columbia River with Djuli Lomboy appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

Steven Stone is acting director of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Office of Science

In 1934, American economist Simon Kuznets presented a paper to Congress advocating for a new way of measuring economic performance.

The United States was reeling from the Great Depression, and Kuznets – a future Novel prize winner – wanted to gauge just how badly the country’s economy had been dented.

His metric, which would come to be known as gross domestic product (GDP), was a breakthrough. But as pioneering as it was, Kuznets saw its limitations.

“The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income,” he wrote in the 1934 paper.

Some nine decades on, we have largely forgotten that message. GDP has become a barometer of economic progress, a kind of one-number-that-rules-them-all upon which national policies turn and governments rise and fall.

With the climate crisis deepening by the day – as evidenced by the heatwaves and wildfires now searing Europe – our attachment to GDP is looking like a problem.

In a single-minded pursuit of GDP growth, humanity is inadvertently feeding several environmental crises that, over the long run, threaten to make most of us poorer, sicker and more miserable. Climate change alone could slice 20 per cent off global GDP by 2100 – a staggering number.

Clear-cutting boosts GDP not wealth

We need to broaden our vision and definition of economic success before it’s too late.

I grew up in the 1970s and 80s surrounded by the mixed hardwood forests of the northeastern United States. For me, the trees were a refuge, a place to run, discover and savor the history and mystery of the land and its people.

Those experiences with my friends were more important than the amount of money in my pocket. And they led to a realization early on in my career as an economist: that wealth is about more than just income.

This is one of GDP’s most significant oversights. 

With every forest we clear cut and every ounce of fossil fuel we burn, GDP rises. But through those actions, we are whittling away at the natural world, which supplies us with food, water, medicine, clean air and countless other essentials. 

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By focusing only on GDP, we’re ignoring what’s happening to the natural assets on which our prosperity ultimately depends. It’s like we’re driving a car and only looking at the speedometer, not the energy remaining in the battery. 

That is the difference between measuring income versus measuring wealth.

The answer to this dilemma lies in looking beyond GDP. We must start considering a broader range of indicators when making policy decisions. 

From an environmental perspective, that means measuring and valuing natural assets like forests, water, soil, biodiversity and clean air. By assigning a value to nature, decision-makers can better understand the economic consequences of, say, strip-mining a mountain top or letting plastic waste overwhelm a river. 

There is still some debate over how exactly to do this kind of natural capital accounting. But that’s not a reason to dismiss it, as many have done. It took years of refinement to end up with the GDP formula we have today.

Costa Rica’s example

The idea of looking beyond GDP isn’t only a theoretical debate. Countries and communities around the world have started to make economic decisions based on their natural assets. A prime example is Costa Rica, a biodiversity hotspot where a years-long effort to conserve land and seascapes has led to a boom in tourism. That in part helped elevate the country into the club of high-income nations.

This kind of environmentally focused economic decision making can pay huge dividends. By stabilizing the climate, ending pollution and halting the loss of the natural world, humanity could save millions of lives a year and create US$20 trillion in economic benefits annually by 2070, found the Global Environment Outlook 7, a 2025 report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The report was funded by the European Union among others.

I began my career as an economist before moving to UNEP, which focuses on solving the world’s thorniest environmental problems. During that time, I’ve come to appreciate that “wealth” means more than simply “income.” True prosperity means being able to provide for ourselves now and into the future. Anything short of that is an empty kind of affluence – and ultimately doomed to be short-lived.

As deadly heat blankets our cities, species slip into extinction and the planet struggles with rising toxicity and pollution, I am convinced that we can do better at measuring what matters. And that means updating and expanding how we measure economic progress.

The post As fires burn and temperatures soar, it’s time to imagine a world beyond GDP appeared first on Climate Home News.

Zack hands Andy climate A to Z Channel News brendan 7th August 2026 Teaser Media

Your age shapes your diet’s impact will be—and while older people drive overall emissions increases at global scales, it’s surprisingly the youth who have a higher individual footprint, a new study finds.

The Nature Food research brought together a multinational team who say their work indicates that a one-size-fits-all approach won’t be effective in tackling dietary impacts: instead we need tailored approaches that target different age groups, they believe.  

The research draws on data from 149 countries, from the period spanning 2000 and 2019, and evaluates dietary emissions linked to 141 commonly-consumed foods. What makes this study different from most others like it is that it looked at how much of each product was consumed across more than 20 age groups. 

Key patterns emerged. Chief among these is that across the 149 countries overall, seniors—people aged 60 years or more—were responsible for most of the emissions growth linked to food. However, this wasn’t because older people individually ate more greenhouse gas-intensive diets, as is often assumed. Instead the larger dietary contribution of older folks simply comes down to their greater numbers. That’s because many of the 149 countries included in the study—mainly high and middle-income nations—now have aging populations.  

In fact, it was teenagers, aged 11 to 19 years, and young adults aged 20 to 29, who were responsible for consuming more greenhouse gas-intensive meals at the individual level. Meat and dairy were the main drivers of increased emissions in diets across all age groups. But in young people’s diets the presence of meat and dairy was especially pronounced, and hiked up their per capita emissions impact. 

 

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The researchers say this partly reflects young people’s higher energy requirements. But it also reveals increasing lifestyle-related dietary preferences for animal-based foods. This trend is becoming more pronounced in lower-middle-income countries, where changing dietary traditions and increasing per capita food intake seem to be fueling a greater appetite for dairy and meat. 

In these countries, young people actually turned out to be the main contributors to total dietary emissions too, because youth tend to make up the majority of those populations.

This complex picture suggests we’ll need a more nuanced approach if we’re going to try and encourage people to make more sustainable food choices. For young people, the research team underscores the value of education and behavioral change through school and restaurant environments that mainly attract the youth.

For older people, despite not having the highest per capita footprint, there are still dietary emissions reductions to be made across this group and these could have huge potential considering its size. 

One delicate factor to navigate is that in some lower-middle-income countries, there’s an association between increased meat and dairy consumption and nutritional gains. So, balancing sustainability with health in these places may in fact require a slower shift in food systems, to increase access to a diversity of nutrient-rich foods, not just dairy and meat. 

For now, the researchers simply want us to consider this other, overlooked factor in what shapes global dietary emissions: “Who we are, as much as what we eat, is becoming a defining factor in future climate trajectories,” they say.

Li et. al. “Youth lead current dietary emissions while seniors increasingly drive total emission growth.” Nature Food. 2026.

Image: © Anthropocene Magazine

Headline News:

• “Europe’s Electricity Prices Spike To €500/MWh” • Intense heat waves are threatening energy security across Europe. A scorching, arid summer is causing high electricity demand for air conditioning just as rivers warm up and dry out. For nuclear and hydropower the consequences are devastating, with prices rising to €500/MWh ($576/MWh). [OilPricecom]

Nuclear plant (Hansueli Krapf, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped)

• “How Europe’s Drought Exposes ‘Weakness Of Fossil Fuels’ As Poland Is Forced To Shut Down Coal Plants” • Polish utility giant Enea has had to reduce generation at two coal-fired power plants after critically low water levels in the Vistula River limited the cooling water supplies. The move is said to have removed 1.3 GW from Poland’s power system. [Euronews]
• “Trump Administration To Pay $1.22 Billion To Cancel RWE Offshore Wind Leases” • The US will pay German energy firm RWE $1.22 billion to cancel its offshore wind leases off New York, California, and Louisiana. “After careful consideration, it was determined there is no path forward to permit these projects in the US for the foreseeable future,” RWE said. [Euronews]
• “The Ford Fathom Is Here” • Finding a truck for less than $30,000 is nearly impossible in this market, but Ford Motor is betting that cash-strapped Americans will sign up to buy its all-new Fathom. It is an electric midsize pickup with a starting price of $28,350. Ford said it will be the first vehicle to be produced on its Universal Electric Vehicle Platform. [ABC News]
• “Court Overturns Trump Administration’s Wind Pause” • The US District Court for the District of Oregon has ruled in favor of clean energy developers. Judge Karin Immergut, who is a Trump appointee, ruled that DOD’s wind project review freeze “violates statutory and regulatory deadlines” and ordered DOD to resume review of onshore wind projects. [CleanTechnica]

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

Mountain lions in Washington state may be cutting down on traffic accidents by scaring deer away from roads, new research finds.

Read more on E360 →

The Bridger Pipeline Expansion project has been moving through the permitting process with unusual speed. If built, the $2 billion, 650-mile pipeline will run through Montana and Wyoming and is one of three proposed pipeline legs connecting oil sands in Alberta, Canada to the trading hub in Cushing, Oklahoma. 

The project appears to be a priority for the Trump administration. The Bureau of Land Management announced that the pipeline will receive an expedited environmental review, and in late April, the administration granted the pipeline developer a cross-border permit to pass into the U.S. Permitting documents show the company, Bridger Pipeline Expansion, LLC, a subsidiary of Wyoming-based True Companies, hopes to break ground as soon as July 2027, pending state and federal approval.  

But the project has hit a stumbling block. On July 22, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ, withdrew a waiver it had previously granted the pipeline. 

The waiver allowed the company to omit certain financial information and baseline environmental data from its state permit application with DEQ. Pipeline construction cannot begin without this permit and final federal approval. 

At the core of the debate is Montana’s Major Facility Siting Act, a state law that outlines the process of evaluating the potential economic, community, and environmental impacts of large energy projects like pipelines or power plants. Earlier this year, Bridger requested a waiver to omit certain financial and economic information, as well as baseline environmental data from its application to DEQ. The law allows for “irrelevant information” to be omitted from the review process, and DEQ granted Bridger the waiver in February. The agency is now backtracking on that decision.

In June, the environmental law firm Earthjustice filed a complaint on behalf of two Montana residents against DEQ’s decision to grant the waiver. Lars Phillips, an attorney with Earthjustice said the information needed to be included in order to have a thorough review process. 

“The law is clear, and DEQ was right to reverse course,” Phillips said. “But we are troubled by why DEQ decided to issue these waivers in the first place.”

Projects of this size and scale require both state and federal approval. Montana DEQ, along with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, held a public comment period on the pipeline proposal in May. Phillips said without Earthjustice taking this action to discover what information was waived, members of the public would never have known they were commenting on an incomplete application.

Read Next ‘Keystone Light’: These Wyoming oil tycoons are reviving the controversial pipeline Jake Bittle & Naveena Sadasivam

The proposed pipeline is expected to move roughly 500,000 barrels of crude tar sands oil per day, according to DEQ documents. But at full capacity, that number is projected to increase to moving 1.13 million barrels per day from Canada, through Montana and into Wyoming.

The project has been referred to by supporters as “Keystone Light,” referencing the Keystone XL Pipeline, which then-President Joe Biden canceled in 2021. Shannon James with environmental watchdog Montana Environmental Information Center said calling it “light” is a misnomer. “It’s Keystone XXL and a major climate threat that far too many people haven’t heard about yet,” she said.

James and other opponents have raised concerns over the potential environmental harms the pipeline’s proposed path would take, a route that would cross water 150 times. 

“Pipelines leak,” James said. “It’s not a matter of if, but when. We should not be giving the green light to a company with a troubling track record in our state, especially before it has fully disclosed the impacts this project would have on Montana’s people, water, wildlife, and climate.”

In an email to Earthjustice shared with Montana Free Press, Jeremiah Langston, a lawyer for DEQ, said the agency is “requiring Bridger to produce the information in question” to move forward with the application. Permitting for the project cannot proceed until the application is complete, Langston said, and it’s up to Bridger to submit the additional information DEQ requires. 

Phillips maintains it’s a positive sign to see DEQ addressing gaps in the application, but said he would have liked to see the agency more proactively inform the public.

“It is unfortunate that it took two Montanans standing up to big oil to force DEQ to require Bridger to comply with Montana law,” he said.  

Editor’s note: Earthjustice is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline In Montana, a controversial $2B pipeline hits a speed bump on Aug 7, 2026.

Forsaking diversity and inclusion won’t save public lands. It will only splinter our movements and weaken our work to build just futures for all. This article is a call to resist reactionary responses to Trump’s attacks on public lands, environmental justice, and DEI.

Sámi forest and area of Paanneoja

August brings late summer restoration and forest actions to view, fisheries are beginning, Le Monde covers Snowchange rewilding actions in the Eastern Finland and Lapland. Several international events mark the Autumn.

Karvakkoselkä rewilding area, Kemijärvi

Rewilding and restoration has proceeded in summer. Highlights of the season include the arrival of Paanneoja Sámi OGF forest and ecological corridor up in Muotkatunturi Wilderness Area, Inari, of 100 hectares and several kilometers. Most of the sites focused in June and July into Arctic Circle peatlands and forests.

Vilmajoki River, Salla

In Kemijärvi, Karvakkoselkä 70 hectare topographically important spring-fed peatland and forest system supports existing Snowchange sites in close vicinity. In Salla, Vilmajoki ecological corridor is an important old growth forest and flood plain. Joukahaisoja, as a part of the wider lake Unari catchment work in Sodankylä can be assessed to be a rather completely intact trout river in North Boreal. It can be considered a pearl of boreal ecosystems.

Joukahaisoja, Unari

Most important of the summer restoration and rewilding actions continued in Salla and Eastern Lapland. Hand restoration in Kotala, Latoaukia and Orahaara provided for the first modern catchment and peatland restoration actions on these sites, and planning and scoping of Koutelo River catchment restoration continued with expansion of 50 hectares of Pahajoenjänkä and digger restoration expected either late in 2026 or 2027. This peatland has fully intact old growth forest islands supporting outstanding boreal biodiversity. In other regions, planning and licensing for major post-peat mining sites in Ranua and river restoration continued and the Koitajoki restoration proceeded at a rapid pace.

Forest islands of Pahajoenjänkä, Salla

International media visited through the season – a major German magazine will cover Sámi forest work later in the year. Le Monde, prominent French newspaper wrote about our peatland work and this is available here. Autumn is expected to be busy with several IPCC and UN events, Snowchange workshops on boreal peatland restoration and Pacific work.

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Kane Thornton has moved from the peak renewables body to data centres, now the presumed peak renewable buyer. We discuss Bowen’s new rules, the bigger rooftop solar rebate, and other news.

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